WEBVTT - Listener Mail: I Remember 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.560 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.680 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener mail. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:14.280 My name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.239 And my name is Joe McCormick. And it's Monday, the 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:19.760 day of each week we read back some messages from 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.280 the mail bag. We've gotten a lot of good responses 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:27.840 recently to our series on childhood amnesia to recent Weird 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.080 House Cinema episodes. But before we get into all that, Rob, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.120 do you want to read this message we got from 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.479 Chandra Shekhar about the artifact episode you did on the 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:39.840 origins of the Pinata. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.800 Absolutely, and by the way, this is not the individual's 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.040 full name. We just had to double check that off 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:53.800 my care Anyway, they write in and say hello, gentlemen, 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.880 thanks for the fantastic podcast. I was listening to the 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.960 latest episode and when you read through the listener mail 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.800 about the Philippines and the Pinata, it occurred to me 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.319 that we have something similar in India too. Jean mash 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.600 Tommy is the birthday of a Hindu hero god Krishan. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.840 He's widely known and one of the most popular gods, 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:18.760 considering he spoke the Ghita Bagavad Gita closely translates to 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.720 sayings of the God, where Bagavon equals God and ghita 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.280 equals speech. On his birthday, one of the widely celebrated 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.360 traditions is to crack open a pot tied onto a 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.920 vertical pulley system. It is a game where the striker 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.640 has a stick and they run up and jump to 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.640 hit the pot. Simultaneously, the pot is hoisted up on 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.440 the pulley by other players, making it go out of reach. 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.520 The game continues until a striker breaks the pot, which 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.040 is filled with butter, coconut water, honey, and all the 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.280 delicious stuff. In other traditions of Hinduism, people form giant 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.040 human pyramids to reach the pot that is held high 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.400 up in the sky by a crane or some other contraption. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.400 And I bet you there are a hundred or even 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.800 more ways. This same tradition is celebrated across India and 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.239 the surrounding countries. Something you might find interesting. I would 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.600 gladly listen to you to go down that rabbit hole 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.280 and experience our beautiful culture spiral out. 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.040 Really interesting. I'd never heard of this before. Thanks, thanks 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.040 for sending this. Yeah, all right, so we got a 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.920 lot of messages in response to our series on childhood amnesia. 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:27.399 A lot of people wanted to share their earliest memories 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.480 or memories that they think make have come from before 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.119 they were three years old. Let's see. We certainly can't 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.040 feature all of the ones we've gotten already on this episode, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.120 but we'll plow through as many as we can. So 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.920 I'm going to start with this message from longtime correspondent 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:44.960 Jim in New Jersey. 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:45.680 Ah. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:54.040 Yes, Jim says, Robert and Joe, Some of my first 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.960 memories involved seeing Mary Poppins in the theater in its 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.440 original release. According to my mom, it was the weekend 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.160 after the Kennedy assassination. She and some of her friends 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.120 were growing weary of the depressing TV coverage of the 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.680 tragedy in Dallas, Texas, so they decided to take their 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.000 kids to the movies to see Mary Poppins. Based upon 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.120 my mother's story, this would put my earliest memories before 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.880 two and a half years. Kennedy's assassination was in November 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:27.720 nineteen sixty three, but Mary Poppins wasn't released until August 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.639 nineteen sixty four, about nine months later. My mom has 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.440 definitely constructed a false memory of when we saw the movie. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.280 She loves this story so much that I don't have 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.080 the heart to correct her. This place is my Mary 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.760 Poppins memory at a bit after age three, which is 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.560 a much more common age for early memory acquisitions. Once 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.720 I realized the timeline disconnect, I tried to find what 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.640 movie the moms could have taken the kids to see 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.920 on that weekend. I was unable to find any Disney 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.640 or family based movies that seem to fit the bill. 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.880 The actual events are still a mystery to me, but 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.760 I'm not curious enough to shatter my mother's memory by 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:08.040 asking her. Jim. 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.280 This is interesting because it brings to mind, just in general, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:18.280 earliest memories of films seen, because they occupy kind of 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.159 an interesting place. Because on one hand, they are milestone events, 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.320 you know, the first time you take a child to 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:29.280 a movie theater, your first, your earliest cinema experiences. These 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:34.159 are notable. They also can be attached to a timeline 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.760 and can be fact checked to some degree. But the 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.960 other interesting thing about them is that they seem highly 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:46.080 susceptible to reinterpretation based on later viewings of the films. 