WEBVTT - From the Vault: School Dreams 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.480 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:13.400 Time to go into the vault for a classic episode 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:17.200 of the show. This one originally aired on August nineteen, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.759 and it's about that dream where you're back in school. Yes, 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:23.880 this is a fun one because this was exactly a 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.680 year ago. Uh. And also it's just a really it's 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:28.720 a really fun episode that we can all relate to. 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.760 I think we got more listener mail about this episode 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.280 than maybe any other, at least in the past few years. 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.040 Would wouldn't you agree, Like everybody wanted to tell us 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.839 about school dreams. Yeah, and I want to hear about him. 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.200 And yes, if you're hearing this episode for the first 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.760 time or the first time in exactly one year, I 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:47.720 want to hear about your updates, so and hear about 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:53.080 your new dreams. You're walking down the hall alone, your 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:57.240 shoes squeak against the hard, seamless flooring. You have a 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.840 sense of otherworldly dread, a feeling of looming over a 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.760 drop so far you can't see the bottom, but you 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.399 can't remember why where are you? You can't remember that either, 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.959 The feeling of dread is absolutely oppressive. It's weighing you down, 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.360 as if to pull your soul into the underworld. But 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:22.160 wait that feeling. It's not dread weighing you down. It's 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:26.600 a backpack full of heavy textbooks. You're in your high school. 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.960 You're alone in the hall because you're late for class. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.280 That's right now, You remember you had to go back 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.760 to high school because it turns out you never actually finished. 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.240 There was an error with the paperwork in the high 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.760 school office, and somehow they let you graduate even though 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.720 you never took the final exam in your hardest class, 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.360 Russian calculus. You have to go back and take the exam, 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:53.560 and if you don't pass, you'll be stuck in high 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.160 school forever. Let's see what do we learn in Russian calculus? 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.320 You can barely recall some vague cyrillic operating symbols. What 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.800 was the division symbol? No time to think about it, 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.000 You sprint to the classroom where they're holding the exam. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:10.720 Once you get there, you remember you're not the only one. 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.960 Your next door neighbor, Jimmy, who's seventy four years old 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.240 and illegally burns trash in a metal drum in his backyard. 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.160 He also has to come back and take the Rustcal exam. 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.880 Jimmy asks did you study? You did not? And that 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.040 coffee shop barista with the Optimus Prime tattoo who you 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:29.920 went on a date with a couple of years ago, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:34.200 they're here too, except now they're dating your childhood best friend. 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.799 And who's administering the exam? That's right, it's your old 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.639 rust Cal teacher, Christopher Lambert. Mr Lambert is asking everyone 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.280 to take their seats. The panic rushes up from your 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.840 gut into your throat. Is there any way out of this? 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.960 Your hand bolts up. Mr Lambert calls on you. He says, yes, 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.119 when is it? And the whole class turns to look 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.000 at you, scrutinizing, crinkling their noses in pity and disgust 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.200 ust at what they see. Then you realize you're not 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.040 sitting at a desk, your pants are down, and you're 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.720 sitting on a toilet in the middle of the classroom. 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.239 Why would they put a toilet here? But no time 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.880 to wonder about that. The class is laughing viciously at 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.279 your shame, and Christopher Lambert is passing out the exams. 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.920 You didn't bring a pencil, Sandra Bullock won't let you 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.680 borrow one, neither, well Ken Griffey Jr. The test is starting, 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.000 Mr lamb Berry Yell's eyes on your own paper. A 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:37.280 single tooth falls from your mouth and lands on page one. 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:39.480 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. A production of 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:47.720 I Heart Radios has to work. Hey you, Welcome to 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.840 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Land 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.040 and I'm Joe McCormick. And obviously you can tell that 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.040 we are going to be talking about the one, the only, 0:03:56.160 --> 0:04:00.280 the high school horror Dream. Yeah, yeah, the which is 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.040 really the worst. I have a lot of disdain for 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.320 the high school Dream because then I'll get into more 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.560 of it later. But but basically, it's like when you 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.480 when you go when you dream, you can do anything, 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.840 You can be anything, Like this is the place where 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:20.080 lucid dreaming is possible, where all the boundaries can dissolve, 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.760 and all the limitations that you know in the waking 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.440 world can just be swept away and you can ascend 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.680 into the skies of being of pure light and energy. Uh. 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.960 But instead, what does our mind do when we slumber? 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.159 So much of the time we have dreams like this, 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.599 we you know, dreams that are just cobbled together out 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.440 of the mundane garbage of our lives into a form 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:47.040 that does not fill us with wonder or even even terror. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.320 You know, like for a lot of people, it fills 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.640 them with terror. It depends they're sort of like they're 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.800 sort of like low stress, low anxiety, high school dreams. 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:56.920 But when you read a lot of people's accounts of these, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.960 they're like they wake up in a cold sweat, they're absolute, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.760 really petrified. This is something that I think is worth 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.400 discussing a little bit because when you when when you 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.599 look at what the surveys of what people have dreamt about, 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.000 and there are different ways of conducting those surveys, so 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.720 it's there's going to be a fair amount of variety 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:16.840 there anyway, and it's a lot of it's also going 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.840 to depend on who you're talking to. As we've discussed 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.160 on the on the show before, a lot of studies 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.960 like this, especially psychological studies, they're often conducted with college 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.719 students and small sample sizes, and that brings a you know, 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:32.600 it brings a lot of limitations and what kind of 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:37.039 life experiences the dreams then are are ascending from. But 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.600 but I was looking around a little bit thinking about Okay, 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.120 it seems like we're often not talking about nightmares. There's 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.440 like a variety of dream that is, you know, filled 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.159 with anxiety or even dread without actually really breaking over 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.240 into this room that we think of as the domain 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.200 of nightmares. I guess that depends on the definition you'd use, 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.279 because I've always thought of nightmares as including dreams that 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.880 are not like, uh, you know, like immediate physical peril. 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.240 I mean, there are violent dreams that people obviously think 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.720 of as nightmares. Like one of the most common themes 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:12.320 of bad dreams is being chased by something. Right, but 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.080 they're you know, a huge number of people's really bad 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:20.520 dreams are about like are about like public embarrassment or 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.680 about things like having to go back to school and 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.240 face some kind of scrutiny or examination. Yeah. But yet 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.680 when you look at the surveys to deal with the 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.560 content of nightmares, we don't often see, you know, a 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.680 real definite place for the school dream. For instance. Uh. 