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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb, and you're whispering, I guests in

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Speaker 1: an attempt to be to be quiet, because we're we're

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Speaker 1: in a sort of quiet room. Um it's it's padded though.

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Speaker 1: On the other side of the padding there are windows

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Speaker 1: I can't move my own, and then the other side

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Speaker 1: of the windows there is a train and traffic and

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Speaker 1: occasionally helicopters and sirens, uh, birds slamming into the glass,

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Speaker 1: all that sort of fun stuff. So occasionally we have

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Speaker 1: to take breaks here as we record for outside sounds,

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Speaker 1: but we attempt to to keep the sound of the

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Speaker 1: world at bay with all of us padding right, and

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Speaker 1: also by keeping our volume up. When you whisper like that,

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Speaker 1: you're actually doing us a disservice because we as we'll

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Speaker 1: discussing this podcast. The quieter it gets, the more you hear,

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Speaker 1: so I really get your attention. Yeah, well, well, let's

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Speaker 1: let's be quiet for a second. Let's see if they

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Speaker 1: can hear the ambient sounds of the studio. Terrifying, isn't it?

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Speaker 1: It kind of is. Actually, I don't know if you

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Speaker 1: guys can pick that up. Probably not, but it does

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Speaker 1: have kind of like a two thousand and one sound

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Speaker 1: to it, just sort of the void but something there. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we are. We're taking on the subject of quietude,

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Speaker 1: and we're taking on the subject through a vehicle called

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Speaker 1: literally the Quietest Room in the World. Yes, Now, the

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Speaker 1: subject of quiet, the sound of silence and all that

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Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of some of what we touched

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Speaker 1: on in our older episode, um splendid isolation. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about isolation to a certain extent century deprivation and uh

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Speaker 1: and loneliness, and talking about how for a lot of

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Speaker 1: us we have this weird thing where, you know, we

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Speaker 1: we want isolation, we want to move away from people.

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Speaker 1: But then if but we if we get too much

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Speaker 1: of that, it's not we're not We're gonna go past

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Speaker 1: the beneficial stage of of isolation and we're going to

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Speaker 1: get into the harmful levels of it. And likewise, with

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Speaker 1: quiet we see a similar thing. I think more and

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Speaker 1: more we live in noisy, busy lives. You know, the

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Speaker 1: world is full of sound, The world is full of

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Speaker 1: of movement and energy, and for a lot of us

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Speaker 1: that comes a point where you just want to be

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Speaker 1: in a place where there is no sounds. You want

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Speaker 1: to find that monastery on a hill, you want to

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Speaker 1: find that secret library, that secret garden, and just get

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Speaker 1: away from it and shut it all off. And and

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Speaker 1: it's I think it's important to to have that in

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Speaker 1: some way, shape or form. But then what happens if

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Speaker 1: you do enter a place that is so quiet that

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Speaker 1: there is there is there's almost no sound at all,

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Speaker 1: Then what can that do to It's horrifying to the brain. Really,

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Speaker 1: it's inconceivable because the brain is not the we we

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Speaker 1: don't have monastery brains. We have we have, you know,

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Speaker 1: busy city brains. We have a chirping bird brains. We

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Speaker 1: have brains that need various bits of input coming in

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Speaker 1: and giving us a changing, constantly altering view of the world.

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Speaker 1: But if the view of the world is just nothing,

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Speaker 1: then things can get out of hand well. And and

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Speaker 1: human hearing is certainly part of this something of the world. Right.

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Speaker 1: There's a great article by George Mitchelson Foy called Shut

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Speaker 1: Up and Listen from Psychology Today, and he talks about

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Speaker 1: human hearing is being a beautiful sensitive system of organic microphones,

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Speaker 1: signal processors, amplifiers like your home stereo, only better. And

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Speaker 1: what happens when you switch on your home stereo, well,

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Speaker 1: it gives off a very faint hum. The same is

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Speaker 1: true of your hearing apparatus. Like any sound system, it

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Speaker 1: generates its own little hum when working. And so this

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Speaker 1: is sort of a natural state of of ourselves and

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Speaker 1: our beings and the our machinery. We just don't think

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Speaker 1: about it. We think about when we want to, you know,

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Speaker 1: do a foreshutdown of our brain or um enter into

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Speaker 1: this silence, this quietude, that it should all be absolute

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Speaker 1: sign lens. But it cannot be right because inevitably, you

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Speaker 1: you just hear the sound of your hearing. You'll hear

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Speaker 1: the sound of your your blood circulating, of your heart beating,

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Speaker 1: of your own breathing, just kind of the stillness of

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Speaker 1: the air almost and you know, the quieter it gets,

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Speaker 1: the more your ears listen. Yeah, I wanted to mention

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Speaker 1: if you guys will indulge me for a second um

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Speaker 1: our tone map in our ears, because I think this

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Speaker 1: is really interesting because we usually think, okay, well, we

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Speaker 1: you know, we take in sound and it vibrates our

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Speaker 1: ear and it goes to the middle ear and so

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Speaker 1: want to sit with the ricochet's Well, we know, we

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Speaker 1: all know sort of the basics of that. So beyond

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Speaker 1: you know, making our ear drums vibrate, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: going on. These vibrations cause nerve hairs in the inner

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Speaker 1: ear to shiver and that triggers electric signals that travel

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Speaker 1: along the auditory nerve into the brain. And then one

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Speaker 1: of the first stops is a patch of gray matter

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Speaker 1: called the auditory cortex. Now this is where everything happens.

