WEBVTT - The Sacred Mountain, Part 2 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:04.040 Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.640 of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and the 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:12.080 gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:16.840 nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.799 Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.520 The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.680 the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.920 autumn leaves as age comes on. One source of enjoyment 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:39.000 after another is closed, like nature's sources never fail. I 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.760 know that our bodies were made to thrive only in 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:52.440 pure air and the scenes in which pure air is found. 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.560 Welcome Stuff to blow your mind a production of I 0:00:54.600 --> 0:01:03.520 Heart Radios How stuff works. Hey, Welcome to stuff to 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:05.560 blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.280 Joe McCormick. And those quotes we just read were, of 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.479 course from the Great John. You're one of the great 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.840 priests of the religion of the Mountains. Absolutely a true 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.560 American hero. I say that without a shred of irony. 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:23.120 Uh an important individual in the natural preservation efforts of 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.000 the United States. And I like these two quotes because 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.399 he's he's getting into the power and the awe of 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.120 the mountains, and that first quote, and in that second 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.720 he's talking about the air of the wilderness. And we're 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:37.800 going to be discussing the air of the wilderness in 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:42.440 this our second episode on Sacred Mountains. But I suppose 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.480 we should we should, of course, refer you back to 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.080 the first episode. If you didn't listen to the first 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.440 episode on Sacred Mountains, go back. That is the uh 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.800 important first installment. But let's catch everybody up to speed 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.040 on what we chatted about last time. Sure, well, last 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.640 time we talked about holy mountains from religious and cultural 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.280 beliefs around the world, and common types of beliefs about 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.240 holy mountains. We talked about the idea of mountains as 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.600 the homes of the gods, or as the bodies of 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:12.240 gods themselves, as uh like entrances to other worlds, as 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.360 pillars that hold up the heavens, as places of pilgrimage, 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.720 as places where the gods once were or still dwell 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.280 or sleep. There's almost an infinite array of ways in 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:27.639 which mountains have been religiously significant, and so we talked 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.239 about some reasons that might be of course, there are 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.600 things having to do with perspective. When one climbs a 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.160 mountain and looks down at the earth. Uh, there are there. 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.639 There's just the sheer fact of its size, I mean, 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.760 in a pretty basic sense, and just how important natural 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.320 forms are and are the shaping of our cosmologies in 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:51.600 our sense of self. Uh. We discussed like the main 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.640 points along these lines in the last episode. We also, though, 0:02:55.680 --> 0:03:00.840 talked about stories expressed by many mountain climbers, so certainly 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:05.600 not only by mountain climbers, of hallucinations during the journey 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:11.120 of climbing a mountain, including the very common third man syndrome. Uh. 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:15.200 The experience of sensing another person making a journey with you, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.480 who in fact is not there right, And it's very 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:24.240 often um, I would say a neutral apparition. Uh, we're helpful, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.520 not a beneficial one. So it's not like, oh, my goodness, 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.359 there's a monster beside me. It's more like, oh, well 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.600 there's Uh. I thought I was up here alone climbing 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.760 this mountain, but there's this this other fella, and that's 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.000 comforting to know that it's not just me. Yeah. We 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.040 read a section from an account by the mountaineer Frank Smythe, 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.080 who wrote of his experiences attempting and failing to summit 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.360 Mount Everest alone in nineteen thirty three, and he wrote 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.200 in one section of his account, quote, all the time 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.560 that I was climbing alone, I had a strong feeling 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.960 that I was accompanied by a second person. And then 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.120 later I remember constantly glancing back over my shoulder. And once, 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.360 when after reaching my highest point, I stopped to try 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.840 and eat some mint cake. I carefully divided it and 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.680 turned around with one half in my hand. It was 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.080 almost a shock to find no one to whom to 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.920 give it. And of course there are also plenty of 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.039 much more recent reports of the same thing, people having 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:24.800 strange experiences, delusions, hallucinations, or at least apparently to you know, 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.600 modern skeptical thinkers, hallucinations. It's very possible if people had 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.560 these experiences in the ancient world, or if they're just 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.279 less skeptically minded, they might think, you know, this was 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.400 a real presence with me on the mountain. There was 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.240 something supernatural happening up there, right. There was something revolting 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:45.040 about my mint cake that drove the spirit away. Now 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.839 it's clear that very high altitudes can have a number 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:52.560 of health effects that could have neurological and psychological implications. 