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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: And we're jumping right into our fourth and final episode

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Speaker 2: in the dream Fall into the Dark series here about

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Speaker 2: the mystique of dreaming, particular times and places where dream

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Speaker 2: culture was especially pronounced. This, of course, won't be our

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Speaker 2: final episode on dreaming, will inevitably come back to dreaming.

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Speaker 2: Dreaming is always something that's going to come up one

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Speaker 2: way or another in the topics we cover on Stuff

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Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: But now, Rob, didn't we begin this whole investigation because

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Speaker 3: you got interested in a dream related monster from Japanese folklore.

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Speaker 2: That's right, a particular monster that we will be covering

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Speaker 2: in this episode, but it kind of served as the

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Speaker 2: white Rabbit that we pursued and ended up doing three

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Speaker 2: additional episodes, not directly related to it or even its

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Speaker 2: direct dream culture. It is the creature we're going to

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Speaker 2: be talking about, a largely a creature of Japanese dream culture,

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Speaker 2: and so you know, I think it was necessary to

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Speaker 2: talk about much of what we talked about in the

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Speaker 2: previous three episodes to fully appreciate it. But we are

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Speaker 2: going to have to also discuss Japanese dream culture itself

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Speaker 2: before discussing this curious creature.

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Speaker 3: Right. So, as background, I was looking for a paper

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Speaker 3: on how dreams have been viewed in Japanese culture across history,

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Speaker 3: and I came across one published in the Journal of

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Speaker 3: Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences in nineteen ninety five by Shoozo

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Speaker 3: Koyama called Japanese Dreams, Culture and Cosmology. So this is

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Speaker 3: a short article by a researcher named Shooso Koyama, who

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Speaker 3: at the time of the publication worked at the Japanese

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Speaker 3: National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka. Now, of course, the

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Speaker 3: way dreams are perceived in Japan across times seems in

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Speaker 3: broad regard to mirror patterns we've seen in other cultures,

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Speaker 3: where there are some people sometimes who regard them more

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Speaker 3: as private internal phenomena with no informational relevance to the

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Speaker 3: external world or no special power. It's not like a

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Speaker 3: place you go, whereas others see them as having a

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Speaker 3: kind of magic or predictive power, or involving genuine interactions

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Speaker 3: with spiritual beings. Both good and bad. But what this

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Speaker 3: paper does is look at a series of historical periods

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Speaker 3: in Japan and try to make a few generalizations about

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Speaker 3: trends in how dreams were perceived and written about in

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Speaker 3: those periods relative to the other periods. So the author

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Speaker 3: begins by looking at the Joman period, which is about

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Speaker 3: ten thousand BCE until about five hundred BCE. This is

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Speaker 3: a time when Japan was occupied by hunter gatherers who

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Speaker 3: lived in small societies. We've talked about the German culture before,

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Speaker 3: especially with regards to their fabrication of clay pots. I

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Speaker 3: think we talked about this in our episode on the Cauldron,

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Speaker 3: and some evidence in early German culture of transitioning from

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Speaker 3: a hunter gatherer lifestyle to a more settled lifestyle, staying

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Speaker 3: in one place. More so, in this period, there are

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Speaker 3: no written records, so it is difficult to have much

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Speaker 3: certainty about the beliefs and psychology of people at the time. However,

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Speaker 3: we can make some guesses based on iconography preserved in

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Speaker 3: artifacts of this culture. So the German people did make

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Speaker 3: figurines out of clay and stone, representing both human and

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Speaker 3: animal forms. The human forms are very often female, often

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Speaker 3: depicted with exaggerated breasts, stomachs, and buttocks, with their faces

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Speaker 3: hidden behind masks. These are sometimes interpreted as goddesses or

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Speaker 3: figures of fertility, or as substitute human beings who are

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Speaker 3: given up as offerings to the gods, and you'll find

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Speaker 3: them in different kinds of archaeological settings, may be left

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Speaker 3: alone in an abandoned dwelling or deposited in a hole

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Speaker 3: in the ground. As for animal forms, one of the

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Speaker 3: most common is apparently the snake. Snake designs are found

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Speaker 3: on many German vessels, and early snake motifs seem to

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Speaker 3: transition into more abstract forms like spirals or waves in

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Speaker 3: later designs. Late German figurines also depict bears and wild boars,

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Speaker 3: but humans and snakes are especially common. This, according to

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Speaker 3: the author, connects to the role of snakes in Japanese mythology.

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Speaker 3: There is a very prominent story where a prince kills

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Speaker 3: or subdues a snake spirit and this act leads to

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Speaker 3: the creation of Japan, and there are also folk tales

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Speaker 3: of snakes that transform into or appear as people. For example,

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Speaker 3: a snake that transforms into a man in order to

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Speaker 3: father children with a human woman, or a man that

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Speaker 3: visits a beautiful woman only to discover that she is

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Speaker 3: actually a snake in disguise, or has a snake spirit

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Speaker 3: revealed and he runs away in terror. Now, to be

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Speaker 3: very clear, there is no proof that any of this

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Speaker 3: imagery comes from dreams, but in this period, because there

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Speaker 3: are no written records of dreams, all you can really

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Speaker 3: do is look at the imagery to try to get

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Speaker 3: a best guess about what kinds of non realistic subject

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Speaker 3: matter preoccupied the early inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago now Koyaman.

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Speaker 3: This article uses the stories of humans with underlying snake

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Speaker 3: spirits to argue that early Japanese culture is infused with animism.

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Speaker 3: Though here I think the author defines animism maybe a

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Speaker 3: little bit differently than I'm used to or than I've

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Speaker 3: seen in some other scholarships. So in this paper, animism

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Speaker 3: is defined as the belief that living beings are composed

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Speaker 3: of two substances, spirit and body, that spirit is intangible

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Speaker 3: and eternal, and that body is visible and tangible but temporal.

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Speaker 3: And of course I'm no expert on the study of religions,

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Speaker 3: but I think think usually or at least more often

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Speaker 3: animism is taken to me in a belief system that

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Speaker 3: you find all around the world, which assumes that not

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Speaker 3: only people, but potentially all things have a sort of

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Speaker 3: soul or spirit or agency. And this can include animals,

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Speaker 3: of course, but also plants, geological features like mountains and rivers,

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Speaker 3: just generally places, weather patterns, even human artifacts or abstract concepts,

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Speaker 3: and in a sense these all can have a spirit,

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Speaker 3: a soul, or a life force with agency, desires, and

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Speaker 3: other qualities of mind. One particular thing that's different here

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Speaker 3: is that I understand animism to notably make little or

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Speaker 3: no distinction between spiritual causes and material causes, whereas this

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Speaker 3: definition of animism, I think, would emphasize exactly that difference.

