Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And as always
Speaker 1: on Saturdays, the vault opens up, the door swings wide,
Speaker 1: and the darkness beckons. But today there's a special kind
Speaker 1: of beckoning of the darkness. Right, that's right, We're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about the call of the void, jumping into
Speaker 1: the void. This is an episode today with Christian back
Speaker 1: at the Dawn of and this one deals with like
Speaker 1: the the curious situation we often experience if we stay
Speaker 1: at the top of a tall building. Now so might experience.
Speaker 1: This is the the the the sort of fear. It's
Speaker 1: not quite a it's like a mix between a fear
Speaker 1: and a temptation to jump or or the way I've
Speaker 1: I've experienced it before. And as in an example I
Speaker 1: explained in this episode is that I'll be are to
Speaker 1: be stay on the top of the Empire State Building
Speaker 1: and there's no way I could actually jump off. I
Speaker 1: couldn't you know, I wouldn't be able to scale the
Speaker 1: barrier and then jump. But I I'll find myself thinking
Speaker 1: about what would happen if I threw my wallet over
Speaker 1: the side, you know, what if I what have I
Speaker 1: got my my phone out and somehow managed to fling
Speaker 1: that over the side as well. What is this peculiar
Speaker 1: call of the void we experience? I think what would
Speaker 1: happen is you would suddenly have a lot more free time,
Speaker 1: probably probably, But then I'd be freaking about out about
Speaker 1: who's trying to call me and email me? It would, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would. It would be bad either way, the call
Speaker 1: of the void or the call of the phone. I
Speaker 1: don't know which is worse. Uh well, either way, this
Speaker 1: is a really interesting topic. I'm glad you and Christian
Speaker 1: explored it, and I'm glad we get to share it
Speaker 1: with you out there in the audience. Yet again. Welcome
Speaker 1: to stuff to blow your mind from how stuff works, Carl.
Speaker 1: One day, the men and dogs were sitting on the
Speaker 1: crest of a cliff which fell away straight down to
Speaker 1: naked bedrock three ft below. John Thornton was sitting near
Speaker 1: the edge, bucket his shoulder. A thoughtless whim sees Thornton,
Speaker 1: and he drew the attention of hands and pete to
Speaker 1: the experiment he had in mind. Jump buck He commanded,
Speaker 1: sweeping his arm out over the chasm. The next instant.
Speaker 1: He was grappling with Buck on the extreme edge while
Speaker 1: Hands and Pete were dragging them back into safety. It's uncanny,
Speaker 1: Pete said, after it was over and they had caught
Speaker 1: their speech. Thornton shook his head. No, it is splendid
Speaker 1: and it is terrible too, do you know it sometimes
Speaker 1: makes me afraid. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and my name is Christian Sager. Hey, Robert,
Speaker 1: have you ever been standing at the edge of like
Speaker 1: a cliff or a building, or maybe you're waiting for
Speaker 1: a train, like a subway train. You just think I
Speaker 1: should jump? Well, it never quite manifests itself as I
Speaker 1: should jump. I find that for me, it manifests itself
Speaker 1: as what if I did jump? Like you know, it's
Speaker 1: this intense contemplation of the choice I have in the matter,
Speaker 1: and the fact that I could if I wanted to
Speaker 1: fling myself off of this cliff, you know, fall into
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon, go in front of a train, or
Speaker 1: a variant of this thing I that I encountered a
Speaker 1: top of the Empire State Building. Have you ever been
Speaker 1: up to the top of the Empire State Building? You know,
Speaker 1: that they have these, it's basically being in a cage match.
Speaker 1: There's no you would have There's basically no way you
Speaker 1: could throw yourself off the Empire State Building, at least
Speaker 1: not on a whim. It would take, it would take
Speaker 1: some some some planning and some effort. But what I
Speaker 1: did find myself struggling with was what if I threw
Speaker 1: my wallet over the side down into the street below.
Speaker 1: That would be horrible, And so I ended ended up
Speaker 1: wrestling with that possibility, which is kind of like throwing
Speaker 1: a piece of your life over the side. Isn't there
Speaker 1: that adage? And I think how stuff works is even
Speaker 1: done an article on this about like what happens when
Speaker 1: you throw a penny over the side of the Empire
Speaker 1: State Building? And I think there's the urban legend is
Speaker 1: that it can kill a person. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the science is bey and that I seem to
Speaker 1: recall it doesn't quite pan out. It's it's been a
Speaker 1: while since I've looked at that one, but I still
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go throwing pennies over I feel like
Speaker 1: my wallet would maybe just balks somebody in't have probably
Speaker 1: with my wallet would probably not go through somebody. Yeah. Well.
Speaker 1: The other one of these is uh captured in Woody
Speaker 1: Ellen's Annie Hall movie when Christopher Walkin is talking about
Speaker 1: how he wants to swerve into traffic and at night
Speaker 1: and he's looking at the other headlights coming the other way.
Speaker 1: They're all related. Uh, and this is you. You out
Speaker 1: there are probably going like, this is real morbid guys,
Speaker 1: where are you going with this? Uh? This is an
Speaker 1: actual phenomenon, so so common that it has multiple names,
Speaker 1: and there has been a major study done on it. Um,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna cover that today. It is the sudden
Speaker 1: feeling that we want to put ourselves in harms way.
Speaker 1: Examples of this often include the urge to jump off
Speaker 1: a tap building or to veer into oncoming traffic. The
Speaker 1: French term for it is a pel dou vede, which
Speaker 1: means call of the Void, which I really like. And
Speaker 1: that's how I how I came to this was there's
Speaker 1: this pretty brutal hardcore band that I like called Call
Speaker 1: of the Void, and I was typing it into Google
Speaker 1: the other day in an article on this phenomenon popped
Speaker 1: up and I was like, I've never heard of this before,
Speaker 1: and then I said to you let's let's talk about this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I knew about it, I've had the experience,
Speaker 1: but I feel like most people have had the experience.
