Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Ben's here too, and that makes this a
Speaker 2: good old rousing edition of Stuff you Should Know. Philosophy
Speaker 2: Now edition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I apologize to Josh off here. I
Speaker 1: might as well say it now. I may be a
Speaker 1: little rough in this one because my brain breaks a
Speaker 1: little bit when we have these philosophy subjects. And even
Speaker 1: though I made an A and the only philosophy class
Speaker 1: I took in college, which I've said before, huh, it's
Speaker 1: only because I was so frustrated by it. I worked
Speaker 1: really really hard to try and understand it and ended
Speaker 1: up getting an A. But it breaks my brain a
Speaker 1: lot of times.
Speaker 2: Oh now, okay, boy, you didn't end that sentence under
Speaker 2: normal circumstance. No, but good for you. Power for powering
Speaker 2: through that that uh, that class and not just being like, well,
Speaker 2: I guess I'll take a zero in this one again.
Speaker 3: Or drop it in that first week. I did a
Speaker 3: lot of that.
Speaker 2: I did that once in astronomy. I was like, wait,
Speaker 2: why are you using like the Greek symbol for epsilon
Speaker 2: and sigma in this like I thought we were going
Speaker 2: to talk about Mars and stuff and no, right, I
Speaker 2: got rid of that really quick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good, good job.
Speaker 2: All right, So I kind of I think have a
Speaker 2: bit of a grasp on the the philosophy of it.
Speaker 2: What I had trouble with with some of the studies,
Speaker 2: like the actual research on it. So we'll just muddle through.
Speaker 2: It will be fun. Sometimes those are our most enjoyable episodes.
Speaker 2: Sometimes there are worst. Let's find out which way this
Speaker 2: one goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what we're talking talking about is something we've talked
Speaker 1: about on the show before. I wish I could remember
Speaker 1: which episode, but we've definitely talked about the call of
Speaker 1: the void what what the French call lapel do or
Speaker 1: high place phenomenon, And that is the idea that and
Speaker 1: it's not just the desire to maybe hurl your yourself
Speaker 1: off the top of a building if you're standing, or
Speaker 1: a bridge, if you're standing atop of high structure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the one we're going to concentrate on. But it
Speaker 1: can also mean and I know this is what we
Speaker 1: talked about before, because I talked about like grabbing the
Speaker 1: cops gun or driving into oncoming traffic, right that very
Speaker 1: amazing scene from Christopher Walking and Annie Hall where he's
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, swerving into oncoming traffic is so good,
Speaker 1: and they smash cut, you know, to him driving Woody
Speaker 1: and Annie home. It's just one of the great movie jokes.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's the idea, is this weird urge?
Speaker 1: I know it was an episode of Louis as well,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to think if I could think of
Speaker 1: any more canceled filmmakers.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. He did a short on it once.
Speaker 1: You know, it was in both of those things, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this weird desire to be like standing at top
Speaker 1: of a tall structure and be like, I could just
Speaker 1: jump right now and see what's out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a I think that's the most common
Speaker 2: phenomenon of the call of the void, just it occurring
Speaker 2: to you that you could do this. It can get worse, though, too,
Speaker 2: because some people not only experience that notion occurring to them,
Speaker 2: they've experienced something akin to an urge, so much so
Speaker 2: that sometimes people will like push themselves away from the
Speaker 2: edge that they might like go back into whatever stairwell
Speaker 2: they just came out of because they don't want to
Speaker 2: accidentally or inadvertently. They don't trust themselves not to follow
Speaker 2: that urge. That's when it gets really scary. And if
Speaker 2: you think about it, we humans have a real tendency
Speaker 2: towards self preservation, like we fight to live, sometimes to
Speaker 2: degrees that surprise ourselves afterward, you know. So that makes
Speaker 2: the call of the void completely nonsensical. It makes zero
Speaker 2: sense whatsoever that you would have an urge to just
Speaker 2: end it all for no reason, just because it's there,
Speaker 2: just because there's a huge void there, jumping into it
Speaker 2: because it occurred to you. So the fact that this
Speaker 2: is a fairly common phenomenon, it bears investigating. And so
Speaker 2: psychologists have gotten into it. Philosophers have gotten into it,
Speaker 2: like you said, Woody Allen's gotten into it. It's a
Speaker 2: thing for sure. And I love the fact that it's
Speaker 2: a mystery because no one's actually successfully explained it, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if we ever will. And for my money,
Speaker 2: I don't really want to what understand it. Yes, because
Speaker 2: I throw I cast my lot with the philosophers. I
Speaker 2: think kerker Garden start nailed it, but it's still I mean,
Speaker 2: you don't prove things with philosophy it's just like, what about.
Speaker 1: This, Yeah, yeah, I mean we'll get to statistics and
Speaker 1: how they align with you know, legitimate suicidal ideation later,
Speaker 1: probably in the last part, but just among the two
Speaker 1: of us. I know, I know I said this before
Speaker 1: with when we talked about it before, but I have
Speaker 1: felt the call of the void many many times. And
Speaker 1: for me, it's not I could just end it all,
Speaker 1: but it's more like, uh, it's hard to And maybe
Speaker 1: that's one of the frustrating things. It's really hard to
Speaker 1: explain what's going through my head. It's it's sort of
Speaker 1: like no one can stop me from doing this, and
Speaker 1: I could, I could know what that feels like to fall.
