Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. In
Speaker 1: today's episode, we would like you to take you to
Speaker 1: a slumber party. All right, So go back to your roots,
Speaker 1: go back to your your childhood memories if you have them,
Speaker 1: of a slumber party, you know, dressing your long pajamas,
Speaker 1: huddle around the floor and and start thinking long and
Speaker 1: hard about the occult in the supernatural world and who
Speaker 1: you are going to pick to put their hand in
Speaker 1: a bowl of water when they fall asleep. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that old trick. I have heard that one. Or there's
Speaker 1: the putting the food cream in the hand or the
Speaker 1: shaving cream in the hand, and then tickle the nose
Speaker 1: and then and then want wont even cream on the head?
Speaker 1: The the amusing thing. When we were talking about this
Speaker 1: episode and getting things together for you have some legitimate
Speaker 1: slumber party memories and some anecdotes about horsing grounds with
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff. But I don't think I
Speaker 1: ever did any of this stuff. I can only think
Speaker 1: of a like a few like a handful of slumber
Speaker 1: party type things that I went to. And I don't
Speaker 1: even think we call it. You call them slumber parties
Speaker 1: necessarily if it's little boys, I feel like they were
Speaker 1: just like sleepovers or something. And and I think we
Speaker 1: just basically played a lot of video games. And I
Speaker 1: remember once, uh, the kid whose house it was, he
Speaker 1: was grounded because he ran through the house naked, and
Speaker 1: like that was the extent of the excitement. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get off on a tangent already
Speaker 1: before we've started the podcast, because obviously we're gonna cover
Speaker 1: some of these slumber party hijinks of our youth and
Speaker 1: talk about the science behind them of what seemed like
Speaker 1: it could be possible or not possible. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to point that out, the gender difference. I wonder if
Speaker 1: the obsession with the occult has something to do with UM. Well,
Speaker 1: not I'm not saying all kids girls are witches the
Speaker 1: inherent evil of of the male set exactly, That's what
Speaker 1: I meant to say. But I wonder if that has
Speaker 1: some sort of root in um interest in this, because
Speaker 1: there was a sort of, if you look at it,
Speaker 1: at least historically, a power in invocating things and looking
Speaker 1: towards the dark arts well for power as opposed to
Speaker 1: actually having a lot of power in your life, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking's sixteen hundred years. Yeah. Well, one thing that
Speaker 1: definitely comes to mind is that a lot of these
Speaker 1: games kind of remind us of ice breakers, and they
Speaker 1: are they're they're forcing people to interact with each other.
Speaker 1: It's more of a communal, open experience, and by and large,
Speaker 1: it seems like females are often more inclined to that
Speaker 1: than the males when they're in their individual groups. For instance,
Speaker 1: when I think of j Ju Saana, which is here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, this koree in Sanna that a lot of
Speaker 1: people go to, and it's really cool, but they divide
Speaker 1: you into into sexes for part of it. There's the
Speaker 1: men sauna and the women sauna, and so I only
Speaker 1: know what goes on in the men sana obviously, so
Speaker 1: I'll my wife it's like, well, what's it like in
Speaker 1: the in the women's son and it's like, well, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of talking. There's a lot of women within
Speaker 1: their own group talking without each other, and then you
Speaker 1: may meet other women that are in the that side
Speaker 1: of the sauna, whereas on the men's side, it's completely different.
Speaker 1: It's just like a bunch of naked dudes staring at
Speaker 1: the at the tiles. You know, there's not really any
Speaker 1: talking going on. And granted that's a little different than
Speaker 1: a childhood slumber party. But but but I can see where.
Speaker 1: I mean, guys are just gonna they're not gonna be
Speaker 1: as as open to say, doing light as a finger.
Speaker 1: Stiff as a board. Well, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: that next time you go that you should bring Auji
Speaker 1: board in with you to the sauna and see if
Speaker 1: you can strike up some conversations. Yeah, yeah, maybe so,
Speaker 1: maybe so. Yeah. Alright, so you have mentioned, uh, let
Speaker 1: his feather stiff as board, which is something known as
Speaker 1: party levitation. Yes, this was apparently made famous by the
Speaker 1: film The Craft, which I think I saw, but I
Speaker 1: only remember that actress Faruza Bach was in it and
Speaker 1: she's all Gothian. You know that. That's my full experience
Speaker 1: with that film. Well, here's a setup. Okay, you've got
Speaker 1: your sleepover, and this is a a sleepover staple, by
Speaker 1: the way, party levitation. So imagine four nine pound girls
Speaker 1: who are all arranged around their friend and she's laying
Speaker 1: on her back on the floor, okay, And they all
Speaker 1: get just one finger, each finger from each chant under her.