Speaker 1: I would I would definitely like to hear from anyone
Speaker 1: who has not had some variant of this. Now you
Speaker 1: mentioned it. It's called often referred to as Call of
Speaker 1: the Void, and some of our listeners might have recommended
Speaker 1: the reading at the top of the episode as being
Speaker 1: from Jack London's nineteen o three novel The Call of
Speaker 1: the Wild. I like how this particular bit from that novel.
Speaker 1: Certainly that this is the main part of the novel
Speaker 1: that always sticks out in my mind because it gets
Speaker 1: into similar territory as the Call of the Void, the
Speaker 1: idea that with a split decision you could bring being
Speaker 1: into un being. In this case it's the dog and
Speaker 1: really the but the dog also um represents much about
Speaker 1: the central character in The Call in the Wild as well.
Speaker 1: What's strange about it is it's like the ultimate form
Speaker 1: of control when you feel like you don't have control, right,
Speaker 1: It's like this ultimate expression where you're like, oh, like
Speaker 1: you think I don't have control over anything. The one
Speaker 1: thing I can totally control is I could just kill
Speaker 1: myself right now if I wanted to, which is horrible
Speaker 1: to think about, but we're gonna get into it. There's
Speaker 1: like a lot of theories as to where this thing
Speaker 1: comes from. I don't know about you, but like when
Speaker 1: I've experienced it, I feel it in the pit of
Speaker 1: my stomach, like it's like a full body sensation. It's
Speaker 1: not just like a little like thought like I wonder
Speaker 1: if I if I jumped, you know, there's this weird Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gravity, visceral kind of vibe from it. It's it's
Speaker 1: not so much like you're having to hold yourself down,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you do kind of. I have been in
Speaker 1: places where I feel like I kind of want to
Speaker 1: squat down and maybe touch the ground a little bit,
Speaker 1: even though I'm not near the edge now. One thing
Speaker 1: I will say is that I have not felt this
Speaker 1: recently because I find that when I am in places
Speaker 1: with ledges or anything of that nature, I tend to
Speaker 1: be there with my wife and son, and so I'm
Speaker 1: more concerned about them falling out off, especially my son
Speaker 1: being like just four going on five, He falls off
Speaker 1: the stuff all the time, so like he and he
Speaker 1: ends up generating all of my anxiety about people falling
Speaker 1: or jumping, and then I don't I guess I have
Speaker 1: less room for myself. Sure, well that makes sense based
Speaker 1: on the cognitive dissonance theory that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about today, that that your parental authority would like override,
Speaker 1: override the biologue goal like brain stuff that's going on
Speaker 1: theoretically here that causes it. There's a whole theory as
Speaker 1: to what causes this seems close, But let's go through
Speaker 1: all this stuff and kind of figure it out. Before
Speaker 1: we do that. I wanted to add a John paulse
Speaker 1: Sartra observed this decades ago, and he said that this
Speaker 1: emotion is unsettling because it creates an unnerving, shaky sensation
Speaker 1: of not being able to trust one's own instincts, which
Speaker 1: is which is really interesting. Like I hadn't even thought
Speaker 1: about it as that that like you feel like, so
Speaker 1: I just expressed it as a thing where it's like
Speaker 1: you feel like you're in total control. But then his
Speaker 1: version of it is you're totally out of control. Well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the you know, it's It's another reason
Speaker 1: I like the Call of the Wild quote here, because
Speaker 1: he talks about this thing being splendid and terrible at
Speaker 1: the same time. And to to stand it's it's like
Speaker 1: standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, Like the
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon is an awesome experience to see that much emptiness,
Speaker 1: but it's also you feel vulnerable. If you're gonna go
Speaker 1: and you want to go in style, that seems like
Speaker 1: that would be kind of like a beautiful way to
Speaker 1: do it. Well, a lot of people have Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not suicidal. Don't think that, audience, And we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about suicidal thoughts and relation to this as well,
Speaker 1: because it's a pretty serious topic. But I could there
Speaker 1: there's something, there is a beauty to it, and um,
Speaker 1: this is where Mr Sigmund Freud comes in and we'll
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk about that as well. But first let's
Speaker 1: look at the more recent study. This is really the
Speaker 1: hinge of this episode. So in twleven, a team of
Speaker 1: scientists from Florida State University decided to investigate it, and
Speaker 1: this was in the Journal of Effective Disorders and the
Speaker 1: authors of the paper were led by a woman named
Speaker 1: Jennifer Haymes. She's was a graduate student and she's currently
Speaker 1: faculty at Notre Dame UH and this was at F
Speaker 1: s us Joiner Lab. And you might be going, why
Speaker 1: would anybody want to study this? Like, where would this
Speaker 1: come from? Well, the idea here is that could shine
Speaker 1: light on the whole idea of a death drive, that
Speaker 1: some suicides are impulsive and have nothing to do with depression. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that was interesting. I hadn't really thought of that
Speaker 1: before myself, but I could reading up more on Freud's
Speaker 1: death drive theory, I guess I could see where that
Speaker 1: came from. Yeah, I do have to say for my
Speaker 1: own part, I'm I'm I'll entertain the possibility that that exists,
Speaker 1: but I'm rather I'm rather doubtful that suicide is can
Speaker 1: occur or or does occur in any significant to any
Speaker 1: significant degree, completely isolated from depression or willful intent, Like
Speaker 1: the idea that someone's just like, oh I could jump
Speaker 1: off the into the canyon and die. Let's do it, bam, done,
Speaker 1: the end of deal. Like, I can see the impulse
Speaker 1: being a factor if there is already some underlying depression,
Speaker 1: or if one already had some sort of a plan
Speaker 1: in mind, and this is just like this is the
Speaker 1: day that I act on it. Yeah, So you know,
Speaker 1: I think that it's worth saying. Like, uh, from my
Speaker 1: subjective experience, like I said, I myself am not suicidal,
Speaker 1: and I haven't. I've had what we will refer to
Speaker 1: later as suicidal thinking, but I've never had suicidal planning.
