Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuffed to All Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. If
Speaker 1: you tuned into our podcast recently, you might have enjoyed
Speaker 1: an episode about century deprivation, about sensory deprivation tanks, about
Speaker 1: entering the womb to tomb wet box, which which you
Speaker 1: don't like that term, but I think issue with wet box.
Speaker 1: Yeah it does sound kind of weird, little Chris, But
Speaker 1: but entering this this chamber of salty water and deprivated
Speaker 1: senses and experiencing something phenomenal. Yeah, you go into the
Speaker 1: moist box. See that's no better, is it? Um? And
Speaker 1: it really is sort of an amazing experience. Um, simply
Speaker 1: because you're doing something that's pretty elementary, right, You are
Speaker 1: taking out all that sort of stimuli that's surrounding you
Speaker 1: every day, and then you are trapped with your mind,
Speaker 1: which some of us feel sometimes like we are trapped
Speaker 1: within the box of our minds. So we sort of
Speaker 1: like you're trapped within a box within a box. I
Speaker 1: feel like in a way, when we're trapped in our
Speaker 1: own mind, in our daily life, we tend it's more
Speaker 1: like we are trapped in a party with one party
Speaker 1: guest that we desperately want to annoy a void, but
Speaker 1: they keep cornering us and talking at us. So it's
Speaker 1: like we're in this party. There's lots of stuff around us.
Speaker 1: I got work to do. If I don't want to
Speaker 1: do my work for some reason, I've got things I'm reading.
Speaker 1: I can always look something up on the internet or
Speaker 1: or do something on my to do list. So they're
Speaker 1: all these people that I can interact with at this party.
Speaker 1: But the my this nagging voice in my mind keeps
Speaker 1: coming up and saying, hey, remember when you were in
Speaker 1: high school, and remember that thing you said to your
Speaker 1: friend last week, And what are you gonna do next week?
Speaker 1: You know? And then you're like, oh, I'm cornered by
Speaker 1: this creep again. But then you you go on, Whereas
Speaker 1: the censory deprivation tank is kind of like saying, all right,
Speaker 1: you and this annoying party guests are going to spend
Speaker 1: some time together and you're gonna figure out what doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And there's no cheese plate too to escape to, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's just you and you. Yeah, you can't see,
Speaker 1: you have to run refresh your drink or use the bathroom.
Speaker 1: You gotta fight it out right, right, So we both
Speaker 1: underwent the sensory deprivations sixty minutes long. And uh, I
Speaker 1: will say that for for my first session, because I
Speaker 1: did too. I put a little hand towel in the
Speaker 1: door because I was not really all that interested in
Speaker 1: sealing myself into something, because I wasn't quite sure if
Speaker 1: I was claustrophobic. And we described the thing for them
Speaker 1: enough but essentially kind of like a not as casket
Speaker 1: like as I was hoping, and I imagine you were
Speaker 1: maybe fearing, but kind of you know, like this big
Speaker 1: pod with kind of a squarish like back portion because
Speaker 1: it it has like an auto auto cleaning and filtration
Speaker 1: system and it's about chest high, so it was a
Speaker 1: lot higher than I thought it was going to be,
Speaker 1: which is good because you have more room to to
Speaker 1: move around and get in and out right. Um, it's
Speaker 1: got a little hatch that opens and closes, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of filtration system, very very important for anybody who's
Speaker 1: not interested in soaking in someone else's body stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in the water itself is is high salt content,
Speaker 1: I mean how many how many pounds was like pounds, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're just you're soaking in that no, just soaking it,
Speaker 1: floating on it because you float in water that's salty
Speaker 1: and uh. And then the hatches closed or partially closed,
Speaker 1: and that cuts out most of the sound. Also, you're
Speaker 1: using wax waxy earpes, yeah, like little bits of bubblegum
Speaker 1: to go in your ear. You're wearing those. So that's
Speaker 1: helping to deaden out the sound as well, and keep
Speaker 1: the water out and keep the water out. Your eyes
Speaker 1: are kept mostly I mean your your eyes are kept
Speaker 1: above the water because you're floating on your back and uh.
Speaker 1: And then the hatches closed or partially closed, thus obscuring light. Right,
Speaker 1: and the water is heated to believe it's swept a
Speaker 1: thirty three degrees celsius either thirty or thirty three and
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. Yeah. So the idea here is you're not like,
Speaker 1: oh this water is a little chili or oh this
Speaker 1: is so nice and warm, but more it's in it's
Speaker 1: in keeping with your body. So the idea is that
Speaker 1: it blurs the line between where year flesh ends and
Speaker 1: the water begins. Right, the borders are just this fall away,
Speaker 1: and in some sense they certainly do that. Yeah, except
Speaker 1: if you have a scratch on you or something, and
Speaker 1: then the salt water will let you know where your
Speaker 1: flesh ends and the water begins, and that's something they
Speaker 1: warn you about. There's like a tub of asoline on
Speaker 1: top of the tank. You're supposed to put on your
Speaker 1: cuts before you go in if you, I mean, ideally,
Speaker 1: if you just you know, ran through a thornbush, you
Speaker 1: probably should skip going to the Century deprivation tank that
Speaker 1: day until you're or if you've just shaved, or you've
Speaker 1: just shaved. And even then though, if you get like
Speaker 1: a little stain because I went in there and I
Speaker 1: was not expecting that, and it stung a little bit,
Speaker 1: but then you sort of get used to it and
Speaker 1: it goes the feeling goes away. Yeah, And I will
Speaker 1: say the first time I floated, a lot of the
Speaker 1: float was dealing with this the limit. It's stimuli that
Speaker 1: I had access to. In other words, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I have many more bug bites than I knew of
Speaker 1: because now it's just stinging, and it's much more amplified
Speaker 1: because I have nothing else to concentrate on. Um, there's
Speaker 1: also a particular smell to the water, and I'm attributing
Speaker 1: that to the aps some salt. Yeah, and also just
Speaker 1: sort of I mean, it is essentially kind of enclosed,
Speaker 1: sort of hot tub type environment. So if you've if
Speaker 1: you ever owned a hot tub or frequently use a
Speaker 1: hot tub, you know there are certain smells associated with that.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about a functioning hot tub. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: like a funky, um, you know, disease written hot tub.
