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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.

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Speaker 2: We've got a great couple hours coming up for you.

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Speaker 2: Austin lim PhD is a University of Chicago trained neuroscientists

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Speaker 2: and lecturing professor at De Paul University, where he teaches

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Speaker 2: a course that explores how science fiction authors have used

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Speaker 2: the very popular scientific advances of their time to inspire

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Speaker 2: their creative works. His work has appeared in Scientific American,

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Speaker 2: US News, and World Report. His book is called Horror

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Speaker 2: on the Brain. He's got a tour coming up. We'll

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Speaker 2: talk about that as well. Austin, Welcome to the program.

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Speaker 3: Hi George, thank you, thrilled to be here.

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Speaker 2: Looking forward to that. How in the world did you

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Speaker 2: tie in the brain, neuroscience and science fiction. How did

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Speaker 2: that all come together?

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Speaker 1: Well?

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Speaker 4: A lot of it's sort of from my personal background.

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Speaker 4: I've always enjoyed science fiction. I've really enjoyed horror and feeling,

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Speaker 4: you know, eerie and getting those the goosebumps. And I

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Speaker 4: just love October in general. It's a wonderful season. As

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Speaker 4: we start to think about Halloween, more and more and professionally.

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Speaker 4: I've always been thinking about how the brain works, and

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Speaker 4: I've always been curious about that, So it was just

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Speaker 4: kind of a natural mashup of my two worlds colliding.

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Speaker 2: October is one of my favorite months to us, and

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Speaker 2: I loved this season. The weather cools down. It's just perfect,

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Speaker 2: isn't that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been pretty warm on and off around here,

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Speaker 4: so I'm in Chicago bet a warm summer, so I'm

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Speaker 4: looking forward to when it starts getting really really pleasant outside.

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Speaker 2: Tell us about your neuroscience background.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so I sort of stumbled into neuroscience really accidentally

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Speaker 4: as a kid.

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Speaker 3: I've always liked the science.

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Speaker 4: I remember my parents let me set up a little

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Speaker 4: chemistry lab quote in Quotations, where I just had a

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Speaker 4: bunch of, you know, plastic bottles filled with all kinds

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Speaker 4: of random, gross stuff that I would just collect from

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Speaker 4: nature and outside. But it sort of took a turn

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Speaker 4: where I thought I wanted to do something else completely

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Speaker 4: as an undergrad, and then I just came across part

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Speaker 4: of one of the requirements for graduation was taking a

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Speaker 4: class in the psychology department, and I was kind of

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Speaker 4: a late registrant and I ended up with the only

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Speaker 4: class available being Introduction to Neuroscience, and I thought it

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Speaker 4: was the most interesting stuff, just mind blowing material. I

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Speaker 4: was just so curious about everything. I remember just studying

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Speaker 4: that and pretty much nothing else when I was taking

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Speaker 4: that class, and it just sort of sparkled out of

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Speaker 4: control from there, and all I could think about was

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Speaker 4: just things. I just want to know more about how

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Speaker 4: our brains work, the underlying changes, or when people develop

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Speaker 4: some kind of brain related illnesses.

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Speaker 3: I just got really fascinated by all that stuff.

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Speaker 2: Is there an extensive scientific study of the brain.

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Speaker 4: It's a very young field, so especially in comparison to

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Speaker 4: many of the other academic disciplines when we think about

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Speaker 4: chemistry or physics or biology. People have been curious about

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Speaker 4: that stuff for really, really long, but the study of

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Speaker 4: how the brain works has sort of been at the

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Speaker 4: whims of how advanced the technology is. So for example,

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Speaker 4: we didn't get our first really good scientific descriptions of

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Speaker 4: what the brain looks like under a microscope until the

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Speaker 4: eighteen hundreds, so really the origin of having the correct

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Speaker 4: tools to study how the brain works, it's only one

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Speaker 4: hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty years old as

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Speaker 4: far as understanding what's going on at a level where

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Speaker 4: we can gain some really powerful knowledge.

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Speaker 2: What fascinates me about the brain, Austin is the fact

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Speaker 2: that different sections of the brain allow you to do

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Speaker 2: different things. One section is for memory and otherwise for personality.

