Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. It's Chuck here and I'm here
Speaker 1: to deliver to you my pick for this week's Selects episode.
Speaker 1: This is from July twenty seventeen. It's the episode how
Speaker 1: Fever Dreams Work. And quite honestly, you guys have picked
Speaker 1: this one because I don't remember much about it, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to listen to it all over again myself,
Speaker 1: so I hope you do as well. Hope you have
Speaker 1: a great Saturday and a great weekend. Here we go
Speaker 1: with How Fever Dreams Work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. How are you? I'm
Speaker 2: Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Jerry's
Speaker 2: got a salad. Everything's normal, which means it's time. There's
Speaker 2: stuff you should know.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Jerry's got this Shwarma special. She said, oh really, yeah,
Speaker 2: she loves it. How you doing, good man? Feeling despite
Speaker 2: myself kind of relaxed. Okay, I'm not feeling feverish. If
Speaker 2: that's what you're driving at.
Speaker 3: No, that's not what I was driving at.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, no I'm not.
Speaker 3: Do you get fevers a lot.
Speaker 2: No, not anymore, although I haven't for a long time. Like,
Speaker 2: I've never been like a fever person. I've probably had
Speaker 2: like a handful maybe. How many fevers have you had?
Speaker 1: Not a ton since I was a kid. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: a lot of adult fevers, right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean I've had like hip hop fever. I've had rock
Speaker 3: and roll fever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yellow fever.
Speaker 3: I've had a fever for a flavor of a brindle.
Speaker 2: Oh man, me too.
Speaker 3: What are those? Those aren't even potato chips, are they?
Speaker 2: They're potato crisps, and those are good. They're mashed together
Speaker 2: potato parts.
Speaker 3: I don't think I want to know how those are made.
Speaker 2: No, it's like chicken McNuggets.
Speaker 3: I think a unicorn just poops them out.
Speaker 2: Have you seen unicorn pizza? It's a little much.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: There's a restaurant in New York, I'm not quite sure where,
Speaker 2: maybe east Side. They have unicorn pizza. It's like dough, okay, good, start,
Speaker 2: like a nice pastel colored frosting instead of sauce, a
Speaker 2: mound of cotton candy nerds or pop rocks maybe, oh
Speaker 2: good lord, and then some other stuff. Supposedly, it tastes
Speaker 2: kind of good. I'll eat anything that has enough frosting
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: I like frosting, but I'm not into like sugary candies really.
Speaker 2: Oh like nerds and pop rocks and stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: I did brain stuff once. I'm pop rocks and that
Speaker 2: was interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your tongue actually warms the pop rocks to the
Speaker 2: point where they melt. And since they have CO two
Speaker 2: trapped inside during the manufacturing process, that CO two suddenly
Speaker 2: is released in a.
Speaker 3: Pop so it's just a little bubble of CO two. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's gotta be good for you.
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 1: My head of roommate in college, like, not many adults
Speaker 1: eat candy, Like people eat chocolate and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: candy bars, but candy candy and an adults.
Speaker 3: Is just a little strange anything. Yeah, do be candy?
Speaker 2: Sure? Like what mentos? Not mint mentos? Like candy mentos?
Speaker 2: I like those.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I had a roommate that would go to the convenience
Speaker 1: store next and this is college granted, but he still
Speaker 1: eats this stuff, I think, okay, And he would go
Speaker 1: with like fifteen dollars and buy you know, like giant
Speaker 1: sweet tarts, you know, those big chewable ones, sure, and
Speaker 1: like a fun dip and nerds and just all kinds
Speaker 1: of candy fun dip.
Speaker 2: Remember liquam made there's the same thing. I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a sugar sugar.
Speaker 2: Right, Like I don't have a foot, but I've got
Speaker 2: my liquim maide, Oh man, can you can? You guys
Speaker 2: out there and podcast Lantel were stalling because we are
Speaker 2: a big time because we happen upon a topic that
Speaker 2: no one really knows what's what. Yeah, I mean we're
Speaker 2: talking about fever dreams. We know about fevers, yep, kind
Speaker 2: of know about dreams. Yeah, but apparently no one's really
Speaker 2: gotten to work on figuring out what fever dreams themselves are.
Speaker 2: So it's largely anecdotal. Yeah, so you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: bear with us.
Speaker 3: We'll leave it. We'll leave that there for now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I guess a good place to start is
Speaker 1: by talking about both those things separately and starting with fevers.