Speaker 1: But in other words, what I'm saying is that even
Speaker 1: though you're deprevating, deprevating certain senses, your sense of smell
Speaker 1: is still going to be intact unless you plug up
Speaker 1: your nose, I guess. Um, so you are going to
Speaker 1: get certain salty hot tubby odors. And this is all
Speaker 1: stuff for the money to chew on while you are
Speaker 1: immersed in this water, right because again you have very
Speaker 1: limited stuff here to work with. So um, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that your entire float you would be you know,
Speaker 1: sitting here being driven crazy by these different elements. It's
Speaker 1: just sort of easing into this process. And of course
Speaker 1: it is different for every single person who floats. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: the feel of it, Um, we should we should talk
Speaker 1: about next. I was I knew I was going to
Speaker 1: be floating, but I haven't really floated in anything like
Speaker 1: this before, Like I've never been to the Dead Sea
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So this was a first for me.
Speaker 1: And it was really kind of surprising because I climbed
Speaker 1: into it. Uh and uh and you you climb you
Speaker 1: you don't think you have to climb into it naked,
Speaker 1: but it's it's implied that you should. It is because again,
Speaker 1: you become much more aware of what stimuli is there.
Speaker 1: So if you have a bathing suit on, then you're
Speaker 1: going to be aware of the elastic or or whatnot.
Speaker 1: And ultimately it's more hygienek that way, because I think
Speaker 1: I've talked about sauna is a bit before. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: in the US, everyone's going into a sauna with some
Speaker 1: sort of bathing suit on, whereas in Europe and you're
Speaker 1: going to encounter more of a nude tramp end in
Speaker 1: your saunas and and and the nude trend is arguably
Speaker 1: far more sanitary because it's you don't know where the
Speaker 1: bathing suits have been or how clean those are. People
Speaker 1: are bringing these soggy um you know, lower torso garments
Speaker 1: that have been soaking in water and and you know
Speaker 1: whatever else. So ultimately, I think I think that everyone
Speaker 1: going into the isolation tank naked is really better for everyone.
Speaker 1: Then you're taking a shower before and after as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are the rules. Those are the rules. Where was
Speaker 1: I talking about on that round? I was talking about
Speaker 1: the feeling. Yes, so I climbed in and then I
Speaker 1: and you kind of slipped the last little bit. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like going into a torpedo tube and then
Speaker 1: suddenly I'm just floating and it's it's really weird sensation
Speaker 1: if you've never felt it before. Yeah, because you can't
Speaker 1: see anything. So um. We talked about this and the
Speaker 1: episode I believe about the quietest room in the world
Speaker 1: that even just deprived of your auditory cues, you begin
Speaker 1: to lose your sense of where you are in time
Speaker 1: and space. So that's why people in the quiet stroom
Speaker 1: in the world at the oar Field Labs, they have
Speaker 1: to sit down after thirty minutes because they don't really
Speaker 1: feel like they're pinned in space and time. Well, think
Speaker 1: of yourself in this tank, floating um, naked, and those
Speaker 1: borders of yourself melting away and This is when people
Speaker 1: begin to feel as though they're spinning inside. And some
Speaker 1: people feel like they're spinning really really fast, or they're
Speaker 1: just kind of cruising around, but it's a very odd feeling. Well,
Speaker 1: I kept having this this feeling, and this would happen
Speaker 1: sort of the more I was in there. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm floating, and I'm floating essentially on a on a
Speaker 1: horizontal plane, and but there's a little bobbing around and
Speaker 1: occasionally your your your hand, your foot will touch the
Speaker 1: side and then I would get get to get this
Speaker 1: feeling as if the horizontal plane were tipping forward, but
Speaker 1: that I was staying in one place, and then kind
Speaker 1: of a feeling like I was shooting down a tube.
