WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Sacred Mountain, Part 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.520 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:10.200 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In It's Saturday, 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:12.040 time for a vault episode. This is going to be 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.560 part two of our Journey to the Sacred Mountain that 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:20.799 began last Saturday. This episode originally aired on April nineteen. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.840 We hope you enjoy it. Walk away quietly in any 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.840 direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Comp out 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.800 among the grasses and the gentians of glacial meadows in 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:37.560 craggy garden nooks full of nature's darling's climb the mountains 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.760 and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.920 you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.760 their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:54.240 while cares will drop off like autumn leaves as age 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.880 comes on. One source of enjoyment after another is closed, 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.640 but Nature's sources never fail. I know that our bodies 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.880 were made to thrive only in pure air and the 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:15.679 scenes in which pure air is found. Welcome to Stuff 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:17.679 to Blow your Mind, a production of I Heeart Radios 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:26.560 How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.080 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.399 those quotes we just read were, of course from the 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.800 great John. You're one of the great priests of the 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.360 religion of the Mountains, absolutely a true American hero. I 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.800 say that without a shred of irony, un important individual 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:48.040 in the natural preservation efforts of the United States. And 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.280 I like these two quotes because he's he's getting into 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.200 the power and the awe of the mountains. And that 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.680 first quote, and in that second he's talking about the 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.000 air of the wilderness. And we're going to be discussing 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.400 the air of the wildern us in this our second 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.760 episode on Sacred Mountains. But I suppose we should we should, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:07.720 of course refer you back to the first episode. If 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:09.720 you didn't listen to the first episode on Sacred Mountains, 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.959 go back. That is the uh important first installment. But 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:16.080 let's catch everybody up to speed and what we chatted 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.440 about last time. Sure, well, last time we talked about 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.840 holy mountains from religious and cultural beliefs around the world 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.920 and common types of beliefs about holy mountains. We talked 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.480 about the idea of mountains as the homes of the 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.680 gods or as the bodies of gods themselves, as like 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.440 entrances to other worlds, as pillars that hold up the heavens, 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.880 as places of pilgrimage, as places where the gods once 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.880 were or still dwell or sleep. There's almost an infinite 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.800 array of ways in which mountains have been religiously significant, 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.480 and so we talked about some reasons that might be. 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.920 Of course, there are things having to do with perspective 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.639 when one climbs a mountain and looks down at the earth. Uh, 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.840 there are there. There's just the sheer fact of its size, 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.520 I mean in a pretty basic sense. Yeah, and just 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.640 how important natural forms are and are the shaping of 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.679 our cosmologies in our sense of self. Uh. We discussed 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.840 like the main points along these lines in the last episode. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:22.560 We also, though, talked about stories expressed by many mountain climbers, 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:27.520 though certainly not only by mountain climbers, of hallucinations during 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.040 the journey of climbing a mountain, including the very common 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:36.040 third man syndrome. Uh. The experience of sensing another person 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.040 making a journey with you, who in fact is not 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.200 there right, And it's very often um, I would say, 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.960 a neutral apparition, Uh, you're help not a beneficial one. 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.800 So it's not like, oh, my goodness, there's a monster 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.240 beside me. It's more like, oh, well, there's uh. I 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.720 thought I was up here alone climbing this mountain, but 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.920 there's this this other fella, and that's comforting to know 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.280 that it's not just me. Yeah. We read a section 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.000 from an account by the mountaineer Frank Smythe, who wrote 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.200 of his experiences attempting and failing to summit Mount Everest 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.160 alone in nineteen thirty three, and he wrote in one 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.000 section of his account, quote, all the time that I 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.320 was climbing alone, I had a strong feeling that I 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.200 was accompanied by a second person. And then later I 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.039 remember constantly glancing back over my shoulder. And once, when 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.040 after reaching my highest point, I stopped to try and 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.760 eat some mint cake, I carefully divided it and turned 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.640 around with one half in my hand. It was almost 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.080 a shock to find no one to whom to give it. 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:38.920 And of course there are also plenty of much more 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:45.200 recent reports to the same thing, people having strange experiences, delusions, hallucinations, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:49.440 or at least apparently to you know, modern skeptical thinkers, hallucinations. 