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.279 In the nineteen thirty psychologist whole See case and conducted 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.960 a survey of nightmares and found their contents to be 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.279 uh like twenty seven percent dealing with animals seven percent, 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:51.080 being chased at death and murder at and then it 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:56.960 goes down to home and family falling and then miscellaneous 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.960 nineteen percent, accidents seventeen percent. And you see similar things 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.960 with other surveys. There's a Harvard psychologists Didra Barrett's survey 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.840 and it UH said like being chased with seventy two 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.560 death of family members in for six percent following UH 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.720 monsters and or animals made it on their thirty three 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.320 percent war, violent crimes, natural disaster. And then there's been 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.480 others that the kind of match this this sort of thing, 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.080 you know, it's like physical harm, physical danger. Um. I 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:33.360 did find a two thousand UH inten German study from 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.480 the Central Institute of Mental Health and Mannheim, Germany that 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:43.520 said nightmares okay, forty percent following being chased feeling paralyzed, 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.560 but also twenty four percent being late to an important event, 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:50.240 which definitely lines up with a lot of what we're 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.800 talking about here, because so often the content is I 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.520 am I am late to the exam right um, or 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.640 I have I've let time slip away in advance of 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.400 the them. So yeah, it is going to come back 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:05.640 to like, how do we classify nightmares, and what do 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.520 we think of when we think of nightmares, and then 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.000 after we've had one of these school dreams, how we 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.720 classify it. But I think there's a strong case to 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.760 be made that that what we're talking about here isn't 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.800 a nightmare. And yet at the same time, I myself 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.640 find myself at times wishing it were, because at least 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.640 if it were a nightmare, it would it would feel 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.200 more more potent, you know, it would feel like it's 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.760 maybe doing something that it's cathartic in a way that matters, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.120 instead of being this just ridiculous rehearsal for a thing 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.880 that is that is not going to occur. You know. Well, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:41.600 this brings us back to a question, of course we're 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.480 gonna have to touch on throughout the episode today, and 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:45.679 unfortunately we're not gonna be able to answer in the 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.520 definitive way. But like, what is the purpose of the 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.400 content of dreams, if anything to be in with I mean, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.160 do that we know that like sleep and dreaming are 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.720 obviously important for some kind of neurological function, but we 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.440 don't know if the contents of dreams are important, and 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.280 we don't know if they are important why are they important? 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.679 What do they do right? And and yeah, once you 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.560 you can sort of divide into two schools of thought 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.240 where it's either the contents of the dreams do matter 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.480 or they don't um and when you get into the 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.080 various arguments for them actually mattering, and then you get 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.520 into various divisions on the show, we've discussed the writings 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.400 of Frederick van Eden in the past too wrote Study 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.520 of Dreams, and this was a book that outlined lucid dreaming, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.280 for instance, but you know he covered everything from you know, 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:42.880 ordinary dreams to symbolic dreams, demon dreams and more so. Yeah, 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.960 it depends on it depends on which view you're taking. 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.480 Either the content matters or it doesn't, and then if 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.400 it if it does matter, There's so many ways to 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.280 unpack that. But I would say, actually, whether the content 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.760 of dreams matters or not, like whether what you dream 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.319 about actually has adaptive value in life or there it's 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:02.960 just sort of like a byproduct of something going on 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.000 in the brain. And you know, what happens in a 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.760 dream has no effect on life or no positive effects 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.400 either way you split it. It's an interesting question to ask, 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.960 why do we dream about the things that we dream about, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:18.240 like why is that the content, whether it's adaptive or not. Well, 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.760 it comes back to the nightmare thing, like so much 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.680 of the time, I feel like the school you know, 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.719 sometimes we we do have dramatic events, uh in our 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.080 school history, but a lot of times we don't. And 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.640 yet that's the stuff that still remains like so potent 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:35.760 to us in our dreams. And I think that can 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.280 be the irritating thing, Like why am I still dreaming 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.440 about this thing? This thing is solved high school, you 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.520 know is solved. You know, it's I've I've I've been 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.240 out of it for you know, decades. Why do I 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.760 still return to it in dream? What is it about 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.559 that experience or that time in my life? Maybe the 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:57.360 plasticity of my mind that that makes that the the 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.719 the the fabric of my dreams. Yeah, So I want 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.440 to talk about a few common variations. I think just 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.640 from what I've read anecdotally, I've not been able to 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:12.440 find a rigorous study characterizing the nature of school anxiety dreams, 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.080 but I have found some informal collections of anecdotes, and 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:16.959 based on that, and I have to say, some very 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.559 common dreams are Uh, I have to go back to 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.200 high school and finish a class or a test that 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.640 I never finished, and I don't know in like, there's 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:27.720 the knowledge that I am an adult, but I have 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.400 to go back and do this. Yes, I've definitely done 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:32.439 that one. I've I've definitely had that one, and I've 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.000 done that one to a certain extent because I went 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.480 back after college and taught high school at the high 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.360 school that I attended. Wow, so I kind of had 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.600 this weird like I was kind of living the dream 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.320 the worst way possible. And so I will sometimes have 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.440 dreams that are I'm sometimes a little vague as to 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:52.960 whether I am dreaming about teaching high school and my 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.320 old high school where I'm dreaming about attending the high school, 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.240 or having to go back and take a class that 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.440 I didn't finish, that sort of thing. What age where 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.520 you when you were teaching at that high school. I 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:07.720 mean I was fresh out of college, so I was, oh, yeah, 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:09.839 so that might come back later when we talk about 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.000 different periods of life in the formation of memories, that 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.000 that might be relevant to your case here. Um, so 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.439 another thing that is extremely common. In fact, just before 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.000 we started off, we were talking to our producer today Seth, 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.040 and he was saying that he's had this dream. I've 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.400 had this dream. I've talked to tons of people who 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.760 have had this dream, who have been out of school 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.480 for decades, and it's this. It's the end of the semester. 