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Speaker 1: We usually think that, uh, noise happens, or the perception

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Speaker 1: of it happens in the inner ear, but it's the

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Speaker 1: auditory cortex in our brain. And each nerve is tuned

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Speaker 1: to a particular frequency of sound and excites only certain

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Speaker 1: neurons in the auditory cortex. And then as a result,

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Speaker 1: the neurons in the auditory cortex form what is known

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Speaker 1: as a tone map, and the neurons at one end

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Speaker 1: of the auditory cortex are tuned to low frequencies, and

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Speaker 1: the farther you go towards the other end, the higher

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Speaker 1: the tuning of the neurons. So the auditory cortex you

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Speaker 1: can almost think of it as a musical instrument. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and it is the musical instrument is played upon by

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Speaker 1: these electrical impulses. Yeah, exactly, and it's it's a it's

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Speaker 1: like an elaborate feedback system too, because the neurons do

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Speaker 1: more than just relay signals forward into the brain. They

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Speaker 1: also signal back down the line, and they reached to

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Speaker 1: neighboring neurons that are tuned to nearby frequency, exciting some

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Speaker 1: and then muzzling others. It sort of reminded me of

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Speaker 1: when we were talking about memory last week, about how

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Speaker 1: you know, with memory, you have certain neurons, excited clusters

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Speaker 1: that are rising up and tamping down other competing neurons

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Speaker 1: to bring a memory forward. It's a little bit similar

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Speaker 1: to the way that we're perceiving sound and processing it. Right,

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Speaker 1: You've got these excited neurons that are making their way

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Speaker 1: and sort of crossing with other frequencies. And so these

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Speaker 1: are kind of like feedback controls, and they allow us

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Speaker 1: to sift through those incoming sounds and figure out the

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Speaker 1: most important information and how to make sense of them

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Speaker 1: without being drowned out by all the other meaning less

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Speaker 1: noise around us. All right, well, we're gonna take a

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Speaker 1: quick breaking when we come back, we will enter the

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Speaker 1: quietest room in the world. All right, we're back, and U.

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Speaker 1: We've talked about sound. We've talked about how it enters

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Speaker 1: the brain, how we perceive it, how it contributes our

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Speaker 1: understanding of the world, and uh, we've touched on how

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Speaker 1: when we begin to to crank down the sound in

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Speaker 1: our life, we begin to hear more of the noises

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Speaker 1: that are off hidden um even when the speaker, to

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Speaker 1: your point, even when the speaker is not playing, there

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Speaker 1: is a humming and we don't notice the humming when

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Speaker 1: the speaker is blaring some music at us. But when

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Speaker 1: the speaker is on but silent, it's not really silent.

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Speaker 1: You've got that feedback system exactly. So if we were

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Speaker 1: to travel to or Field Laboratories in Minneapolis, we would

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Speaker 1: find a room that blocks all sound. That's right, and

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Speaker 1: let's enter this chamber. In order to enter this chamber,

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Speaker 1: which is also called an ana coic chamber, we must

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Speaker 1: pass through two vaults to get into it. And it

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Speaker 1: is a room that is so soundproof it is officially

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Speaker 1: listed as the quietest place on earth. This is according

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Speaker 1: to the Guinness World Records. They wouldn't lie because they

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Speaker 1: keep me updated on how many eggs people can eat

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Speaker 1: and who's the fattest. So that's what they do. Many

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Speaker 1: take names and they tabulate all this stuff. The room

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Speaker 1: is used sometimes for technical analysis, for example company companies

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Speaker 1: testing out the sound of a switch or a dial

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Speaker 1: or some other mechanical component. In fact, past clients have

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Speaker 1: included Whirlpool and Hardley Davidson, which used the chamber in

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Speaker 1: an effort to produce quieter motorcycles. They want quieter motorcycles. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've never know in Atlanta because it's just it's like

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Speaker 1: packs and packs of crazy lad motorcycles. But it is

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Speaker 1: also used. This room is also used as a cycle

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Speaker 1: psychological chamber of will. Yes, so how's it constructed? What

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Speaker 1: is made? What is it made of? How do you

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Speaker 1: make a room that is so devoid of sound? Because

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Speaker 1: clearly we're not in one right now, um, and we

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Speaker 1: take quite a lot of work to really get that

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Speaker 1: kind of soundless. Uh. Construction for starters, the chamber features

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Speaker 1: three point three ft thick fiberglass acoustic wedges, double walls

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Speaker 1: of insulated steel and foot thick concrete. And again this

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Speaker 1: enables it to be ninety sound absorbent with a decibel

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Speaker 1: rating of negative nine point four d b a. So

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Speaker 1: any sounds below the threshold of zero d b a

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Speaker 1: is undetectable by the human ear. It's true. Like so

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Speaker 1: it's virtually like zero sound being, you know, bounced off

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Speaker 1: the walls here. And that's what's so interesting here too,

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Speaker 1: is that it is under the radar of human sound.

