WEBVTT - Jump Into The Void 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.120 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. From housetop work 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:16.320 got Carlo. One day, the men and dogs were sitting 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.880 on the crest of a cliff which fell away straight 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.680 down to naked bed rock three feet below. John Thornton 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.360 was sitting near the edge, Buck at his shoulder. A 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.200 thoughtless swim seized Thornton, and he drew the attention of 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.560 Hands and Pete to the experiment he had in mind. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.240 Jump Buck, He commanded, sweeping his arm out over the chasm. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:36.800 The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.400 extreme edge, while Hands and Pete were dragging them back 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.120 into safety. It's uncanny, Pete said, after it was over 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.680 and they had caught their speech. Thornton shook his head. No, 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.120 it is splendid, and it is terrible too. Do you 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:55.480 know it sometimes makes me afraid? Hey, welcome to stuff 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:57.360 to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamp and 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.000 my name is Christian Sager. Hate rob Have you ever 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.160 been standing at the edge of like a cliff or 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.600 a building, or maybe you're waiting for a train, like 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:13.480 a subway train. You just think I should jump, Well, 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:18.120 it never quite manifests itself as I should jump I 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.240 find that for me, it manifests itself as what if 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:25.319 I did jump? Like and I it's this intense contemplation 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.040 of the choice I have in the matter, and the 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.240 fact that I could if I wanted to fling myself 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:34.679 off of this cliff, you know, fall into the Grand Canyon, 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.920 go in front of a train, or a variant of 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.280 this thing I that I encountered atop of the Empire 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:42.720 State Building. Have you ever been up to the top 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:44.600 of the Empire State Building? You know that they have 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.080 these It's it's like being in a cage match. There's 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.600 no you would have There's basically no way you could 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.920 throw yourself off the Empire State Building, at least not 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.760 on a whim. It would take it would take some 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.960 some some planning, and some effort. But what I did 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.560 find myself struggling with was what if I threw my 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.680 wallet over the side to the street below. That would 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.120 be horrible, And so I ended ended up wrestling with 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.760 that possibility, which is kind of like throwing a piece 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.440 of your life over the side. Yeah, isn't there that adage? 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:15.799 And I think how stuff works is even done an 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.160 article on this about like what happens when you throw 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.360 a penny over the side of the Empire State Building, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.560 and I think there's the urban legend is that it 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.040 can kill a person. Yeah, I don't know what the 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.560 science is that I seem to recall. It doesn't quite 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.000 pan out. It's it's been a while since I've looked 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:33.240 at that one, but I still I'm not gonna go 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.760 throwing pennies over I feel like my wallet would maybe 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.560 just balk somebody in the head probably with my wallet 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.880 would probably not go through somebody. Yeah. Well. The other 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:47.000 one of these is uh captured in Woody Ellen's Any 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.040 Hall movie when Christopher Walkin is talking about how he 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.079 wants to swerve into traffic and at night and he's 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.000 looking at the other headlights coming the other way. They're 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:01.320 all related. Uh, And this is you out there are 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.000 probably going like this is real morbid guys, where are 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.480 you going with this? Uh? This is an actual phenomenon, 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:12.799 so so common that it has multiple names, and there 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.040 has been a major study done on it. Um, so 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.360 we're going to cover that today. It is the sudden 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.600 feeling that we want to put ourselves in a harm's way. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.040 Examples of this often include the urge to jump off 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.360 a top building or to veer into oncoming traffic. The 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:34.040 French term for it is pel dou vede, which means 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.680 call of the Void, which I really like. And that's 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.320 how I how I came to this was there's this 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.560 pretty brutal hardcore band that I like called Call of 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.520 the Void, and I was typing it into Google the 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:50.040 other day and an article on this phenomenon popped up, 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:51.560 and I was like, I've never heard of this before. 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.280 And then I said to you, let's let's talk about this. Yeah, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.720 I mean, I knew about it. I've had the experience, 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:58.840 but I feel like most people have had the experience. 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:00.680 I would I would definitely like the here from anyone 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.800 who has not had some variant of this. Now, you 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.000 mentioned that it's called often referred to as Call of 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.880 the Void, and some of our listeners might have recommended. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.080 The reading at the top of the episode is being 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.240 from Jack London's nineteen three novel The Call of the Wild. 