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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: we're back with part four of our series about Whistling.

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Speaker 1: This episode is going to be a little weird today

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Speaker 1: because we literally already recorded this episode and then lost

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Speaker 1: the whole thing to a technical glitch. Rob I'm to

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Speaker 1: understand that as I was talking when we were recording

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Speaker 1: this episode the first time, Uh, it was just constantly

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Speaker 1: making the sounds of hell in your ears and can

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Speaker 1: you describe the terror and the anguish um. It was

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Speaker 1: kind of like your dialogue was an a fix twin

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Speaker 1: remix the entire time, and so at first it was

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Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I can I can put up

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Speaker 1: with this. Uh, this is fine. We've already gone so

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Speaker 1: far into the episode we should just you know, finish

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Speaker 1: it out. By the end of it. It was kind

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Speaker 1: of headache inducing, but I was like, well, at least

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Speaker 1: we got the episode. Uh, this is just audio distortion

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Speaker 1: that I'm hearing. It's not going to transfer over to

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Speaker 1: the recorded finished product. Sadly it did, and so here

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Speaker 1: we are. It's the worst. Yeah. We were like, well,

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Speaker 1: at least it won't be on the actual audio, and

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Speaker 1: then it was and so here we are. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: so this is this is take two. Yeah, it could

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Speaker 1: could have been much worse, So no big deal. Hey,

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Speaker 1: looking on the bright side, we got a rehearsal in there.

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Speaker 1: How often do we have a rehearsal for a podcast episode?

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Speaker 1: So I think it's gonna be stronger because of that,

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Speaker 1: do you think? So? I was like, is it going

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Speaker 1: to make the episode better or worse? I really don't know.

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Speaker 1: Well we'll see, we'll see better better, Okay. Alright, so

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Speaker 1: we're picking up in this series about whistling. Uh let's see,

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Speaker 1: what do we talk about in the previous episodes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we're picking up where we left off from the

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Speaker 1: last Whistling episode, which was Whistling Part three, regarding superstitions

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Speaker 1: and beliefs concerning whistle ing. We were talking about whistling

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Speaker 1: as an ill omen at sea, as a potential mark

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Speaker 1: of witchcraft, and women has bad theater luck in England

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Speaker 1: and much more. Uh So we're going to continue this

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Speaker 1: journey through folklore and mythology concerning whistling, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to be referencing some of what we covered in another

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Speaker 1: previous episode about Chinese transcendental whistling, in which a specialized

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Speaker 1: Dallast form of whistling was almost like meditation, but was

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Speaker 1: also said to give one both insight and perhaps even

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Speaker 1: power over the energy of things in the world. So

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Speaker 1: once more I'm going to be referencing that excellent Whistling

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Speaker 1: and Antiquity paper by A. V. Van ste Kellenberg, but

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Speaker 1: also some other sources. Now, according to Edie Edwards, in

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Speaker 1: the two thousand nine paper The Principles of Whistling, a

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Speaker 1: ten dynasty text called shall Chi says that whistling simply

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Speaker 1: calls out to all spirits good or add and st.

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Speaker 1: Kellenberg summarizes, this is kind of a supernatural neutrality concerning whistling.

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Speaker 1: So whistling isn't something that is used by bad people

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Speaker 1: or necessarily used by good people. It's just it's this

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Speaker 1: thing that that signals out into the world around us,

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Speaker 1: into the unknown, and you know, you could potentially attract

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Speaker 1: the attention of things you don't want to attract the

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Speaker 1: attention of, but it also could be resident basically harmless.

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Speaker 1: It kind of depends on the circumstances. Yeah, the Rhapsody

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Speaker 1: on Whistling, which was a text we cited in a

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Speaker 1: previous episode. It talks about whistling having a kind of

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Speaker 1: withdrawing or distancing power on the whistler. It says, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the whistling gentleman sort of distances himself from the

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Speaker 1: things of the world and lets out a long drawn whistle. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's a thread we're gonna definitely come back to.

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Speaker 1: But but first I wanted to add another note on

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Speaker 1: whistling in Chinese history. So first of all, you know,

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Speaker 1: anytime we're talking about Chinese history, uh, Chinese culture covers

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Speaker 1: a great deal of territory, both in terms of distance

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Speaker 1: and in terms of years. Uh. So you know, it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's hard to say with any certainty, like this

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Speaker 1: is the traditional Chinese view of it versus another thing.

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Speaker 1: But mainly I don't want to imply here that that

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Speaker 1: whistling was just something that Dallas sorcerers engaged in. I

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Speaker 1: was looking at the paper by Julung Sue from two

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Speaker 1: thousand six titled Whistling and It's Magico Religious Tradition A

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Speaker 1: comparative perspective, and this points out that there are han

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Speaker 1: dynasty accounts of women whistling for both sorrow. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: this seems in some cases tap into this idea of

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Speaker 1: sighing as well. Um, again, look at thinking back to

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Speaker 1: previous episodes where we've discussed whistling and it's similarity to

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Speaker 1: other nonlinqual linguistic sounds that we make, other breath based

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Speaker 1: sounds that can be used to communicate something or to

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Speaker 1: get somebody's attention. Yeah, and we were talking about cases

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Speaker 1: where sometimes it's maybe difficult to uh precisely translate a

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Speaker 1: word because a word could be interpreted as meaning like

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Speaker 1: whistling or could mean hissing or some other kind of

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Speaker 1: controlled expulsion of breath. There's sort of some blurry nous

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Speaker 1: in the the breath based lexicon. Now, according to Sue here,

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Speaker 1: it's not just for sorrow. There are also accounts of

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Speaker 1: women whistling out of happiness or joy. It does seem

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Speaker 1: like it is linked to traditions of whaling in some cases, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the sort of whaling one might might might

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Speaker 1: engage in, say at a grave, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: But also not just women in this. In other sources

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Speaker 1: as well, even the Yellow Emperor is said to whistle

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Speaker 1: but the terminology here might actually mean hiss or it

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Speaker 1: might mean a sigh. And in the Classic of Mountains

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Speaker 1: and Seas, the queen mother uses a whistle as a

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Speaker 1: kind of battle cry to just fly her for off city. Uh. So,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a wide spectrum of possible uses for

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Speaker 1: the for the whistle, even within Chinese tradition here now,

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Speaker 1: Sue also points out that while yes, in English customs

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Speaker 1: and Western customs, there are a lot of these superstitions

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Speaker 1: against women whistling, particularly uh and we don't really see

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Speaker 1: this in Chinese traditions, though it is sometimes seen as

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Speaker 1: ominous in general whistling due to the connection between whistling

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Speaker 1: and various death rituals and you know, and attracting the spirits.

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Speaker 1: But it is more inherently magical and not gendered. Sue

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Speaker 1: also share some other examples from from Western traditions, you know,

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Speaker 1: for a comparative experience here, but they point out here

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Speaker 1: quote the Germans believe that a woman's whistling will make

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Speaker 1: the angels weep and the devil's rejoice. This is this

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Speaker 1: would be a fantastic basis for a German metal band,

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Speaker 1: all female metal band that just employs whistling instead of singing.

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Speaker 1: Now that's a that's a question to what a scent?

