1
00:00:02,440 --> 00:00:07,360
Speaker 1: You're walking down the hall alone, your shoes squeak against

2
00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:12,560
Speaker 1: the hard, seamless flooring. You have a sense of otherworldly dread,

3
00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:15,920
Speaker 1: a feeling of looming over a drop so far you

4
00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:19,799
Speaker 1: can't see the bottom, but you can't remember why. Where

5
00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:23,639
Speaker 1: are you? You can't remember that either. The feeling of

6
00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:27,160
Speaker 1: dread is absolutely oppressive. It's weighing you down, as if

7
00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: to pull your soul into the underworld. But wait that feeling.

8
00:00:32,560 --> 00:00:36,160
Speaker 1: It's not dread weighing you down. It's a backpack full

9
00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:40,680
Speaker 1: of heavy textbooks. You're in your high school. You're alone

10
00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:44,720
Speaker 1: in the hall because you're late for class. That's right now,

11
00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:47,920
Speaker 1: you remember you had to go back to high school

12
00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:51,159
Speaker 1: because it turns out you never actually finished. There was

13
00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:53,880
Speaker 1: an error with the paperwork in the high school office,

14
00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:57,040
Speaker 1: and somehow they let you graduate even though you never

15
00:00:57,120 --> 00:01:01,600
Speaker 1: took the final exam in your hardest class, Russian calculus.

16
00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:04,360
Speaker 1: You have to go back and take the exam, and

17
00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:07,160
Speaker 1: if you don't pass, you'll be stuck in high school forever.

18
00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:10,640
Speaker 1: Let's see what do we learn in Russian calculus? You

19
00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:15,320
Speaker 1: can barely recall some vague cyrillic operating symbols. What was

20
00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:17,760
Speaker 1: the division symbol. No time to think about it, you

21
00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:21,160
Speaker 1: sprint to the classroom where they're holding the exam. Once

22
00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:23,560
Speaker 1: you get there, you remember you're not the only one.

23
00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:26,840
Speaker 1: Your next door neighbor Jimmy, who's seventy four years old

24
00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:30,120
Speaker 1: and illegally burns trash and a metal drum in his backyard,

25
00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:34,040
Speaker 1: he also has to come back and take the Rustcal exam.

26
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:37,760
Speaker 1: Jimmy asks did you study? You did not. And that

27
00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:40,920
Speaker 1: coffee shop barista with the Optimus Prime tattoo who you

28
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:42,800
Speaker 1: went on a date with a couple of years ago,

29
00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:47,080
Speaker 1: they're here too, except now they're dating your childhood best friend.

30
00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:51,640
Speaker 1: And who's administering the exam? That's right, it's your old

31
00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:56,520
Speaker 1: rust Cal teacher, Christopher Lambert. Mr Lambert is asking everyone

32
00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:59,160
Speaker 1: to take their seats. The panic rushes up from your

33
00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:01,720
Speaker 1: gut into your wrote. Is there any way out of this?

34
00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:05,800
Speaker 1: Your hand bolts up. Mr Limbert calls on you. He says, yes,

35
00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:09,000
Speaker 1: when is it? And the whole class turns to look

36
00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,960
Speaker 1: at you, scrutinizing, crinkling their noses in pity and disgust

37
00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:16,480
Speaker 1: at what they see. Then you realize you're not sitting

38
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:19,200
Speaker 1: at a desk, your pants are down and you're sitting

39
00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:21,799
Speaker 1: on a toilet in the middle of the classroom. Why

40
00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 1: would they put a toilet here? But no time to

41
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:27,239
Speaker 1: wonder about that. The class is laughing viciously at your shame,

42
00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:31,240
Speaker 1: and Christopher Lambert is passing out the exams. You didn't

43
00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:35,160
Speaker 1: bring a pencil, Sandra Bullock won't let you borrow one, neither, well,

44
00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:38,880
Speaker 1: Ken Griffey Jr. The test is starting. Mr Lambert, yell's

45
00:02:38,960 --> 00:02:42,640
Speaker 1: eyes on your own paper. A single tooth falls from

46
00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:51,120
Speaker 1: your mouth and lands on page one. Welcome Stuff to

47
00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,240
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind? A production of I Heart Radios has

48
00:02:53,240 --> 00:03:01,519
Speaker 1: Stuff works. Are you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind?

49
00:03:01,639 --> 00:03:04,200
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

50
00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:06,720
Speaker 1: obviously you can tell that we are going to be

51
00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:11,600
Speaker 1: talking about the one, the only, the high school Horror Dream. Yeah, yeah,

52
00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:15,040
Speaker 1: the which is really the worst. I have a lot

53
00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 1: of disdain for the high school Dream because and I'll

54
00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:22,040
Speaker 1: get into more of it later. But but basically, it's

55
00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:24,120
Speaker 1: like when you when you go when you dream, you

56
00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:27,079
Speaker 1: can do anything, You can be anything, Like this is

57
00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:30,880
Speaker 1: the place where lucid dreaming is possible, where all the

58
00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:35,000
Speaker 1: boundaries can dissolve, and all the limitations that you know

59
00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:38,200
Speaker 1: in the waking world can just be swept away and

60
00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:41,120
Speaker 1: you can ascend into the skies of being of pure

61
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:45,120
Speaker 1: light and energy. Uh. But instead, what does our mind

62
00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:47,920
Speaker 1: do when we slumber? So much of the time we

63
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:50,960
Speaker 1: have dreams like this, We you know, dreams that are

64
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,040
Speaker 1: just cobbled together out of the mundane garbage of our

65
00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:57,480
Speaker 1: lives into a form that does not fill us with

66
00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:01,120
Speaker 1: wonder or even even terror. You know, like for a

67
00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:03,360
Speaker 1: lot of people, it fills them with terror. It depends

68
00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:05,800
Speaker 1: they're sort of like they're sort of like low stress,

69
00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:08,400
Speaker 1: low anxiety, high school dreams. But when you read a

70
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:10,680
Speaker 1: lot of people's accounts of these, they're like they wake

71
00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:14,440
Speaker 1: up in a cold sweat, they're absolutely petrified. This is

72
00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:16,800
Speaker 1: something that I think is worth discussing a little bit

73
00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:20,640
Speaker 1: because when you when when you look at the surveys

74
00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:23,239
Speaker 1: of what people have dreamt about, and there are different

75
00:04:23,279 --> 00:04:26,200
Speaker 1: ways of conducting those surveys, so it's there's gonna be

76
00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:29,039
Speaker 1: a fair amount of variety there anyway, and it's a

77
00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:31,080
Speaker 1: lot of it's also gonna depend on who you're talking to.

78
00:04:31,839 --> 00:04:34,240
Speaker 1: As we've discussed on the on the show before. A

79
00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:38,640
Speaker 1: lot of studies like this, especially psychological studies, they're often

80
00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:42,599
Speaker 1: conducted with college students in small sample sizes, and that

81
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:44,840
Speaker 1: brings a you know, it brings a lot of limitations

82
00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:47,640
Speaker 1: and what kind of life experiences the dreams then are

83
00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:51,080
Speaker 1: are ascending from. But but I was looking around a

84
00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:55,080
Speaker 1: little bit thinking about Okay, it seems like we're often

85
00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:57,880
Speaker 1: not talking about nightmares. There's there's like a variety of

86
00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:01,440
Speaker 1: dream that is, you know, filled with anxiety or even

87
00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:05,039
Speaker 1: dread without actually really breaking over into this room that

88
00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:08,440
Speaker 1: we think of as the domain of nightmares. I guess

89
00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:10,760
Speaker 1: that depends on the definition you'd use, because I've always

90
00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:14,320
Speaker 1: thought of nightmares as including dreams that are not like, uh,

91
00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:17,240
Speaker 1: you know, like immediate physical peril. I mean, there are

92
00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:20,039
Speaker 1: violent dreams that people obviously think of as nightmares. Like

93
00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:22,839
Speaker 1: one of the most common themes of bad dreams is

94
00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,400
Speaker 1: being chased by something, right, but they're you know, a

95
00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:30,479
Speaker 1: huge number of people's really bad dreams are about like

96
00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:35,000
Speaker 1: or about like public embarrassment or about things like having

97
00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:37,440
Speaker 1: to go back to school and face some kind of

98
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:40,880
Speaker 1: scrutiny or examination. Yeah, but yet when you look at

99
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:44,320
Speaker 1: the surveys to deal with the content of nightmares. We

100
00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,960
Speaker 1: don't often see, you know, a real definite place for

101
00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:50,520
Speaker 1: the school dream. For instance, UH in the nineteen thirty

102
00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:54,479
Speaker 1: psychologist Wholesye case and conducted a survey of nightmares and

103
00:05:54,520 --> 00:06:00,000
Speaker 1: found their contents to be UH like dealing with animals,

104
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,880
Speaker 1: him being chased, death and murder at twenty and then

105
00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:08,279
Speaker 1: it goes down to like two percent home and family falling,

106
00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:13,000
Speaker 1: and then miscellaneous nineteen percent, accidents seventeen percent. And you

107
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:16,080
Speaker 1: see similar things with other surveys. There's a Harvard psychologists

108
00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:20,960
Speaker 1: Didra Barrett's survey and it UH said like being chased

109
00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,080
Speaker 1: with seventy two percent death of family members in for

110
00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:29,719
Speaker 1: sixty percent. Following UH, monsters and or animals made it

111
00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:33,000
Speaker 1: on their thirty three percent war, violent crimes, natural disaster.

