Does watching a movie on a plane make you cry?
It does for me. I have to be really careful with my movie choices when I’m flying internationally, for fear of looking like a big sook in front of complete strangers.
(This post started out as a comment on fatpaddler.com, where Sean mentions crying while watching The Cove. But me, I’ll cried in anything with a sad moment. Well, anything except romantic comedies starring Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Aniston, which are sad for 120mins straight and I just can’t watch those at all.)
Dr Karl reckons crying in movies on planes is all psychological but I think it’s far too widespread for that to be the case.
I googled some studies that show a link between long-term high-altitude and changes in oxytocin reception.
Oxytocin (as we all remember as husbands who paid close attention in pre-natal classes to try and minimise the risk of being torn to pieces by our demonically-possessed spouses in-between contractions) makes us very emotional.
So, I have a hunch: that the rapid reduction in air pressure as the plane ascends affects our ability to absorb oxytocin, the hormone that makes us cry when watching movies.
Perhaps the change in air pressure (from sea level to about the same pressure as you’d get at 8,000ft) in short time it takes to get to cruising altitude might effect your oxytocin receptors quite markedly for a short period. Your brain notices the shortfall and instructs the hypothalamus to dramatically increase production.
The meal service begins, the in-flight entertainment gets going, and by the time you get through the inflight interface and the ads to the emotional part of the movie, your body has managed to catch up, and is now fully adapted to the new atmospheric pressure.
But by now, your bloodstream is flooded with all that additional oxytocin the brain had ordered. All that’s required now is a small audio-visual cue in the movie and you’ll weep.
Now, I’ve got no data to back this up, no study at all. In fact, I had a lot of trouble understanding anything real scientists had to say about oxytocin and altitude. So I can’t really call it a theory, since that would require a hypothesis and I can’t even be bothered to write one of those properly. So let’s just call it a hunch. A suspicion. An opportunity to exclaim, “Aha! I had a hunch that was the case back in 2010! If only they’d listened!” to my grandchildren (who of course won’t be at my nursing home in person. They’ll just subscribe to my lifestream and pretend they’re viewing it.)
While I’m rambling, let’s extend my hunch a bit further still: if your oxytocin receptors are affected when you suddenly gain altitude, it makes sense it also happens when you lose altitude. Perhaps when the plane descends to land, you’re left without enough oxytocin reception and that’s why you feel strangely unemotional and robotic as you leave the plane and walk into baggage claim and customs. And then the excess oxytocin washes over you right as you walk out into the crowded arrivals hall to find… nobody waiting for you again… where’s the taxi queue? [sob!]