Speaker 1: So there's this like false feeling of movement as well. Um,
Speaker 1: it never felt woozy or anything. I didn't feel like
Speaker 1: it was gonna be sick or like it was on
Speaker 1: a roller coaster exactly. But it was this this this
Speaker 1: feeling of movement that I knew wasn't actually happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how did your brain deal with that? You know,
Speaker 1: did you were you consumed by it? Or Um? I
Speaker 1: was kind of like thinking, WHOA, I really feel like
Speaker 1: I'm moving, and I would picture myself in like a
Speaker 1: plane of darkness, um, you know, and then being tipped
Speaker 1: forward and then occasionally and this is where I got
Speaker 1: into trouble a little bit, is that I would sort
Speaker 1: of I feel myself tipping forward. So I tipped my
Speaker 1: head back a little bit, presumably to keep my head
Speaker 1: above the water, and of course my since the water
Speaker 1: plane wasn't actually tilting, all I managed to do was
Speaker 1: was get a little salt water in my eyes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting all these little things, all this
Speaker 1: minutia you begin to sort of get caught up with,
Speaker 1: and then your body becomes accepting of it eventually because
Speaker 1: it adapts. And now I thought that was the fascinating
Speaker 1: part of all of this, is that here we are
Speaker 1: just completely bombarded by everything, um, by all the little
Speaker 1: undercurrent suff sound of you know, the state of our hunger,
Speaker 1: you know, if we're super hungry or not very hungry
Speaker 1: at all, or not feeling great, um, the interactions with everybody,
Speaker 1: all the data we're taking in with our eyes. You
Speaker 1: shut all of that out and the brain kind of
Speaker 1: goes a little bit. I will say, nuts like light nuts,
Speaker 1: good nuts, right, um, And then adapt to that and
Speaker 1: you begin to feel that release into the water. And
Speaker 1: I think that is the key point that that everybody
Speaker 1: has talked about anecnotally is you know, this is this
Speaker 1: is what the tank is really good for, is that
Speaker 1: you do have a release in your your brain and
Speaker 1: your body finally decide to just sort of submit to
Speaker 1: the experience and things do get quiet. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say that I had a completely you know,
Speaker 1: meditative state. You know, after twenty minutes, who knows. Because
Speaker 1: time is nonexistent in the town. Like basically they tell
Speaker 1: you don't think about time because a number of things
Speaker 1: will happen. You'll hear the filtration system kick in the end,
Speaker 1: and then they'll make some music play in the room,
Speaker 1: and then if that didn't work, they'll come and knock
Speaker 1: on the door. So the idea is, don't worry about
Speaker 1: how close you are to the finish line. We'll tell
Speaker 1: you when your time is right. It's just sort of
Speaker 1: slipping in and out of different states. Um. So that
Speaker 1: was to me one of the most interesting things altered Stass,
Speaker 1: which we talked about, is that the main thing that
Speaker 1: comes out of this experiences that people are having altered
Speaker 1: states of consciousness. Now you mean you were talking about
Speaker 1: We're talking about sound there. One of the impressions I
Speaker 1: definitely had is that I you know, I'm in there,
Speaker 1: I'm in my own head. And then time sort of
Speaker 1: starts to slip by, and then suddenly I'm hearing this
Speaker 1: noise and it sounds like the crashing of waves on
Speaker 1: a beach. And then I realized that it's my own
Speaker 1: breathing because I have the have the plugs in, I'm
Speaker 1: in the in the water, and uh, and so most
Speaker 1: of the noises, I mean pretty much all the noises
Speaker 1: I'm hearing is simply the noises of my body. So
Speaker 1: I'm hearing my breathing. And that was a really interesting
Speaker 1: experience because it did feel like waves crashing. Sound like
Speaker 1: waves crashing. I had that same experience, and I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: that sounds like I'm on the beach. And then the
Speaker 1: same thing, I was old to realize that it was
Speaker 1: just my own breath. Um. And you can cure your
Speaker 1: your heart beating. UM. At one point I decided that
Speaker 1: the towel in the door that just had the crack
Speaker 1: of light coming through was not good because I would
Speaker 1: sort of go into these into the void of nothingness
Speaker 1: and be taken out when I floated near the top
Speaker 1: where that crack of light was, and and again you
Speaker 1: you left that there because you're maybe a little claustrophobic.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. You know, I've never been sealed into anything.
Speaker 1: Um I didn't wasn't crazy about the idea, honestly. Um
Speaker 1: So I thought, I'll just do that, and then I
Speaker 1: know that I have you know, I can just push
Speaker 1: it open, which I could do anyway. But once I
Speaker 1: got past the fear of that, I wanted to take
Speaker 1: it out. But here's the thing. I started to lift
Speaker 1: my head maybe a couple of inches, and I was
Speaker 1: so incredibly heavy and so shocked by that that I
Speaker 1: said never mind, because it felt like my my neck
Speaker 1: way a thousand pounds. And that's when I realized the
Speaker 1: extent to which my body had just become entirely relaxed,
Speaker 1: as well as my mind. Yeah, all right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to enter one of the more obvious realms of
Speaker 1: the senses here, that is that is being taken away
Speaker 1: from us in the tank. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: sight and we're gonna talk about the darkness, and then
Speaker 1: after that we're also going to try and catch up
Speaker 1: on a little of the stroman. All right, we're back,
Speaker 1: and now it's time to talk about the darkness and
Speaker 1: talk about the darkness. Darkness? What about what our encounter
Speaker 1: with the darkness inside of the tank? All right? So
Speaker 1: are you talking about hallucinations? Yes? Yes, Okay, Well, the
Speaker 1: first time, I really, like I said, it was sort
Speaker 1: of a struggle between being present and letting myself go
Speaker 1: and being preoccupied with what was going on with my
Speaker 1: body or you get my stomach gurgling um. But I
Speaker 1: did see a crusty eyeball staring at me. Whoa, which
Speaker 1: I wasn't crusty sort of well, sort of like opaque
Speaker 1: looking eyeball that just looked crusty and old. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't I mean, I wasn't thrilled with that. I wasn't
Speaker 1: scared by it, but uh no, it was just sort of,
Speaker 1: like I said, opaque looking. And that was the extent
Speaker 1: of that. But the second time, I floated by the
Speaker 1: way it just when I went back in. It's amazing
Speaker 1: how your brain just mapped all this stuff out, and
Speaker 1: it's ready for the experience. The smell, everything, the water temperature.
Speaker 1: None of this was surprised to me, so I was
Speaker 1: able to get into that altered state much quicker. And
Speaker 1: the second time, I just sort of saw a bunch
Speaker 1: of very odd things, like um as if I were
Speaker 1: a lizard crawling up a rock, and seeing my little
Speaker 1: lizard arms crawling up those sorts of things, and not
Speaker 1: to mention having just um a lot of very interesting
Speaker 1: thoughts about either how I operate in the world or
Speaker 1: things I've experienced, wouldn't call them revelations, but things that
Speaker 1: were sort of important that I needed to maybe acknowledge
Speaker 1: or discuss with myself. Yeah, and I had trapped myself
Speaker 1: in a box to do. So. Yeah, you're you're taking
Speaker 1: that person that corners you at the party. You're trapping
Speaker 1: them in the box with you, and you may think
Speaker 1: to realize, I should maybe ask them about their job,
Speaker 1: maybe I right, or maybe we have something or unresolved
Speaker 1: issue I should talk about with this part of myself.