Speaker 1: You know, you've always heard ninety eight point six fahrenheit
Speaker 1: is the normal internal body temperature of human that in
Speaker 1: ninety two there was a big study that said is
Speaker 1: really ninety eight point two depending on like how old
Speaker 1: you are, what time of day it is, where you're doing,
Speaker 1: where you if you put it in your butt or
Speaker 1: in your under your armpit, or in your mouth or in.
Speaker 2: Your ear or all of them at once.
Speaker 3: That'd be something else. Yeah, it can vary a little bit.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a bit of a slight sliding
Speaker 1: scale to that number.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. But I think the key is is
Speaker 2: it's going to be roughly around there. And even if
Speaker 2: you have an average body temperature that's not exactly ninety
Speaker 2: eight point six, let's say you typically tend toward ninety
Speaker 2: seven point.
Speaker 3: Five, you run cooler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, your body temperature still during the average day
Speaker 2: gonna fluctuate plus or minus about a degree farent hide
Speaker 2: either way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I looked a little bit into the ninety eight
Speaker 1: point six and the original dude that came up with
Speaker 1: that was a German physician.
Speaker 3: Named Carl Reinhold August Vondelich. It was good, a good one.
Speaker 1: When eighteen sixty eight he wrote a book, Well he
Speaker 1: did his studies where he had this temperature rod he
Speaker 1: would stick under the armpits of all these people.
Speaker 2: He's like, where do you want exactly?
Speaker 3: And everyone once said, everyone always says, do you know
Speaker 3: the comedian Rory Scovel? No, he should just check him out.
Speaker 1: Okay, he does these weird things, like he'll just do
Speaker 1: his whole routine with a German accent.
Speaker 3: Okay, like for no reason whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I like the sound of that.
Speaker 1: And he did one about stealing old people, like kidnapping
Speaker 1: old people for the German accent.
Speaker 3: He's from South Carolina, I think.
Speaker 1: But he's done shows with like a severe Southern accent
Speaker 1: and one just normal accent, and he'll do a German thing.
Speaker 2: He just likes semester with people.
Speaker 3: I guess. So he's great.
Speaker 2: I will check him out.
Speaker 3: Thinks he's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: So anyway, eighteen sixty eight he wrote a book called
Speaker 1: after these experiments, called dos Vehauten Eerkin Frauma and kink
Speaker 1: and Heighten.
Speaker 3: That is good and I looked at it. It's funny.
Speaker 1: The real translation I think of that as on the
Speaker 1: temperature in diseases, but if you type it into Google
Speaker 1: Translate comes out as the behavior of the intrinsically warm
Speaker 1: and sick units.
Speaker 2: That's the subtitle.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway, he's a guy that came up in
Speaker 1: ninety eight point six, and that stood for a long time.
Speaker 2: But that's just so that was just based on his observations,
Speaker 2: his study, and it's stuck.
Speaker 1: It was an average. It wasn't like this is what
Speaker 1: you should be. It was just the average of all
Speaker 1: these people.
Speaker 2: Right, And then one hundred thirty years later we finally
Speaker 2: got around to verifying whether that was actually true or not.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it says in ninety two that they
Speaker 1: said it was ninety eight point two from another study,
Speaker 1: but then everything I still read says ninety eight point six.
Speaker 2: So all right, well, I know what you're talking about,
Speaker 2: though I had heard in the last few years that
Speaker 2: they're like that ninety eight point six Chazz is kind
Speaker 2: of kind of made up. So the point is is
Speaker 2: that your body's going to be roughly somewhere around there, right,
Speaker 2: that's your normal body temperature, yes, and then depending on
Speaker 2: the time of day, it's either going to be a
Speaker 2: little cooler in that or a little warmer than that.
Speaker 2: And our body temperature is regulated by something called the hypothalamus.
Speaker 2: And like I said, depending on the time of day,
Speaker 2: your body temperature is going to fluctuate, and that's tied
Speaker 2: to sleep apparently, so as your body temperature is rising,
Speaker 2: usually in the late afternoon is about where it peaks
Speaker 2: during the day. That's associated with wakefulness. Alertness not necessarily
Speaker 2: just having a high body temperature, but an incline in
Speaker 2: the temperature in your body means you're awake, you're alert,
Speaker 2: you're ready to go, right yeah, ready for action. Once
Speaker 2: it starts to decline, that's associated with drowsiness and it
Speaker 2: hits it's it's trough. Your body temperatures at its lowest
Speaker 2: right about before you wake up, and that's actually associated
Speaker 2: with r EM sleep. Yeah, so there are some stuff
Speaker 2: starting to come out. Just bear with us, everybody.