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.919 You know, like I think back on the movies that 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.640 I know I saw at an early age, and it's 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.080 very easy to sort of build a false memory of 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.000 what that would be like because unlike other things in life, 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.320 like the movie is largely unchanged. You can account for, 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.000 you know, changes in film quality and cuts and so forth, 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.679 but for the most part, like Mary Poppins is the same, 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.440 and you can watch it now and you can get 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.960 a one hundred percent accurate representation of what the movie 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.279 would have been when you saw it in the theater. 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.000 Of course, the interesting thing about seeing a movie is, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.640 of course it is not just the document that contributes 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.680 to your experience. It's like, you know, you're what you 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.479 understand going into it, the environment you saw it in, 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.119 and all that stuff, especially when you're a little kid, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.480 because like when you're a little kid, you don't understand 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.839 so many things about the stories told in movies. It 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.640 just kind of like opens the door to all sorts 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:48.240 of wild interpretations and associations that I think there would 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:50.919 be less of when you're when you're an adult and 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.240 you essentially perceive the machinations of a plot more straightforwardly 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.640 or realistically. But also, Jim, I totally understand what you're 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.400 saying about like, so, like the way your mother tells 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.520 the story of when you saw Mary Poppins cannot be correct, 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.800 but not wanting to, you know, go like tell her 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.200 that this story that she loves remembering and sharing with 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.720 the family is wrong, because I mean, I don't know 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.400 what's really to be gained from that, right, So, yeah, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.800 that's weird. But it also makes you wonder why, so 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:27.760 if this cannot be what literally happened, why did she 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.000 put together that false memory? Like what is it about 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.200 the experience of taking you to see Mary Poppins, which 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.039 you do still remember that she came to associate with 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:39.919 that weekend of the Kennedy assassination. 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.680 Yeah, yeah, fascinating to tease it all apart, all right. 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.680 This next one comes to us from Ranata. Ranata's email 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:57.279 is titled my earliest memories are Nightmares. One of the 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.880 wondrous things about memory that I think about every day 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.599 our ability to distinguish dream memories from other memories. Obviously, 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.080 if I remember something totally strange and counterfactual, I will 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.840 suspect it was a dream. But occasionally I do have 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.760 to stop and think if a mundane work conversation was 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.559 actually a real event or a dream. Yet, without fail, 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.560 my brain picks up on something about dream memories that's different. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.119 It's like my brain puts that memory in a box 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.800 called dreams, and if I find a memory there, it 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.120 must be a dream. Like childhood amnesia, dreams seem to 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.680 disappear really quickly in memory. Unless you write them down 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.720 or rehearse remembering them, they get lost forever. And yet 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.720 some of my earliest memories are dreams and in fact nightmares. Joe, 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.000 you talked about a feeling of nostalgia that isn't like 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.040 nostalgia from a toy or a moment, but more like 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.480 being taken back to a specific emotional state of childhood. 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.600 That's how I feel about marbles due to one of 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.480 my earliest nightmares, which happened when my father had an 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.480 exotic fish tank. He put marbles in the tank as decoration, 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.000 and one night I dreamt that they floated out of 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.080 the tank and chased me around the living room trying 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:02.440 to bite me like pac Man. 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.560 That is a really good childhood nightmare. I'm sure it 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.360 must have been terrifying as a child, but yeah, the 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:10.040 thumbs up. 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.520 Now, I'm positive this was a real dream I had, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.320 and not an implanted memory, because why would anyone be 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.440 telling me a story of my dream. I'm not sure 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.240 I've ever told anyone this dream until now I know 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:24.880 it must have occurred before my parents' divorce, so before 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.880 the age of five. When I recall that dream, and 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.480 anytime I look at a marble, I have that feeling 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.080 of being transported, unfortunately not in a positive way. I 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.240 don't have a phobia of marbles, but they have a 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.080 sinister quality to me even now. Is it possible to 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.360 implant a dream memory? I doubt it, but maybe. Plus, 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.160 dreams and nightmares are bizarrely specific, so they aren't like 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.840 memories of catching fireflies in a jar that could have 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.400 been a more general experience. So early dreams and nightmares 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:55.760 might be some of the earliest memories we can be 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.760 sure are real memories, even though they are about things 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.200 that never happened. I love the episodes about cognitive science 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.439 topics best'na. 