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.400 I like how this particular bit from that novel, certainly 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:21.840 that this is the main part of the novel that 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.880 always sticks out in my mind because it gets into 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.880 similar territory as the Call of the Void. The idea 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.320 that with a split decision, you could bring being into 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.840 un being. In this case, it's the dog and really 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:39.640 the but the dog also um represents much about the 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.719 central character in the Call in the Wild as well. 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.640 What's strange about it is it's like the ultimate form 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.279 of control when you feel like you don't have control, 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.159 right It's like this ultimate expression where you're like, oh, 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.839 like you think I don't have control over anything. The 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.200 one thing I can totally control is I could just 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.560 kill myself right now if I wanted to, which is 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.680 horrible to think about, but we're gonna get into it. 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:05.640 There's like a lot of theories as to where this 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:07.400 thing comes from. I don't know about you, but like 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.120 when I've experienced it, I feel it in the pit 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:14.600 of my stomach, like it's like a full body sensation. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.200 It's not just like a little like thought like I 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.599 wonder if I if I jumped, you know, there's this weird, yeah, 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.040 this visceral kind of vibe from it. It's it's not 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.719 so much like you're having to hold yourself down, but 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.440 sometimes you do kind of I have been in places 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.040 where I feel like I kind of want to squat 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:35.719 down and maybe touch the ground a little bit, even 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.160 though I'm not near the edge now. One thing I 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.960 will say is that I have not felt this recently 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.640 because I find that when I am in places with 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.880 ledges or anything of that nature, I tend to be 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.800 there with my wife and son, and so I'm more 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:55.480 concerned about them falling out off, especially my son being 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.280 like just four going on five. He falls off the 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.880 stuff all the time, oh like he and he ends 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.919 up generating all of my anxiety about people falling or jumping, 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.240 And then I don't I guess I have less room 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.680 for myself. Sure, well, that makes sense based on the 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.880 cognitive dissonance theory that we're going to talk about today, 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:21.800 that that your parental authority would like override, override the 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:26.719 biological like brain stuff that's going on theoretically here that 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.159 causes it. There's a whole theory as to what causes 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.400 this seems close, But let's go through all this stuff 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.080 and kind of figure it out. Before we do that, 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.920 I wanted to add a John paulse Sartra observed this 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.760 decades ago, and he said that this emotion is unsettling 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:47.040 because it creates an unnerving, shaky sensation of not being 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.320 able to trust one's own instincts, which is which is 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.520 really interesting. Like I hadn't even thought about it as 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.440 that that like you feel like, so I just expressed 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:57.800 it as a thing where it's like you feel like 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.240 you're in total control. But then his aversion of it 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.000 is you're totally out of control. Well, it's kind of 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:04.920 the you know it's It's another reason I like the 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.640 call the wild quote here because he talks about this 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.840 thing being splendid and terrible at the same time, and 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.240 to to stand it's it's like standing at the edge 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.520 of the Grand Canyon, Like the Grand Canyon is an 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.480 awesome experience to see that much emptiness, but it's also 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.960 you feel vulnerable and if you're gonna go and you 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.040 want to go in style, that seems like that would 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.160 be kind of like a beautiful way to do it. Well, 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.760 a lot of people have Yeah, I mean, I'm not suicidal. 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:34.960 Don't think that audience, And we're going to talk about 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.200 suicidal thoughts and relation to this as well, because it's 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.720 a pretty serious topic. But I could there there's something, 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.680 there is a beauty to it, and um, this is 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.520 where Mr Sigmund Freud comes in and we'll we'll we'll 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.000 talk about that as well, But first let's look at 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.360 the more recent study. This is really the hinge of 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:57.640 this episode. So inven a team of scientists from Florida 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.000 State University decided to investigate it. And this was in 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:03.960 the Journal of Effective Disorders. And the authors of the 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.000 paper were led by a woman named Jennifer Hayes. She's 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.640 was a graduate student and she's currently faculty at Notre Dame. 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.760 UH and this was at f s us Joiner Lab. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.280 And you might be going, why would anybody want to 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.040 study this? Like, where would this come from? Well, the 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.560 idea here is that it could shine light on the 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.760 whole idea of a death drive, that some suicides are 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:32.360 impulsive and have nothing to do with depression. UH. And 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:36.440 that was interesting. I hadn't really thought of that before myself, 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:41.040 but I could reading up more on Freud's death drive theory, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.760 I guess I could see where that came from. Yeah, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.520 I do have to say for my own part, I'm 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.679 I'm I'll entertain the possibility that that exists, but I'm 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:55.120 rather I'm rather doubtful that suicide is can occur or 0:08:55.480 --> 0:09:00.679 does occur in any significant to any significant degree, completely 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.800 isolated from depression or willful intent. Yeah, like the idea 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:06.720 that someone's just like, oh I could jump off the 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.760 into the canyon and die, let's do it, bam, done, 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.760 the end the deal. Like, I can see the impulse 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:17.640 being a factor if there is already some underlying depression, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.040 or if one already had some sort of a plan 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.640 in mind, and this is just like this is the 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.080 day that I act on it. Yeah, So you know, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.520 I think that it's worth saying, like, uh, from my 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.520 subjective experience, like I said, I myself am not suicidal, 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.040 and I haven't. I've had what we will refer to 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.720 later as suicidal thinking, but I've never had suicidal planning. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.360 And there's a major difference, right and and and this 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:48.600 is sort of the call of the void, the high 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.920 the high place phenomenon. Those are those are versions of 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.160 suicidal thinking. That's about as far as it's gone for me, right, Yeah, Well, 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.120 suicidal thinking. I feel like it's often tied into with 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.280 the romance suicide because we have so many stories and 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.520 you know these generally are very lopsided in their presentation 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.480 of suicide. Uh, the display it is this this noble 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:15.400 poetic thing that doomed dreamers and doomed lovers Romeo and Julia, Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.439 But I we've all been teenagers, so we've all had 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.800 moments where we're like, oh, my life is so tragic, 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.920 and you might envision this scenario. But there's to your point, 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:28.120 there's a difference between envisioning it, daydreaming about it, and 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.360 UH and thinking about what everyone will say when you're gone, 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.840 versus actually putting some sort of plan in place. But 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.520 for our listeners, I do want to establish up front, 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:41.800 you know, I have experience with people who were suicidal 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:46.679 or have committed suicide, so I am sympathetic to that, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.080 and I don't want this episode to feel like it's callous. 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:54.119 This is connected to that, but it's a The suicidal 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.079 thinking that goes along with call of the void syndrome 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.240 seems to be a are cry from the actual act 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.600 of it UM and but we're gonna get into that 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.400 at the end of the episode. So back to this research. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.240 They found that more than thirty percent of the people 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:16.120 they talked to said they had experienced this UH phenomenon 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.600 at least once, and the researchers refer to it in 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.680 their study as high place phenomenon, they weren't taking into 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:24.640 account like throwing yourself in front of a train or 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.720 driving an oncoming traffic uh. They were also curious whether 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.280 it was related to a person's history of suicidal thinking, 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.240 and from their findings they found that it is common 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:42.000 even among people who have no depression or suicidal thinking history. 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.600 So this was their methodology. They asked four and thirty 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.199 one college students whether and how often they had experienced 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.559 the urge to jump off of tall things. Then they 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.520 examined their depressive symptoms in their history of suicidal thoughts. 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.679 They also took a look at how sensitive these people 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.520 were to anxiety, as well as how fearful they were 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:08.120 of anxiety symptoms such as an elevated heartbeat and shortness 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:12.160 of breath. Among those who had never had suicidal thoughts, 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:17.000 still seventeen percent of them had experienced the urge to jump. 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:22.680 Among those who had experienced with sidal thoughts, fifties six 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:27.840 percent experienced it. So that's significant if it lines up. 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.920 Now we'll talk there's a little bit of methodology stuff 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.880 with this, this that I've calling the question. The researchers 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:38.160 were also interested specifically in the sensitivity to reactive safety 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.280 signals and if that corresponded to a higher likelihood of 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.319 experiencing the urge to jump. So to mark this reactivity, 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.920 they looked at levels of anxiety sensitivity, such as a 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.400 faster heartbeat. Uh. This was because previous research suggested that 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:58.600 high anxiety sensitivity is actually tied to a tendency for 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:03.920 us as human beings to misinterpret random, innocuous bodily sensations 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.480 as being dangerous. Yeah, we we tend to. We tend 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.160 to make that air and cognition, you know, because there 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:14.240 is a survival advantage in jumping to conclusions rather than 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.360 not making any conclusions. One gets you eaten by a tiger. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.119 One just means you go about your daily life constantly 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.400 looking for the tiger that might eave Yeah, I mean 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:24.920 I've actually experienced this, I'd say in like the last 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.440 two weeks, where like I'll get up and I'll read 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.200 about current events in the news, and my heart will 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.840 start beating rapidly and I'll go, oh, this is is 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.120 there something wrong? Do I need to go see my doctor? 