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.240 It's very possible if people had these experiences in the 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.359 ancient world, or if they're just less skeptically minded, they 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:57.880 might think, you know, this was a real presence with 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.040 me on the mountain. There was something super natural happening 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.440 up there, right, there was something revolting about my mint 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.240 cake that drove the spirit away. Now, it's clear that 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.280 very high altitudes can have a number of health effects 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:16.120 that could have neurological and psychological implications. These are generally 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.560 thought to be caused by the lower air pressure at 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.119 higher altitudes. This is understood to be the major cause. 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.880 Though I think it's worth emphasizing that there are things 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.640 that are still not fully understood about altitude sickness. Absolutely, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.240 and you know, there's a whole They've been numerous studies 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.400 over the years about individuals who are climatized to a 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.960 high altitude environments. Uh, that's something we could potentially come 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.120 back into an entire episode on. Yeah. But I think 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.599 one of the interesting things about altitude sickness that we 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.839 still don't fully understand is why it affects different people 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.960 so differently. Like you can't always predict whether a person 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.640 will experience altitude sickness at a certain altitude, so the 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.159 generally understood major cause of altitude sickness seems to be 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.960 the lower air pressure means less oxygen is compressed in 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.920 the atmosphere because you're up higher, so there's less atmosphere 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.479 sitting on the area you're breathing, right, And it was 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:12.120 an idea that we initially explored in the under pressure episode. Yes, 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.400 and so this means you literally get less oxygen with 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.440 each breath, and of course you need oxygen to survive. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.600 If you're getting less of it with each breath you take, 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.520 you can begin to suffer negative consequences in the body 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:28.240 and the brain. And meanwhile, you are perhaps climbing a mountain. Yeah, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.960 so you're exerting yourself anyway, but it can happen even 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.280 without exertion. That that's important to note. And exactly what 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.039 altitude it sets in varies a good bit from person 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.719 to person, Like we were just talking about, a reasonable 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.760 figure at which a significant percent of people will display 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.080 symptoms is sometimes cited to be eight thousand feet or 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.120 but for each individual person, it's a toss up. You 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.560 individually might be affected at a lower altitude or a 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.280 higher altitude. It's it's hard to know for sure. If 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.360 you haven't been there before. Um, it's usually said to 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.600 be worse if you ascend quickly and don't give your 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.120 body time to adapt to lower air pressure at higher altitude. 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.920 So that is one thing. If you're expecting to be 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.760 like hiking at a high altitude, it's good to give 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:16.040 yourself time to hang out at high altitude without exerting yourself. First, 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.960 always be wary if you're aboard the starship Enterprise and 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:25.040 you teleport down to a mountaintop, teleport to the lower 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.880 mountain area first. Yeah, base camps are still important, guys. 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.320 But some common symptoms of like mild to moderate altitude 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.240 sickness would be the kinds of things you would first 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.440 of all, the kinds of things you would expect with 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.720 less access to oxygen. So maybe shortness of breath, breathing 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.720 harder with less physical exertion, uh, faster heart rate. You 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.760 know your heart's beating hard, is trying to oxygenate your tissues. 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.800 You're just not getting enough oxygen in each breath, and 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:53.920 so you know you'd expect those kind of things. But 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:58.120 also you can experience nausea, dizziness, or lightheadedness, and it 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.480 can mess with your natural drives such as for sleep 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.880 and for food, So you can have loss of appetite, 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.720 headache and that kind of thing. In much more severe 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.520 cases of altitude sickness, you can have changes in the 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.040 color of the skin, You can have tightness in the chest. 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.160 You can have mental effects like you know, a loss 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.120 of a loss of awareness, loss of coherence, or confusion. 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.119 There can even be coughing up of blood or loss 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:28.360 of consciousness. And there there are subsequent life threatening conditions 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.680 that can come out of altitude sickness. One is known 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.199 as high altitude pulmonary a demo or hape h ape, 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.800 where altitude sickness leads to a build up of fluid 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.360 in the lungs. This, if you experience it, is life 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.400 threatening and you should act on this immediately. Another is 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.160 high altitude cerebral ademo or hat, when altitude sickness leads 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.560 to swelling of the brain, which is very dangerous and 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.840 of course can cause all kinds of mental disturbances. And 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:58.160 so obviously one question we might have is if people 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.319 often report seeing things that aren't there in the mountains, 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:07.240 to what extent can these be traced to known psychological 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:12.199 or not psychological, known physiological conditions like cerebral dima. He 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.440 absolutely and and as we mentioned in the last episode, 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:17.839 you know, we're not looking at this is like this 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:22.800 the soul uh cause or the soul um reason that 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.120 one has mountain myths, but it could certainly a potential 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:31.080 uh thing that augments them or feeds them in some cases. No, 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.679 as we mentioned previously in the other episodes, there's no 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.960 way that say, psychological