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Speaker 1: Has whistling been used in metal? The metal scene has

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Speaker 1: come to encompass a lot of different sounds and ideas,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know if they've gotten around whistling, have they? Well,

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Speaker 1: what's the metal version of the rule thirty four ideas?

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Speaker 1: Kind of like, if you can imagine it, there is

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Speaker 1: a metal a metal band of it, right, I guess

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Speaker 1: it depends on what you classify as metal too, Like

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Speaker 1: are the Scorpions metal? I don't know, probably not, probably not. Now.

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Speaker 1: Sue also shares that, among various Chinese minorities, whistling while

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Speaker 1: you work, as in you know, snow white and the

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Speaker 1: song that the Dwarfs sing, whistling while you work, at

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Speaker 1: least in the field was thought to to summon demons

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Speaker 1: to damage crops, or it could summon demons to damage crops,

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Speaker 1: so it was discouraged. This Sioux Stresses does not seem

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Speaker 1: to be linked to, say Dallas ideas regarding whistling, but

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Speaker 1: is instead rooted in particular folk traditions. Now here's another

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Speaker 1: really interesting one that that Sue brings up. Sue shares

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Speaker 1: an example from Mythrayism, So Mythrayism. For sci fi fans

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Speaker 1: out there, some of you might be familiar with this

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Speaker 1: religion because you may have watched the really excellently weird

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Speaker 1: HBO Max sci fi series Raised by Wolves, in which

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Speaker 1: one of the two factions that's going out into space

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Speaker 1: and colonizing other worlds are are devoted, uh, myth Rayists,

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Speaker 1: and you might you might well think, oh, this is

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Speaker 1: some sort of cool religion they made up for the show,

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Speaker 1: but it is not. It is this is a reference

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Speaker 1: to the Roman mystery cult of Mithras and in their

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Speaker 1: recorded rituals, and Joe, You're going to get into this

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Speaker 1: a little bit and talk about what what we mean

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Speaker 1: when we when we bring up the idea of recorded

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Speaker 1: rituals of of Mythraism. But supposedly there is a system

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Speaker 1: of whistling and tongue clicking that was used to attract

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Speaker 1: what Sue refers to as theeo morphics star deities, theeomorphic

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Speaker 1: meaning animal formed, so like beast beast forms of star gods. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Now I haven't seen the show Raised by Wolves, but

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Speaker 1: I think I'm to understand you were saying that the

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Speaker 1: title there is a reference to like the myth about

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Speaker 1: the founding of Rome, the Romuliss and Rema story. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right, that's that seems to be the direct reference

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Speaker 1: made there, and there are there's other references as well,

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Speaker 1: and just a lot of just sheer weirdness on top

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Speaker 1: of it. So if nothing else, it's a show that's

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Speaker 1: going to give you lots of strange imagry. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of like um Ridley Scott's continuation of the the Android

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Speaker 1: centered alien sequels or prequels that he was working on

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Speaker 1: m okay uh. So well, anyway, I love the idea

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Speaker 1: that the show would incorporate actual things about Mythrayism because

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Speaker 1: I've long thought we should do a series or at

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Speaker 1: leased an episode on Mythraism, because I find it really

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Speaker 1: interesting because it is a religion that clearly commanded an

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Speaker 1: enormous following and had huge cultural significance in the Roman Empire,

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Speaker 1: Like you can find the ruins of their underground temples

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Speaker 1: called mithri um uh and they're they're all throughout Roman settlements,

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Speaker 1: and yet we know way less about this religion than

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Speaker 1: one might assume. And one of the big reasons for

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Speaker 1: that is that as far as I understood, and I

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Speaker 1: guess the text that you just referred to, Uh, maybe

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Speaker 1: a counter example to this, but modern scholars generally thought,

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Speaker 1: we have basically no access to any primary literary sources

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Speaker 1: about the religion. So if it had religious texts, we

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Speaker 1: don't have any of them, and so what we know

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Speaker 1: about it we've had to try to like piece together

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Speaker 1: through detective work based on imagery and simple inscriptions and

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Speaker 1: archaeological clues and comments and references made by external writers

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Speaker 1: trying to say, hey, you know, this is what's going

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Speaker 1: on with mythraism. So for a kind of hopefully interesting analogy,

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Speaker 1: imagine trying to understand what chris Ganity was if it

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Speaker 1: like mostly died out and disappeared in the fourth century

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Speaker 1: or so, and we did not have any of the

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Speaker 1: writings of the New Testament or any other writings by

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Speaker 1: Church fathers or any other early Christians, and we were

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Speaker 1: trying to reconstruct what Christianity was based entirely on like

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Speaker 1: imagery and artifacts and what other external writers said about it.

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Speaker 1: So it's a really fascinating problem. And one of the

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Speaker 1: most common images in Roman Mythraism is apparently an important

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Speaker 1: scene from their mythology of the god Mithrus slaughtering some

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Speaker 1: kind of divine bull. But there's another interesting complication here too,

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Speaker 1: which is that there is a pre Roman Persian cult

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Speaker 1: of Mithrus or or Metra, which is a Zoroastrian or

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Speaker 1: pre Zoroastrian god of the Persian people who's kind of

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Speaker 1: a solar deity of justice, who I think was associated

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Speaker 1: with contracts and the honoring of bargains. And then later

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Speaker 1: you get this widespread Roman mystery cult that seems to

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Speaker 1: be based on an appropriated version of that deity. And

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Speaker 1: of course we know the Romans loved absorbing and reprocessing

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Speaker 1: other cultures gods, you know, like the main Roman pantheon

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Speaker 1: is mostly a photocopy of the Greek. And then you've

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Speaker 1: got the Persian Mithras becoming the Roman savior god of

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Speaker 1: some kind, and even the way you can think about

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Speaker 1: a Jewish messianic figure in Jesus and the original context

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Speaker 1: of monotheistic Judaism rather quickly becomes a popular savior god

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Speaker 1: to people throughout the Empire who had been polytheists up

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Speaker 1: until the moment they converted to Christianity. So that whole

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Speaker 1: process is really interesting. But the idea of a text

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Speaker 1: of Mythraism was very interesting to me because I didn't

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Speaker 1: think we had one of these. But this is referring

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Speaker 1: to something called the myth rest Liturgy, which I think

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Speaker 1: is commonly dated to roughly the fourth century. But there's

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Speaker 1: dispute about whether it actually reflects original Mithraic theology or

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Speaker 1: whether it's some kind of later synthesis. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: the quote from it that Sue shares in the paper. Quote.