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.080 Great email Ranata, so yes, as I said, I love 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.960 the idea of killer marbles coming out of the fish 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.400 tank attacking you like the ball from the Prisoner, except 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.880 I guess they're much smaller. Yeah, I wonder about this. 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.400 I mean, it is very interesting the way that we 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:24.160 we have a tendency to really rapidly forget dreams. I mean, 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.880 even on the course of minutes after waking, they can 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.880 become hard to recall. In fact, I almost seem to 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:34.560 remember that we've read hypotheses before about why that would be, 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.440 but I don't actually remember what the proposed answers are now. 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:42.960 But yeah, that is very interesting that we tend to 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.080 forget them so fast. But there are some that really stick, 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.320 and I would tend to think that those are the 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.040 ones that, much like our earliest childhood memories, that we 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.400 are likely to remember. They're the ones that we rehearse 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.760 the most often, with the paradox being that by coming 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:01.880 back to them and dwelling on them and thinking about 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.400 them and talking about them more often, it's also more 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.960 likely they are changing over time, and so we don't 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.679 remember them actually the same way we did the first 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:11.720 time we remembered them. 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.520 Yeah, this is a great topic though, because I know, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:18.720 in my case, there are nightmares I remember from my 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.360 early childhood from time periods where I really probably don't 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.400 remember much else around them, you know, I mean, there 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.560 are other scattered memories but when you start lining them up, 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.280 it's like, how many memories do I have from this 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.800 year of my life? And and how how how many 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.479 of them are our dreams and how many are reality? 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.200 You know, like, what would be the percentile there? It's 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.480 probably kind of telling Granada thanks for writing in. That's 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.720 that's a twofer. We get an earliest memory and an 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:57.080 account of a dream, okay. 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.760 We also ask people, you know, if they have memories 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.000 from before the typical threshold of about three years that's 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.560 coming for most people, if they believe they have memories 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.920 from before this period. With the caveat that, in most 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:13.920 cases it's hard to verify whether these are real memories 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.559 or later confabulations that now feel like memories. It's often 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.439 hard to know for sure. But we did want to 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.400 hear from people, and so we heard from Lindsey, who said, Hello, 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.720 I often think about what it means to be alive 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.640 but not remember, especially as an infant. So your latest 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.200 show before you could remember part one was right up 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.000 my alley. My earliest memory has to be when I 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.040 was about fifteen months old. I know it's not from 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.680 a photo or anything because of the way I remember it, 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.560 although I did see a photo later to confirm that 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.520 what I remembered was actually an event that happened. My 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.280 great grandmother was in a nursing home until she died 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.960 in April nineteen eighty six. In April nineteen eighty five, 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.880 my great aunt took her out and brought her home 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:02.160 for Passover slash Easter dinner. We didn't do a traditional Satyr, 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:06.000 but had a meal that conformed with being Kosher four Passover, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.120 while also celebrating Easter for my dad, who was Catholic 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.400 close parentheses. The memory I have is my great grandmother 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.840 sitting in her wheelchair at the end of the table 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.560 set up in my great aunt's living room. I'm taken 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:21.840 out of my high chair and placed on her lap, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.559 sit there for a bit, and then clamber down to 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.560 toddle over to the window. I remember walking up to 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.120 the window and looking out because she had a very 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.160 large picture window that went almost floor to ceiling, so 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.040 the ledge of it was perfect for a toddler to 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.960 lean on. The confirmation came from a photo taken of 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.720 me sitting on my great grandmother's lap and looking at 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.599 the camera. I saw this photo years later as a 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.000 child of seven or eight, and I told my mother 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.880 that I remembered my great grandmother being at dinner, but 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.120 I didn't remember having a picture taken of us. She said, 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.040 this was the only time my great grandmother had been 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.200 home like this since she was in the nursing home, 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.720 so it would have in a very special time all around, 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.320 and that's why the photo of us was taken. Perhaps 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.240 this contributed to me being able to remember it since 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.000 it was a novel event. I am looking forward to 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.640 hearing the other parts of the series. Sincerely, Lindsey. Yeah, 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.440 I guess this would connect to research we talked about, 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.160 I think in part two of the series, where you 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.920 know there there is maybe some connection between the the 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:28.600 richness or novelty of new declarative memories and one's ability 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.760 to remember them from an early age, especially if they 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.320 get rehearsed in the mind or in conversation as time 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:33.680 goes on. 