WEBVTT - Normalcy Bias and Psychogenic Death 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff of all 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.520 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.160 Let's let's let's put ourselves in in a situation here. Okay, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.959 all right, we're in the podcast chamber right now, it's you, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.400 it's me, it's no man in the all the complex 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.800 equipment that records the sounds that come out of our mouth. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.159 And then there's a window covered up by curtain. Now 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:37.560 imagine suddenly the curtain blows out and and we're also 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.559 suddenly we're being sucked out the window as if this 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.519 is a pressurized aircraft cabin. I don't know why that 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:45.720 would happen, but let's assume there's like a you know, 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:48.879 a sharknado on the other side. Is King Kong on 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:50.800 the other side of this way though, King Kong and 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.480 a sharknado most likely? Okay, yeah, all right, got it 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.840 in my head. Go on, Okay, So how do we react? 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.720 How do we react to look to set sudden interruption 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.840 of normal life? Normalcy is quite literally going out the window, 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:09.080 and suddenly life has become this just complete struggle for 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:13.480 survival and every second counts. Okay, well, I think we 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.399 have three options here. One is that you could just 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.639 shriek and freak out right and not really do yourself 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.360 any sort of service here, always a good option, Okay. 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.600 The second thing is you could just stare, you know, 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.840 sort of into oblivion as King Kong takes you into 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.600 his clutches and stuffs you into his mouth. Just stare 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.040 and not do anything. Okay, Well, at least I'm not 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.800 gonna look foolish. Okay. The third thing is you can 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:39.520 try to save yourself. You could try to flee from 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.959 the situation in some way as you're getting sucked out, 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.760 maybe you hold onto something that the window casing, and 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.160 you try to crawl back into the room and then 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.840 escape through the emergency exits. And what's interesting is when 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.720 you when you think of these three possibilities. Yes, and 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:57.680 when we can all put we all certainly will go 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.640 through these scenarios in our own head. Maybe not the 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.320 King Sharknado combination one, but we we inevitably think about 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.520 what am I gonna do in disaster strikes, and we 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:10.040 imagine ourselves typically going through that to survivalist instinct we 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.760 imagine ourselves doing the thing that logically would need to 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.400 be done to survive. But does it shake out that way? 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:16.760 I mean it does in the movies. Well, all of 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.519 us think, of course, we would hold onto the window 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.000 frame and we would somehow escape the clutches of King 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:28.000 Kong and Sharknado. But this is according to Esther ingliss Arkel, 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.280 she's writing for I oh nine. She says about seventy 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.880 percent of people in a disaster exhibit this sort of 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:39.200 unusual Ladi da behavior, just staring into a blivion ten 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.640 to fent, freak out in another ten to fent, react 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.440 to the situation accordingly, efficiently, and orderly, and they do 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.720 the thing they're supposed to do so, in other words, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.040 they get the hell out of dodge. And that is 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.880 crazy because you just you we're programmed, especially by movies 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.120 and disaster movies, to to to not see things breaking 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:01.640 down along along the percentage lines like that. The image 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.320 that always comes back to me is the original Blob movie, 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.080 The Blob Steve McQueen. There's a scene where the Blob 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.120 has made its way. You know, it's rather grown at 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.800 this point. You know, the blob right big jelly creature 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.280 that dissolves people, makes its way into a movie theater, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.200 crowded movie theater, and then all hell breaks loose and 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.920 there's this wonderful scene of everyone just rushing out of 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.560 that movie theater. And then there's a fabulous scene after that, 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.320 the blob oozing out of the theater doors and the 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.799 crowd just running in front of it like everybody knows 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.760 what's up. It's all right, there's a there's a blob. 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.160 We're all going to freak out, We're all gonna run, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.000 and you can you can view that freaking out and 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.880 running as you know that as either just completely freaking 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:41.960 out and making a run for or doing the logical thing. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.080 But either way, it doesn't line up with these percentage 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.880 points that we're looking at, because seventy of them would 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:49.640 be just setting there being are we supposed to? This 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.680 is being the movies over? Should I sit there? Hey? Hey, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:53.480 you do you know if the movie is over, we're 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.120 gonna get a refund on this. And meanwhile, you do 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.040 just just get your flesh dissolved off of you by 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:58.760 a monster. All right, Well, let me give you a 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:03.000 real life example of that. That's example, well one that 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:08.000 actually happened for real, the not on a film. Actually, 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.200 it's one of the best known examples of this sort 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.520 of emergency situation in which people gravitate towards what is 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.680 called a normalcy bias. And we'll talk more about that 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.960 in a moment, but in this scenario, we're talking about 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.719 two planes that collided on a runway in the Canary 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:27.039 Islands nine and one of the survivors, Paul Heck, he 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.919 grabbed his unresponsive wife who just sat there, you know, 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.200 sort of saying what what's going on? And what they 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.320 did is they got, of course the hell out of 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.360 dodge and on the way is they are passing other passengers, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.200 they're noticing people who are just sitting there, staring straight ahead, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:48.000 not doing anything. They're uninjured people. And what happened is 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.640 that they only had sixty seconds to leave that plane 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.840 before it was engulfed in flames. And it was a huge, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.200 huge fatality for that flight. A lot of people did 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.120 not get out of it. It and so a lot 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:05.640 of emergency management personnel look at that case is why 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.359 why do those people who are uninjured sit on that 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.320 plane and do nothing? Is this um because they were unprepared? 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.120 Is this some sort of instinct in humans or is 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.120 there something else going on here? And that's what we're 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.000 really going to try to get at the heart of today. Yeah, 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:22.680 so a normal cy bias is what it sounds like. 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.800 It's a bias towards thinking everything's okay, minimizing with the 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.000 actual risk, and thinking must not be that big of 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.520 a deal. We've all had this, uh, certainly as you 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.359 just observe your environment around us. I mean there are 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.320 times where you freak out and you say, oh, the 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.640 shady person on the street, I better up to no good. 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.039 But then a little reason creeps in and you're like, well, there, 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.680 it's probably okay. I'm going to air on the side 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.320 of just assuming everything is completely normal. Yeah. I mean, 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.440 we really sometimes underestimate things, and we'll talk more about 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.480 why we do that, but I wanted to say that 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.640 According to a National Institute of Standards and Technology study, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.560 which was drawn from the interviews with nearly nine dred 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.239 survive verse of nine eleven, they said that the people 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:04.359 who made it out of the World Trade Center waited 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.520 an average of six minutes before leaving their desks. So 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.200 what we're talking about here is this idea that you 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.919 are looking at the odds, You're plane the odds because really, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.039 on a day to day basis, we don't have really 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:23.560 that many, um real dangers in front of us, and 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.960 we have imagined dangers that we do with all the time. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.760 So it's like a matter of sort of suessing those out. Well. Like, 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:30.520 I think about this every time I board a plane, 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.880 because on one hand, I have every disaster movie I've 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.360 ever seen, you know, plane rex happening all the time, 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.919 and those because the story of someone getting on an 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.400 airplane is generally only interesting if there's a creature on 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:42.559 the wing of the plane where it crashes into a mountain. 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:43.840 Then people have to eat each other. I mean, you 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.920 need to drum. But then I start breaking it down 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.360 and I think, I think of I think of football, 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.760 which I almost never do, but I think, how many 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.080 times have I ever heard on the news, Oh, an 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:58.159 entire football team was lost in a plane crash today, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.120 or they can't have this football game because half the 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.919 team went down. Um. You know cases like this that 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.359 remind me that, hey, these are people that fly around 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.200 all the time, Um, why do I not hear of them? 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.920 Parash it? Yeah, I mean that takes an enormous amount 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.320 of mental energy in the first place for some of 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.800 us to board that plane and convince ourselves that it's 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.520 a good idea to get into this this metal hole 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.880 that's just flinging itself through time and space, and and 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.760 that it's going to all turn out okay. Right. In 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:28.800 my theory about the seats, I think the reason that 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.840 the seats are so uncomfortable and seemed to be designed 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.480 to to to make you uncomfortable is so that you 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.520 end up focusing on the immediate discomfort of having to 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.040 cram yourself into that small space and deal with all 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.680 these people around you, rather than the actual uh potential 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.920 of crashing into a mountain. Right. So you have a 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:47.600 couple of different elements going on there. You have all 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.200 this this uh, the stories that you've told yourself that 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:51.920 allows you to get on the plane in the first place. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.000 You have distraction, and then when a real emergency happens, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.200 you have something called milling, which is part of that 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.960 playing the odds process, right, because milling is this idea 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.760 that people will check in with one another before taking action, saying, 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.640 is this really a dangerous situation? Are we okay? Did 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:11.600 you did you hear something is that. Does that the 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.600 engine sound weird to you? Did you see that creature 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.160 on the wing of the plane, because I'm not sure 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.200 that's real. Uh. And what's interesting about this this million 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.440 is that we're not On one hand, it is, yes, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.440 an attempt to get the best information. You don't want 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.120 to jump to conclusions, and you you want to make 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.120 sure you get the best possible information from a few 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.320 different people. But on the other hand, you also want 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.679 to get specific information. You you keep you want to 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.880 keep asking the question, do you get the answer that 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.840 feels right, the answer that feeds more comforting. You want 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.320 somebody to tell you, Oh, it's no big deal. Engines 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.319 make that kind of noise. The creatures live on the 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.160 wing of the plane. It's just how it works. Here's 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.200 a kind of a rote example. But if you've ever 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.880 been um in an area where there was a tornado warning, 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.000 have you ever called someone up and said, Hey, what's 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.680 the weather like over there? Or I mean, have you 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:57.960 ever called up a you know, a friend or a 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.240 family member and said, I like, tornado is coming my way. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.520 I'm I'm terrified of tornadoes, So I if I have 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.920 any reason to believe they're in the area. Then I well, 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.040 I head to the basement if there's a basement, and 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.360 if not, I guess I just freeze up and wait 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.200 for death. So but you batten down the hatches, right, Yeah, 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.320 I know, not to go look out the window because 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:19.800 it could blast in on me and kill me. Well, 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.360 from that National Institute of Standards and Technology study, another 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.040 finding was that on none elevidently, seventy of survivors spoke 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.720 with other people before trying to leave. The study shows 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.800 so again it's this Milling idea that sometimes it's not 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.840 just sitting there in disbelief in doing nothing. Sometimes it's 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.920 just trying to collect data, even in the face of 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.640 really significant data in front of you, saying this is 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.560 an extraordinary situation. You should do something about it. Now. Yeah. 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:49.839 I mean we're social animals, you know, so it makes 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.720 sense that we would reach out for these answers. Um 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.480 And you see this all the time with with other 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.320 threats to less concrete threats where people end up just 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.719 going and go online and to find out let me 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.160 feed this fear or let me put out put out 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.800 the fires of this fear with enough you know, links 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.560 from this website or another. Well, I think that's the 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.440 curse of knowledge, right, We all the time are getting 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.480 sorts of messages, warning messages, especially here in the United States. 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:16.960 Other countries make fun of us for this, But you 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.079 could have a pillow and on that pillow there's going 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.560 to be some sort of warning on there that says, 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.720 you know, please don't suffocate yourself. Just because of all 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.439 the legal battles we have here in the States. Um 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.880 So at some point those messages just we they recede 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.360 into the background because there are so many of them 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.520 to filter through. And again, there are so many real 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.800 threats versus perceived threats that the mind does want to 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.040 do a little bit of milling to figure out what's what. Yeah, like, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.200 is this is this? Is this a toy that is 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.559 actually inappropriate for my child that will actually kill him? 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:53.679 Or is this just one of those situations where it's 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.679 a bunch of legal mambo jumbo because you could conceivably 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.520 strangle yourself with a toy horse Probably not gonna happen, 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.760 But lithium ion batteries keep them away from kids. Okay, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.640 that's my p s A for this podcast, because we 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.240 get out juice stuff on them. No, no, it's it's horrible, 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.360 for they're tiny, you know, the size of quarter, and 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.080 it can do horrible that Actually children can die from 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:23.360 ingesting them to keep them away half. Indeed, all right, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:25.360 let's take a quick break, and when we get back, 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.600 we're going to talk about survival psychology in this idea 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:39.959 of psychogenic death. All right, we're back. So is there 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.800 a positive spin here to those just milling about? There 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.600 is and and And to understand the positive you have 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.480 to remind yourself again, Seventy people of the people are 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.120 just setting there, are going, hey, is there something weird? 