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Speaker 1: How time flies. We are, as we said, publishing classic episodes,

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Speaker 1: and this is one that is very near and dear

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Speaker 1: to our collective hearts. This was a very unusual episode

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Speaker 1: for us to make because the conspirator in this in

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Speaker 1: today's show is is you it's your brain? Right? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Are you your brain? Or is your brain you? Or

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Speaker 1: are you the same? Oh? I don't know. Is this

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Speaker 1: your brain on drugs or is it just an excuse

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Speaker 1: not to eat eggs anymore? In a way, some of

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Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about here is your brain

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Speaker 1: on drugs, in as in chemicals that are produced by

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Speaker 1: your own body, and also other chemicals that you can

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Speaker 1: take into you. And this one really focuses on a

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Speaker 1: video series we put out, So we recommend both listen

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Speaker 1: to this and then check out the YouTube channel Conspiracy

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Speaker 1: Stuff and watch the Deceptive Brain videos. There's some great,

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Speaker 1: great powerful content in there. This was a journey for

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Speaker 1: us for a peek behind the scenes. We did not,

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Speaker 1: or at least I did not expect the video series

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Speaker 1: to become a three parter. Neurochemistry is a tricky thing,

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Speaker 1: and I believe when we originally recorded this, we have

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Speaker 1: the most up to date information and studies available about

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Speaker 1: human neurochemistry, but there's still so much to learn. Luckily

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Speaker 1: we listen back to this and it is and what

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Speaker 1: we found was disturbing. You know, this is the early

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Speaker 1: days before we became quite as cynical as we are

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Speaker 1: now about the treachery of memory and all the other

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Speaker 1: tricks your brain plays on you. But have you ever

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Speaker 1: been in love? Have you ever been very angry about something?

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Speaker 1: Have you ever hated someone? Uh? In each of those instances,

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Speaker 1: your brain will pull a full Judas on you in

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Speaker 1: some way or another. So, without further ado, why don't

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Speaker 1: we get right into it. Let's do what. I hope

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Speaker 1: your brain doesn't play any tricks on you while you're

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Speaker 1: listening from UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History

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Speaker 1: is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now

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Speaker 1: or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 1: I'm Ben Bowling and I'm Matt Frederick, and today we

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Speaker 1: are going to talk about a series that we did. Wow,

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Speaker 1: there's a deep cut on Matt. Yeah, at least the

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Speaker 1: original The the original episodes were rather deep and that

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Speaker 1: original series was called The Deceptive Brain, or rather Present

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Speaker 1: Tense is called the Deceptive Brain because you can still

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Speaker 1: see it on YouTube right now. This was a three

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Speaker 1: part series wherein You and I explored the effects that

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Speaker 1: chemicals have on the brain, and most importantly, the effects

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Speaker 1: that naturally occurring neurochemicals have on the brain, right, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: and the ways in which those chemicals kind of trick

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Speaker 1: the brain. It's weird, it tricks itself by releasing chemicals

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Speaker 1: because when we think about, uh, when we say your

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Speaker 1: brain is tricking you, it's really tricking itself. And I

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Speaker 1: thought that was one of the more fascinating things, because

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Speaker 1: what are we besides our brains, at least the thoughts

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Speaker 1: that we have. Yeah, and this was funny to us

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Speaker 1: because you know, sometimes it can be a little bit

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Speaker 1: challenging when we're making an episode to have it always

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Speaker 1: end with something someone doesn't want someone else to know.

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Speaker 1: And this was a little bit different for us because

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Speaker 1: it was your brain quote unquote, your brain didn't want

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Speaker 1: you to know exactly how it was saving or lying

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Speaker 1: to you. What we did see some really interesting stuff.

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Speaker 1: We did a did one episode on love we did Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we did one episode on hate. I actually I wanted

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Speaker 1: to go all the way back and do some of

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Speaker 1: the first stuff we talked about with the seft of brain.