Speaker 1: Part of it is I had a very tragically had
Speaker 1: a friend fall off a building to his death, and
Speaker 1: oh yeah, so there there's a little bit of that,
Speaker 1: like I would want to know what Aaron felt like
Speaker 1: and like how scary that was as a as an
Speaker 1: empathetic thing. So there's a lot of things in my head.
Speaker 1: None of that explains why I want to grab the
Speaker 1: cops because I was about to ask that I've never
Speaker 1: really felt the driving into the other lane thing, but
Speaker 1: I just I don't know, it's really fascinating to have
Speaker 1: these thoughts pop into your head when normally, you know,
Speaker 1: you're the kind of person that would never entertain anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you just said a mouthful. Essentially, the call
Speaker 2: of the void can be can come from it can
Speaker 2: come out of nowhere, which makes it an intrusive thought
Speaker 2: in a lot of situations. Other Times it can be
Speaker 2: triggered by the situation, like you're not going to think
Speaker 2: about driving into oncoming traffic while you're you know, in
Speaker 2: your chemistry class, Like it's while you're driving, right, So
Speaker 2: there's some that are triggered by circumstances. And then you
Speaker 2: also said that you're like, you're basically you're horrified by
Speaker 2: the idea you're even having this thought. It's just totally out.
Speaker 3: Of character for you.
Speaker 2: So you put all that together, you have what essentially
Speaker 2: is the call of the void. And I say we
Speaker 2: go up to the tee and put the little baseball
Speaker 2: or whiffle ball on top of the tee and knock
Speaker 2: it out of the park. With the philosophers first, all.
Speaker 1: Right, I will say this that the carecer guard stuff
Speaker 1: really spoke to me me too. We're talking about Danish
Speaker 1: philosopher Surin, I guess I don't know what the null
Speaker 1: sign means.
Speaker 2: So it's like an umlaut okay, so Surin, basically, I guess.
Speaker 1: He talked about this idea that the callovoid call of
Speaker 1: the void illustrates anxiety and in his case, and this
Speaker 1: is the part that really spoke to me. He argued that,
Speaker 1: and I think he's dead right. Actually, is that fear
Speaker 1: is when outside forces are scaring you something that could
Speaker 1: harm you from the outside. Anxiety is when that's turned
Speaker 1: inward and that's emerging from your The threat is coming
Speaker 1: from within their inside the house basically, and that house
Speaker 1: is your brain. So the freedom to the freedom of
Speaker 1: choice in life to move about the world, just to
Speaker 1: choose what you do from moment to moment, you're constantly
Speaker 1: making choices without knowing necessarily what the right thing to
Speaker 1: do was. So when an anxiety can come from what
Speaker 1: he called the dizziness of freedom, of that freedom specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And just the basis of anxiety is having
Speaker 2: those choices, not knowing what's right, like you said, and
Speaker 2: that because our lives are filled from moment to moment
Speaker 2: with making a choice, not making a choice, which stills
Speaker 2: a choice, just as Gedty Lee that, of course it's
Speaker 2: going to create anxiety, which means anxiety is the human condition.
Speaker 2: It's almost the basis of the human condition, is what
Speaker 2: he was saying. So he kind of used that, or
Speaker 2: used the call of the void to kind of demonstrate that,
Speaker 2: essentially saying that you when you're up there on a precipice,
Speaker 2: you're aware that you have the choice to just throw
Speaker 2: yourself over, and just realizing that that is a choice
Speaker 2: of that you can make right then, like you said,
Speaker 2: no one's going to stop you having that freedom. Is
Speaker 2: it's too much we like to think that, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't have choices that we have metal, we have
Speaker 2: a self preservation drive, we have all this stuff that
Speaker 2: would prevent us from even ever considering that. And yet
Speaker 2: whenever we experience the call of the void, it is
Speaker 2: by definition experience experiencing that urge, like the realization that
Speaker 2: we can choose that. And that's what kure Kaguard kind
Speaker 2: of kicked the whole thing off with, I think in
Speaker 2: the eighteen fifties. When you use that to illustrate anxiety
Speaker 2: in humans.
Speaker 3: Can we have a quick side chat?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do they call them?
Speaker 3: Not diversions tangents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one of our tangents about rush Okay, did
Speaker 1: you hear me very quickly say Neil Pert, No, I didn't,
Speaker 1: you said Getty Lee. Okay, Well Neil Pert wrote that.
Speaker 1: Oh so I just quickly pointed that out. But that's
Speaker 1: not what I was trying to point out. Okay, on
Speaker 1: that record, and I remember this specifically. My brother and
Speaker 1: I were listening to and looking over that LP which
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 2: What is that spirit of radio?