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Speaker 1: As you say, minus night point nine point four deciples

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Speaker 1: we hear at zero and above. So what happens here,

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Speaker 1: that's where the psychological will UH chamber will comes into play.

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Speaker 1: What happens here is that people go a little bit

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Speaker 1: nuts because it's quiet, yeah, like crazy quiet. There's a

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Speaker 1: mesh floor in the ceiling, and as you mentioned, you

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Speaker 1: have that meter along fiberglass acoustic wedge in there. So

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Speaker 1: what happens when you put a human being in there, well,

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Speaker 1: they become disoriented or they even experienced hallucinations because after

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Speaker 1: a few minutes, UH founder Stephen Orfield told the Daily

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Speaker 1: Mailie says, your body begins to adapt to the soundlessness,

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Speaker 1: picking up smaller and smaller sounds. You'll hear your heart beating. Sometimes,

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Speaker 1: you can hear your lungs, your stomach gurgling loudly, and

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Speaker 1: then in the antichoic chamber, you become the sound. So

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Speaker 1: all of this becomes really disorienting in space and time.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there's a chair in there for the sole

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Speaker 1: purpose of allowing people to try to figure out their

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Speaker 1: place in space and time because they don't have the

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Speaker 1: I would hope, wouldn't that be the worst. But the

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Speaker 1: idea is that we we don't think about it, but

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Speaker 1: the vibrations around us and kind of give us these

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Speaker 1: auditory cues about where things are in space and time.

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Speaker 1: And if you don't really have that, then you begin

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Speaker 1: to feel as though you're sort of unmoored from your reality.

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Speaker 1: And it turns out that people who are in there

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Speaker 1: for more than thirty minutes have to sit down, and

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Speaker 1: the longest that anybody has ever made it in there

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Speaker 1: is forty five minutes. Wow. Because yeah, after a while,

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Speaker 1: you begin to you begin to hear more and more

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Speaker 1: of these real sounds as you mentioned, but then you

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Speaker 1: inevitably can end up hearing these unreal sounds as well.

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Speaker 1: Audible hallucinations can exactly. Yeah, you've got that tone map

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Speaker 1: kind of going nuts with what it does and doesn't

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Speaker 1: have available to it, and it starts filling in the blanks.

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Speaker 1: Y you had mentioned in the last podcast, there's a

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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine study that shows that in another chamber,

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Speaker 1: that's just fifteen minutes before people have started to hallucinate

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Speaker 1: one way or another. Because again, our brains have not

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Speaker 1: involved to live in a world of such silence. We

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Speaker 1: we we've evolved to live in a world full of sounds,

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Speaker 1: sounds that our brain has to decipher in order to

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Speaker 1: navigate our way safely through it. And so at this point,

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Speaker 1: our brain is saying, I don't know, man, it's all

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Speaker 1: quiet there. Let's let's listen harder, Let's listen, har Let's

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Speaker 1: fill in the blanks, because there might be something out

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Speaker 1: there that could kill us, something out there that could

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Speaker 1: sustain us, and we need to know where everything is, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we we are built for sound, and and

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Speaker 1: to take that away is to really scramble the brain

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Speaker 1: into the brain to actually lose some of its purpose. Right, Um,

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Speaker 1: You will not be surprised that NASA has also used

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Speaker 1: the room. Yes, and of course they've ratcheted up the

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Speaker 1: sensory deprivation levels by of course putting a water filled

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Speaker 1: tank in the room for astronauts to plunge into just

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Speaker 1: to make it a little bit more intent and to

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Speaker 1: figure out how long it takes before hallucinations start to

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Speaker 1: set in. Yeah, because we've mentioned in a previous episode

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Speaker 1: the you know, what is a spaceship, what is a

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Speaker 1: what is a space station? But a form of sensory deprivation.