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Speaker 3: But I don't want to get two sidetracked here. Koyama

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Speaker 3: basically is asserting that that ancient Japanese art and stories

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Speaker 3: point toward a belief dividing the world into a material

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Speaker 3: reality and a spiritual reality that are separate. Now here

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Speaker 3: you go to phase two. This period begins five hundred

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Speaker 3: BCE and goes until roughly the fifth century CE. The

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Speaker 3: historical context is that Koyama says this is when Paddy

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Speaker 3: Ricefield cultivation begins in Japan, probably introduced from practices in

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Speaker 3: China through Korea. Some Chinese documents from this time imply

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Speaker 3: that Japan was probably a large and complex enough society

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Speaker 3: that there were different tribal territories. This is indicated by

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Speaker 3: references to conflicts between them, and during this time there

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Speaker 3: was an influx of new peoples moving in from outside Japan,

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Speaker 3: introducing new cultural elements. There was still plenty of figurative

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Speaker 3: art from this period. Some German conventions continued, and you

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Speaker 3: had depictions of human figures and daily activities. You would

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Speaker 3: find figures depicted hunting, harvesting crops, or seafaring. A lot

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Speaker 3: of animal representations as well, including figurines of birds and dragons,

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Speaker 3: which are not really present in Phase one. Koyama says,

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Speaker 3: it's notable that both of these creatures that show up

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Speaker 3: here can fly, and then writes quote. This coincides with

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Speaker 3: the fact that newcomers believed they were the descendants of

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Speaker 3: celestial gods, while indigenous groups were called offspring of gods

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Speaker 3: of the land in mythology. As a symbol of the sun,

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Speaker 3: mirrors were used by newcomers. A quantity of Chinese bronze

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Speaker 3: mirrors have been excavated from large scale tombs, apparently very

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Speaker 3: important artifacts. Decoration on the backs of some mirrors depict

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Speaker 3: a Taoist cosmology, and it's in this period that we

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Speaker 3: have the first references to dreaming in Japanese culture in

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Speaker 3: written records. There's a collection of Chinese historical texts known

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Speaker 3: as the Way Dynasty Chronicle, which these texts claim that

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Speaker 3: the Queen of Japan, in Coyama's words quote, governed her

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Speaker 3: nation by shamanism, though I'm not quite sure what that means.

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Speaker 3: So there is a collection of Chinese historical texts known

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Speaker 3: as the Way Dynasty chron and these texts make reference

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Speaker 3: to the Queen of Japan, and Koyama says that they

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Speaker 3: claimed that she governed her nation by shamanism. During this time,

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Speaker 3: there was use of oracle bones to tell the future

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Speaker 3: in Japan. Excavated artifacts demonstrate this, so there was a

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Speaker 3: form of There were forms of divination in practice, and dreams,

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Speaker 3: as we know, are very often in basically all cultures,

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Speaker 3: at some points used for divination to try to get

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Speaker 3: access to future information or secret information. There is an

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Speaker 3: eighth century Japanese text tradition known as the Kojiki, which

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Speaker 3: contains a bunch of myths, legends, and alleged historical accounts

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Speaker 3: of Japan up to the seventh century, and it claims

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Speaker 3: that during this period, dreaming was used to decide important

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Speaker 3: matters of state. And so I'm going to read a

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Speaker 3: quote from Koyami here, but it makes reference to an

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Speaker 3: emperor Sujin. Sujin was a Japanese emperor, often known as

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Speaker 3: one of these so called legends and dairy emperors. Though

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Speaker 3: I've read that some think he maybe or probably did

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Speaker 3: exist in history, maybe reigning during the first century BCE

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Speaker 3: or sometime around then. But what we know about him

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Speaker 3: is enmeshed in a lot of legends, so I think

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Speaker 3: it's hard to say a lot for certain if he

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Speaker 3: did exist. But anyway, the chronicle says Emperor Seugen quote

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Speaker 3: had a sacred bed made so that he could dream

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Speaker 3: in order to make a decision in a crisis, for example,

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Speaker 3: to stamp out epidemics or to nominate the heir to

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Speaker 3: the throne. He often listened to the dreams of his

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Speaker 3: subjects in order to make national policy. It is clear

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Speaker 3: that during this phase people still believed in the supernatural

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Speaker 3: world and dreaming was considered a domain where qualified persons

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Speaker 3: communicated with powerful spirits. So this mimics beliefs about dreams.

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Speaker 3: We've seen from elsewhere that dreams could be used for divination,

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Speaker 3: that they could help you predict the future, or they

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Speaker 3: could give you advice. Maybe you would be getting advice

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Speaker 3: directly from some kind of spiritual entities who had privileged knowledge,

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Speaker 3: and that in some cases there were specially qualified people

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Speaker 3: who could communicate with these entities in dreams.

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Speaker 2: I love this detail that the emperor had a sacred

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Speaker 2: dreaming bed. That's that's that's wonderful. This idea that a

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Speaker 2: night's sleep needs to be special. Tonight's sleep is just

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Speaker 2: about a vital dream that will help lead the way.

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Speaker 3: I think you could consider this a form of intentional

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Speaker 3: dream incubation. That you know that we see this in

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Speaker 3: other cultures, like in ancient Greco Roman culture, there would

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Speaker 3: be temples where you could go and sleep in the

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Speaker 3: temple in like a special place in order to receive

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Speaker 3: a dream from the god. I guess after you made

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Speaker 3: an offering to the god because you slept in the temple,

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Speaker 3: the dream would be from that God giving you advice

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Speaker 3: about what to do in order to solve your problem.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: After this, Koyama goes to Phase three, which is beginning

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Speaker 3: in the fifth century and going into the ninth. This

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Speaker 3: was a time when Japan was established as a state

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Speaker 3: and interacted politically with other states in East Asia koamas As.

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Speaker 3: There were strong Chinese influences in Japan at this time,

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Speaker 3: including Chinese law codes, as well as the spread of

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Speaker 3: philosophies and religions that were either Chinese in origin or

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Speaker 3: popular in China already, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Now,

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Speaker 3: as we've discussed before, I think this came up in

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Speaker 3: talking about that book by Lynn Struve. Confucianism sometimes is

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Speaker 3: taken to militate against supernatural or so called irrational interpretations

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Speaker 3: of dreams. I've read elsewhere. I think that that Confucian

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Speaker 3: thinkers were sort of often not on board with the

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Speaker 3: idea of dream divination, while Taoism, on the other hand,

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Speaker 3: does sort of allow for fortune telling and omens.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my understanding that sort of three different schools

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Speaker 2: here are in play, but those are sort of the

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Speaker 2: the major like push and pull between Confusism and Dallism

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Speaker 2: concerning dreams.

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Speaker 3: From this period, Koyama mentions a Buddhist temple coming back

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Speaker 3: to the special dream bed, mentions a Buddhist temple called

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Speaker 3: the Horyuji, which was built in the early seventh century

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Speaker 3: by a prince named Shotoku, and allegedly the prince would

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Speaker 3: lock himself inside this temple for days at a time

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Speaker 3: to receive inspiration, and one of the names of this

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Speaker 3: building translates to dream hall. However, Koyama says that during

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Speaker 3: this period, the primary thing about dreams is that they

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Speaker 3: seem mostly kept private, maybe whether one believed in dreams

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Speaker 3: as divination or not.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so there wasn't as much in the way of

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Speaker 2: dream literature at the time.