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.280 There's a class that I forgot I was enrolled in 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.760 and I haven't been going to and now I suddenly remember, 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.199 Oh no, I'm in this class and I've got to 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.840 go take the final exam. Yeah. I I have done 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.960 that one as well, where I missed the deadline to 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.040 drop the class and or just forgot that I had 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.360 it entirely. And and it'll like summon like a mental 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.079 calendar of when your classes are, and it's generally usually 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.520 something like, oh, it was a Wednesday more in class, 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.240 and it was it was sandwich between two other classes, 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.200 and somehow I just missed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:09.199 get the exact same calendar effect. Actually, I think about like, oh, 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.640 I wasn't going because I was doing this other thing 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:13.520 at this time of the week, and I just forgot 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.200 repeatedly that I had this class. Now I suddenly remember, 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.480 and uh, and my chicken is cooked. I mean, they're like, 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.080 there's no way I'm going to pass this exam. Other 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:28.680 common things that I found reported are difficulty with navigating 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.880 the school environment, so being in high school or being 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.320 in college and being unable to find the classroom, so 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.760 you're like running around, you're late for the class and 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:39.920 you're trying to get there, but you can't find the 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.040 door or you can't get in. I've never had that one. Yeah, 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.160 it's it's weird. How you know that our experiences will 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.480 will vary like that one I've never had. I I've 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.880 never had a problem getting to the dream classroom and 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.679 a dream. Another big one I think is school based embarrassment, 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.959 dreaming about like being embarrassed in front of a class 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.480 room or in front of classmates, or like having to 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.560 give a presentation in front of a class and not 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.680 being prepared or being embarrassed some way, see I. I 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.520 The weird thing is I don't have any of those 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.400 related to actual class experiences. But but since I was 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:22.160 in um theater, I do have dreams related to productions 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:24.400 that I haven't learned my lines. Yes, I have the 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.840 same dreams I did theater in high school. And yeah, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:31.440 I I very frequently dreamed that I suddenly remember, oh, Yeah, 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.000 I'm in a play that's opening tonight, and I haven't 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.720 looked at my lines yet. How about this one? This 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:38.960 is a weirder one, but I feel like I hear 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.160 this one pretty often. Uh, sort of blending of school 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.240 with the workplace or with the current friend group, and 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:50.160 blending of like old teachers with bosses. You get this, No, No, 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.360 I don't really get that one. I would get get 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.040 the blending of workplaces to a certain extent, because I'll 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:00.720 have dreams where I didn't actually fully quit my previous job. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.120 I'm kind of like kept one foot in it somehow, 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.360 but I have to keep going back to do like 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.240 the bare minimum to still be a part of the 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:13.120 previous employers. And and I always just kind of analyze 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:14.920 that as being like it's about fear of change. It's 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.480 about fear of like entering any kind of new phase 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.640 in life. This dream rehearsal in which I never actually 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:26.760 leave any step behind, you know, where I'm managing to keep, 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:31.040 you know, one foot on every stone that traverses the 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.920 pond or the stream. I can absolutely see that. Yet, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.120 general dreams about not just school, but school being one 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.680 example of like being drawn back into a previous stage 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.840 of life, like you can't, you can't move on to 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:44.720 the next thing. Yeah, yeah, all right, well maybe we 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:46.360 should take a break and then when we come back 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:51.800 we can analyze the school dream a little more. Alright, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.240 we're back. So you know, in our cold open you 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.760 added the bit about tooth falling out and seth our producer. 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:01.680 He he mentioned that he has had dreams in which 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.360 is his teeth fall out and the school anxiety dream. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.360 I've never had a dream where or teeth fall out, 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.520 which really which is is weird because I mean, like 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.160 dental anxiety has It's kind of part of my upbringing 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.240 because you know, my father was a dentist. You know, 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.400 I remember like seeing slides of awful teeth when I 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.280 was a kid, and and even today like I'll you know, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.200 I'll you know, I you know, I'm I'm I'm getting older. 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.640 I think about my my dental health and I and 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:36.520 I regularly read articles that are discussing correlation between dental 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.360 hygiene situations and say things like Alzheimer's. So, I mean, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:44.120 there's plenty of of of fuel there for the fire, 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.920 and yet that never happens in my dreams. That's interesting. Now, 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.880 of course, the teeth falling out dream goes way back, 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.160 and you've got all kinds of like freudy intakes on 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.040 that and stuff where it's you know, it's metaphorical for 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.880 some kind of like wish or anxiety that you have. 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.720 Weather dreams are actually metaphorical in those ways, I think 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.679 is an unsettled question. But but but it's certainly they 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.600 could be. And if they are, yeah, it could be 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.679 that maybe you don't really suffer from the underlying anxiety 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.600 that drives whatever causes people to think about their teeth 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:19.040 falling out in dreams. Maybe the teeth falling out in 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.960 dreams is not normally about teeth. That that's if the 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.560 like metaphor theory of dreams is true, which we don't 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.360 know if it is. And my hand has fallen off 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.960 in a dream before, but never the teeth. Well, so 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.040 back to the school dream. We know, at least anecdotally 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.440 just from talking to people, that it seems pretty common 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:38.600 for adults who have been out of school for a 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:43.000 long time to keep having these recurring dreams about school. 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.760 Uh even you know, I've I've talked to people who 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.640 are in their sixties who still have these dreams, which 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:51.960 is not I'm not looking forward to that for the 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.439 rest of my life. But oh well, uh, and so 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.639 the question is like, is it really all that common? Again? 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.359 We are going to be dealing here with the problems 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.960 that are common to all kinds of psychological studies, which 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.879 is often there is not enough data about say the 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.920 entire world, and you know, we get like the weird focus, right, yes, 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.359 weird science, but not in the fun way of weird 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:18.760 standing for Western educated and from industrialized, rich and democratic countries, 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.640 just meaning that like in lots of studies, especially lots 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:26.080 of psychological studies, there is a disproportionate representation of people 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.159 in that sort of category a lot of times because 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.080 these studies are done at like western research universities, and 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.320 that brings up the potential criticism. Well, of course, all 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:38.040 these people were having dreams about exams and exam anxiety. 