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Speaker 1: But after you have said the second prayer, where silence

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Speaker 1: is twice commanded, then whistle twice and clicked twice with

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Speaker 1: the tongue, and immediately you will see stars coming down

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Speaker 1: from the disc of the sun, five pointed in large

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Speaker 1: numbers and filling the whole air. But say once again, silence, silence,

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Speaker 1: whistle twice, click twice, and then shut up. Here come

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Speaker 1: the gods. Now coming back to we're talking earlier about

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Speaker 1: like scholars in the woods in Chinese history, Um, there

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Speaker 1: is this idea that comes up, Sue mentions, and we

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Speaker 1: see this in like the Han dynasty, for example, where

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Speaker 1: you would have Confucian scholars other reclusive scholars who would

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Speaker 1: whistle as a means of expressing disdain for the world

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Speaker 1: and or their absolute freedom. Uh so this is an

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Speaker 1: interesting concept, and it was also done by other classes

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Speaker 1: as well, uh, Sue writes. Quote in general, poets, hermits,

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Speaker 1: and people of all types in the Six Dynasties utilized

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Speaker 1: whistling to express a sense of untrammeled individual freedom, or

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Speaker 1: an attitude of disobedience to authority or traditional ceremony, or

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Speaker 1: to dispel suppressed feelings and indignation. Whistling was not limited

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Speaker 1: to a certain class, but was practiced by men from

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Speaker 1: all walks of life. I love this idea of whistling

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Speaker 1: as a kind of like middle finger to social customs

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Speaker 1: and authority. So it's like you might imagine, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: the behavior of Diogenes the cynic or something, just completely

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Speaker 1: behaving in inappropriate ways in public as a as an

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Speaker 1: expression of contempt for norms and authority. Yeah, I whistle,

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Speaker 1: I do what I want now. Another paper I looked

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Speaker 1: to when I was looking around for various superstitions, We

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Speaker 1: of course found superstitions regarding whistling at sea, but we

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Speaker 1: also find them in another interesting place below the surface

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Speaker 1: of the earth in mines. Oh yeah, and I hadn't

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Speaker 1: really thought about this, but this is apparently a big one.

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Speaker 1: Uh paper, I was looking at an older paper. This

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Speaker 1: is California Miners Folklore. This is from a two edition

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Speaker 1: of California Folklore Quarterly written by Wayland D. Hand And um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's a really interesting read. This one's out

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Speaker 1: there on the internet if anyone wants a deeper dive

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Speaker 1: into it. But uh, for example, he goes into the

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Speaker 1: fear of the Tommy Knockers in the Tunnels. Now, Rob,

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Speaker 1: I am only familiar with Tommy Knockers from the Stephen

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Speaker 1: King novel or actually I never read the novel. I

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Speaker 1: think I watched the made for TV movie adaptation of it,

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Speaker 1: which is quite bad, and I think Stephen King himself

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Speaker 1: regards that as a terrible book. But but I don't

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Speaker 1: know what the original reference here is in the book.

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Speaker 1: I think it's aliens. Yeah, I can never get very

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Speaker 1: far with the book. But not aliens here, No, but

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Speaker 1: it but it apparently refers to a fair variety of things,

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Speaker 1: and they're very haunting and they kind of I feel

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Speaker 1: like they also kind of connect to perhaps older European

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Speaker 1: ideas of creatures that live in the earth, getting into

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Speaker 1: you know, various ideas of dwarves and so forth. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Cobald. This is what Hand writes in the paper.

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Speaker 1: These denizens of the deep dark chambers of the earth

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Speaker 1: are conceived in different forms as disembodied spirits of dead

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Speaker 1: miners hovering in a working as patrons, or as little

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Speaker 1: men elf like be whiskered and wizzened. They are usually

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Speaker 1: thought of as benign, occasionally even assisting in the location

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Speaker 1: of ore bodies. If they are not so well disposed,

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Speaker 1: their conduct tends to be mischievous rather than malignant. Many

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Speaker 1: California miners, though not having themselves seen these creatures in person,

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Speaker 1: recall having seen small effigies of them made of clay

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Speaker 1: and set upon portal, sets to a tunnel or on

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Speaker 1: the lagging or elsewhere where their patronage is desired. So

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Speaker 1: I love that image of not only the idea that

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Speaker 1: there are these beings living elsewhere in the tunnels, but

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Speaker 1: there's this kind of uh we talked about a little,

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Speaker 1: you know, we were talking about when when people set

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Speaker 1: to see, when they return, when they're when seamen are

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Speaker 1: are out there on the waters there the newer religions

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Speaker 1: that they have taken to might be set aside for

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Speaker 1: the older ways the older gods, and here we have

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Speaker 1: this example of of California miners potentially having little altars

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Speaker 1: to to kind of dwarven Elvin beings in the minds.

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Speaker 1: That's too good. So Hand discusses some other ideas as well,

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Speaker 1: you know, the go some dead miners working in the tunnels.

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Speaker 1: Um also phantom white mules, headless mules, and strange lights.

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Speaker 1: Apparently he said that there weren't really that many creature

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Speaker 1: myths concerning the minds, though occasionally you would have like

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Speaker 1: a cat come down into the minds and would just

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Speaker 1: scare the b Jesus out of everybody, because it would

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Speaker 1: either way, I'm imagining, you know, the cat would get

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Speaker 1: down there, it would be lurking about, its eyes gleaming

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Speaker 1: and the light and just give everyone the proper spooks.

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Speaker 1: But there there were also these superstitions about about the

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Speaker 1: bad luck concerning well, first of all bringing women anywhere

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Speaker 1: near the cave, but also there was a widespread superstition

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Speaker 1: against anyone whistling down there, and it seems to be

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Speaker 1: sort of twofold. On one hand, there was a real

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Speaker 1: fear of vibrations in the caves, and so the there's

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Speaker 1: this idea that you know, shouldn't whistle because you don't

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Speaker 1: know what that's gonna do. You're gonna set up vibrations

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Speaker 1: that could potentially cause a cave in. But it also

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Speaker 1: seems inked to this older wider idea that if you're whistling,

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Speaker 1: you could draw in spirits and hand shares. A fun

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Speaker 1: little rhyme here quote whistle by night you'll bring the sprite.

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Speaker 1: Whistle by day you'll drive them away. And this is

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Speaker 1: not a sprite you want to bring, right, right, or

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Speaker 1: certainly you don't want them. You don't want anything going

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Speaker 1: on down there in the mind. You don't want you

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Speaker 1: don't want any spirits balking about. You don't want any

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Speaker 1: vibrations going wild. You want everything to just be as

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Speaker 1: safe and quiet as possible. Right, Okay, so this is

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Speaker 1: this is not like a friendly tinker bell. This would

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Speaker 1: be a sprite that's gonna maybe pollute your oar or

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Speaker 1: make a rock fall in your head or something. Yeah. Yeah, though,

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Speaker 1: I guess coming back to the idea of the Tommy

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Speaker 1: Knockers that it kind of comes back to the sort

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Speaker 1: of neutrality of spirits. Right. It's the idea that well,

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Speaker 1: there there, there are or maybe spirits around. Um, they

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Speaker 1: might do some bad things, they might do some good things.

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Speaker 1: We probably shouldn't call them. We shouldn't call an extra spirits,

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Speaker 1: and we should try and be on the on the

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Speaker 1: good side of any spirits that are present. Now, I

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Speaker 1: think all of the examples we've talked about so far

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Speaker 1: are superstitions. Uh. The the way that whistling relates to

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Speaker 1: monsters or spirits or dangerous entities is that it's something

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Speaker 1: humans could do that might in some cases attract them.