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Speaker 3: But then we reach phase four, and it's when we

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Speaker 3: realize we are all just the dream of a giant

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Speaker 3: ant mound no sorry movie reference. Beginning in the ninth

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Speaker 3: century going on until the thirteenth there is this period

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Speaker 3: Koyama characterizes as the maturation of the political and economic

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Speaker 3: structure of Japan and the establishment of a court culture

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Speaker 3: that includes literature and other elite products. During this period,

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Speaker 3: there is a resurgence of interest in dreams as a

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Speaker 3: tool for seeing into the future. During this period, there

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Speaker 3: is a resurgence of interest in dreams as a tool

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Speaker 3: for seeing into the future. This comes in concert with

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Speaker 3: what seems to be a general resurgence of belief in,

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Speaker 3: or at least interest in supernatural beings and mechanisms like ghosts, demons, wraiths, omens,

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Speaker 3: and curses. And during this period Japanese Buddhism Koamas has

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Speaker 3: incorporated some Shinto elements, Shinto being sort of the native

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Speaker 3: belief system of Japan. Again to the special dream facilities

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Speaker 3: and dream beds, Quoyama writes, quote, some temples and shrines

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Speaker 3: had special compounds for dreaming. People rushed to such places

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Speaker 3: en mass and stayed until they had a good dream.

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Speaker 3: There were professional dream interpreters and dreamers by profession. Nightmares

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Speaker 3: and sleep disorders were commonplace during this period. However, it's

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Speaker 3: important to consider none of these generalizations totalizing, because there

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Speaker 3: are some counterexamples, like Koyama mentions a tenth century poetic

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Speaker 3: diary known as the Kageroniki, sometimes called The Gossamer Years

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Speaker 3: in English, in which the author at one point gets

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Speaker 3: a supernatural interpretation of a dream from a priest, and

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Speaker 3: she calls the priest's interpretation of the dream a stupid lie,

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Speaker 3: but the priest did try to give her the interpretation,

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Speaker 3: so it seems maybe that's normal for this period, but

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Speaker 3: the author's reaction suggests diversity of opinion on the power

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Speaker 3: of dreams among the elite. But overall, if Koyama is correct,

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Speaker 3: this is a period where belief in the power of

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Speaker 3: dreams flowers. Then there's phase five beginning in the thirteenth century,

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Speaker 3: the rise of the samurai class, and it's a sonociated

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Speaker 3: power system. Koyama describes them as, for the most part,

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Speaker 3: realistic and practical entrepreneurs coyamas as literature of this time

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Speaker 3: period shows on average a sort of turning away from

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Speaker 3: belief in the power of dreams as supernatural portents or realities,

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Speaker 3: at least certainly not as much as there was in

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Speaker 3: the phase before. And one example Koyama gives is a

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Speaker 3: Japanese epic known as the tai Haiki, or the Chronicle

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Speaker 3: of Great Peace. This is written sometime in the late

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Speaker 3: fourteenth century, and in part of this text there is

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Speaker 3: a warrior named Ayoto who quote refused to receive an

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Speaker 3: award after being told that his lord wanted to give

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Speaker 3: it because he dreamt of Aoto's distinguished service. He said,

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Speaker 3: I can't receive such an irrational award. I did nothing.

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Speaker 3: What will happen if he dreams another way? And then

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Speaker 3: Coyamas as quote for such people, the difference between dream

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Speaker 3: and reality was clearly distinct. And then finally Phase six

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Speaker 3: coam this is the nineteenth century onward. One of the

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Speaker 3: main changes is the influence of Euro American culture, and

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Speaker 3: Coyama says that on one hand, modern Japanese culture has

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Speaker 3: a predominantly rationalist and materialist view of nature, which relegates

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Speaker 3: streams to natural psychological phenomena with no predictive power or

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Speaker 3: reality of their own. On the other hand, he says,

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Speaker 3: millions still visit Shinto shrines and keep good luck charms

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Speaker 3: in their cars and so forth, and so in some ways,

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Speaker 3: elements of what the author refers to as animistic thinking,

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Speaker 3: which again seems to mean in this paper, the belief

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Speaker 3: in a spiritual dimension of reality that operates outside of

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Speaker 3: strict physical causality, can still be found peaking out through

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Speaker 3: the top layer of rationalism. Maybe people kind of shift

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Speaker 3: back and forth between these ways of seeing the world

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Speaker 3: depending on how they feel, though I would say I

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Speaker 3: don't think this would be at all unique to Japan.

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Speaker 3: It just seems to me this is sort of what

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Speaker 3: most people in all societies do.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, I feel like this comes up time and

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Speaker 2: time again, whether we're talking about say, you know, varying

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Speaker 2: at times contradictory beliefs about the afterlife and how you know,

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Speaker 2: you may think one way in the morning, one way

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Speaker 2: in the afternoon, or kind of two ways at once

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Speaker 2: without really putting a fine line on it. Likewise, I

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Speaker 2: remember when we looked at some research concerning belief in

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Speaker 2: modern China in the power of the zodiac concerning when

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Speaker 2: a child is born, and you know, as I remember,

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Speaker 2: part of that was it was not that you had

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Speaker 2: a large number of contemporary people who were super invested

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Speaker 2: in this, like the zodiac system and that belief system,

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Speaker 2: but they were just a little bit aware of it.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of like background superstitious belief that you may

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Speaker 2: dip into at times when it seems useful.

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Speaker 3: When it feels right, suddenly you'll play on that board.

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Speaker 3: But right maybe most the time you're not looking at it,

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Speaker 3: yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: Or you have a decision to make and you know,

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Speaker 2: you don't have any other factors to go on but

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Speaker 2: you do have this bit of you know, traditional lore

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Speaker 2: that is a steeped in superstition. You might turn to

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Speaker 2: that in those circumstances. And I think this also extends

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Speaker 2: to the use of amulets and you know, good luck

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Speaker 2: tokens and so forth, you know, because it's like, you

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Speaker 2: may not believe it completely, but hey, it doesn't take

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Speaker 2: a much room in the pocket or on the dash

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Speaker 2: of the car or what have you.

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Speaker 3: A person might say, I don't really believe it, but

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Speaker 3: it's kind of fun. But then once you have it,

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Speaker 3: you can kind of, I don't know, find yourself in

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Speaker 3: moments clutching at it. Yes, But you know, an interesting

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Speaker 3: thing that I think came up in part three of

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Speaker 3: the series is that whether you have a totally rationalistic

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Speaker 3: approach to dreams, you don't really, you know, give them

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Speaker 3: any any special power. You don't think they were reflect

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Speaker 3: a secret reality of spiritual entities interacting or giving you

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Speaker 3: information about the future how to live your life. Even then,

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Speaker 3: you still don't want to have nightmares. So people are

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Speaker 3: looking for ways to have good dreams, whether they think

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Speaker 3: dreams are supernatural experiences or not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like, all right, I wasn't listening

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Speaker 2: when you were talking about what this dream and what

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Speaker 2: this dream meant. But but you said something about stopping nightmares.