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Speaker 1: It is at the very least, um just a portion

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Speaker 1: of our natural environment that is completely cut off, like

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Speaker 1: an on a planetary scale from where we're supposed to

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Speaker 1: live and there so that you're can be isolated from

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Speaker 1: outside sounds. Uh, sound is going to travel a little

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Speaker 1: differently inside the capsule. It's just going to be a

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Speaker 1: totally different experience. So the more we know about how

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Speaker 1: this affects the human body and how we can uh

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Speaker 1: roll with the with the effects and and also limit

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Speaker 1: the detrimental effects, all the better. And the more that

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Speaker 1: Commander Chris Hadfield can post those awesome videos right first

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Speaker 1: Ultimate Joy, Yeah, it makes more. You know, it's like,

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Speaker 1: of course you let the man bring a guitar up

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Speaker 1: there and cut a music video because uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: aside from being very educational and really you know, really

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Speaker 1: overall just really great for the space program. Although the

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Speaker 1: videos he was doing up there, and and also the

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Speaker 1: fun stuff, but also it keeps somebody from going nuts.

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Speaker 1: It would have been a totally different YouTube series if

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Speaker 1: he had just been going gradually insane from hearing no

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Speaker 1: sound in thember, right exactly. You know, among the many

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Speaker 1: detrimental effects of of exposure to such prolonged and ponderous silence,

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Speaker 1: um is a spontaneous tonitis. That's right, because it's it's

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Speaker 1: believed to be a response of the auditory cortex, which

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Speaker 1: we talked about to the abnormal absence of all ambient sounds,

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Speaker 1: and we really started to think about this. Tonita is

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Speaker 1: sometimes called tenatus. I believe that either way is correct,

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Speaker 1: but we began to think about this. This really is

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Speaker 1: the opposite of silence or what we think about silence,

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Speaker 1: because it's often called this sort of low ringing of

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Speaker 1: the ears or this humming sound, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are affected by it. And in fact, one of

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Speaker 1: our listeners, Aaron, actually emailed us about it when we

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Speaker 1: were talking about different topic emotions and outer space, and

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Speaker 1: let me just read a quick excerpt of that. He says, funny,

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Speaker 1: you should happen to mention my tonitis request at the

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Speaker 1: end of today's Emotions and Outer Space episode. Because as

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Speaker 1: you guys were discussing how maddening the idea of a

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Speaker 1: completely silent room would be, I was just thinking to myself,

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Speaker 1: Holy crap, you have no idea, speaking of which, because

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Speaker 1: he has tenitus, of course, Speaking of which, here's an

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Speaker 1: MP three I made a while back which simulates, to

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Speaker 1: the best of garage bands ability, what my tonitis sounds like.

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Speaker 1: For the most convincing effect, play it in a quiet

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Speaker 1: room at a level just above that of whisper enjoy

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Speaker 1: you won't um. So we're gonna have a quick clip

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Speaker 1: of that so that everybody can kind of understand what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about when we talk about tonitus. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that I can see where that would that would get

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Speaker 1: a little old really fast, right. Yeah. Now, it's it's

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Speaker 1: worth pointing out that that about one in five people

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Speaker 1: experience this, and the the the way that the noise

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Speaker 1: is described by people who who experienced it, it ranges

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Speaker 1: from a ringing to a buzzing, to a roaring, to

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Speaker 1: a clicking to a hissing uh. And it can it

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Speaker 1: can be caused by a number of different different things.

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Speaker 1: It's a symptom of an underlying condition. Generally we're talking

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Speaker 1: stuff like age related hearing loss, ear injury, or circutary

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Speaker 1: system disorder. Although it's worth noting that NIDUS affects nearly

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Speaker 1: half the soldiers exposed to blasts in Iraq and Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: and as as we continue to have a lot of

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Speaker 1: noise pollution in our modern life, this is one of

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Speaker 1: those issues that keeps coming up again and again, that

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Speaker 1: that more people are exposed and more people will have

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Speaker 1: some sort of hearing damage. Because we'll talk about this

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Speaker 1: in a little bit, but the hearing damage is directly

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Speaker 1: related to that that map, that tone map in our brains.

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Speaker 1: But I wanted to just give a little bit more

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Speaker 1: of a description of tonitas um. Aaron I thought would

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Speaker 1: be a good person to ask about this. He said

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Speaker 1: that he first noticed it as a kid. He said,

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Speaker 1: I can't say when I first noticed it, but it

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Speaker 1: was definitely when I was a kid. The way I

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Speaker 1: always remembered it and it's still true today, is that

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Speaker 1: the sound of the ringing to me sounded almost exactly

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Speaker 1: like the high pitched sound you'll sometimes hear when someone

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Speaker 1: would turn on a CRT television. And I had asked

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Speaker 1: him to if if you are in a moment um,

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Speaker 1: when you have a state of flow or you're really

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Speaker 1: enjoying yourself. He's a photographer, for instance, it's a really

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Speaker 1: awesome photographer by the way, UM, I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: does it make it stop? And he said, yeah, if

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Speaker 1: I'm doing something engaging, I tend not to even notice,

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Speaker 1: not that it isn't there, just that it gets tuned

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Speaker 1: out like a nagging staffs m A, right, yes you are. UM, so, yes,

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Speaker 1: there there. The brain can kind of deal with it,

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Speaker 1: but for the most part, it's there, and it can

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Speaker 1: be very maddening. And people, UM have been trying to

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Speaker 1: find solutions to this because it can really be very unsettling. UM.

