Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing you a mail bag
Speaker 1: that is mostly about our two part episode about humans
Speaker 1: spinning around in circles. That's right, Spin Kicks, Spin Kicks.
Speaker 1: A surprising number of people had had really intense thoughts
Speaker 1: and feelings about spinning. Yeah, yeah, I was really pleased
Speaker 1: with the crop we were able to bring in off
Speaker 1: this one, and Carney the mail bod has been pleased
Speaker 1: as well. Carney has been spinning NonStop since these came in,
Speaker 1: that's true, and I've been quite mesmerized by the undulations
Speaker 1: of his skirt made out of wires and drive chains.
Speaker 1: All right, well, he's spinning spinning our way here. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll go ahead and read this first listener
Speaker 1: mail that he has for us. This comes to us
Speaker 1: from Hannah, Hi, Robert, and Joe. I was so honor
Speaker 1: that my previous email helped partially inspire such an interesting
Speaker 1: pair of episodes, like a Circle in the Spiral Parts
Speaker 1: one and two. It made my day so much brighter.
Speaker 1: From the minute the episode started, I was waiting eagerly
Speaker 1: for you to mention spotting. In my personal experience, it
Speaker 1: makes a huge difference in preventing dizziness while turning, lessening
Speaker 1: the recovery needed for a long sequence of turns to
Speaker 1: maybe a few seconds at worst. However, maybe even more importantly,
Speaker 1: it helps to maintain balance in pirouettes and other one
Speaker 1: legged turns. Often the most challenging part of a long
Speaker 1: turn sequence is trying to stay on balance to not
Speaker 1: fall out of the movement. Focusing on a single point
Speaker 1: not only keeps you from getting as busy from the spinning,
Speaker 1: but but it's also a trick that can be used
Speaker 1: in stationary balances to help stabilize. Um. You know this
Speaker 1: is this is something that is a great point because
Speaker 1: it does come up in in yoga, for instance, So
Speaker 1: when you're doing balancing poses, it's often been pointed out
Speaker 1: to me by yoga teachers that you know, you need
Speaker 1: to focus on a point to help maintain your balance,
Speaker 1: and and I was I did that for years, but
Speaker 1: then another teacher was like, don't just focus on a
Speaker 1: point while you're doing a uh, you know, a standing
Speaker 1: balancing post. Focus on a vertical line, and I found
Speaker 1: that that seemed to work. I I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I have no empirical studies here on my part, but
Speaker 1: that seemed to work even better than focusing on a point.
Speaker 1: If I could find like a line in some tiles,
Speaker 1: or a line on a door seal, something like that,
Speaker 1: it helps me maintain my my balance a lot better,
Speaker 1: you know, assuming my balance isn't out of whack due
Speaker 1: to lack of sleep or something. I wonder if that
Speaker 1: has anything to do with the one of the rationales
Speaker 1: for dizziness that we talked about in the first part,
Speaker 1: which is the nastagma's issue, dizziness caused by the rapid
Speaker 1: adjustment back and forth of the eyes. Like maybe a
Speaker 1: vertical line helps keep that forestalled better than a point would. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so Hannah continues, uh quote. I also had some thoughts
Speaker 1: about children spinning and spotting. In my experience teaching dance
Speaker 1: to children, I found that one of the techniques that
Speaker 1: it takes the longest for young dancers to grasp is
Speaker 1: learning to spot. For my youngest students, I would often
Speaker 1: take something big and bright on the wall to give
Speaker 1: them an easier place to focus, but mostly it's reminding
Speaker 1: and encouraging them to slow down and focus on one
Speaker 1: part at a time. I mostly chalk up this challenge
Speaker 1: to a combination of still developing motor skills and coordination,
Speaker 1: but I think it also has quite a bit to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that spinning really fast and getting
Speaker 1: really dizzy is fun, at least for children. Yes, I
Speaker 1: wanted to end on two quick things. One is a
Speaker 1: sort of folk tip for recovering from spinning related dizziness.
Speaker 1: Make your hands into a blade shape and lay your
Speaker 1: thumb along your nose in between your eyebrows, so your
Speaker 1: hand becomes a barrier between your eyes. I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly why it helps, but my guess is that it
Speaker 1: maybe helps your eyes recover from the no stagmus. I
Speaker 1: learned this way back when I was a young dancer
Speaker 1: just learning to spot. Last, but not least, here's just
Speaker 1: a YouTube video with a lot of well executed turns.
Speaker 1: It's a video from Pacific Northwest Ballet of a rehearsal
Speaker 1: for Swan Lake. As you may know from the movie
Speaker 1: Black Swan, Swan Lake has an infamous thirty two foete
Speaker 1: turn sequences, which is incredibly difficult even for the most
Speaker 1: talented ballerinas. That that he also has a bonus of
Speaker 1: some wicked fast p K and Shinna turns near the end,
Speaker 1: and they include a link for us. But I imagine
Speaker 1: people can maybe just do a search for Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: Ballet Swan Lake and you can get all the spinning
Speaker 1: you could possibly want. I watched, I watched the video.