Speaker 3: We're laying the groundwork.
Speaker 2: So your body temperature changes, the hypothalamus is directing the
Speaker 2: whole thing, and sleep and wakefulness has something to do.
Speaker 2: It's related to your body temperature changes. All right, good night.
Speaker 2: You take it from here.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, let's take a break because I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where i should go.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. Okay, I was being coy. You
Speaker 3: set the stage very nicely.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So if your body gets let's say, some bad bacteria
Speaker 1: gets in it, yeah, and your body is alerted, warning
Speaker 1: intruder is coming. Your immune system kicks in the gear
Speaker 1: and art's producing this biochemical material called a pyrogen.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is my new favorite thing the body does.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Well you knew that before, right, or
Speaker 1: did you just not know the mechanism.
Speaker 2: I mean I knew humans get fevers, and I knew
Speaker 2: the fever was to kind of like cook out everything.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand the mechanism. I answer your question, Well
Speaker 2: take this part then, oh yeah, kind I yeah. So
Speaker 2: these pyrogens, right, they are these biochemical markers that are
Speaker 2: released by the immune system in the body. Or and
Speaker 2: this is why I love this. There's some bacteria, some
Speaker 2: pathogens that make humans sick that produce pyrogens naturally. So
Speaker 2: when they show up, they just start releasing the me
Speaker 2: and they just give themselves away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's they're big dummies in that way.
Speaker 2: Right, They're like, hey, where's the party? They kick open
Speaker 2: the door. They're carrying like a pony keg under one arm,
Speaker 2: their gut sticking out. It's just that's that's like that
Speaker 2: kind of bacteria, right, uh huh. So the pyrogens enter
Speaker 2: the bloodstream, they travel to the hypothalamus, because remember the
Speaker 2: hypothalamus controls your your body temperature. And this is what
Speaker 2: they do, Chuck, are you ready for what the pyrogens do.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: They go to your hypothalmis and they dampen the heat
Speaker 2: sensing neurons in the hypothalamus and they excite the cold
Speaker 2: sensing neurons in your hypothalmis, and they trick your hypothalamis
Speaker 2: into thinking your body's suddenly gotten very very cold. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that your hypothalamus turns the temperature up and says,
Speaker 2: don't let any of this heat out. We gotta warm
Speaker 2: back up. It tricks your body, your hypothomis, and in
Speaker 2: creating a fever.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: And they do this because well, they don't do this
Speaker 1: because but what happens from there? They do this because
Speaker 1: they're dumb. But what happens from there is, like you said,
Speaker 1: the fever, what a fever is, and why you want
Speaker 1: that fever for at least a little while. Fever that
Speaker 1: it does, it's it's trying to cook and burn and
Speaker 1: bake that bacteria until it dies.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It is your body's fighting. Like when you hear, you know,
Speaker 1: like your fever broke, that's usually a good sign. That
Speaker 1: means yeah, right, that your fever did its job and
Speaker 1: it's cooked all that bacteria up, and you're going.
Speaker 3: To be on the men soon. Yeah. So basically that's
Speaker 3: what's happening. And this is the great thing about a fever.
Speaker 1: But you know, fever makes you feel like crap because
Speaker 1: it's a lot of hard work to kill all those things.
Speaker 2: Well it is. There's a lot of your sympathetic nervous
Speaker 2: system is kicked into high gear, which I found out
Speaker 2: is one reason why they say you want to feed
Speaker 2: a cold starve a fever because you don't want to
Speaker 2: introduce digestion because it requires the parasympathetic nervous system right right,
Speaker 2: fight or flight, and you don't want those two things
Speaker 2: going on while your body has a fever. It's just
Speaker 2: a lot of extra work for it. Right. But one
Speaker 2: of the things that is going on when your body
Speaker 2: has a fever, when that temperature rises, it's hard enough
Speaker 2: on your organs, but it's also hard on the level
Speaker 2: just the fact that they're operating outside of their normal
Speaker 2: operating temperature. Yeah, and that makes it very hard on
Speaker 2: them and can actually cook some of the ingredients inside
Speaker 2: your cells.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like working in a too hot of
Speaker 1: an environment. It's just never fun for anyone, right, although
Speaker 1: I got some people love that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're still they might like it, but they
Speaker 2: still aren't working fast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: You know, they might be happy, but they're slow.