Speaker 1: Yeah, on the record is the lyric and if you
Speaker 1: choose not to decide, Well, first of all, if you're
Speaker 1: not a rushman. The lyric that they recorded was, if
Speaker 1: you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Speaker 2: I feel like you have to say it like Geddy
Speaker 2: Lee still out made a choice beautiful.
Speaker 1: Uh So they recorded it like that. Neil Purt was
Speaker 1: their lyricist. But on the record, my brother and I
Speaker 1: notice it says if you choose not to decide, you
Speaker 1: cannot have made a choice.
Speaker 2: Oh well, they got that wrong.
Speaker 1: They it was like on the album and he my
Speaker 1: brother looked at me and laughed and like mimicked to
Speaker 1: Gedty Lee, like crossing it out with a pencil like, well,
Speaker 1: Neil Purt wasn't looking.
Speaker 3: And that is just always stood out to me.
Speaker 2: Did Neil part write most of their lyrics or was it.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, he was their lyricists.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. Okay, wasn't that crazy, But yeah,
Speaker 2: he got that wrong big time.
Speaker 1: Uh So back to it from Kuerker Guard, along those
Speaker 1: same lines you talked about, is it Start.
Speaker 2: That's what I've always said, Yeah, he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Jean Jean Paul SARTs another philosopher, he talked about that
Speaker 1: as the vertigo of possibility, basically the same idea as Carekerguard,
Speaker 1: of like a literal dizziness of possibilities, and he kind
Speaker 1: of leaned more into the you know, the freedom about
Speaker 1: questions of our human experience, and he went down a
Speaker 1: different road than Carekerguard ultimately did. But they both sort
Speaker 1: of referred to it as a literal dizziness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, because a lot of people do experience
Speaker 2: something akin to vertigo when they're looking down from a
Speaker 2: high place, even if they're not afraid lights.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, I for sure do. Yeah, So it.
Speaker 2: Does make sense that they would both use that. But
Speaker 2: Start was definitely doing a big yes a and to carecreguard,
Speaker 2: and I think he even calls out Careguard in the
Speaker 2: section of being a nothingness. Right, But his whole jam
Speaker 2: that he kind of took, the point that he took
Speaker 2: it to was not only are you realizing, like you
Speaker 2: have this freedom of choice, you also realize that your
Speaker 2: future self has that same freedom of choice. And you,
Speaker 2: the one who's making this choice right now not to
Speaker 2: leap over this precipice for no good reason, has zero
Speaker 2: control over whether you in the future future you is
Speaker 2: going to make that same choice or not. And that
Speaker 2: is a reason to be terrified of being alive. Essentially,
Speaker 2: is what Sart said.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean not quite multiverse stuff, but it's
Speaker 1: sort of along the same lines, like almost future future
Speaker 1: multiverse maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But what he was saying also is a lot
Speaker 2: like kerky Guard, Like life is made up of choices
Speaker 2: moment to moment to moment, And his whole thing is like,
Speaker 2: there's no solid self, there's no you that exists. You know,
Speaker 2: when you're born or even after you develop a little bit,
Speaker 2: to the time you die, you are constantly you have
Speaker 2: to constantly keep the self going by making essentially the
Speaker 2: same decisions over and over again, and if you don't
Speaker 2: have the same experience, say like terror when you're up
Speaker 2: on a precipice and decide not to jump, If the
Speaker 2: next time you're up there and you're not terrified, you
Speaker 2: feel like, what's it like to fly, you might make
Speaker 2: the same decision, even though it's out of character with
Speaker 2: how you were before that. The self is that fluid essentially,
Speaker 2: is what he was saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he sort of related that to gambling or
Speaker 1: the gambler who you know, like an addictive gambler who
Speaker 1: quits gambling and you know, let's say years later they
Speaker 1: walk by a gambling table and instead of seeing the
Speaker 1: gambling table and immediately thinking like, God, that's the worst
Speaker 1: thing that ever happened to me, the reaction is, well,
Speaker 1: that was sort of a memory of a feeling that
Speaker 1: I had, and in order to get back that true
Speaker 1: feeling of I shouldn't do this, I can only do
Speaker 1: that by doing it again.
Speaker 3: Sort of like a not quite like rose colored glasses.
Speaker 1: But I think everyone's sort of had that same feeling
Speaker 1: about an X.
Speaker 3: Before years later, where you're like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was so bad about that, should I give
Speaker 1: them a call? When in fact it was a terrible
Speaker 1: situation and like to give them the call and try.
Speaker 1: I mean, John Cusack made a whole movie about it
Speaker 1: to go back to and revisit, like the ex girlfriends,
Speaker 1: And it's just constantly reminded, like the Gambler would be of, like, no,
Speaker 1: this was a bad idea twenty years ago, it's not
Speaker 1: a good idea now still.
Speaker 2: Right, And the same thing holds you for like smoking
Speaker 2: or something like that, Like when you decided to quit
Speaker 2: smoking quick gambling, break up, Like you're in a certain
Speaker 2: experience right then that you don't necessarily feel or experience
Speaker 2: a year later, so you have to remind yourself like
Speaker 2: to make that same decision again. Your future self could
Speaker 2: make a different decision than you did right then and
Speaker 2: you have no control over it. I know.