Speaker 1: It is incredibly impressive, as with all the spinning stuff
Speaker 1: we've been watching. I'm yeah, I couldn't do that. I
Speaker 1: have no idea how people do. Hannah closes out by saying,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for an awesome show. Always look forward
Speaker 1: to its showing up in my feet. Well that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Thanks for getting in touch, Hannah. Okay, so this next
Speaker 1: message comes from Cassidy. Are you ready? I'm ready, Cassidy says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I've never really had a reason to write into you
Speaker 1: until now. I just listen to the first part of
Speaker 1: the like a Circle in a Spiral episode and wanted
Speaker 1: to share my experience. I work in a research lab
Speaker 1: studying suspected hearing genes using zebra fish as a model organism.
Speaker 1: This also includes genes affecting the vestibular system. Zebra Fish
Speaker 1: inner ears are actually very similar to human inner ears.
Speaker 1: They also have the utricle and the saccule, and I've
Speaker 1: had to dissect these. We made a crisper mutant that
Speaker 1: has progressive vestibular phenotype as juvenile slash adults. Because of
Speaker 1: the mutations, they can't get their bearings in the water,
Speaker 1: so they're constantly spinning. The vestibular slash hearing system and
Speaker 1: fish is very important as it allows them to orient
Speaker 1: themselves in the water and since vibrations or movements in
Speaker 1: the water around them. If you'd like a video of
Speaker 1: the vestibular phenotype and fish, I would be happy to
Speaker 1: share it with you. I love your podcast. I frequent
Speaker 1: listen while I'm working in the lab. It made me
Speaker 1: so excited to hear something relevant to my work from you.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks, Cassidy. Wow, that's really interesting. Yeah, Cassidy, yep.
Speaker 1: Please send us more about your research. I'd I'd love
Speaker 1: to know more about it, all right. This next one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Jonathan Quote. As a person who
Speaker 1: has studied the Sufis and their methodology for forty years,
Speaker 1: I was impressed, as usual by your objective and open
Speaker 1: minded take on the whirling dervishes. I think it's important
Speaker 1: to understand, though, that the jalah udin Rumi, the punative
Speaker 1: founder of the order, wrote that the practice of spinning
Speaker 1: was something he prescribed especially for the people of Connie A, Turkey,
Speaker 1: where he taught for that particular time in history. It's
Speaker 1: not a perennial or integral part of Sufi methods of development. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: Joe is spot on when he discussed the visual effect
Speaker 1: of the spinning robes, since the Sufis assert that the
Speaker 1: practice of whirling was as much, if not more, for
Speaker 1: effect it had on the spectators. In thirteenth century Turkey,
Speaker 1: there were limited methods of provoking alterations and people's consciousness
Speaker 1: and viewing and concentrating on the whirling under the right
Speaker 1: circumstances was one that was used. Throughout the centuries, the
Speaker 1: Sufis have continually utilized the methods and terminology of their
Speaker 1: contemporary environment to project their teachings. I'm confident that they
Speaker 1: would easily adapt to the terminology that you too often
Speaker 1: use and say that in one sense, the Sufis aim
Speaker 1: to establish a voluntary, manual override over the default mode network.
Speaker 1: That ability provides a person with an additional dimension of freedom, volition,
Speaker 1: and understanding in a much wider sense. A good source
Speaker 1: for anyone interested in the subject is the book The
Speaker 1: Mind Field by the prominent psychologist Robert Ornstein. I know
Speaker 1: it's a cliche, but keep up the great work, Jonathan
Speaker 1: and cliche are not. Yeah, we we love to hear uh.
Speaker 1: We would love to get that positive reinforcement from from
Speaker 1: you guys that the listeners. Um, I'd say some of
Speaker 1: the main place we get positive reinforcement regarding the show.
Speaker 1: So so keep it going. It keeps us energized, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: But along the same lines, you know, at anytime there's
Speaker 1: any criticism or correction, we also depend on that as well.
Speaker 1: Totally alright, Joe, are you ready for some spin kicks
Speaker 1: because I think Carney's coming in with intention now. Oh,
Speaker 1: we got several messages about spin kicks, So this first
Speaker 1: one comes from g G says, Hello, guys, I was
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised and excited when you guys touched on fighting
Speaker 1: in your Like a Circle episode. Finally something I can
Speaker 1: contribute to. I compete in M M A and my
Speaker 1: one knockout just from a spinning sidekick, and he attaches
Speaker 1: an Instagram link. I went and looked up the video
Speaker 1: and yes, it it is pretty brutal. G knocked somebody
Speaker 1: out by a move that includes spinning around once and then.