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.360 Is there's something wrong? Ten percent are in action mode, 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:56.960 no what to do? That's ten, and the other ten 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:01.160 to fifteen percent are freaking the heck out. One positive 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.640 is that all of those calm people who don't know 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.040 what's up and are just asking and milling uh and 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.800 and and have that normalusly bias fully engaged, they have 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:14.079 a calming effect on the freakouts. That's true. And some 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.880 people would argue that it makes it easier for that 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:21.400 ten to to actually exit even faster, because well, if 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.720 nobody's clogging the stairwells or other exit strategies, then you 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.040 can zip through there pretty quickly. Yeah. But then that 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.760 that's the downside as well, is that those ten percent 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:32.839 who realize what needs to happen, we need to get 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.080 off of this plane before we're all consumed by fire, 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:40.600 they could actually have their progress um um impeded by 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.040 the individuals who are just setting there asking what's up. 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:44.800 There's saying is there's something wrong, is there's something on 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:46.320 the matter, and they're saying, no, you need to get 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:47.960 out of my way, or and you need to run 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.480 for it too, because we have to survive. The ideal 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.160 situation is that that ten percent would actually get people 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.680 sort of you know, a fire under the artist and say, okay, 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.680 I see that person in action, I will now follow suit. 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.080 And we have seen this over and over again in 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.520 other emergency scenarios, particularly in UM being the world trade 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.880 centers and not eleven attacks. So UM I wanted to 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.600 just shift a little bit and go into survival psychology 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.600 and highlight someone named John Leech. He's a survivor psychologist, 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.800 and he says that we need to reframe the question 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.280 of survival and quit sort of looking at these examples 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.320 of the survivor or not just as they're innately courageous 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.840 and they have this robust will to live. But rather 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.000 we should be looking at the people who do not 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.959 make it and asking the question, why do people die 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.560 when they don't need to. Yeah, particularly gets into this 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.920 idea of psychogenic death, which is a really snazzy term, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.480 and it refers to a biological process that takes place 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.680 as in natural death, but it's triggered at a premature 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.440 stage in the person's life, when they're under all this script. 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:57.679 So it's it's kind of this idea of al right, 0:13:57.760 --> 0:13:59.880 plane crashes and you have some people who have that 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.440 strong will to survive, they're a survivor type, they're gonna 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.120 make it. But then there are people who just shut down. 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.199 They die within the first first one or one to 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.640 three days. And and why is that. It's like, it's 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.800 not like they had a grievous injuries, they just shut down. Yeah, 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.080 He's got all sorts of examples that he points to. 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:21.680 He talks about light aircraft crash and Sierra Nevada, and 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.040 he says that of the three people on board, one 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.360 passenger was trapped in the wreckage, so obviously that person 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.800 couldn't do anything. Another person had no more than superficial bruising. 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.640 But then you have the pilot who had injuries to 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.080 his arm, ankle and ribs. And it was actually the 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.920 pilot who left the scene and for eleven days he 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.840 walked and he hiked through the snow covered mountains before 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.520 reaching a road and getting help. Now, after that eleven days, 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.800 both the person who had just the superficial wounds and 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.960 the person of course who was trapped in the wreckage 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.920 they died. But the question was why did the person 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.000 with just the minimal wounds perish when he had acts 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.520 us to water in food and shelter and could have 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.840 made a fire. So does it come down to this like, oh, 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:11.680 you're just prepackaged with courage and know how. Uh No, 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.640 According to Leach, it all has to do with the 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.440 way that you're processing that information and in some cases 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.680 your past experiences. Yeah. And he makes a strong argument 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:24.760 too that it's it's you know, we tend to think 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.320 of you know, stress comes our way, threat comes our way, 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:29.320 and it's fight or flight, right, Am I gonna punch 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.440 it in the face or turntail and run? And he's 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.040 arguing that it's really more than this situation of fight, 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.040 flight or freeze? Am I going to punch it in 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:37.840 the face. Am I going to run away from it? 