Speaker 1: And then they are going to lift up this nine
Speaker 1: pound girl just using their index fingers. So inevit believe
Speaker 1: they try. They're like, all right, let's lift her using
Speaker 1: our fingers. And nothing happens. Right, It's just a bunch
Speaker 1: of people lifting up on their fingers, tickling the person
Speaker 1: a little bit, and it's it's hilarious, but nothing happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then someone says, hey, let's let's hearken back to
Speaker 1: our Wiccan ancestors and and uh repeat a chant that
Speaker 1: may give us the power, supernatural power, supernatural strength to
Speaker 1: lift her. And so they chant four times, as though
Speaker 1: they are now a coven of witches casting their spell.
Speaker 1: And they chant light as a feather stiff as a board.
Speaker 1: Light is a feather stiff as a board, Light as
Speaker 1: a feather stiff as a board. And on the fourth one,
Speaker 1: miraculously they levitate their friend. Well, they don't quite levitate her,
Speaker 1: but they lily in the proper environment, with the proper expectations,
Speaker 1: can certainly seem like an amazing levitation experience. And that's
Speaker 1: the one of the key things to realize here. First
Speaker 1: of all, visualized experience. Never we've touched on this before,
Speaker 1: but never discount the power of a little ritual and
Speaker 1: a thing because it can It changes your perception about
Speaker 1: what is happening, in your expectations about what will happen. Likewise,
Speaker 1: concerted effort light is a finger stiff in the board
Speaker 1: is kind of a on account of three type of deal.
Speaker 1: On account of three, we're all going to do this
Speaker 1: at once, as opposed to girls randomly moving their fingers
Speaker 1: up and down and not picking someone up off the
Speaker 1: off the floor. Yeah, you're right, you're synchronizing with that,
Speaker 1: which is really important. We've talked about that too in
Speaker 1: terms of a sort of ritual that you do as
Speaker 1: a group, because you're also synchronizing the neurons that are
Speaker 1: firing in your brain. Yeah, whether you're getting geared up
Speaker 1: to run through a run, to walk across some hot coals,
Speaker 1: or you're in church singing hymn. Yeah. And Dr Carl
Speaker 1: krislin Nikki of Australia's ABC Science has said that that's
Speaker 1: really important, this this chanting, this ritualized portion of it
Speaker 1: and sinking up. But not only that, as you say,
Speaker 1: the memory of it, because he's saying that if you
Speaker 1: look at any clip on YouTube, you will see that
Speaker 1: what is happening is that um, once they sink up
Speaker 1: and once they do the chanting, that yes and d
Speaker 1: they do lift their friend, but it's really only a
Speaker 1: couple of inches. And the friends about the fall and
Speaker 1: it's not quite the success that they think it is
Speaker 1: in their minds when when they're talking about it in
Speaker 1: the clips, they're like, whoa, we actually really lifted for
Speaker 1: a very high. Yeah, but you're ten years old, you're
Speaker 1: full of sugar, it's late at night. The perception is
Speaker 1: gonna be a little different, right, And I have to
Speaker 1: say to you that when I did it and sleepover
Speaker 1: before that, when I take out that memory and I
Speaker 1: examine it, I did think that, you know, I was
Speaker 1: really lifting my friend very high. Were you yourself levitated
Speaker 1: or were you one of the levitator? I was one
Speaker 1: of the levitators because I really, like, you know, I
Speaker 1: was obsessed with the occult at that age, by the way,
Speaker 1: and not just the occult, like I would spend my
Speaker 1: weekends trying to hypnotize myself and I had books on it,
Speaker 1: and so these we were huge mysteries to me, and
Speaker 1: I put a lot of effort into it. So if
Speaker 1: someone was gonna be you know, levitated, I was going
Speaker 1: to be in that group to help them with the power.
Speaker 1: We'll see, and this is we'll discuss this a little
Speaker 1: more in a minute, but I feel like I was.