Speaker 1: A sidekick is a a pushing motion with the leg
Speaker 1: as opposed to like a swinging motion, if that makes
Speaker 1: any sense. It's like a thrust, a thrust of the
Speaker 1: foot as opposed to like a you know, a glancing
Speaker 1: blow or you know, swipe of the foot. Right now,
Speaker 1: she is responding in part two when we talked about
Speaker 1: a kick by a fighter named Joaquin Buckley that is
Speaker 1: a spin kick that was just absolutely brutal, like made
Speaker 1: the head snap back and uh. He says that his
Speaker 1: kick is not as cool as Buckley's, but still worth
Speaker 1: a watch. Well, I have to say that Ji's kick
Speaker 1: was still very impressive, and Buckley's kick, though certainly very impressive,
Speaker 1: also had really nice um like video and audio effects
Speaker 1: and also some version of a live crowd or at
Speaker 1: least live crowd noise, so it was very accentuated by
Speaker 1: the production values, I'd say, while also being still being
Speaker 1: a just a ferocious kick. Yeah, okay. She goes on
Speaker 1: reasons for spinning in combat because we were asking this
Speaker 1: in the episode right, I was talking about how when
Speaker 1: I was learning quote taekwondo whatever it is that they
Speaker 1: were teaching me as a child in Tennessee and calling
Speaker 1: taekwondo um, I remember thinking like with the spin kicks,
Speaker 1: like a spinning sidekick, I was like, would this ever
Speaker 1: actually be useful or is this just more like for
Speaker 1: stylistic effect, is this more of a dance move? And
Speaker 1: we didn't really know if there was a good answer
Speaker 1: to that, but but she absolutely has some thoughts here.
Speaker 1: So first of all, she says power space is needed
Speaker 1: to generate power, and spinning helps to create artificial distance.
Speaker 1: Spinning can help generate additional rotational power the same way
Speaker 1: a shot put or would throw a shot uh second
Speaker 1: speed and efficiency. A few spin kicks are actually misnomers.
Speaker 1: They're technically turning kicks, such as the buckley ko. Certain
Speaker 1: techniques like the sidekick think Bruce Lee's kick are easier
Speaker 1: to throw from a spin or turn. Imagine you're standing
Speaker 1: in a bladed slash split stance meaning left leg in
Speaker 1: front torso turned slightly to the right, and want to
Speaker 1: throw a sidekick with your rear meaning right leg facing
Speaker 1: your opponent, you would need to bring your right leg
Speaker 1: in front and to the left, chambering your leg before
Speaker 1: extending it to kick. A better option would be to
Speaker 1: turn to your right, temporarily exposing your back, but the
Speaker 1: chamber and extension of your leg is faster and we'll
Speaker 1: have additional momentum from the turn or spin. These are
Speaker 1: the more general, easier to explain reasons you would spin
Speaker 1: in combat, but there are many others, such as ring slash,
Speaker 1: cage general ship. I don't know what that means, psychology, angles,
Speaker 1: and impressing judges. Uh so, so that one last one
Speaker 1: maybe does sound like it's like the stylistic dance move
Speaker 1: thing too, which shouldn't be totally discounted from M M A.
Speaker 1: I suppose I think ring cage general ship. I think
Speaker 1: that refers to like being at what they called like
Speaker 1: a ring general or a cage general like, which I
Speaker 1: believe just means like just being totally in command and
Speaker 1: having an air of of command over your space. Could
Speaker 1: be wrong on that, but I think that's what they
Speaker 1: mean the spinning cage boss. Spinning attacks can be higher risk,
Speaker 1: but if you're in a fight, everything you do could
Speaker 1: potentially be a bad idea. If you are aware of
Speaker 1: how your opponent can counter your attacks, you can pick
Speaker 1: appropriate moments to execute your techniques or even take advantage
Speaker 1: of probable counters. Thanks for all your great work, Looking
Speaker 1: forward to the next episode. G very cool. I I
Speaker 1: suspected we had some some folks out there listening to
Speaker 1: the show that had thrown some spin kicks, or at
Speaker 1: least had washed enough spin kicks uh to to to
Speaker 1: speak to it. So I was very impressed with this.
Speaker 1: And here's another short one. This is from Charlie. Charlie says, recently,
Speaker 1: you guys wondered if there were wrestlers turned dancers. Look
Speaker 1: into Lady Beard. He was an Australian wrestler I think
Speaker 1: Australian turned Japanese pop star. He definitely dances a lot now.