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Speaker 1: So you know, be careful about whistling because you might

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Speaker 1: get a monster on your tail. But I was thinking about,

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Speaker 1: are there are there stories of monsters that themselves whistle

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Speaker 1: or are you or do something like whistling? Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was curious about this. I first of all, I turned

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Speaker 1: to Carol Rose, who has two Extraordinary volumes, one about

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Speaker 1: monsters and giants and so forth, and the others more

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Speaker 1: about fairies and sprites. And there's some overlap between the

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Speaker 1: two books, but they are also things in each book

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Speaker 1: that are not covered by the other, and so there

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Speaker 1: were at least a couple of examples that stood out.

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Speaker 1: One of them is an interesting monster of the people

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Speaker 1: of the Zingu River in Brazil, and this creature was

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Speaker 1: called minata karaia, and these are said to have been

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Speaker 1: giants that were as tall as the trees, with fruit

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Speaker 1: growing out of their armpits, which the giants then consumed

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Speaker 1: to sustain themselves. So it sounds like they weren't themselves dangerous.

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Speaker 1: They weren't like eating humans. But they're big, tall giants.

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Speaker 1: So if they're coming your way, you want to know

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Speaker 1: to get out of their out of their way. And

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Speaker 1: the way you knew this is because the male giants

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Speaker 1: had a hole in the top of their head and

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Speaker 1: it emitted a high pitched whistle when they moved. This

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Speaker 1: is a good monster. Okay, so we got armpit autophagi.

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Speaker 1: They eat the fruit of their own armpits and their

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Speaker 1: heads whistle. Yeah. Now another monster that Rose shares here

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Speaker 1: is uh is a Russian creature that I think we

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Speaker 1: might well describe as a sort of a harpy, or

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Speaker 1: at least a harpy in them the way that modern

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Speaker 1: people will think of the harpy a kind of bird

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Speaker 1: human hybrid, though in this case I think they're They

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Speaker 1: tend to be more male than female. And its name

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Speaker 1: is Solve Rochtmas and in Russian folklore it's said to

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Speaker 1: give a piercing whistle and this whistle will kill anyone

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Speaker 1: who hears it, and then the monster will come and

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Speaker 1: rob your corpse, rob your corps. So it's looking for money. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's not not here to eat you either. It's interested

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Speaker 1: in one thing, and it's whatever money you got on

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Speaker 1: you checking your armpits for fruit. Yeah. But here in

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Speaker 1: it's kind of an interesting theme because the next monster

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Speaker 1: I wanted to mention also is not going to kill you.

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Speaker 1: This one just wants to scare you real bad. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is yokai. I was looking around in Yokai traditions

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Speaker 1: because I'm thinking, well, that's just such a rich font

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Speaker 1: of creatures and beings that it makes sense that there'd

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Speaker 1: be something out there that whistled. And the one that

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Speaker 1: I found some descriptions of it that I found translated

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Speaker 1: to of course mentioned whistling is something it does. Others

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Speaker 1: don't mention it, so um, I can't be one and

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Speaker 1: to present certain if this is something that is actually

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Speaker 1: part of it or in a lot of these yokaia too,

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Speaker 1: they and when you get into modern ghost stories as well,

389
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: like there's there's there, there's still kind of rich and alive,

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00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 1: so something's could added, and also some things could added

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Speaker 1: in translation. But this one is called um Oa guru batari,

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Speaker 1: and its name apparently means nothing but blackened teeth, which

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00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,480
Speaker 1: already sounds pretty pretty amazing. So this is this is

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Speaker 1: the way this yokai has encountered. She appears as a

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Speaker 1: beautiful woman in a traditional wedding kimono, and I guess

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Speaker 1: you might see her at a distance, and in some

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Speaker 1: cases as you get as your your interest and you

398
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: move closer, she may whistle to get the attention of

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Speaker 1: single men. Other accounts say that she may speak in

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Speaker 1: the voice of a loved one. Um others don't seem

401
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Speaker 1: to mention any kind of real sound at all. But

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00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: as you get closer, this is the main thing that happens. She,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of these type creatures, will reveal her face.

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00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 1: And when she reveals her face, you find not a

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00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: not a beautiful humanoid face, but instead a face that

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00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: is largely blank except for a great, big, gaping mouth

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00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,120
Speaker 1: that's filled with nothing but black into teeth. And then

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00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: she cackles, and you just scream and run a runaway,

409
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 1: terrified uh, and that's it. She's not interested in hurting you.

410
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 1: She's just here to scare the Bejesus out of you.

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Speaker 1: No eyes, no nos, just the teeth and but but yeah,

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Speaker 1: so so she doesn't bite your head off. It's just

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Speaker 1: to show you the teeth and and get you upset.

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00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, just just just a ghost. Um. Now, I

415
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Speaker 1: didn't look super close at various pop culture and modern

416
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Speaker 1: whistling entities, but I thought I would mention briefly that

417
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Speaker 1: there is something called the whistling Fiend in Dungeons and

418
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: Dragons raven Loft setting that's supposed to be this like

419
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: this horrible monster, like a fiend from the pits of Hell,

420
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 1: but it will whistle beautifully as it's approaching, so before

421
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Speaker 1: anything goes goes terribly wrong, you'll hear the whistling. And

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00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,520
Speaker 1: then if you happen to witness what it does when

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00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 1: it gets there, well it's whistling the whole time as

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00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: well as it's doing you know, horrible, gruesome things to people.

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Speaker 1: Now I was I was interested to run across this.

426
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: I don't really know much about old radio dramas, but

427
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: there was also an old radio drama about crime and

428
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: fate titled The Whistler, and apparently on this show, the

429
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: titular whistler kind of emerges out of the night. It's

430
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: very much a kind of uh, you know, crime noir

431
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: kind of a figure. You hear him whistling a catchy tune,

432
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: and then he serves as the narrator and kind of

433
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 1: host of the program. And there were apparently eight different

434
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: Whistler films during the nineteen forties, and the first of

435
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: them was The Whistler, and it was directed by William Castle,

436
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 1: William Castle of the Tingler fame. Yeah, so I have

437
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: to assume whom he installed special seats in the movie

438
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: theaters that what would the whistle into your bud or something.

439
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: I don't know, it sounds like the kind of thing

440
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: he would he would do, Yeah, I mean his he

441
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: is perhaps best remembered for figuring out what kind of

442
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: gimmick would get people into the theater. Maybe they just

443
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: the gimmick here was just the existing I p. I

444
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: don't know, but I don't think you really hear about

445
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: the Whistler much anymore. I think there was a nineteen

446
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: fifties TV series, and I don't know that anyone's really

447
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: gone back to this, but I like this idea because

448
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: it's essentially it's kind of like a crip keeper. You know,

449
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 1: it's an anthology host um. And apparently the deal with

450
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 1: the movies is you would have the same star actor

451
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: in each of them, uh, not not the Whistler but

452
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: somebody else, though each story is different and so he's

453
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: playing a different character. So so it's kind of like

454
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 1: the modern version would be. I don't know, Ryan Gosling

455
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: is in every Whistler movie, but Ryan Gosling plays a

456
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: different protagonist, uh, a different character that's that's all wound

457
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: up in some sort of tale of crime and fate.

458
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:04,719
Speaker 1: We just got a producer, Chiman from Seth who, by

459
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: the way, is actually a devoted listener to The Whistler.

460
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if you can be devoted

461
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: to something that is not currently produced, but he's a fan.