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Speaker 2: It's just amazing, isn't it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just so many We're just capable of doing

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Speaker 4: so many different things.

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Speaker 3: And the brain is such a small part.

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Speaker 4: Of our body realistically, right, it's two percent of our

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Speaker 4: body weight, and it's doing all of these things for us.

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Speaker 4: There's just so much specialization with what we can get

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Speaker 4: from the brain.

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Speaker 2: In your book Horror on the Brain, you talk a

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Speaker 2: lot about fear. Tell us about that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, fear is one of the more primal emotions, right,

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Speaker 4: it's There's an excellent quotation from HP Lovecraft where he

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Speaker 4: says that fear is one of our oldest and strongest emotions. Now,

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Speaker 4: he wasn't a scientist. He was, you know, one of

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Speaker 4: the main voices in the weird fiction movement, but he

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Speaker 4: was totally accurate about this.

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Speaker 3: Our processing of.

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Speaker 4: Fear is one of the most key survival elements that

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Speaker 4: our brain's capable of processing.

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Speaker 2: Do you think people like to be scared Austin. Do

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Speaker 2: we get a kick out of that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? People.

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Speaker 4: I think people secretly love being scared, or at least surprised.

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Speaker 3: If they don't say it.

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Speaker 4: I think they they're, you know, their oldest evolutionary part

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Speaker 4: of their brain. They love that little bit of sensation, right.

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Speaker 4: People say they don't like horror movies sometimes because the

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Speaker 4: images stick around with them and it gives them nightmares,

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Speaker 4: and they'll say things like that. But I think that

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Speaker 4: there's an enjoyment that comes out of exploring these feelings

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Speaker 4: that we don't normally get that often in our real

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Speaker 4: day to day lives.

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Speaker 2: How many horror movies or sci fi movies have you seen?

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Speaker 3: Do you think in your career? Oh? Boy, that's a

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Speaker 3: good question.

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Speaker 4: Things have sort of slowed down with when it comes

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Speaker 4: to seeing movies, just because I don't have too much

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Speaker 4: time to consume as much media as I really want to.

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Speaker 4: Sometimes I'll throw on a movie in the background, but wow,

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Speaker 4: a few hundred at least, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: It's probably not doesn't.

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Speaker 4: Sound like that much, probably, but it's all just sort

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Speaker 4: of stuff that I'm seeing in my spare time.

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Speaker 2: But it's safe to say, you've probably seen almost all

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Speaker 2: of them out there.

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Speaker 3: It's tough to know there.

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Speaker 4: I was reading this old quotation from Arthur C. Clark,

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Speaker 4: one of the early science fiction leaders, especially when it

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Speaker 4: comes to the space stuff. He was saying that at

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Speaker 4: some point he felt that he was going to be

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Speaker 4: the last generation who could have seen or could have

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Speaker 4: read all of the science fiction that was being published.

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Speaker 4: But things have changed quite a bit in the world

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Speaker 4: of publishing since since he wrote that stuff.

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Speaker 3: And I feel like that quotation is from the sixties

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Speaker 3: or so.

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Speaker 4: So there's just so much media to consume out there,

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Speaker 4: and you know, there's the there's all these different awards

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Speaker 4: that are given to science fiction authors and to horror

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Speaker 4: authors as as a literary genre that doesn't get as

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Speaker 4: much credit I think as it's due. And yeah, there's

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Speaker 4: just so much media out there. I want to be

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Speaker 4: able to consume all of it.

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Speaker 2: Have you seen one of the original Dracula movies? Not

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Speaker 2: sat too.

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Speaker 4: I have the black and white one, right, you're talking about.

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Speaker 2: That creepy guy.

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Speaker 4: Wow, Yeah, it really summons the feelings that you know,

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Speaker 4: Bram Stoker's Dracula elicited back when it was published. You know,

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Speaker 4: times have changed quite a bit, so if you go

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Speaker 4: back and watch that from the modern lens, you'll think

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Speaker 4: about all these ways that it would be different.

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Speaker 3: Or how it could be more accessible to people.

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Speaker 4: But it was really you know, at its time, it

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Speaker 4: was Yeah, it was super creepy.

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Speaker 2: What a sci fi? What what are horror films?