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Speaker 1: And there are ways to go about dealing with it.

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Speaker 1: But some of that is you know, related to Ladakin

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Speaker 1: for instance, or cognitive behavior therapy. But there is no

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Speaker 1: magic bullet for this. Yeah. I would mention that, UM,

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Speaker 1: even portable music devices like MP three players and the

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Speaker 1: light can contribute to this. Exposure to a lot of

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Speaker 1: noises over time in the same way that you know,

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Speaker 1: explosion could do it, but also prolonged to exposure to

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Speaker 1: a lot of music. Uh So I do recommend UH

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Speaker 1: that if you have a listening device of this nature,

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Speaker 1: try turning down the max volume on it UH to

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Speaker 1: prevent unnecessary damage to you're hearing. You'll hear of various

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Speaker 1: accounts of famous musicians who suffer from from this just

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Speaker 1: because they've continually put themselves in an environment where they're

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Speaker 1: around blaring speakers. Yeah. Actually, one of our coworkers is

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Speaker 1: a drummer in a band and they just told me

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Speaker 1: today that he has it. Um. So yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: there are there are a bunch of different reasons why

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Speaker 1: people can experience it, even lightning. Um. There have been

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Speaker 1: accounts of people who have been near lightening ground lightning

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Speaker 1: strikes and and have had some hearing damage as a result.

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Speaker 1: Your wax blockage can do it. Yeah, to your point

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Speaker 1: that you made in a previous episode, Um, some ear

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Speaker 1: wax is good, but a lot of your waxes is bad.

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Speaker 1: It could be bad. But don't ear candle it out though. Yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: earbone changes um, and then t MJ disorders. It's a

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a long list of things that can

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Speaker 1: that can contribute to this. So what's going on in

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Speaker 1: the brain when this happens? Um to ninus actually arises

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Speaker 1: when that flexibility and our tone map goes bad. So

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Speaker 1: again we talked about the ways that those sound vibrations

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Speaker 1: find the frequencies, and uh, they've got the tone map

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Speaker 1: in the auditory cortex. So things kind of go awry

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Speaker 1: when let's say you have toxic drugs or with loud noises,

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Speaker 1: you have damage to the nerve hairs and the ears.

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Speaker 1: It's really a story about damage to those hairs that

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Speaker 1: are picking up the frequencies, and the injured nerve hairs

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Speaker 1: can no longer send signals from the ear to the

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Speaker 1: tone map. So it's again it's not the inner ear

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Speaker 1: making the noise, but the tunnel map. So if you

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Speaker 1: don't have these incoming signals coming in as they normally would,

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Speaker 1: the neurons undergo a transformation. They start to eavesdrop on

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Speaker 1: their neighbors, firing in response to other frequencies, and they

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Speaker 1: even start to just fire randomly without any incoming signals.

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Speaker 1: And then as the brains feedback control gets rewired, the

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Speaker 1: neurons end up in a self sustaining glop, producing a

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Speaker 1: constant ringing. That's why it's always that the low level,

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Speaker 1: although sometimes exacerbated and in the volume of it seems

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Speaker 1: to increase, but that's why it's always there and always present.

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Speaker 1: And I thought that was very interesting because again we're

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Speaker 1: talking about here is a type of hallucination by the

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Speaker 1: auditory cortex or crossing of signals are just absolute firing

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Speaker 1: out of nowhere and trying to fill that void of

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Speaker 1: sound from the damaged hair receptor. Okay, so there are

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Speaker 1: a couple of ways that you can kind of go

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Speaker 1: about it um in terms of treating it, and as

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Speaker 1: I mentioned, cognitive behavioral therapy is one of them. I

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Speaker 1: did want to point out that this is something has

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Speaker 1: been going on along into our history. This The Assyrians

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Speaker 1: used to pour rose extract into the ear through a

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Speaker 1: bronze tube. That sounds delightful, right. To try to alleviate it,

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Speaker 1: the Roman writer Pliny the Elder suggested that earthworms boiled

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Speaker 1: in goose grease be put in the ear. That sounds

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Speaker 1: significantly less pleasant. It is my favorite. Medieval Welsh physicians

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Speaker 1: in the town of Midify recommended that their patients take

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Speaker 1: a freshly baked loaf of bread out of the oven,

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Speaker 1: cut into and then quote apply to both ears as

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Speaker 1: hot as can be borne, bind and thus produced perspiration

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Speaker 1: and by the help of God, you will be killed.