Speaker 1: And it was really interesting because, as you say, there
Speaker 1: are so many things that we can occupy our brains with,
Speaker 1: you know, with trying to escape that person at the
Speaker 1: party that when you are in that space and it's
Speaker 1: just you and you. Then it becomes like, well, this
Speaker 1: is very important, and those sort of things do rise
Speaker 1: to the surface and you do have to deal with them,
Speaker 1: albeit in a good way. I don't mean to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's any sort of strife associated with us.
Speaker 1: Now when you were picturing yourself as a lizard and
Speaker 1: uh and some more things, were these colorful in any way?
Speaker 1: Were they? Like? No, it was more like desert colors.
Speaker 1: Is that makes it's like more sort of fitting in
Speaker 1: with the rain than I was scaling? Okay, cool? Oh
Speaker 1: well with me? Um? Well, I basically, you know, I
Speaker 1: go into the tank and it's all dark in your
Speaker 1: eyes kind of a just to you know, sort of
Speaker 1: dancing lights a little bit, you know. At first, and
Speaker 1: after a while i'd been in there and I had
Speaker 1: the experience hearing the ocean, and then I I was
Speaker 1: observing some light and at first I thought that light
Speaker 1: was leaking in through the tank, and my my first
Speaker 1: thought was, well, this is kind of a crappy sensory
Speaker 1: deprivation tank because there's all this light leaking into it,
Speaker 1: or somebody has come into the room and opened a
Speaker 1: window or something or the or something's a jar. And
Speaker 1: then I quickly realized that this was not actual light.
Speaker 1: I was seeing light. I was seeing this kind of
Speaker 1: gray light as if it were leaking in to the tank,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't actually illuminating anything, like I couldn't see
Speaker 1: my body or anything. I was just seeing light, uh,
Speaker 1: specifically at the the edges of my site. And as
Speaker 1: I sort of watch the light some more, I saw
Speaker 1: like a human skull um like a gray light made
Speaker 1: of the same gray light that I was receiving, a
Speaker 1: human skull made of this rotating. And of course if
Speaker 1: you know me, then you know it probably didn't take
Speaker 1: much for me to think or imagine a skull, So
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it hello, dear Horatio did. I
Speaker 1: did not speak to it, but I saw it rotating there.
Speaker 1: And then that kind of went away, and I saw
Speaker 1: like a like a whole bunch of like like gray
Speaker 1: sea an enemy tentacles of the They're not really tend
Speaker 1: are they tentacles? I'm not up on my see an
Speaker 1: enemy an enemy they are well, and I mean maybe uh,
Speaker 1: maybe they are, but they don't remind me of technacle, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: those appendages that they have, um, so they were kind
Speaker 1: of dancing, They're just kind of undulating, as if in
Speaker 1: a c current, and they were also composed of that
Speaker 1: same sort of gray light, almost kind of an ectoplasmy
Speaker 1: substance as the skull. And then that kind of faded
Speaker 1: away and I didn't have any more visual hallucinations for
Speaker 1: the remainder of the episode. UM, I have to share
Speaker 1: with you that the first time that I floated, I
Speaker 1: did find myself at one point giggling, just crazy giggling,
Speaker 1: and I was sort of like afterward afraid of well,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they heard me in the other room.
Speaker 1: But the reason I was giggling is because they were
Speaker 1: things that I started to think about that seems so
Speaker 1: important that I was stressed out about that. In the
Speaker 1: light of that experience, I just it became hilarious. And
Speaker 1: I will say that after my second float, a couple
Speaker 1: of hours after that, my husband was, you know, we
Speaker 1: were talking about something fixing dinner, and he started stressing
Speaker 1: out about something and I started laughing again at him
Speaker 1: because he was stressed out. I was still in this
Speaker 1: state and he was like, oh, it was like, seriously,
Speaker 1: is this how you're going to be all night. Um.
Speaker 1: So I will say that the second time, I really
Speaker 1: felt like the after effects of that were much more announced,
Speaker 1: that I was viewing the world a little bit more
Speaker 1: outside of myself and not trying to make my my
Speaker 1: husband feel bad by laughing at him. But it was funny.
Speaker 1: Time was really strange in the in the tank because
Speaker 1: when I first got in, you know, everything was sort
Speaker 1: of new and I'm taking it in, and then nothing
Speaker 1: was really happening, and I started thinking, oh, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be in here an hour. I I and I
Speaker 1: actually started thinking what if I just would How badly
Speaker 1: would the lady at the front judge me if I
Speaker 1: left after fifteen minutes? You know, how how much of
Speaker 1: a of a square would I appear to be? If
Speaker 1: that was my story. I sat there for fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: so I just got wet, so I just left, you know.
Speaker 1: But but then I stayed there longer, and eventually I
Speaker 1: did lose complete track of time. So when the when
Speaker 1: the filtration system finally kicked in and the music came on,
Speaker 1: I was really shocked. I was like, Wow, I can't
Speaker 1: believe an hour's passed. That was interesting to talk to Maryland.