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Speaker 1: Due to the brain?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so science fiction and horror, they they push people

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Speaker 4: in a comfortable space. Right, So when we're watching movies,

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Speaker 4: a lot of times we're watching it at home or

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Speaker 4: maybe we're at the theater, but in both cases they

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Speaker 4: are safe environments, right, especially considering that, for you know,

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Speaker 4: we're living in the safest time that has ever been, right.

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Speaker 4: Homicide rates have fallen over the past centuries, so we're

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Speaker 4: not exposed to the kinds of threats and fears that

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Speaker 4: our evolutionary ancestors were. Right, when we think about cave people,

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Speaker 4: they were exposed to genuine threats at a on a

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Speaker 4: regular interval, and so we have this adaptation where we

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Speaker 4: probably want to have that occasional burst of fear. And

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Speaker 4: one thing that horror does is that it replaces those

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Speaker 4: genuine threats, whether it's you know, being attacked by a

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Speaker 4: tiger or a large cat or bear, or whatever threats

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Speaker 4: there are, or other people. Usually it replaces that with that.

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Speaker 4: It gives you that sensation, It activates your body in

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Speaker 4: a way that we don't normally get and it puts

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Speaker 4: us in touch with the evolutionary systems that are there

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Speaker 4: in our bodies that just doesn't get activated as often

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Speaker 4: anymore in these days.

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Speaker 2: Who would you say might be one of the best

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Speaker 2: sci fi or horror writers out there? Stephen King?

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Speaker 3: Stephen King's a classic.

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Speaker 4: Love his early works, for sure, there are right now there.

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Speaker 3: I think I feel like the horror genre.

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Speaker 4: Has you know, people have been curious about what happens

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Speaker 4: after death, like what happens to your body, what happens.

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Speaker 3: To your spiritual parts?

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Speaker 4: You know, those questions have been around and you can

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Speaker 4: see that in all the different folklores from all around

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Speaker 4: the world. So those stories have been around for a

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Speaker 4: long time, and it's really there's all kinds of people

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Speaker 4: who are taking those stories and adapting it to their

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Speaker 4: personal experiences, the ship, those experiences that they have on

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Speaker 4: their own. I think right now the person I'm I'm

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Speaker 4: really looking at as far as who's doing some really

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Speaker 4: cool stuff would have to be Jordan Peel no former

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Speaker 4: you know, former comedian who has now branched into all

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Speaker 4: kinds of genres in cinema. I think get Out is

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Speaker 4: an excellent work of that mashes up science fiction and

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Speaker 4: horror in a wonderful way that connects with an audience

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Speaker 4: who may not have been into horror before.

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Speaker 2: If you sat a little kid down to watch horror

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Speaker 2: movies time and time again, what do you think would

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Speaker 2: happen to that kid when he grows up.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it depends.

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Speaker 4: So there's It's just another one of those environmental influences

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Speaker 4: that's going to change a person. I know that when

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Speaker 4: I was a kid, one of the movies that I

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Speaker 4: watched at way too young of an age was Aliens.

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Speaker 4: I'd still absolutely love the Aliens franchise and everything that

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Speaker 4: it brings. I think it's a wonderful science fiction slash

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Speaker 4: horror film and everything related, everything related beyond that, And

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Speaker 4: I don't know how that has changed me personally. It's

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Speaker 4: more than anything, inspired me to be more curious about

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Speaker 4: the world and about worlds outside of our own. I

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Speaker 4: think for the most part it horror films influence people

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Speaker 4: in a way will that has a lasting influence. And

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Speaker 4: it's just like other media when we're thinking about consuming

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Speaker 4: maybe violent video games or whatever.

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Speaker 3: It's just another venue to explore emotions.

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Speaker 2: What do you think, What do you think Austin has

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Speaker 2: more of an effect on the human brain a book

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Speaker 2: on horror or the film.

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Speaker 4: I think that really depends on age, actually, and and

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Speaker 4: maturity level in general. I think films bring a different

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Speaker 4: kind of fear to light. You're able to see things

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Speaker 4: that it's multimodal, right, so you can you can play

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Speaker 4: with stuff like jump scares. You don't really get jump

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Speaker 4: scares in horror literature.