462
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: He says, it's great. You know this idea of that

463
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: the stranger who whistles, and they're there. It's unknown exactly

464
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: what their their knowledge is, what their powers. Maybe I

465
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: guess you do see that in a lot of a

466
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 1: lot of cinema. It's often we've had some listeners right

467
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: in and mentioned that Western's are a place where we

468
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: see a lot of of such suspicious whistling. Um. It

469
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: brings to mind a TV movie that I don't remember

470
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: was especially good, but but it was creepy and it

471
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: was called Into the bad Lands, and it starred Bruce

472
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: dern as this creepy old bounty hunter in black. And

473
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: if memory serves, uh, he does he does variously. He

474
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: cooks some eggs, he shoots some um, some outlaws and

475
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 1: dry him around kind of rotting behind his cart. Uh.

476
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: He smiles a big creepy grin. But I think he

477
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: also whistles in that one, And there's a particular ditty

478
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: that's reoccurring. Uh, So there there is something to this

479
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 1: the stranger who whistles. What is he whistling about? He's

480
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: kind of ties into some of these other ideas, like

481
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,439
Speaker 1: like he's an outsider that is not tied to the

482
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: same rules as everything else. He may have some sort

483
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: of communication with knowledge beyond himself, with spirits, etcetera. Another producer,

484
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: Chime ins Seth, had a great example of this, and

485
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: it's Darryll Hannah and kill Bill who does a very

486
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: creepy whistling while she's uh she is on the way

487
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: to kill the protagonist. And that's a great example too,

488
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: because this is this is a female character whistling. So

489
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: many of these examples, even if we're touching on traditions

490
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: where where where whistling is not gendered, it seems like

491
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: a lot of them tend to involve male figures that

492
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: are whistling. So so yeah, great example seth. Alright, So

493
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: that's all I have for now anyway, concern whistling superstitions

494
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: and whistling monsters. Certainly we don't love to hear from

495
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: everyone out there who has additional things they would like

496
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: to bring up, be it you know, folkloric creatures, strange traditions,

497
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 1: and certainly any kind of you know, movie tie in

498
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: characters who whistle. I'd love to hear about any of that.

499
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: So yes, by all means right in So I guess

500
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: the next thing we should look at is some of

501
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: the psychology research on whistling, which I have to say,

502
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: I was shocked how sparse this literature is. There is,

503
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: from what I could tell, very little psychological research about

504
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: when and why people whistle. One of the only major

505
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: papers I could find on it wasn't really experimental in nature.

506
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: It was very theoretical and uh and though it had

507
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: a few interesting ideas in it that I do want

508
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: to talk about. To the extent that it is theoretical,

509
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: it seems kind of based in Freudianism, so it's gonna

510
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: be a big caveat there. But before we get to that,

511
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: I did want to talk about a medical ca east

512
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: report I came across that had a title that really

513
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 1: grabbed my attention. So this is a paper by Pollock

514
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: at All published in BMC Psychiatry in two thousand twelve,

515
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: and it's called Compulsive Carnival Song Whistling following Cardiac arrest

516
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 1: A case study Compulsive Carnival Song Whistling. Oh my goodness,

517
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: So is it the BA? Is that the music? You

518
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: think that? That's what I was assuming. Unfortunately, the case

519
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 1: report does not attach a recording or sheet music or anything, so,

520
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: and it doesn't name the tunes, so I don't know

521
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: what song it is. The most they say about it

522
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: is that it is a carnival song. Alright, what are

523
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: the options? Yeah, so you got that one is like

524
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: the Binny Hill theme? Possible? I don't know, Yeah, I think, Oh,

525
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too far into this, because

526
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: this is like, this is a realm I know virtually

527
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: nothing about. But apparently there's a there's a fair amount

528
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: of what we I think of his circus music that

529
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about circus band stuff. We're talking

530
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 1: about waltzes and fox trots. Uh So, there, there's there's

531
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: probably a lot there. But the is the thing that

532
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: that mostly comes to the surface for for folks like me. Okay,

533
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: So in this case, report the medical history the patient.

534
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: In this case it's anonymous of course, so we don't

535
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: know their name. But it was a man who was

536
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: found unconscious in his car in February at the age

537
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: of forty eight, having suffered a heart attack. Um he

538
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: was in cardiac arrest for some period of time, but

539
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: he was reanimated successfully in the emergency room at a

540
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: nearby hospital, so he survived the heart attack he had.

541
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: His heart had stopped, there was reduced supply of oxygen

542
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: to the brain, but they resuscitated him and he was

543
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: all right. But during rehabilitation he presented with some symptoms,

544
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 1: including neurological impairment and uh So, several of the things

545
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 1: they report are disorientation, apathy. What they called brady phrenium,

546
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: meaning slowness of thought, short term memory problems and things

547
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: like that. And imaging particularly E. G. Showed decreased functioning

548
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: in the brain, especially in the bezo temporal areas, and

549
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: he continued to exhibit some neurological symptoms in the following years.

550
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: And here's where we get to the music. I'll read

551
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: straight from the case report quote. We were approached in

552
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: May two eight by the patient's wife, who got to

553
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: know our center of expertise through the internet. She was

554
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:40,719
Speaker 1: close to desperation from listening to the whistling of the

555
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: same carnival song for nearly sixteen years. It would go

556
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: on for five to eight hours every day and got

557
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: worse when the patient was tired. So it's a mix

558
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: like obviously it's uh, you know, I was snagged by

559
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: the idea of of repetitive whistling of a carnival song,

560
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: but when you actually hear the details, it is I

561
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: don't know that it's a very unfortunate situation to imagine

562
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: that like the whistling of the same song goes on

563
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: four five to eight hours a day for sixteen years. Now.

564
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: The authors here talk about treatments that were tried, including

565
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: a drug called clamypramine, which is a tricyclic antidepressant that

566
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: is sometimes used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder, which obviously

567
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: share some features with what's being described here uh that

568
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: among other conditions. But basically this drug regimen did manage

569
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: to decrease the whistling by about half, but it also

570
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: came with some very difficult side effects in in this

571
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: man's case, and the repetitive whistling of a carnival song

572
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: NonStop for five to eight hours a day could be

573
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: considered an example of what psychiatrists would call compulsivity, which

574
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: the authors describe as quote, the repetitive, irresistible urge to

575
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: perform a behavior, the experience of loss of voluntary control

576
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: over this intense urge, and the tendency to perform repetitive

577
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: acts in a habitual or stereotyped manner. So they talk

578
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: about how the man would whistle the song on a

579
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: on a loop all day pretty much, and that at

580
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,839
Speaker 1: certain points they could make him stop doing it, though

581
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: he reported after he stopped that he experienced anxiety um

582
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: and in their discussion, the authors explain how the man

583
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: in this report showed symptoms that could be consistent with

584
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: three different interpretations of his condition. So, first of all,

585
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 1: they talk about the idea of a frontal syndrome characterized

586
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:40,479
Speaker 1: by impulsivity and disinhibition. I think frontal syndrome there because

587
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: it's the frontal lobe that is very important for inhibiting behavior.