Speaker 1: I was always fascinated with the occult as well, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and I would buy like I had a
Speaker 1: copy of that the fake Necronomicon. I had a copy
Speaker 1: of the the Satanic Bible. I mean, you know, in
Speaker 1: anything like that. That was just kind of you know, who,
Speaker 1: this is spooky and kind of you know, like I
Speaker 1: would get into it. But then I was always reluctant
Speaker 1: to cross a certain line. I was maybe not terrified,
Speaker 1: but I was reluctant to cross that line where something
Speaker 1: might actually happen. See, I would have gone like Willow
Speaker 1: Evil Willow instantly. I was a big participant in that. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to also mentioned that doctor chrisal Nikki talks
Speaker 1: about the third and last factor being the strength in
Speaker 1: our fingers and that we just underestimate them. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it looks like nothing. And certainly if you haven't
Speaker 1: had the broken finger, you've seen someone who has and
Speaker 1: you get that in your mind instantly. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: there are so many opportunities to to damage your digits
Speaker 1: in the course of the day, so you're you're very
Speaker 1: conscious of that. But in reality, they're they're pretty rugged
Speaker 1: and there they can hold a lot of strength. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are examples of famous strong men who were able
Speaker 1: to do some amazing feats with just a finger or two. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was a Louis Sear, the old time French Canadian strongman,
Speaker 1: who could allegedly lift five hundred and fifty three pounds
Speaker 1: with a single finger. He'd uses his right middle, by
Speaker 1: the way, and um. Then there was an American strongman
Speaker 1: by the name of Warren Lincoln Travis and uh he
Speaker 1: allegedly lifted five hundred sixty pounds on its fiftieth birthday
Speaker 1: with a single finger. I'm not sure which one it was.
Speaker 1: I love to imagine that both of them had magnificently
Speaker 1: curled mustaches. Yes, when I was recently I started looking
Speaker 1: through some of these pictures of these guys, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of cool facial hair, a lot of
Speaker 1: those old timey what do you call it, like a
Speaker 1: wrestler wears single. It sounds right, sounds Occasionally old timey
Speaker 1: nude photo would pop up every I think it was
Speaker 1: maybe Louis here, the French Canadian guy. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a little much Louie. Thanks Loe, But yeah, go
Speaker 1: look some of those little guys up if you get
Speaker 1: a chance. It's it's pretty amusing. But I think the
Speaker 1: really cool things that are going on here is again memory,
Speaker 1: which we've talked about it. We've talked about this. There's
Speaker 1: reserve of strength in our bodies. Yes, that we can
Speaker 1: you know, hit the potential sometimes and not even realize
Speaker 1: and not realizing thinking we're more fragile than we are,
Speaker 1: which is something we saw with with walking on hot coals.
Speaker 1: We talked about you see the coals, you see fire,
Speaker 1: You think, no way am I gonna walk on that.
Speaker 1: If I walk on that, I'm going to burn. But
Speaker 1: as we discussed in that episode, if things are under
Speaker 1: the right conditions, it's very doable. And this is something
Speaker 1: that's very doable, and you've got the group psychology element
Speaker 1: to it as well. Um. Another good staple of a
Speaker 1: slumber party is of course the wegi board. Yes, with
Speaker 1: one of the most mysterious spellings of of of all time.
Speaker 1: Of course, that is O, U, I J A. I
Speaker 1: think there's only a handful of people on earth who
Speaker 1: remember that in any given moment um. Anytime I search
Speaker 1: for it, I'm like typing in all sorts of weird
Speaker 1: combinations of letters. But this is, of course, a board
Speaker 1: looks more or less like a like a board game board. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: you unfolded and you have has a number of letters
Speaker 1: spread out across it, and some numbers and a yes
Speaker 1: and a no, and maybe and U. It actually was
Speaker 1: a board game that came into vogue around ninety at
Speaker 1: least in the United's dates. And it was a parlor
Speaker 1: game and it was sold in novelty shops. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there are other models of it that existed before it
Speaker 1: actually became the Luigi board. That goes back to mid
Speaker 1: nineteenth century talking boards. The kind of use the same
Speaker 1: principle those were using. Now to make this work, you
Speaker 1: need a little device. It kind of looks like a
Speaker 1: computer mouse. Uh. This is called a plane jet. It
Speaker 1: is a three legged little object with a hole in
Speaker 1: the middle or a pointer. Now on some of these older,
Speaker 1: the older traditions who would also put a pencil there
Speaker 1: and everyone would put their fingers or one person who
Speaker 1: is in charge of the seance would put their fingers
Speaker 1: on it, and then the spirit would guide the pencil
Speaker 1: to draw out each individual letter. But the thing is
Speaker 1: that takes forever, so the talking board comes apart because
Speaker 1: someone eventually loses their cool in the seance. The like,
Speaker 1: just write some letters on a board. What are you
Speaker 1: trying to say? Already? I know the time is limitless
Speaker 1: in the spirit world, but we have places to be,
Speaker 1: So just get some letters on a board and let's
Speaker 1: roll with this thing. I'm getting charged by the minute.