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.159 They are college students, right, There's not any mystery at 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.360 all why college students would be dreaming about uh, school 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.880 and college and exams. And of course studies find that, yes, 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.360 college students do dream about that a lot. Just one example, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.320 a two thousand three study in the journal Dreaming found 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.480 among Canadian university students. The dreams about the category known 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.600 as school teachers and studying were the fourth most common 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.159 typical theme of dreams out of a list of like 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.600 fifty something common themes of dreams. But they're Canadian college students. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.120 That just doesn't seem very surprising at all. But studies 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:16.200 including like older populations have also found that school dreams 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.879 remain very common. Just to cite one example from the 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:26.280 journal Dreaming in by Mathis Shreddle and gorerits called frequency 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.719 of typical dream themes in most Recent dreams and online study. 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.399 They had a big sample collected online. It was two thousand, 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.800 eight hundred and fifty three participants. They did a survey 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.119 about the themes of recent dreams people had, and this 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.400 was based on a common dream theme inventory that has 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.600 like a list of commonly cited themes and you can 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.880 check off which ones apply to you in recent dreams. Uh. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.119 And they said that their findings were mostly consistent with 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.760 other studies showing prevalence of dream themes in different populations. 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.960 They ended up ranking dream themes by prevalence and dream 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.520 about school teachers and studying was actually the fifth most 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.639 common category of dreams by theme overall, I found that 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.240 the entire list of ten was kind of interesting. Yeah, well, 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.640 I mean six is arriving too late, which could be 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.720 very very well be couched in the same area. Right, 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:17.600 And if you have a dream that you know more 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.240 than one applies to, you can check both. Right, So 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.440 let's do the whole list. Number ten swimming, number nine 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:29.000 being physically attacked, number eight, a person now alive being dead. 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.200 Number seven a person now dead being alive, Number six 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.480 arriving too late, number five school teachers and studying number four, 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:42.680 sexual experiences, number three being chased or pursued. Number two. Oh, 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.280 this one hits home trying something again and again. And 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.760 then number one flying or soaring through the air. See 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:51.919 you know this list just it almost just makes me 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.320 enraged because people are people are having flying dreams is 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:58.840 their number one. Lots of people have flying dreams. I 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.520 do not have two flying dreams I can remember i've 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:07.200 and then in sexual experiences, I've rarely have a sexual dream, 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.120 and now I should have. I should add the caveat 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.960 here that I remember. Big aspect of dreaming is you know, 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.920 to what extent are we able to then recall what 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.800 we have dreamt of? When we wake up. I hate that. 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:23.879 The thing I definitely identify with most on here is 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.080 trying something again and again, like the dream about how 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.040 you just need to do something that should be really 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:31.720 simple and you should be able to do it, but 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:33.560 you try and you try and you try and you 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.959 can't and it just doesn't work. Yeah, or like like 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:39.320 one of my most recent dreams I will share with 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.240 everyone is that that I was trying to move a 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.840 horse across um uh you know, like from one city 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.000 to another in a horse trailer, and Glenn Danzig was 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.639 helping me, or he was supposed to help me, but 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.439 he was absolutely no help at all, and it was 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.639 super frustrating and I kept having to to reattach the 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.960 horse hitch um which is or the hitch on the 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.920 trailer with the trailer hitch, which was you know, which 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.760 was extra frustrating because like nothing in this dream had 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.920 anything to do with what with with like actual real 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:15.359 life struggles, like I'm not dealing with horses or horse trailers. Yeah, 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.560 well that's that's interesting stuff again because sort of like 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.879 the school dream, Now it's not relevant to your life 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.960 at this moment, So what's going on? Is it a 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.600 metaphor for something that is relevant to your life in 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:29.760 this moment or is it just a sort of like 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.840 thought pattern or memory patterns being retrieved for no good reason. 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.080 And and I guess the perplexing thing and about anything 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.280 like this is that since we we have this fan 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.879 of this fantastic ability to to make connections and things 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.919 and even like random assemblages, you know, we can come 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:50.240 up with the story if we we analyze it enough, 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:52.040 we can say like, oh, yeah, well this is like 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.760 clearly the horse represents this, and the trailer represents this, 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.920 and Glenn Danson represents that. Uh, you know, you can 0:22:57.920 --> 0:22:59.879 come up with a version of it that makes sense. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.800 Then does that have anything to do at all with 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:05.560 the the origin of the dream exactly? I mean that 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.159 might be a personally useful story to come up with. 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:10.160 I can see how it could be useful for for 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.760 people to interpret their dreams, even if the interpretation they 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:15.840 come up with actually has nothing to do with the 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:18.399 cause of those thoughts arising in their head while they're sleeping. 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:21.960 But I do agree this is I joke about it 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:24.360 being enraging, but it is a very interesting list. Yeah, 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:26.720 it's like swimming dreams swimming is on here. I never, 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:30.679 I rarely have ever had a swimming dream, don't Hi. 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:33.440 I swim every morning if I can. Uh. And yet 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:36.240 it doesn't really factor into my dreams at all. But 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:38.680 okay to mention it again. Back to our our subject. 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:42.159 This theme, known as school teachers and studying is number 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.639 five the fifth most common theme of dreams uh in 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:49.919 people responding to this massive online survey. But simply checking 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:52.920 a box that says a recent dream included themes of 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:56.320 school teachers are studying doesn't really tell you all that much, right, 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.120 Like it would be useful to have more granular detail 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:03.240 what exactly usually happens in the most common school based dreams? 