588
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: That's your sort of like self control mechanism um. And

589
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: then second a compulsivity condition known as punding, which is

590
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: characterized by quote, purposeless and repetitive behavior such as collecting

591
00:34:56,600 --> 00:35:00,800
Speaker 1: or arranging things often related to the patient's personal hobbies

592
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 1: or occupation, and attributed to alterations of the brain's reward

593
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: and motor systems in both the ventral and dorsal stree atom.

594
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: And then the final interpretation would be a sort of

595
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: acquired form of obsessive compulsive disorder or o c D UH,

596
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 1: And there are other examples of people acquiring o c

597
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 1: D after a brain injury later in life. The o

598
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 1: c D is usually acquired gradually earlier on in life.

599
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: And they say all of these explanations matched the observations

600
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 1: in some ways but not in others. But one thing

601
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: they got into that I thought was interesting here was

602
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: talking about the different characteristics of impulsivity versus compulsivity in

603
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: the brain. So the rite quote, one may conclude that

604
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: the whistling with its repetitions is primarily compulsive rather than

605
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: impulsive or disinhibitive, as the patient had a constant urge

606
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: to whistle and felt anxiety when asked to stop rather

607
00:35:56,400 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: than acting without foresight. The fact that anxiety was felt

608
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 1: is in line with compulsivity rather than impulsivity, assuming that

609
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: compulsive behaviors are performed to prevent perceived negative consequences from happening.

610
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: So this is a useful distinction for thinking about because

611
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: when we you know, outside of the medical context, when

612
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: we think about these words impulsive or compulsive, they both

613
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: I think usually refer to situations where a person seems

614
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: to lack executive control. They lack the ability to control

615
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: their own behavior or prevent themselves from doing something, but

616
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: in very different ways. So in impulsivity, you feel an

617
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: urge to do something, but some process taking place in

618
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: your frontal lobe tells you that's not appropriate and stops

619
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: you from doing it. But the urge itself might be

620
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: something normal that, like we would all think of doing

621
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: for a second, it might cross our mind to do it,

622
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: but then we would turn away from actually doing it

623
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: because of some inhibition mechanism in the brain. Examples of

624
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: this include all kinds of stuff, spitting on the floor,

625
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: or making a rude or inappropriate comment and conversation, or

626
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:08,879
Speaker 1: jumping out of a moving car. They can they can

627
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: vary wildly from you know, minor things to extreme things.

628
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 1: They would all be things though, that even a person

629
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: with typical neuro anatomy might think for a second about doing,

630
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: but then they would be able to stop themselves. All right.

631
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: I think we can all think of examples of this

632
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: from our own life, where you have it's like it's

633
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 1: you're just in a situation and you may think of

634
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: like something just ridiculous or absurd or antisocial that you

635
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: theoretically could do, and then you sort of but you

636
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: recoil from it and you realize, oh, well, of course

637
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. And it can be

638
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: a little shocking to think that you even thought about

639
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 1: doing that, Like why did I think that, hey, I

640
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: could take my wallet out and throw it off of

641
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 1: this building or off of this bridge that I'm on. Yeah. Yeah,

642
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:50,879
Speaker 1: we did a whole episode one time called the imp

643
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: of the Perverse. That was about this idea that like

644
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 1: that there is some kind of It was about the

645
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 1: first half before the inhibition comes in. It's like, what

646
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: is that? Or to do things that are obviously not

647
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: in your best interests, but you suddenly just feel like, oh,

648
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: I should do that. But then you're able to put

649
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: the you know, put the lid on it and say no,

650
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 1: I shouldn't do that. People with a frontal syndrome often

651
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: have impulsivity problems because they whatever the normal disinhibition mechanism

652
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: in the brain is that has been damaged in some

653
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 1: way by their injury. So contrast that that impulsivity with compulsivity,

654
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,720
Speaker 1: where a person also lacks the ability to stop themselves

655
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,439
Speaker 1: from performing an action, but it's an action that they

656
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: feel they must do repetitively in order to prevent some

657
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: kind of bad consequence from happening. So remember it was

658
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: said that the man here would whistle constantly, but he

659
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: felt the immediate onset of anxiety if he stopped whistling

660
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: the carnival song. So that makes it sound more like

661
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: it's it's compulsivity here, that it's something that he felt

662
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 1: he had to do repetitively or else negative consequences would emerge.

663
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 1: And the case history here man is that the man

664
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: once worked as head of a carnival association. And the

665
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 1: authors don't say this, so we don't know this, but

666
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,959
Speaker 1: it seems like a reasonable guess that the carnival tune

667
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: he was whistling was one he was familiar with from

668
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: his own past working uh, working as the head of

669
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: a carnival association, maybe even one he associated with a

670
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: time when he was more in control. That's fascinating because

671
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: it also this ties into sort of the power of music,

672
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: right like we have we we all use music, I

673
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,320
Speaker 1: think at times to to augment our current mental state,

674
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:37,760
Speaker 1: to draw in uh mental feelings of of of power

675
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: or assertiveness, but also uh sadness, whatever the case might be,

676
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 1: whatever we feel like we need to connect with that

677
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: is not our current state exactly. But it also ties

678
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 1: into something that came up in previous episodes. So here

679
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 1: again we have a case of a man who suffers

680
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 1: neurological damage after a period where his brain isn't getting

681
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: enough oxygen. Uh. He never had any symptoms of obsessive

682
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: compulsive disorder or anything before this, but after this event

683
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: he acquired this tendency to engage in compulsive whistling. And

684
00:40:07,719 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that the whistling, if it

685
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: is best interpreted as a way of staving off anxiety,

686
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 1: which the authors here suggested, is it made me think

687
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 1: of our discussion about whistling past the graveyard or whistling

688
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: in the dark, other cases where it's commonly observed that

689
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: people whistle in order to push out of fear or

690
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,919
Speaker 1: or or thoughts of danger. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah,

691
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: more and more whistling past the grave yard for sure. Now, again,

692
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, it seemed like the psychological research

693
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: on whistling was far less developed than I would have expected.

694
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: Maybe there are some great studies out there that I

695
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: just wasn't able to find, So if you if you

696
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:54,720
Speaker 1: know of them, please send them into the show account

697
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. But

698
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: the other major one I found, and this was cited

699
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,320
Speaker 1: in in some other papers, is a paper from nineteen

700
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 1: fifty nine published in the journal Language and Speech called

701
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: Win People Whistle, And it's by the you see San

702
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: Francisco professor of psychiatry Peter F. Austwald, As I said, earlier.

703
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: I do want to mention this one because it has

704
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: some interesting ideas in it, but also it is an

705
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:23,439
Speaker 1: older paper. It clearly is not constricted by empirical method.

706
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: This is not like reporting on on original experiments. It's

707
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: more kind of theorizing about what whistling might mean and

708
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,959
Speaker 1: why people whistle, based on models that seem at least

709
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: influenced by Freudianism. A lot of it's about, you know,

710
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 1: fixations that uh uh sort of emerge from childhood development.

711
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 1: But anyway, okay, so who is this guy who wrote this? Austwald.

712
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 1: He seems like a kind of interesting guy. So he

713
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: lived from nineteen to nineteen six, and his life is

714
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: sort of divided between an interest in psychiatry on on

715
00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: one hand, and music and music history on the other.