Speaker 1: And there's a major difference, right and and and this
Speaker 1: is sort of the call of the void, the high
Speaker 1: the high place phenomenon. Those are those are versions of
Speaker 1: suicidal thinking. That's about as far as it's gone for me, right, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: suicidal thinking. I feel like it's often tied into with
Speaker 1: the romance of suicide because we have so many stories
Speaker 1: and you know, these generally are very lopsided in their
Speaker 1: presentation of suicide. Uh, the display it is this this noble,
Speaker 1: poetic thing that doomed dreamers and doomed lovers Romeo and Julia, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we've all been teenagers, so we've all had moments
Speaker 1: where we're like, oh, my life is so tragic, and
Speaker 1: you might envision the scenario, but there's to your point,
Speaker 1: there's a difference between envisioning it, daydreaming about it, and
Speaker 1: uh and thinking about when everyone will say when you're gone,
Speaker 1: versus actually putting some sort of plan in place. But
Speaker 1: for our listeners, I do want to establish upfront, you know,
Speaker 1: I have experience with people who were suicidal or have
Speaker 1: committed suicide, so I am sympathetic to that, and I
Speaker 1: don't want this episode to feel like it's callous. This
Speaker 1: is connected to that, but it's a The suicidal thinking
Speaker 1: that goes along with the call of the void syndrome
Speaker 1: seems to be a far cry from the actual act
Speaker 1: of it um and but we're gonna get into that
Speaker 1: at the end of the episode. So back to this research.
Speaker 1: They found that more than thirty percent of the people
Speaker 1: they talked to said they had experienced this phenomenon at
Speaker 1: least once, and the researchers refer to it in their
Speaker 1: study as high place phenomenon. They weren't take king into
Speaker 1: account like throwing yourself in front of a train or
Speaker 1: driving an oncoming traffic uh. They were also curious whether
Speaker 1: it was related to a person's history of suicidal thinking,
Speaker 1: and from their findings they found that it is common
Speaker 1: even among people who have no depression or suicidal thinking history.
Speaker 1: So this was their methodology. They asked four and thirty
Speaker 1: one college students whether and how often they had experienced
Speaker 1: the urge to jump off of tall things. Then they
Speaker 1: examined their depressive symptoms in their history of suicidal thoughts.
Speaker 1: They also took a look at how sensitive these people
Speaker 1: were to anxiety, as well as how fearful they were
Speaker 1: of anxiety symptoms such as an elevated heartbeat and shortness
Speaker 1: of breath. Among those who had never had suicidal thoughts, still,
Speaker 1: seventeen percent of them had experienced the urge to jump.
Speaker 1: Among those who had experienced sidal thoughts, fifty six percent
Speaker 1: experienced it. So that's significant if if it lines up,
Speaker 1: now we'll talk. There's a little bit of methodology stuff
Speaker 1: with this, this that I'm calling the question. The researchers
Speaker 1: were also interested specifically in the sensitivity to reactive safety
Speaker 1: signals and if that corresponded to a higher likelihood of
Speaker 1: experiencing the urge to jump. So to mark this reactivity,
Speaker 1: they looked at levels of anxiety sensitivity, such as a
Speaker 1: faster heartbeat. Uh. This was because previous research suggested that
Speaker 1: high anxiety sensitivity is actually tied to a tendency for
Speaker 1: us as human beings, to misinterpret random, innocuous bodily sensations
Speaker 1: as being dangerous. Yeah, we we tend to We tend
Speaker 1: to make that air and cognition because there is a
Speaker 1: survival advantage in jumping to conclusions rather than not making
Speaker 1: any conclusions. One gets you eaten by a tiger. One
Speaker 1: just means you go about your daily life constantly looking
Speaker 1: for the tiger that might eave. Yeah, I mean I've
Speaker 1: actually experienced this, I'd say, in like the last two weeks,
Speaker 1: where like I'll get up and I'll read about current
Speaker 1: events in the news, and my heart will start beating
Speaker 1: rapidly and I'll go, oh, this is is there something wrong?
Speaker 1: Do I need to go see my doctor? And I
Speaker 1: realized it's anxiety. It's it's not normal, but I'm having
Speaker 1: a normal anxious reaction to the things that I'm reading about. Right,
Speaker 1: But then my thought is like, oh, what if I
Speaker 1: have a heart attack? You know. So this is kind
Speaker 1: of along those lines where the ideas that we misinterpret
Speaker 1: these random bodily sensations as being dangerous. Okay. So their
Speaker 1: studies finding was that yes, more sensitivity to anxiety was
Speaker 1: related to the frequency of the urge to jump, especially
Speaker 1: in people who had never experienced suicidal thoughts. They also
Speaker 1: interpreted this as people without a history of suicidal thoughts
Speaker 1: as being more sensitive to bodily cues that they could misinterpret.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. So if you've never et suicidal thoughts,
Speaker 1: they're saying you're more likely to interpret say like your
Speaker 1: heart beating faster as as something of danger. It's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of like if you if you've
Speaker 1: ever had an anxiety attack, if you if you have,
Speaker 1: if you have one and they're rare, then the first
Speaker 1: time you have one, it can be extremely alarmente. If
Speaker 1: you think, oh goodness, I'm about to die now. So
Speaker 1: the study ultimately translates as follows, people with high anxiety
Speaker 1: sensitivity were more likely to have higher chances of suicidal thoughts. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So if you're sensitive to the bodily
Speaker 1: reactions and you're worried about being anxious, then you're more
Speaker 1: likely to have suicidal thoughts. But subsequently, you were also
Speaker 1: more likely to report experiencing this call of the void phenomenon.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. Why do we experience this though Like?