Speaker 1: Pretty awesome, Right, Should we break or should we talk
Speaker 1: about Gary Cox?
Speaker 2: Let's finish with Gary Cox real quick, because I like
Speaker 2: this guy's jib.
Speaker 1: The cint of his jib. He's a British philosopher. We
Speaker 1: can pronounce his name, so that's a plus. And he
Speaker 1: looks at more as an existentialist kind of thing, where
Speaker 1: we have these psychological defenses that we construct against thing,
Speaker 1: but they're basically just all an illusion. It's things that
Speaker 1: we make up to fool ourselves into thinking we have
Speaker 1: an instinct for self preservation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's saying that. What Kierka Garden Sart are
Speaker 2: both saying is essentially that we when we experience the
Speaker 2: call of the void, that what's called bad faith as
Speaker 2: far as existentialists are concerned. Anytime we delude ourselves, it's
Speaker 2: a bad faith illusion essentially, that all of those are
Speaker 2: just essentially us deluding ourselves, and it's laid bare by
Speaker 2: the call of the void. Like, the only reason you're
Speaker 2: not jumping right now is not because you have this
Speaker 2: self preservation instinct, is not because you don't want to
Speaker 2: do that to your family or anything like that. It's
Speaker 2: because you are choosing right then not to jump. That's it.
Speaker 2: It's the only thing that's preventing you from jumping right then.
Speaker 2: And that scares the but Jesus out of anybody who
Speaker 2: has a brain in their head when they experience the
Speaker 2: call the void, especially when it's accompanied by the urge
Speaker 2: to jump, not just the thought of jumping.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so shall we break now.
Speaker 2: Yes, look at that with the ball, go, we knocked
Speaker 2: it out of the park.
Speaker 1: We'll come back and we'll talk about these intrusive thoughts
Speaker 1: that people are having right after this.
Speaker 2: All right, Tuck, I feel like I should start with
Speaker 2: a confession. I've been talking a lot of macho talk
Speaker 2: about te balls and hitting it out of the park.
Speaker 2: I used to strike out at T ball pretty often,
Speaker 2: and they give you a lot more than just three
Speaker 2: strikes before they tell you to go sit down, like
Speaker 2: maybe seven eight, sometimes depending on the coach, and I
Speaker 2: would still strike out and it happened more than once.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was happening there?
Speaker 2: What's happening there is? I was a terrible T ball player.
Speaker 3: I didn't play T ball, so you know I didn't
Speaker 3: have that experience.
Speaker 2: But you know what t ball is, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you set a ball on a tee, it's not moving,
Speaker 3: not going anywhere, and you've got a baseball bat in
Speaker 3: your hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought i'd feel better after admitting that, I
Speaker 2: feel much worse.
Speaker 1: Actually, well, you've told me that before, so I was
Speaker 1: pre I felt bad for you back then.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 2: Have I talked about it on the podcast or was
Speaker 2: in private?
Speaker 1: No, I was on the show, but that's okay. It
Speaker 1: was years ago, Okay, Yeah, we've been doing this for
Speaker 1: sixteen years. That's gonna happen what.
Speaker 3: We promised.
Speaker 1: Talk about intrusive thoughts and intrusive thought is defined base
Speaker 1: as a thought that is not in character for you,
Speaker 1: that you're thinking it. It's pretty bothersome and it's a
Speaker 1: hard thing for you to control, and if you start
Speaker 1: really digging in and worrying about it and looking for
Speaker 1: meaning behind it, they can be very, very disruptive to
Speaker 1: someone's life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're really a problem for people who have clinical
Speaker 2: obsessive compulsive disorder.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The reason why there's such a problem is, I mean,
Speaker 2: intrusive thoughts can affect anybody. You don't have to have OCD.
Speaker 2: The problem that a companies OCD is that people will
Speaker 2: try to find a way of coping with that intrusive thought.
Speaker 2: And the classic example is being a germa feeling like
Speaker 2: your hands are dirty, so you go wash your hands.
Speaker 2: By washing your hands, you're coping with the sensation that
Speaker 2: your hands are dirty, you have germs on your hands,
Speaker 2: and you alleviate that by washing your hands. Well, if
Speaker 2: you have an intrusive thought and the idea that your
Speaker 2: hands are dirty is essentially constant, you're gonna spend a
Speaker 2: lot of your time washing your hands, and it's going
Speaker 2: to actually impact your life. That's a classic example of
Speaker 2: somebody suffering from OCD. But if you take away the
Speaker 2: you know, washing your hands to alleviate that stress from
Speaker 2: the intrusive thought, you have what happens to basically anybody,
Speaker 2: this thought that kind of comes out of nowhere. It's
Speaker 2: often very, very troubling. There's a whole variety called morbid obsessions,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, I could pick up that axe
Speaker 2: and kill my whole family right now. And then you're like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, why am I thinking that? And you
Speaker 2: feel horrible for that even crossing your mind because what
Speaker 2: loving you know, husband, wife, child, would ever think of
Speaker 2: something like that. And you start to go down that
Speaker 2: road and you're too afraid to even bring it up
Speaker 2: to anybody. You'll want to be like, hey, I just
Speaker 2: thought of killing all of you guys with an axe.