0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:06.080 What level of school does it apply to? Are the 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:08.960 dreams good or bad? I imagine they're probably mostly bad, 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.720 But I don't know. I've got you know, hunches. But 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:15.800 has anybody actually looked into this? And so the answer 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:18.639 is I was not able to find a rigorous study 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.160 characterizing the school dreams like this, but I did find 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:25.840 at least one informal survey of of these dream experiences, 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:28.040 so to look at that. I was reading a blog 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:30.760 post about this on Psychology Today by the Boston College 0:24:30.800 --> 0:24:34.760 research psychologist Peter Gray, and he had obviously noticed the 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:37.959 same trend about adults having school dreams long after they 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:40.480 leave school or graduate. And by the way, the post 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:43.399 had a great deadpan title that does give away the findings, 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.760 but it's worth reading. It is the dream of school 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:50.640 and none of the dreams are good. Yeah, I mean 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:52.919 I can I certainly can't think of a good school 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:55.520 dream that I've ever had. They've all been at the 0:24:55.600 --> 0:25:00.000 very least boring and tedious, if not, you know, anxious. Yeah. 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.119 So Gray used his online platform to conduct an informal 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:06.760 survey about the nature of school dreams and their emotional valence. Uh. Now, 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:09.880 remember again, this is an informal survey, not scientific data, 0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:14.040 so there's no attempt to randomize participation or blind respondents 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:16.000 about the purpose of the inquiry, So there could be 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:20.119 selection effects biasing the responses here. But with that strong 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:22.920 caveat in mind, what you know, if it's a starting place. 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:25.399 What did he find in this survey? Well, first of all, 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:27.480 he looked into what was the level of school that 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:30.760 people dreamed about. By far, the most common was high school. 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.119 Seventy three percent of dreams involved high school. Uh. And 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:35.800 these responses are going to add up to more than 0:25:36.560 --> 0:25:38.760 because people can report dreaming about more than one level 0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:42.399 of school. But like high school seventy college thirty percent, 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:46.560 elementary school twelve percent, middle school seven percent. Where the 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:49.440 dreams good or bad? As alluded to in the title, 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:53.720 the dreams were overwhelmingly bad on a one to five scale, 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:56.840 with one being very pleasant and five being very unpleasant. 0:25:56.960 --> 0:26:01.280 Nobody rated any recurring school dream better than three. Almost 0:26:01.320 --> 0:26:05.000 all dreams were rated to four or five. Common emotions 0:26:05.040 --> 0:26:11.080 identified by the dreamers in these dreams include anxiety, panic, shame, embarrassment, 0:26:11.160 --> 0:26:13.960 and helplessness. It sounds about right. He found that the 0:26:14.080 --> 0:26:18.040 dreams continued for decades after people graduated from school, and 0:26:18.080 --> 0:26:20.920 they were extremely common in people in their thirties and forties, 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:24.280 but much older people still reported them. Uh, and back 0:26:24.280 --> 0:26:26.119 to the question of like, what are these dreams like? 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:29.239 What actually happens in them? Plenty of things happened, but 0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:31.399 he found the two most common among the people who 0:26:31.480 --> 0:26:34.760 replied to his survey were missing classes all term and 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:37.120 therefore being likely to fail. That seems like it goes 0:26:37.200 --> 0:26:39.680 right along with this, you know, this archetype we talked 0:26:39.680 --> 0:26:42.320 about at the beginning and then second being unable to 0:26:42.320 --> 0:26:44.360 find the classroom. This is the one you were less 0:26:44.359 --> 0:26:47.200 familiar with, right, Robert, Yeah, I don't think I've had 0:26:47.200 --> 0:26:49.879 this one, but it totally makes sense. I mean, I 0:26:50.280 --> 0:26:54.480 mean I remember from real life at times having that issue, 0:26:54.560 --> 0:26:57.000 like trying to find a classroom or trying to find 0:26:57.000 --> 0:27:00.639 where the classroom is moved temporarily. I mean, it seems 0:27:00.640 --> 0:27:02.160 like the kind of thing I would have dreamt about, 0:27:02.200 --> 0:27:04.840 but I did not. Well. Another interesting thing that I've 0:27:04.840 --> 0:27:08.119 found when people collect these anecdotes of people's school anxiety 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:11.040 dreams is that they're not only common among people who 0:27:11.119 --> 0:27:15.520 struggled in school or actually experienced feelings of helplessness and classes. 0:27:15.840 --> 0:27:19.320 It seems they're very common at least also maybe even 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.399 more so among people who were successful as students and 0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:25.159 who did well in their classes. Yeah. I mean, you 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:27.400 just because you're good at something doesn't mean you're you're 0:27:27.440 --> 0:27:29.720 stress free about it, right, Right, But I guess now 0:27:29.880 --> 0:27:32.560 we've got to turn to the question of why why 0:27:32.640 --> 0:27:35.960 these school dreams? For decades after people leave school, you 0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:38.080 might be in your fifties, you might be in your sixties, 0:27:38.200 --> 0:27:40.639 and you're still having the dream where you forgot you 0:27:40.680 --> 0:27:43.440 were enrolled in Russian calculus and you've got to show 0:27:43.480 --> 0:27:46.200 up and take the exam. Why does that happen? Why 0:27:46.200 --> 0:27:48.320 does that take hold of our brains? Why are we 0:27:48.359 --> 0:27:51.520 not instead replacing those dreams with dreams about things that 0:27:51.560 --> 0:27:53.960 are affecting us in the present. I think it's he 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:56.720 has a great question, and my my sort of gut 0:27:56.760 --> 0:27:59.679 answers it would be that we live very boring lives, 0:28:00.080 --> 0:28:02.159 you know, Like, like I I legitimately want I did 0:28:02.200 --> 0:28:04.160 a little looking around for this, and I couldn't find 0:28:04.160 --> 0:28:07.800 a good source. But my my immediate question is, like, 0:28:07.880 --> 0:28:10.600 how would this kind of data match up with people 0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:13.920 who instead of going to college, uh, like we're were 0:28:14.040 --> 0:28:17.200 drafted into the military. Like what would this data look like, 0:28:17.359 --> 0:28:19.600 say from you know, more from like a World War 0:28:19.680 --> 0:28:24.320 two era, um, you know, a group of subjects. I 0:28:24.359 --> 0:28:27.000 was really curious about that too. And like, as we said, 0:28:27.040 --> 0:28:29.399 you know, the data we have seemed to be affected 0:28:29.440 --> 0:28:32.680 by like the selection problems that exist in a lot 0:28:32.720 --> 0:28:36.440 of current psychological literature. But yeah, if there is data 0:28:36.520 --> 0:28:39.000 like that out there somewhere and somebody knows about it, 0:28:39.000 --> 0:28:40.800 please send it our way. I would love to see that, 0:28:40.880 --> 0:28:43.560 to see if that's different. Likewise, this would be a 0:28:43.600 --> 0:28:46.080 great area to hear from just our listeners, like what 0:28:46.160 --> 0:28:48.160 has you what's your experience if you especially if you 0:28:48.200 --> 0:28:50.880 didn't if if you were, say drafted into the military 0:28:50.960 --> 0:28:53.520 or join the military, like right after high school, Like 0:28:53.520 --> 0:28:55.200 what do you have more off do you have more 0:28:55.320 --> 0:28:59.720 like boot camp dreams or military dreams or even combat dreams, 0:29:00.160 --> 0:29:02.520 or do you have more high school dreams? Like I wonder, 0:29:02.720 --> 0:29:06.080 wonder like what has the most potency? I mean, I 0:29:06.120 --> 0:29:09.000 wonder also our school dreams common among people, say who 0:29:09.040 --> 0:29:11.480 didn't go to high school. Maybe if you only have 0:29:11.800 --> 0:29:14.400 an elementary school education and you know, you went on 0:29:14.440 --> 0:29:16.920 straight to a career after that, do you still have 0:29:16.960 --> 0:29:20.000 anxiety dreams about elementary school? Right? Or do you have 0:29:20.080 --> 0:29:22.840 dreams about like the trials that take place at that 0:29:23.120 --> 0:29:26.280 the high school age stage of your life, like entering 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:29.720 the workforce or you know, whatever happened to you know, 0:29:29.760 --> 0:29:32.240 fill those years. Yeah, I wish we had more information 0:29:32.280 --> 0:29:34.920 about that, But that's a very interesting question. All right. 0:29:34.960 --> 0:29:36.480 On that note, we're going to take a quick break, 0:29:36.520 --> 0:29:41.160 but we'll be right back. All right, We're back so 0:29:41.280 --> 0:29:44.400 in trying to answer this question of like why school 0:29:44.560 --> 0:29:48.160 anxiety dreams seem to be so common among people who 0:29:48.200 --> 0:29:51.040 went to high school or college but have been long 0:29:51.160 --> 0:29:53.280 out of it, you know, like the high school is 0:29:53.320 --> 0:29:56.760 not something that's still a pressing concern for them, and 0:29:56.840 --> 0:29:59.440 yet they have nightmares about it, or at least anxiety 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:02.440 dreams of out at frequently. Yeah, like you can forget 0:30:02.480 --> 0:30:05.040 everybody's name that you went to high school with based 0:30:05.280 --> 0:30:08.520 with these dreams. I was reading an article by the 0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:11.680 science writer Stephanie Poppas about this and and she led 0:30:11.680 --> 0:30:13.800 me to some interesting thoughts that I don't think I 0:30:13.800 --> 0:30:16.760 would have connected to automatically, but this was this was cool. 0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:19.600 So so she's looking at the same question. And one 0:30:19.640 --> 0:30:22.480 idea she brings up that I thought was a very 0:30:22.520 --> 0:30:25.800 interesting possibility is an association with what's known as the 0:30:25.880 --> 0:30:29.440 reminiscence bump. Robert, were you familiar with this? Okay? I 0:30:29.480 --> 0:30:31.840 wasn't either, but um, but it makes sense based on 0:30:31.880 --> 0:30:34.680 some other things I've read. So the reminiscence bump is 0:30:34.720 --> 0:30:39.120 the tendency for people to have better recollection of stuff 0:30:39.160 --> 0:30:42.280 that happened when they were in their late teenage years 0:30:42.320 --> 0:30:45.680 in their early twenties, and better recollection of that stuff 0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:48.680 than any other point in their lives. So, for example, 0:30:48.720 --> 0:30:51.280 older adults, you take somebody maybe in their fifties or 0:30:51.280 --> 0:30:54.920 sixties or seventies, they will seem to have greater access 0:30:55.000 --> 0:30:59.840 to more vivid memories with more accuracy at the referring 0:30:59.840 --> 0:31:01.720 to things that happened at the time there were maybe 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:05.680 sixteen to twenty five, and less access to memories with 0:31:05.800 --> 0:31:09.600 less accuracy dealing with things both before and after this. 0:31:10.320 --> 0:31:13.400 And many studies have demonstrated the reminiscence bump. I think 0:31:13.400 --> 0:31:16.240 this is a well established phenomenon. Well, I could see 0:31:16.280 --> 0:31:18.760 that being a you know, a direct factor, and thats 0:31:18.800 --> 0:31:21.640 then for sure, Yeah, it's possible. So we'll continue to 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:23.920 think about this. But to look a little bit more 0:31:23.960 --> 0:31:26.640 closely at the reminiscence bump, if you want to imagine 0:31:26.840 --> 0:31:30.280 basically the quality or salience of memories throughout the life 0:31:30.280 --> 0:31:34.160 in general, Uh, the quality and quantity of autobiographical memories 0:31:34.240 --> 0:31:36.600 is is not equal across time, and there's sort of 0:31:36.640 --> 0:31:41.080 an s curve in lifetime memory retrieval. For example, adults 0:31:41.120 --> 0:31:43.720 tend to remember very little from before the age of 0:31:43.760 --> 0:31:46.760 five or so. This is sometimes referred to as childhood amnesia. 