disturbances as a result of you know, 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.120 less oxygen reaching the brain or something like that could 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.880 explain all the myths. So one reason for that is 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.400 that many holy mountains aren't high enough to cause any 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.560 altitude related symptoms. I mean, there are holy mountains that 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.560 are just a few hundred meters high. So it's obvious 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.160 that you know, these are these are geographical landmarks and 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.319 they serve you know, they represent things to people. Doesn't 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:01.840 have to be that somebody went up on there and 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.480 had a hallucination that caused them to found a religion 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.480 or a myth around the mountain. Though, we do want 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.080 to point out that it's possible that in higher mountains, 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.880 people going up into these altitudes could have contributed to beliefs, 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.200 you know, strange supernatural beliefs about some mountains, right, and 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.960 or the idea that in general, mountains provide some sort 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.040 of uh, you know, loosening of the veil between this 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:29.959 world and the next. Yeah, that's a great way to 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.040 put it. So I want to call attention to one 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.560 recent paper, in particular in the journal Psychological Medicine that 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.079 deals with these phenomena of people high up in the 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.199 mountains having strange and anomalous experiences. This was by Katerina 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:47.200 Hoofner at All called isolated Psychosis during Exposure to very 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.600 high and extreme altitude Characterization of a new medical entity, 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.400 and this was published in So the authors here have 0:10:55.480 --> 0:11:01.560 examined about eighty three documented cases among reports from alpine expeditions, 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.600 and they believe they've identified a new independent condition that's 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:11.440 separate from altitude sickness and separate from any existing mental disorder. 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:16.800 It's called isolated high altitude psychosis. Now, of course, psychosis 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.120 is a set of symptoms and luty, I have, right, wait, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.080 what you can call it? I have? I have, I have. Oh, 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.800 I didn't even think about an acronym I have. Yeah, 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:30.439 this is I have the International House of Psychosis. Yeah, 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:35.640 psychosis is a set of symptoms including quote hallucinations, delusions, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:41.080 disorganized speech, abnormal psychomotor behavior, and negative symptoms, and additionally 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.920 impaired cognition, depression, and mania. So it's characteristic of of 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.760 underlying conditions like schizophrenia, but can also occur in isolation 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.199 due to a number of inciting stressors. You know. One 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.320 of the things is people often think that hallucinations can 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.640 only occur if somebody has an underlying mental illness, but 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.000 people who don't have an underlying mental illness sometimes experienced 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.320 hallucinations just depending on like fleeting, stresses and things that 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.600 are affecting them. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um. Oliver Sachs's book 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.320 Hallucinations is always a fabulous source on all of this 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.440 because he you know, he discusses hallucinogens a little bit 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.439 in there, but but for the most part, it's it's 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.520 all these various other causes are in play, right. So 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:25.319 the authors examined a list of documented cases of mountaineering, 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.480 and they looked for signs of high altitude psychosis, and 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.240 then they cross reference this to see whether there were 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:38.680 always concurrent symptoms of physiological distress from high altitudes, such 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.280 as high altitude cerebral a demo or hey. Obviously you 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.880 can see why if the brain is swelling with fluid, 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.959 that might cause things like hallucinations and mental disturbances. So 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.880 from previous studies, we know that how often psychosis occurs 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.160 at high altitude seems to vary a lot depending on 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.080 who's doing the counting and what criteria they use. So 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.120 this is un fortunately a case where the numbers are 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.360 not very solid. They seem to be all over the place, 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.400 like Woo at All in two thousand six found that 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.080 there were hallucinations in three percent of cases, with Hace. 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.320 Wilson at All in two thousand nine reported hallucinations in 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.839 thirty two percent of climbers above seven thousand, five hundred meters, 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.600 which is a totally different criterion than the last thing, obviously, 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.000 so we're not going apple stapples here. We're just seeing 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.400 what there is to to see about hallucinations at altitude. 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:33.760 Brewger at All in n quote found hallucinatory experiences in 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.560 seven of eight, or eighty eight percent of world class 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.199 climbers who reached altitudes above eight thousand, five hundred meters 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:46.040 without supplementary oxygen. Obviously, this is a pretty wild fluctuation, 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:47.840 and I don't know for sure, but I guess the 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.400 discrepancy here has to do with the methods they're using 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.480 to select cases in these different studies. Right, you'd probably 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.640 get very different numbers if you just check to see 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:02.480 if climbers self reports psychosis versus say, proactively asking them 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.040 if they've had psychosis. Yeah, this is one of those 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.360 spreads of numbers that you know brings to mind the whole, Like, 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.280 you know, it just depends on how you torture the numbers, 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:11.840 what kind of story you're going to get out of 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.560 them exactly. I mean, I think one of the