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.560 Yeah, Now, for the sake of argument, it is interesting 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:42.160 that this is a this is a memory of remembering, yes, 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.520 and it's and there's also media involved in the stirring 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.520 of that that memory. So there's there's a lot going 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:52.520 on there that could you know, you can you can 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:54.959 imagine where at a young age, you see this picture 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.120 of yourself and you may be you know, encouraged to 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.960 remember what is in the picture, or you may you know, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:06.400 create that memory based on the photographic evidence you're presented with, 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.760 and then later as you remember that act of remembering, 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.760 like you access the created memory of the thing. You know. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.400 Yeah, it's totally true. Now again, of course, Lindsay, we're 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.800 not telling you your memory is wrong. You don't actually 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.600 remember that, but it's it is the thing that we 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:23.800 all have to face about. Like, it's hard to know 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.800 because if the memory were not real, it would still feel. 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.480 Real, right, And this would be a case too of 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.680 if this is a created memory, well then you have 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:39.040 over time created a memory of value then and this, yeah, 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.280 this is you know, it's not only harmless, it's it's beneficial. 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.920 So like, yeah, why not embrace it totally? So thank you, Lindsey. 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.520 All Right, This next one comes to us from Scott. 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.760 Scott says, Hi, Robert and Joe, regarding your recent episode 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.840 on childhood, amnesia and memory. I have an interesting first 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.400 memory for you, as it is precisely of a moment 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.520 of realizing I lacked certain kinds of previous memories I 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.720 was always a precocious child, reading Doctor Seuss before the 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:11.920 age of three, according to my parents, and having an 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.360 early vivid imagination and interest in science and philosophy, which 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.040 may help to explain the following event in my life. 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.200 When I was about three years old in our central 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.760 Minnesota home, I woke up in my bed in the 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.080 middle of the night and had the strange feeling of 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.520 never having been there before, or for that matter, having 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.000 been anywhere before. What struck me as most puzzling was 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.320 that I knew exactly where my room was in the house, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:36.400 where my parents' room was, and so forth. I was 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.200 especially fixated on the fact that I knew where certain 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:41.960 trees were in our front yard, though it was night 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.280 and I wasn't even facing that way, so I couldn't 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.040 see them. How then, I wondered, did I know these things? 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.120 I walked to my parents' room and woke them up, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.720 explaining this experience as best I could by saying I 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.880 just appeared in my bed. They didn't understand, so I elaborated, 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.520 you know how a magician can make a rabbit disappear, Well, 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.640 I just appeared. They still didn't understand, and how could 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.880 they for I surely didn't understand it either, and gently 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.080 put me back to bed. I have long interpreted this 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.960 as being my first or very first, persistent awareness of myself. 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:13.840 I had earlier memories of the house and the trees, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.520 et cetera. I even have a very distinct early memory 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.600 of living temporarily in a relative's basement a few blocks 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.320 away before we moved into this particular house, when I 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.360 was only two years old, and my older sister and 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.240 I were put to bed with raggedy ann and andy dolls, 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.760 the scenario my parents later confirmed. But perhaps my earlier 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.280 awareness was only of these various external objects, and it 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.200 was only after months in the newer house that I 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.520 became abruptly aware in some deeper and persistent sense of 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.320 myself as a being in that world. My cousin reported 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.960 a memory of a similar experience he had outside during 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:50.040 the daytime of Oh here I am, But most others 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.960 I have related it to, including a few psychologists, were 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.400 unfamiliar with any similar reports and could shed no light 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.200 on it. But surely other people have had or can 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.920 remember similar experiences, So I wish this phenomenon could get 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:04.479 more attention. 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.199 Scott, that's very interesting. So the idea is that you 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:13.400 suddenly became aware of yourself as as a subject independent 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:14.680 from the world. 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.399 Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know that I have anything 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.399 like that. I think I was just watching I watched 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:21.160 TV instead. 