112
00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:37,680
Speaker 1: And there there have been others that kind of match this,

113
00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:39,640
Speaker 1: this sort of thing, you know, it's like physical harm,

114
00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:44,240
Speaker 1: physical danger. UM. I did find a two thousand uh

115
00:06:44,760 --> 00:06:47,640
Speaker 1: inten German study from the Central Institute of Mental Health

116
00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:54,000
Speaker 1: and Mannheim, Germany that said nightmares okay, forty falling, being chased,

117
00:06:55,200 --> 00:06:59,440
Speaker 1: feeling paralyzed, but also twenty four percent being late to

118
00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:02,599
Speaker 1: an import an event, which definitely lines up with a

119
00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:04,559
Speaker 1: lot of what we're talking about here, because so often

120
00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:07,440
Speaker 1: the content is I am I'm late to the exam

121
00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:11,640
Speaker 1: right um, or I have I've let time slip away

122
00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:15,680
Speaker 1: in advance of the exam. So yeah, it is going

123
00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,200
Speaker 1: to come back to like how do we classify nightmares?

124
00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:21,200
Speaker 1: And what do we think of when we think of nightmares?

125
00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:23,760
Speaker 1: And then after we've had one of these school dreams,

126
00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:27,280
Speaker 1: how we classify it. But I think there's a strong

127
00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:29,480
Speaker 1: case to be made that that what we're talking about

128
00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 1: here isn't a nightmare, and yet at the same time,

129
00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:36,119
Speaker 1: I myself find myself at times wishing it were, because

130
00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:38,760
Speaker 1: at least if it were a nightmare, it would it

131
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:41,680
Speaker 1: would feel more more potent, you know, it would feel

132
00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:44,800
Speaker 1: like it's maybe doing something that it's cathartic in a

133
00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:48,400
Speaker 1: way that matters, instead of being this just ridiculous rehearsal

134
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:51,560
Speaker 1: for a thing that is that is not going to occur.

135
00:07:52,160 --> 00:07:53,960
Speaker 1: You know. Well, this brings us back to a question,

136
00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:55,600
Speaker 1: of course we're gonna have to touch on throughout the

137
00:07:55,640 --> 00:07:57,920
Speaker 1: episode today, and unfortunately we're not gonna be able to

138
00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:00,600
Speaker 1: answer in a definitive way, But like, what is the

139
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:04,240
Speaker 1: purpose of the content of dreams if anything to begin with,

140
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:07,360
Speaker 1: I mean do that we know that like sleep and

141
00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:11,040
Speaker 1: dreaming are obviously important for some kind of neurological function,

142
00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:15,200
Speaker 1: but we don't know if the contents of dreams are important,

143
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:17,520
Speaker 1: and we don't know if they are important, why are

144
00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:20,760
Speaker 1: they important? What do they do? Right? And and yeah,

145
00:08:20,760 --> 00:08:24,119
Speaker 1: once you you can sort of divide into two schools

146
00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:26,600
Speaker 1: of thought where it's either the contents of the dreams

147
00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:29,400
Speaker 1: do matter or they don't um and when you get

148
00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:33,720
Speaker 1: into the various arguments for them actually mattering, and then

149
00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:37,640
Speaker 1: you get into various divisions. On the show, we've discussed

150
00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:40,360
Speaker 1: the writings of Frederick van Eden in the past, who

151
00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:44,680
Speaker 1: wrote Study of Dreams, and this was a book that

152
00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,480
Speaker 1: outlined lucid dreaming, for instance, but you know he covered

153
00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:53,160
Speaker 1: everything from you know, ordinary dreams to symbolic dreams, demon

154
00:08:53,320 --> 00:08:57,120
Speaker 1: dreams and more so. Yeah, it depends on it depends

155
00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:00,520
Speaker 1: on which view you're taking. Either the content manners or

156
00:09:00,520 --> 00:09:02,400
Speaker 1: it doesn't. And then if it if it does matter.

157
00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:05,120
Speaker 1: There's so many ways to unpack that. But I would say, actually,

158
00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:08,320
Speaker 1: whether the content of dreams matters or not, like whether

159
00:09:08,880 --> 00:09:12,200
Speaker 1: what you dream about actually has adaptive value in life

160
00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:15,160
Speaker 1: or whether it's just sort of like a byproduct of

161
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:17,280
Speaker 1: something going on in the brain. And you know, what

162
00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:19,600
Speaker 1: happens in a dream has no effect on life or

163
00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:22,760
Speaker 1: no positive effects, either way you split it. It's an

164
00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:25,679
Speaker 1: interesting question to ask, why do we dream about the

165
00:09:25,679 --> 00:09:29,320
Speaker 1: things that we dream about? Like why is that the content,

166
00:09:29,360 --> 00:09:32,000
Speaker 1: whether it's adaptive or not. Well, it comes back to

167
00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:35,560
Speaker 1: the nightmare thing, Like so much of the time, I

168
00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:38,440
Speaker 1: feel like the school. You know, sometimes we we do

169
00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:42,079
Speaker 1: have dramatic events in our school history, but a lot

170
00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:44,439
Speaker 1: of times we don't. And yet that's the stuff that

171
00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:47,640
Speaker 1: still remains like so potent to us in our dreams.

172
00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:49,800
Speaker 1: And I think that can be the irritating thing, Like

173
00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:52,280
Speaker 1: why am I still dreaming about this thing? This thing

174
00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:56,160
Speaker 1: is solved high school, you know is solved. You know,

175
00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:59,000
Speaker 1: it's i've I've I've been out of it for you know, decades.

176
00:09:59,520 --> 00:10:02,199
Speaker 1: Why I still returned to it in dream? What is

177
00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:05,040
Speaker 1: it about that experience or that time in my life?

178
00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:09,120
Speaker 1: Maybe the plasticity of my mind that that makes that

179
00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:13,079
Speaker 1: the the the the the fabric of my dreams. Yeah,

180
00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:15,640
Speaker 1: so I want to talk about a few common variations

181
00:10:15,679 --> 00:10:19,040
Speaker 1: I think just from what I've read anecdotally. I've not

182
00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:23,200
Speaker 1: been able to find a rigorous study characterizing the nature

183
00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,600
Speaker 1: of school anxiety dreams, but I have found some informal

184
00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:29,160
Speaker 1: collections of anecdotes and based on that, and I have

185
00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:31,800
Speaker 1: to say some very common dreams are, uh, I have

186
00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:34,200
Speaker 1: to go back to high school and finish a class

187
00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:37,280
Speaker 1: or a test that I never finished and I don't

188
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:40,160
Speaker 1: know in like, there's the knowledge that I am an adult,

189
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:42,320
Speaker 1: but I have to go back and do this. Yes,

190
00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:44,920
Speaker 1: I've definitely done that one. I've I've definitely had that one,

191
00:10:44,960 --> 00:10:47,400
Speaker 1: and I've done that one to a certain extent because

192
00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:50,040
Speaker 1: I went back after college and taught high school at

193
00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:52,920
Speaker 1: the high school that I attended. Wow, so I kind

194
00:10:52,920 --> 00:10:55,720
Speaker 1: of had this weird like I was kind of living

195
00:10:55,960 --> 00:10:59,520
Speaker 1: the dream the worst way possible. And so I will

196
00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:03,080
Speaker 1: sometime have dreams that are I'm sometimes a little vague

197
00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:05,640
Speaker 1: as to whether I am dreaming about teaching high school

198
00:11:05,640 --> 00:11:08,520
Speaker 1: and my old high school where I'm dreaming about attending

199
00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:10,600
Speaker 1: the high school, or having to go back and take

200
00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:12,480
Speaker 1: a class that I didn't finish, that sort of thing.

201
00:11:12,559 --> 00:11:14,480
Speaker 1: What age were you when you were teaching at that

202
00:11:14,559 --> 00:11:17,160
Speaker 1: high school? I mean, I was fresh out of college.