Speaker 1: She she's the person at the Harmony Wellness and Yoga
Speaker 1: Center in Georgia and Tucker, Georgia, and she was saying that, Um,
Speaker 1: she says, the tank is the teacher, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: the tank is made by somebody, which is the somebody
Speaker 1: And is this idea of um being the tool of
Speaker 1: meditation right? And somebody the company John cy Lily actually
Speaker 1: helped to develop this current iteration of the tank, by
Speaker 1: the way, so we were in a John sale see
Speaker 1: Lily approved tank UM. But anyway, she was saying that
Speaker 1: the tank is essentially the teacher and that She said
Speaker 1: that there was one person who got out after fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and he said that he kept spinning and spinning and spinning,
Speaker 1: or felt like he was spinning uncontrollably, and he realized
Speaker 1: that his mind was so disordered and was always spinning
Speaker 1: and he couldn't stop it, and so he decided that
Speaker 1: he would get out. And she said, you know, even
Speaker 1: though he just had a fifteen minute experience, he sort
Speaker 1: of had the breakthrough of realizing that his life was
Speaker 1: in such disorder because of his his mind. UM. So
Speaker 1: she was saying, you know, there's something to be learned
Speaker 1: from every single moment that you're in there. But that
Speaker 1: being said, as you said, you just don't really realize
Speaker 1: time is passing, or you do and you're trying to
Speaker 1: tag it, but the brain isn't quite letting you. And
Speaker 1: so I thought it would be interesting just to drop
Speaker 1: in UM that there was some research by neurophysiologists and
Speaker 1: chemists who are working on time processing, and they showed
Speaker 1: how emotions can speed up or slow down our perception
Speaker 1: of time. In our last episode, you actually touched on
Speaker 1: this too, about how emotion can color time perception. In
Speaker 1: Professor Droit Vollette and Sandrine gil published a study on
Speaker 1: emotional states, and they did this by having their volunteers
Speaker 1: watch films and seeing how that affected their sense of time.
Speaker 1: So these students, these volunteers were looking at films like
Speaker 1: horror movies like The Blair Witch Project, Scream and The
Speaker 1: Shining Um. And then they looked at film really sad
Speaker 1: films like City of Angels, Philadelphia, Dangerous Minds. Um. That's
Speaker 1: what they say, is that sad movie A third cat
Speaker 1: a glory with neutral footage. So weather forecasts, um, stock
Speaker 1: market updates. Some people can think that was side by
Speaker 1: the way. Uh. And then they asked the students to
Speaker 1: estimate the duration of a visual stimulus, like how long
Speaker 1: they were looking at this or experiencing this, and they
Speaker 1: found that feared shorted time and the simuls being perceived
Speaker 1: was much longer than it actually was, and that fear
Speaker 1: prompted a state of arousal that speeded up the rate
Speaker 1: of the internal clock. And the state also involved that
Speaker 1: late to pupils, higher pulse rate, increased blood pressure, you know,
Speaker 1: all the known quantities. So in the fearful situation, it
Speaker 1: seemed to last longer than it actually Wasn't interesting though,
Speaker 1: because we always think about fear, something fearful happening and
Speaker 1: like have just in a split second. But we also
Speaker 1: know that when you feel like you're under attack that
Speaker 1: things do slow down. They seem to slow down because
Speaker 1: you're trying to take in every single element of what
Speaker 1: you're experiencing, which is why your pupils dilate, right, huh, Well,
Speaker 1: that reminds me of like recently, I was looking up
Speaker 1: a clip from The Ring, the American remake, and I
Speaker 1: was looking it was looking at the scene where um Samara,
Speaker 1: the ghost slash entity emerges from the television set and
Speaker 1: I was surprised at how short that segment was when
Speaker 1: I saw it, you know, on on on a YouTube
Speaker 1: clip as being an I forget how long it was,
Speaker 1: but you know, you saw the clear time stamp of
Speaker 1: stamp of when it began and when it ended, and
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that really felt like a much
Speaker 1: longer scene when I saw it the first time. Right,
Speaker 1: So because you you were, as we know, with our
Speaker 1: mirror neurons sort of in empathy going through the experience, right,
Speaker 1: and and things felt sort of drawn out. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: they found out that sadness does not affect our perception
Speaker 1: of time. And they thought that it would, that it
Speaker 1: would slow it down or speed it up, um, And
Speaker 1: they feel like the emotion that was felt while watching
Speaker 1: the film wasn't strong enough to slow down physiological functions. Now,
Speaker 1: that does not mean that, um, severe depression is not
Speaker 1: affected in this way. That they were taking people who
Speaker 1: were quote unquote how healthy volunteers who didn't have any
Speaker 1: depression problems and sort of measuring it that way, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that, you know, people who do suffer from
Speaker 1: severe depression don't experience time dilation right anyway, So I
Speaker 1: thought this was just sort of interesting information to add
Speaker 1: when we're talking about taking all that stimuli out in
Speaker 1: the tank and trying to gauge time. Well, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, uh, it's kind of like Convengence and Dragons,
Speaker 1: where you have like a sword and it does a
Speaker 1: certain amount of based damage. But then if it's magical,
Speaker 1: they don't have like a modifier of a plus three
Speaker 1: year a plus two. But then if the individual is
Speaker 1: in a stressful situation or he is cursed or something,
Speaker 1: you have maybe a modifier of a negative one, and
Speaker 1: and all of that adds up to what the sword's
Speaker 1: actual power is. So in a sense, when you go
Speaker 1: into a tank like this, you were removing some of
Speaker 1: the modifiers on your on your appreciation of time and
Speaker 1: your experience of time, the things that make it speed
Speaker 1: up and the things that slow it down. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we we've talked so much about the default mode network,
Speaker 1: this idea that this is the center of the ego
Speaker 1: in the self, and that's where all this chatter happens.
Speaker 1: And when we have excessive chatter, this leads to depression,
Speaker 1: right because you you get sort of caught up in
Speaker 1: this sort of I eighness of the experience. Um so
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. You would think that if you
Speaker 1: put yourself in the tank that this default mode network
Speaker 1: might go crazy, right and be like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: the opportunity just to to really focus on the self.
Speaker 1: But because we discussed before, since re deprivation is used
Speaker 1: as a mode of an enhanced interrogation or or light torture,
Speaker 1: so there is definitely a dark side to it. So
Speaker 1: you can see where you would enter the situation thinking well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go crazy in there and turn into
Speaker 1: a neander Doll. But it didn't happen to us, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen to mostly Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So yeah, in the end, uh, I know you you
Speaker 1: went once and you went the second time, and uh
Speaker 1: and and found it even more amazing, and you have
Speaker 1: what two more scheduled I do continue the journey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's just pretty cool because when I left Chap, you
Speaker 1: know she's just telling me, um, well, you know the
Speaker 1: no float is like the next or the one before,
Speaker 1: at each one is different and you really understand it.