Speaker 1: Where is this coming from? Well, let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and we come back. We'll dive into that very question.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So one theory about this call
Speaker 1: of the void phenomenon or the idea of high place phenomenon,
Speaker 1: is that there's something going on with a temporary uncoupling
Speaker 1: of our different perceptual systems in our brains. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like cognitive dissonance. Yeah. Yeah, the idea, and this
Speaker 1: comes up comes up all the time on the podcast,
Speaker 1: the idea that you have two different ideas, two different
Speaker 1: inclinations in your mind, and they conflict with each other.
Speaker 1: So the classic, the easy one to go to here,
Speaker 1: of course, is oh, I I think homosexuality is wrong,
Speaker 1: but I have homosexual thoughts in my head. These two
Speaker 1: do not go with one another, um and this generates
Speaker 1: it's kind of a friction in the mind exactly. So
Speaker 1: their theory was that when you're standing on the edge
Speaker 1: of a skyscraper, your brain has fast fear circuitry, that's
Speaker 1: what they called it. Obviously it's not circuitry that and
Speaker 1: this may alert you of danger, just the danger of hey,
Speaker 1: you could fall, But then our perceptual system in our
Speaker 1: brain is slower than our fear system, and that kicks
Speaker 1: in afterwards and it makes you realize there's actually no danger.
Speaker 1: So to make sense of the safety signal. Our brain
Speaker 1: mixes this up as cognitive dissonance and we assume we
Speaker 1: want to jump, which is why people get confused by this.
Speaker 1: So this is interesting. So individuals who are experiencing this
Speaker 1: are not necessarily suicidal. Instead, it seems to reflect their
Speaker 1: sensitivity to internal cues affirming their actual will to live.
Speaker 1: So that lines up with what we're saying earlier that
Speaker 1: they're sensitive to, like oh, I'm feeling anxious or oh
Speaker 1: I'm feeling depressed or whatever, So it makes sense that
Speaker 1: they would be more sensitive to their both their fear
Speaker 1: system and their perception system. Yeah. I do like how
Speaker 1: the main idea here is that you're safe, but you're
Speaker 1: still taking in the sensory data says you're not safe.
Speaker 1: And I think that we actually get a little bit
Speaker 1: of this when we watch a particularly terrifying video like
Speaker 1: we've all, especially within the age of go pro. I'm
Speaker 1: sure everyone has seen like base jumping, crazy skiing videos,
Speaker 1: stuff with great heights, or people climbing up antennas, and
Speaker 1: you watch it and you couldn't be more safe watching
Speaker 1: it in your you know, living room, in your office,
Speaker 1: on your phone or your personal computer. But you feel
Speaker 1: a visceral, you know, if it's probably empathic. But also
Speaker 1: you're taking in certain sense data about a dangerous environment
Speaker 1: and you can't help it feel part of that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, and I think I'm leaning towards agreeing with
Speaker 1: this theory. But let's remember that this study, there's only
Speaker 1: one study on this as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: and it isn't conclusive. Um. Their explanation is simply theoretical
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have neurological evidence. Uh, the methodology also
Speaker 1: has some weak so let's acknowledge those. First of all,
Speaker 1: they only used university students, and let's be honest, university
Speaker 1: students are not representative of humanity, right right, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: tends to be a profile of a very specific socio economic,
Speaker 1: racial division of society. Yeah, and the volunteers themselves were confessing, well,
Speaker 1: they may have misremembered their experience or even falsely reported it.
Speaker 1: So that doesn't mean the studies flawed. It just means
Speaker 1: we need more research. Um. So a proposal for this
Speaker 1: is to actually conduct an experiment where scientists would have
Speaker 1: to take subjects and position them at different heights to
Speaker 1: test at what elevation they begin having the thought to jump. Um,
Speaker 1: there's another explanation that goes along I think with what
Speaker 1: you were saying about the watching those videos, which is
Speaker 1: that it could simply be connected to our thrill of
Speaker 1: not buckling under fear, which is a kind of cognitive dissonance. Um,
Speaker 1: this is the same reason why we go to haunted houses, right,
Speaker 1: both real and uh, you know, fun haunted houses. But
Speaker 1: like think about like when you're a little kid, uh
Speaker 1: and somebody says, let's go that house over there is haunted,
Speaker 1: I dare you to go into it, Right, It's kind
Speaker 1: of the same vibe. Uh. And then subsequently you go
Speaker 1: to something like I don't know, our version is another
Speaker 1: world here in Atlanta. You go to that you know
Speaker 1: somebody's going to jump out with a fake chainsaw and
Speaker 1: try to scare you. But the thrill of overcoming that
Speaker 1: fear is part of why you go and pay money
Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah, I mean, it fills you with endorphins.