203
00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:21,560
Speaker 1: So I was, oh, yeah, so that might come back

204
00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:24,480
Speaker 1: later when we talk about different periods of life in

205
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:26,800
Speaker 1: the formation of memories, that that might be relevant to

206
00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:31,040
Speaker 1: your case here. Um. So another thing that is extremely common.

207
00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:34,360
Speaker 1: In fact, just before we started off, we were talking

208
00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:37,240
Speaker 1: to our producer today, Seth, and he was saying that

209
00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:40,320
Speaker 1: he's had this dream. I've had this dream. I've talked

210
00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:42,120
Speaker 1: to tons of people who have had this dream, who

211
00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:44,800
Speaker 1: have been out of school for decades, and it's this.

212
00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:47,640
Speaker 1: It's the end of the semester. There's a class that

213
00:11:47,679 --> 00:11:50,040
Speaker 1: I forgot I was enrolled in and I haven't been

214
00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,560
Speaker 1: going to and now I suddenly remember, oh no, I'm

215
00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:55,520
Speaker 1: in this class and I've got to go take the

216
00:11:55,559 --> 00:11:58,559
Speaker 1: final exam. Yeah. I I have done that one as well,

217
00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:02,480
Speaker 1: where I'm I missed the deadline to drop the class, uh,

218
00:12:02,559 --> 00:12:05,880
Speaker 1: and or just forgot that I had it entirely. And

219
00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:09,240
Speaker 1: and it'll like summon like a mental calendar of when

220
00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:11,800
Speaker 1: your classes are, and it's generally usually something like, oh,

221
00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:14,440
Speaker 1: it was a Wednesday morning class and it was it

222
00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:16,760
Speaker 1: was sandwich between two other classes, and somehow I just

223
00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:18,960
Speaker 1: missed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get the exact same

224
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:22,720
Speaker 1: calendar effect. Actually, I think about like, oh, I wasn't

225
00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:24,760
Speaker 1: going because I was doing this other thing at this

226
00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:27,400
Speaker 1: time of the week, and I just forgot repeatedly that

227
00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:31,000
Speaker 1: I had this class. Now I suddenly remember, and uh,

228
00:12:31,040 --> 00:12:34,200
Speaker 1: and my chicken is cooked. I mean, they're like, there's

229
00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:37,360
Speaker 1: no way I'm going to pass this exam. Other common

230
00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:41,720
Speaker 1: things that I found reported are difficulty with navigating the

231
00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:44,840
Speaker 1: school environment, so being in high school or being in

232
00:12:44,920 --> 00:12:48,439
Speaker 1: college and being unable to find the classroom so you're

233
00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:50,839
Speaker 1: like running around, you're late for the class and you're

234
00:12:50,880 --> 00:12:53,080
Speaker 1: trying to get there, but you can't find the door

235
00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:56,839
Speaker 1: or you can't get in. I've never had that one. Yeah,

236
00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:00,000
Speaker 1: It's it's weird how you know that our experiences will

237
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:02,520
Speaker 1: will vary like that one. I've never had, Like I've

238
00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:05,719
Speaker 1: never had a problem getting to the dream classroom and

239
00:13:05,760 --> 00:13:09,559
Speaker 1: a dream. Another big one I think is school based embarrassment,

240
00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:13,200
Speaker 1: dreaming about like being embarrassed in front of a classroom

241
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,600
Speaker 1: or in front of classmates, or like having to give

242
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,760
Speaker 1: a presentation in front of a class and not being

243
00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:23,160
Speaker 1: prepared or being embarrassed some way. See I I the

244
00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:25,880
Speaker 1: weird thing is I don't have any of those related

245
00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:30,400
Speaker 1: to actual class experiences. But but since I was in

246
00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:35,200
Speaker 1: um theater, I do have dreams related to productions that

247
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:37,520
Speaker 1: I haven't learned my lines. Yes, I have the same

248
00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:40,200
Speaker 1: dreams I did theater in high school. And yeah, I

249
00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:44,319
Speaker 1: I very frequently dreamed that I suddenly remember, oh, yeah,

250
00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:46,840
Speaker 1: I'm in a play that's opening tonight and I haven't

251
00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:49,600
Speaker 1: looked at my lines yet. How about this one? This

252
00:13:49,679 --> 00:13:51,840
Speaker 1: is a weirder one, but I feel like I hear

253
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:55,240
Speaker 1: this one pretty often, sort of blending of school with

254
00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:58,800
Speaker 1: the workplace or with the current friend group, and blending

255
00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:03,040
Speaker 1: of like old teachers with bosses. You get this, No, No,

256
00:14:03,120 --> 00:14:05,200
Speaker 1: I don't really get that one. I would get get

257
00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,920
Speaker 1: the blending of workplaces to a certain extent, because I'll

258
00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:13,600
Speaker 1: have dreams where I didn't actually fully quit my previous job.

259
00:14:13,679 --> 00:14:16,000
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like kept one foot in it somehow,

260
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:19,240
Speaker 1: but I have to keep going back to do like

261
00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:21,120
Speaker 1: the bare minimum to still be a part of the

262
00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:26,000
Speaker 1: previous employers. And and I always just kind of analyze

263
00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:27,760
Speaker 1: that as being like, it's about fear of change. It's

264
00:14:27,800 --> 00:14:30,360
Speaker 1: about fear of like entering any kind of new phase

265
00:14:30,560 --> 00:14:34,520
Speaker 1: in life. This dream rehearsal in which I never actually

266
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:39,600
Speaker 1: leave any step behind, you know, where I'm managing to keep,

267
00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:43,960
Speaker 1: you know, one foot on every stone that traverses the

268
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,840
Speaker 1: pond or the stream. I can absolutely see that. Yeah,

269
00:14:46,880 --> 00:14:50,000
Speaker 1: general dreams about not just school, but school being one

270
00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:53,520
Speaker 1: example of like being drawn back into a previous stage

271
00:14:53,560 --> 00:14:55,720
Speaker 1: of life, like you can't you can't move on to

272
00:14:55,800 --> 00:14:57,600
Speaker 1: the next thing. Yeah, yeah, all right, Well maybe we

273
00:14:57,600 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 1: should take a break and then when we come back

274
00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:04,680
Speaker 1: weekend analyze the school dream a little more than alright,

275
00:15:04,680 --> 00:15:07,120
Speaker 1: we're back. So, you know, in our cold open you

276
00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:11,640
Speaker 1: added the bit about tooth falling out and seth our producer.

277
00:15:12,360 --> 00:15:14,560
Speaker 1: He he mentioned that he has had dreams in which

278
00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:17,200
Speaker 1: is his teeth fall out in the school anxiety dream.

279
00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:20,200
Speaker 1: I've never had a dream where or teeth fall out,

280
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:23,920
Speaker 1: which which is is weird because I mean, like dental

281
00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:26,360
Speaker 1: anxiety has was. It was kind of part of my

282
00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:30,080
Speaker 1: upbringing because you know, my father was a dentist. You know,

283
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:34,280
Speaker 1: I remember like seeing slides of awful teeth when I

284
00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:37,160
Speaker 1: was a kid, and and even today like I'll you know,

285
00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:40,080
Speaker 1: i'll you know, I you know, I'm I'm I'm getting older.

286
00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:42,520
Speaker 1: I think about my my dental health and I and

287
00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:49,360
Speaker 1: I regularly read articles that are discussing correlation between dental

288
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:53,240
Speaker 1: hygiene situations and say things like Alzheimer's. So, I mean,

289
00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:56,960
Speaker 1: there's plenty of of of fuel there for the fire,

290
00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:01,800
Speaker 1: and yet that never happens in my dames. That's interesting. Now,

291
00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:04,760
Speaker 1: of course, the teeth falling out dream goes way back,

292
00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:07,040
Speaker 1: and you've got all kinds of like Freudy intakes on

293
00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 1: that and stuff where it's you know, it's metaphorical for

294
00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:12,920
Speaker 1: some kind of like wish or anxiety that you have.

295
00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:16,600
Speaker 1: Weather dreams are actually metaphorical in those ways, I think

296
00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:20,600
Speaker 1: is an unsettled question. But but but it's certainly they

297
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,480
Speaker 1: could be. And if they are, yeah, it could be

298
00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:26,560
Speaker 1: that maybe you don't really suffer from the underlying anxiety

299
00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:29,480
Speaker 1: that drives whatever causes people to think about their teeth

300
00:16:29,480 --> 00:16:31,920
Speaker 1: falling out in dreams. Maybe the teeth falling out in

301
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:34,840
Speaker 1: dreams is not normally about teeth. That that's if the

302
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:37,400
Speaker 1: like metaphor theory of dreams is true, which we don't

303
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:39,200
Speaker 1: know if it is. And my hand has fallen off

304
00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:42,520
Speaker 1: in a dream before, but yeah, never the teeth. Well,

305
00:16:42,680 --> 00:16:45,120
Speaker 1: so back to the school dream, we know, at least

306
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,880
Speaker 1: anecdotally just from talking to people, that it seems pretty

307
00:16:48,920 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 1: common for adults who have been out of school for

308
00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:55,880
Speaker 1: a long time to keep having these recurring dreams about school.