Speaker 1: You need to come back for a second one, which
Speaker 1: you know part of that I'm thinking, well, of course
Speaker 1: you want me to come back for a second one
Speaker 1: because I have to pay for it. UM, And obviously
Speaker 1: you want to encourage it's a business. You want people
Speaker 1: to come back in and be a repeat listener. But
Speaker 1: from your experience, it sounds like that is definitely the case.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense because the first time you're in there,
Speaker 1: you're just experiencing the tank for the first time, and
Speaker 1: the next time you can focus less on the tank
Speaker 1: and more in the experience. Well, and um Marilan was
Speaker 1: saying that there's a recovery group that she works with
Speaker 1: that also uses the tank and it's very effective. And
Speaker 1: I thought about that afterward, and I thought it, I
Speaker 1: can completely see that being very therapeutic because you are
Speaker 1: you are in a space where you have where you
Speaker 1: have to confront the way that your mind is working
Speaker 1: and uh, not just working, but some of the falsities
Speaker 1: that we tend to wrap ourselves in. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: there's no escaping that go set in the corner and
Speaker 1: think about what you've done kind of a little bit,
Speaker 1: A little bit. In fact, I have a quote here
Speaker 1: that I thought that I would read that that that
Speaker 1: UM pairs up with us pretty nicely. UM. And this
Speaker 1: is a sutra from the ancient sanscrit text called the
Speaker 1: Vigian by Rava Tantra, and the Guyana means wisdom and insight,
Speaker 1: perception that is free of thought, and by Rava means
Speaker 1: the fearsome form of Shiva, in this case consciousness, which
Speaker 1: destroys ignorance and mental conditioning. I've also seen this translated
Speaker 1: as the joy and terror of realizing oneness with the
Speaker 1: soul um. The text is thought to date that to
Speaker 1: eight and it's a collection of one twelve meditation techniques
Speaker 1: using the senses as a point of departure. So it
Speaker 1: seemed pretty fitting to cap this section off with the
Speaker 1: quote is attend to the skin as a subtle boundary
Speaker 1: containing vastness. Enter that shimmering and pulsing fess. Discover that
Speaker 1: you are not separate from anything there, and there is
Speaker 1: no other, no object to meditate upon that is not you.
Speaker 1: That's nice, all right. Well, on that note, let us
Speaker 1: call over the robot so that we may catch up
Speaker 1: on a little listener mail. All right, This one comes
Speaker 1: to us from Marta, not to be confused with our
Speaker 1: our transportation system public transportation system here in here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: but um Marta, as in a person Marty Wrightson and says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to You or Eating a live podcast,
Speaker 1: and I can't avoid thinking about the book I recently
Speaker 1: listened to by Christopher Moore Fluke or I Know Why
Speaker 1: the Wing Whale Sings. It's an amazingly funny tale of
Speaker 1: a biologist who has actually eaten alive whole by a whale.
Speaker 1: And that's just the start. It's fantasy mixed with real
Speaker 1: science and environmental questions, all wrapped up in smart humor.
Speaker 1: I totally recommend it to you. Uh and and this
Speaker 1: is a this is Have you ever read anything by
Speaker 1: Christopher Moore? Christopher Moore I can personally vouch is is
Speaker 1: that is a fine author and well worth reading. I've
Speaker 1: I've read read a book he wrote called Lamb, which
Speaker 1: is a fictional, humorous at times but also surprisingly poignant
Speaker 1: um account of the life of Jesus the Lost Years
Speaker 1: where he and he goes on adventures. And he has
Speaker 1: this it's told by his friend. Uh his name's friend
Speaker 1: was built Lost Years. Yeah, so he has this kind
Speaker 1: of Uh. He has his friend Biff, who's talking about
Speaker 1: his travels with Jesus and they end up deff and
Speaker 1: they travel to India and they fight a demon at
Speaker 1: one point, so they go in adventures the fun book,
Speaker 1: but also it's not one where it's like, let's just
Speaker 1: have some stupid adventures with Jesus and and make fun of,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody's faith or something like. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a really poignant book as well as a hilarious one.
Speaker 1: And then he also wrote one called Fool, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a medieval Shakespearean story that brings in elements
Speaker 1: of a few different shakespeare plays, but it's it's told
Speaker 1: from the point of view of a fool, and uh,
Speaker 1: and that one's just a lot of fun, especially for
Speaker 1: any Shakespeare buff out there. Um, I highly recommend that one.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Marta continuous, he says, just to close, I
Speaker 1: didn't write in at the time regarding the lebri Cons
Speaker 1: podcast and the migraines that can cause visual allusions, but
Speaker 1: I was amazed by the exact description you made of
Speaker 1: whole scenes I read in Hruki Mirakami's tales, particularly the
Speaker 1: small creatures coming out of the TV. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a recurrent theme and his writing, and I'm surprised to
Speaker 1: find out it might be because he suffers from my
Speaker 1: drinks migraines. Thanks for so much fantastic work, Marta from Portugal.
Speaker 1: All right, very cool. Um. Speaking of books, I wanted
Speaker 1: to interject that, Um, I am in the middle of
Speaker 1: reading The Hitman's God to House Cleaning. If anybody has
Speaker 1: picked that up and you are shocked by the language,
Speaker 1: I apologize. If anybody has picked it up and they
Speaker 1: are sort of delighted by how uh how crazy pulp
Speaker 1: fiction a e crime this is, then then I hope
Speaker 1: you're enjoying it. Um, I have to say that I'm
Speaker 1: struggling between both of those hemis bears. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: here's our next one. This one is from Eric uh,
Speaker 1: frequent contributor to the Listener mail section. He says he's
Speaker 1: responding to our control equism episode because when I was
Speaker 1: seven or eight, I was interested in introl equism. My
Speaker 1: parents got me a dummy and I started learning the art.