Speaker 1: You're you're very much living in the moment. People who
Speaker 1: aren't into meditation or yoga, they still might go to
Speaker 1: a haunted house or watch a scary movie, and that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of meditative in a sense. It puts you
Speaker 1: in the now. Yeah, it's It's probably another reason why
Speaker 1: jump scares are so successful in horror films. There's an
Speaker 1: addiction to it. Yeah, And it's simple and it works,
Speaker 1: and it ties into our basic evolutionary state to be
Speaker 1: on the lookout for the tiger that jumps out of
Speaker 1: the grass. Now, there's a no take on all of this,
Speaker 1: and it ties in, I think nicely to what you
Speaker 1: said about the varying heights. At what height does it
Speaker 1: kick in? For my own part, I feel like there
Speaker 1: is definitely a difference between any call of the void
Speaker 1: that occurs at at lower heights as opposed to like
Speaker 1: truly awesome heights like Grand Canyon, cliff Edge type. Total obliteration. Yeah,
Speaker 1: total obliteration, I think is the thing because it's such
Speaker 1: it's such a it would be such a drastic choice. Okay,
Speaker 1: it would be such a choice between life and and
Speaker 1: and I don't know. I almost to say death like
Speaker 1: puts too much of an atmospheric twist on it, but
Speaker 1: more like between being an unding and I think this
Speaker 1: is I keep thinking this is the two roads diverge
Speaker 1: in a Yellow Woods approach. Um, So in the choose
Speaker 1: your own adventure book that is life. We encounter plenty
Speaker 1: of working paths, right, but many of these are hardly
Speaker 1: choices at all. I mean, on some level, we all
Speaker 1: choose whether they're going to go to work this morning
Speaker 1: or find a liquor store and drink our purchase in
Speaker 1: the woods behind the Yeah. Yeah, I mean for most
Speaker 1: of us, a lot of people struggle with that every morning. Well,
Speaker 1: some people realistically do. No, I'm not I'm not being sarcastic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but for many of us, it's not really a choice.
Speaker 1: Like the things we do are the things we do.
Speaker 1: We have this pattern and there's really this is where
Speaker 1: we get into that idea that we're not really making
Speaker 1: choices and more if at all. However, there are choices
Speaker 1: that are more real than others. Where two paths of
Speaker 1: equal weight and possibility are presented, and uh, and what
Speaker 1: is weightier than the old to be or not to be?
Speaker 1: The choice between being and unbing that stands before us
Speaker 1: when we stand at the edge of a great expanse.
Speaker 1: So it's not so much that we're tempted, but that
Speaker 1: our path choosing brain can't help but engage in one
Speaker 1: of its many cognitive superpowers, cognitive superpower that we all
Speaker 1: possess and uh and used to thrive. And this is
Speaker 1: a chronosthesia, which is also known as mental time to travel.
Speaker 1: So this entails our ability to be aware of our
Speaker 1: past and future and to envision multiple possible futures before us.
Speaker 1: So it's the key to our survival. But it's also
Speaker 1: the reason you might listen to NPR in the morning
Speaker 1: and mentally time travel to the dawn of the Third
Speaker 1: World War. So in that anxiety, yeah, the anxiety, anxiety
Speaker 1: comes out and you feel it in your body. So
Speaker 1: in that moment in the car listening to NBR, we're
Speaker 1: forced to wonder what what we're capable of, what we're
Speaker 1: willing to lose to gain. And on some level, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like the you know, the scene in the
Speaker 1: Old Testament with Abraham raising his dagger up in the
Speaker 1: sky and then above his son Isaac, and it's just well,
Speaker 1: the hand of the Angel come in time to spare him. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: looking to something beyond, which gets into the Freudian aspect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's another possible explanation for it. I tend to
Speaker 1: feel like we've got some of this definitely a part
Speaker 1: of it. But I also think the co native dissonance
Speaker 1: argument is also very valid, and it does like we've
Speaker 1: talked before on the show about how situations of cognitive
Speaker 1: dissonance often lend themselves well to supernatural experience. That's not
Speaker 1: to say actual supernatural occurrence, but the experience of something
Speaker 1: supernatural to us, especially in our demon possession, exorcism, matter
Speaker 1: sism episode, that is hugely tied to cognitive dissonance. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when you get down to it, like the the
Speaker 1: idea of of encountering the choice between being and un being,
Speaker 1: this this kind of panicky pondering over to what extent
Speaker 1: you have free willed, to what extent you have control
Speaker 1: over your fate? I mean that is that's pretty supernatural
Speaker 1: sounding to me. Yeah. Yeah, Well this is a good
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to get into a guy who, let's
Speaker 1: be honest, in some situations, was quasi supernatural. Uh and
Speaker 1: his name was Sigmund Freud. Uh So Freud after a
Speaker 1: lot of his better known principles, Uh connected this to
Speaker 1: all the phenomenon to an idea that sometimes is referred
Speaker 1: to as a death wish, although that just calls to
Speaker 1: mind Charles Bronson for me, but it is referred to
Speaker 1: as the death drive, articulated in his ninety essay Beyond
Speaker 1: the Pleasure Principle, and this describes a drive in all
Speaker 1: of us towards self destruction and a return to the inorganic. Now,
Speaker 1: I used a paper by Joanne Faulkner on the subject
Speaker 1: to sort of see unpackaged this. Now. She argues that
Speaker 1: the death drive is when Freud departs from scientific methodology entirely,
Speaker 1: and it articulates what he thought of as higher functions
Speaker 1: in the psyche that weren't necessarily empirical. Okay, so this
Speaker 1: is why I say, like, we're getting into supernatural territory here.
Speaker 1: Freud thought this was beyond sciences. Um, it's highly speculative
Speaker 1: and it's not grounded in scientific perspective. But Freud's idea
Speaker 1: was that the death drive circumvented our pleasure in an
Speaker 1: effort to undo a person as an organic whole, and
Speaker 1: so as such it gave us both pleasure and discomfort.