309
00:16:56,400 --> 00:16:58,560
Speaker 1: Uh even you know, I've I've talked to people who

310
00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:02,520
Speaker 1: are in their sixties who still have these dreams, which

311
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:04,840
Speaker 1: is not I'm not looking forward to that for the

312
00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:07,280
Speaker 1: rest of my life. But oh well, uh, and so

313
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:10,480
Speaker 1: the question is like, is it really all that common? Again?

314
00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:13,280
Speaker 1: We are going to be dealing here with the problems

315
00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:15,800
Speaker 1: that are common to all kinds of psychological studies, which

316
00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:18,760
Speaker 1: is often there is not enough data about say, the

317
00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:22,800
Speaker 1: entire world, and you know, we get like the weird focus, right, yes,

318
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:26,240
Speaker 1: weird science, but not in the fun way of weird

319
00:17:26,320 --> 00:17:31,600
Speaker 1: standing for Western educated and from industrialized, rich and democratic countries,

320
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:34,480
Speaker 1: just meaning that like in lots of studies, especially lots

321
00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:38,960
Speaker 1: of psychological studies, there is a disproportionate representation of people

322
00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:41,000
Speaker 1: in that sort of category a lot of times because

323
00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:44,959
Speaker 1: these studies are done at like western research universities, and

324
00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:47,199
Speaker 1: that brings up the potential criticism. Well, of course, all

325
00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:50,920
Speaker 1: these people were having dreams about exams and exam anxiety.

326
00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:54,040
Speaker 1: They are college students. Right, there's not any mystery at

327
00:17:54,080 --> 00:17:58,240
Speaker 1: all why college students would be dreaming about uh school

328
00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:00,760
Speaker 1: and college and exams. And of course these find that yes,

329
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:03,240
Speaker 1: college students do dream about that a lot. Just one example,

330
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,200
Speaker 1: a two thousand three study in the journal Dreaming found

331
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:10,360
Speaker 1: among Canadian university students that dreams about the category known

332
00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:14,480
Speaker 1: as school teachers and studying where the fourth most common

333
00:18:14,520 --> 00:18:17,000
Speaker 1: typical theme of dreams out of a list of like

334
00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:21,480
Speaker 1: fifty something common themes of dreams. But they're Canadian college students.

335
00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:24,960
Speaker 1: That just doesn't seem very surprising at all. But studies

336
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:29,080
Speaker 1: including like older populations have also found that school dreams

337
00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:32,760
Speaker 1: remain very common. Just to cite one example from the

338
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:39,160
Speaker 1: journal Dreaming in by Mathis Shreddle and Goritz called frequency

339
00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:42,600
Speaker 1: of typical dream themes in most Recent dreams and online study.

340
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:46,280
Speaker 1: They had a big sample collected online. It was two thousand,

341
00:18:46,280 --> 00:18:49,679
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty three participants. They did a survey

342
00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:52,000
Speaker 1: about the themes of recent dreams people had, and this

343
00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:56,280
Speaker 1: was based on a common dream theme inventory that has

344
00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:58,479
Speaker 1: like a list of commonly cited themes and you can

345
00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:01,760
Speaker 1: check off which ones applied to you in recent dreams uh,

346
00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:05,000
Speaker 1: And they said that the findings were mostly consistent with

347
00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:08,680
Speaker 1: other studies showing prevalence of dream themes in different populations.

348
00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:13,000
Speaker 1: They ended up ranking dream themes by prevalence, and dreams

349
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:16,399
Speaker 1: about school teachers and studying was actually the fifth most

350
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:20,520
Speaker 1: common category of dreams by theme. Overall. I found that

351
00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:23,119
Speaker 1: the entire list of ten was kind of interesting. Yeah, well,

352
00:19:23,119 --> 00:19:25,600
Speaker 1: I mean six is arriving too late, which could be

353
00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:28,560
Speaker 1: very very well be couched in the same area, right,

354
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:30,240
Speaker 1: and then if you have a dream that you know

355
00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:32,560
Speaker 1: more than one applies to, you can check both. Right,

356
00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:37,000
Speaker 1: So let's do the whole list. Number ten swimming, number

357
00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:41,200
Speaker 1: nine being physically attacked, Number eight, a person now alive

358
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:44,960
Speaker 1: being dead. Number seven a person now dead being alive,

359
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:49,440
Speaker 1: Number six arriving too late, number five school teachers and studying,

360
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:54,119
Speaker 1: number four, sexual experiences, number three being chased or pursued.

361
00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,919
Speaker 1: Number two. Oh, this one hits home trying something again

362
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,640
Speaker 1: and again. And then number one flying or soaring through

363
00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:04,200
Speaker 1: the air. See you know this list just it almost

364
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:08,160
Speaker 1: just makes me enraged, because like people are people are

365
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,800
Speaker 1: having flying dreams? Is their number one? Lots of people

366
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:12,960
Speaker 1: have flying dreams. I do not have I've had like

367
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,159
Speaker 1: to flying dreams I can remember i've and then the

368
00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:20,840
Speaker 1: sexual experiences. I've rarely have a sexual dream, and now

369
00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:23,359
Speaker 1: I should have. I should add the caveat here that

370
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:27,159
Speaker 1: I remember. Big aspect of dreaming is you know, to

371
00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:29,919
Speaker 1: what extent are we able to then recall what we

372
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:33,639
Speaker 1: have dreamt of when we wake up? I hate that.

373
00:20:33,680 --> 00:20:36,760
Speaker 1: The thing I definitely identify with most on here is

374
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,960
Speaker 1: trying something again and again, like the dream about how

375
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:42,879
Speaker 1: you just need to do something that should be really

376
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:44,560
Speaker 1: simple and you should be able to do it, but

377
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:46,399
Speaker 1: you try and you try and you try and you

378
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:49,800
Speaker 1: can't and it just doesn't work. Yeah, or like like

379
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:52,199
Speaker 1: one of my most recent dreams I will share with

380
00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:55,119
Speaker 1: everyone is that that I was trying to move a

381
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:58,720
Speaker 1: horse across um uh you know, like from one city

382
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,719
Speaker 1: to another in a horse train there, and Glenn Danzig

383
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:04,399
Speaker 1: was helping me, or he was supposed to help me,

384
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:07,159
Speaker 1: but he was absolutely no help at all, and it

385
00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:10,280
Speaker 1: was super frustrating and I kept having to to reattach

386
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 1: the horse hitch um, which is or the hitch on

387
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:16,399
Speaker 1: the trailer with the trailer hitch which was you know,

388
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:19,320
Speaker 1: which was extra frustrating because like nothing in this dream

389
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,440
Speaker 1: had anything to do with what with with like actual

390
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:26,280
Speaker 1: real life struggles, like I'm not dealing with horses or

391
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:30,439
Speaker 1: horse trailers. Yeah, well that's that's interesting stuff again because

392
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,840
Speaker 1: sort of like the school dream, Now it's not relevant

393
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 1: to your life at this moment. So what's going on.

394
00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:40,040
Speaker 1: Is it a metaphor for something that is relevant to

395
00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: your life in this moment or is it just a

396
00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:45,640
Speaker 1: sort of like thought pattern or memory patterns being retrieved

397
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,639
Speaker 1: for no good reason. And and I guess the perplexing

398
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:51,440
Speaker 1: thing and about anything like this is that since we

399
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,440
Speaker 1: we have this fan, this fantastic ability to to make

400
00:21:55,480 --> 00:22:00,280
Speaker 1: connections and things and even like random assemblages, you know,

401
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:02,040
Speaker 1: we can come up with the story if we if

402
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 1: we analyze it enough, we can say like, oh, yeah,

403
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 1: well this is like clearly the horse represents this, and

404
00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:10,439
Speaker 1: the trailer represents this, and Glenn dansit represents that. You know,

405
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: you can come up with a version of it that

406
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:14,400
Speaker 1: makes sense. But then does that have anything to do

407
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 1: at all with the the origin of the dream exactly?