0:31:47.400 --> 0:31:50.560 Memories increase from here, and you get this curve going 0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:53.080 up where the older you get, the more memories you 0:31:53.120 --> 0:31:56.080 have from that period, and it peaks sometime around the 0:31:56.120 --> 0:31:59.800 early twenties, like late teens, early twenties. That's that's the 0:32:00.000 --> 0:32:02.600 olden time for having the most memories that are most 0:32:02.640 --> 0:32:06.120 easily retrieved. And that it's also a reason perhaps that 0:32:06.200 --> 0:32:09.080 you like so much with the nostalgia that is marketed 0:32:09.120 --> 0:32:11.480 at you is going to be marketed at things from 0:32:11.520 --> 0:32:14.400 that period of your life. Oh yeah, actually, uh now 0:32:14.440 --> 0:32:16.480 I don't remember who made this point, but somebody I 0:32:16.520 --> 0:32:18.560 was reading made this point. I'm sorry, I can't remember 0:32:18.560 --> 0:32:21.600 the name. Pointed out the connection between this and the 0:32:21.640 --> 0:32:24.320 cycle of remakes and films that there seems to be 0:32:24.320 --> 0:32:27.440 about a twenty year lag, and that would tie in 0:32:27.480 --> 0:32:30.280 with like the stuff you remember coming out when you 0:32:30.320 --> 0:32:33.600 were twenty years old, you being ripe to like go 0:32:33.800 --> 0:32:36.840 engage in nostalgia for that or even participate in making 0:32:36.840 --> 0:32:40.200 the remake when you're forty interesting. Okay, But anyway, after 0:32:40.240 --> 0:32:43.280 this increase in in the retrieval of memories from around 0:32:43.280 --> 0:32:46.680 the early twenties, they did, your ability to retrieve memories 0:32:46.680 --> 0:32:50.320 declines again from later periods, so older adults remember less 0:32:50.720 --> 0:32:53.880 from their thirties and forties. Though, of course, no matter 0:32:53.920 --> 0:32:56.600 what age we are, we tend to recall recent events better, 0:32:56.720 --> 0:33:00.640 So whatever wherever you are in the age range, the memory, 0:33:00.680 --> 0:33:02.800 of course from the last few years will usually be 0:33:02.840 --> 0:33:05.240 pretty good. So no matter what your age is, if 0:33:05.240 --> 0:33:07.360 you're after you know, thirties or forties, you're going to 0:33:07.440 --> 0:33:09.560 have kind of an s curve with it peaking up 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:13.200 again for more recent things. So we can definitely see 0:33:13.200 --> 0:33:17.040 how this could be related. It could be relevant to 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:20.240 the lifelong power of school related terror and it seems 0:33:20.280 --> 0:33:23.520 to line up especially with the observation that the majority 0:33:23.560 --> 0:33:26.560 of school related dreams are not about like elementary school, 0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:28.680 but they tend to be about high school and college. 0:33:29.080 --> 0:33:32.840 So that could be because school anxieties are common for 0:33:32.880 --> 0:33:35.120 people who attend high school and college in their late 0:33:35.160 --> 0:33:38.720 teens and early twenties, and these themes are especially salient 0:33:38.800 --> 0:33:42.000 and easy to access in memory for dream content. But 0:33:42.320 --> 0:33:44.560 I guess this forces us to ask the question, if 0:33:44.560 --> 0:33:47.320 the reminiscence bump plays a role in the prevalence of 0:33:47.360 --> 0:33:50.760 school related dreams, why do we have a reminiscence bump 0:33:50.800 --> 0:33:53.600 in the first place like why would we remember this 0:33:53.680 --> 0:33:56.320 part of our lives better than other parts of our lives. 0:33:56.680 --> 0:33:58.719 And there have been a lot of hypotheses to explain 0:33:58.800 --> 0:34:00.800 this pattern. I think it's something that it's you know, 0:34:00.840 --> 0:34:02.959 it's not fully answered yet, but there's a lot of 0:34:03.040 --> 0:34:06.320 research and thought about this. An early idea was that 0:34:06.480 --> 0:34:08.239 maybe this is just the time of life when like 0:34:08.320 --> 0:34:11.760 the brain is physically most adept, it's you know, your brain, 0:34:11.880 --> 0:34:16.080 is it optimized, high potential, it's making memories best than thosemies. 0:34:16.120 --> 0:34:19.319 Those memories are easiest to retrieve later. Well. One one 0:34:19.360 --> 0:34:22.319 possibility that I think ties directly in with this that 0:34:22.560 --> 0:34:23.920 you know, I'll come back to you later on, is 0:34:23.960 --> 0:34:27.760 that this is a time period this is the teenage brain. 0:34:27.880 --> 0:34:29.840 And uh we've talked about the teenage brain on the 0:34:29.840 --> 0:34:32.080 show in the past about how it is it is 0:34:32.120 --> 0:34:34.360 wired a little differently like the different there are different 0:34:34.400 --> 0:34:40.080 priorities for the teenage brain, for instance, with making social connections. Uh. 0:34:40.160 --> 0:34:43.520 And you know, from an evolutionary standpoint, like that is 0:34:43.560 --> 0:34:46.640 there because you would need to make connections with new people, 0:34:47.000 --> 0:34:50.239 you would need to branch out and uh and and 0:34:50.320 --> 0:34:53.000 become a part of other groups and it would be 0:34:53.080 --> 0:34:56.920 necessary for your survival. So like the teenage brain is 0:34:57.120 --> 0:34:59.920 wired for this passage into a new phase of life. 0:35:00.880 --> 0:35:03.640 Uh so, yeah, that could be part of it for sure. Well, 0:35:03.640 --> 0:35:05.040 I want to come back to that in a second, 0:35:05.040 --> 0:35:08.400 because who's the who's the personality that you need most 0:35:08.440 --> 0:35:12.719 importantly to make a connection to for social relevance. It's yourself, right, 0:35:12.880 --> 0:35:15.960 that's like identity formation period. So so we'll come back 0:35:16.000 --> 0:35:18.799 to that in a minute. Uh there's another explanation that 0:35:18.840 --> 0:35:21.520 seems to have gained some credence after the initial thing 0:35:21.520 --> 0:35:24.720 about maybe the brain just being good at making memories. Then, um, 0:35:24.719 --> 0:35:26.560 it has to do with the nature of life in 0:35:26.640 --> 0:35:30.000 late teens in early twenties. Maybe we remember this period 0:35:30.120 --> 0:35:32.560 best because for many of us, this is the period 0:35:32.840 --> 0:35:36.280 when life is filled with the most variety and novelty. 0:35:36.600 --> 0:35:40.640 Remember when we talked about the sort of the psychological 0:35:40.719 --> 0:35:44.759 dilation of time. Experiences that feel like they're taking the 0:35:44.840 --> 0:35:48.120 longest actually take up the shortest time in our memory, 0:35:48.480 --> 0:35:51.440 and they sort of collapse because these are the mundane, boring, 0:35:51.480 --> 0:35:55.480 grinding experiences. An our waiting in line for something feels 0:35:55.480 --> 0:35:57.600 like it takes forever, but it takes up almost no 0:35:57.640 --> 0:36:02.120 space in your later memory. Meanwhile, a novel experience that 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:05.000 you've never done before. It's very strange and challenging to 0:36:05.040 --> 0:36:08.000 you goes by in an instant in the moment, but 0:36:08.040 --> 0:36:11.480 then in your memory it takes up this expansive character. 0:36:12.000 --> 0:36:15.359 And thus the faster your time seems to go by 0:36:15.360 --> 0:36:18.000 in the present, the more time you seem to have 0:36:18.280 --> 0:36:21.160 had to experience life in your memory. Yeah. To the 0:36:21.160 --> 0:36:23.600 prime examples of this are frequently, of course, a vacation, 0:36:23.840 --> 0:36:25.799 and ultimately that's one of the great things about of 0:36:25.800 --> 0:36:30.120 a vacation, because you've you've changed the way you're interacting 0:36:30.160 --> 0:36:33.600 with novelty in your life. Uh. The darker example, though, 0:36:33.600 --> 0:36:37.000 it would of course be a traumatic occurrence, where it 0:36:37.120 --> 0:36:40.440 is it is also impacting your life in a novel way. 0:36:41.040 --> 0:36:43.319 But in both cases, those can be things that where 0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:45.239 it just seems like time is super sped up in 0:36:45.239 --> 0:36:47.440 the moment, like the things are just rushing past you 0:36:47.480 --> 0:36:49.840 and then it's over. But then when you think back 0:36:49.920 --> 0:36:53.160 that time is way stretched out. It represents more life 0:36:53.760 --> 0:36:56.080 than the you know, the week before that, where there 0:36:56.120 --> 0:36:58.720 was there was just a mundane work week. Yeah. Another 0:36:58.880 --> 0:37:02.319 example of this is freaking one's wedding if you've had 0:37:02.320 --> 0:37:04.799 a wedding ceremony like it's it's it's really become kind 0:37:04.840 --> 0:37:06.839 of a trope, right that it will it will just 0:37:06.880 --> 0:37:09.560 fly by. You'll barely have a chance to experience it 0:37:09.960 --> 0:37:12.000 in the moment, but of course it will be this 0:37:12.120 --> 0:37:14.920 thing that you think back to, uh, you know, for 0:37:14.960 --> 0:37:17.279 the rest of your life. Right, And this does seem 0:37:17.320 --> 0:37:19.719 to go along with some psychology and neuroscience. It's well 0:37:19.760 --> 0:37:24.240 known that the brain essentially encodes stronger memories of novel 0:37:24.320 --> 0:37:28.160 experiences than of routine ones. You're gonna have a weaker 0:37:28.200 --> 0:37:30.799 memory of things that you've done a million times and 0:37:30.880 --> 0:37:33.360 just happened to do again the other day, then of 0:37:33.440 --> 0:37:36.799 something that was really unusual and new for you. Just 0:37:36.840 --> 0:37:39.400 for example, I was reading an article about the reminiscence 0:37:39.440 --> 0:37:42.319 bum by Katie Waldman and Slade, and she pointed out 0:37:42.440 --> 0:37:45.480 that there was a night study that found that nine 0:37:46.040 --> 0:37:50.920 percent of vivid life memories concern unique or first time events. 0:37:50.960 --> 0:37:53.319 That's a lot, yeah, I mean that would make sense. 0:37:53.320 --> 0:37:55.000 I mean, just if you look at memories just to 0:37:55.120 --> 0:37:59.080 sheer like cataloging of events or occurrences that may prove 0:37:59.200 --> 0:38:01.760 useful later, like the ones that are gonna be highlighted 0:38:01.840 --> 0:38:04.440 or this would never happened before. Well, we better we 0:38:04.560 --> 0:38:06.359 better mark this one. We better make sure this one's 0:38:06.440 --> 0:38:09.040 nice and vivid, because this will this could be useful 0:38:09.080 --> 0:38:11.719 if this thing were to happen again exactly. But this 0:38:11.760 --> 0:38:14.960 theory has some challenges to explain the reminiscence bump. For example, 0:38:15.120 --> 0:38:18.080 a big problem a lot of the memories that people 0:38:18.239 --> 0:38:22.200 report experiencing through their reminiscence bumps. So you ask somebody 0:38:22.480 --> 0:38:24.359 to say, Okay, you know, what are the things you 0:38:24.360 --> 0:38:25.920 you know remember in your life and make a list 0:38:26.000 --> 0:38:28.959 of autobiographical details. A lot of them are gonna be 0:38:29.040 --> 0:38:31.960 in their say, early twenties or late teens or something. 