Speaker 1: He has a more recent project than Lady Beard, but
Speaker 1: I don't remember the name. Hope you guys have fun
Speaker 1: with this, l O L. Charlie Well, I had to
Speaker 1: look up Lady Beard, but it looks like they they
Speaker 1: they do or or have wrestled for D D D
Speaker 1: Pro Wrestling. That's what a Dramatic Dream Team, which is
Speaker 1: a Japanese pro wrestling promotion that goes so basically, let
Speaker 1: me just back up and say that with Japanese pro
Speaker 1: wrestling you kind of have different extremes. On one hand,
Speaker 1: there's stuff that's very technical and serious and athletic um minded,
Speaker 1: and some stuff in the past has even been very
Speaker 1: uh you know, semi shoot or shoot oriented, where it's
Speaker 1: supposed to resemble authentic fighting as real as possible, and
Speaker 1: you still see that like kind of energy there. D
Speaker 1: DT goes in the entirely different direction and has this
Speaker 1: very just ridiculous um at times have a very very
Speaker 1: great matches nothing you know, not nothing bad about the
Speaker 1: performers or anything. But they also have some just really
Speaker 1: silly stuff like inanimate objects winning championships, um. Even to
Speaker 1: where at one point an inanimate champions ship one itself,
Speaker 1: I believe. So there's a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: crazy stuff going on there, perfectly the right promotion for
Speaker 1: somebody with a name like Lady Beard. All right, here's
Speaker 1: another one. This one comes to us from Brett. Hello,
Speaker 1: Rob and Joe. I hope this note finds you both
Speaker 1: doing well and staying healthy. Just a personal comment on
Speaker 1: spinning Rob might be able to relate as a spell
Speaker 1: of vertico occurred while I was practicing yoga a few
Speaker 1: years ago. Everything goes going well until the instructor had
Speaker 1: us go into a humble warrior position with eyes open.
Speaker 1: I chose a spot on the ground and started to
Speaker 1: move down towards it. But when I wanted to stop,
Speaker 1: my head felt felt like I was still in motion.
Speaker 1: Thus I tipped over, not sure what I was what
Speaker 1: was going on, I decided to research what could be
Speaker 1: a possible cause for this lack of balance. I determined
Speaker 1: it was a case of b P p V, a
Speaker 1: type of benign vertico where the calcium carbonate had moved
Speaker 1: in the inner ear on the left side. There was
Speaker 1: suggest tis that I had found and tried at home,
Speaker 1: and the vertico type experience stopped. This experience taught me
Speaker 1: how much we rely on small crystals to help determine
Speaker 1: our position in space without and without them, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure where we would be symptom free for years now.
Speaker 1: It is amazing the things we can learn about our
Speaker 1: body and how so many impulses can control our everyday
Speaker 1: well being. Also, I am not advocating that everyone's self diagnosed.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for what you do and now with
Speaker 1: more content. Yeah, lots of content now. Happy holidays and
Speaker 1: looking forward to hearing more from the both of you.
Speaker 1: Cheers Brett in Colorado. Thanks Brett. Do you know anything
Speaker 1: about this kind of experience, rob Um? I well, I
Speaker 1: mean aside from I mean you anytime you practice yoga
Speaker 1: and you're doing any any anything really on your feet,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's always a chance to check in
Speaker 1: with your body, seeing how you're you're doing in multiple ways.
Speaker 1: You know, like you know, how how limber you're feeling,
Speaker 1: how you're hustles are feeling, and also how your balance
Speaker 1: is feeling um and so you you do get that
Speaker 1: kind of regular check in vibe where you're like, well,
Speaker 1: today my balance is definitely a little off because I
Speaker 1: can't go as far into this pose as I normally can,
Speaker 1: or I can't hold it as well. So I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's certainly very helpful. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like a little check up, a little bit of self
Speaker 1: diagnosis that you can do every time you hit the
Speaker 1: yoga mat. You know, you're you're seeing where am I today,
Speaker 1: what is my body feeling like? What am I doing? Um?
Speaker 1: As opposed to you know, benign vertigo and all. I
Speaker 1: haven't experienced any of that, but I think I have
Speaker 1: in the past had some teachers speak to it, like
Speaker 1: tell people you know what's to look out for, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Okay, you ready for this message from Lee?
Speaker 1: Bring it on, more spending, more spin kicking here, Lee
Speaker 1: Lee says, Hi, guys, love the podcast. I was thing
Speaker 1: to you discuss spinning in martial arts and wanted to
Speaker 1: offer my own experience on the matter. I've practiced Chinese
Speaker 1: Kenpo karate for fifteen years. It's primarily directed at self defense.
Speaker 1: The consensus among people I trained with is no spinning
Speaker 1: in a self defense scenario, as you never want your
Speaker 1: back turned to your opponent. The biggest risk is a
Speaker 1: strike to the back of the head, the second being
Speaker 1: someone getting your back putting them in a strongly advantageous position.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that means grabbing you from behind
Speaker 1: or I'm not quite sure that that's what it sounds
Speaker 1: like to me, because I mean, basically, yeah, there are
Speaker 1: all sorts of grapples you could do from behind that
Speaker 1: would give you an advantage I imagine, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess this makes me think about comparing the feedback
Speaker 1: we got from g versus what Lee is saying here.