408
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:20,520
Speaker 1: I mean that might be a personally useful story to

409
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:22,119
Speaker 1: come up with. I can see how it can be

410
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: useful for for people to interpret their dreams, even if

411
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 1: the interpretation they come up with actually has nothing to

412
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:30,359
Speaker 1: do with the cause of those thoughts arising in their

413
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:32,639
Speaker 1: head while they're sleeping. But I do agree this is

414
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:35,920
Speaker 1: I joke about it being enraging, but it is a

415
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,800
Speaker 1: very interesting list. Yeah, it's like swimming dreams. Swimming is

416
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: on here. I never, I rarely have ever had a

417
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:45,080
Speaker 1: swimming dream. Don't I swim, you know, every morning if

418
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:47,920
Speaker 1: I can. Uh? And yet it doesn't really factor into

419
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 1: my dreams at all. But okay, to mention it again.

420
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:53,160
Speaker 1: Back to our our subject. This theme, known as school

421
00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: teachers and studyings number five the fifth most common theme

422
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:01,640
Speaker 1: of dreams uh in people responding to this massive online survey.

423
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:04,480
Speaker 1: But simply checking a box that says a recent dream

424
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 1: included themes of school teachers are studying doesn't really tell

425
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,159
Speaker 1: you all that much, right, Like it would be useful

426
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:14,080
Speaker 1: to have more granular detail. What exactly usually happens in

427
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:17,639
Speaker 1: the most common school based dreams? What level of school

428
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 1: does it apply to? Are the dreams good or bad?

429
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: I imagine they're probably mostly bad, but I don't know.

430
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 1: I've got, you know, hunches. But has anybody actually looked

431
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:29,679
Speaker 1: into this, and so the answer is I was not

432
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:33,479
Speaker 1: able to find a rigorous study characterizing the school dreams

433
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: like this, but I did find at least one informal

434
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 1: survey of of these dream experiences, so to look at that.

435
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: I was reading a blog post about this on Psychology

436
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: Today by the Boston College research psychologist Peter Gray, and

437
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:49,120
Speaker 1: he had obviously noticed the same trend about adults having

438
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 1: school dreams long after they leave school or graduate. And

439
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 1: by the way, the post had a great deadpan title

440
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 1: that does give away the findings, but it's worth reading.

441
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: It is the dream of school and none of the

442
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 1: dreams are good. Yeah, I mean I can I certainly

443
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:06,719
Speaker 1: can't think of a good school dream that I've ever had.

444
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: They've all been at the very least boring and tedious,

445
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: if not, you know, anxious. Yeah. So Gray used his

446
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 1: online platform to conduct an informal survey about the nature

447
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: of school dreams and their emotional valence. Uh. Now, remember again,

448
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,120
Speaker 1: this is an informal survey, not scientific data, so there's

449
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: no attempt to randomize participation or blind respondents about the

450
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: purpose of the inquiry, so there could be selection effects

451
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 1: biasing the responses here, but with that strong caveat in mind,

452
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: what you know if it's a starting place. What did

453
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 1: he find in this survey? Well, first of all, he

454
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: looked into what was the level of school that people

455
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: dreamed about. By far, the most common was high school.

456
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 1: Seventy three percent of dreams involved high school. Uh. And

457
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 1: these responses are going to add up to more than

458
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,640
Speaker 1: because people can report dreaming about more than one level

459
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: of school. But like high school seventy college thirty percent,

460
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 1: elementary school twelve percent, middle school seven percent. Where the

461
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: dreams good or bad? As alluded to in the title,

462
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: the dreams were overwhelmingly bad on a one to five scale,

463
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,719
Speaker 1: with one being very pleasant and five being very unpleasant.

464
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: Nobody rated any recurring school dream better than a three.

465
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 1: Almost all dreams were rated a four or five. Common

466
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 1: emotions identified by the dreamers in these dreams include anxiety, panic, shame, embarrassment,

467
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: and helplessness. It sounds about right. He found that the

468
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: dreams continued for decades after people graduated from school, and

469
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: they were extremely common in people in their thirties and forties,

470
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,160
Speaker 1: but much older people still reported them. Uh. And back

471
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: to the question of like, what are these dreams like

472
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 1: what actually happens in them. Plenty of things happened, but

473
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 1: he found the two most common among the people who

474
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: replied to his survey were missing classes all term and

475
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: therefore being likely to fail. This seems like it goes

476
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: right along with this. You know, this archetype we talked

477
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 1: about at the beginning, and then second being unable to

478
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 1: find the classroom. This is the one you were less

479
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: familiar with, right, Robert, Yeah, I don't think I've had

480
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: this one, but it totally makes sense. I mean, I

481
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: mean I remember from real life at times having that issue,

482
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 1: like trying to find a classroom or trying to find

483
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 1: where the classroom is moved temporarily. I mean, it seems

484
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: like the kind of thing I would have dreamt about

485
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,679
Speaker 1: but I did not. Well. Another interesting thing that I've

486
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: found when people collect these anecdotes of people's school anxiety

487
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 1: dreams is that they're not only common among people who

488
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 1: struggled in school or actually experienced feelings of helplessness and classes.

489
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 1: It seems they're very common at least also maybe even

490
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: more so among people who were successful as students and

491
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: who did well in their classes. Yeah, I mean, you

492
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: just because you're good at something doesn't mean you're you're

493
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: stress free about it, right, right? But I guess now

494
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: we've got to turn to the question of why why

495
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: these school dreams? For decades after people leave school, you

496
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: might be in your fifties, you might be in your sixties,

497
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: and you're still having the dream where you forgot you

498
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: were enrolled in Russian calculus and you've got to show

499
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: up and take the exam. Why does that happen? Why

500
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 1: does that take hold of our brains? Why are we

501
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 1: not instead replacing those dreams with dreams about things that

502
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: are affecting us in the present. I think it's he

503
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: has a great question, and my my sort of gut

504
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 1: answers it would be that we live very boring lives,

505
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: you know, Like, like I I legitimately want I did

506
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: a little looking around for this, and I couldn't find

507
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 1: a good source. But my my immediate question is, like,

508
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: how would this kind of data match up with people

509
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: who instead of going to college, uh, like we're we're

510
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: drafted into the military. Like what would this data look like,

511
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 1: say from you know, more from like a World War

512
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 1: two era, um, you know, a group of subjects. I

513
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 1: was really curious about that too. And like, as we said,

514
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: you know, the data we have seemed to be affected

515
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: by like the selection problems that exist in a lot

516
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 1: of current psychological literature. But yeah, if there is data

517
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 1: like that out there somewhere and somebody knows about it,

518
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: please send it our way. I would love to see that,

519
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: to see if that's different. Likewise, this would be a

520
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: great area to hear from just our listeners, Like what

521
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:00,959
Speaker 1: has you what's your experien as if you especially if

522
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: you didn't if if you were, say drafted into the

523
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: military or join the military, like right after high school,

524
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:07,719
Speaker 1: Like what do you have more of Do you have

525
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 1: more like boot camp dreams or military dreams or even

526
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: combat dreams, or do you have more high school dreams?

527
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 1: Like I wonder, wonder like what has the most potency?

528
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: I mean, I wonder also our school dreams common among people,

529
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 1: say who didn't go to high school. Maybe if you

530
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: only have an elementary school education and you know you

531
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: went on straight to a career after that, do you

532
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: still have anxiety dreams about elementary school right? Or do

533
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: you have dreams about like the trials that take place

534
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: at that high school age stage of your life? Like

535
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: entering the workforce or you know, whatever happened to you know,

536
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: fill those years. Yeah, I wish we had more information

537
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: about that, but that's a very interesting question. All right.

538
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: On that note, we're going to take a quick break,

539
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back. All right, we're back. So

540
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: in trying to answer this question of like why school

541
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: anxiety dreams seem to be so calm and among people

542
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: who went to high school or college but have been

543
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: long out of it, you know, like the high school

544
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: is not something that's still a pressing concern for them,

545
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: and yet they have nightmares about it, or at least

546
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: anxiety dreams about it frequently. Yeah, Like you can forget

547
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: everybody's name that you went to high school with, but

548
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: he still these dreams. I was reading an article by

549
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: the science writer Stephanie Poppas about this and and she

550
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: led me to some interesting thoughts that I don't think

551
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: I would have connected to automatically, but this was this

552
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: was cool. So so she's looking at the same question,

553
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: and one idea she brings up that I thought was

554
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: a very interesting possibility is an association with what's known

555
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: as the reminiscence bump. Robert, were you familiar with this. Okay,

556
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: I wasn't either, but um, but it makes sense based

557
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: on some other things I've read. So the reminiscence bump

558
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,479
Speaker 1: is the tendency for people to have better recollection of

559
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: stuff that happened when they were in their late teenage years,

560
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: in their early twenties, and better recollection of that stuff

561
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: than any other point in their law fives. So, for example,

562
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: older adults, you take somebody maybe in their fifties or

563
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: sixties or seventies, they will seem to have greater access

564
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: to more vivid memories with more accuracy at the referring

565
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: to things that happened at the time there were maybe

566
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: sixteen to twenty five, and less access to memories with

567
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: less accuracy dealing with things both before and after this.