Speaker 1: I was having fun until while watching The Twilight Zone
Speaker 1: I saw the dummy episode titled the Dummy. It scared
Speaker 1: the ever living blank out of me. What made it
Speaker 1: so bad was my dummy looked exactly the same as
Speaker 1: the one on the show, so I had nightmares for
Speaker 1: weeks after, and it still creeps me out like crazy.
Speaker 1: Many years later, I saw the episode again with my mother.
Speaker 1: I told her how much this episode scared me, especially
Speaker 1: because I had a dummy like the one in the episode.
Speaker 1: She told me she wondered why she had found my
Speaker 1: dummy under my bed with his arms, legs, and head
Speaker 1: torn off. Killing and dismembering my own dummy also led
Speaker 1: to nightmares where it tried to take revenge on me.
Speaker 1: I love this episode. Thanks Wow. I mean we talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the relationship of the puppeteer and the
Speaker 1: puppet and how you feel this some sort of like
Speaker 1: a you know, like loyalty to it or disloyalty in
Speaker 1: this case. So it's interesting to hear that, and also
Speaker 1: interesting to learn that that Eric has a committed Chris
Speaker 1: Ventral side Puppets. Yeah, he killed the puppet, but it's
Speaker 1: it's it's quite as quite a little story you created
Speaker 1: in our head there. Yeah, I don't judge. I have
Speaker 1: to say, if if I the same thing had happened
Speaker 1: to me at that tender age, I might do the same. Well,
Speaker 1: these these you know, stories, be a horror movie, your
Speaker 1: horror show. You're watching at the young age and something
Speaker 1: something creepy happens was was something in the real world,
Speaker 1: it can freak you out. Like I remember watching Poulder
Speaker 1: Guys way too young in age, and there's that whole
Speaker 1: scene where like stuff starts, weird starts happening in the night,
Speaker 1: and then the door opens, and there's also branches tapping,
Speaker 1: so like for ages, like the idea of a tree
Speaker 1: branch tapping against my window that was horrorfiing. And I
Speaker 1: think there's a weird puppet, like a kind of a
Speaker 1: Harlequin looking puppet in there as well, and a clown,
Speaker 1: I believe, speaking of clowns and harlequin's, I wanted to
Speaker 1: point out in the past, we've talked about clowns a
Speaker 1: bit and about scary clowns, and we've we've never done
Speaker 1: an episode on clowning traditions, though Pop Stuff did one
Speaker 1: where they're going a lot of the history. I mean,
Speaker 1: he gets really interesting, you know, you look at various
Speaker 1: Native American traditions and and just how important the clown
Speaker 1: of the fool of the harlequin is. I'm currently reading
Speaker 1: a horror short story by Thomas Logatti called The Last
Speaker 1: Feast of Harlequin, and so far it's pretty creepy because
Speaker 1: there's a there's an anthropologist who's investigating a like a
Speaker 1: love craft ian um north eastern town that has some
Speaker 1: sort of rich and possibly grotesque harlequin tradition. But he's
Speaker 1: really excited about going because he also partakes and clowning
Speaker 1: himself and is into juggling, and so I don't know
Speaker 1: where it's going to go, but it's probably part I
Speaker 1: have to wonder what's the grotesque. Well, there's like grotesquery
Speaker 1: meaning like exaggeration or like disgusting. Well I'm not sure
Speaker 1: because at this point in the story I haven't finished
Speaker 1: it yet, but there's some sort of weird harlequin type
Speaker 1: of ceremony that goes on, so some sort of clowning
Speaker 1: going about, but then also some sort of uh, some
Speaker 1: sort of belief system that is really heavy on the
Speaker 1: circlical idea that that maybe we've begin his worms and
Speaker 1: we end his worms. So there's bound to be something
Speaker 1: kind of CORPSEI in there. I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 1: that familiar with this author yet, so it's all kind
Speaker 1: of news. Yeah, Well, now I'm intrigued, all right, Here's
Speaker 1: another one about our eventual equism episode. This one comes
Speaker 1: from David. David writes and it says, HI happen to
Speaker 1: come across the Ventriloquism cast, and I loved it. I
Speaker 1: was especially interested in the tethered to an object idea,
Speaker 1: which goes well beyond ventriloquism. You might be interested in
Speaker 1: my book in the Rutledge series, Critical Voices in Art,
Speaker 1: Theory and Culture. The book is Art and Ventriloquism, and
Speaker 1: is really a way of showcasing ventriloquism as a metaphor
Speaker 1: and performance act in many aspects of philosophers like Nietzsche, food, cult, Plato, Derita,
Speaker 1: and in many philosophical areas, but especially aesthetics, by unpacking
Speaker 1: the metaphor, I mean of all of the things that
Speaker 1: you two spoke about, such as speaking in other voices,
Speaker 1: the Greek notion of its status of being beside oneself,
Speaker 1: illusion without deception, the animation of inanimate objects, and so forth.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you are busy with the next podcast, but
Speaker 1: if you chance to check out the book, do so.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the cast. Will be sure to listen regularly.