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Speaker 2: So let's get back to that, and that's ultimately where

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Speaker 2: we come to in discussing the monster. At long last,

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Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about the Baku. Now. I

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Speaker 2: encourage everyone to look up some illustrations of the Baku,

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Speaker 2: certainly the historical illustrations, but I also ran across a

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Speaker 2: number of like contemporary, you know, fan illustrations and so forth,

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Speaker 2: online illustrations, and many of those are also very impressive.

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Speaker 2: I found two major trends in the way that this

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Speaker 2: creature is depicted. One is kind of like the frightening

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Speaker 2: Avenger of Nightmares version of the Baku, and the other

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Speaker 2: is kind of like the I guess, the awe buddy

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Speaker 2: version of the Baku, where he just looks looks snugly.

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Speaker 3: The funny thing about the I totally agree, yeah you

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Speaker 3: have the scary Baku or the snugly Baku, is that

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Speaker 3: they both look very huggable, and somehow the scary Baku

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Speaker 3: is even more huggable than.

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Speaker 2: The two one. Yeah, yeah, I agree, yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 2: and yeah, no matter what, there may be some some

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Speaker 2: snuggling involved at the end of it. So the Baku,

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Speaker 2: I guess just a good place to start is with

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00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 2: sort of like general descriptions. I always go to Carol

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Speaker 2: Roses encyclopedias of monsters and fairies and so forth is

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Speaker 2: a good like sort of starting place. And in that

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Speaker 2: Rose describes the Baku as a benevolent, semi supernatural monster

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Speaker 2: with an appearance that is basically that of a giant taper,

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Speaker 2: but a creature that is also described as having the

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Speaker 2: body of a horse, the head of a lion, and

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Speaker 2: the legs and of a tiger. Note if you haven't

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00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:04,280
Speaker 2: seen an actual taper, a taper is of course a

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00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:08,200
Speaker 2: natural world organism. It does not look quite like this,

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Speaker 2: though it does look very unique. It is a notable creature.

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Speaker 2: I find that when I see one in a movie

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Speaker 2: or at a zoo or illustrations online, I can't help

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Speaker 2: but feel elated from having seen it.

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Speaker 3: To me, a taper or tapier, however, you say it

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Speaker 3: is the three way cross between a pig, a panda, bear,

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Speaker 3: and an elephant.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it depends where your starting point is,

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Speaker 2: but yeah, taper definitely feels more pig like, yeah, pig

378
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 2: and rhino based than anything more in the taper here

379
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 2: in a bit, but the baccu. The idea is that

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Speaker 2: humans may call on it in the early morning hours

381
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,880
Speaker 2: to devour a bad dream or nightmare that has plagued

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Speaker 2: their dream space, allowing them to forget and carry on

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Speaker 2: their day in peace, which is a worthy duty. And

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Speaker 2: I also find it interesting that, you know, this kind

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Speaker 2: of lines up with the way that that dreams and

386
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Speaker 2: especially bad dreams and nightmares kind of hit it. So

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Speaker 2: there's kind of like that period where we can easily

388
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Speaker 2: forget or easily remember. Like part of the principle of

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Speaker 2: dream journaling is, oh, you've got to write it down

390
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Speaker 2: before you forget it, And with nightmare sometimes that the

391
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Speaker 2: challenge is reversed. You've got to you've got to not

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Speaker 2: think about it before you remember it. You've got to

393
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Speaker 2: forget it before it sticks with you too long.

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Speaker 3: That's a good point. Yes, if it was really scary,

395
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Speaker 3: you'll be thinking about it continuously after you wake up,

396
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 3: which actually cements it in memory.

397
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then there's something about writing it down or

398
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 2: telling somebody about the dream that certainly brings out the details.

399
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 2: Sometimes those details that aren't sticking with you, and then

400
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,439
Speaker 2: you start telling someone about the dream or nightmare and

401
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 2: more that comes to you. Now as a side here

402
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:53,440
Speaker 2: I was. I found it more than a little shocking

403
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 2: that the Baku is not listed in Borges The Book

404
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 2: of Imaginary Beings, which is another book I like to

405
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 2: refer to time and time again on the show, especially

406
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 2: given the author's interest in dreams and his reference to

407
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 2: various dream creatures in the book, like there are entries

408
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:11,640
Speaker 2: for like here's a creature that C. S. Lewis once

409
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 2: dreamed about, that sort of thing. I suppose he just

410
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 2: simply hadn't cross paths with mention of the Baku, otherwise

411
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:20,160
Speaker 2: he would have been all over it. Or perhaps he's

412
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 2: just not included there, and he's there's some poem or

413
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:26,159
Speaker 2: short story I haven't read by by Borges that refers

414
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 2: to the Baku.

415
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Speaker 3: So I was reading about the Baku in an excellent

416
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Speaker 3: book on my shelf on Japanese monsters called The Book

417
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 3: of Yokai, which is by an Indiana University folklore scholar

418
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 3: named Michael Dylan Foster. I've mentioned this book on the

419
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Speaker 3: show before. So according to Foster, the baku is a

420
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 3: is a friendly yokaia a benevolent yokai. Many yokaia are

421
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 3: not so friendly, but this one is thought to have

422
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 3: the power to eat nightmares, but it was not always

423
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 3: understood this way. Stories of this creature originated in China,

424
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 3: going at least as far back as a poetry collection

425
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Speaker 3: from the year eight thirty four by the Tang dynasty

426
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Speaker 3: poet by Juye, who lived seven seventy two to eight

427
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Speaker 3: forty six. And according to this text, the baku has

428
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 3: nose of an elephant, eyes of a rhinoceros, tail of

429
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 3: an ox, and legs of a tiger.

430
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 2: It would not be incorrect to say that this monster

431
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 2: kind of looks like Snuffleopagus, the imaginary friend of Big

432
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 2: Bird from Sesame Street.

433
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,200
Speaker 3: That's right. But Rob, if you were having nightmares, would

434
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 3: you consider a possible remedy of this being to skin

435
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 3: snuffle Upagus. This text says, if you lay out the

436
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 3: skin when you sleep, you can avoid epidemics, and by

437
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 3: drawing an image of the baku you can avoid misfortune.

438
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 3: People with chronic headaches can protect their heads by using

439
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 3: a screen with an image of the baku when they

440
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 3: go to sleep. So in this ninth century Chinese text,

441
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 3: the baku is not yet an eater of bad dreams,

442
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 3: but I think you can kind of see how you

443
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:09,399
Speaker 3: would get there. So its skin or its image offers

444
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 3: general protection from sickness, from bad fortune, and from headaches

445
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 3: or chronic pain. However, the protection is enacted by placing

446
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 3: either a piece of or an image of the baku

447
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 3: around you while you sleep, So sleep is originally part

448
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 3: of the protective mechanism, not the thing that is being protected,

449
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 3: though again you can imagine how that transition would occur.

450
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,360
Speaker 3: By the Edo period in the beginning of the seventeenth century,

451
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,360
Speaker 3: the baku had come to be seen in Japan as

452
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 3: an eater of nightmares, protecting the week when they were

453
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 3: in the vulnerable position of sleep, and this usually worked

454
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 3: by placing a picture of the baku near the pillow,

455
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 3: or sometimes people just had a baku shaped pillow. Now

456
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 3: you're talking, Do you have a baku pillow?