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Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite Okay, yeah, like I

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Speaker 1: learned a lot of things. I'm just gonna go off

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Speaker 1: the cuff here. I One of my favorite things that

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Speaker 1: I learned in the earlier episodes was the trick with

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Speaker 1: the warm cup or a warm beverage in your hand

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Speaker 1: when you speak with someone, and how it can affect

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Speaker 1: the way you feel about that person or at least

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Speaker 1: your takeaway feelings. Yeah, that's a that was a very

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Speaker 1: interesting series of studies. Like I can't remember exactly which

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Speaker 1: university it comes out of, but I think it's in

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Speaker 1: our episode there. And this is where this this comes

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Speaker 1: into play. Where if you're if you and I are

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Speaker 1: talking and like I have coffee right now, Let's see

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Speaker 1: how I have coffee right now? It's cold though, watch

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Speaker 1: out your on thin ice, my friend, because if somebody

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Speaker 1: is holding a hot drink. These studies found that they

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Speaker 1: are more likely for some almost it sounds withiculous, but

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Speaker 1: they're more likely to regard a person that's speaking to

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Speaker 1: them as nicer. There they tend to be a little

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Speaker 1: more empathetic maybe, but then when they have a cold drink,

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Speaker 1: they tend to that effect is reduced and they tend

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Speaker 1: to be more objective. That was interesting to me, and

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Speaker 1: that's something it's um it's similar to what's called priming, right,

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Speaker 1: psychologically subtly framing a situation such that a person's brain

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Speaker 1: kind of leads them to a predetermined decision point of

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Speaker 1: some sort. And another thing, this is a funny trick,

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Speaker 1: and this I really want people to try this met

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Speaker 1: anybody who has an office job. If you have a dog,

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Speaker 1: get a picture of your dog. Just your dog. You

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Speaker 1: can be in the picture. It doesn't matter if you

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Speaker 1: are uh, just get a picture of your dog and

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Speaker 1: put it on your desk and see if people begin

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Speaker 1: to treat you differently. If you have a cat, don't

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Speaker 1: put a picture of your cat up there, because I

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Speaker 1: think this only works with dogs. But was another yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: there was another study that found that people who had

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Speaker 1: a photograph of a dog on their desk were more

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Speaker 1: likely to be perceived as team players or supportive people. Wow. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but not not so with cats, my friend. And also,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you want to be a little unethical,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have to necessarily be your dog. Oh, just

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Speaker 1: find a funny picture of a dog. That could be

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Speaker 1: an awkward conversation, Oh, do you have a dog? No, No,

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Speaker 1: it's like this picture because I'm a team player. Or

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Speaker 1: you could just come up with some elaborate story about

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Speaker 1: that dog and how you used to have it and

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Speaker 1: it went and you know, lives in a farm. Now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's no way that an elaborate lie will ever go wrong,

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Speaker 1: especially in an office environment. So another thing we talked

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Speaker 1: about ben was sleep. How you can hack your sleep

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Speaker 1: and kind of change your brain and the way it

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Speaker 1: works by breaking up your waking and sleeping hours. I

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Speaker 1: think it's called polyphasic sleep. Yeah, polyphasic sleep, the sustainability

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Speaker 1: and efficacy of which has been a subject of intense debate.

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Speaker 1: People who are familiar with this might see on the

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Speaker 1: internet what's what was called? I think the Uberman sleep schedule,

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Speaker 1: which I never achieved, but I got. The closest I

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Speaker 1: got was too close closest it was probably Let's see,

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Speaker 1: I did two four hour chunks for a while, and

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Speaker 1: then I divided into um of waking or sleeping for

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Speaker 1: our sleeping and and some people have even argued later

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Speaker 1: on that that is a more natural way of human

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Speaker 1: rest cycles. But I don't know. I can't think of

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Speaker 1: that book. There was a book that came out not

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Speaker 1: long ago that talked about that, how men and women

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Speaker 1: would sleep for four hours, wake up, sometimes engage in

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Speaker 1: let's say, witchcraft, and then sleep for another four hours.

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Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, and um, you

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Speaker 1: know I was experimenting with that stuff before before this,

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Speaker 1: uh this book came out or before I was aware

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Speaker 1: of it. The Uberman sleep schedule. However, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if anyone who's listening has ever successfully done it. I'd

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Speaker 1: love to hear about it, because it's just it's pretty

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Speaker 1: much a series twenty minute naps, and you're supposed to.

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Speaker 1: The reasoning goes, so I'll train your brain to just

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Speaker 1: fall right into R E M sleep and then wake

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Speaker 1: wake up immediately refreshed. But of course the problem is

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Speaker 1: in theory. If that works, then you can't not you

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Speaker 1: cannot miss a nap by a moment. And then also

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Speaker 1: I imagine that the other the other phases of sleep

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Speaker 1: are in their own way equally important. So why would

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Speaker 1: you want to cut it out? Well, because you want

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Speaker 1: to get you want to get to that rem cycle

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Speaker 1: so that you can control your dream right, because that's

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Speaker 1: where lucid dreaming comes in. And if you can control

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Speaker 1: when you dream, when you dream, and how you dream,

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Speaker 1: then essentially you're not sleeping, You're you're cognitive at all

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Speaker 1: the times. Yeah, which I wonder you know, sleep. I

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Speaker 1: always thought sleep sounded like such a strange, hilarious thing.