0:38:32.080 --> 0:38:35.440 But a lot of these experiences are not, in fact 0:38:35.560 --> 0:38:40.680 novel experiences. They'll remember something mundane from that time period. Well, 0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:43.600 like when I think back to high school, I don't 0:38:43.600 --> 0:38:49.000 think I have any definitive memories of specific tests that 0:38:49.040 --> 0:38:51.719 I was stressed out about. You know. It's it's like 0:38:52.000 --> 0:38:55.120 these these dreams seem to be occurring from just a 0:38:55.200 --> 0:38:59.600 generalization of of of anxiety that I was feeling at 0:38:59.600 --> 0:39:02.520 the time. Yeah, and so Waldman's article points actually to 0:39:02.600 --> 0:39:04.839 something that I found really interesting, and this comes back 0:39:04.880 --> 0:39:07.120 to the point you were making earlier that we're both 0:39:07.120 --> 0:39:10.480 talking about earlier. Another theory that's become popular and gained 0:39:10.480 --> 0:39:13.840 some traction in explaining the reminiscence bump is that the 0:39:13.840 --> 0:39:16.600 reminiscence bump occurs in the late teens, in early twenties 0:39:16.719 --> 0:39:19.879 or its peaks then, because this is a time full 0:39:19.880 --> 0:39:23.080 of memories that people come to see as self defining. 0:39:23.640 --> 0:39:28.120 These are autobiographical narrative experiences that come to mind when 0:39:28.160 --> 0:39:31.040 we're asked to think about our identity, who we are. 0:39:31.719 --> 0:39:35.400 And so experiences and and studies have shown this experiences 0:39:35.440 --> 0:39:39.560 that we see as self defining occupy a privileged place 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:43.120 in our memory, even if they occur at other stages 0:39:43.160 --> 0:39:46.440 of life. But apparently it's just very common for self 0:39:46.440 --> 0:39:49.919 defining experiences to be clustered in your late teenage years 0:39:49.960 --> 0:39:53.399 and in your twenties. Does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, 0:39:53.440 --> 0:39:57.160 I mean this is this is this this time of 0:39:57.160 --> 0:40:00.000 of expansion in our life, this time of stepping from 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:03.759 one one stone across the stream to another. Yeah. And 0:40:03.800 --> 0:40:07.960 so normally when we think about self defining memories, we 0:40:08.000 --> 0:40:10.680 want to drift towards the positive, right, And so if 0:40:10.719 --> 0:40:12.719 you are asked to make a list of like I 0:40:12.760 --> 0:40:16.839 am statements about yourself, So, you know, make list ten 0:40:16.960 --> 0:40:19.920 statements about you saying like I am this, I am that, 0:40:20.080 --> 0:40:22.560 And then after that, I say, take every one of 0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:25.560 those I am statements and make a list of specific 0:40:25.600 --> 0:40:30.280 autobiographical memories you have that that that illustrate this fact 0:40:30.320 --> 0:40:33.880 about you that you are this thing. People will tend 0:40:33.920 --> 0:40:36.480 to make lists of a lot of things from their 0:40:36.560 --> 0:40:40.400 like teenage in early twenties period. But studies find that 0:40:40.400 --> 0:40:44.960 that people can have un if people have self defining 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:48.440 experience at other periods in their life, they will remember 0:40:48.480 --> 0:40:52.680 these other periods in their life very well also. Uh So, 0:40:52.680 --> 0:40:55.799 so it could just be that there's this unfortunate like 0:40:55.880 --> 0:41:02.080 timeline coincidence, coincide, coincidence coincidence that the timeline of when 0:41:02.120 --> 0:41:05.120 you're in high school and when you're in college happens 0:41:05.160 --> 0:41:07.919 to line up pretty well with the timeline of when 0:41:08.000 --> 0:41:11.000 you're figuring out who you are and making memories that 0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:13.160 will last the rest of your life to help you 0:41:13.239 --> 0:41:16.879 make sense of your life and your in your narrative arc. Absolutely, yeah, 0:41:16.880 --> 0:41:20.080 I think those two line up, you know, rather nicely. Now. 0:41:20.120 --> 0:41:22.520 But then again, uh in that article I was talking 0:41:22.520 --> 0:41:26.280 about by Stephanie Poppas. She also interviews Michael Shreddle, who's 0:41:26.280 --> 0:41:28.720 in charge of the sleep laboratory at the Central Institute 0:41:28.760 --> 0:41:31.400 of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. Yeah, he's the same 0:41:31.440 --> 0:41:34.919 author of that and the nightmare survey that referred to earlier. Yeah, 0:41:34.960 --> 0:41:38.160 and one of the studies I referred to earlier survey. 0:41:38.600 --> 0:41:42.800 And Shreddle does not agree with the reminiscence bump theory. 0:41:42.880 --> 0:41:46.400 He he thinks that dreams stem from the brain trying 0:41:46.440 --> 0:41:49.840 to deal with problems it's facing in the present, perhaps 0:41:49.840 --> 0:41:52.640 by way of analogy. And and he tells her quote 0:41:52.840 --> 0:41:56.840 the examination, dreams are triggered by current life situations that 0:41:56.920 --> 0:42:01.759 have similar emotional qualities. And I mean, obviously, you know 0:42:01.840 --> 0:42:04.880 he's the expert on this. I'm not, but I have 0:42:05.080 --> 0:42:08.040 some issues with that because if this is true, I 0:42:08.080 --> 0:42:10.799 feel like, in a way, it still doesn't answer the question. Like, 0:42:10.880 --> 0:42:14.400 let's say that all school anxiety dreams are actually functioning 0:42:14.400 --> 0:42:17.840 on a kind of unconscious system of metaphors. It's the 0:42:17.880 --> 0:42:22.160 brain working over current problems and obstacles by presenting a 0:42:22.200 --> 0:42:26.319 strange metaphorical scenario that has similar emotional qualities. We don't 0:42:26.320 --> 0:42:28.600 know that's the case, but let's assume that's the case. Yeah, Like, 0:42:28.640 --> 0:42:31.520 for instance, you're not looking for a classroom in which 0:42:31.560 --> 0:42:33.319 you have to take an exam, but perhaps you're looking 0:42:33.360 --> 0:42:36.680 for something. Perhaps you're not concerned about failing a test. 0:42:36.920 --> 0:42:40.759 Perhaps perhaps like you're concerned about being judged in one 0:42:40.920 --> 0:42:44.480 fashion or another. Exactly right. Yes, So if that's the case, 0:42:44.640 --> 0:42:48.839 the question remains, why is school so prevalent as the 0:42:48.880 --> 0:42:52.600 metaphor that the brain chooses even later in life. If 0:42:52.640 --> 0:42:55.719 for some reason it must default to a metaphor, why 0:42:55.760 --> 0:42:58.360 not one from more recent experience. Why aren't all the 0:42:58.400 --> 0:43:01.640 fifty year old's anxiety during tames about school or replaced 0:43:01.640 --> 0:43:05.960 with dreams about other anxiety inducing situations from the past 0:43:06.000 --> 0:43:08.680 month or the past year of their life? Why go 0:43:08.800 --> 0:43:11.239 back to this time? So I feel like that that 0:43:11.320 --> 0:43:14.240 could be true, but it wouldn't necessarily answer the question 0:43:14.320 --> 0:43:17.560 of why school in the dreams? Now? Is? I believe 0:43:17.560 --> 0:43:22.640 we mentioned earlier that dream anxiety dreams about exams in school. 0:43:23.320 --> 0:43:25.880 You know, we've mostly been dealing about them after the fact, 0:43:26.840 --> 0:43:30.239 you know, five, ten, twenty forty years later. But the 0:43:30.280 --> 0:43:33.080 reality is that we also see these dreams occurring, you know, 0:43:33.120 --> 0:43:37.960 in real time before the tests occur, being experienced by 0:43:38.040 --> 0:43:40.640 actual students. Yeah, and that that's the time when it 0:43:40.719 --> 0:43:43.319 totally makes sense. It's more just the mystery of why 0:43:43.320 --> 0:43:45.840 they occur later in life. But maybe by understanding what 0:43:46.040 --> 0:43:48.640 role they serve in the moment, you could better understand 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:51.560 why they linger in the brain so much. Right. So, yeah, 0:43:51.600 --> 0:43:54.000 this brings brings us to this this broader question, right, 0:43:54.080 --> 0:43:57.400 could could anxiety dreams actually be adaptive? Are they helping 0:43:57.480 --> 0:43:59.880 us in one way or another? Are the contents of 0:44:00.040 --> 0:44:02.520 them helping us in some way? Right? And and this 0:44:02.719 --> 0:44:04.840 again we come back to sort of the division about 0:44:05.200 --> 0:44:07.719 dreams and how they work. Does the content matter at all? 0:44:08.200 --> 0:44:10.520 Or or or the contents of the dreams sort of 0:44:10.560 --> 0:44:14.000 like the scap that has been extruded by by the 0:44:14.040 --> 0:44:18.760 like the psychic digestive system of the sleeping mind. Uh. Anyway, 0:44:18.760 --> 0:44:20.680 and this we end up, you know, coming back to 0:44:20.719 --> 0:44:23.400 those big questions. I'm reminded of an interview that we 0:44:23.440 --> 0:44:28.960 conducted with the Dr marn Surf years ago on our episode. 0:44:29.080 --> 0:44:30.880 I believe it was the one about the Nine dream 0:44:30.880 --> 0:44:33.879 Worlds of Frederick penn Eden. And you know, we talked 0:44:33.880 --> 0:44:37.160 about there being five different theories out there, predominant theories 0:44:37.160 --> 0:44:40.320 about dreams that range from importance about dream content that 0:44:40.719 --> 0:44:43.759 range from importance to non importance, you know, ranging from 0:44:43.760 --> 0:44:46.080 it like it's like a defragmentation of the hard drive, 0:44:46.160 --> 0:44:49.239 you know, a race and keep memories, assorting dreams as 0:44:49.280 --> 0:44:53.840 emergent narrative another one. Um. And other extreme examples include, 0:44:53.880 --> 0:44:55.560 you know, the idea that our our brain is looking 0:44:55.600 --> 0:44:58.440 at things that we suppressed during the day, or that 0:44:58.480 --> 0:45:01.400 the brain is using the dream to simulate futures for 0:45:01.520 --> 0:45:03.480 us so that we can act better in the waking 0:45:03.520 --> 0:45:07.880 world and um and yeah, so we're looking around, and 0:45:07.960 --> 0:45:10.879 there are some interesting cases to be made regarding these 0:45:10.920 --> 0:45:14.959 anxiety dreams as being perhaps even being simulations for something 0:45:14.960 --> 0:45:17.560 that's coming, at least dealing with stress ahead of an event. 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:21.600 And uh So. One of the papers the look that 0:45:21.719 --> 0:45:25.120 here was will students pass a competitive exam that they 0:45:25.160 --> 0:45:30.440 failed in their dreams? This was published in in Consciousness 0:45:30.440 --> 0:45:35.280 and Cognition was by Arnold at all So The authors 0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:39.040 point out that most students in medical school dream about 0:45:39.120 --> 0:45:43.440 an exam before the exam, and they primarily dream of failure, 0:45:44.000 --> 0:45:46.560 being late, not being able to answer the questions on 0:45:46.600 --> 0:45:51.279 the exam, etcetera. And yet, unlike you know, with typical anxiety, 0:45:51.880 --> 0:45:55.040 dreaming of an exam seems to predict higher performance on 0:45:55.120 --> 0:45:59.200 the exam. So their theory was that it's like your 0:45:59.280 --> 0:46:04.360 dramatics nation of high concerns during the dreams, maybe training 0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:07.600 the brain for the challenges to come, so kind of 0:46:07.640 --> 0:46:09.400 like let's just hit him with a bunch of like 0:46:09.440 --> 0:46:10.799 the brain is just hitting you with a bunch of 0:46:10.800 --> 0:46:14.440 worst case scenarios so that you'll be like better emotionally 0:46:14.480 --> 0:46:18.720 prepared for something more middle of the road. That's really interesting. 