568
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: And many studies have demonstrated the reminiscence bump. I think

569
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: this is a well established phenomenon. Well I could see

570
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: that being a you know, a direct factor in its

571
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: then for sure, Yeah, it's possible. So we'll continue to

572
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: think about this. But to look a little bit more

573
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: closely at the reminiscence bump, if you want to imagine

574
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: basically the quality or salience of memories throughout the life.

575
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: In general. Uh, the quality and quantity of autobiographical memories

576
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: is is not equal across time, and there's sort of

577
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: an s curve in lifetime memory retrieval. For example, adults

578
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: tend to remember very little from before the age of

579
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: five or so. This is sometimes referred to as childhood amnesia.

580
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: Memories increase from here and you get this curve going

581
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: up where the older you get, the more memories you

582
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: have from that period, and it peaks sometime around the

583
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,719
Speaker 1: early twenties, like late teens, early twenties. That's that's the

584
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: golden time for having the most memories that are most

585
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: easily retrieved. And that it's also a reason perhaps that

586
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: you like so much of the nostalgia that is marketed

587
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: at you is going to be marketed at things from

588
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: that period of your life. Oh yeah, actually, uh now

589
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: I don't remember who made this point, but somebody I

590
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: was reading made this point. I'm sorry I can't remember

591
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: the name. Pointed out that the connection between this and

592
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: the cycle of remakes and films, that there seems to

593
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 1: be about a twenty year lag and that would tie

594
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: in with like the stuff you remember coming out when

595
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 1: you were twenty years old, you being ripe to like

596
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: go engage in nostalgia for that or even participate in

597
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,719
Speaker 1: making the remake when you're forty interesting Okay, But anyway,

598
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: after this increase in in the retrieval of memories from

599
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 1: around the early twenties, they your your ability to retrieve

600
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: memories decline again from later periods, so older adults remember

601
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,479
Speaker 1: less from their thirties and forties. Though, of course, no

602
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: matter what age we are, we tend to recall recent

603
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 1: events better, So whatever wherever you are in the age range,

604
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: the memory of course from the last few years will

605
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 1: usually be pretty good. So no matter what your age is,

606
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: if you're after you know, thirties or forties, you're going

607
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: to have kind of an s curve with it peaking

608
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: up again for more recent things. So we can definitely

609
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: see how this could be related. It could be relevant

610
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: to the lifelong power of school related terror and it

611
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: seems to line up especially with the observation that the

612
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: majority of school related dreams are not about like elementary school,

613
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: but they tend to be about high school and college.

614
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: So that could be because school anxieties are common for

615
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: people who attend high school and college in their late

616
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: teens and early twenties, and these themes are especially salient

617
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: and easy to access in memory for dream content. But

618
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: I guess this forces us to ask the question, if

619
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: the reminiscence bump plays a role in the prevalence of

620
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: school related dreams, why do we have a reminiscence bump

621
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,479
Speaker 1: in the first place, Like why would we remember this

622
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: part of our lives better than other parts of our lives.

623
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 1: And there have been a lot of hypotheses to explain

624
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: this pattern. I think it's something that it's you know,

625
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: it's not fully answered yet, but there's a lot of

626
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: research and thought about this. An early idea was that

627
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: maybe this is just the time of life when like

628
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: the brain is physically most adept, it's you know, your brain,

629
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: is it optimized, high potential, it's making memories best than

630
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: those those memories are easiest to retrieve later. Well. One

631
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,479
Speaker 1: one possibility that I think ties directly in with this,

632
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: that you know, I'll come back to later on, is

633
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: that this is a time period this is the teenage brain.

634
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: And uh, we've talked about the teenage brain on the

635
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: show in the past, about how it is it is

636
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: wired a little differently, like the different there are different

637
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: priorities for the teenage brain, for instance, with making social connections.

638
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: Uh and you know, from an evolutionary standpoint, like that

639
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: is there because you would need to make connections with

640
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: new people, you would need to branch out and uh

641
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: and and become a part of other groups and it

642
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: would be necessary for your survival. So like the teenage

643
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: brain is is wired for this passage into a new

644
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: phase of life. Uh So, yeah, that could be part

645
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: of it for sure. Well, I want to come back

646
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: to that in a second, because who's the Who's the

647
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: personality that you need most importantly to make a connection

648
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: to for social relevance. It's yourself, right, that's like identity

649
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: formation period. So so we'll come back to that in

650
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: a minute. Uh. There's another explanation that seems to have

651
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: gained some credence after the initial thing about maybe the

652
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: brain just being good at making memories. Then, um, it

653
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: has to do with the nature of life in late

654
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:43,280
Speaker 1: teens in early twenties. Maybe we remember this period best

655
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:45,919
Speaker 1: because for many of us, this is the period when

656
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,800
Speaker 1: life is filled with the most variety and novelty. Remember

657
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: when we talked about the sort of the psychological dilation

658
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: of time. Experiences that feel like they're taking the longest

659
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: actually take up the shortest time time in our memory,

660
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 1: and they sort of collapse because these are the mundane, boring,

661
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: grinding experiences. An hour waiting in line for something feels

662
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 1: like it takes forever, but it takes up almost no

663
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: space in your later memory. Meanwhile, a novel experience that

664
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: you've never done before, it's very strange and challenging to you,

665
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: goes by in an instant in the moment, but then

666
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: in your memory it takes up this expansive character. And

667
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 1: thus the faster your time seems to go by in

668
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: the present, the more time you seem to have had

669
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 1: to experience life in your memory. Yeah to the prime

670
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: examples of this are frequently, of course, a vacation, and

671
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 1: ultimately that's one of the great things about of a vacation,

672
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: because you've you've changed the way you're interacting with novelty

673
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 1: in your life. Uh. The darker example, though, it would

674
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: of course be a traumatic occurrence, where it is it

675
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: is also impacting your life in a novel way. But

676
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: in both cases, those can be things that where it

677
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: just seems like time is super sped up in the moment,

678
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: like the things are just rushing, asked you, and then

679
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: it's over. But then when you think back that time

680
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 1: is way stretched out. It represents more life than the

681
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: you know, the week before that, where there was there

682
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: was just a mundane work week. Yeah. Another example of

683
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: this is frequently a one's wedding. If you've had a

684
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,719
Speaker 1: wedding ceremony, like it's it's it's really become kind of

685
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: a trope, right that it will it will just fly by.

686
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: You'll barely have a chance to experience it in the moment,

687
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: but of course it will be this thing that you

688
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: think back to, uh, you know, for the rest of

689
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 1: your life. Right, And this does seem to go along

690
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: with some psychology and neuroscience. It's well known that the

691
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: brain essentially encodes stronger memories of novel experiences than of

692
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: routine ones. You're gonna have a weaker memory of things

693
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: that you've done a million times and just happened to

694
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: do again the other day, then of something that was

695
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: really unusual and new for you. Just for example, I

696
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 1: was reading an article about the reminiscence bump by Katie

697
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 1: Waldman and Slade and She pointed out that there was

698
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: a nineteen eight study that found that nine percent of

699
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 1: vivid life memories concern unique or first time events. That's

700
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,239
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, I mean that would make sense. I

701
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 1: mean just if you look at memories just to sheer

702
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: like cataloging of events or occurrences that may prove useful later,

703
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: like the ones that are gonna be highlighted, or this

704
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 1: would never happen before, Well, we better we better mark

705
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 1: this one. We better make sure this one's nice and vivid,

706
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 1: because this will this could be useful if this thing

707
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: were to happen again exactly. But this theory has some

708
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: challenges to explain. The reminiscence bump, for example, a big

709
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 1: problem a lot of the memories that people report experiencing

710
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: through their reminiscence bumps. So you ask somebody to say, okay,

711
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 1: you know, what are the things you you know remember

712
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: in your life and make a list of autobiographical details.

713
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: A lot of them are gonna be in their say,

714
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: early twenties or late teens or something. But a lot

715
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: of these experiences are not, in fact novel experiences. They'll

716
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,879
Speaker 1: remember something mundane from that time period. Well like when

717
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,799
Speaker 1: I think back to high school. I don't think I

718
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 1: have any definitive memories of specific tests that I was

719
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 1: stressed out about. You know. It's it's like these these

720
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: dreams seem to be occurring from just a generalization of

721
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 1: of of anxiety that I was feeling at the time. Yeah,

722
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: and so Waltman's article points actually to something that I

723
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: found really interesting. And this comes back to the point

724
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 1: you were making earlier that we're both talking about earlier.

