PHOTO: Grant Cai In her book "Addiction by Design," anthropologist Natasha Schüll shows how slot machines manage to put users in a special state of consciousness, where worries, fears and awareness of the environment and themselves disappear. She describes a special different level of consciousness that is actually the real reward from the game, a kind of trance state that allows for disconnection from the here and now, while awareness of time, place and even the sense of self disappear altogether. The common phrase given by gamblers to describe this situation is "the nothingness zone." Interviews with heavy gamblers reveal that while they are playing in the casino, time stands still. Heavy gamblers who smoke say they find themselves lighting one cigarette after another and without noticing, it turns to ashes. This suggests that from our brain perspective, the playing is more rewarding than a cigarette in injecting dopamine into our brain. The same neurotransmitter that produces a sense of pleasure in us.