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder if a major difference in whether
Speaker 1: or not it makes sense to do spin kicks is
Speaker 1: the question of are their rules in this fight? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, Whereas in in a there's plenty of room
Speaker 1: for you, even brutal injury, but there are rules in place.
Speaker 1: There is a referee if you're using it for self defense. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just out in the world there's not a
Speaker 1: referee usually. But anyway, back to Lee's message. While training,
Speaker 1: we do practice spinning kicks and back fists. This is
Speaker 1: primarily to build coordination and balance, but we also do
Speaker 1: it because it's fun. We also spar in a kickboxing style.
Speaker 1: There the consensus is that there are limited situations where
Speaker 1: you might break out a spinning move. Sparring is about
Speaker 1: trying to work out your opponent's patterns and not getting
Speaker 1: stuck in any of your own. The time to break
Speaker 1: out a spinning kick or backfist is when you think
Speaker 1: you've lolled your opponent into thinking they see a pattern
Speaker 1: in your movements, and it can be a deceptive way
Speaker 1: to break the pattern. We also use roundhouse kicks quite heavily.
Speaker 1: In the event that you miss a roundhouse kick that
Speaker 1: you have thrown at full speed and power, it is
Speaker 1: faster and easier for your body to continue their rotation
Speaker 1: and spin through the kick, resetting to your stance after
Speaker 1: turning fully around. Keep the great episodes coming, Lee, That's
Speaker 1: great once again. Great to hear from someone who has
Speaker 1: a lot of experience with what we're talking about and
Speaker 1: can can speak to the the strategy of deploying a
Speaker 1: spin chick spin kick and why you might want to
Speaker 1: think twice about it and given the given certain scenarios.
Speaker 1: Totally thanks Lee. Al Right, here's another one. This one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Ryan. Dear Robert and Joe. First
Speaker 1: of all, I love the show. I used to listen
Speaker 1: very regularly a few years ago, but had to stop
Speaker 1: after being consumed by grad school. Since I graduated and
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic, I have had to practice the
Speaker 1: chance to pick up on the show again. In your
Speaker 1: recent second episode on spinning in Circles. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: the movie Joe was thinking of is Interstellar, where Matthew
Speaker 1: McConaughey is landing in a spaceship on a high gravity
Speaker 1: planet near a black hole. Where they had to quote
Speaker 1: come in hot to minimize the amount of gravity dilated
Speaker 1: time they spent there. He asked their friendly rectangular robot
Speaker 1: to assume control if when he blacks out from the
Speaker 1: G forces. I have to note that describing that scene
Speaker 1: out of context makes it sound truly ridiculous. That film
Speaker 1: might have been a bit of a mess when looking
Speaker 1: at all of its scientific and fantastic elements, but it
Speaker 1: was certainly a beautiful mess. I think this is picking
Speaker 1: up on There was a moment towards the very end
Speaker 1: of that episode where I was trying to remember what
Speaker 1: movie it was, where there's a scene where a pilot
Speaker 1: uh knows that they are going to blackout from G forces,
Speaker 1: and they're they're calculating in like their time to recover
Speaker 1: before crashing. Yeah. I do have to mention I remember
Speaker 1: when I was talking one of the times we got
Speaker 1: to interview Brian Green, the physicist UH, he did mention
Speaker 1: Interstellar as being a film in which he liked the
Speaker 1: black holes. He liked the movie's treatment of black holes.
Speaker 1: I mean they Yeah, they went to a lot of
Speaker 1: links to get many things about the science right and
Speaker 1: and stay stay pretty hard science plaus bowl with a
Speaker 1: few exceptions. Yeah, all right, Ryan continues. This leads me
Speaker 1: to a suggestion for an episode topic g forces in
Speaker 1: space travel. You could explore the real life examples of
Speaker 1: how humans have grappled with the crushing effects of G
Speaker 1: forces on the human body, as well as sci fi
Speaker 1: and fantasy treatments. It might be fun for you to
Speaker 1: to discuss fictional works that have tackled G forces in
Speaker 1: space travel to some extent, like the Expanse and some
Speaker 1: other fiction that doesn't bother with it at all. Basically
Speaker 1: any fiction with hyper drive or ridiculous acceleration deceleration Kim
Speaker 1: Stanley Robinson's novel twelve comes to mind, where careful budgeting
Speaker 1: of G forces comes into play with railgun like launch
Speaker 1: pads and the gradual slowing before they reach their destinations
Speaker 1: while traveling the Solar System. I'm certainly no expert on
Speaker 1: the subject matter, just a big old nerd when it
Speaker 1: comes to stuff like that, so I would love to
Speaker 1: hear your patented fun education will take on that. Thanks
Speaker 1: for all of the great content you offer, including the
Speaker 1: inaugural short form artifact episode on the fake tooth best Ryan, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we did a couple episodes a while back,
Speaker 1: didn't we Joe Um on artificial gravity and space and
Speaker 1: the idea of using of generating gravity through spinning but
Speaker 1: also through just acceleration. Yeah, yeah, we talked about that,
Speaker 1: uh we. I mean that was mostly about the idea
Speaker 1: of trying to create artificial gravity in occupied habitats in
Speaker 1: space and not about like the extremes of G forces.