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Speaker 1: We've talked about it off air. You know, I kind

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Speaker 1: of resent the fact that people have to sleep, and

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Speaker 1: um more so than many other animals. But one thing

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Speaker 1: that gets me about this this concept is if you

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Speaker 1: just described it to someone who wasn't familiar with the

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Speaker 1: idea of sleep, it sounds crazy. You would say, you know,

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Speaker 1: like you would say, oh, guys, I want to hang out,

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Speaker 1: but it's about that time. I've I've been moving around

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Speaker 1: for a while, so now I'm going to lie down,

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Speaker 1: lose consciousness and just sort of hallucinate for a few hours,

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Speaker 1: you know, and but I will I will see you

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Speaker 1: after that. That's so weird. Yeah, you're right, You're absolutely right.

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Speaker 1: That's very strange because you're so vulnerable when you're sleeping.

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Speaker 1: You're again you're not active, you're not achieving anything. I

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Speaker 1: guess that's why lucid dreaming is. Uh, it's so it's

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Speaker 1: looked at such an important thing to some people. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, the nature of dreams themselves, that's sort of

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Speaker 1: a that's already a very very weird thing, just in

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Speaker 1: terms of both the in terms of both the content

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Speaker 1: and the and the physical event. It's possible that you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe some people might object to this statement, but maybe

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Speaker 1: the brain is deceiving people most immediately in dreams, right,

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Speaker 1: but there are other ways they do it in waking life.

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Speaker 1: And um, what was interesting to us, I think both

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Speaker 1: of us about this episode was being able to see

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Speaker 1: exactly what these effects were and the chemicals that have

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Speaker 1: been traced uh to the root cause. So it's not

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Speaker 1: it's not just one rebellious scientists saying this might happen.

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Speaker 1: There are a bunch of other people that have also

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Speaker 1: researched this. Pure reviewed studies that have you know, pointed

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Speaker 1: out that feelings of love, for instance, traced back to

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Speaker 1: dopamine no rap and efrin and fenal leth al amine

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Speaker 1: penal lethal A mean, but those those things are linked

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Speaker 1: to a euphorian addiction, right, So um it is possible

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Speaker 1: to get addicted to that feeling your brain's excretions. That's

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Speaker 1: what are some things that really surprised you about the

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Speaker 1: deceptive brain? Mat I was surprised that there are techniques

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Speaker 1: and technologies that are being created and devised that will

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Speaker 1: be able to hack the brain. I thought that was

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Speaker 1: super cool. The transcranial what is it, transcranial transcranial direct

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Speaker 1: current simulation. That's exactly right, man, that that's pretty cool. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So we've uh, we've probably talked about this ad nauseum

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Speaker 1: for people who are into this um or. I've heard

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Speaker 1: the show before, but I am so old on transcranial

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Speaker 1: direct current simulation. So what is this. This is the

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Speaker 1: practice of putting a small amount of electricity through very

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Speaker 1: specific parts of the brain and through that creating lasting

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Speaker 1: effects on the way your brain works. So this isn't

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Speaker 1: some made up Frankenstein's sci fi stuff. It's being used

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Speaker 1: by DARPA to train uh snipers, It's being used by

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Speaker 1: the Air Force to reduce pilot training time. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: the idea here is that by putting this electricity through

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Speaker 1: a person's brain, and of course, you know, just like

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Speaker 1: in real estate, when you're zapping your brain. It's location, location, location,

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Speaker 1: and depending on the location you pick, then you can

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Speaker 1: see an increase in uh, memory retention, you can see

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Speaker 1: an increase in the learning curve. And I think there

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Speaker 1: are some kinetic things that people can do, like your

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Speaker 1: hand eye co nation increases. Possibly the weirdest thing, though,

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Speaker 1: is that after exposing somebody's brain to these things on

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Speaker 1: a regular scale, the changes stay. It doesn't just happen

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Speaker 1: while someone's there. It's I have to remember to put

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Speaker 1: this part at the beginning. Great athletes, great chess players,

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Speaker 1: great experts of various endeavors, always have that moment where

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Speaker 1: they describe describe it as being in the zone. We

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Speaker 1: hear that with athletes right well. Transcranial direct current simulation

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Speaker 1: and a related thing, um transcarnial magnetic simulation can recreate

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Speaker 1: that feeling of being in the zone, and not even

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Speaker 1: just the feeling, they can recreate the way the brain

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Speaker 1: works when one is in quote unquote the zone. Do

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Speaker 1: you get in the zone when you write sometimes? I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's a really good question. I think for me it's yes.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it does occur, and and it might be irrespective

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Speaker 1: of what I'm what I'm working on, but find most

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Speaker 1: often in fiction because just making it up and then

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden you see it and you go oh.