Speaker 1: So if you have a fever, what's considered a fever
Speaker 1: now in twenty seventeen, If you're an adult and your
Speaker 1: oral temperature is above one hundred point four, or if
Speaker 1: you're rectal or ear temperature is above one oh one,
Speaker 1: then that's considered a fever. If your kid, good luck
Speaker 1: getting anything besides the rectal temperature because.
Speaker 3: It's just tough.
Speaker 2: You have basically no right.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, which you have as wiggly kids who aren't like, sure,
Speaker 1: stick something in my ear for force second. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: up the up the kazoo.
Speaker 3: There's not really anything they can do about that.
Speaker 2: All they can do is say glavin.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: So the rectal temperature for a kid above one hundred
Speaker 1: point four, and with adults like you don't have to
Speaker 1: really worry about your fever too much. If it tops
Speaker 1: one hundred and five for you know, any period of time,
Speaker 1: you probably want to do something about that.
Speaker 2: That's what I saw was one hundred and five degree
Speaker 2: farenthype mark was about where you should start to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as an adult, and you're going to feel so awful.
Speaker 1: If your tempera is one oh five, you've probably already
Speaker 1: been to a doctor at that point, let's hope.
Speaker 3: So for kids it's different though.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to let your child get up
Speaker 1: to one o five, that's bad, bad, bad.
Speaker 2: So what is it for kids that you really want
Speaker 2: to start worrying about?
Speaker 3: Did you say, Oh, you know what, I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, it probably depends on whether you're a first
Speaker 2: time pairing or this is your second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and it varies with the age. It's like
Speaker 1: zero to eighteen months. It's something.
Speaker 2: And I guess you like what you should do is
Speaker 2: go consult your doctor.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: But you know, any kind of temperature you should for
Speaker 1: a child, you should kind of be a little more
Speaker 1: alert about.
Speaker 3: Right. But we're not in medical experts here.
Speaker 2: No we're not. And everything we're saying assumes that you
Speaker 2: have healthcare coverage.
Speaker 3: That's right, all right, So that's fever in general. You
Speaker 3: got anything else on that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? One other thing. The the pyrogen's.
Speaker 3: Piro by the way, it's no mistake. Man, I did
Speaker 3: have some coincidence.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. What is it Latin for fire? Greek
Speaker 2: word for fire? Yeah, Piro eat def Leppard. Right, great song,
Speaker 2: it really is, all right the whole album album.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They just mentioned it in Rock of Ages. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it comes up.
Speaker 3: They should have a song called Pyromania wonderful.
Speaker 2: But that's pretty cool. It's like the antithesis of your band,
Speaker 2: your album, and your song all being the same name.
Speaker 2: Like Big Country. Oh I love that song, sure, but
Speaker 2: it's pretty uncreative. But you're basically saying, like, here's our
Speaker 2: basket and we're gonna put every egg we have into it.
Speaker 2: It's the one one thing we came up with.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I saw David Spade bit once and he was talking
Speaker 2: about He's complaining it wasn't even comedy. He was just
Speaker 2: complaining that he went and saw a Big Country and
Speaker 2: they didn't play the song Big Country. Now. Yeah. Really,
Speaker 2: He's like, it's the name of your band, It's the
Speaker 2: one song everybody came to see and they play it.
Speaker 3: He's funny too.
Speaker 2: Well. The long, the long and short of it is
Speaker 2: is I totally forgot what the other thing I had
Speaker 2: to say about pirate tins was, so I'll probably think
Speaker 2: of it. Oh, I know what it was pyrogens. As
Speaker 2: your immune system grows in ages and you become a
Speaker 2: grown up, the pyrogens have a little less of an
Speaker 2: effect on you. So where if you're a kid and
Speaker 2: your immune system is young and inexperienced, your fever's gonna
Speaker 2: shoot up quick, and it's going to it's gonna get
Speaker 2: hotter faster. So you do want to stay on top
Speaker 2: of a kid's fever because their immune system is not
Speaker 2: used to pyrogens coming and messing with their hypothalamus, making
Speaker 2: adults it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll spike much faster. That's a good point.
Speaker 2: That's what I was trying to think of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. You need to take that.
Speaker 1: You need to take that rectal temperature way more than
Speaker 1: you're comfortable with.
Speaker 2: I don't recall that ever having been done to me.
Speaker 3: Well, because you don't remember being a baby. No, But my.
Speaker 2: Parents were pretty strict, pretty stern. No.