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I hope there are some illustrations of that,

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Speaker 1: because I'm just picturing like medieval peasants out of out

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Speaker 1: of a out of a brugal painting, you know, walking

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Speaker 1: around with with loaves of bread, giant loaves of bread

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Speaker 1: stuck to their ears. That would be phenomenal, right, and

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Speaker 1: then then they get teased. They're called Bunnier's. That's just

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Speaker 1: no fun, just that. Um. So now you know, fast

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Speaker 1: forward to our modern times and there is an interesting

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Speaker 1: um tect that some physicians are taking, and this is

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Speaker 1: music therapy, and I thought this was really interesting. Christo

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Speaker 1: Pantev and his team at the University of Monster successfully

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Speaker 1: rewired their tonitas patients tone map by taking the patient's

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Speaker 1: favorite music and removing from it audio frequencies that matched

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Speaker 1: that person's tonitis. So this is called notched music and

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Speaker 1: it contains no energy and that frequency arrange the one

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Speaker 1: that's bothering them, um, that's surrounding the tonitis frequency. So

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Speaker 1: there's actually a program um that that does this, that

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Speaker 1: you can go in and do this. There's a YouTube

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Speaker 1: video tutorial of this that will show you how to

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Speaker 1: ascertain your tonitis frequency and then to take it out

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Speaker 1: of your favorite music. It's pretty cool. So, after one

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Speaker 1: year listening to um their favorite notch tunes, test subjects

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Speaker 1: reported a significant decrease in the loudness of the ear ringing,

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Speaker 1: and that was compared to a matched group of tonitas

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Speaker 1: patients who listen to a placebo or unaltered music. So

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Speaker 1: what's more, and this is really interesting, is that the

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Speaker 1: brain scans found that the neurons tuned to the tonight

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Speaker 1: frequency in the auditory cortex became less active, so they

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Speaker 1: sow this decrease. Now, what all this is pointing to

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Speaker 1: is that this idea of brain plasticity that we've talked

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Speaker 1: about again and again, and there are doctors who have

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Speaker 1: likened it to when you lose a limb, a phantom limb,

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Speaker 1: that you still get senses from that, but your brain

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Speaker 1: begins to adapt and then it begins to take up

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Speaker 1: the senses of the other fingers and incorporate that. So

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Speaker 1: the idea is that perhaps the brain's auditory cortex um

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Speaker 1: that map could be rerouted in a way that it

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Speaker 1: could take up the other frequencies in a way that

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Speaker 1: it doesn't create that feedback loop. So there's there's um

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Speaker 1: some measure of success there, you know. Obviously again there's

426
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Speaker 1: there's no magic bullet here, right, but there are a

427
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Speaker 1: number of ways to mitigate it and to treat it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there's a there's a path at least to say,

429
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 1: there could be a way to in the future at

430
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: least really isolated and figure out a good solution. Yeah.

431
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 1: Now that My one problem with that lest study you

432
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 1: mentioned was that even though there was a control group,

433
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: there was not a group that had pumpernickel on their

434
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:17,120
Speaker 1: ears that we know of. That we know of that. Yeah,

435
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: But I think and then in the name of fairness,

436
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 1: you need your you need your your normal control group,

437
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,640
Speaker 1: you need your pumper nickel group, you need your earthworm

438
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:29,640
Speaker 1: um goose liver patte group, you need your your group

439
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:33,160
Speaker 1: that has the rose water and the copper tube. Well,

440
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,199
Speaker 1: I would argue that you would also go ahead and

441
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: just say sour dough r Yeah, because I mean perhaps

442
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 1: that you know, the attributes of these different types of

443
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 1: breads would have different, uh medicative effects. I don't know.

444
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,760
Speaker 1: Maybe there's an aravatic method that uses non I don't know.

445
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: I'm sure yeah, I'm sure there's some aravatic methods for

446
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: treatment on this. I have to look up. I'm sure

447
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 1: there may even be a mood for it. I don't know.

448
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:01,200
Speaker 1: That's the little hand movement to meditate with a lot

449
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 1: of those are digestion based though, so so maybe not. Now.

450
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: I know what a lot of you are thinking about

451
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: it tonightas it's it's a pain, all right, it's something

452
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: that that can be treated. Uh, there's no magic bullet.

453
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:18,680
Speaker 1: But is tonightas a god? Well, if it's a god, first,

454
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,920
Speaker 1: let's let's lay some groundwork first. You'd have to say

455
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 1: that nearly everybody would experience it, right, if you're gonna

456
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 1: take this, this nutty theory and run with it, And

457
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: we should point out George Mitchelson foy Um, author of

458
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,199
Speaker 1: Shut Up and Listen Hit an article about this in

459
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:40,120
Speaker 1: Psychology Today, he is the chief proponent of this, uh,

460
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: this theory. This let's say, more of a thought experiment

461
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: that anything philosophical thought experiment. But this is his brain child,

462
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: and I dare say he's probably the only person who

463
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 1: thought of this uh previously. It's interesting, it is a

464
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:56,159
Speaker 1: very interesting idea. He it's not a serious argument that

465
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: he's making. But it is a very very interesting philosophical

466
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:04,719
Speaker 1: question that is potentially answered by his condition. Yes, and

467
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: he lays lays the groundwork to this, this uh assortation

468
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: of God and tonitas by saying, Okay, there are a

469
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 1: lot of people who could be sufferers of this. And

470
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: in fact I started to think about this. I started

471
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 1: think about miss aphonia, right, And that's that's the sensitivity

472
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: is certain noises and that is particular to each person.