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Speaker 1: But then if you're you're reviewing sources and stuff, um,

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Speaker 1: and you want to make sure that you're actually telling

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Speaker 1: people the truth, um, then you can still get in

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Speaker 1: the zone. But yeah, it happens to me on a

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Speaker 1: weekly basis here if I put on the right music,

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Speaker 1: or if i'm if I've got enough white noise in

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Speaker 1: the background, sometimes I'll just start seeing the episode unfold

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Speaker 1: before I'm putting any images down. Yeah. Yeah, I like

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Speaker 1: doing that. That's trippy. That's pretty cool. So we should

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Speaker 1: also talk about this music because it's true. Isn't it

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Speaker 1: that you found some specific types of auditory or audio

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Speaker 1: simulations like that's true. I've got a couple different ones.

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Speaker 1: I've got a certain playlist on my iTunes. It's just

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Speaker 1: instrumental music, just music that that flows, and it doesn't

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Speaker 1: have even the beat. Isn't that intense? Just put Sure

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Speaker 1: people would say it puts your brain in a certain

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Speaker 1: alpha waves or whatever. I have no idea, but but

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Speaker 1: it really does get you in the place where you

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Speaker 1: can focus on what's directly in front of you. It

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Speaker 1: eliminates distractions around you. Because we we sit in an

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Speaker 1: office together, all of the editors here. We literally have

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Speaker 1: a glass office. It is glass on three sides, that's true.

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Speaker 1: And and we we sit in that office and we're

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Speaker 1: all editing with our headphones on and clacking away on

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Speaker 1: our keybords, and it gets a little loud, and you know,

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Speaker 1: we have to constantly share with each other. So you

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Speaker 1: need something to You have to hack your brain in

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Speaker 1: a way to focus. You have to kind of recreate

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Speaker 1: what would be a physical distance. And uh, now it's

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Speaker 1: time before you go out. We have to talk about hate,

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Speaker 1: which was a very interesting episode for us because we

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Speaker 1: found that studies have shown there is a hate circuit

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Speaker 1: in the brain and it connects three regions of the

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Speaker 1: brain and there, you know, there's like a love circuit.

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Speaker 1: And of course love evolutionarily speaking, makes sense, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you gotta reproduce, man. Just thank god we're not praying

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Speaker 1: mantis style. You know, that's rough deal for the dudes.

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Speaker 1: But hate, it turns out, also has um an evolutionary advantage,

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Speaker 1: Like there's there's a reason that hate exists in the

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Speaker 1: Great human mosaic or tapestry or whatever, you know, big

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Speaker 1: big thing, the great human thing. And it's about survival, right,

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Speaker 1: and all of these things that we're learning about with

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Speaker 1: the brain and how it's working for you and against you.

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Speaker 1: It's about survival sometimes because our conscious thought requires it

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Speaker 1: requires the brain to take over itself. Yes, in a

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Speaker 1: weird way. Yeah. And the and hate and love are

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's kind of been a cliche for

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Speaker 1: long time, hate and love or two sides at the

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Speaker 1: same coin, and all that stuff, all that jazz, all

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Speaker 1: that smooth jazz. But the the truth is that there

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Speaker 1: is some physiological basis to that comparison. There's a brain

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Speaker 1: region called the putamen, which was so fun to say,

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Speaker 1: put a m in and this is part of the

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Speaker 1: hate circuit and it's also associated with love. So maybe

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Speaker 1: they're not that different. And the professor who found some

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Speaker 1: of these studies um noted that viewing a loved or

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Speaker 1: hated person could be equally distressing, and that the insula

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Speaker 1: also is involved in responding to distressing situations. And I

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Speaker 1: guess I could see that because you know, who hasn't

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Speaker 1: been embarrassed in front of a crush? I hope that

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Speaker 1: not everybody has seen someone and immediately wanted them to die,

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Speaker 1: but it happens. I feel very lucky because I can't

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Speaker 1: specifically recall any moment where I looked at someone and

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Speaker 1: thought you should die. Well, I wonder how much that

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Speaker 1: circuit is trained by, let's say, influence from parental figures

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Speaker 1: or societal figures. Right, I don't wonder how. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if it's strengthened or if it's dold in certain people.