457
00:26:57,760 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 2: No? But I love the idea of it.

458
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, get one. This would allow you to literally hug

459
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 3: the baku, Foster says. In a text called the Three Realms,

460
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 3: there is reference to the baku which includes the details

461
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 3: that the baku has really strong bones and teeth and

462
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 3: it's quote it's urine can melt iron and turn it

463
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 3: into water. What what is that used for? Enemy of magneto?

464
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess a lot of this comes down to,

465
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,439
Speaker 2: like the fact that we'll come back to it later on,

466
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 2: is that you know, there is a tradition in multiple cultures.

467
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 2: Really that's it's not only what the animal is, but

468
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 2: what can the animal be used for? What are it's

469
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 2: various medicinal properties, et cetera. And sometimes this can skew,

470
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 2: This can skew into areas that are maybe a little

471
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,360
Speaker 2: less realistic and more based in magic or some sort

472
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 2: of or maybe something that doesn't translate as well across

473
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 2: the centuries.

474
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, now there are I know you're going to get

475
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 3: into this in a minute, so I guess we mostly

476
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 3: save it for there. But Foster raises the question about

477
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,199
Speaker 3: whether the Baku of folklore is based on the taper

478
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 3: or not. Basically, there is some question about whether it

479
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 3: is or not. Some scholars say yes, some say no. Yeah.

480
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 2: The thing that that's notable about the taper is, of

481
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 2: course that there are are four species of taper in

482
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 2: the world today.

483
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: Uh.

484
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 2: Three of them are native to Central and South America,

485
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 2: and then you have the Malayan taper, which is found

486
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 2: in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand.

487
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 3: Notably none of those places are Japan, right, so.

488
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 2: There would there would have to be some degree of

489
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 2: this game of telephone concerning the form, function, and likeness

490
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 2: of of the particular animal in question, as you see

491
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 2: with other animals where we've we've talked about in the

492
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 2: show plenty of times before and we will continue to

493
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: do so. I mean, it's one of the most fascinating

494
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 2: things in the history of naturalistic art and imaginative art,

495
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 2: you know, taking this form and then seeing what happens

496
00:28:57,880 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 2: to it when you start talking about it and then

497
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 2: depict it, you know, not even halfway around the world,

498
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 2: but just you know, a good distance away from it.

499
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 3: Yes, and this feeds into one of the final observations

500
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 3: that Foster makes, which I think is very interesting. So

501
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 3: Foster again makes reference to the fact that the baku

502
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 3: is described as having like, you know, legs of a

503
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 3: tiger tail of an ox, so it is a hybrid

504
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 3: of many different animal parts, and Foster says this is

505
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 3: typical of how lots of yokai are described, and in

506
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 3: a way This allows them to exist in between the

507
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 3: realms of real and imaginary, because all of the parts

508
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 3: are real, but their combination is imaginary. But there's another

509
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,479
Speaker 3: interesting wrinkle here when it comes to pre modern Japan.

510
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 3: Foster writes quote to people living in Japan during the

511
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 3: Edo period or earlier, the very parts from which the

512
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 3: creature was constructed were as strange and foreign as their

513
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 3: unnatural combination. Elephants, rhinoceroses, and tigers were not native to Japan.

514
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 3: Average Japanese person during this time would have seen one

515
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 3: only in illustrations and books, if at all, the same

516
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 3: places that might also have images of the baku. That is,

517
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 3: a baku was presumably no more mysterious and also no

518
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 3: less real than a rhinoceros. So it's an unreal combination

519
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 3: of real animal parts. But most of those real animal

520
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 3: parts are from animals that you never would have seen

521
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 3: in person.

522
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 2: Wow Wow, interesting. Now I found an interesting paper about

523
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 2: the baku or concerns the Baku that I'm going to

524
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 2: draw some info here from. A titled Cultural Note on

525
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 2: Dreaming and dream Study in the future. Release from Nightmare

526
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 2: and Development of Dream Control Technique by Today Ohri published

527
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 2: in Sleep and biological rhythms in two thousand and five. Now,

528
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 2: the author here points out something that they're pretty standar

529
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,480
Speaker 2: we've already touched on this already, that you know, nightmares

530
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 2: can be quite unpleasant. Obviously, they can disrupt your sleep,

531
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 2: and since they disrupted your sleep, they can disrupt your

532
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 2: waking life as well, both as a result of lost

533
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 2: sleep and the emotional and cognitive after effects of the

534
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 2: nature of nightmares, without even getting into again the more

535
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 2: extreme cases of parasomnia and night terrors and so forth. Additionally,

536
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 2: as Horry points out here, stress and trauma in the

537
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 2: waking world can only intensify bad dreams and nightmares. So

538
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 2: you know, there are a lot of reasons for the

539
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 2: content of your dreams, the contents of your nightmares, and

540
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 2: just nightmares in general to be just this added thing

541
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 2: that you would like very much to have removed. And

542
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 2: if given the choice, obviously, if we were to choose

543
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 2: between good dreams and bad dreams each night, we would

544
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,719
Speaker 2: choose the good dreams. But Horry writes that in the

545
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 2: ethnic groups and cultures examined in their research anyway, there

546
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 2: aren't really any person gribed methods to have a good dream.

547
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 2: Rather there are various rights in formulas to eliminate nightmares

548
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 2: or minimize their impact. I found that an interesting idea,

549
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 2: like it did remind me of something from my own childhood,

550
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 2: but I don't remember if it was something that I

551
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 2: saw on a TV show. I think it might have been,

552
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 2: or to what degree it was something that one of

553
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 2: my parents introduced to me. But there was this idea

554
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 2: of an imaginary dream machine that before you go to bed,

555
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 2: you like, you know, you think about this dream helmet

556
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 2: or whatever that you're putting on or some sort of

557
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 2: machine you're augmenting, and you tell it what you want

558
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 2: to dream that night, like you put in your order.

559
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 2: Which is a great idea, and you know, to some

560
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 2: degree if it actually worked to any degree, And I remember,

561
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 2: even as a kid, I found that it did not.

562
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 2: It had no impact on what I was going to dream,

563
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 2: and therefore I didn't stick with it because it obviously

564
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 2: didn't work. Like it you learn really quickly that dreams

565
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 2: are just going to do their own thing. And for

566
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 2: that reason, I don't think I ever really introduced it

567
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 2: to my own son, because I'm like, I'm not going

568
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 2: to tell you this. This doesn't work at.

569
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 3: All, I wonder if the effectiveness of it would be

570
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 3: kind of similar to what people do when they're trying

571
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 3: to practice lucid dreaming, where, for example, one thing people

572
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 3: do is like constantly making a habit of asking yourself

573
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 3: if you're dreaming right now, so that the habit will

574
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 3: resurface when you are dreaming. I wonder if that kind

575
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 3: of thing, Like, so, if you do the dream machine

576
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 3: often enough, it will maybe cause it to buy habit

577
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 3: come to mind during a dream and then you can remember, hey,

578
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 3: wait a minute, I was supposed to be programming this.