716
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: So he wrote biographies of musicians and composers like Schumann

717
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: and Glenn Gould. But also, to quote from his New

718
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: York Times obituary quote, in nineteen eighty six, he founded

719
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: the Health Program for Performing Artists, a voluntary group of

720
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: specialists engaged in research, education, and clinical care of the

721
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: particular mental and medical problems afflicting musicians, dancers, and other

722
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: performing artists. Both professionals and students. And I thought that

723
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: was very interesting because now that I think about it,

724
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: it clearly makes sense that you could have a medical

725
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 1: center focused on the mental and physical health needs of

726
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: performing artists, in particular, because I'd imagine there would be

727
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: patterns in their needs, but it never occurred to me

728
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: that such a thing would exist. Yeah, I mean it

729
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: makes sense, right, because we have sports medicine. Athletes do

730
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: extreme things with their bodies that put special types of

731
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: wear and tear on them, and you could I think

732
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: you can very fairly say the same thing for performers,

733
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:00,800
Speaker 1: especially when you're thinking about something like d ats or

734
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: vocal performance. Totally, But okay, what what does Ostfauld say

735
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: in this language psychology paper? Mainly, this article is focused

736
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: on questions of why humans whistle, what purpose it serves,

737
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 1: what whistling tends to mean, and how it differs from

738
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:19,839
Speaker 1: other forms of noise production. I'm not gonna get into

739
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: everything he theorizes about in this paper, but I did

740
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 1: want to focus on one part where he's sort of, uh,

741
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 1: taking a look at the phenomenology of whistling. What does

742
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: it feel like to whistle? Like? Is it pleasurable to people,

743
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: and if it is, which it often seems to be,

744
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: why is it pleasurable? So to check one of the

745
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: very Freudian boxes, he he argues that, first of all,

746
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 1: the act of whistling involves manipulation of the muscles in

747
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: the face and the mouth in a way that may

748
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 1: produce hedonic states and feelings of comfort and pleasure because

749
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,800
Speaker 1: of its similarity to the facial and mouth movements of

750
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: what he calls oral gratification. And so he expands that

751
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,799
Speaker 1: to all kinds of things like eating and smoking, but

752
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: he specifically ties it into the facial and mouth muscle

753
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 1: movements of a feeding infant. So this is one of

754
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: those things that, well, it's hard to disprove that, but

755
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced there's much evidence to establish that exact

756
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 1: causal chain that like doing the same thing with your

757
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: face muscles that you did when you were a baby

758
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 1: in your mother's arms produces comfort and for the same reason. Uh,

759
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know how you would show that. Yeah,

760
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: And also I'd be skeptical that there's a general principle

761
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:35,800
Speaker 1: that doing something with the you know, the skeletal muscle

762
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 1: in your body that is similar to what that muscle

763
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: does in some other unrelated activity that is pleasurable in

764
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: some way gives you pleasure in the secondary activity just

765
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: because you're using the same muscles. I don't know. I mean,

766
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 1: you could think of uh ways that you would use

767
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: the same muscles you might use in some pleasurable activity,

768
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: but it doesn't bring pleasure. Does just like pretending to

769
00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 1: chew bring you the same kind of pleasure you get

770
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: from eating and so forth? Uh yeah, generally not Uh yeah, yeah,

771
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't just say, pretend to be eating

772
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 1: your favorite dish and uh. I mean maybe if you're

773
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: hungry enough you can you complete into it a little bit.

774
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, for the most part, I

775
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: don't really put a lot of stock in this this notion. Yeah,

776
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:21,439
Speaker 1: so I got doubts about that. But then he makes

777
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:23,319
Speaker 1: some other points that I think are I don't know,

778
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:27,320
Speaker 1: more worth considering. Uh, this next one is still sort

779
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: of along Freudian lines, but I think it's it's I

780
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:32,000
Speaker 1: don't know, it feels different to me. So see what

781
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 1: you think about this. He says, quote. In addition to

782
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: the mouth and face whistling involves the respiratory structures. These structures, chest, abdomen, lungs,

783
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:45,319
Speaker 1: wind pipes, and throat move of their own accord regulated

784
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: by neuronal and chemical processes beyond voluntary control. But the

785
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: whistler in effect willfully imposes his own rhythm, amplitude, and

786
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: organization pattern on these automatic movements. Psychological studies show that

787
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 1: if the individual is rewarded by attention or praise when

788
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: he first gains control over such automatic processes, he may

789
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:12,399
Speaker 1: continue to expect satisfaction from this display of skill. As

790
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: will be shown later, whistling arouses the attention of listeners,

791
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,399
Speaker 1: so that the whistler's bodily mastery is almost universally rewarded

792
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 1: in some way. And I don't know at a at

793
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: a gut level, this seemed a little more plausible to

794
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: me that there could be like a learned association of

795
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: positive reinforcement upon gaining conscious control over previously automatic or

796
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: autonomic processes. And I think one of the main ideas

797
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 1: this ties into here is like toilet training, that you know,

798
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 1: there could be some kind of bleed over with pleasure

799
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: upon a general pleasure upon taking conscious control of things

800
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: like breath, and that would sort of check out with

801
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:52,879
Speaker 1: other things. I mean, there are a lot of things

802
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 1: people do to seemingly bring themselves pleasure and comfort just

803
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 1: by taking conscious control of breath, which is normally automatic. Yeah,

804
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 1: this does remind me of certain potty training techniques for

805
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: for kids where there will be for instance, if you're

806
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to teach the the the very young

807
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:15,240
Speaker 1: child to have some degree of control over when they defecate. Uh,

808
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: there's a there's a like a technique where you're that

809
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: you're getting them to hum while they do it. So

810
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 1: it's yeah, I can see where you can have a

811
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: lot of connection between the two here. Oh and in

812
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: the next section I want to talk about he actually

813
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 1: ties directly into that. So oust Bald writes, quote, some

814
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: of the emotions that accompany the act of whistling would

815
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: appear to result from wishful thoughts and magical fantasies in

816
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: the mind of the whistler. Whistling, because it involves the

817
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 1: production of wordless sounds, may bring back memories of that

818
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: very early period during which the child could not distinguish

819
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 1: between those sounds which came from the outside world and

820
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: those sounds which came from his own body. During this

821
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: phase of personality development. One is unsure of the significance

822
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: of sound. One cannot tell whether a certain noise, say

823
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: one's footsteps, has personal meaning referable only to his own body,

824
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: or has a public meaning with some reference to the

825
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: world of other people. In this confused state, the individual

826
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 1: may come to believe that the sounds he produces have

827
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 1: some causal relationship to what he experiences. Whistling, like other

828
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: noises he makes, may thus be associated with fantasies of omnipotence, which,

829
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:33,760
Speaker 1: unless corrected by reality, can lead to delusions of grandeur. Uh.

830
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 1: This was really interesting to me because think about how

831
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: many things we've already looked at where there's some belief that,

832
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: like whistling gives you power to like change the external

833
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 1: world somehow. Yeah yeah, ties directly into the wind magic

834
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 1: we've been discussing and uh and getting, and even connects

835
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 1: back to the the Taoist transcendental whistling as well totally,

836
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: or even the Terence mckenneth thing. Yeah yeah, yeah, but okay,

837
00:48:56,239 --> 00:49:00,120
Speaker 1: So coming back to this, um Ostfald writes, quote, Occasionally

838
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 1: parents or other adults inadvertently encourage magical behavior in their children,

839
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 1: and thus reinforce fanciful thoughts about whistling and other sounds.