Speaker 1: Most of everyone out there. Imagine a Sinawegi board and
Speaker 1: this is what happens. You have a number of people
Speaker 1: gather around this board. Everyone puts their fingers on the
Speaker 1: plane schet and then you speak to the spirit world.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, spirits of old, tell me what's the
Speaker 1: name of my future boyfriend? That kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 1: whatever your your questions are, you can ask the spirit
Speaker 1: of anything. Every anything is fair game. And where is
Speaker 1: my pony? Where is my pony? And then it will
Speaker 1: begin to move. Nobody's touching it. Everyone's like, are you
Speaker 1: touching it. No, I'm not. I mean everyone's touching it,
Speaker 1: but no one's supposed to be moving it. And everyone
Speaker 1: starts accusing everyone else. Are you moving at? No, I'm
Speaker 1: not moving at Oh, my goodness is moving on its own.
Speaker 1: Spirit is moving it. And then the the pointer will
Speaker 1: move from one letter to another, or from a yes
Speaker 1: two or to a yes or no, depending on what
Speaker 1: kind of question you asked. And it really does when
Speaker 1: you're at that age I think too, or even when
Speaker 1: you're older, and perhaps there's other substances involved. Um, you
Speaker 1: do really sort of feel like it is moving, and
Speaker 1: so of course that's the parlor game trick to it all. Um,
Speaker 1: what is actually going on is something called the idiometer effect.
Speaker 1: And these are small muscle movements that we generate unconsciously. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The term was coined by William B. Carpenter in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty two, and he was explaining another pseudo of scientific
Speaker 1: slash occultist thing, which is the movement of rods and
Speaker 1: pendulums by dowsers, dowsing rods of which you used to
Speaker 1: find water and the like. And so he looked at
Speaker 1: this and he realized, all right, well, these people are
Speaker 1: observing some sort of phenomenon. Uh, something's going on, but
Speaker 1: it's not discovering where water is by using a stick. Well,
Speaker 1: there is a new scientists article called wig Board Help
Speaker 1: Scientists Probe this subconscious And in it they are talking
Speaker 1: to psychologists Helene Gushu and she says that this idiomotor
Speaker 1: action is present in our day all the time, we
Speaker 1: just don't realize it. Yes, it's just a part of
Speaker 1: everyday life. But this is an experiment focuses in on
Speaker 1: something that we don't usually look at and then applies
Speaker 1: a level of ritual and expectation to it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: she says, like, take driving your car along a familiar
Speaker 1: route that you do every morning, and then you arrive,
Speaker 1: you park your car, and you have this feeling like
Speaker 1: how did I get here? Have you ever done that?
Speaker 1: And she says that this inner zombie is part of
Speaker 1: this whole idiometer effect, that we're doing all of this subconsciously,
Speaker 1: you're not even really realizing it. And so what she
Speaker 1: did is she wanted to test this idea and she
Speaker 1: had her team and work with one person with her
Speaker 1: finger on a plan chet at a time. Okay, So
Speaker 1: she realized though that the idiometer effect is really maximized
Speaker 1: with Weiji board if you believe you are not responsible
Speaker 1: for any movements. And this is brilliant what she does here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she so what she does, she says, okay, well,
Speaker 1: now this person needs to feel like they're in a
Speaker 1: group situation or with another person. And so what she
Speaker 1: did is she she told them they would be using
Speaker 1: the board with a partner, and then the subject was
Speaker 1: then blindfolded and then what they didn't know is that
Speaker 1: they're so called partner removed their hands from the planchet
Speaker 1: when the experiment began, so they think other people are
Speaker 1: touching it, but they're not really, they're really going solo
Speaker 1: with these answers yes. And she said the technique worked
Speaker 1: at least was something like twenty one out of twenty
Speaker 1: seven times with the volunteers tested. And she said the plant,
Speaker 1: the planchett does not move randomly around the board and
Speaker 1: moves to yes or no for these twenty one out
Speaker 1: of seven, and it moves seems to move almost magically
Speaker 1: to them, and none of them felt responsible for the movement,
Speaker 1: even though of course they were doing it. And in fact,
Speaker 1: some subjects suspected that their partner was really an actor
Speaker 1: that they thought the actor was deliberately moving the planchet,
Speaker 1: and they never suspected that they themselves were the ones
Speaker 1: that were doing it. It's also important to know that
Speaker 1: in experiments, if you turn the board upside down after
Speaker 1: the individual was blindfolded or the individuals are blindfolded, the
Speaker 1: spirit will not adjust to the new positioning of the board,
Speaker 1: which seems really inflexible in case anyone who was out
Speaker 1: there was like, was still on the fence about whether
Speaker 1: or not this was a ghost talking. But the amazing
Speaker 1: thing about all of this is that, and I think
Speaker 1: it's the case with all the things that we're talking
Speaker 1: about in this particular episode, is that on one level,
Speaker 1: there's that childhood fantasy, occultist level of intrigue about it,
Speaker 1: like something amazing is happening here. Well, then when you
Speaker 1: look behind the scenes and you look at the actual science,
Speaker 1: there's still something amazing happening here. At risk of overstating
Speaker 1: it a little bit, you're not getting in touch with
Speaker 1: an unknowable spirit from from beyond our perception. You're getting
Speaker 1: in touch with the subconscious, which is kind of an
Speaker 1: unknowable spirit from beyond our perception. To quote Sigmund Freud,
Speaker 1: the conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing
Speaker 1: in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean
Speaker 1: pool of subconsciousness from which it rises. So in that deep, black,
Speaker 1: murky ocean of the the underbraining sea, with the luigiboard,
Speaker 1: we're kind of getting in touch with the monsters that
Speaker 1: lived there. So what I want to know is is, uh,
Speaker 1: do you think psychologists will begin using the Wegi board
Speaker 1: in their sessions? Oh, I don't know. It might have
Speaker 1: a certain stigma to it. It might, but I do
Speaker 1: think it's interesting because it is unearthing some things. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about my own experience as a child
Speaker 1: with weg board, and I remember that we were talking
Speaker 1: to a spirit named Seth through doesn't that sound like
Speaker 1: you know Seth? And someone said what does Julie dream about?