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.240 These are generally thought to be caused by the lower 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.920 air pressure at higher altitudes. This is understood to be 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.200 the major cause, though I think it's worth emphasized that 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.200 there are things that are still not fully understood about 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.680 altitude sickness. Absolutely, and you know, there's a whole They 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.680 have been numerous studies over the years about individuals who 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:14.640 are climatized to a high altitude environments. Uh, that's something 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.200 we could potentially come back and do an entire episode on. Yeah, 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.560 But I think one of the interesting things about altitude 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.120 sickness that we still don't fully understand is why it 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:26.640 affects different people so differently, Like you can't always predict 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.480 whether a person will experience altitude sickness at a certain altitude. 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.160 And so the generally understood major cause of altitude sickness 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.280 seems to be the lower air pressure means less oxygen 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.279 is compressed in the atmosphere because you're up higher, so 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.400 there's less atmosphere sitting on the air you're breathing, right, 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.359 And that this was an idea that we initially explored 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.960 in the under Pressure episode. Yes, and so this means 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.120 you literally get less oxygen with each breath, and of 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.880 course you need oxygen to survive. If you're getting less 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:58.920 of it with each breath you take, you can begin 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.719 to suffer negative sequences in the body and the brain. 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.919 And meanwhile, you are perhaps climbing a mountain. Yeah, so 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.320 you're exerting yourself anyway, but it can happen even without exertion. 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.560 That that's important to note. And exactly what altitude it 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:14.960 sets in varies a good bit from person to person, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.479 Like we were just talking about, a reasonable figure at 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.320 which a significant percent of people will display symptoms is 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.400 sometimes cited to be eight thousand feet or but for 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:30.159 each individual person, it's a toss up. You individually might 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:32.960 be affected at a lower altitude or a higher altitude. 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.160 It it's hard to know for sure if you haven't 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.240 been there before. Um it's usually said to be worse 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.760 if you ascend quickly and don't give your body time 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.280 to adapt to lower air pressure at higher altitude. So 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.600 that is one thing if you're expecting to be like 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.800 hiking at a high altitude, it's good to give yourself 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.560 time to hang out at high altitude without exerting yourself first, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.479 Always be wary if you're aboard the starship Enterprise and 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:02.200 you teleport down to a mountain top, teleport to the 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:06.359 lower mountain area first. Yeah, base camps are still important, guys. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.800 But some common symptoms of like mild to moderate altitude 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.720 sickness would be the kinds of things you would first 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:14.960 of all, the kinds of things you would expect with 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:19.240 less access to oxygen. So maybe shortness of breath, breathing 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.240 harder with less physical exertion, uh, faster heart rate. You 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.280 know your heart's beating hard, it's trying to oxygenate your tissues. 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.280 You're just not getting enough oxygen in each breath, and 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.440 so you know you'd expect those kind of things. But 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.600 also you can experience nausea, dizziness, or lightheadedness, and it 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.000 can mess with your natural drives such as for sleep 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.080 and for food. So you can have loss of appetite, headache, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.720 and that kind of thing. In much more severe cases 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.640 of altitude sickness, you can have changes in the color 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.520 of the skin, you can have tightness in the chest. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.720 You can have mental effects like you know, loss of 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.560 loss of awareness, loss of coherence, or confusion, there can 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.680 even be offing up of blood or loss of consciousness. 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.240 And there there are subsequent life threatening conditions that can 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.840 come out of altitude sickness. One is known as high 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:13.880 altitude pulmonary a DEMO or hape HPE, where altitude sickness 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.200 leads to a build up of fluid in the lungs. This, 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.320 if you experience it is life threatening and you should 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.679 act on this immediately. Another is high altitude cerebral adema 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.720 or HACE, when altitude sickness leads to swelling of the brain, 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.360 which is very dangerous and of course can cause all 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.280 kinds of mental disturbances. And so obviously one question we 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.840 might have is if people often report seeing things that 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.880 aren't there in the mountains, to what extent can these 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:47.079 be traced to known psychological or not psychological, known physiological 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:51.640 conditions like cerebral dima hece absolutely and and as we 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.679 mentioned in the last episode, you know we're not looking 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.160 at this is like this the soul uh cause or 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.000 the soul re in that one has mountain myths, but 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.880 it could certainly potential uh thing that augments them or 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.199 feeds them in some cases. No, as we mentioned previously 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.239 in the other episodes. There's no way that say, psychological 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.720 disturbances as a result of you know, less oxygen reaching 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.880 the brain or something like that could explain all the myths. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.359 So one reason for that is that many holy mountains 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.679 aren't high enough to cause any altitude related symptoms. I mean, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.240 there are holy mountains that are just a few hundred 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.839 meters high. So it's obvious that you know, these are 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.040 these are geographical landmarks and they serve, you know, they 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.200 represent things to people. It doesn't have to be that 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.839 somebody went up on there and had a hallucination that 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.720 caused them to found a religion or a myth around 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.959 the mountain. Though. We do want to point out that 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.840 it's possible that in higher mountains, people going up into 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:55.080 these altitudes could have contributed to beliefs, you know, strange 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.319 supernatural beliefs about some mountains, right, and or the idea 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:03.800 that in general, mountains provide some sort of uh, you know, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.719 loosening of the veil between this world and the next. Yeah, 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:08.600 that's a great way to put it. So I want 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.280 to call attention to one recent paper, in particular in 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.760 the journal Psychological Medicine that deals with these phenomena of 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.480 people high up in the mountains having strange and anomalous experiences. 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:23.000 This was by Katerina Hoofner at All called isolated psychosis 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:27.600 during exposure to very high and extreme altitude characterization of 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.800 a new medical entity, and this was published in So 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:36.000 the authors here have examined about eighty three documented cases 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:40.959 among reports from alpine expeditions, and they believe they've identified 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.960 a new independent condition that's separate from altitude sickness and 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:51.280 separate from any existing mental disorder. It's called isolated high 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.480 altitude psychosis. Now, of course, psychosis is a set of symptoms, 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.000 and that would be I have, right, wait, what we 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.600 can call it? I have, I have, I have. Oh, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.240 I didn't even think about an acronym I have. Yeah, 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.960 this is I have the International House of Psychosis. Yeah. 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:13.160 Psychosis is a set of symptoms including quote, hallucinations, delusions, 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:18.600 disorganized speech, abnormal psychomotor behavior, and negative symptoms, and additionally 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.440 impaired cognition, depression, and mania. So it's characteristic of of 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.240 underlying conditions like schizophrenia, but can also occur in isolation 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.720 due to a number of inciting stressors. You know, one 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.800 of the things is people often think that hallucinations can 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.160 only occur if somebody has an underlying mental illness, But 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.480 people who don't have an underlying mental illness sometimes experienced 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.800 hallucinations just depending on like fleeting, stresses and things that 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.080 are affecting them. Oh yeah, absolutely um. Oliver Sachs's book 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.800 Hallucinations is always a fabulous source on all of this 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.959 because he you know, he discusses hallucinogens a little bit 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:55.920 in there, but but for the most part, it's it's 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.760 all these various other causes that are in play. Right, 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.000 So the author's exam and a list of documented cases 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:06.640 of mountaineering, and they looked for signs of high altitude psychosis, 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.559 and then they cross reference this to see whether there 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:15.719 were always concurrent symptoms of physiological distress from high altitudes, 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.640 such as high altitude cerebral a DEMO or HACE. Obviously, 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.360 you can see why if the brain is swelling with fluid, 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.440 that might cause things like hallucinations and mental disturbances. So 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.360 from previous studies, we know that how often psychosis occurs 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.679 at high altitude seems to vary a lot, depending on 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.600 who's doing the counting and what criteria they use. So 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.720 this is unfortunately a case where the numbers are not 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:41.880 very solid. They seem to be all over the place, 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.880 like Woo at All in two thousand six found that 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.559 there were hallucinations in three percent of cases with Hace. 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.840 Wilson at All in two thousand nine reported hallucinations in 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:57.600 thirty two percent of climbers above seven thousand fives, which 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.000 is a totally different criterion than the last thing. Obviously, 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.160 so we're not going apples to apples here, we're just 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.880 seeing what there is to see about hallucinations at altitude. 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.800 Bruger at All in quote found hallucinatory experiences in seven 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.600 of eight, or eighty eight percent of world class climbers 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:21.480 who reached altitudes above eight thousand five hunds without supplementary oxygen. Obviously, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.200 this is a pretty wild fluctuation, And I don't know 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.080 for sure, but I guess the discrepancy here has to 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.080 do with the methods they're using to select cases in 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.319 these different studies. Right, you'd probably get very different numbers 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.760 if you just check to see if climbers self reports 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:41.760 psychosis versus say, proactively asking them if they've had psychosis. Yeah, 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.600 this is one of those spreads of numbers that you know, 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:46.160 it brings to mind the whole like you know, it 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.120 just depends on how you torture the numbers, what kind 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.160 of story you're going to get out of them exactly. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.320 I mean, I think one of the problems here is 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.840 that we don't have anything consistent to work with going 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.200 into the study. So so they had to try to 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.040 come up with with the method of their own, and 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:01.920 they know it's not perfect, but it's just to sort 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.000 of get a rough idea of where to start looking 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.280 at this problem. So in the present study, the authors 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.920 found first of all, that psychosis of some kind often 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.839 happens when you're at high altitude. Their sample, which they 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.800 did from consulting existing literature, yielded a result that found quote, 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.600 hallucinations occurred in forty two percent or thirty five out 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.760 of eighty three of the episodes that they surveyed at 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.240 a mean altitude of seven thousand, two hundred and eighty meters, 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.520 and of these episodes, thirty four percent or twelve out 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.200 of thirty five uh The hallucinations occurred at the same 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.520 time that there are signs that the person had a 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.760 cerebral demo or hace they determined that high altitude psychosis 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.040 can happen together with HACE or with other physiological effects, 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:51.160 or without them. Therefore, they concluded that isolated high altitude 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:55.920 psychosis or eyeap your coining should be considered an independent 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:00.440 psychological condition related to high altitude and not us as 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.680 a possible symptom of altitude sickness. And finally, they concluded 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.480 that high altitude psychosis is associated with an increased risk 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.520 of accidents or near accidents. That's kind of not surprising. Uh. 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.280 Now they propose some hypothetical causes for these non hece 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:20.680 cases of high altitude psychosis. One would be like social 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:25.200 and sensory deprivation in conjunction with psychological stress. Stress is 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.840 often a common inciting factor for people who don't otherwise 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.760 have him into illness to have hallucinations, right, And then 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.400 of course it's so varied depending on how much stress 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.440 an individual is going to have in a given circumstance, 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:41.960 and then how that stress is affecting their performance and 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.600 their mental capacity. Yeah, and then you add social and 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.320 sensory deprivation to that. They don't have anybody else there 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.760 to talk to if their climbing alone, or or they 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.800 have limited numbers of people there with them. Uh, the 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:55.640 their view of the world. You know, there might be 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.520 a lot less like color and stuff than they'd normally 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:03.080 be seen. Another potential, uh cause they side is quote 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.240 dysfunction of the temporal parietal junction and angular gyros due 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:12.920 to hypoxia, hypoglycemia and cold. And then finally they say, well, 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.760 another possibility is just that HASE is going on in 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:19.000 these cases and somehow it's being under diagnosed in the field. 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.080 Maybe a lot of these people experiencing psychosis do have 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.160 HASTE and just for some reason, the normal symptoms are 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:27.480 not showing up and being recorded. This is I mean 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.200 especially true if you're going it alone, right or or 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.000 even if you you have a climbing partner like you 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.320 you may not I guess be having um, just a 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:40.000 regular check in about your your your your feelings of 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.800 physical and mental health. Yeah. And of course cerebral adema 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.200 is like that. That's really dangerous. You know, like if 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.920 if you have this, you should be getting treated for it. 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.160 That's not like a time to say Okay, I'll just 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.080 power through and trying to go on up to the summit. Now, 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.080 this is interesting going back to what Frank Smythe and 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.600 the others have talked about with with their experience of 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.280 what's known as third man sent drome. The authors here 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.920 found that when climbers reported perceptual disturbances of various kinds, 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.919 the majority, though not all of them, but the majority 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:13.080 of them were either neutral or even helpful and comforting. 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.480 For example, a hallucinated climbing companion who protects and guides them, 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.800 or a voice encouraging them or warning them of danger. Now, 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:27.040 just because the majority of these perceptual disturbances and hallucinations 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.119 are positive in nature or at least neutral, doesn't mean 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:33.240 we shouldn't worry about them. Since hallucinations high altitude seemed 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.879 correlated with a risk of accidents, it's not hard to 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.160 see why that would be. Uh, Climbers high altitude should 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.960 be aware that psychosis is very possible and should develop 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.399 defensive strategies for what happens if it sets in if 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.880 you think you see somebody that you don't remember being there. 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.800 Otherwise you should have like procedures in place for that, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.720 like reality testing. Now, on the other hand, about the study, obviously, 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.159 there appears to be some weakness in the selection criteria 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.280 for cases. But I guess in this kind of study 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.680 you're limited by the fact that you can't just stick people, 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.720 you know, random test subjects at the top of a 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.520 mountain and see if they undergo psychosis. Uh, they're they're 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.960 Also the authors point out, there is survivor bias at play, right, 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.520 We're hearing the stories of people who were able to 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:21.320 report their stories, some people who did not succumb on 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.080 the mountain or experience some sort of a fatal accident, 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.879 or didn't have somebody with them who got to report 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.840 what happened. Yeah, they say, for future studies, you you 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.560 could perhaps simulate some conditions like this in chambers that 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.919 simulate altitude with low oxygen or low atmospheric