Speaker 1: And by the time a kid is old enough to
Speaker 1: where you can say like, hey, put this under your tongue,
Speaker 1: or hold still for a minute while I put this
Speaker 1: in your ear. Yeah, but pre that when they're not
Speaker 1: sentient humans, and they're just, you know, crying, whiny little
Speaker 1: sacks of flesh.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 3: You got to stick it right up the butt. Okay,
Speaker 3: Harry's laughing.
Speaker 2: She almost spit out her schwarm of salad.
Speaker 1: Harry's done plenty of that, so she knows. Okay, So
Speaker 1: into dreams. I always think we've done a general show
Speaker 1: on dreams.
Speaker 2: I think we did. Finally, I didn't find it.
Speaker 3: What still, No, I saw lucid dreaming. Can you control
Speaker 3: your dreams?
Speaker 2: That's the same thing, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: I think that was the maybe. Yeah, No, we did.
Speaker 2: One on dreams.
Speaker 3: I didn't see it.
Speaker 2: Wow, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Well,
Speaker 2: this contributes to the little by little.
Speaker 3: Someone will know.
Speaker 1: Okay, Jill Hurley, where are you when we need you?
Speaker 1: Our stattician Minister of stats?
Speaker 3: Right, all right, Well we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: Dreams a bit here then, even though we've explained this
Speaker 1: in various episodes here and there to some degree, but uh, dreams.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're a psychologist, you really love to
Speaker 1: spend time talking and dissecting dreams, interpreting dreams.
Speaker 3: If you're a.
Speaker 1: More into the neurology side of some cis, you don't
Speaker 1: really care about that kind of stuff. In fact, for
Speaker 1: many years they thought it was called activation synthesis hypothesis,
Speaker 1: which was you go to sleep and all these synapses
Speaker 1: are just randomly firing and they don't really add up
Speaker 1: to even a story. You just do that when you
Speaker 1: wake up because you're human. Yeah, but that, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's complete bs.
Speaker 2: Well, you almost get the impression that they came up
Speaker 2: with this and the neurologists came up with it to
Speaker 2: stick out their territory. In response to years of psychoanalysts
Speaker 2: saying this is what dreams are, right, like tapping into
Speaker 2: the collective unconscious or your repressed memories, neuroscience said, no, nothing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're just your stupid wet brain going crazy while you sleep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which we all know now is not true.
Speaker 2: I saw another one too, what's that threat simulation theory?
Speaker 2: Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 3: No, but that's a great band name.
Speaker 2: Basically, it's you're training to be a ninja while you sleep,
Speaker 2: Like your brain is running threat simulations constantly, so that
Speaker 2: it's like working itself out, like getting more and more
Speaker 2: agile and quick and like like, so you can get
Speaker 2: better at running from a saber tooth tiger, right, if
Speaker 2: you actually encounter it.
Speaker 3: I could see that early on maybe.
Speaker 2: Sure, And there is an evolutionary advantage to it, so
Speaker 2: evolutionarily speaking, it would make sense. The point is it
Speaker 2: that one came along and was like, no, there's obviously
Speaker 2: some reason for dreams, it's not just random.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and then maybe I could have seen that early on.
Speaker 1: But then at some point someone around the fire had
Speaker 1: a dream about TikTok's wife and woke up and went, whoa, right,
Speaker 1: there's no saber tooth tiger in that. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what that meant, but I better not tell tiktook right,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And then they went, what's a rectal thermometer? It hasn't
Speaker 2: even been invented yet.
Speaker 1: So these days they've done actual studies with EEG machines
Speaker 1: and MRI machines, and especially in Italy, these Italian researchers
Speaker 1: basically put people to sleep, not put them to.
Speaker 2: Sleep in a sleeper hole.
Speaker 1: They lay them down in a nice Italian bed, feed
Speaker 1: them some pasta fazoul.
Speaker 2: And get out the rectal thermometer.
Speaker 1: Yep, and they hook them up to all these wires
Speaker 1: and machines and then they will wake them up at
Speaker 1: different points in the night and say, hey, what were
Speaker 1: you dreaming of? We'd like to talk about it and
Speaker 1: study what was going on with these machines.
Speaker 2: Right, And they actually what they found supports the current
Speaker 2: the prevailing theory. I don't think it was their theory.
Speaker 2: I think it was around, but their research supports it
Speaker 2: called affect regulation theory, which is basically that we control
Speaker 2: our emotions or we process our emotions through our dreams. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and these Italians found support for this and that when
Speaker 2: they woke people up and asked them what they were
Speaker 2: dreaming about, the ones who had the best recall were
Speaker 2: the ones who had the most Theta waves in their
Speaker 2: frontal lobes.