473
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 1: And people have argued that msophonia exists within each of us.

474
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 1: There's one little thing like the rubbing of balloons for me,

475
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:30,959
Speaker 1: I can't stand it. Yeah, there's everybody has a trigger.

476
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: So George Mitchelson Foy brings up this study, this Swedish

477
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: study from fifty three which took eighty college students who

478
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: swore they didn't have tenitas, and they put each one

479
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: of them in a soundproof environment, and the author's Heller

480
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:50,199
Speaker 1: and Bergmann concluded that audible tenitis was experienced by of

481
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,919
Speaker 1: the eight apparently normally hearing adults when placed in the

482
00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: situation where they had some ambient noise level. So what

483
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: he was saying, then, if that's the case, then most

484
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: of us experience this, and if we experience this, then

485
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 1: we generate our own sounds, separate from the outside sounds

486
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: of our hearing sense that is supposed to pick up

487
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: and report. So it's outside of us, is what he's saying.

488
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: It's outside of ourselves. It has nothing to do with

489
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: our consciousness. So if you if you start getting you know,

490
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: very platonic about this, if you dip into a little

491
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: reneed carts, uh, then you can arrive at the point

492
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 1: where you say, well, tonitus is something that comes from

493
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:35,920
Speaker 1: outside myself. It is uh, in a way, the horrible

494
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: strumming of some awful God perhaps or God itself. Now

495
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave it at that with with this theory,

496
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: but it is really interesting and highly recommend any of

497
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: the more philosophically minded of our listeners do check that out.

498
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: You can find it. Shut up and listen on psychology today,

499
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: George Mitchelson Foy. He'll get into all of the philosophical

500
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: ins and out. Now. I believe that he is a

501
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: sufferer of tonitus as well, and um, and I don't

502
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: think that he is trying to make light of this

503
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: at all, UM, So please don't take it as that.

504
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: But I think that he's just trying to put it

505
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 1: in a context of how do you live with something

506
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 1: that is so pervasive and so um, sometimes disorienting to

507
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,479
Speaker 1: your own mind. Yeah, you begin to think of it

508
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 1: and that as something that's other world layer outside of you. Yeah,

509
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,920
Speaker 1: and certainly it's there enough to have to start thinking

510
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: of new ways to approach it, and to sort of

511
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:29,919
Speaker 1: play with the idea and even maybe enjoy it on

512
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 1: some level, as he does here with this thought experiment.

513
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking about this movie and um,

514
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: you're gonna kill me because I can't think of the

515
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: name of it right now, But let's do it. Maybe

516
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: maybe you'll remember this. Um, maybe it's called Another World.

517
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: The premises, there's this the female heroine who looks up

518
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: and sees another earth, Another Earth there, another Earth there you. Yeah,

519
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: I have not seen it, but I am familiar with. Okay, Well,

520
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: there's a scene when she talks about Russian cosmonaut and

521
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: he is ends face shuttle and for six months he's there,

522
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: and at the beginning of his journey, he begins to

523
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: hear this tap tap tap tap tap tap, and it's

524
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: this awful tapping sound, and he realizes that for six months,

525
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: he's going to have to live with this noise, and

526
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 1: so he begins to make up this story about this noise,

527
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 1: about how it's his love or how it's this piece

528
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: of music, and he recast it as something to live with,

529
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: and it's this beautiful moment in the film. In fact,

530
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: if we can get some audio, we will certainly share

531
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 1: that with you guys. But I thought, in some sense,

532
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: to Nice is sort of like that, are really any

533
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: sort of auditory hallucinations outside of yourself, You sort of

534
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: have to make them fit into your worldview. Yeah, because

535
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: we're we're pattern recognition engines. That's how we roll. We

536
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: things that things that occur, even things that don't seem

537
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: to line up with our senses, we have to come

538
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: up with some sort of explanation for them. And in

539
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: that George Mitchelson voice, theory really rings true because it's

540
00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: kind of how we approach a lot of the things

541
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: in our lives. Something unexplained happens, we have to explain it.

542
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: We have to fit it into some understanding of the

543
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: natural or even unnatural world. Talking to bias, right, yeah,

544
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: in a good light? Yes, all right, Well, on that note,

545
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: let's let's call the robot over here and just run

546
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: through a few quick listener mails. All right, This first

547
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Adam Adam Rights and it says, hey, guys,

548
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: I've been enjoying your Nose to Tail series. You pick

549
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: You're picking haggis as the food of choice. Brought back

550
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: a funny memory. I had three months of training in Edinburgh,

551
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: Scotland with a company I previously worked for. During my

552
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: first week and instructor told us to try haggas as

553
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: it was quote in season. Uh. He went on to

554
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: explain that hagas is a small animal that lives in

555
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: the Scottish Highlands. It's hard to find, but at the

556
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: time it was hunting season, so they would be available

557
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: at restaurants. To catch a haggas was an intricate process.