579
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess it could work if you were

580
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 2: the sort of kid that really stuck with it, you know.

581
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 2: But I guess I was the kind where there were

582
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: no immediate results and therefore I abandon it.

583
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 3: Good job quitting, I want.

584
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 2: Like I say, I feel that same way with lucid dreaming.

585
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 2: Like at times like this, I'm like, why haven't I

586
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 2: applied myself to lucid dreaming? Why am I dreams so

587
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 2: so so non lucid? But I don't know. There's just

588
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 2: there's enough to worry about without without really getting in

589
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 2: on the dreams.

590
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 3: You've got a waking life to live, so.

591
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:24,240
Speaker 2: Hoy divides this sort of nightmare inhibition into in technique

592
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 2: into two categories. Amulets are charms to eliminate nightmares, and

593
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 2: then development of techniques to take control of a dream

594
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 2: and push it in a positive direction. So a lucid

595
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,919
Speaker 2: dreaming approach to nightmares. And maybe that's the thing too,

596
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 2: Like maybe if I, if I on the whole suffered

597
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 2: from more nightmares or stress dreams or what have you,

598
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:45,839
Speaker 2: I would be more inclined to pursue lucid dreaming as

599
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 2: an escape m okay so. On the first note amulets,

600
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 2: Hori discusses two main varieties that are popular in contemporary Japan,

601
00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 2: and that is the baku, but then also the dream catcher.

602
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 2: This I was not expecting. The DreamCatcher is of course

603
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 2: not a Japanese cultural creation, but rather one that originates

604
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,839
Speaker 2: with the indigenous First Nations people of North America, particularly

605
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 2: parts of what is now Canada. The Ojibwa people are

606
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 2: often cited, though I think usage in production spreads with

607
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 2: sort of the Pan Indian movement of the sixties and seventies.

608
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 2: The basic principle of the DreamCatcher is that the night

609
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 2: air brings both good and bad dreams, and the DreamCatcher,

610
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 2: like a spider's web, catches the bad and allows the

611
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 2: good to prosper in the sleeper's mind. Now, I believe

612
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:40,439
Speaker 2: that the main usage was intended for infants. But now

613
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 2: in America dreamcatchers, you know, they're quite popular as a

614
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 2: native craft item. This happened, I think, originally in the

615
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties and spread from there, but Hore writes that

616
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 2: they became exceedingly popular in Japan following a popular year

617
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 2: two thousand TV mini series. I believe it's kind of

618
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 2: like a melodrama or romance sort of thing, Beautiful Life. Now,

619
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 2: I was not familiar with this of This is not

620
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 2: like a genre of Japanese pop culture that I generally

621
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 2: have any exposure to. You know, this is not a

622
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 2: monster movie or horror movie, sci fi, et cetera. This

623
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 2: is a broad appeal like big you know, TV production.

624
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 2: I looked it up though, and I saw that it

625
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 2: starred Takua Kimura. He's the actor who voiced Howel in

626
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 2: the original Japanese language version of Howe's Moving Castle. I

627
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:32,959
Speaker 2: looked at like some write ups of what the plot

628
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 2: is about, I saw nobody mentioned exactly where these dream

629
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 2: Catchers are used if they factor into the plot at all,

630
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,240
Speaker 2: or if they're just you know, in the background. But whatever,

631
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 2: it was really popular show and people saw it and

632
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 2: they're like, we want in on that, and dream catchers

633
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 2: became popular, though according to Hordri, it ended up focusing

634
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 2: more on young people rather than babies. Now, the baku,

635
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 2: on the other hand, as we've been discussing, is largely

636
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 2: rooted in Japanese traditions, and I guess to a certain extent,

637
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 2: kind of paves the way for this fascination with dream catchers.

638
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 2: Like there's already a you know, an appeal for some

639
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 2: sort of an amulet too to discourage nightmares and therefore

640
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:16,879
Speaker 2: encourage positive dreams, and so when one is introduced from

641
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 2: another culture, you can see why people might gravitate towards it. Now,

642
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 2: as we've been discussing, primarily it's impossible to escape the

643
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 2: taper when it comes to understanding what the baku is like.

644
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 2: By most accounts, like this sounds like a taper. We

645
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 2: see depictions of it. It looks mostly like some you know,

646
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 2: exaggeration or telephone game of the taper. But you also

647
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 2: find discussions on the possibility that it might have originally,

648
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 2: and it's Chinese origins, which you already alluded to here,

649
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 2: it might have originally been something like a giant panda.

650
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 2: Now Hori does not himself, does not really go into this,

651
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 2: but but notes that the baku was of course a

652
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 2: charm animal in China, going back to you know, seventeenth

653
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 2: century writings, and perhaps it is already sometimes depicted as

654
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 2: a paper here, though it may not have actually been

655
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 2: associated with dream eating. Like we said, you get back

656
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 2: into the origins of the baku and you get further

657
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 2: away from the idea of consuming nightmares.

658
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems to be a later development.

659
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 2: Now, an interesting note though about the panda here. At

660
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 2: this point I looked at a book by Burned Brunner

661
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,240
Speaker 2: titled Bears a Brief History, and the author here points

662
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 2: out that despite the fact that the panda now stands

663
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 2: as kind of a quintessential Shinese animal, you know, we

664
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 2: think about it as such in modern times, there are

665
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 2: few ancient writings about them, and the writings that may

666
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 2: be about them are difficult to nail down because of

667
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 2: just how vague they are. An early possible account from

668
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 2: the Chin Dynasty third century BCE might be about a

669
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 2: white fox, or some people think, well, maybe it's a panda.

670
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 2: There's an even older mention that could allude to a panda,

671
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 2: but also could be a leopard or a so it

672
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 2: gets again exceptionally vague and therefore difficult to say whether

673
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 2: we're actually talking about a panda or not. For instance,

674
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 2: there are discussions later on in Chinese writings about white bears,

675
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 2: but it seems as likely, if not more likely, that

676
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:24,360
Speaker 2: they're actually talking about polar bears encountered by northern travelers

677
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 2: and word having spread about them. And then there are

678
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 2: additional possibilities that there are other bears, like from India

679
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 2: that are being written about. So it's interesting to consider

680
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:38,240
Speaker 2: that the panda is also underrepresented in traditional Chinese medicine

681
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 2: compared to other animals, again getting back to like, okay,

682
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 2: what is the animal and then what can be broken

683
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 2: down about it to benefit humans. Some have interpreted this

684
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 2: fact as being due to the animal having a sacred status,

685
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 2: but the author in this case questions that, pointing out

686
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 2: that well, you know, it really did not have a

687
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 2: role in Chinese lore to suggest sacred production, like it's

688
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 2: you know, it seems to be barely mentioned and if

689
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 2: it is mentioned, it's mentioned only vaguely, So that's interesting.