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.000 One way in which I can definitely relate to this 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:30.960 is that I distinctly recall a feeling when I was 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.199 a young child of having not exactly this realization, but 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:41.639 lots of realizations that seemed to me incredibly profound, but 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.800 not in a way that I could explain to anybody else, 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.360 in the same way that realizations that people believe they 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.800 have while on psychedelic drugs often are that there's like 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.840 an ineffability of the profundity of your realizations, Like you 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.960 try to put into words and it just doesn't sound 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.800 all that interesting or compelling to somebody else, But like 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.040 in the moment, it feels like you have stumbled across 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.679 some type of truth that is earthshaking, and that truth 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.040 might be the question of like why am I me 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.920 when I could have been somebody else. I remember having 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:15.800 that thought. 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.520 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, this were there but for fortune moments, 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:25.399 Yeah yeah, it can be quite even you know today, 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.520 when when you really stop and engage with those thoughts 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.280 that it can be quite overwhelming. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:32.800 Okay, we're going to do a message about Weird House 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:34.560 Cinema and then close things up. 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:36.879 Yes, please read Lurch's email. 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:47.239 Okay, Lurch says, subject line Weird House definitive explanation. Maybe so, 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.240 this I think is related to our questions about the 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.960 bird Eye Gordon movie Attack of the Puppet People. We 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.760 were a little bit shaky on the title there, since 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:59.800 the people in the movie who seem to be referred 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.280 to as the puppet people in the title people Will 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:06.440 Get Shrunk do not attack anyone except a literal, inanimate puppet. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.320 So I don't know, kind of confusing there, But Lurch says, 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.960 good morning, gentlemen. After a brief hiatus, I'm binging stuff 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.040 to blow your mind and just finish the Weird House 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.439 episode covering Bert Eye Gordon's Attack of the Puppet People. 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.800 I suggest the title is actually more accurate than you 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.960 might think, though, I'm guessing the bulls Eye either ended 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.520 up on the cutting room floor or came up a 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.840 victim of a script rewrite. I'm betting the ladder, knowing 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:36.560 what little I know of the divine Gordon's habits. Besides, 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.760 if it's the former, my flight of fancy crashes on takeoff. 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.480 So if you squint just a little and hold your 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.520 tongue over your right lower molar, you can accept that 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.960 mister Franz, the villain of the movie, as a puppeteer, 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:54.040 could readily be considered a puppet person. Okay, assume a 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.520 rewrite changed his old colleague to a past friend from 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:03.040 a current collaborat. Thus you have the requisite plurality to 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.000 justify the collective people in the title. There's no question 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:10.840 mister Franz attacks his various victims. Of course, the title 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.240 allows for this twofold interpretation, which seems to me to 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.360 be a relatively common device from the era, especially when 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:22.119 considering movies from Gordon or Corman for Indie Roger. Okay, 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:23.840 so I think I see what Lurg is saying here 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:25.879 that if there was an earlier version of the movie 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.040 in which mister Franz was currently a puppeteer like his 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.800 friend Amiel, they were both puppeteers, and they were both 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.800 turning people into puppets, maybe to I don't know, use 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.080 in their puppet shows or something like that, they would 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.480 be the puppet people as in The Puppet Masters turning 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.840 people into puppets, in which case they're obviously attacking people. 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.720 It's not you know, there's no ambiguity there. Okay, Lurch 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.680 goes on on another note, I'm glad one of your 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:58.400 other listeners mentioned Ringo, Starr and Caveman. I actually saw 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:00.520 this in a theater and it's been a guilty pleasure 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.960 ever since. I've been compiling a small list of movie suggestions, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.359 and Caveman is right at the top, even above the 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:10.040 happiness of the Katakuris. The list of actors is surprising. 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:14.800 You mentioned Ringo, Dennis Quaid, and Barbara Bach, who is 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.679 dumped by Ringo's character in the movie but married to 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:23.040 him in real life. There's Shelley Long, Jack Guilford, John mattushak, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.760 Evan Kim dot dot. What's not to like? This does 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.719 bring me to another guilty pleasure. Besides monster movies, I 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.919 love utterly silly spy movies. James Bond is okay, But 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:39.560 when Derek Flint, James Coburn, Matt Helm, Dean Martin, or 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.520 Modesty Blaze Monica Viti are on, I'm parked on the 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:45.919 couch wishing I could teach my dog to get me 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.800 a soda and chips. I'm not sure if they strictly 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.720 fit your weird house criteria, but they do fit mine. 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.280 Keep your eyes on the road, your foot on the floor, 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.480 and your gravy warm regards lurch ah. 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.800 Oh, there's a lot of good stuff too to discuss there. 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.560 I'm not sure what to make about the puppet people argument. 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:08.800 I guess I can see, I can I have. It's 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:14.760 a valid hypothesis as far as Ringo Star's Caveman goes. Yeah, 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:19.240