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Speaker 3: With one exception, I would say horror.

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Speaker 4: Manga has done a really good job of translating the

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Speaker 4: jump scare onto the written word. Right, You're turning pages

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Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden you turn a page

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Speaker 4: and you see this, you know, a horrendous image of

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Speaker 4: a person with holes all over their body for instance. Right,

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Speaker 4: I think that's the closest thing you get to a

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Speaker 4: jump scare in literature.

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Speaker 3: The other cool thing about that film can do is

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Speaker 3: it really plays with sound.

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Speaker 4: Sound is such a big aspect of why horror movies

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Speaker 4: are so effective. Sometimes you get we think about the

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Speaker 4: scene from Psycho right with the screeching violin strings, that

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Speaker 4: dissonant melodies that it has, the scene, it's excellent.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And so for instance Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the background of

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Speaker 4: it is mostly a soundscape. There's not really melodies, it's

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Speaker 4: not really music, but it's the actual sounds that someone

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Speaker 4: might hear if they were in a meat processing plant.

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Speaker 3: So you are.

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Speaker 4: Able to combine the visual element and the auditory element,

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Speaker 4: which really heightens the sensations. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 4: in literature, when you're reading things, I think literature can

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Speaker 4: be really effective at an older age, a little bit

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Speaker 4: more mature person as they're reading through things, because they're

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Speaker 4: imagining things in their heads, right, And when you imagine things,

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Speaker 4: you get something that's sometimes a deeper level.

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Speaker 3: Of scare than what you would see.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 4: The pacing of modern horror films is you don't want

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Speaker 4: to show the creepy thing until as late as possible.

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Speaker 4: Sometimes you don't even want to show it at all, right,

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Speaker 4: because once you see, once you put an image to

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Speaker 4: whatever paranormal thing it is, then that's the image that

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Speaker 4: people are going to have.

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Speaker 3: That's the way that people are.

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Speaker 4: Going to connect with overcoming that fear because they see

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Speaker 4: something and it's physical.

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Speaker 3: It's physical and it's tangible.

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Speaker 4: But when you're reading something scary, something supernatural, the forces

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Speaker 4: there are beyond what you could imagine. It's just more

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Speaker 4: more encompassing.

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Speaker 3: I guess what.

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Speaker 2: Did you conclude, Austin about science fiction or horror films

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Speaker 2: on the brain?

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Speaker 4: My big conclusion was that they are wonderful tools for exploring.

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Speaker 3: How our body is going to react.

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Speaker 4: And I think that that's that makes them really useful

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Speaker 4: device for all kinds of different things, potentially even for therapy.

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Speaker 2: Would you say they're healthy, I.

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Speaker 4: Would say in moderation. I know that's an ancient Greek

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Speaker 4: cop out, but I think that with all as with

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Speaker 4: all media, there's there's a line right where you can

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Speaker 4: enjoy something, you can get a benefit from something, but

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Speaker 4: then that could also teeter into something beyond an obsession.

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Speaker 4: And I think that with as with all other media,

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Speaker 4: there's a there's a sweet spot for it.

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Speaker 2: Have you noticed a change in people over the years

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Speaker 2: based on the change of films, you mean.

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Speaker 4: The way films have evolved over the years and and how.

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Speaker 1: People have that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really interesting question.

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Speaker 4: I think modern I think it's interesting to see how

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Speaker 4: older franchises are doing reboots for modern audiences or for

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Speaker 4: modern film.

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Speaker 3: I guess the.

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Speaker 4: Demands of modern film, so we always you know, a

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Speaker 4: lot of horror franchises have a lot of sequels, right.

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Speaker 4: It's one of the It's one of those genres where

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Speaker 4: you can see a volume ten of something as a

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Speaker 4: tenth movie, which is I think just interesting on its own.

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Speaker 4: But you know Texas Chainsaw Massacre that got a reboot

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Speaker 4: not too long ago, and it just had it was

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Speaker 4: technically a sequel, but it brought the pacing, it brought

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Speaker 4: the way that people act on screen to the way

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Speaker 4: that modern filmgoers would want to see or would expect

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Speaker 4: to see out of it. And at the same time

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Speaker 4: it's also drawing in new viewers into the into the fold.

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