problems 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.920 here is that we don't have anything consistent to work 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.320 with going into the study. So so they had to 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:22.440 try to come up with with the method of their own, 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:24.200 and they know it's not perfect, but it's just to 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.200 sort of get a rough idea of where to start 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.360 looking at this problem. So in the present study, the 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.760 authors found first of all, that psychosis of some kind 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.160 often happens when you're at high altitude. Their sample, which 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.720 they did from consulting existing literature, yielded a result that 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.640 found quote hallucinations occurred in forty two percent or thirty 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.600 five out of eighty three of the episodes that they 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.920 surveyed at a mean altitude of seven thousand, two hundred 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.280 and eighty meters, and of these episodes, thirty four percent 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:58.000 or twelve out of thirty five. Uh. The hallucinations occurred 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.200 at the same time that there are signs that the 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.760 person had a cerebral demo or HACE. They determined that 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.520 high altitude psychosis can happen together with HACE or with 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:12.320 other physiological effects, or without them. Therefore, they concluded that 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.720 isolated high altitude psychosis or eyehap your coining should be 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:21.880 considered an independent psychological condition related to high altitude and 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.560 not just as a possible symptom of altitude sickness. And finally, 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.080 they concluded that high altitude psychosis is associated with an 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.360 increased risk of accidents or near accidents. That's kind of 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.600 not surprising. Uh. Now they propose some hypothetical causes for 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:42.280 these non HACE cases of high altitude psychosis. One would 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:46.880 be like social and sensory deprivation in conjunction with psychological stress. 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.320 Stress is often a common inciting factor for people who 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:56.040 don't otherwise have him into illness to have hallucinations. Right, 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.320 and then, of course, it's so varied depending on how 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.880 much stress an individual is going to have in a 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.840 given circumstance, and then how that stress is affecting their 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.560 performance and their mental capacity. Yeah, and then you add 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.440 social and sensory deprivation to that. They don't have anybody 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.880 else there to talk to if their climbing alone, or 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.000 or they have limited numbers of people there with them. Uh, 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.160 their view of the world, you know, there might be 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.000 a lot less like color and stuff than they'd normally 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.560 be seeing. Another potential, uh cause they site is quote 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.800 dysfunction of the temporal parietal junction and angular gyrus due 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:35.400 to hypoxia, hypoglycemia and cold. And then finally they say, well, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.240 another possibility is just that HACE is going on in 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.520 these cases and somehow it's being under diagnosed in the field. 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.600 Maybe a lot of these people experiencing psychosis do have 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.680 hate and just for some reason, the normal symptoms are 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:49.960 not showing up and being recorded. This is I mean 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.720 especially true if you're going it alone, right or or 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.480 even if you you have a climbing partner like you 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.840 you may not I guess be having um just a 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:02.080 regular check in a about your your your your feelings 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.840 of physical and mental health. Yeah, and of course cerebral 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.439 adema is like that, that's really dangerous, you know, like 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.040 if if you have this, you should be getting treated 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.359 for it. That's not like a time to say, Okay, 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.600 I'll just power through and try going up to the summit. Now, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.600 this is interesting going back to what Frank Smith and 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.119 the others have talked about with with their experience of 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.040 what's known as third Man syndrome. The authors here found 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:29.560 that when climbers reported perceptual disturbances of various kinds, the majority, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.920 though not all of them, but the majority of them 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.720 were either neutral or even helpful and comforting. For example, 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:41.159 a hallucinated climbing companion who protects and guides them, or 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.280 a voice encouraging them or warning them of danger. Now, 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.280 just because the majority of these perceptual disturbances and hallucinations 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.640 are positive in nature or at least neutral, doesn't mean 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.720 we shouldn't worry about them. Since hallucinations high altitude seemed 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.439 correlated with a risk of accidents, it's not hard to 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.680 see why that would be. Climbers at high altitude should 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.480 be aware that psychosis is very possible and should develop 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.920 defensive strategies for what happens if it sets in if 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.400 you think you see somebody that you don't remember being there. 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.320 Otherwise you should have like procedures in place for that, 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.760 like reality testing. Now, on the other hand, about the study, 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.000 obviously there appears to be some weakness in the selection 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.439 criteria for cases. But I guess in this kind of 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:26.520 study you're limited by the fact that you can't just 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.040 stick people, you know, random test subjects at the top 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.520 of a mountain and see if they undergo psychosis. Uh, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.240 they're they're Also the authors point out there is survivor 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.159 bias at play, right, We're hearing the stories of people 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.160 who were able to report their stories, some people who 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.680 did not succumb on the mountain or experience some sort 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.440 of a fatal accident, or didn't have somebody with them 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.159 who got to report what happened. Yeah, they say, for 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:55.000 future studies, you you could perhaps simulate some conditions like 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.200 this in chambers that simulate altitude with low oxygen or 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.600 low atmospheric pressure. Also, you don't need to have a 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.800 huge or hugely random number of cases if you just 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.639 want to establish that sometimes people report psychosis at high altitudes. 