690
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 2: I feel like I need to look into that more

691
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 2: in the future. So it seems like, based on what

692
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:17,839
Speaker 2: I've been reading that the idea that the baku might

693
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 2: have originally been a panda possible, But it doesn't seem

694
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:23,719
Speaker 2: extremely like. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of

695
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 2: like firm evidence for that. Okay, but according I believe

696
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 2: according to horri here though, there you know, as it

697
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 2: undergoes exaggeration and transfer into Japanese usage, the proper baku,

698
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 2: you know that the nose of the what is probably

699
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 2: a taper becomes an elephant, the eyes become those of

700
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 2: a rhino, the tail of a cow, legs of a tiger,

701
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 2: hair of a lion. It gets spots whereas it didn't

702
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 2: have spots before. And the creature's diet is said to

703
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 2: consist of strange things like iron and copper and sometimes bamboo,

704
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 2: which certainly, you know, made me think again about the panda.

705
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 2: But I don't know, it does seem like strong enough

706
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 2: evidence to really start forcing the panda into the conversation

707
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 2: more than's necessary.

708
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 3: This doesn't really have any relation to the baku. But

709
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:10,920
Speaker 3: I just have to say, on a recent trip to

710
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 3: the zoo where we were watching the Atlanta Zoo, where

711
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 3: we were watching the panda enclosure, we saw the feeding

712
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 3: happen where they were throwing new branches of bamboo down

713
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,359
Speaker 3: to the pandas so they could eat them, and one

714
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 3: of the pandas literally just collapsed into a pile of

715
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 3: bamboo branches or unleashing a mighty crashing sound. If it's

716
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 3: literally just like rolling in its food, very fun. They

717
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 3: love it.

718
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 2: I guess one of the reasons I keep wanting to

719
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 2: think about the panda in this role is that you

720
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 2: can imagine the image, especially our modern understanding of the panda,

721
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,320
Speaker 2: lines up with the way we may think about the taper,

722
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,360
Speaker 2: and you can imagine a panda having this kind of

723
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 2: status and roll in one superstitious understanding of dreams. But

724
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 2: I don't know how that really would rack up and

725
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 2: compare with historic understandings of pandas in China, especially considering

726
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 2: wild pandas, But hard to say for sure. So Horri

727
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 2: writes that we don't know when the baku ultimately crosses

728
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,719
Speaker 2: the sea into Japanese traditions, but that screen illustrations from

729
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 2: the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries depict the creature. It becomes

730
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 2: very popular with the common people during the Edope era,

731
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:27,919
Speaker 2: I believe, as you alluded to earlier. Horry points out

732
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 2: that during the seventh through eighth centuries, a sacred animal

733
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 2: called the hockey was associated with nightmare consumption, and that

734
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 2: you still see some of this reflected. This was originally

735
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 2: an imperial court practice, but you see some of it

736
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 2: reflected in the setsubun ceremony that still practice today. We

737
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:50,240
Speaker 2: discussed this in our bean episode about like pelting one

738
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 2: or demons with beans in order to drive them out

739
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 2: of say a school or what have you. The baku, however,

740
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 2: seems to sort of take on this sacred role and

741
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 2: replaces the hockey when it enters Japanese traditions. So this

742
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 2: seems like a possible way of looking at the evolution

743
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 2: of this monster. Like you already have perhaps a role

744
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 2: for some sort of dream eating creature, even if it's

745
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 2: not fully developed, and then here comes this new sort

746
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 2: of sacred creature that is associated with protective qualities, and

747
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 2: maybe these two kind of get wrapped into one. You know,

748
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 2: this is a common thing you see with traditions of

749
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:28,320
Speaker 2: magical creatures, you know, they don't they're morphous. Over time,

750
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 2: they change shapes, they converge with other creatures, and sometimes

751
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 2: they separate as well.

752
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 3: At the danger of steamrolling over nuance and how folklore evolves,

753
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 3: I really do wonder if the fact that the baku

754
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 3: is cute played a role in it's uh in a

755
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 3: role and it's evolving to fill this niche of protecting

756
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 3: children's dreams.

757
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's a there's certainly a larger discussion

758
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 2: to be had there concerning not only the universal appeal

759
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 2: of cute, but also obviously cute has a tremendous history

760
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:04,359
Speaker 2: in Japanese culture as well. So already shares that old

761
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 2: baku amulets show things like a ship filled with rice

762
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:12,359
Speaker 2: or just characters representing baku. And this was from when

763
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 2: it was a higher class affair for the emperor in

764
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 2: his circle, and a ritual of sleeping with it on

765
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,359
Speaker 2: or under your pillow, and this was something that would

766
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: be carried out once a year to clear out the

767
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 2: past year's bad dreams, which I thought was interesting. It

768
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily a situation of like I had a bad dream,

769
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 2: I need to fix this, or I might have a

770
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 2: bad dream tonight I need to fix it. It's more

771
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 2: like market on the calendar. It's time to clear out

772
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 2: all those bad dreams. All the past year's bad dreams

773
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 2: are gone.

774
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 3: It's like a nightmare leaves a stench that's sort of

775
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,280
Speaker 3: hanging in the air, and you bring in the Baku

776
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 3: to like waft it all out.

777
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, the boat that is depicted on these ambulance apparently

778
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 2: the ideas the boat becomes loaded with these bad dreams

779
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 2: again that have been accumulated over the course of a

780
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 2: year whole you know, boatload of them literally or symbolically.

781
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 2: It tends how you look at it. I guess anyway,

782
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,400
Speaker 2: they're loaded up on this boat, and then the boat

783
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 2: goes out, sails out into the waters of purification. That's

784
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: essentially dumping them.

785
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 3: I guess.

786
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 2: You know. As time goes by, these depictions show more

787
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 2: treasure aboard the Baku ship, and in time, you know,

788
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 2: the common people adopted ritual as well. Hoy writes that

789
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 2: it eventually loses the association with nightmare purification to a

790
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 2: large degree and becomes kind of more of a mascot

791
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 2: of happiness and kind of a good luck token as well.

792
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 2: So it's interesting how you know, we see the just

793
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 2: as we see the rise and fall of dream emphasis

794
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 2: within a given culture, you could also see that associated

795
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 2: with particular practices, amulets and mythical creatures. By the way,

796
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 2: in this paper there there's at least one really interesting

797
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:54,960
Speaker 2: thing that Horry brings up that's not Baku related at all,

798
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 2: concerning dreaming manipulation superstitions in Japan. But they do mention

799
00:45:59,880 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 2: that there is this pre modern practice where it is

800
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 2: said that if you want to see your loved ones

801
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,839
Speaker 2: in your dreams, and I think this may relate more

802
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 2: to loved ones who are deceased, you could wear your

803
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 2: clothing inside out when you go to sleep, and that

804
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 2: would help manipulate the nature of your dreams.

805
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 3: Any insight into the magical logic there.

806
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 2: It reminds me of things in general that we've touched on.

807
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 2: It reminds me of things in Russian folklore that we've

808
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 2: talked about before, you know, the idea of wearing clothes

809
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:36,919
Speaker 2: backwards or doing something interesting with the buttons, Like there's

810
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 2: something about manipulating the order of things in the waking

811
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 2: world that can then have some sort of a relationship

812
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 2: on the supernatural world or in this case dreams.

813
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:52,320
Speaker 3: Wasn't it that by wearing clothes backward in the Russian

814
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 3: folklore you would like defend yourself against ghosts or monsters

815
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 3: or something.