Speaker 3: Right, which are slow moving waves. Right.
Speaker 2: Yes, And when you look at an EEG machine, if
Speaker 2: you looked at those dreamers brain waves, it looked like
Speaker 2: the brain waves of somebody who was sitting there forming
Speaker 2: and recalling memories.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So these people said, that's what they're doing. That's what
Speaker 2: all of us are doing. While we're dreaming, we're forming memories.
Speaker 2: We're taking emotions that we've experienced through the day, and
Speaker 2: we're creating memories. Out of them so we can file
Speaker 2: them away. So we're processing our emotions in our dreams.
Speaker 2: That's the point of dreams. That's the current understanding. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I mean other parts of the brain that
Speaker 1: have been active all sort of deal with emotion, whether
Speaker 1: it's the amygdala and the hippocampus or the lingual gyrus,
Speaker 1: which I think.
Speaker 3: We just talked about that in another episode.
Speaker 2: I don't recall.
Speaker 3: I can't remember, but.
Speaker 1: They're all areas of the brain that relate to emotion
Speaker 1: and memory, right, and some with visual activity.
Speaker 3: And you know that kind of makes sense. I like
Speaker 3: that theory. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then under that current theory, so that's like the
Speaker 2: explanation for regular dreams. And you can't just have a
Speaker 2: theory for dreams without including nightmares or else your theory's broken. Right,
Speaker 2: So the affect regulation theory considers nightmares. Basically, it's an
Speaker 2: emotion that's being put into the process of being, of
Speaker 2: creating a memory, a false memory, right, a dream memory,
Speaker 2: I guess you put it. But it's a real emotion, right,
Speaker 2: and it's so big it breaks the process, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, this process of creating a fake memory,
Speaker 2: a fake experience goes haywire, and now all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you're enduring some terrible, horrifying experience because the emotion
Speaker 2: that was being processed was too big and got out
Speaker 2: of control. And now you have a nightmare ts for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we did one night terrors, right.
Speaker 2: We did for sure, all right? And sleep paralysis, we've
Speaker 2: covered it all.
Speaker 3: I think I.
Speaker 2: Guess we really haven't done a dreams one.
Speaker 3: All right, So let's take another break.
Speaker 1: We're gonna come back and finally talk about fever dreams.
Speaker 2: You robbed me of a Saturday night fever reference. I
Speaker 2: just want to go on record as saying.
Speaker 3: That I was wrong.
Speaker 2: So Chuck, here's where everything just kind of goes totally
Speaker 2: off the rail. We've talked about fevers, We've talked about nightmares.
Speaker 2: The problem is really understanding both doesn't necessarily amount to
Speaker 2: understanding them together. Right, So, knowing what fevers are, knowing
Speaker 2: what dreams are, it doesn't mean you know what fever
Speaker 2: dreams are. But you can make stuff up if you want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm boy, I don't even think we even
Speaker 1: said if you've never had a fever dream, you might
Speaker 1: even know we're talking about. Oh yeah, feel kind of
Speaker 1: dumb at this point in the podcast. But a fever
Speaker 1: dream is basically a nightmare on steroids. It's just so
Speaker 1: vivid and so real and scary, right, that happens, you know,
Speaker 1: when you are sick with a fever.
Speaker 2: Yes, obviously, so they're fever dreams, right, So they are
Speaker 2: a thing. Yeah, but the scientific literature on them is
Speaker 2: super thin, basically non existent.
Speaker 1: It seemed to get them, if not more, at least
Speaker 1: they stand out more to children, right, And so anecdotally
Speaker 1: people seem to recall having fever dreams more when they
Speaker 1: were kids. Whether or not that's true or just a
Speaker 1: memory is or you know, what do you call it,
Speaker 1: like a memory bias or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no one really knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, I mean we don't really know because.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the last time I had a fever
Speaker 1: and if I did, whether or not I had a
Speaker 1: fever dream.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever had a fever dream.
Speaker 3: I did when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: I don't remember having fever dream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember being sick as a kid and having
Speaker 1: like nightmares when I was sick.