Speaker 1: And then it went to or it spelled out A
Speaker 1: bombs which was something and that I used to dream
Speaker 1: about this a nightmare that had a reoccurring nightmare about
Speaker 1: Adam bombs. So you know, obviously I was moving it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know consciously that I was spelling out
Speaker 1: A bombs that it really bothered me that much. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I I myself have I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever used to wegi board. Maybe in the week ahead
Speaker 1: we will correct this and we'll videotape it and put
Speaker 1: it on the web side. We'll see. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: never used one. My mom had one and was apparently
Speaker 1: a fan of the device, but then she went off
Speaker 1: to college and when she came back, he was gone.
Speaker 1: And and she attributed this. Uh, I mean maybe not seriously,
Speaker 1: but she used just she would mention like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think it advantished, And then later on she realized, oh wait,
Speaker 1: my she's she's realized that my grandmother had gotten rid
Speaker 1: of it. Because I don't think she relay liked it.
Speaker 1: You know, because because some people get up in arms
Speaker 1: about the Luigi board, some people were a little leary.
Speaker 1: Some people see it is, if not harmless in and
Speaker 1: of itself, they see it as a gateway to other
Speaker 1: occultist things. And uh, and if you read a lot
Speaker 1: of chick tracks, you may think that it is just
Speaker 1: straight up talking to the devil. Yeah, but if you
Speaker 1: want to take a little bit power out of that,
Speaker 1: play the game, you know, and get an unbiased person
Speaker 1: to stand there and actually see the letters that are
Speaker 1: spelled up, because this is another thing that they say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: go in, go into it if you want, I mean,
Speaker 1: by all means, going to it and have some fun
Speaker 1: with Auigi board and talk about spirits and all, but
Speaker 1: also go into it and think about the mysteries you're
Speaker 1: about to examine with the human mind. Yeah. Yeah, blindfold yourselves,
Speaker 1: get an unbiased person to stand there and to actually
Speaker 1: see what the letters are. And I will tell you
Speaker 1: that most times gobbledygook is going to come out of that.
Speaker 1: And it's a good example of how really it is
Speaker 1: the unconscious mind that's guiding this process. All Right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to somebody by the name of Bloody
Speaker 1: and Mary. Alright, we're back, and you mentioned Bloody Mary. Yes,
Speaker 1: now this one I definitely remember. The rules of this
Speaker 1: are pretty simple. You can do this on your own
Speaker 1: or certainly at a slumber party. The ideas you go
Speaker 1: into the bathroom lights out, all right, or the very
Speaker 1: least dim lights. Generally they say lights out, but there's
Speaker 1: probably gonna be some light in there be a candle
Speaker 1: or candle in hand, or just light under the doors.
Speaker 1: Just be dramatic about it. Candle in hand, alright, light out,
Speaker 1: candle in hand, going too the bathroom, stare into the
Speaker 1: a room, and then you say the name Bloody Mary
Speaker 1: three times, five times, six times, seven times. It it depends,
Speaker 1: it varies. The recipe is not really set in stone,
Speaker 1: but any rate, by saying in a number of times,
Speaker 1: you invoke this incantation and a mysterious, blood faced woman
Speaker 1: will appear in the mirror before you. She will reach
Speaker 1: out and she will scratch your face off. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this is definitely an example of a situation where I
Speaker 1: was reluctant to cross the line of the occult. You know,
Speaker 1: I think about it all the time when I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a dark bathroom and noticing the mirror in there. But
Speaker 1: I guess at hard. I'm thinking, all right, if it
Speaker 1: if it doesn't work, if a woman does not appear
Speaker 1: in the mirror and attack me, then it's just all
Speaker 1: for nothing. But but what if she does? You know,
Speaker 1: where's the wind there? All right, it worked and now
Speaker 1: I have no face? Right? Or what if she grabbed
Speaker 1: you and take you into her death portal with her?