725
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 1: Another theory that's become popular and gained some traction in

726
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: explaining the reminiscence bump is that the reminiscence bump occurs

727
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 1: in the late teens, in early twenties or its peaks then,

728
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 1: because this is a time full of memories that people

729
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 1: come to see as self defining. These are autobiographical, narrative

730
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:41,839
Speaker 1: experiences that come to mind when we're asked to think

731
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 1: about our identity, who we are, and so experiences and

732
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: and studies have shown this experiences that we see as

733
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: self defining occupy a privileged place in our memory, even

734
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 1: if they occur at other stages of life. But apparently

735
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:00,840
Speaker 1: it's just very common for self defining experiences to be

736
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: clustered in your late teenage years and in your twenties.

737
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,880
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, I mean this

738
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 1: was this is this this time of of expansion in

739
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: our life, this time of stepping from one one stone

740
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:17,439
Speaker 1: across the stream to another. Yeah. And so normally when

741
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:21,399
Speaker 1: we think about self defining memories, we want to drift

742
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: towards the positive, right, And so if you are asked

743
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,240
Speaker 1: to make a list of like I am statements about yourself,

744
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: so you know, make list ten statements about you saying

745
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: like I am this, I am that, And then after that,

746
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: I say, take every one of those I am statements

747
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: and make a list of specific autobiographical memories you have

748
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: that that that illustrate this fact about you that you

749
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: are this thing. People will tend to make lists of

750
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 1: a lot of things from their like teenage in early

751
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: twenties period. But studies find that that people can have

752
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:59,720
Speaker 1: un if people have self defining experience at other periods

753
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: in their life, they will remember these other periods in

754
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: their life very well also. Uh So, so it could

755
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: just be that there's this unfortunate like timeline coincidence, coincide, coincidence,

756
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: coincidence that the timeline of when you're in high school

757
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: and when you're in college. Happens to line up pretty

758
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: well with the timeline of when you're figuring out who

759
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: you are and making memories that will last the rest

760
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: of your life to help you make sense of your

761
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 1: life and your in your narrative arc. Absolutely, yeah, I

762
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: think those two line up, you know, rather nicely now.

763
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:35,399
Speaker 1: But then again, uh. In that article I was talking

764
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: about by Stephanie Poppas, she also interviews Michael Shreddle, who's

765
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: in charge of the sleep Laboratory at Central Institute of

766
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,720
Speaker 1: Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. Yeah, he's the same author

767
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,799
Speaker 1: of that and the nightmare survey that referred to earlier. Yeah,

768
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: and one of the studies I referred to earlier survey.

769
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 1: And Shreddle does not agree with the reminiscence bump theory.

770
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:59,280
Speaker 1: He he thinks that dreams stem from the brain trying

771
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,720
Speaker 1: to deal with problems it's facing in the present, perhaps

772
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: by way of analogy, and and he tells her quote

773
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 1: the examination, dreams are triggered by current life situations that

774
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: have similar emotional qualities. And I mean, obviously, you know

775
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: he's the expert on this. I'm not, but I have

776
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 1: some issues with that because if this is true, I

777
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: feel like, in a way, it still doesn't answer the question. Like,

778
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:27,240
Speaker 1: let's say that all school anxiety dreams are actually functioning

779
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: on a kind of unconscious system of metaphors. It's the

780
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: brain working over current problems and obstacles by presenting a

781
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: strange metaphorical scenario that has similar emotional qualities. We don't

782
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: know that's the case, but let's assume that's the case. Yeah, Like,

783
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,399
Speaker 1: for instance, you're not looking for a classroom in which

784
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: you have to take an exam, but perhaps you're looking

785
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: for something. Perhaps you're not concerned about failing a test,

786
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: perhaps like you're concerned about being judged in one fashion

787
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 1: or another. Exactly right, Yes, So if that's the case,

788
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: the question remains, why is school so prevalent as the

789
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: metaphor that the brain chooses even later in life? If

790
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: for some reason it must default to a metaphor, why

791
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,239
Speaker 1: not one from more recent experience. Why aren't all the

792
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: fifty year old's anxiety dreams about school or replaced with

793
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 1: dreams about other anxiety inducing situations from the past month

794
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: or the past year of their life? Why go back

795
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: to this time? So I feel like that that could

796
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: be true, but it wouldn't necessarily answer the question of

797
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: why school in the dreams? Now is? I believe we

798
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that dream anxiety dreams about exams in school.

799
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:38,760
Speaker 1: You know, we've mostly been dealing about them after the fact,

800
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: you know, five, ten, twenty forty years later. But the

801
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: reality is that we also see these dreams occurring, you know,

802
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:50,799
Speaker 1: in real time before the tests occur, being experienced by

803
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: actual students. Yeah, and that that's the time when it

804
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: totally makes sense. It's more just the mystery of why

805
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: they occur later in life. But maybe by understanding what

806
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: role they serve in the moment, you could better understand

807
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:04,439
Speaker 1: why they linger in the brain so much. Right. So, yeah,

808
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: this bring brings us to this this broader question, right,

809
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:10,240
Speaker 1: could could anxiety dreams actually be adaptive? Are they helping

810
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 1: us in one way or another? Are the contents of

811
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: them helping us in some way? Right? And and this

812
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:17,720
Speaker 1: again we come back to sort of the division about

813
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: dreams and how they work. Does the content matter at all?

814
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: Or or or the contents of the dreams sort of

815
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 1: like the scap that has been extruded by by the

816
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: like the psychic digestive system of the sleeping mind. Uh. Anyway,

817
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 1: and this we end up, you know, coming back, yeah

818
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 1: to those big questions. I'm reminded of an interview that

819
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:40,760
Speaker 1: we conducted with the Dr marn Surf years ago on

820
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: our episode. I believe it was the one about the

821
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,440
Speaker 1: nine dream Worlds of Frederick penn Eden. And you know,

822
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: you talked about there being five different theories out there,

823
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: predominant theories about dreams that range from importance about dream

824
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: content that range from importance to non importance, you know,

825
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:58,360
Speaker 1: ranging from it like it's like a defragmentation of the

826
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: hard drive, you know, a race and key memories assorting

827
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: dreams as emergent narrative another one. Um. And other extreme

828
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:07,919
Speaker 1: examples include, you know, the idea that our our brain

829
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 1: is looking at things that we suppressed during the day,

830
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: or that the brain is using the dream to simulate

831
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: futures for us so that we can act better in

832
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:20,399
Speaker 1: the waking world and um and yeah, so we're looking

833
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:22,800
Speaker 1: around them. There are some interesting cases to be made

834
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: regarding these anxiety dreams as being perhaps even being simulations

835
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 1: for something that's coming, at least dealing with stress ahead

836
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: of an event. And uh so, one of the papers

837
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 1: that looked at here was will students pass a competitive

838
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: exam that they failed in their dreams? This was published

839
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: in in Consciousness and Cognition was by Arnold at All

840
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,720
Speaker 1: So the authors point out that most students in medical

841
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: school dream about an exam before the exam, and they

842
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: primarily dream of failure, being late, not being able to

843
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: answer the questions on the exam, et cetera. And yet,

844
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:05,840
Speaker 1: unlike you know, with typical anxiety, dreaming of an exam

845
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: seems to predict higher performance on the exam. So their

846
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:14,879
Speaker 1: theory was that it's like your dramaticization of high concerns

847
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: during the dreams maybe training the brain for the challenges

848
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 1: to come, so kind of like let's just hit him

849
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: with a bunch of like the brain is just hitting

850
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: you with a bunch of worst case scenarios so that

851
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 1: you'll be like better emotionally prepared for something more middle

852
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: of the road. That's really interesting. I mean I do

853
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: wonder if that's true, Like just mechanically, how does it work,

854
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: you know, literally, how does it increase the brain's ability

855
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:43,919
Speaker 1: to actually deal with the test, to have the dream

856
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, it also sounds like like maybe you know,

857
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,280
Speaker 1: we don't want to personify the brain. The sleeping brain

858
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: is being like a you know, a team of little

859
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: bitty scientists that are deciding how they're gonna what they're

860
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: gonna roll out, what kind of programming is presented. Is

861
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: with because it also seems like, well, okay, if we

862
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: could go back to the idea that dreams don't matter

863
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,439
Speaker 1: and this is just simply, uh, the dream content doesn't matter,

864
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:09,240
Speaker 1: and that this is just a you know, a reverberation

865
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 1: of our of our concerns during the day. You know,

866
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:14,400
Speaker 1: if you're stressed out, maybe you're I mean, that's what

867
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: we do with mental time travel. We run these scenarios

868
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: in real time, and we think, oh, my goodness, what

869
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 1: if I don't get there in time? What if I fail?