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.320 With no record of altitude sickness or cute sickness like 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.199 he s now. We mentioned already that that one of 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.640 the other factors here is that not all sacred mountains 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:23.720 are enormous skyscraping um uh, you know, monuments to the 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.080 sky God, right, not all. Most sacred mountains are probably 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.119 not even tall enough for people to be reaching the 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.480 same kinds of altitudes that are in this study, though 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:36.639 some are. The authors your point out that most of 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.640 these reports of symptoms reminiscent of psychosis among mountain climbers 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.320 come from very high and extreme altitudes, so like thirty 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:48.920 five to fifty meters or even above. So there're gonna 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.320 be tons of holy mountains around the world that that 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.760 do not even reach these altitudes. Nobody could could climb 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.160 high enough to be at the altitudes like the ones 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.760 being studied in this in this research, so i'd say 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.919 whether the physiological or psychological effects of altitude contribute to 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.960 these types of religious beliefs in some cases, especially at 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.880 higher peaks, It's hard to know for sure, but absolutely 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.160 it seems possible and even attempting. Origin story for some 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.760 holy mountains and sacred peaks around the world yeah, one thing, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.119 and I may come back to this, the whole idea 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.920 that most of these reported cases of another of this 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.199 uh you know, this third man or what have you, 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:35.080 is going to be neutral or beneficial. And indeed, when 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.880 we look at all these different myths about holy mountains, 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.320 um is, so many of them are about like the 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.880 gods living there um. Like I wanted to find more 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.320 mountain monsters. I truly did. I'm always looking for the monsters. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:51.760 And not to say there are not mountain monsters, certainly 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.640 there um. There are traditions of things coming down from 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.439 the mountains, crampits, etcetera. But it kind of seems like 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:04.240 they're they're weighted in favor of at least the neutral deities, 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.760 neutral spirits and what have you, uh, and and even 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:12.640 beneficial beings as opposed to the monsters of say um 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:17.160 Mount doom Um or the lonely mountain. And Tolkien, well, 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.800 maybe we can. We will explore mountain monsters a little 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:21.639 bit today, but maybe we can explore it more in 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:23.600 the future. I'm just now I didn't think about this 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.399 when we were preparing, but I just now remembered the 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.719 mountain trolls of Iceland. Oh, that's right. All right. Well, 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:31.159 on that note, let's take a quick break. When we 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.160 come back, we'll look at another study and we'll move 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.840 on to a particular mountain creature that, yes, you might qualify, 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:42.720 you might describe as a monster. Thank, alright, we're back, 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.119 all right, what have we gotten next to? Robert? All right? 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.120 So I was looking at a study this is one 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.359 that you found. Then I ended up diving into it. 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.520 This was yeah, yeah, yeah, I was interested. I didn't 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.760 know about this one because it seemed like some of them. Well, well, 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.400 you describe it and then we can discuss. Ok. Yeah. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:00.919 This one was titled why revel Lations have occurred on 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:05.399 Mountains Linking mystical experiences and cognitive neuroscience. This was published 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:12.640 in Medical Hypotheses from Autoto back It Old Land, SIB 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:17.560 and blank ep quote. Here's a quote from the piece. Quote. 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.480 Prolonged stay at high altitudes, especially in social deprivation, may 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.440 also lead to prefrontal lobe dysfunctions such as low resistance 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:29.680 to stress and loss of inhibition. Based on these phenomenological, functional, 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.120 and neural findings, we suggest that exposure to altitudes might 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:37.359 contribute to the induction of revelation. Experiences and might further 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.840 our understanding of the mountain metaphor and religion. So they're 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:43.720 really going for it on this one, and they point 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:49.399 to the major revelations in the three major monotheistic religions. Uh. 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.520 In Judaism, the burning bush uh this is where God 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.880 speaks through the burning bush. This is from Exodus. Christianity, 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:00.199 there's the transfiguration from the Book of Math to you. 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.080 This is a in which Jesus's divine nature is revealed 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:07.879 to onlookers. And then in Islam there's also the point 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:11.920 where Allah speaks to the prophet Muhammad, and that is 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:17.280 also like a mountain revelation. Now, one of the problems 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:21.200 here is getting into the idea of insufficient altitudes, right Yeah. 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:23.280 So I'd seen the study brought up on a science 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:26.520