Speaker 1: So I think we could absolutely come back and explore
Speaker 1: the extremes of G forces. That might be really interesting,
Speaker 1: like some of the physiological differences. Like I remember reading UM,
Speaker 1: there's an interesting question about what causes some of the
Speaker 1: direct experience that people have during different types of G force,
Speaker 1: like the the red out phenomenon. What actually makes the
Speaker 1: vision go red when you're reading out that? Apparently that's
Speaker 1: an interesting question about the eyes and the brain and
Speaker 1: blood pressure and all that. Yeah, we may have to
Speaker 1: come back to G forces in the future. UM. And
Speaker 1: as far as the expanse goes, I'm loving that series.
Speaker 1: It's about to come back on Amazon Prime, so I'm
Speaker 1: excited for that. But also the books are quite good.
Speaker 1: I only read the first one, but but really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I thought I had some great science in it um.
Speaker 1: And then I think you've read Kim Stanley or Robinson,
Speaker 1: haven't you, Joe, and I misremember love Kim Stanley Robinson.
Speaker 1: I'm actually just starting a new Kim Stanley Kim Stanley
Speaker 1: Robinson book right now called The Ministry for the Future.
Speaker 1: I have not read twelve, but I want to. Oh.
Speaker 1: And but I will say, uh, Ryan, I do not
Speaker 1: think that is the scene I had in mind, because
Speaker 1: actually I think I was partially misremembering the circumstances of
Speaker 1: the scene, and I think this next listener nailed exactly
Speaker 1: what it was that I was half remembering. So this
Speaker 1: message comes from Bentley. Bentley says, when you mentioned a
Speaker 1: fighter pilot knowing that they were going to black out
Speaker 1: and having to recover before crashing. The first type of
Speaker 1: situation that popped into my head is from the first
Speaker 1: Iron Man movie with Robert Downey Jr. At the end
Speaker 1: where Obadiah Stain, the Ironmonger, had an upgraded version of
Speaker 1: the Mark one. So in the premise of the movie,
Speaker 1: the villain also builds like his own Iron Man type suit,
Speaker 1: but it's bigger and bulkier and different. Going on h
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Takes him to the upper stratosphere to
Speaker 1: make the Mark one ice up. Then as they fall
Speaker 1: out of the sky because of the lack of oxygen
Speaker 1: and cold, Robert Downey Jr. Has to recover. Not specifically
Speaker 1: G force related, but I am sure there was there
Speaker 1: was a G force element as well. Love the pod Bentley, Bentley,
Speaker 1: I think you're exactly correct. I think this is the
Speaker 1: scene I had in mind where he knows he's going
Speaker 1: to black out and hopes he recovers in time to
Speaker 1: you know, pilot himself before he hits the ground. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Science aside though that that was a really fun sequence
Speaker 1: in that film, and and clearly drew inspiration from both
Speaker 1: RoboCop two and the film Robot Jocks, which, uh, I
Speaker 1: think by the time this listener mail comes out, will
Speaker 1: we will have already put out an episode of Weird
Speaker 1: How Cinema on? Can we live? It's the question everybody's asking. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll address that in our Robot Jocks episode. Okay, do
Speaker 1: you want to finish off with one or two more
Speaker 1: messages here? Yeah, let's have some more spinning. Bring it on.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Silas, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed your look at dizziness and had an interesting
Speaker 1: bit of synchronicity and dealing with a different kind of
Speaker 1: motion sickness. I got my wife a VR headset for
Speaker 1: the holidays to help with our feeling cooped up from
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and having listened to these episodes helped me
Speaker 1: to understand that we just need to keep training with
Speaker 1: it to overcome the nausea from the apparent motion not
Speaker 1: matching the input from our vestibular systems. I know it's
Speaker 1: it is fairly different, but I but it was a
Speaker 1: useful parallel for me that I felt I should share.