Speaker 2: Let's talk that out. So the more you keep it
Speaker 2: to yourself and ruminate on it, the more terrifying it becomes.
Speaker 2: And that is essentially the cycle of intrusive thought that
Speaker 2: can only be broken by essentially saying that was an
Speaker 2: intrusive thought. I accept as an intrusive thought. I don't
Speaker 2: actually want to kill my family with an axe. And
Speaker 2: this kind of thing happens to everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, Lyvia pointed out she did a
Speaker 1: great job with the school, by the way.
Speaker 2: She knocked the cheek all out of the part she did.
Speaker 1: Lyvia pointed out that this has led to a lot
Speaker 1: of bad stuff, especially with people with OCD in the past,
Speaker 1: with like the court system and like having children taken
Speaker 1: away or something. Because the old idea, as far as
Speaker 1: psychiatry is concerned or psycho analysis is concerned, was if
Speaker 1: you're having these ideations, it's really a manifestation of your
Speaker 1: unconscious desire. So if you have a thought about, you know,
Speaker 1: drowning your children, and then all of a sudden, you're
Speaker 1: going down this rabbit hole of like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: how could I think that? And what is that all about?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: And then you're just really drilling down into that because
Speaker 1: you're horrified by it. You have now an analyst saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's really your unconscious desire, your honor or, ladies and
Speaker 1: gentlemen of the jury. And so you get your children
Speaker 1: taken away, and now they're saying like that's not true
Speaker 1: at all, Like it's not an unconscious desire. It's someone
Speaker 1: who's horrified by these thoughts that are obsessing about them
Speaker 1: because they're horrified about it exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think the very fact that you're horrified by
Speaker 2: it shows you just how far you are from actually
Speaker 2: committing that act. So, yeah, the idea that people used
Speaker 2: to get their children it happened at least twice. I
Speaker 2: could find two cases that happened fairly recently where mothers
Speaker 2: in both cases confided in either their psychiatrist or their obgyn,
Speaker 2: who both just turned around and called child protective Services
Speaker 2: or the cops, you know. And just the idea that
Speaker 2: they had it so backwards and that this happens everybody,
Speaker 2: but they lost their kids because they sought help for it.
Speaker 2: That's just that's terrible. So I'm glad we figured out
Speaker 2: that that's not the case, and the fact that it
Speaker 2: can be treated pretty easily. You can even self treat
Speaker 2: if you learn the steps to identifying an intrusive thought.
Speaker 2: Saying it to yourself is just an intrusive thought. Like
Speaker 2: I said, you don't want to do this, and that
Speaker 2: this happens to everybody. If it's really bad and you
Speaker 2: feel like you can't self treat, there are treatments you
Speaker 2: can go seek that are also very effective. One of
Speaker 2: them is exposure and response prevention. And one of the
Speaker 2: examples I've seen is if you think about killing your
Speaker 2: family with a butcher knife, your therapist will come to
Speaker 2: your house and give you the butcher knife and sit
Speaker 2: you on the couch next to your family and basically
Speaker 2: be like, do you really want to kill your family,
Speaker 2: because now's your time to do it if you want.
Speaker 2: And I've seen that they actually will have say like
Speaker 2: a father look at their son and be like, please
Speaker 2: don't kill me son as part of this therapy. And
Speaker 2: it works because you see firsthand like you could do
Speaker 2: it right then, and you're just you don't want to,
Speaker 2: You're not going, you're not moved to doing that. You
Speaker 2: have control over your behavior, and you see it firsthand
Speaker 2: right there, and that tends to actually help quite a bit.
Speaker 2: And so the fact that that helps and you can
Speaker 2: self treat shows that it is just a weird fluke
Speaker 2: of human psychology and that it happens to everybody, including
Speaker 2: really violent, terrible stuff that you can think about. Everyone
Speaker 2: happens to everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if we uncomfortably giggled during that part, it's
Speaker 1: not because we don't think that that must be the
Speaker 1: hardest thing in the world would be to sit down
Speaker 1: and have a therapy session like that right with your family. Like,
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what that's like to sit down
Speaker 1: and have to do something like that, so or what
Speaker 1: it costs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I got a snort for that one.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, you sure did. I don't do that much.
Speaker 1: I guess we should talk about the studies. And when
Speaker 1: I say study, I mean studies kind of one too.
Speaker 1: There haven't been a ton of them. Lyvia dug up
Speaker 1: a couple in twenty eleven, there was a psychologist named
Speaker 1: Jennifer Haymes from Florida State. Along with her colleagues are
Speaker 1: at Florida State. They're the people who coin the HPP
Speaker 1: term high Places phenomenon. And they asked four hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty one FSU students.
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, go fighting elione, I no, come.
Speaker 3: On, seminoles, you know that. Yeah? Sure.