pressure. Also, 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:40.560 you don't need to have a huge or hugely random 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.200 number of cases if you just want to establish that 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.320 sometimes people report psychosis at high altitudes with no record 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.879 of altitude sickness or cute sickness like hace. Now we 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.000 mentioned already that that one of the other factors here 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:59.520 is that not all sacred mountains are enormous skyscraping um, 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.840 you know, monuments to the sky God. Right, not all 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.359 most sacred mountains are probably not even tall enough for 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.320 people to be reaching the same kinds of altitudes that 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.959 are in this study, though some are. The authors here 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.000 point out that most of these reports of symptoms reminiscent 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.720 of psychosis among mountain climbers come from very high and 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.879 extreme altitudes, so like thirty five to fifty ms or 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.640 even above. So there're gonna be tons of holy mountains 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.920 around the world that that do not even reach these altitudes. 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.119 Nobody could could climb high enough to be at the 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.000 altitudes like the ones being studied in this in this research, 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.359 so I'd say whether the physiological or psychological effects of 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.840 altitude contribute to these types of religious beliefs in some cases, 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.520 especially at higher peaks, It's hard to know for sure, 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:54.080 but absolutely it seems possible and even attempting origin story 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.840 for some holy mountains and sacred peaks around the world. Yeah, 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.000 one thing, and I may come back to this, the 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.880 whole idea that most of these reported cases of another 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.359 of this uh you know, this third man or what 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:12.320 have you, is going to be neutral or beneficial. And indeed, 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:17.480 when we look at all these different myths about holy mountains, um, 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.040 so many of them are about like the gods living there. 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.720 Um like I wanted to find more mountain monsters. I 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.280 truly did. I'm always looking for the monsters. And not 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.280 to say there are not mountain monsters, certainly there Um, 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.760 there are traditions of things coming down from the mountains, crampits, etcetera. 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.399 But it kind of seems like they're they're weighted in 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:43.359 favor of at least the neutral deities, neutral spirits and 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.840 what have you, uh and and even beneficial beings as 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:52.080 opposed to the monsters of say, uh Mount doom Um 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.280 or the lonely mountain and token. Well, maybe we can 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.879 We will explore mountain monsters a little bit today, but 0:20:57.960 --> 0:20:59.720 maybe we can explore it more in the future. I'm 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.200 just I didn't think about this when we were preparing, 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.480 but I just now remembered the mountain trolls of Iceland. 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:08.440 All Right, Well, on that note, let's take a quick break. 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:10.240 When we come back, we'll look at another study and 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.360 we'll move on to a particular mountain creature that, yes, 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:18.040 you might qualify, you might describe as a monster. Thank 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.800 thank you, thank you. All right, we're back, all right, 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:22.880 What have we got next to? Robert? All right, So 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:24.800 I was looking at a study. This is one that 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:26.879 you found and then I ended up diving into it. 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.040 This was yeah, yeah, yeah, I was interested. I didn't 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:32.800 know about this one because it seemed like some of them. Well, 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.880 well you describe it and then we can discuss. Yeah. 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.880 This one was titled why Revelations have Occurred on Mountains 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:43.040 Linking mystical experiences and cognitive neuroscience. This was published in 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:50.479 Medical Hypotheses from Autoto back It, Old Land, SIB and 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:55.040 blank ep quote. Here's a quote from the piece. Quote. 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:59.000 Prolonged stay at high altitudes, especially in social deprivation, may 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:02.920 also lead to refrontal lobe dysfunctions such as low resistance 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.200 to stress and loss of inhibition. Based on these phenomenological, functional, 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.640 and neural findings, we suggest that exposure to altitudes might 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:14.840 contribute to the induction of revelation experiences and might further 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.360 our understanding of the mountain metaphor and religion. So they're 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.240 really going for it on this one, and they point 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:26.280 to the major revelations in the three major monotheistic religions. 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:29.720 UH in Judaism, the burning bush uh. This is where 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:34.400 God speaks through the burning bush. This is from Exodus, Christianity, 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:38.080 there's the Transfiguration from the Book of Matthew. This is 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.440 a in which Jesus's divine nature is revealed to onlookers. 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.640 And then in Islam there's also the point where Allah 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:50.479 speaks to the prophet Muhammad, and that is also like 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:55.240 a mountain revelation. Now, one of the problems here is 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.800 getting into the idea of insufficient altitudes, right yeah. So 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:01.560 I'd seen the study brought up on a science blog somewhere, 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:04.480 and I thought, um, it was interesting because it's touching 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.119 on this question we're asking. But I saw it in 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.520 the context of it being ridiculed because the main mountains 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.639 that it's talking about aren't really that hot, you know, 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.119 so they're not like super high mountains that would be 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:20.040 likely to cause altitude sickness, right right, Yeah, They're not 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.119