Speaker 2: So like they're noticeably worse than your average nightmare. Yes, really,
Speaker 2: so would you keep waking up from them that I
Speaker 2: don't remember. See, that's that's a big question to me. Well,
Speaker 2: let's talk about the anecdotal theory of what is behind
Speaker 2: fever dreams. Right, Okay, So when your body's undergoing a fever,
Speaker 2: we said that your body's not functioning at its top performance,
Speaker 2: and that includes the brain. The brain itself is an
Speaker 2: extremely special organ if you didn't know already, it's like,
Speaker 2: I think two percent of the body's mass, yeah, but
Speaker 2: it requires twenty percent of the bodies energy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the neurons compared to regular old dumb cells, they
Speaker 1: burn or they need about between three hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred times more energy, right than a regular old
Speaker 1: dumb cell in your body.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: And so when all these chemical processes, when all of
Speaker 2: this energy is being exploited to power cells, it produces
Speaker 2: the byproduct of heat.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the brain is super sensitive to overheating. Right already,
Speaker 2: it's just under normal circumstances.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's generally taken care of by your body
Speaker 1: likes you know that it's cooled down right and regulated.
Speaker 2: Right. So, if you have a fever and your brain
Speaker 2: is not operating at optimal conditions, but you're asleep, so
Speaker 2: it's trying to go through its normal processes. If you
Speaker 2: have a nightmare, it's entirely possible that that nightmare is
Speaker 2: going to be far, far worse because the normal processes
Speaker 2: of broken down, or it's even further possible. Apparently, the
Speaker 2: amygdala is frequently implicated with nightmares because it has to
Speaker 2: do with being terrified or angry or fearful. The amygdala
Speaker 2: might be functioning at an abnormal level. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 2: just basically going haywired while you have a fever.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the fact that most dreams occur during rim sleep,
Speaker 1: and I think that's when your body is warmest sleep anyway, right.
Speaker 2: That's when see, this is where it all gets kind
Speaker 2: of hinky. During r em sleep, your hypothalamus says I'm done,
Speaker 2: I'm not working right now, so it stops regulating temperature,
Speaker 2: which is usually why your body temperature is lowest right
Speaker 2: before you wake up.
Speaker 3: Oh I thought it was highest right before you wake up.
Speaker 2: No, it's highest in the afternoon while you're awake. It's
Speaker 2: lowest right before you wake up.
Speaker 3: I feel like I always wake up hot.
Speaker 2: You I mean, you may be like sleeping with too
Speaker 2: many blankets. Your room might be a little.
Speaker 3: Too warmlankets, huh.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's my stupid you know, schedule of my
Speaker 1: ac I mean it could be you know, it might
Speaker 1: have cut off a couple hours before or something.
Speaker 3: Right, it could be right, so fires up after I
Speaker 3: get up.
Speaker 2: Because supposedly, when you are sleeping and you're in ram sleep,
Speaker 2: your hypothalamus is not regulating temperature during that period. So
Speaker 2: if you if you are already hot and remember high
Speaker 2: body temperatures associated with wakefulness, Yeah, then maybe you are
Speaker 2: waking up more frequently than you normally would, and when
Speaker 2: you wake up in the middle of a dream, you're
Speaker 2: more prone to remember it. If you wake up in
Speaker 2: the middle of a nightmare, it's going to seem even
Speaker 2: worse than one that you had and woke up normally from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I had a series of not nightmares
Speaker 1: last night, but just sort of anxiety dreams. And I
Speaker 1: don't have any anxiety about anything right now. I think
Speaker 1: it was just after reading all this stuff. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just suggestible.
Speaker 2: You had anxiety dreams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, huh, but not about like nothing specific.
Speaker 1: No, like there's you know, usually if I have anxiety dreams.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, because something's going on in my life,
Speaker 1: I'm anxiously sure. Yeah, but there was just a research
Speaker 1: h I think. So, man, you're dedicated. But they're also
Speaker 1: celebrity dreams because you know I've talked about those before. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah that I have just celebrity dreams all the time.
Speaker 1: But they're just very normal that I'm just like friends
Speaker 1: with celebrity people.
Speaker 2: But they were they anxiety ridden last night?
Speaker 1: Yes, Like I was hanging out with the band Luna.
Speaker 1: Dean ware them of Luna, all right, and there was
Speaker 1: but there was I can't remember exactly what was going on,
Speaker 1: but you know, there was anxiety involved, like I was
Speaker 1: trying to get somewhere and couldn't get there, like the
Speaker 1: typical stupid dream stuff, you know.
Speaker 3: But Dean was in there somehow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Have you talked to him today?