Speaker 1: I can sort of see where he's coming from here
Speaker 1: based on what we were previously talking about with like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, scares right, Like it's both pleasurable and uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: But his idea, of course, being Freud, there has to
Speaker 1: be this model framework so that everything fits within. And
Speaker 1: it was that the death drive was the opposite of
Speaker 1: what he called the life drive or the libido. And
Speaker 1: while the libido attaches itself to others and creates ties
Speaker 1: of affection, the death drive destroys relationships and strives for disintegration.
Speaker 1: So if the libido manifests insects, the death drive manifests
Speaker 1: in aggression, and if this is directed inward, it could
Speaker 1: result in suicide. But here's the thing. Does the death
Speaker 1: drive lead to what we today understand as depression? Right?
Speaker 1: Like Freud didn't really have a grasp on that the
Speaker 1: way we do now. It's possible if it's directed inward,
Speaker 1: I guess. But in fact, some Eastern philosophy indicates that
Speaker 1: self centered acts maybe a form of this kind of
Speaker 1: self destruction, That selfishness itself isolates us from others, leads
Speaker 1: us to not having support. So maybe there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a connection between depression and death drive. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not a pcent on board with this.
Speaker 1: I see how it could sort of make sense at
Speaker 1: the time, and it's connected to thoughts that we're having.
Speaker 1: But huh, what is interesting you mentioned the Eastern philosophies.
Speaker 1: It is interesting to think of self destruction perhaps is
Speaker 1: it's not merely well, let's say, to to take self
Speaker 1: destruction and think of it in terms of of of
Speaker 1: the of of the wheel of sam Sara and the
Speaker 1: different states, and the idea that you know, you're reincarnated
Speaker 1: into two upper and lower forms. Yeah. One of the
Speaker 1: realms is that of the hungry ghosts, where one is
Speaker 1: just you know, constantly grasping for something and and and
Speaker 1: unable to to fill yourself with it. And and there's
Speaker 1: another realm, which is more of the hell room. And
Speaker 1: this is where I feel like things really line up
Speaker 1: with this idea of death drive just this you know,
Speaker 1: rageful uh, you know, assault on the things that anger you.
Speaker 1: I can give you like a personal version of this
Speaker 1: that I experienced. And this might be a little bit
Speaker 1: t m I, but um I often I'm compelled by
Speaker 1: the urge to just go be somewhere in complete isolation.
Speaker 1: Like I think when I when I have this urge,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I like a like a rundown motel
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, off of a highway somewhere, right,
Speaker 1: and I'll just sitting there for a week, Like there's
Speaker 1: something about that that's just very compelling to me. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to destroy myself. I don't want to
Speaker 1: commit suicide, but there's something about it that that draws
Speaker 1: me there, right, And I think based on what you're
Speaker 1: talking about here, there's a similar idea here, right, Like
Speaker 1: if you believe in reincarnation and you think to yourself, well,
Speaker 1: if I die, I'm going to be reincarnated, possibly as
Speaker 1: a lower life form. Right, there's something kind of zen
Speaker 1: about that, right, There's something kind of relaxing about the
Speaker 1: idea of like I'll come back as a toad. Let's
Speaker 1: just live life as a toad, and I won't have
Speaker 1: as many concerns to bear. It's true, yeah, now, But
Speaker 1: I like this idea that you brought up here too
Speaker 1: because it also brings to mind like what each of
Speaker 1: us are. So we're certainly we're an organism that's that's alive.
Speaker 1: We're also an organism that's is generally moving in various
Speaker 1: uh social shares, and you have all of these kind
Speaker 1: of like invisible spider webs of social obligation all around us,
Speaker 1: and so to do to walk away from all of
Speaker 1: that first, say a week and go to this cabin
Speaker 1: in the woods. You are not necessarily destroying yourself, but
Speaker 1: you might be doing damage to these various social spider
Speaker 1: webs that are that have bound you up totally. And
Speaker 1: I can see where it would be at once liberating
Speaker 1: to walk away from all of those, uh, and then
Speaker 1: but then at the same time many would argue, well,
Speaker 1: that is self destructive. You were doing damage to these
Speaker 1: social structures that had helped maintain you. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's compelling to write. The pop culture example of
Speaker 1: this that drew me in the most, And my wife
Speaker 1: immediately recognized it when we saw this, and she's like,
Speaker 1: you love this, don't you was And spoilers for this
Speaker 1: TV show if you don't want to, you might learn
Speaker 1: something you don't want to know about Breaking Bad here.
Speaker 1: But in Breaking Bad, there's a point where the main
Speaker 1: character it goes in hiding to New Hampshire for a
Speaker 1: year and he just lives in if small cottage with
Speaker 1: nothing but like you know, canned food and newspapers for
Speaker 1: a year and he just sits there and thinks on
Speaker 1: what he's done and sleeps and eats and is he
Speaker 1: just is and he's entrapped by snow when we find him.
Speaker 1: And I saw it, and I was just like, oh God,
Speaker 1: that that seems like the best vacation ever to me.