870
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: What if I don't get good enough good night's sleep

871
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: before the exam? Uh it makes sense that if you're

872
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: worrying about there in the day, you're gonna worry about

873
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: that at night. Uh. So it becomes, you know, difficult

874
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: to really characterize the purpose if there is one of

875
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: the dream content. I also looked at a paper titled

876
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: Inception the Exam Dream is Real by Alan J. Oxford,

877
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: The third published in a pin state law review. This

878
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: one is also fun because there were a lot of

879
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 1: Morpheus quotes what in the in the paper, but but

880
00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: it was, it was very well written and uh and

881
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:57,720
Speaker 1: of course it springs as the title suggests, from similar

882
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 1: situations with law students. And the paper is is lengthy

883
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: and wrestles with the viewpoint that while you know the

884
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: function of sleep and dreaming is vital for our survival,

885
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: you know, essentially restoring our energy, arguably to fragging the

886
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: hard drive, the content of our dreams, you know, may

887
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 1: very well be without purpose. Again according to some of

888
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: the models. Uh, you're the junk in your dreams may

889
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: simply be there because it's the same junk you've been

890
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: wrestling with all day, all week, all month as you

891
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: prepare for your tests. So I can't help but return

892
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 1: to this basic scenario of human survival that we've been

893
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: discussing here. You know that these dreams again are often

894
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: relating to periods of great stress and vulnerability, and they

895
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:44,800
Speaker 1: are in a paper tiger sense of things, not unlike

896
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,280
Speaker 1: states of birth. You know, a process is in place,

897
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 1: but there is a potential for things to go very wrong.

898
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 1: There's a risk and in many models of the afterlife.

899
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: The same scenario is also present in transferring to the

900
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:02,879
Speaker 1: realms beyond death. Uh. Take Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, one

901
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:06,839
Speaker 1: goes through a mental rehearsal, meditation, and practice so as

902
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,439
Speaker 1: to ensure one's dying consciousness moves safely through all eight

903
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 1: stages of death to the death point. Confusing, but you know,

904
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 1: in many ways enlightening state that may last for many days. Oh,

905
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: I think about the ancient Egyptian sort of rehearsals for

906
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker 1: the progress through the afterlife. Yeah, I think very similar scenario.

907
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 1: You know, it's something where it's like the the journey

908
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: is stressful, the journey is like birth, and there's a

909
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that can go wrong if you're not

910
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: prepared for it. And uh, yeah, we see this in

911
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: various other spiritual models as well. So yeah, I think

912
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: that you know, for for most of human history, the

913
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,759
Speaker 1: teenage years, a little before, a little after, you know this,

914
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: this was a time in which we were making these

915
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,359
Speaker 1: big jumps out into the world, you know where, and

916
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: even in our own lives, like so much of the

917
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: time teenage years and then in college years if you

918
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,359
Speaker 1: go to college or entering the workplace, etcetera. Like these

919
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 1: are dream these are periods of time in which we

920
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 1: have increasing responsibilities for ourself and our own destiny, our

921
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: own fate. However you want to uh, you know, you

922
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: want to package it and uh, you know, so it

923
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 1: makes sense that we would come back to this period

924
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: time and time again in dream, you know, either the

925
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 1: reverberation of the anxiety or just the reverberation of the metaphor,

926
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, it's it's uh, you almost want

927
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: to think of it as this this thing in our

928
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: timeline that is just so potent that it's you know,

929
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 1: it's like sending waves back into into the past and

930
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 1: into the future at the same time. Yeah, well, I

931
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 1: feel like the question is still unanswered. But I think

932
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: the thing that we've talked about today that appeals to

933
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: me the most as an explanation is probably the the

934
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: it's it's tying into what you're saying now, like the

935
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: self identity narrative of the reminiscence bump. I think is

936
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: is a it seems like a very good candidate to

937
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 1: me that, like if if there is a general context

938
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 1: for what's happening in your life at a time when

939
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 1: you're making a lot of memories that are highly relevant

940
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,799
Speaker 1: to what what you think about yourself and who you

941
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 1: think you are. Then those memories in that context are

942
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 1: going to be highly salient in in memory and will

943
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: be retrieved effortlessly throughout the rest of your life, even

944
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: maybe necessarily when you don't want them to be. And then,

945
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:22,279
Speaker 1: of course, as you're saying, like the test, just the

946
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: test is a perfect metaphor in a way, like it

947
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 1: just does fit with so much else that's going to

948
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:32,360
Speaker 1: happen throughout our life as a metaphor. Uh because because essentially,

949
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: like every major struggle is in a way a test, right,

950
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: and you know, an important test in high school or college. Uh,

951
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a perfect example of a paper tiger,

952
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 1: right because you're not gonna die if you fail that exam.

953
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 1: But certainly failing important exams and tests can have, you know,

954
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:54,120
Speaker 1: some some pretty major effects on your life, or at

955
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:57,160
Speaker 1: least you know they can contribute to major twists and

956
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: turns in your timeline, or at least adults will definitely

957
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:03,240
Speaker 1: tell you that it contributes. That's because that's the narrative

958
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 1: you're hit with, like this is an important test, like

959
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: this could this could you know, impact whether you get

960
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 1: into college or not, or if you have to go

961
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 1: work at the at the you know, the the shoe

962
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,399
Speaker 1: tongue factory where they just make the tongues for shoes. Uh,

963
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: you know, I mean so you know, a lot of

964
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: it we can blame our parents for. I agree. Oh,

965
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to blame our parents. I just mean that,

966
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it is worth this should maybe

967
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 1: at least tempt us to think differently about what school

968
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: should be. Like I'm not saying, you know, I'm not

969
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 1: saying I know everything about education or you know, about

970
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,839
Speaker 1: what's best for for high school age kids and what's

971
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:42,680
Speaker 1: the best way for them to learn. But if high

972
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:46,280
Speaker 1: school is causing these high school in college are causing

973
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 1: these horrible, you know memories that that plague people the

974
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: rest of their lives and they wake up in a

975
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:55,759
Speaker 1: cold sweat thinking about tests, I don't know that that

976
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:58,439
Speaker 1: could at least maybe be a sign that like there's

977
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 1: something structurally about the high school experience that could be different. Maybe.

978
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: But then I again, I also just wonder if you're

979
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: gonna have something similar no matter what you're going through

980
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: at that age. Again, I wish we had some great

981
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:16,240
Speaker 1: data looking at individuals who go directly into military service

982
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: or or you know, directly into the workforce and or

983
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: in those cases you're just going to see different dream

984
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 1: content stemming from the same life period. But you know,

985
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:30,240
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe in the future will have more robust

986
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 1: data to go from on this. All right, Well there

987
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: you have it. Oh, school dreams something that I think

988
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: everybody can relate to. Um, And if you can't relate

989
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: to it, we definitely want to hear from you about that.

990
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: So basically, no matter you know what your experience, you

991
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 1: probably have something to share here. UM. I'm not one

992
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 1: of those you know, some people you know will say, like,

993
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 1: you know, you never want to hear about somebody else's dreams,

994
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 1: like somebody's else's dreams are always boring. I strongly disagree.

995
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:57,720
Speaker 1: I always want to hear about other people's dreams because

996
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,280
Speaker 1: even if they are boring, it's telling like you earning

997
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: something about the inner space that defines someone else. Uh.

998
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: And then half the time though it's really weird and

999
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 1: uh and interesting in its own right. So right into us,

1000
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:12,520
Speaker 1: we'll tell you how to do that. But in the meantime,

1001
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 1: if you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff

1002
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you'll find the Stuff to Blow

1003
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:18,839
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Where else can you find it? Oh,

1004
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 1: like everywhere wherever you get podcasts these days, which seems

1005
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: to be like literally everywhere, various programs, various services, objects

1006
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 1: that you find, uh in bathrooms and subway stations. Uh,

1007
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:35,239
Speaker 1: we're probably on that as well. Wherever you get the podcast.

1008
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:37,319
Speaker 1: The best thing you can do to help us is

1009
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: to just rate and review us wherever you have the

1010
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 1: power to do so. If you can leave some stars

1011
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:44,319
Speaker 1: you know on you know this program or that, or

1012
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:46,960
Speaker 1: on a weird object in a bathroom, do so, leave

1013
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:49,279
Speaker 1: a nice review and make sure you've again subscribed to

1014
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: not only this show, but our other show, Invention as well.

1015
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: Invention is a weekly exploration of human techno history, one

1016
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: invention at a time. Huge thanks as always to our

1017
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:04,000
Speaker 1: excellent audio producers Steth Nicholas Johnson and Maya Cole. If

1018
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:05,400
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1019
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: feedback about this episode or any other, to suggest a

1020
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 1: topic for the future, to tell us about your dreams

1021
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: or your lack of school dreams, or just to say hi,

1022
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1023
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1024
00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more

1025
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

1026
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.