840
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 1: For example, nurses have been known to employ whistles to quote,

841
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 1: make the child urinate and kindly. Grandparents not infrequently whistle

842
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:22,359
Speaker 1: away the aches and bruises of a youngster. Yeah. Yeah,

843
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: I can see the whip again, whistling as the as

844
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: a sound of wind, but also the sound of water

845
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: moving water. We touched on that and then some of

846
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 1: these ideas that you can get an ox or a

847
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: horse to drink water by whistling at it um, which

848
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 1: there may not be anything to that, but using it

849
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 1: as some sort of a potty training. Yeah, that I

850
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 1: can imagine the humming sound being for the deification that

851
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: with the whistling sound being for uh, you know, the

852
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:51,480
Speaker 1: creation of water with one's body, that sort of thing.

853
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: And that could actually have efficacy when you're whistling to

854
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: a person, right because they hear that that has some

855
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: associative significance for them. It may actually help motivate, i

856
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: don't know, going to the bathroom, or may actually make

857
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 1: them feel subjectively less pain or something like that. But

858
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: that could that could lead to the erroneous assumption therefore

859
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: that you can have have physically implausible control over the

860
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: external world with whistling somehow. Yeah, anyway. Ostwald then relates

861
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: this to reports tying directly back into our previous episode

862
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: about sailors who have intense superstitions about whistling and believe

863
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: that it contains powerful and dangerous magic. You know, again

864
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: whistling for the wind. And he also discusses magical beliefs

865
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,879
Speaker 1: about whistling to summon birds and Celtic tales. Uh, and

866
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:44,280
Speaker 1: this involves a mediating technology. Plenty of stories about beasts

867
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: and magical creatures that are commanded by a flute, you know,

868
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:51,280
Speaker 1: think of the god pan and the magical cy rings

869
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: and so forth, but also the the piper pie piper. Yes,

870
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: but the interesting observe ration that sort of puts a

871
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 1: bow on this whole thing is he uh he ends

872
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 1: up talking about whistling as a form of non verbal signaling.

873
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 1: So uh here he would uh specifically not be talking

874
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 1: about actual languages that use whistles, where there's a full

875
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 1: language and the whistle is actually mean words. Um, so

876
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: you know, he's not talking about whistling with precise informational content,

877
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: but rather the more informal type of communication done via

878
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: whistling in in other contexts, he writes, quote, wordless signals

879
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 1: usually have a vague and imprecise meaning. They do not

880
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:39,399
Speaker 1: usually communicate ideas, but serve rather to attract attention, And

881
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: he describes some of the same research we've already talked about,

882
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 1: for example, that whistling is a type of noise making

883
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:48,719
Speaker 1: that travels especially well by concentrating energy and the wonderful

884
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:51,880
Speaker 1: kill hurts range, which is the best window for for

885
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: humans to hear. It's sort of a perfect attention getter.

886
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 1: But in the context of most cultures, cultures where whistling

887
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: does not constitute a length, which it doesn't contain words

888
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: or precise information, again, it's meaning is vague. It's just

889
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:09,839
Speaker 1: an attention getter. And personally, I think maybe it's in

890
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: this vagueness that a lot of the superstitions and ideas

891
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: about the magical danger of whistling could emerge, because it's

892
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 1: a it's sort of a one to punch. It's this paradox.

893
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,399
Speaker 1: Whistling is like the most powerful signal you can make

894
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:27,840
Speaker 1: with your body to attract attention. The most powerful sound

895
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: signal you can make, right, is this piercing sound. It

896
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: travels far, it makes people turn their heads. It's like

897
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: a beacon, and yet in most cases it doesn't form

898
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: precise words or phrases, so you can't be sure what

899
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 1: kind of attention you're attracting. It's just a general beacon.

900
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: It could attract a friend, or if you're in a

901
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 1: dangerous place, maybe you're on the sea, and they're all

902
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 1: kinds of forces at work, it could just as likely

903
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:59,279
Speaker 1: attract unwanted attention, a dangerous enemy of some kind. And

904
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,360
Speaker 1: because you can't form precise words with it, you also

905
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 1: don't know what you're saying or what you're asking for.

906
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 1: It's like the scene in the movie where you know,

907
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:11,719
Speaker 1: you like read a spell from an ancient book in

908
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: another language, and you don't know what the words are,

909
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: so you don't know what kind of spell you're enacting

910
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 1: or what kind of trouble you're getting into. Yeah, or

911
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 1: thinking about the transmissions that we send into outer space,

912
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: or that are sent from somewhere else in outer space

913
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: by some you know, presumably intelligent or once intelligent species,

914
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: like the potential danger of just of whistling into the

915
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: cosmic darkness, and you don't know who is going to

916
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 1: receive the signal and what they'll make of the signal.

917
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: I think that's a perfect analogy. Yeah, it's like I

918
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: think a lot of these fears and superstitions about the

919
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:51,440
Speaker 1: magical power of whistling would be like, uh, if somebody

920
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: in the real context said, I have created the most

921
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: powerful radio transmitter that will omnidirectionally broadcast an incredibly clear

922
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: power or full signal that any other intelligence out there

923
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 1: could detect. We don't know what they'll make of it,

924
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:09,800
Speaker 1: but let's just start transmitting. There would obviously be some

925
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 1: some real concerns about that from from some of the

926
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 1: less sanguine of extraterrestrial theorists. Yeah. I mean, imagine if

927
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:21,680
Speaker 1: we just pipe circus music out, like just NonStop circus music,

928
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:23,919
Speaker 1: what would they make of it? Maybe maybe the killer

929
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 1: clowns from outer space show up. That's the problem. God

930
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:29,399
Speaker 1: help us. All Right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and

931
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: wrap up this four part whistling series here, But again,

932
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:35,320
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there, because whistling

933
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:37,319
Speaker 1: is something that I think all of us have some

934
00:54:37,360 --> 00:54:40,320
Speaker 1: connection to. You can whistle, or you can't whistle, or

935
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: you can sort of whistle, or there's some sort of

936
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: cultural ideas about whistling. There's something about whistling in the

937
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 1: way you were brought up. Uh, they're whistling in in

938
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:51,320
Speaker 1: various pieces of media. So all of this is fair

939
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 1: game right in and we would love to hear from you.

940
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you can always find core episodes of

941
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:58,319
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays and

942
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:01,480
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. On Monday's

943
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 1: we do listener mail, on Wednesday's we do a short

944
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 1: form artifact or monster fact episode, and on Friday's we

945
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: do Weird How Cinema. That's our time to set aside

946
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 1: most serious concerns and just talk about a strange film.

947
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always, who are excellent audio producer Seth

948
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. Uh. If you would like to get in

949
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

950
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

951
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:25,720
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

952
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:35,799
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your

953
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:38,759
Speaker 1: Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

954
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 1: for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

955
00:55:41,960 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 1: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. Five n