Speaker 1: But at the cost of all of his social relationships,
Speaker 1: which is sort of the point in the show. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, this reminds me a lot of a Warren
Speaker 1: Zevon song that also when I when I have this feeling,
Speaker 1: I'll play this song and listen to it. It's called
Speaker 1: Splendid Isolation. It's great because the lyrics are basically rolling
Speaker 1: through these three different through or four different scenarios that
Speaker 1: he is craving, like I want to live on the
Speaker 1: Upper east Side and never go down in the street,
Speaker 1: you know, put tinfoil up on the window. I want
Speaker 1: to live in the desert like Georgia O'Keefe. You know,
Speaker 1: he's doing scenarios where um, we're we're Waren is talking
Speaker 1: about just walking away from everything and just encapsulating himself
Speaker 1: in uh in in in total isolation and and ultimately
Speaker 1: kind of self destructive self centeredness, because he ends up
Speaker 1: like making comparisons to to Neverland Ranch interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: locking yourself up in your own private Disney sort of thing. Well,
Speaker 1: I never put tinfoil on my window, but in my
Speaker 1: twenties I have to admit, Uh, I took cardboard and
Speaker 1: nailed it up over all the windows in my bedroom
Speaker 1: just because, like I wanted complete and utter darkness in there.
Speaker 1: Did you have a black light poster? No? No, I
Speaker 1: didn't missed opportunities mushroom wizards. Well, back to this Freud thing,
Speaker 1: I think it reeks of the subjective. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit of magical thinking, which is fun, but most people
Speaker 1: in this realm, in this discipline think of it as
Speaker 1: being eccentric. Regardless, it does apply to depression. If you
Speaker 1: understand that there's an innate voice that wishes for death
Speaker 1: and destruction, well that's that's helpful, right At least in
Speaker 1: therapy you can help separate that and distance yourself from
Speaker 1: those thoughts, and that takes away their power and allows
Speaker 1: you to challenge them and minimize them and disregard them.
Speaker 1: So there's something to that. People who have just like
Speaker 1: outright dismissed Freud. I'm sort of in the middle, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't buy it a hundred percent of the time,
Speaker 1: but I do think that there's some value and that
Speaker 1: he helped the profession sort of edge along slowly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I always come back to my my
Speaker 1: lens analogy, where what I what I want to walk
Speaker 1: around with with the Freud lens in place all the time,
Speaker 1: with my Freud goggles on all the time. No, I
Speaker 1: would not, but I do find it as helpful in
Speaker 1: varying scenarios to pull the the Freud lens down over
Speaker 1: my own vision, of my own worldview and think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: how might the supply to the current scenario, What does what?
Speaker 1: How does Freud illuminate what's going on here? Well, why
Speaker 1: don't we take a quick break, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to delve into some actual statistics about suicidal
Speaker 1: thinking that may help us unraveled this call of the
Speaker 1: void phenomenon a little more. Alright, we're back. So when
Speaker 1: mental health professionals refer to these call of the void moments,
Speaker 1: they usually call it suicidal ideation. But that term seems
Speaker 1: broad for our purposes here today, So let's let's try
Speaker 1: to separate out what the difference might be. Okay. In eleven,
Speaker 1: the c d C conducted a really big study examining
Speaker 1: statistics about suicide, suicidal thinking, uh, and um, suicidal preparation,
Speaker 1: and they found that three point seven percent of adults
Speaker 1: in the United States had had suicidal thoughts in just
Speaker 1: the last year. Now, let's put that into perspective. That's
Speaker 1: eight point three million people. That's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Other studies have placed this even higher, saying that it's
Speaker 1: actually around eight to ten of the population. Now let's
Speaker 1: look at the previous study on the high place phenomenon.
Speaker 1: That's not even close to the thirty to fifty percent
Speaker 1: of people who reported that they had experienced that phenomenon. Right,
Speaker 1: So it seems like what we think of as suicidal
Speaker 1: ideation and and high place phenomenon or call of the void,
Speaker 1: those are different. It seems like it suggests that there's
Speaker 1: there's some kind of different thought process going on there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And of course with all of this, it depends on
Speaker 1: exactly how you're phrasing the question and how the individual
Speaker 1: on the other end views suicidal thoughts, uh, etcetera. I mean,
Speaker 1: because the big thing is like, what does that individual's
Speaker 1: culture say about suicide? Yeah, Now, even there there's this
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that we would have to
Speaker 1: bust out in a longer episode. But even within the
Speaker 1: United States, that you're going to have varying subsets of
Speaker 1: people that are going to have different ideas about suicide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that actually plays in these statistics as well. Uh
Speaker 1: In the c d C report, they actually summarize the
Speaker 1: data on ninety two thousand, two hundred and sixty four respondents.
Speaker 1: But this establishes a difference between having suicidal thoughts and
Speaker 1: actually making plans for a suicide or attempting it. Plans
Speaker 1: and attempts are very different from just thinking about it. Okay,
Speaker 1: The estimates vary based on a couple of things, sociodemographic
Speaker 1: factors as well as the region of the country that
Speaker 1: you live in. So what you're just saying, here we go.
Speaker 1: Suicidal thoughts were higher among young adults between the ages
Speaker 1: of eighteen to twenty nine than they were for people
Speaker 1: over thirty. It was also significantly higher for women. In general.
Speaker 1: Non Hispanic Whites were the group with the highest prevalence
Speaker 1: of suicidal thoughts, while non Hispanic Asians were the group
Speaker 1: with the lowest suicidal thoughts. And regional factors, this is
Speaker 1: really complicated, but they think it could be related to
Speaker 1: indicators such as divorce rates or resources to access like healthcare. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so the cause and effect relationship here is unknown,
Speaker 1: but there's a there's a couple of things like, for instance,
Speaker 1: adults with less than a high school education and those
Speaker 1: who are unemployed at the time were more likely to
Speaker 1: have these thoughts. Finally, those in the Midwest and the
Speaker 1: West were more likely to have suicidal thoughts than those
Speaker 1: in the Northeast in the South. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to unpack that, but what you presented sounds sounds close,
Speaker 1: which is that like, various cultures have different beliefs about suicide, right,
Speaker 1: and and or like they said that, there's like real
Speaker 1: world factors like how much access they have to healthcare
Speaker 1: or or or do they have a job, things like that.