Speaker 1: I don't know him, but uh, I think I know
Speaker 1: why they were in there, that's all I'll say.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, wink wink.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: So here's another thing that was our own article I
Speaker 1: thought was interesting, just a little tidbit, was that some
Speaker 1: recreational drugs like methan ecstasy can raise brain temperatures. Right,
Speaker 1: That is one of the reasons they think that it
Speaker 1: kills so many brain cells when you do those drugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly you're not supposed to take ecstasy in warm climates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, never, I have heard that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just norway. Well, there you have it, only it's
Speaker 2: fall barred.
Speaker 3: What else? Is there anything else in here?
Speaker 2: No? Man, I can't believe we stretched this one out
Speaker 2: as far as we did. Alrighty, we never have to
Speaker 2: talk about fever dreams again, Chuck Good. If you want
Speaker 2: to know more about fever dreams, well you might as
Speaker 2: well start at HowStuffWorks dot com. There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2: And you can also just go around and look at
Speaker 2: how sparse the research is on the internet for yourself.
Speaker 2: And if you are a researcher and you know more
Speaker 2: stuff about fever dreams, that you can point us to
Speaker 2: let us know. Yeah. In the meantime, I think I
Speaker 2: said search bars somewhere in there, which means it's time
Speaker 2: for listener mail, you know what.
Speaker 1: I think Another reason the anxiety dreams is because I'm
Speaker 1: barreling through the season of Fargo and the third season. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the two episodes I watched last night, which I
Speaker 1: believe were if there are ten, I think it was
Speaker 1: eight and nine. We're both just like ratcheted.
Speaker 3: Up with tingin. I'm sure that's what it was, and
Speaker 3: I think that probably had something to do with it.
Speaker 2: That happens to me sometimes I'll be watching something I
Speaker 2: won't realize how on top of me it's gotten, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, like it goes to an
Speaker 2: ad and I'm like really uptight about like this scratching
Speaker 2: dent washing machine sale that's going on somewhere, and I
Speaker 2: don't understand why, and I'm like, oh, wow, that TV
Speaker 2: show really got to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think Fargo had something to do it.
Speaker 2: I think you may have nailed it.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one garden variety fan mail, which
Speaker 1: we don't read a lot of these, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to dig in. Hey, guys, that's all this is fan maail.
Speaker 1: You guys are doing a great job, always have. It's
Speaker 1: clear that with every episode you take great pains to
Speaker 1: provide the most accurate information you can in the most
Speaker 1: thoughtful way possible.
Speaker 2: How ironic that you would read this on the fever
Speaker 2: Dreams of Us day.
Speaker 1: This has never been more evident to me than in
Speaker 1: the episodes you did on puberty. I know it's been
Speaker 1: a little while since he's came out, but just listen
Speaker 1: to them, and it was touching to see how frequently
Speaker 1: you tried to reassure young listeners what they're experiencing is
Speaker 1: normal and that there was nothing wrong about what was happening.
Speaker 1: To hear two grown men do their best talk to
Speaker 1: young boys and girls about such sensitive material.
Speaker 3: What's a pleasure?
Speaker 1: Yes, at times I could practically feel you nervously twitching
Speaker 1: while trying to discuss menstruation in an informative yet reassuring way,
Speaker 1: but it was absolutely charming. Just reaffirm what we've always known.
Speaker 1: You two are just a pair of great dudes.
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice. Yeah, I like this guy.
Speaker 1: I've only been listening for a few years, but I'm
Speaker 1: a lifetime fan. Now if you're keeping count, like to
Speaker 1: put in a vote for DC for live shows. Josh
Speaker 1: h E d G E E sorry E d G
Speaker 1: E is edge and then ed two l's Edgel Edgel. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: Josh Edgel or Edgel? I like Edgel or ed Gil
Speaker 1: L or Edge.
Speaker 2: I think Edgel Edgel sounds like a kid next door.
Speaker 1: Josh Edgel, It's Josh and Josh. You know what, We
Speaker 1: usually come to DC once a year. I don't think
Speaker 1: we're coming this year though.
Speaker 2: No, we probably will be there early ish twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah. DC's always great to us, so what we'll definitely be.
Speaker 2: Back yeah soonish yeah. Uh. And you can always fly
Speaker 2: somewhere in the continental United States or Canada. Josh, take
Speaker 2: that Asla Express up to Brooklyn exactly.
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure train.
Speaker 2: There you go. There's Rechtel thermometers everywhere. Uh. And if
Speaker 2: you want to get in touch with us, you can
Speaker 2: send us both and Jerry an email to Stuff podcast
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.