816
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:00,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, or it concerned what was their name, the wild one,

817
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 2: the man in the woods?

818
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 3: Oh, the leshie.

819
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:06,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe it came up in the leshie.

820
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 3: That would lower people off the path.

821
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:12,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it's come up elsewhere as well,

822
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 2: maybe in I want to say, Irish folklore and superstition.

823
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's a motif you see pop

824
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:22,439
Speaker 2: up here and there, you know, this idea that there

825
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,839
Speaker 2: if something's out of line with your clothing, there's some

826
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 2: potential slip into the other world.

827
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 3: I guess.

828
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 2: One of the interesting things about this to me is

829
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 2: that it's not just necessarily about good versus bad dreams.

830
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 2: But in this we're getting in the depiction into the

831
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 2: distinction between dreams that are just you know, clutter, you

832
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 2: know that that you don't want, and having a dream

833
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,720
Speaker 2: that has some connection to a realm beyond the waking

834
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:50,719
Speaker 2: world in this case, like the realm of the dead,

835
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 2: the realm of past lives, and so forth.

836
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. So I could see like wearing your

837
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 3: clothes inside out might somehow grant you access, but that

838
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 3: does seems somehow different because again, if well maybe I'm

839
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 3: not even remembering this right, but if I am remembering

840
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 3: it right, with the Russian thing, it was like that

841
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 3: wearing the closed backwards would somehow protect you. That's almost

842
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 3: like that would keep you more grounded to reality or

843
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 3: maybe prevent these creatures from recognizing you or something. I

844
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 3: don't know.

845
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like somehow messes with how this world interacts

846
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 2: or touches with the other world or creatures of that

847
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 2: other world. So we've covered some key dream cultures here

848
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,359
Speaker 2: from particular periods in these episodes, but there's so much

849
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 2: we didn't get into. Like you just in passing horror

850
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 2: mentions that there's a strong Malaysian tradition of dream control,

851
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 2: and I didn't have time to follow up on that

852
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 2: and see what that might consist of. But it would

853
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 2: be interesting to hear from listeners out there if you

854
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 2: know of any other great examples of some sort of

855
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:56,760
Speaker 2: robust or even just very slight seeming method of changing

856
00:48:57,160 --> 00:49:00,360
Speaker 2: or altering or controlling the flow of dream, be it

857
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 2: related to an amulet or a childhood you know, nursery,

858
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 2: rhyme or story. We'd be very interested to hear about

859
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 2: that totally.

860
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 3: Does your culture have something like a baku you want

861
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 3: to tell us about.

862
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 2: Or do you have just additional tales of the baku?

863
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 3: Did you have a baku pillow?

864
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 2: I did a quick search for baku pillows and I

865
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:19,560
Speaker 2: could not find one that is shaped like a baku.

866
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 2: But I did see one on a popular online retailer

867
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:26,319
Speaker 2: that it does have a depiction of a baku on it,

868
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 2: and it looks very nice. But of course we know that.

869
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:31,759
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like you would also have to

870
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 2: be really comfortable for my purposes, like I need a

871
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 2: very specific pillow if I'm going to have if I'm

872
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 2: hoping to have decent dreams.

873
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 3: I don't think I ever had a pillow with representative

874
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 3: art on it. I think I've had boring pillows my

875
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 3: whole life. Never had like a spider Man pillow or anything.

876
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 2: I never did. But my son has gone to I

877
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 2: don't know, at school or camps, they sometimes make pillow cases.

878
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 2: So he had one that was decorated with with pokemon

879
00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 2: not too long ago that he'd made himself, so you know,

880
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:03,240
Speaker 2: you can always make your own baku pillow for sure.

881
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 3: Do the Pokemon protect him from bad dreams?

882
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe, I mean one does wonder at

883
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 2: times if you're if you're obsessing about something and you

884
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 2: have that kind of like childhood obsession level for it,

885
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 2: if you can control the nature of your dreams in

886
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:21,359
Speaker 2: that way. Because my son is always talking about how

887
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: like he's obsessed with them with Zelda right now, and

888
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 2: so he'll he'll have dreams about playing Zelda and about

889
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 2: or about the world of Zelda, which is great. And

890
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 2: at times I'm like, I was, like, I wonder, like

891
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 2: what some of the differences are between the adult mind

892
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 2: and the childhood mind, because there are plenty of things

893
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:41,799
Speaker 2: that I get obsessed about that are, you know, a

894
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 2: wonderful distraction from the real world, but I end up

895
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 2: not dreaming about them, or at least I don't remember

896
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:50,880
Speaker 2: those dreams. I have dreams about other things that don't

897
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 2: make any sense, or things that aren't like key to

898
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,400
Speaker 2: to you know, central to my interests or even my

899
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 2: my anxieties, at least not on a you know, on

900
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 2: a really obvious level.

901
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 3: Ye know, I'm gonna say, my gut instinct about this.

902
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 3: So I'm not speaking for any science I've read or anything,

903
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 3: but my suspicion is that you are much more likely

904
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 3: to dream about an obsession if that obsession has a

905
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 3: spatial component. So video games are very much something you

906
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 3: could dream about because they, I mean typically they have

907
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 3: a simulated environment with spatial dimensions that you explore. Similarly,

908
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 3: I think people have a lot of dreams when they're

909
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 3: obsessed with, like houses or something like that. That kind

910
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 3: of content seems especially prone to turning up in the

911
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 3: dream world.

912
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:44,320
Speaker 2: But then like movies we watch for the podcast, subjects

913
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 2: we research for the podcast nothing.

914
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if those have as much of

915
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 3: a spatial component. I mean, like a movie is shot

916
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:53,880
Speaker 3: within spaces, but you don't really imagine inhabiting those spaces

917
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 3: moving through them.

918
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 2: Interesting. Well, you know, I'd love to hear what everyone

919
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 2: else has to say about this. You know, we all

920
00:52:01,040 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 2: have different sorts of dreams. Are they're different? It's kind

921
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,280
Speaker 2: of a question, b is you know, are there particular

922
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 2: things you do in the real world or obsess about

923
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 2: in the real world that seem to have more of

924
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 2: a guaranteed connection to the subject matter of your dreams?

925
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, how's my spatial hypothesis? Hold up? Blasted out of

926
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 3: the water.

927
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 2: Come on, all right, we're going to go and close

928
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:25,800
Speaker 2: it out there, but we'd love to hear from everyone

929
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:28,239
Speaker 2: out there. Our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your

930
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 2: Mind publish in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast

931
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 2: feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we also do a

932
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 2: listener mail episode on Mondays, so write in. That's where

933
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:39,759
Speaker 2: we'll discuss those messages. On Wednesdays we do a short

934
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:43,239
Speaker 2: form monster fact or artifact episode, and on Fridays we

935
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 2: set aside most serious concerns just talk about a weird

936
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:47,400
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.

937
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,319
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

938
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with

939
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:55,320
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

940
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

941
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 3: can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your Mind

942
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 3: dot com.

943
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

944
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:15,480
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

945
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:31,080
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