Speaker 1: So there's limitations to this accounting though that we should
Speaker 1: note as well. For instance, previous studies indicate that adults,
Speaker 1: when they're talking about suicidal thoughts, they under report, especially
Speaker 1: when they're talking about when they were adolescents. So if
Speaker 1: they're adults now and they're saying, well, when I was
Speaker 1: an adolescent, this is you know, this is how often
Speaker 1: I experienced that they're they're known to under report. That
Speaker 1: makes sense to me, Yeah, I mean, I mean you're
Speaker 1: a different person when you're adult when you're an adolescent,
Speaker 1: So you're really kind of teasing apart the thoughts and
Speaker 1: motivations of a different you entire So I can see
Speaker 1: where there might be a tendency to say, oh, well
Speaker 1: that that that twenty year old me, that eighteen year
Speaker 1: old me. You didn't know what you're talking about now,
Speaker 1: even serious about that. And this study also didn't account
Speaker 1: for a couple of populations. Uh, first of all, institutionalized populations,
Speaker 1: which would probably have I mean, we would assume would
Speaker 1: have a higher rate of thinking about suicide. It and
Speaker 1: it totally cut out any kind of Native American populations.
Speaker 1: So and that wasn't like on purpose, it was just
Speaker 1: because they didn't have access to enough evidence. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there is a large factor here that comes down
Speaker 1: to is suicide an open pathway to this individual? Is
Speaker 1: it at all socially acceptable? To what degree is it
Speaker 1: socially acceptable? And that is going to be governed by
Speaker 1: your culture, your history. Indeed, what what books and movies,
Speaker 1: what beats of bits of fiction you you you value,
Speaker 1: But these are all going to help to skew this
Speaker 1: idea of of whether or not suicide is a practical
Speaker 1: option for an individual. Yeah, but very different from the
Speaker 1: idea of standing on a ledge and looking and just
Speaker 1: kind of getting that urge to je right. So that's
Speaker 1: why I put these statistics in here to sort of
Speaker 1: just give you like, these are very different things, and
Speaker 1: we can see the statistical differences just between these two studies.
Speaker 1: It's also worth remembering all of this stuff for both
Speaker 1: studies is self reported, and that is not a reliable
Speaker 1: Now to sort of pull out of the gloomier aspects
Speaker 1: of this this topic, um, I will ask everyone to
Speaker 1: to think about the call of the void. You know, uh,
Speaker 1: the situation in which the gravity of disastrous choices. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not merely anxiety inducing or or threatening to one
Speaker 1: sense of self control, but it is exhilarating. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of endorphin pumping high that want to achieves
Speaker 1: from skydiving or even less dangerous smaller acts. And and
Speaker 1: plus what is the true call of the void but
Speaker 1: but a contemplation, however unformed of oblivion, a complete emptying
Speaker 1: of self, not merely hearing the call of the void,
Speaker 1: but but kind of touching the void, having almost a
Speaker 1: spiritual moment. To go back to that quote from Call
Speaker 1: of the Wild again, you know something that is at
Speaker 1: once splendid and terrible. Yeah, And so, as we've been
Speaker 1: doing in some of our episodes recently, we want to
Speaker 1: make sure if you heard this and this like touched
Speaker 1: upon something for you, and and you were hearing these
Speaker 1: statistics or whatever and you thought, well, this this resonates
Speaker 1: within me and I'm a little concerned. There's actually a
Speaker 1: nonprofit that we would like to throw a line out too,
Speaker 1: so that you, in case you're feeling that way, have
Speaker 1: some support. And it's the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a support line. It's seven, it's free, it's totally confidential.
Speaker 1: It's for people who are in distress. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: helps prevent crises and provides resources for you and your
Speaker 1: loved ones. So maybe it's not you, maybe it's somebody
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. So the number for that is one
Speaker 1: eight hundred two seven three eight to five five. Again,
Speaker 1: it's one eight hundred two seven three eight two five five.
Speaker 1: All right, and hey, if you want to hear more
Speaker 1: at the pisodes of stuff to blow your mind. If
Speaker 1: you want to check out videos, blog post, you name
Speaker 1: it links out to our social media accounts, head on
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's right,
Speaker 1: and I want to hear from you the audience. Have
Speaker 1: you experienced the call of a void? Have you thought
Speaker 1: about jumping off a tall building or the Grand Canyon
Speaker 1: or maybe even onto a train track before, but of
Speaker 1: course you didn't want to. You just got mixed up
Speaker 1: with these feelings inside. That's that's basically how we all
Speaker 1: feel nowadays. I'm just so mixed up with these feelings inside. Uh,
Speaker 1: let us know. You can let us know on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler,
Speaker 1: or Instagram, or you can write us at blow the
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com. And it close
Speaker 1: out here today. I'm just gonna read another quote. This
Speaker 1: one comes from a book by Robert Graves. A number
Speaker 1: of you may be familiar with him from his more
Speaker 1: popular work such as I Claudius, but he also wrote
Speaker 1: a book called Goodbye to All That, and he talks
Speaker 1: about the Great Four. He talks about mountain climbing, and
Speaker 1: this is just a quick quote where he talks about climbing.
Speaker 1: My worst climb was on a little wit the most
Speaker 1: formidable of the precipices, when at a point that needed
Speaker 1: most concentration, a raven circled round the party in great sweeps.
Speaker 1: I found this curiously unsettling, because one climbs only up
Speaker 1: and down or sideways, and the ravens seem to be
Speaker 1: suggesting diverse other possible dimensions of movement, tempting us to
Speaker 1: let go our hold and join him. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com? No,