Speaker 1: Love the podcast. Thanks for your hard work. You know
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't even think of this. But this
Speaker 1: is another issue of disneys because I have friends who
Speaker 1: have tried or or use VR headsets and have mentioned
Speaker 1: some issues with dizziness, and uh, yeah, it would be
Speaker 1: interesting to know a little bit more about this. And
Speaker 1: I know we have some other listeners out there who
Speaker 1: are also experimenting with VR, I mean some really going
Speaker 1: in there deep. So I would be interested to hear
Speaker 1: what other listeners have to say about this. Oh, I
Speaker 1: would love to hear from from longtime listener Peter about
Speaker 1: vietic dizziness. Yeah, yeah, I was definitely thinking about Peter
Speaker 1: with this. I'll have to ask him about it, uh
Speaker 1: on the side, and maybe he can write in a
Speaker 1: listener mail as well. All Right, it looks like Carnie's
Speaker 1: spinning is beginning to come to a close here. But
Speaker 1: there's one more listener mail for today's session. Alright. This
Speaker 1: one is from Voda and it ties together spinning with
Speaker 1: lucid dreaming. I was intrigued by the idea here, so
Speaker 1: voter Rights Joe and Robert. I became interested in lucid
Speaker 1: dreaming after watching the movie Inception, and spent a few
Speaker 1: years during college actively training to increase their frequency and duration.
Speaker 1: I guess of lucid dreams. To increase frequency requires writing
Speaker 1: down one's dreams to improve recall, as well as a
Speaker 1: practice called reality checking. These checks test whether certain areas
Speaker 1: of the brain are offline during R E M sleep
Speaker 1: and must be performed often enough to become habit in
Speaker 1: waking life, at which point the habit will be performed
Speaker 1: while dreaming and fail spectacularly confirming and beginning the lucid dream.
Speaker 1: My favorite reality check is to simply count my fingers
Speaker 1: on one hand, as it is discreet and always at
Speaker 1: hand In dreams, I reliably have more or fewer than
Speaker 1: five fingers per hand, and my brain will rush an
Speaker 1: attempted explanation, like a foggy memory of some accident or
Speaker 1: birth defect, that quickly dissipate into a consistently surreal realization
Speaker 1: that I'm inside a dream. This realization that one is
Speaker 1: dreaming is often quite startling and even scary, as it
Speaker 1: literally destabilizes your conception of the world you find yourself in.
Speaker 1: It's common for people to wake up within seconds of
Speaker 1: realizing they're in a dream, or to attempt some fantastic
Speaker 1: activity like flight and excite themselves awake. Thus, a few
Speaker 1: methods of stabilizing lucid dreams have been developed. I write
Speaker 1: mostly to provide you with this fascinating piece on dream stabilization,
Speaker 1: written by the modern godfather of lucid dreaming, the Stanford
Speaker 1: researcher Stephen Leberge, who cites sources that may be a
Speaker 1: further interest, and so the quote from Laberge begins here.
Speaker 1: The earliest method for stabilizing lucid dreams was described by
Speaker 1: Harold Van Moore's mesmer in Night. He was the first
Speaker 1: to propose the technique of looking at the ground in
Speaker 1: order to stabilize the dream. He discusses Carlos Castaneda's famous
Speaker 1: technique of looking at his hands while dreaming to induce
Speaker 1: and stabilize lucid dreams, and argues that the dreamer's body
Speaker 1: provides one of the most unchanging elements in the dream,
Speaker 1: which can help to stabilize the dreamer's otherwise feeble identity
Speaker 1: in the face of a rapidly changing dream. However, as
Speaker 1: he points out, the body isn't the only relatively stable
Speaker 1: reference point in the dream. Another is the ground beneath
Speaker 1: the dreamer's feet. A problem with using vision to stabilize
Speaker 1: a lucid dream is the fact that when a dream ends,
Speaker 1: the visual sense fades first. Other senses may persist longer,
Speaker 1: with touch being among the last to go. The first
Speaker 1: sign that a lucid dream is about to end is
Speaker 1: usually a loss of color and realism. In visual imagery,
Speaker 1: the dream may lose visual detail and begin to take
Speaker 1: on a cartoon like or washed out appearance. This may
Speaker 1: all happen very fast. Within a few seconds, the dream
Speaker 1: can fade to black leaving nothing visual to focus on.
Speaker 1: For this reason, one might speculate that focus on sensory
Speaker 1: modalities other than vision may be more useful to stabilize dreams.
Speaker 1: Why should dream spinning decrease the likelihood of awakening. Several
Speaker 1: factors are probably involved. One of these may be neurophysiological
Speaker 1: Information about head and body movement monitored by the vestibular
Speaker 1: system of the inner ear, which helps you to keep
Speaker 1: your balance, is closely integrated with visual information by the
Speaker 1: brain to produce an optimally stable picture of the world.