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.880 And I realized it's anxiety. It's it's not normal, but 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.040 I'm having a normal anxious reaction to the things that 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.160 I'm reading about, right, But then my thought is like, oh, 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.520 what if I have a heart attack? You know, So 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.920 this is kind of along those lines where the idea 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:57.480 is that we misinterpret these random bodily sensations is being dangerous. Okay. 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:02.040 So their studies finding was that yes, more sensitivity to 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:06.840 anxiety was related to the frequency of the urge to jump, 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:12.160 especially in people who had never experienced suicidal thoughts. They 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.920 also interpreted this as people without a history of suicidal 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.560 thoughts as being more sensitive to bodily cues that they 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.640 could misinterpret. So that's interesting. So if you've never experienced 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.120 suicidal thoughts, they're saying, you're more likely to interpret say 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.840 like your heart beating faster as as something of danger. 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:34.560 It's interesting. Yeah, I mean it's kind of like if 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.680 you if you've ever had an anxiety attack, if you 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.200 if you have, if you have one and they're rare 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:42.840 than the first time you have one, it can be 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.280 extremely alarmente. If you think, oh, oh goodness, I'm about 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.600 to die now. So the study ultimately translates as follows. 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:55.520 People with high anxiety sensitivity were more likely to have 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.360 higher chances of suicidal thoughts. Okay, that makes sense. So 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.400 if you're sensitive to the bodily reactions and you're worried 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:06.160 about being anxious, then you're more likely to have suicidal thoughts. 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:11.160 But subsequently, you were also more likely to report experiencing 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:16.200 this call of the void phenomenon. So that's interesting. Why 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.080 do we experience this though Like? Where is this coming from? Well, 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:21.720 let's take a quick break and we come back. We'll 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:29.880 dive into that very question. All right, we're back. So 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.800 one theory about this call of the void phenomenon or 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:37.480 the idea of high place phenomenon, is that there's something 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:42.200 going on with a temporary uncoupling of our different perceptual 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:47.000 systems in our brains. It's kind of like cognitive dissonance. Yeah. Yeah. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:48.680 The idea, and this come up comes up all the 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:50.560 time on the podcast, the idea that you have two 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.440 different ideas, two different inclinations in your mind, and they 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.320 conflict with each other. So the classic, the easy one 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.520 to go through here, of course, is oh, I I 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.640 think homosexuality is wrong, but I have homosexual thoughts in 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.920 my head. These two do not go with one another, 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.400 um and this generates it's kind of a friction in 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.720 the mind exactly. So their theory was that when you're 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.080 standing on the edge of a skyscraper, your brain has 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.520 fast fear circuitry, that's what they called it. Obviously it's 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:25.000 not circuitry that and this may alert you of danger, 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.280 just the danger of hey, you could fall, But then 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.000 our perceptual system in our brain is slower than our 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.320 fear system, and that kicks in afterwards and it makes 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.240 you realize there's actually no danger. So to make sense 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.920 of the safety signal, our brain mixes this up as 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.360 cognitive dissonance and we assume we want to jump, which 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.680 is why people get confused by this. So this is interesting. 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:55.800 So individuals who are experiencing this are not necessarily suicidal. Instead, 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.960 it seems to reflect their sensitivity to internal cues affirming 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.200 their actual will to live. So that lines up with 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.879 what we're saying earlier that they're sensitive to like oh, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.560 I'm feeling anxious or oh I'm feeling depressed or whatever. 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.000 So it makes sense that they would be more sensitive 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.760 to their uh, both their fear system and their perception system. Yeah, 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.400 I do like how the main idea here is that 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.639 you're safe, but you're still taking in the censury data 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.720 that says you're not safe. And I think that we 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:27.600 we actually get a little bit of this when we 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.920 watch a particularly terrifying video like we've all, especially within 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:33.879 the age of go pro. I'm sure everyone has seen 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:38.480 like base jumping, crazy skiing videos, stuff with great heights, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.800 or people climbing up antennas. And you watch it and 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.639 you couldn't be more safe watching it in your you know, 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.160 living room, in your office, on your phone or your 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:52.040 personal computer. But you feel a visceral, you know, and 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.119 if it's probably empathic, but also you're taking in certain 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.840 sense data about a dangerous environment and you can't help 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.159 it feel part of that. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting, and 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:08.399 I think I'm leaning towards agreeing with this theory. But 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.679 let's remember that this study, there's only one study on 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.760 this as far as I can tell, and it isn't conclusive. Um, 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:21.120 their explanation is simply theoretical and it doesn't have neurological evidence. Uh. 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.680 The methodology also has some weaknesses, so let's acknowledge those. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.800 First of all, they only used university students, and let's 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.920 be honest, university students are not representative of humanity, right right, Yeah, 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:33.800 it tends to be a profile of a very specific 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:39.920 socio economic, racial division of society. Yeah. And the volunteers 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:44.199 themselves were confessing, well, they may have misremembered their experience 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.480 or even falsely reported it. So that doesn't mean the 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.080 studies flawed. It just means we need more research. Um. 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.080 So a proposal for this is to actually conduct an 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:58.920 experiment where scientists would have to take subjects and position 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.880 them at different high It's to test at what elevation 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:06.440 they begin having the thought to jump. Um. And there's 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.719 another explanation that goes along I think with what you 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.400 were saying about the watching those videos, which is that 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.879 it could simply be connected to our thrill of not 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:20.240 buckling under fear, which is a kind of cognitive dissonance. Um. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.600 This is the same reason why we go to haunted houses, right, 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:28.119 both real and uh, you know, fun haunted houses. But 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.840 like think about like when you're a little kid, uh 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.000 and somebody says, let's go that house over there is haunted, 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.960 I dare you to go into it, Right, It's kind 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.359 of the same vibe. Uh. And then subsequently you go 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.359 to something like I don't know. Our version is another 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:44.600 world here in Atlanta. You go to that, you know 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:46.840 somebody's gonna jump out with a fake chainsaw and try 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.399 to scare you. But the thrill of overcoming that fear 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.280 is part of why you go and pay money to 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.160 do it. Yeah, I mean it feels you with endorphins. 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.320 You're you're very much living in the moment. People who 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.760 aren't into meditation or yoga still might go to a 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.440 haunted house or watch a scary movie, and that's that's 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.280 kind of meditative in a sense. It puts you in 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.720 the now. It's It's probably another reason why jump scares 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.639 are so successful in horror films, right, there's an addiction 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.080 to it. Yeah, And it's simple and it works, and 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:21.119 it ties into our basic evolutionary state to be on 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.520 the lookout for the tiger that jumps out of the grass. Now, 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:26.399 there's a no take on all of this, and it 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.560 ties in I think nicely to what you said about 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:30.879 the varying heights. At what height does it kick in? 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.200 For my own part, I feel like there is definitely 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:39.400 a difference between any call of the void that occurs 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.320 at at lower heights as opposed to like truly awesome 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:48.200 heights like Grand Canyon, cliff Edge type he total obliteration. Yeah, 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.000 total obliteration, I think is the thing because it's such, 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.320 it's such a it would be such a drastic choice. Okay, 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.600 it would be such a choice between life and and 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:59.879 and I don't know. I almost to say death like 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.720 puts too much of an atmospheric twist on it, but 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.360 more like between being an un being and I think 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:08.840 this is I keep thinking this is the two roads 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:13.119 diverge in a Yellow Woods approach. Um. So in the 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.600 Choose your Own Adventure book that is life, we encounter 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.160 plenty of forking paths, right, but many of these are 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.840 hardly choices at all. I mean, on some level, we 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.119 all choose whether they're going to go to work this 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.800 morning or find a liquor store and drink our purchase 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.560 in the woods behind the Yeah, I think, yeah, I 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.480 mean for most of us, a lot of people struggle 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.520 with that every morning. Well, some people realistically do. No 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.240 I'm not, I'm not being sarchotetica, but but for many 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.240 of us, it's not really a choice. Like the things 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:42.879 we do are the things we do. We have this 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.600 pattern and there's really this is where we get into 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:47.760 that idea that we're not really making choices and more 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:52.480 if at all, however, there are choices that are more 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.840 real than others, where two paths of equal weight and 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.119 possibility are presented and uh, and what is weightier than 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:00.840 the old to be or not to be? The choice 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.960 between being and unding that stands before us when we 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.520 stand at the edge of a great expanse. So it's 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.119 not so much that we're tempted, but that our path 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.000 choosing brain can't help but engage in one of its 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:16.280 many cognitive superpowers, cognitive superpower that we all possess and 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.120 uh and used to thrive. And this is a chronosthesia, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.760 which is also known as mental time travel. So this 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.639 entails our ability to be aware of our past and 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:31.080 future and to envision multiple possible futures before us. So 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:33.320 it's the key to our survival. But it's also the 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:35.600 reason you might listen to NPR in the morning and 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.920 mentally time travel to the dawn of the Third World War. 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.760