Speaker 1: They asked four hundred and thirty one of their students
Speaker 1: about their experiences with high place phenomenon. More than thirty
Speaker 1: percent had experience that urged to jump, and among those
Speaker 1: who had never experienced suicidal ideation, because you know, when
Speaker 1: they study something like this, they're trying to separate those
Speaker 1: things out of just the call of the void and
Speaker 1: someone who actually has thought about taking their own lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Freud led everybody down a blind alley by
Speaker 2: basically saying, oh, actually, this this is our innate drive
Speaker 2: to want to kill ourselves. That's really at play, And
Speaker 2: it turned out it's just not true at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So among those who had never experienced suicidal ideation,
Speaker 1: there were still seventeen percent who had the urge to
Speaker 1: jump at least one time.
Speaker 3: And I believe.
Speaker 1: Half of the people who had suicidal feelings said the same.
Speaker 1: It was about the same number.
Speaker 2: Right, And the researchers are like, this not quite track, Like,
Speaker 2: let's reframe the question. And they asked the same people,
Speaker 2: have you ever thought about jumping from a bridge or
Speaker 2: a building? And they're like, oh, yeah, I've thought about
Speaker 2: that for sure. That's what I'm saying. There's a difference
Speaker 2: between just being up there and thinking like what would
Speaker 2: happen if I did this the thought pops in your head, right,
Speaker 2: or the urge where you have to push yourself away
Speaker 2: from the balcony. Those are two slightly separate experiences, and
Speaker 2: the just the thought popping in people's heads seemed as
Speaker 2: to be the more common one. So when they reframed
Speaker 2: the question like that seventy four percent of people who
Speaker 2: had gone through suicidal ideation said yeah, I've done that.
Speaker 2: Forty three percent of non suicidal ideators just say the
Speaker 2: general population said that that happened to them. So almost
Speaker 2: half of people walking around are like said like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's occurred to me to throw myself off the top
Speaker 2: of a tall building. One I've been up there. And
Speaker 2: even then Hames and her colleagues were like, I still
Speaker 2: think that's a little small. And they've come up with
Speaker 2: little ways to essentially say, like, some people are forgetting
Speaker 2: that this actually happened to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and mine is always a thought. It's never a
Speaker 1: true urge. But they you know, after this study, one
Speaker 1: of the things that they talked about was sort of
Speaker 1: like what you said with Freud, where they said, like, no,
Speaker 1: this is not a manifestation of the death drive, of
Speaker 1: the urge to take your own life, And they looked
Speaker 1: at actual, you know, real cases of suicide. They looked
Speaker 1: at previous research and all the data, and their argument was,
Speaker 1: you know, when someone takes their own life, it's rarely
Speaker 1: a truly truly impulsive act, right. It's usually something that
Speaker 1: has happened over time, and it's in a big sort
Speaker 1: of accumulation of these ideations. And while the exact moment
Speaker 1: may have some impulsivity to it, it's rarely just a
Speaker 1: completely impulsive.
Speaker 2: Act, right. And usually it's characterized by resolution more than
Speaker 2: impulsiveness too, you know.
Speaker 3: If the person is this is something I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Do, yes, exactly. So they basically said, Okay, Freud was
Speaker 2: totally wrong, but still we think that some people don't
Speaker 2: really remember that this happened. We think that more people
Speaker 2: than say, forty three percent of the population have experienced this.
Speaker 2: And one of the explanations they had was that one
Speaker 2: thing we left out. They've found a huge correlation between
Speaker 2: people who experience anxiety and people who have experienced the
Speaker 2: high place phenomenon or the call of the void. Right.
Speaker 2: And so what Hames and her colleague said was, all right,
Speaker 2: what we think happened is when you're anxious. When you're
Speaker 2: an anxious person, you're more attuned to like internal signals yea,
Speaker 2: and so you are experiencing those like more acutely, like
Speaker 2: all the symptoms associated with it, like just being nervous
Speaker 2: and just having like your stomach kind of topsy turvy,
Speaker 2: Like those symptoms stand out to you more. And so
Speaker 2: those people remember having experienced to call the void more,
Speaker 2: so they're more likely to report it. And that everybody,
Speaker 2: most people probably experience this. It's just some people it
Speaker 2: just so fleeting or whatever to them that they don't
Speaker 2: remember it later on. I find that questionable, but that's
Speaker 2: kind of how they explained it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they also sort of wrap their heads around
Speaker 1: the idea that the call of the void is as.
Speaker 3: A survival instinct.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the opposite of what people, especially Freud,
Speaker 1: had previously thought of it, is that it reflects a
Speaker 1: survival instinct that we have to, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: think about that in terms of framing it of how
Speaker 1: they are appreciating being alive and not doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the scientific explanation O Koran, which means current,
Speaker 2: is that when you're up there on a tall building
Speaker 2: and you're looking over the edge or something like that,
Speaker 2: your innate instinct, like say your lizard brain is like
Speaker 2: jump back jack, and so it sends a fear signal,
Speaker 2: and your rational brain, which is a little bit slower,
Speaker 2: catches up and is like, hey, why am I feeling fear?