Speaker 1: Because of this integration of information, the world doesn't appear
Speaker 1: to move whenever you move your head, even though the
Speaker 1: image of the world on your retina moves. Since the
Speaker 1: sensations of movement during dream spinning are as vivid as
Speaker 1: those during actual physical movements, it is likely that the
Speaker 1: same brain systems are activated to a similar degree in
Speaker 1: both cases. And intriguing possibility is that the spinning technique,
Speaker 1: by stimulating the system of the brain that integrates vestibular
Speaker 1: activity detected in the middle ear, facilitates the activity of
Speaker 1: the nearby components of the rim sleeps system. Neuroscientists have
Speaker 1: obtained evidence of the involvement of the vestibular system and
Speaker 1: the production of the rapid eye movement bursts in rem sleep.
Speaker 1: Another possible reason why spinning may help postpone awakening comes
Speaker 1: from the fact that when you imagine perceiving something with
Speaker 1: one sense, your sensitivity to external stimulation of that sense decreases. Moreover,
Speaker 1: and this is probably the most important factor. If the
Speaker 1: brain is fully engaged in producing the vivid internally generated
Speaker 1: sensory experience of spinning, it will be more difficult for
Speaker 1: it to construct a contradictory sensation i e. Lying motionless
Speaker 1: in bed based on external sensory input. When presented with
Speaker 1: two contradictory interpretations of the state of our body in
Speaker 1: the world, our consciousness chooses one or the other, but
Speaker 1: not both models. Uh And then Voter goes on to
Speaker 1: say that Lebourge goes on to describe an experiment in
Speaker 1: which a number of small, regular lucid dreamers were instructed
Speaker 1: in the spinning technique as well as rubbing their hands together.
Speaker 1: Both of these techniques were significantly more likely to prolong
Speaker 1: the dream. Hope, the message wasn't too long winded, thank
Speaker 1: you for the show, as it is a constant source
Speaker 1: of insight and wonder looking forward to the next thousand
Speaker 1: episodes photo. Yeah, the next thousand episodes, which I think
Speaker 1: we already did the math in this they're they're all
Speaker 1: coming out in the next month now, Rob, I think
Speaker 1: you've actually done episodes on lucid dreaming before. I've never
Speaker 1: gotten super deep into this topic, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: do you have any thoughts on this, um? I mean,
Speaker 1: it all sounds very interesting and and does match up
Speaker 1: with with what we we talked about in those episodes.
Speaker 1: I think I did those episodes of Christian back several
Speaker 1: years ago. But yeah, I find that lucid dreaming is
Speaker 1: one of those those topics that one of the big
Speaker 1: stumbling blocks for me is that I've never really applied
Speaker 1: myself towards it myself. And even though I'll have these
Speaker 1: occasional just spots of lucidity and dreaming, I uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I just feel completely helpless in my dreams. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like I'll wake up for a second within the dream,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'll realize I'm dreaming and then lose
Speaker 1: control almost immediately. But then again, like I said, I've
Speaker 1: never really applied myself and tried to do much with it.
Speaker 1: I'd say that my current association with dreams kind of
Speaker 1: lines up with what David Eagelman uh told me in
Speaker 1: that interview we did earlier this year, that that he
Speaker 1: considers it to be the night blender, where you just
Speaker 1: stick your head in the night blender and then you
Speaker 1: just end up with a bunch of nonsense, and then
Speaker 1: the content of the dreams is not really important or insightful,
Speaker 1: and that you know it, you know, probably has some
Speaker 1: you know, very important reasons otherwise, but it's mostly just
Speaker 1: an unpleasant distraction. Uh. This is probably too I don't know,
Speaker 1: psychologically revealing in some unflattering way. And I may have
Speaker 1: said this on the show before, but I find almost
Speaker 1: every time in a dream where I start to inquire
Speaker 1: within the dream am about whether I'm dreaming or not,
Speaker 1: I end up concluding, no, this is real, uh, And
Speaker 1: then I just further go on to explore some some
Speaker 1: ways in which I failed. Yeah. So I don't know, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we just we both need to apply
Speaker 1: ourselves more to lucid dreaming. But I don't know. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, I wake up and then I usually
Speaker 1: forget about my dreams rather quickly and move on to
Speaker 1: all the things I need to do in the waking
Speaker 1: world without getting into tasks that I'm assigning myself in
Speaker 1: the dream world. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and call it there. This is gonna be it for
Speaker 1: this edition of Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener Mail.
Speaker 1: But we would love to hear from all of you.
Speaker 1: We we have some other listener mail tidbits that we
Speaker 1: weren't able to get to today. We'll get to those
Speaker 1: in future installments. But yeah, continue to write in with
Speaker 1: your feedback on recent episodes, older episodes that you've rediscovered,
Speaker 1: episodes you would like to hear in the future, or
Speaker 1: just kind of general general insight. You you know, you
Speaker 1: think we might be interested it in. You know, we're
Speaker 1: we're open to all of that. We're doing these listener
Speaker 1: mails on a more regular basis now, and so the
Speaker 1: idea is that, you know, it can be more of
Speaker 1: a conversation, more of a back and forth, since we're
Speaker 1: not just doing it every month or so totally. In
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