Speaker 1: Best David, uh and will since David's an author. I
Speaker 1: let me go and give you his name, so you
Speaker 1: can look that up at that interests you, That's Aid
Speaker 1: David gold Plat Goldblat, So that's d A v I
Speaker 1: D G O L D B L A T T
Speaker 1: in that. The that again is the Rutledge series Critical
Speaker 1: Voices in Art, Theory and Culture, and the book is
Speaker 1: Art and Ventriloquism. So that sounds interesting. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to seek that out myself, and and that would probably
Speaker 1: interest us some of our listeners as well. That sounds
Speaker 1: really cool. Um. I actually wrote a paper, a Zarada paper,
Speaker 1: and I think it was I won't be able to
Speaker 1: remember the content so well, but I believe the title
Speaker 1: was Dwelling in the Tomb of A. So if there's
Speaker 1: anybody out there who has studied Dareda, you know, probably
Speaker 1: a sense of what I'm talking about there. But um,
Speaker 1: I can't help but sort of laughing about that title now,
Speaker 1: all right. We also heard from France and she contacted
Speaker 1: us about our episode on Finnish education. She wanted to
Speaker 1: point out that we referred to Finland as a Scandinavian
Speaker 1: country and that we should not have. She is correct,
Speaker 1: we should have referred to it more in the general
Speaker 1: sense as a Nordic country, so I wanted to say that.
Speaker 1: She also said that she she wanted to take some
Speaker 1: issue with us referring to uh Finland as as a
Speaker 1: becoming independent from Russia in the sixties, and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to point out that we did not say that
Speaker 1: Finland became independent from Russia in the sixties. What we
Speaker 1: said is that they came out of a cocoon of
Speaker 1: influence from Russia in the sixties. Okay, well, let's look
Speaker 1: at one last bit of listener mail, and this one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Brian. Brian write, since is hey guys,
Speaker 1: I just listen to your cat Parasite episode, and one
Speaker 1: of the listener emails about your art freak Out episode
Speaker 1: made me take notice. You proposed that many that maybe
Speaker 1: people in Italy had a strip mall syndrome. And this
Speaker 1: we were talking about how when what you know, Americans
Speaker 1: that live in strip Mall country travel to say Italy,
Speaker 1: go to one of the amazing museums there, or see
Speaker 1: some of the historical sites, and it's just too much,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a standall syndrome where it just overpowers
Speaker 1: you and maybe you pass out right. So someone from Rome,
Speaker 1: for instance, who is is just surrounded by all this antiquity.
Speaker 1: If they were to go to a strip mall in America,
Speaker 1: what would happen? So, Brian Sell says, I have had
Speaker 1: a version of this. I've lived in several cities in
Speaker 1: Europe and the US, but the only big reaction I
Speaker 1: remember from culture shock came when I moved back home
Speaker 1: to the Twin Cities after living in New York City
Speaker 1: for a few years. Grocery stores, any stories, really are
Speaker 1: dominutive in New York City because space is very expensive.
Speaker 1: This isn't true in the Cities. The first time I
Speaker 1: went to a large grocery store, I had a freak out.
Speaker 1: The scale of the place, the ceiling so high they
Speaker 1: could contain their own weather patterns, the forty types of
Speaker 1: yellow mustard, not to mention brown, et cetera, and the
Speaker 1: terrible use of space. My wife had to steer the
Speaker 1: cart as I fought hyperventilating. This hasn't happened since, but
Speaker 1: I can remember the sensation viscerally. I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to go back and listen to the whole episode. Thanks
Speaker 1: for some great content, Cheers, Brian. I think He brings
Speaker 1: up a really good point because I've been in cities
Speaker 1: for a while that had small grocery stores, and I
Speaker 1: know exactly what it means. I'm thinking about Star Market
Speaker 1: and Boston stock Market and then coming back to Atlanta
Speaker 1: and then being in these big box retailers, and it
Speaker 1: is sort of disorienting to to be in this huge
Speaker 1: hall of consumerism. Yeah. I mean even here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: where we are playing big stores and a lot of sprawl.
Speaker 1: I tend to not go to Walmart a lot. So
Speaker 1: when I do, it is always a bit of insanity
Speaker 1: because it's so big and there's just so much stuff,
Speaker 1: and they're just vast distances, Like, oh, I the grocery
Speaker 1: thidem I need is on the other side of the store.
Speaker 1: It's time for an enormous walk. And you know then
Speaker 1: it's their idea of of a quick checkout is like
Speaker 1: fifty items are less or something. But anyway, that's the
Speaker 1: whole rent. Yeah, and you know there's this other thing
Speaker 1: to compound that, which is Sam's or Costco. Right, you
Speaker 1: can go down to Aisle and you can see the
Speaker 1: largest jar of peanut butter that you've ever seen in
Speaker 1: your life. That's bigger than your head. Uh, and just
Speaker 1: jars and jars of him, and it's it's sort of
Speaker 1: like being like Alice in Wonderland. Yeah, well there you go. Um, Hey,
Speaker 1: if any of you have something you would like to
Speaker 1: share with us about giant jars of peanut butter in
Speaker 1: Wonderland or about Stendall syndrome at the strip mall about
Speaker 1: sensory deprivation. Uh, this episode, we ended up putting this out. Actually,
Speaker 1: we ended up recording this the day after our initial
Speaker 1: episode aired, so it didn't really leave any time for
Speaker 1: for you guys and girls to to respond with your
Speaker 1: own stories of sensory deprivation. So feel free to send
Speaker 1: those in because we'll still hopefully read read those in
Speaker 1: future episodes. You can find us in a number of
Speaker 1: ways to interact with us, to catch up on past
Speaker 1: episodes and see what we're up to. Our mothership is
Speaker 1: stuff to bowl your mind. That's where our blogs are.
Speaker 1: That's where everything that we do winds up there one
Speaker 1: way or another, and that is stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: mind up com and you can also find us on
Speaker 1: various social media networks. You can find us on Facebook
Speaker 1: is stuff to blow your mind. I'm tumbler stuff to
Speaker 1: bow your mind. On Twitter we are blow the Mind,
Speaker 1: and on YouTube were mind Stuff and you can always
Speaker 1: send us a line at below the Mind at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: does it How stuff works dot com