Speaker 1: That could happen too, And of course one of the
Speaker 1: things involved here is that we're talking about a mirror,
Speaker 1: and mirrors have long had this association with magic and
Speaker 1: the unknown, because at a very basic level, you look
Speaker 1: into a mirror and there you see yourself with a
Speaker 1: little inversion going on to sort of mess with you.
Speaker 1: And if it's not a perfect mirror, and certainly for
Speaker 1: the longest mirrors were largely imperfect in certain ways, you
Speaker 1: get a distorted view of what the world is like.
Speaker 1: And so there's a long, long history of mirrors being
Speaker 1: used in occultist or a religious ceremonies, even their numerous
Speaker 1: examples of magic mirrors. There was Combustion's mirror, which warned
Speaker 1: of approaching ill fortune. There was Lows mirror, which reflected
Speaker 1: the mind and its thoughts. There was Merlin's magic mirror
Speaker 1: that informed the King of plots, treasons and invasions. There
Speaker 1: was Reynard's Wonderful Mirror, which showed conditions one mile away,
Speaker 1: which I think it's kind of a limited design there,
Speaker 1: and then Vulcan's mirror showed the past, president future, and
Speaker 1: of course Harry Potter there was a magic mirror, and
Speaker 1: there it shows you Harry Potter's parents, I believe well,
Speaker 1: and then wicked rituals too. Apparently, UM, young women who
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out who their husband would be.
Speaker 1: Again we're talking back in the old day, would take
Speaker 1: a mirror and a candle, walk backwards, ask the mirror,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it was thought that the mirror would reveal
Speaker 1: who the husband, who their husband would be, or sometimes
Speaker 1: it was bloody Mary, who would appear. Now have you
Speaker 1: done this? Have you? I've not done blady for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I just never never have done it. But I do
Speaker 1: think it's interesting. Today's Um, you know, right after this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go into your office bathroom and I'm
Speaker 1: going to do bloodyrror. I don't care who's in this stall.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's interesting because again you've got
Speaker 1: the incantation part of it, the ritual part of it.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about what's actually going on, because I
Speaker 1: think that is really cool, right, because there's another example
Speaker 1: of the fantasy. The fiction. The supernatural aspect of it
Speaker 1: is interesting, but when you you strip that away and
Speaker 1: you get down to the science, it's equally creepy and
Speaker 1: weird and amazing because here's the thing. People do see
Speaker 1: things in the mirror. But again, it points to this
Speaker 1: idea that we can't always trust what we see and
Speaker 1: what our eyes can put together. For us UM at
Speaker 1: the University of Urbino, researcher Giovanni Baputo had fifty participants
Speaker 1: look in the mirror for ten minutes in a dimly
Speaker 1: lit room and describe what they saw. Now, none of
Speaker 1: these people were knew what they were there for, so
Speaker 1: they had no preconceived notions of bloody marry Um. Alright,
Speaker 1: what they saw is fascinating. It is fascinating, And this
Speaker 1: was published in the Journal of Perception. Two thirds of
Speaker 1: participants saw said that they saw huge deformations of their
Speaker 1: own face. Okay, nearly half of the participants even reported
Speaker 1: seeing fantastical or monstrous beings. A few participants reported seeing
Speaker 1: faces of parents, ancestors, and strangers, including women and children.
Speaker 1: And all the participants saw someone or something in the
Speaker 1: mirror other than themselves. Saw an archetype in the mirror.