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.920 Or am I just gonna stand there and let it 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.440 take me? Yeah, Because he's saying that there's a lot 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.480 to take in when a trauma happens. He's saying there's 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:51.080 pre impact, impact, recovery, rescue, and post trauma. And he 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:55.240 said that most people have a certain cognitive load that 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.560 were that that sort of normalized to our day to 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.440 day operations. Right, We've talked about called it to load, 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.080 this idea that you have just finite resources of energy 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.200 for your brain to operate on. And so he's saying 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.520 that if you have this extrnsic condition bringing with it 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.240 all sorts of new data in a new environment, it's 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.960 gonna crash your brain. So what he said is that 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.920 what happens is that in the first three days, particularly 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.360 you're looking at the end of this this situation in 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.640 Sierra Nevada Mountains, um that those first three days were 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.960 really important to the survival of the people who were 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:36.280 still alive, because that's when the executive functions will fritz out, 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:40.280 and when that happens, working memory that stops and you 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:44.880 have you know, at selective attention, disturbed and that becomes 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.400 really important because that selective attention is what allows you 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.520 to really focus on what matters in Maelstrom. Right, if 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:54.920 you've got you for you're on a plane and smoke 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.080 is rolling in and people are screaming or just sitting there, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.640 you still have a situation that is new to you, 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.240 and you have to figure out what's important here? Now, 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.480 what's happening when people freeze up? What are we talking 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.879 about here? Um? Now? Leach refers to this as cognitive paralysis, 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.560 So we're talking complete in action. We're talking uh, just 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.520 setting there, uh, not not fighting, not flighting, just just 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.360 shutting down completely. And he does say that you can 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.359 actually recover from this, But what becomes so important is 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.480 that if you if you can't find a way out 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:31.320 of that, if you can't find some sort of clarity 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.480 in there and get back to your working memory, well 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:39.040 then it's just gonna usually have cognitive dysfunction, which is 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.679 probably what happened to the survivor in the plane crash 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.119 who for eleven days sat there. Is perhaps after the 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.680 third day that his brain just said, forget it, We're 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.119 gonna shut this down. And that's what's so interesting about 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.840 that idea of psychogenic death that your brain could fold 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.680 up in on itself and say, Okay, I'm just gonna 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.280 draw the covers here. Yeah. Yeah, And and we and again, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.399 we we all think we're going to be the survivor type. 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:07.560 We all kind of even if we're we have a 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.679 pretty realistic understanding of our skills. Like if I crashed 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.000 in a plane in the mountain, I'd have to realize, yeah, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.040 I'm probably not going to fashion a bow and arrow 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.840 and hunt a grizzly bear or anything like that. But 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.200 I like to think that I'll at least have, you know, 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.800 the clarity of mind enough to to sort of look 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.960 around and realize what my options are. But maybe that's 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.480 not gonna be the kicks. Maybe I'm going to freak 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.960 the heck out, or I'm just gonna freeze. So the 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:35.560 thing that makes the difference here is really the ability 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.520 to call up patterns again, that selective memory, or not 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.800 just the working memory, but that selective attention and in 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:48.160 some ways training yourself for for the emergency at hand. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.440 And when you look at Paul Heck and that example 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.400 of the two planes colliding, it turns out that he 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.240 as a child was involved in a theater fire, and 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.359 since then he had always made sure to check exits 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.000 no matter where he was. In fact, when he boarded 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.760 the plane with his wife, he pointed out to his wife, Hey, look, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.840 these are the emergency exits. And so the idea is 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:14.240 that when the plane crash occurred, he wasn't as um 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:18.280 reliant on trying to piece together new information. In fact, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.520 he could go to that blueprint that he already had 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.560 stored in his brain and act quickly. So in some ways, 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.359 you can look at the survivors and say, Okay, it 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:30.720 may be that they're prepared to some extent, or they've 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.080 had some sort of life experience that has told them 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.520 that they should be more aware of their environment and 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.480 ready to act on it, and are subconsciously storing away 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.359 information that could help them. That's interesting. Yeah, the the 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.359 idea of sort of a domestic animal versus a wild 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.520 animal suddenly put in a situation of extreme danger. One 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.399 has never had to really deal with threats and is 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.960 completely overwhelmed by the predator in smits. The other has 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.160 always lived in the raw and therefore is more prepared 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.679 to act appropriately in the face of danger. Yeah, And 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:03.680 when I was reading about Paul hex account. I thought 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.119 this sounds like my dad, and my dad was actually 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.280 in special ops in Vietnam, and so in some ways 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.840 he has had a lot of the survival training. But 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.040 this is a guy my dad who every time he 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.159 goes into a hotel will go and look at the 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.919 map of the hotel that's pasted on the back of 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.720 the door in the hotel room, look at the emergency exits, 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.200 and then he will leave the room and count the 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:27.720 number of doors it takes to get the emergency exit. 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:32.560 So he has that information in his mind. And you know, 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:34.879