558
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: You would first have to find a hole in the

559
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: mountains mountain grass where it's obviously been there burrowing, and

560
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: then you stay on the same lateral path, not climbing

561
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: or descending. You put up a mirror and wait for

562
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 1: the haggests to leave its home. The site of itself

563
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: in the mirror would give it a heart attack and

564
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 1: it would die. So although this sounds ridiculous. We were

565
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: all in our early twenties from every corner of the globe,

566
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: and I heard stranger stories that were from my Chinese

567
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: and Omani colleagues. We had haggests that night and the

568
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: next day our instructor told us he was just kidding

569
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: and then went on to explain what we really ate.

570
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: The restaurant we went to even played along, not knowing

571
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,959
Speaker 1: we had been had. We asked if Haggis was in season,

572
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: and with a smile, he replied, of course. The Scottish

573
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: definitely have a sense of good, sense of humor and

574
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: like to share their national dish, even if they have

575
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: to fib a bit to get you to try it.

576
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: Thanks for the great show and keep up the great work.

577
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: Lots of love from Cyprus. And that's Adam, our chief,

578
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: the chief Happiness Officer of course happiness Plunge dot com,

579
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: who's traveling the world doing good. That's right. I was

580
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: very excited to know that he's in Cypress right now.

581
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, Haggis was the featured dish that went

582
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: down our digestive journey when we did the Nose to

583
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: Tail and uh, I love that And now I have

584
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: this phrase to catch a haggas my brain picturing that

585
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: in my head, the hag is running along and you

586
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: know the mountain habitat and burrowing. That's great. Yeah, a

587
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: little Haggs creature. What would that look like? I suppose

588
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: the uh the animals from which its organs come from.

589
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: All right, here's one from our listener, Jen jen Wrightson

590
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: and says, Dear Robert and Julie, Stuff to Blow your

591
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: mind is one of my favorite podcasts, and I listened

592
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: to it all the time. Thank you so much for

593
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: the work you do. The episodes are always exciting and insightful.

594
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: I was reminded of something you might be interested in

595
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: when I listened to your episode Undercover Actors in the

596
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: Shadow Self, in which Julie mentioned how costly it is

597
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: for secret agents to keep in mind UH an entire

598
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: cover story about themselves. When I was in grad school,

599
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: I used to get sick all the time whenever I

600
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: got on a plane, which was often. It happened so

601
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: often that I started joking about it. I said I

602
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: hadn't the immune system of a baby squirrel, and that

603
00:31:58,320 --> 00:31:59,959
Speaker 1: I was a canary in a coal mine, because if

604
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: anybody on that plane had a cold, or the flu

605
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: soon I would too. I kept up the joking for

606
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: almost ten years until I realized that for the last

607
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: few years I hadn't gotten sick at all, even though

608
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: I'd been traveling at the same rate as before. My

609
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: diet and exercise hadn't changed. So what was it I

610
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: come out in retrospect? The break between coal minor canary

611
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: UH and quite healthy person can be placed cleanly in

612
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: the couple of months that I came out as gay

613
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: to everyone I knew. Even though my life had had

614
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: periods of been kent stressed, since then, I've never I've

615
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: never gotten sick at that rate. That Seriously, again, I

616
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 1: had spent my life laying a cover story, fiction written

617
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 1: for other people, over my real, stealth self. It wasn't

618
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: until I shucked it off that I realized how heavy

619
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: that story was. Anyway, your podcast made me realize that

620
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: even if I changed careers in the future, one thing

621
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 1: I had never ever want to be is a spy.

622
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: Thank you for all you do best, Jen Love. That's

623
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: a great story. That is a great story, and I

624
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: think that that speaks volumes to how we feel when

625
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: we are We feel like we're suppressing something or suppressing

626
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: you know, things that are very important about ourselves. That

627
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: um she says, you're you're putting a cover story over yourself. Yeah,

628
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: there's a cognitive and emotional um toll to be had

629
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: when you have to layer these uh these these layers

630
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: of fiction over your real self. So thank you Jim

631
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: for sharing that. So everyone out there, I'm sure you

632
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: you have some some feedback you'd like to give on

633
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: this or other episodes, particularly if you like Aaron experience

634
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: Tonight's in your daily life. Let us know how you

635
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: deal with it. Uh. What are the methods that you

636
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: use to treat it, either methods that have been uh

637
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: given to you or methods that you've sort of developed

638
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 1: on your your own way of coping with it. We'd

639
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: love to hear your feedback on this. So you can

640
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: find us in a number of places. Of course, the

641
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:44,800
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