Speaker 1: They saw an old woman, or they saw a child,
Speaker 1: or a portrait of an ancestor kind of a thing,
Speaker 1: you know. So, yeah, everyone's staring into this mirror, and
Speaker 1: if you stare long enough, you see something else. You
Speaker 1: see the face becomes something else. To you. And that's because,
Speaker 1: according to computer you've got basic visual distortions affecting the
Speaker 1: space specific interpretation system part of your brain. So when
Speaker 1: your brain is faced with a lot of stimulation, only
Speaker 1: some of it is considered relevant. So as it continues
Speaker 1: to look and look and look at the reflection of
Speaker 1: your face, then is trying to make sense of what
Speaker 1: what's really important here? There are a lot of different details,
Speaker 1: Like I find myself doing this when I look people,
Speaker 1: when I actually look people in the eyes while they're talking,
Speaker 1: like I'll start, you know, because there's sort of a
Speaker 1: quick visual reference, like I'm looking around the room and
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, there's Julie. There's not that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But then if you really look at somebody,
Speaker 1: then you start getting all this additional information, you know,
Speaker 1: and you start thinking about like, oh, well, let's see
Speaker 1: there's the shape of their nose, there's the shape of
Speaker 1: their eyebrows. And then indeed, if you stare them long enough, um,
Speaker 1: with a nice uncomfortable stare, then they start to look
Speaker 1: a little weird, you know. Well, and this is called
Speaker 1: the truck slur effect because your brain watch like zoom
Speaker 1: in on an area and then the race the rest
Speaker 1: of the space will actually fade away. And you've probably
Speaker 1: seen examples of this before online. Usually it's like a
Speaker 1: a ring of purple dots, and then you're supposed to
Speaker 1: stare at the one dot that goes around around in
Speaker 1: a circle. And then what happens is the purple fades
Speaker 1: and then there's the yellow dot becomes more pronounced again.
Speaker 1: It's your brain trying to figure out what's important, fading
Speaker 1: in and fading out. Yeah, And also, I mean there's
Speaker 1: a certain amount of your brain just sort of chewing
Speaker 1: on itself there too. If you stare at anything long enough,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna eventually kind of unsee it and see
Speaker 1: different things. I think if anytime you stared up into
Speaker 1: the clouds, or if you've been in say a boring
Speaker 1: meeting or something, and you just stare at a particular
Speaker 1: detail in the room, you start noticing more and more
Speaker 1: new things about it. You start in making new interpretations
Speaker 1: about it, seeing a face where there's not a face,
Speaker 1: seeing if you're looking at the sky, you know, singing
Speaker 1: a dinosaur writing a tricycle where there's not a dinosaur
Speaker 1: writing a tricycle. You know, I was thinking too, about
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you're actually doing this in
Speaker 1: the mirror and the trucul effect is occurring that how
Speaker 1: weird is it that a slice of your forehead and
Speaker 1: cheek are then subed int for your eye, because that's
Speaker 1: really what your brain is doing with that um So
Speaker 1: of course you would come away with this idea that
Speaker 1: there was something monstrous that you saw something in the
Speaker 1: mirror and it had to do with something that was
Speaker 1: paranormal or the dark arts. Yeah, and throw into that
Speaker 1: if you're if you're using the candle in this particular environment,
Speaker 1: then you also have a light source that is flickering.
Speaker 1: That's so that's altering a little bit, and it's distorting
Speaker 1: the edges the lines in the face that you're perceiving.
Speaker 1: So changes in lighting are also going to contribute to
Speaker 1: this strange image of yourself that quickly becomes something other
Speaker 1: than yourself. Now, you're right, it is complicating the matter,
Speaker 1: and especially when we talked about reduction in the last
Speaker 1: podcast about the science of han at houses and how
Speaker 1: your bring really has to sort of recalibrate according to
Speaker 1: the lighting available. So of course that's going to distort
Speaker 1: things further. And again mirrors are just kind of weird
Speaker 1: and creepy. I can't help but think of this without
Speaker 1: the reminded of some of the writings of your hey
Speaker 1: los Borges, who of course, is a poet who was
Speaker 1: fascinated by mazes and mirrors, and there's a great little
Speaker 1: line from his poem Mirrors that says, I see them
Speaker 1: as infinite elemental executors of an ancient pact to multiply
Speaker 1: the world, like the act of the getting sleepless, bringing
Speaker 1: doom the crystal spies on us. If within the four
Speaker 1: walls of a bedroom a mirror stairs, I am no
Speaker 1: longer alone. There is someone there in the dawn reflections
Speaker 1: mutely stages show I like that. I like this idea
Speaker 1: to you that you know, ultimately we we feel this
Speaker 1: sense that we're unknowable to ourselves. And so if you're
Speaker 1: staring in the mirror, that's representing this unknown quantity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it ties in nicely with the Uiji board, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, reaching out and touching bass with the subconscious
Speaker 1: and coming to terms with the hidden self. All right, psychologists,
Speaker 1: we have another one for you, Bloody Mary. Try it
Speaker 1: out in your practice, Yes, tell her, we think so
Speaker 1: there you have its slumber party goers, some science behind
Speaker 1: the slumber party anticks you used to try out, also
Speaker 1: some new emma for your next slumber party. So it's
Speaker 1: it's really gonna be great to hear from listeners on
Speaker 1: this because I know you guys and gals have tried
Speaker 1: these before, so be sure to let us know about
Speaker 1: your own experiences levitating your friends, uh, your own experiences
Speaker 1: trying to summon dark, bloody specters from the mirror, and
Speaker 1: of course your communications with the with the spirit world
Speaker 1: a k a. You're subconscious. We'd love to hear about that.