Speaker 2: There's no danger here whatsoever. There's like a sturdy railing
Speaker 2: and I've got like a solid floor beneath my feet.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm afraid, or I guess I got a
Speaker 2: fear signal because I had the urge to jump, And
Speaker 2: that that's the call of the void. That it's a
Speaker 2: miscommunication or misunderstanding of your physiology and your rational mind essentially,
Speaker 2: and that that's what the called void is. I guess.
Speaker 2: I mean that's certainly certainly jibes to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: but I don't it still doesn't quite stand out to me,
Speaker 2: like like carecer guards and SARTs explanations, Like I think
Speaker 2: they just completely nailed it, I like like five whiffle
Speaker 2: balls at once out of the park.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they did the study and they had
Speaker 1: data and stuff, but then there's a lot of just
Speaker 1: philosophical extrapolation, right that you may not fully be on
Speaker 1: board with. Yeah, there was another study, I think maybe
Speaker 1: only the other the only other study I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any other ones. No, huh, Tobias Ticeman and his other
Speaker 1: coworkers there at ruher Univastett Boucham, this is in Germany.
Speaker 2: That's the fighting ruh jers.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, and they looked at a couple of
Speaker 1: different samples of two hundred and seventy six people who
Speaker 1: did an online survey, about half of them had experienced
Speaker 1: suicidal ideation at some point. And then ninety four patients
Speaker 1: who were being treated for flight phobia, like you know,
Speaker 1: fear of flying in a plane, which used to have
Speaker 1: pretty solidly but seemed to have gotten over pretty well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did you know you.
Speaker 3: Don't cover your head with a blanket anymore when you fly,
Speaker 3: which is great.
Speaker 2: No, it is, it's very nice, because that was tortuous.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 1: And along the lines of the Ham study, eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the people who had experienced suicidal ideation had experienced HPP.
Speaker 1: Forty five percent of those experienced HPP who hadn't experienced
Speaker 1: or who hadn't gone through suicidal ideas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like exactly the same numbers, which is crazy.
Speaker 2: And then it's crazy who was that it was supposed
Speaker 2: to be walking but it's that was so bad. I'm
Speaker 2: going to say, Colonel Sanders.
Speaker 3: No no, no, no no. I got walking after you said it, so,
Speaker 3: just like every great impression.
Speaker 2: After I explained it. So, Tobias Tiesman, is that how
Speaker 2: you pronounced his name earlier?
Speaker 3: I think it's Tysman. I think it's the second letter
Speaker 3: for Germany.
Speaker 2: Okay, Tobias Ticsman at all. The same study also used
Speaker 2: a different group, looked at a different group people who
Speaker 2: suffer from clinical fear of heights acrophobia, and they found
Speaker 2: that only forty five percent of them had ever experienced
Speaker 2: high place phenomenon, which is basically tracking exactly with the
Speaker 2: general population. So that shows that it really is not
Speaker 2: it doesn't stem from a fear of heights, even though
Speaker 2: there's other people that say that's exactly what it stems from.
Speaker 1: And so then they the people that they were reporting
Speaker 1: to and getting their funding from, said so, what'd you
Speaker 1: learn about the fear of flying? And they said nothing, right.
Speaker 2: Sorry, exactly, And Delta was like, man, yeah, you got
Speaker 2: to stop funding these terrible studies.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of this call of avoid thing? They're like,
Speaker 1: oh jeez, we're only the second study.
Speaker 2: So right, we'll get it someday, I say, we take
Speaker 2: our second break and then come back and do more speculating.
Speaker 1: All right, so Lyvia dug up some more, some more speculation,
Speaker 1: which is what she called this section.
Speaker 3: Actually what did she call this article? It was great.
Speaker 3: I don't have my title page.
Speaker 2: The Call of the Void. Don't pick it up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I promised Lyvia, We're going to use that as
Speaker 1: the actual title one day.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Is it going to be this one?
Speaker 2: I think this might be. This might be a yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a good one.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: And I added in it it's don't pick.
Speaker 3: Up, don't pick up, yeah, which is even funnier. Actually
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: There's a psychology professor from Britain, or researcher rather, named
Speaker 1: Paul Salkovski who basically said, the thoughts of doing these,
Speaker 1: you know, inappropriate things or dangerous things like the Call
Speaker 1: of the Void are a result of our problem solving
Speaker 1: process within the brain. So our subconscious just throwing something
Speaker 1: out there, and then our rational brain getting an opportunity
Speaker 1: to say, like, no, that's of course I'm not going
Speaker 1: to jump off or jump off a bridge.
Speaker 2: That's a terrible idea. And then your unconscious is like,
Speaker 2: but you could.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm down with that one. I'm not down with
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 2: Rather, Okay, I got one. So and I guess when
Speaker 2: we're going back and forth like this, everybody should just
Speaker 2: imagine us like we're going to break off and now
Speaker 2: like you've backed off, like you did a little dance
Speaker 2: to back out, and now I did a little dance
Speaker 2: to back in or jump in.
Speaker 3: Okay, So cardboards on the Pavement.