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Speaker 1: You know, we ran into something similar with uh one

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Speaker 1: of our other shows here at how Stuff Works the car.

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Speaker 1: Stuff looked at neuroplasticity with this thing called the knowledge,

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Speaker 1: and you and I talked about the knowledge, right. You

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Speaker 1: know the London taxi drivers the test they have to take, Yes, exactly,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a beast of a test because you

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Speaker 1: have to memorize not only pretty much all the streets

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Speaker 1: of London, but you also have to memorize specific roots,

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Speaker 1: and you have to do alternatives to those roots. And

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Speaker 1: a lot of people, I think the vast majority fail

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Speaker 1: the first time they take the knowledge. And I mean

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Speaker 1: it's already pretty intimidating test. It's called the knowledge and uh,

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Speaker 1: they study um intensely to pass this test, and when

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Speaker 1: they finally do pass this test, they become London cabbies

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Speaker 1: and live happily ever after. Yeah, I'm sure that's how

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Speaker 1: it goes every time. I'm sure that's how it goes

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Speaker 1: every single time. That's not even a generalization ever. But

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Speaker 1: what what happened is some of the research conducted found

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Speaker 1: that these cab drivers after decades of service. It's not

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Speaker 1: right all the jump, but after decades they had larger

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Speaker 1: areas of the brain associated with memory and UM three

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Speaker 1: D space navigation, you know. So so it's possible that

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Speaker 1: there's real life mind over matter, your thoughts, the things

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Speaker 1: that you try to think about UM, and the things

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Speaker 1: to which you apply your consciousness can have a physical

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Speaker 1: effect on the makeup of your brain. They also found

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Speaker 1: um they've being scientists also not the drivers. Uh, also

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Speaker 1: found that there was a similar effect in some I

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Speaker 1: believe they were Buddhist monks who had spent decades meditating

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Speaker 1: on compassion and kindness, and they had a larger part

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Speaker 1: of the brain associated with you know, like empathy and

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Speaker 1: kindness and mirror neurons and stuff like that. And so

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Speaker 1: it's strange because when to respond to that point about

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Speaker 1: hate kind of makes me think, yeah, is it possible

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Speaker 1: that you could train somebody in the opposite direction? I

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Speaker 1: think mostly just I'm interested in in where we can

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Speaker 1: go with this, and it makes me want to meditate

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Speaker 1: more and read more and study the maps of Atlanta

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Speaker 1: more and possibly increase the size of my brain. Oliver.

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Speaker 1: And for a literary reference, the idea of training people

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Speaker 1: to hate makes me think of Goldstein and the two

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Speaker 1: Minute Hate in and um, maybe it is possible to

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Speaker 1: kind of ritualize that. We do also know that it

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Speaker 1: is a tale as old as time. To take the

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Speaker 1: line from Beauty and the Beast, that groups of people

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Speaker 1: do tend to concentrate hate towards some other outside identity.

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Speaker 1: Defining something as not us gives a more cohesive identity

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Speaker 1: to a community or a group of people. It's especially

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Speaker 1: helpful if you have an overseer or uh a government

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Speaker 1: and or someone above you telling you that that's what

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Speaker 1: you should hate. Yes, yes, and we're not saying that

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Speaker 1: that is what we would do if we were ever

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Speaker 1: in charge of something, But I think we'd be okay

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Speaker 1: being in charge of stuff. All right, Well, we better

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Speaker 1: get out of here. And work on our meditation. Before that,

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Speaker 1: that stuff all comes into play. Um, let's see, let's

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Speaker 1: tell people about our Facebook. Hey, guys, if you like

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Speaker 1: this and you want to find out more, we've got

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Speaker 1: a playlist on our YouTube page. That's YouTube dot com

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Speaker 1: slash conspiracy Stuff and it's the Deceptive Brain series. You

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00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 1: can talk to us on Twitter we're at conspiracy Stuff,

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Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Facebook. We're also

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Speaker 1: conspiracy Stuff there. And that's the end of this class episode.

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Speaker 1: If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,

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Speaker 1: you can get into contact with us in a number

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Speaker 1: of different ways. One of the best is to give

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Speaker 1: do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.

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