Speaker 1: So let's call over the robot and we'll see if
Speaker 1: we have any listener mail. Alright, our listener, Monique Rite
Speaker 1: sentences Hi, Julie and Robert. In two separate podcasts, you
Speaker 1: talked about that in neighborhoods that are bad, people were
Speaker 1: more likely to walk past a person in need than
Speaker 1: in a cleaner naighborhood. There is a criminal justice theory
Speaker 1: similar to this phenomena. It's called the broken windows theory,
Speaker 1: thought up by Wilson and Kelling. In essence, the theory
Speaker 1: states that in neighborhoods that are unkempt, there is a
Speaker 1: silent signal to wrongdoers that since people do not care
Speaker 1: about the neighborhoods, they also won't care about committing petty crimes,
Speaker 1: which is a silent signal for wrongdoers to commit more
Speaker 1: serious crimes. There's an interesting experiment that was done surrounding
Speaker 1: this by Dr Zimbardo of the Stanford Prison Experiment fame.
Speaker 1: He left a car in a bad neighborhood with the
Speaker 1: hood up, signaling that no one cared about it. It
Speaker 1: took a few short days for the car to be dismantled.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for your great podcast, Manique, very interesting, and
Speaker 1: we also heard from Scott Scott right since says Julian,
Speaker 1: Robert just wanted you to to know how much your
Speaker 1: podcast helped me out during a really rough point in
Speaker 1: my life. I have a panic disorder. Diagnosing it beyond
Speaker 1: that is pretty difficult that I have been working on
Speaker 1: for the past six years. Unfortunately, driving, especially on the highway,
Speaker 1: was a pretty major trigger, and having a panic attack
Speaker 1: while driving is pretty no buno. But there's the Spanish
Speaker 1: no buono that's no business, no good, huh. At one point,
Speaker 1: listening to music would get me through reasonably well, but
Speaker 1: I got to the point where music was no longer
Speaker 1: engaging my intention enough to keep my mind off of panicking.
Speaker 1: That's where your podcast came in. I wasn't even sure
Speaker 1: what a podcast actually was, being a bit of an
Speaker 1: anti Apple guy myself, until there was a free podcast
Speaker 1: app on Amazon's Android market. One day last year, I
Speaker 1: found your podcast while browsing listenings in that app and
Speaker 1: opened it up. Uh and opened up the new world
Speaker 1: of being able to drive more or less without panicking.
Speaker 1: I have since learned, after six years of having problems
Speaker 1: functioning like a normal human, that my vitamin D level
Speaker 1: was extremely low. I started taking supplements in January and
Speaker 1: haven't had an attack since, which is pretty remarkable. I
Speaker 1: think since then I have envisioned a podcast about anxiety,
Speaker 1: panic attacks, and what happens in the body and mind.
Speaker 1: From what I can tell, there is very little research
Speaker 1: on the link between vitamin D levels and panic and
Speaker 1: some individuals, but I'm cynical enough to believe that it
Speaker 1: is because vitamin D can't be patented. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear what you guys find out about it. Once again,
Speaker 1: I can't thank you both enough. You really made my
Speaker 1: life a lot more bearable your fan, avid listener and
Speaker 1: research intern hopeful Scott, So there you go. That's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking those are two very good podcasts.
Speaker 1: Panic Attacks would be very interesting to look into. And
Speaker 1: also vitamins. Um, we talked about vitamin A and the
Speaker 1: lack of vitamin A being attributed to night blindness, so um,
Speaker 1: certainly when those levels are off it can affect things.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, Scott, glad that we were able to
Speaker 1: help him some small way, and glad that you've been
Speaker 1: able to really tackle that that problem. Indeed. Yeah, So, hey,
Speaker 1: the rest of you get in touch with us. Let
Speaker 1: us know. Any past episodes are up for grabs. Don't
Speaker 1: worry about contacting us about an older episode. You have
Speaker 1: some cool feedback on and certainly if you want to
Speaker 1: talk to us about Bloody Mary or whatnot, we're always
Speaker 1: game for that. You can find us on Facebook and
Speaker 1: Tumbler where we are stuff to blow your mind, and
Speaker 1: you can also find us on Twitter where we tweet
Speaker 1: under the handle blow the Mind, And you can always
Speaker 1: drop us a line at Blow the Mind at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com and Happy Halloween for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is It how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: Com m HM,