0:46:18.760 --> 0:46:22.600 I mean, I do wonder if that's true, Like just mechanically, 0:46:22.719 --> 0:46:26.279 how does it work, you know, literally, how does it 0:46:26.480 --> 0:46:29.680 increase the brain's ability to actually deal with the test 0:46:30.120 --> 0:46:33.080 to have the dream about it. Yeah, it also sounds 0:46:33.160 --> 0:46:35.759 like like maybe, you know, we don't want to personify 0:46:36.040 --> 0:46:38.920 the brain. The sleeping brain is being like a you know, 0:46:38.960 --> 0:46:42.480 a team of little bitty scientists that are deciding how 0:46:42.520 --> 0:46:44.160 they're gonna what they're gonna roll out, what kind of 0:46:44.160 --> 0:46:47.880 programming you presented is with Because it also seems like, well, okay, 0:46:47.920 --> 0:46:49.680 if we could go back to the idea that dreams 0:46:49.719 --> 0:46:52.560 don't matter, and this is just simply, uh, the dream 0:46:52.600 --> 0:46:55.160 content doesn't matter, and that this is just a you know, 0:46:55.280 --> 0:46:58.959 a reverberation of our of our concerns during the day. 0:46:59.280 --> 0:47:01.200 You know, if you're st stout, maybe you're I mean, 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:03.200 that's what we do with mental time travel. We run 0:47:03.239 --> 0:47:06.240 these scenarios in real time and we think, oh my goodness, 0:47:06.239 --> 0:47:07.560 what if I don't get there in time? What if 0:47:07.640 --> 0:47:09.520 I failed? What if I don't get good enough good 0:47:09.640 --> 0:47:12.759 night's sleep before the exam? Uh it makes sense that 0:47:12.800 --> 0:47:14.680 if you're worrying about there in the day, you're gonna 0:47:14.680 --> 0:47:18.160 worry about that at night. Uh. So it becomes, you know, 0:47:18.200 --> 0:47:22.480 difficult to really characterize the purpose if there is one 0:47:22.560 --> 0:47:25.720 of the dream content. I also looked at a paper 0:47:25.719 --> 0:47:30.280 titled Inception the Exam Dream is Real by Alan J. Oxford, 0:47:30.400 --> 0:47:34.200 the third published in a pin State Law Review. This 0:47:34.239 --> 0:47:35.840 one is also fun because there were a lot of 0:47:35.840 --> 0:47:40.120 Morpheus quotes what in the in the paper? But but 0:47:40.160 --> 0:47:42.200 it was it was very well written and uh and 0:47:42.239 --> 0:47:44.840 of course it springs, as the title suggests, from similar 0:47:44.880 --> 0:47:48.640 situations with law students. And the paper is is lengthy 0:47:48.680 --> 0:47:51.120 and wrestles with the viewpoint that while the you know, 0:47:51.160 --> 0:47:54.120 the function of sleep and dreaming is vital for our survival, 0:47:54.520 --> 0:47:58.440 you know, essentially restoring our energy, arguably to fragging the 0:47:58.480 --> 0:48:01.560 hard drive. The content of our dreams, you know, may 0:48:01.719 --> 0:48:05.000 very well be without purpose. Again, according to some of 0:48:05.040 --> 0:48:08.080 the models, Uh, you're the junk in your dreams may 0:48:08.120 --> 0:48:10.640 simply be there because it's the same junk you've been 0:48:10.680 --> 0:48:13.719 wrestling with all day, all week, all month as you 0:48:13.800 --> 0:48:18.200 prepare for your tests. So I can't help but return 0:48:18.239 --> 0:48:21.480 to this basic scenario of human survival that we've been 0:48:21.520 --> 0:48:25.640 discussing here. You know, these dreams again are often relating 0:48:25.640 --> 0:48:29.040 to periods of great stress and vulnerability, and they are 0:48:29.080 --> 0:48:32.520 in a paper tiger sense of things, not unlike states 0:48:32.560 --> 0:48:35.759 of birth. You know, a process is in place, but 0:48:35.840 --> 0:48:38.080 there is a potential for things to go very wrong. 0:48:38.200 --> 0:48:41.399 There's a risk. And in many models of the afterlife, 0:48:41.600 --> 0:48:45.719 the same scenario is also present in transferring to the 0:48:45.719 --> 0:48:50.000 realms beyond death. Uh. Take Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, one 0:48:50.080 --> 0:48:53.960 goes through a mental rehearsal, meditation, and practice so as 0:48:54.000 --> 0:48:57.600 to ensure one's dying consciousness moves safely through all eight 0:48:57.600 --> 0:49:01.680 stages of death to the death point. Confusing but you know, 0:49:01.719 --> 0:49:05.600 in many ways enlightening state that may last for many days. Oh, 0:49:05.640 --> 0:49:08.840 I think about the ancient Egyptian sort of rehearsals for 0:49:09.080 --> 0:49:12.600 the progress through the afterlife. Yeah, I think very similar scenario. 0:49:12.680 --> 0:49:14.560 You know. It's something where it's like the the journey 0:49:14.640 --> 0:49:18.120 is stressful, the journey is like birth, and there's a 0:49:18.200 --> 0:49:19.880 lot of stuff that can go wrong if you're not 0:49:19.920 --> 0:49:22.600 prepared for it. And uh, yeah, we see this in 0:49:22.680 --> 0:49:25.680 various other spiritual models as well. So yeah, I think 0:49:25.680 --> 0:49:28.239 that you know, for for most of human history, the 0:49:28.880 --> 0:49:32.880 teenage years, a little before, a little after, you know this, 0:49:32.880 --> 0:49:35.239 this was a time in which we were making these 0:49:35.280 --> 0:49:38.480 big jumps out into the world. You know, we're and 0:49:38.600 --> 0:49:40.319 even in our own lives like so much of the 0:49:40.360 --> 0:49:43.360 time teenage years and then in college years if you 0:49:43.400 --> 0:49:46.520 go to college or entering the workplace, etcetera. Like these 0:49:46.520 --> 0:49:48.400 are dream These are periods of time in which we 0:49:48.440 --> 0:49:53.640 have increasing responsibilities for ourself and our own destiny, our 0:49:53.680 --> 0:49:55.759 own fate. However you want to uh, you know, you 0:49:55.800 --> 0:49:58.480 want to package it and uh, you know, so it 0:49:58.760 --> 0:50:01.560 makes sense that we would come back to this period 0:50:01.640 --> 0:50:04.319 time and time again in dream. You know, either the 0:50:04.360 --> 0:50:08.640 reverberation of the anxiety or just the reverberation of the metaphor, 0:50:08.880 --> 0:50:12.319 you know, and uh, it's it's uh you almost want 0:50:12.360 --> 0:50:14.920 to think of it as this this thing in our timeline. 0:50:14.960 --> 0:50:16.960 It is just so potent that it's you know, it's 0:50:16.960 --> 0:50:19.880 like sending waves back into into the past and into 0:50:19.880 --> 0:50:22.359 the future at the same time. Yeah, well, I feel 0:50:22.360 --> 0:50:24.920 like the question is still unanswered. But I think the 0:50:24.960 --> 0:50:27.200 thing that we've talked about today that appeals to me 0:50:27.280 --> 0:50:31.560 the most as an explanation is probably the the it's 0:50:31.640 --> 0:50:33.960 it's tying into what you're saying now, like the self 0:50:34.000 --> 0:50:37.120 identity narrative of the reminiscence bump. I think is is 0:50:37.160 --> 0:50:39.920 a It seems like a very good candidate to me. 0:50:40.480 --> 0:50:44.719 That like, if if there is a general context for 0:50:44.840 --> 0:50:47.399 what's happening in your life at a time when you're 0:50:47.440 --> 0:50:50.080 making a lot of memories that are highly relevant to 0:50:50.320 --> 0:50:53.200 what what you think about yourself and who you think 0:50:53.280 --> 0:50:56.640 you are, then those memories in that context are going 0:50:56.680 --> 0:50:59.560 to be highly salient and in memory and will be 0:50:59.640 --> 0:51:02.799 retre eaved effortlessly throughout the rest of your life, even 0:51:02.840 --> 0:51:05.920 maybe necessarily when you don't want them to be. And 0:51:05.960 --> 0:51:08.759 then of course, as you're saying, like the test, just 0:51:09.320 --> 0:51:11.880 the test is a perfect metaphor in a way, like 0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:14.480 it just does fit with so much else that's going 0:51:14.560 --> 0:51:18.640 to happen throughout our life as a metaphor. Uh because 0:51:18.680 --> 0:51:21.959 because essentially, like every major struggle is in a way 0:51:22.000 --> 0:51:24.880 a test, right, and you know, an important test in 0:51:24.960 --> 0:51:28.960 high school or college. Uh, it's it's it's a perfect 0:51:28.960 --> 0:51:31.480 example of a paper tiger, right because you're not going 0:51:31.560 --> 0:51:34.480 to die if you fail an exam, but certainly failing 0:51:34.600 --> 0:51:38.560 important exams and tests can have, you know, some some 0:51:38.560 --> 0:51:42.000 pretty major effects on your life, or at least you 0:51:42.000 --> 0:51:44.840 know they can contribute to major twists and turns in 0:51:44.880 --> 0:51:47.640 your timeline, or at least adults will definitely tell you 0:51:47.920 --> 0:51:50.839 that it contributes. That's because that's the narrative you're hit with, 0:51:50.880 --> 0:51:52.960 like this is an important test, like this could this 0:51:53.040 --> 0:51:55.560 could you know, impact whether you get into college or not, 0:51:55.840 --> 0:51:58.319 or if you have to go work at the at 0:51:58.360 --> 0:52:01.080 the you know, the the shoot tongue fact tree where 0:52:01.080 --> 0:52:03.920 they just make the tongues for shoes. Uh you know, 0:52:04.040 --> 0:52:06.719 I mean, so you know a lot of it we 0:52:06.760 --> 0:52:09.319 can blame our parents for I agree, Oh, I didn't 0:52:09.320 --> 0:52:11.799 mean to blame our parents. I just mean that, I mean, 0:52:11.840 --> 0:52:14.400 I think it is worth this should maybe at least 0:52:14.400 --> 0:52:18.040 tempt us to think differently about what school should be. Like. 0:52:18.560 --> 0:52:20.799 I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying I know 0:52:20.880 --> 0:52:24.560 everything about education or you know about what's best for 0:52:24.560 --> 0:52:27.480 for high school age kids and what's the best way 0:52:27.520 --> 0:52:30.960 for them to learn. But if high school is causing 0:52:31.080 --> 0:52:35.040 these high school in college are causing these horrible you 0:52:35.080 --> 0:52:37.799 know memories that that plague people the rest of their 0:52:37.840 --> 0:52:40.239 lives and they wake up in a cold sweat thinking 0:52:40.320 --> 0:52:43.640 about tests, I don't know that that could at least 0:52:43.840 --> 0:52:47.000 maybe be a sign that like there's something structurally about 0:52:47.000 --> 0:52:49.799 the high school experience that could be different. Maybe. But 0:52:49.840 --> 0:52:52.920 then I again, I also just wonder if you're going 0:52:52.960 --> 0:52:55.600 to have something similar no matter what you're going through 0:52:55.600 --> 0:52:58.880 at that age. Ye. Again, I wish we had some 0:52:58.960 --> 0:53:02.920 great data looking at individuals who go directly into military 0:53:02.960 --> 0:53:06.960 service or or you know, directly into the workforce, and 0:53:07.040 --> 0:53:10.400 or in those cases you're just going to see different 0:53:10.480 --> 0:53:14.920 dream content stemming from the same life period. But you know, 0:53:14.960 --> 0:53:17.360 who knows, maybe in the future will have more robust 0:53:17.400 --> 0:53:19.719 data to go from on this, All right, well there 0:53:19.760 --> 0:53:23.200 you have it. Uh. School dreams something that I think 0:53:23.280 --> 0:53:26.320 everybody can relate to. Um, And if you can't relate 0:53:26.360 --> 0:53:28.560 to it, we definitely want to hear from you about that. 0:53:28.920 --> 0:53:31.239 So basically, no matter you know what your experience, you 0:53:31.280 --> 0:53:34.440 probably have something to share here. UM. I'm not one 0:53:34.440 --> 0:53:36.440 of those you know, some people you know will say, like, 0:53:36.520 --> 0:53:38.760 you know, you never want to hear about somebody else's dreams, 0:53:38.800 --> 0:53:42.240 like somebody's else's dreams are always boring. I strongly disagree. 0:53:42.280 --> 0:53:44.840 I always want to hear about other people's dreams because 0:53:44.880 --> 0:53:47.360 even if they are boring, it's telling like you're learning 0:53:47.400 --> 0:53:50.799 something about the the inner space that defines someone else. Uh. 0:53:50.840 --> 0:53:53.600 And then half the time, though it's really weird and 0:53:53.880 --> 0:53:57.319 uh and interesting in its own right. So right into us, 0:53:57.680 --> 0:53:59.640 we'll tell you how to do that. But in the meantime, 0:54:00.000 --> 0:54:02.160 if you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff 0:54:02.160 --> 0:54:03.560 to Blow your Mind, you'll find the Stuff to Blow 0:54:03.600 --> 0:54:05.960 your Mind dot com. Where else can you find it? Oh, 0:54:06.120 --> 0:54:09.520 like everywhere wherever you get podcasts these days, which seems 0:54:09.520 --> 0:54:15.280 to be like literally everywhere, various programs, various services, objects 0:54:15.360 --> 0:54:19.520 that you find uh in bathrooms and subway stations, We're 0:54:19.560 --> 0:54:22.360 probably on that as well. Wherever you get the podcast, 0:54:22.600 --> 0:54:24.440 the best thing you can do to help us is 0:54:24.480 --> 0:54:26.560 to just rate and review us wherever you have the 0:54:26.600 --> 0:54:28.640 power to do so. 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