Speaker 2: There's a really great article and Nautilus about this too.
Speaker 2: I was a researcher named Adam Anderson who as a
Speaker 2: cognitive neuroscientist at Cornell. I like this guy's idea. He
Speaker 2: basically says that when we're on a tall building, we're
Speaker 2: so just not designed to experience heights that it's not
Speaker 2: exactly new. I mean, cliffs have been around for a
Speaker 2: long time, but our experience of being high up is
Speaker 2: far more frequent than it ever was in the past,
Speaker 2: just even a few hundred years ago. Right, So when
Speaker 2: we're up there, that lizard brain again is like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're in danger. We're in danger, and that same lizard
Speaker 2: brain says, let's get to safety as soon as possible. Hey,
Speaker 2: there's the ground, it's safe to be on the ground.
Speaker 2: Let's just jump and be on the ground. And luckily
Speaker 2: our rational brain catches up in time and is like, no,
Speaker 2: I get what you're saying, Like, yes, this is kind
Speaker 2: of dangerous, but jumping to the ground is a really
Speaker 2: terrible idea, and we're not going to do that. But
Speaker 2: that that is the call of the void, that that's
Speaker 2: what gives us that urge to jump. It's our dumb,
Speaker 2: dumb on content his mind's seeking safety.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting, I think.
Speaker 2: Okay, you jumping in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll jump in. Okay, I'll pop in lock.
Speaker 1: Even though we said that it's not related to acrophobia,
Speaker 1: there are people who think it is. There's an Oxford
Speaker 1: psychologist named Daniel Freeman who said, no, it actually is
Speaker 1: part of the trifecta of what you might experience if
Speaker 1: you have a fear of heights, fear of falling, fear
Speaker 1: that whatever you're on the bridge or whatever will collapse
Speaker 1: beneath you, and then the third one, which is a
Speaker 1: fear of jumping.
Speaker 3: So he lumps it.
Speaker 1: In there as part of the trio of things that
Speaker 1: what he thinks make up acrophobia.
Speaker 2: Or the fear of jumping part of it. He's saying, like,
Speaker 2: is the call of the void or triggered by it?
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, that's the call of the void.
Speaker 1: But he thinks it is a form of acrophobia.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. I don't know. I didn't see much support
Speaker 2: for his but nah, yeah, there's a neuroscientists too, apparently
Speaker 2: as a real pedant, because psychologists have been seeking to
Speaker 2: basically discredit Freud's idea that the call of the void
Speaker 2: is actually a manifestation of our urge to destroy ourselves,
Speaker 2: you know, wrought large or writ large, right, And they
Speaker 2: found like, no, that's not true. And Emil gabrielle Bruno,
Speaker 2: who again as a neuroscientist, who was like, actually, there's
Speaker 2: a there's a condition where you can actually have some
Speaker 2: sort of pre funnel cortex damage and you'll violate social
Speaker 2: norms left and right. They that person may actually follow
Speaker 2: the urge of the call of the void. It could
Speaker 2: actually result in somebody jumping, and everybody stopped inviting Emil
Speaker 2: Gabriel Bruno to their conferences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with everybody there. Yeah, I don't need somebody
Speaker 1: pointing that out. All kinds of terrible things can happen
Speaker 1: when you have a damage to your.
Speaker 2: Exactly do you want to end with Judith dan Koff, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to sit down and let you take it home.
Speaker 1: Judith Dankoff as a novelist who described the urge to
Speaker 1: jump in Washington State from Deception Pass Bridge. I mean,
Speaker 1: just that name alone makes you want to do something weird.
Speaker 1: I think as not a frightening thing, but like an
Speaker 1: urge to fly. And that's sort of along the lines
Speaker 1: of what I was talking about, not necessarily urged to fly,
Speaker 1: but just sort of like to see what it's like, right,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hers was serious enough, for significant enough that
Speaker 2: she just sat down in the middle of the bridge
Speaker 2: to make sure she didn't actually follow through on the urge.
Speaker 2: It was that strong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she quit knitting her Macromey wings.
Speaker 2: You got anything else, No, sir, That's the call of
Speaker 2: the void. Everybody don't feel weird if number one you
Speaker 2: experience it, and number two you feel like no one's
Speaker 2: actually fully explained what it is because they haven't. And
Speaker 2: since I said that, it's time for listener man.
Speaker 1: This is just sort of a quick one that came
Speaker 1: in today because I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: know that this is the case, and we say it
Speaker 1: from time to time, but this is about our bumper
Speaker 1: music that we play between commercial and content. Yes, hey guys,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to the show for several years now.
Speaker 1: My hobby is woodworking, so I always listen with ear
Speaker 1: muffs and Bluetooth built in built in bluetooth to protect
Speaker 1: my ears and still hear the show. I enjoy the
Speaker 1: very jingles that you play at the beginning and the
Speaker 1: end of the breaks. Even if I skip the ads,
Speaker 1: I always make sure to listen to the jingles, and
Speaker 1: I usually even sing along. Can you provide a collection
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Speaker 1: And sometimes Jerry is invested enough in editing a particular
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