Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren vocal Bomb, and this is a classic episode
Speaker 1: of the podcast. In this one, we take a look
Speaker 1: at the fictional phenomenon of psychic powers causing nosebleeds. It's
Speaker 1: a common trope in visual media like TV and comics,
Speaker 1: and as far as we know, psychic powers don't really exist.
Speaker 1: But if they did, would there be any physiological basis
Speaker 1: behind it? Hey brain Stuff, I'm Lauren vogel Bomb, and
Speaker 1: you've seen the trope. A mental battle rages between a
Speaker 1: heroic character and her nemesis. As the struggle wears on,
Speaker 1: we see the first signs of the toll. It must
Speaker 1: be taking a trickle of blood. Ruby red appears at
Speaker 1: one nostril. The strain of invisible psychic abilities is admittedly
Speaker 1: difficult to illustrate in a visual medium. Perhaps that's why
Speaker 1: so many authors of comic books, television shows, and movies
Speaker 1: turn to this tried and true trope, the psychic nose bleed.
Speaker 1: When blood comes from a character's nose, it signifies that
Speaker 1: the character is exerting themselves. After all, blood vessels can
Speaker 1: rupture thanks to physical exertion, as many a weightlifter knows,
Speaker 1: so perhaps psychic powers could cause some sort of cranial
Speaker 1: pressure build up. It's concise and visceral in a way
Speaker 1: that a mere facial twitch, drop of sweat, or vein
Speaker 1: throb can't cover. It's become such a common way to
Speaker 1: imply a mind pushed to its limits that the Comics
Speaker 1: meets Medicine blog Polite Descent has been tracking its appearance
Speaker 1: in comics for nearly a decade. The site even gave
Speaker 1: the fictional phenomenon a name, Epistaxis telepathica, the medical term
Speaker 1: for a nosebleed being epistaxis. The psychic nosebleed has appeared
Speaker 1: in more than just comics, of course, beyond comic book
Speaker 1: adaptations like the two thousand and five film Fantastic Four
Speaker 1: and the TV series Smallville and media directly influenced by
Speaker 1: comics like Heroes and Chronicle, to other genre media like
Speaker 1: The Fifth Element, Star Trek and Carnival. It also features
Speaker 1: prominently in the Netflix series Stranger Things, in which a
Speaker 1: mysterious girl called Eleven escapes a creepy government laboratory, then
Speaker 1: uses her telekinetic powers against her former captors and some
Speaker 1: transdimensional creepy crawleys. The internal severity of these psychic abilities
Speaker 1: is evidenced by the blood that trickles sometimes from Eleven's nose.
Speaker 1: Stranger Things pays homage to pop culture from the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties with the Spielberg meets Carpenter meets Stephen King sort
Speaker 1: of vibe. So it's fitting that one of the earliest
Speaker 1: cinematic instances of the psychic nosebleed appears in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four film adaptation of Stephen King's Firestarter. A seven
Speaker 1: year old girl named Charlie starts fires using the power
Speaker 1: of her mind. Evidence did not only buy flames, but
Speaker 1: by the occasional nosebleed. But for some of the earliest
Speaker 1: psychic nose bleeds, we're going to have to go back
Speaker 1: to the nineteen eighty one paranormal thriller Scanners from David Cronenberg.
Speaker 1: It's the first film to clearly connect nasal bleeding with
Speaker 1: psychic exertion. In the movie, Scanners are people born with
Speaker 1: telepathic and telekinetic powers, the extreme use of which makes
Speaker 1: them subject to nose bleeds and more. But if psychic
Speaker 1: powers really existed, how might this work? There's a theory
Speaker 1: that using psychic powers could raise the pressure of your
Speaker 1: cerebrospinal fluid. But pressure in this fluid, which surrounds the
Speaker 1: brain and spinal cord, would not cause a nose bleed.
Speaker 1: It would cause a coma. It's actually more likely that
Speaker 1: a nosebleed would be brought on by enthusiastic nose picking.
Speaker 1: The scientific term for that, by the way, is epistaxis digitorum.
Speaker 1: While the appearance of nose bleeds adds to the nostalgic
Speaker 1: eighties drama of stranger things, actual nosebleeds can be dramatic
Speaker 1: and horrific on their own. Anytime a body part starts
Speaker 1: spouting copious amounts of blood, it's bound to cause a rucus.
Speaker 1: It seems but a small leap to connect nose bleeds
Speaker 1: to fictional worlds, but that's all it is. Fiction. Nosebleeds
Speaker 1: are not caused by how hard we use our brains.
Speaker 1: If that were true, think of all the situations we'd
Speaker 1: need tissues for tests, job interviews, presentations. Surgeons might bleed
Speaker 1: more than their patients. The majority of nose bled in
Speaker 1: real life are caused by fist versus nose or finger
Speaker 1: versus nose collisions. Infections, allergen irritations, and foreign bodies can
Speaker 1: also be to blame, and high blood pressure can cause one,
Speaker 1: although it's lower on the list of dangers than strokes
Speaker 1: or heart attacks. Most nose bleeds occur during winter months
Speaker 1: and are exacerbated by climates that are dry and cold.
Speaker 1: The vast majority, about ninety percent of nose bleeds are
Speaker 1: of the anterior variety, caused by the rupture of a
Speaker 1: blood vessel at the front part of the nose. These
Speaker 1: nose bleeds are relatively easy to control and usually stop
Speaker 1: within a few minutes. Posterior nose bleeds are a different
Speaker 1: story and are caused by an arterial rupture at the
Speaker 1: back of the nose. A most common and elderly people.
Speaker 1: Posterior nose bleeds are difficult to stop and usually require
Speaker 1: hospital admission. Of course, all of this isn't to say
Speaker 1: that we're not prepared to suspend our disbelief just in
Speaker 1: case fiction starts bleeding over into reality. We wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to think about it too hard. Today's episode is based
Speaker 1: on the article wood psychic powers really cause a nosebleed
Speaker 1: on how stuffworks dot com, written by Lareel Dove Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four
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