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

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Robert,

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Speaker 1: I got a question for you. Hit me. What do

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Speaker 1: you think is the most isolated and confined work space

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Speaker 1: in the world. Immediately, you want to think about the

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Speaker 1: International Space Station, right, yeah, I mean that's that's pretty isolated. Um,

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Speaker 1: you think about going into orbit, you think about maybe

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Speaker 1: going to the North or South Pole, or perhaps being

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Speaker 1: on a ship in just the middle of the ocean,

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Speaker 1: just leagues upon leagues away from shore. But you know,

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Speaker 1: when you think about it, if you say, are on

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Speaker 1: an Antarctic research station that's overwintering at the South Pole,

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Speaker 1: maybe you're doing neutrino research or something down there, you

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Speaker 1: might in some cases have the build to say lookout

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Speaker 1: windows or at least maybe go outside for short periods

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Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, Or even if you're just stranded in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the ocean, you can at least look

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Speaker 1: up at at Albatross, right, yeah, you get a sense

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Speaker 1: that there's something traveling somewhere. How about how about the

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Speaker 1: International Space Station. That's got to be the most isolated

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Speaker 1: and confined and maybe claustrophobic, right, because you're in a

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Speaker 1: can flying around at super high altitude around the Earth.

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Speaker 1: There's no way to get back down quickly or easily.

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Speaker 1: But then again, I think about the windows when you're

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Speaker 1: on the International Space Station. Apparently they say lots of

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Speaker 1: the astronauts up there, it's been huge amounts of their

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Speaker 1: free time just looking out the windows, looking at the

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Speaker 1: surface of the Earth, kind of letting that work on

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Speaker 1: their consciousness and massage their brains. What would it be

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Speaker 1: like to be on the International Space Station if there

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Speaker 1: were no windows? Yeah, because because a lot has been

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Speaker 1: said about looking out, seeing the Earth from above, experiencing

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Speaker 1: what has been what do we know now is the

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Speaker 1: the overview effect in almost a semi religious experience. But

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Speaker 1: if you didn't have those windows, if you're just sealed

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Speaker 1: up within a tube in this extreme environment, well then

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Speaker 1: that would be a lot like another extreme environment that

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Speaker 1: we sometimes send people, not outer space, but inner space. No, wait,

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Speaker 1: you mean that movie where they inject you into the

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Speaker 1: blood stream. That's right, We're not talking about entering the

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Speaker 1: blood stream of Martin Short, he's the one they go into. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's the he's the subject as our call. I don't

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Speaker 1: think I've actually seen them. Oh what, You've got to

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Speaker 1: see it. It's it's tremendous fun ahead, you know. It

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Speaker 1: has these I remember watching as a kid, has all

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Speaker 1: these uh these these cool little submarines that that move

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Speaker 1: around inside the blood stream. The action scene where Martin

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Speaker 1: Short suddenly eats a cheeto and they have to fight

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Speaker 1: it off. Yeah, but no, no, no, you're talking about

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Speaker 1: another kind of environment that's more confining, more of a

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Speaker 1: crushed can, of an existence without any ability to make

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Speaker 1: contact with the world below or the world above. You're

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Speaker 1: talking about life aboard a nuclear submarine. Yes, and you're

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Speaker 1: certainly not going to get the overview effect as well.

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Speaker 1: Discussing this episode, perhaps you'll get something more like the

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Speaker 1: underview effect. Now, Robert, you have used this metaphor for

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Speaker 1: submarines in our notes here, calling them the arcs of doom.

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Speaker 1: I don't know where you got that or if that's

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Speaker 1: just out of your brain, but I love it. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's there's arcs with the k start thinking like Noah's

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Speaker 1: arks Novah's ark here. Uh so, yeah, I mean the

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Speaker 1: idea is it it's hard enough for us to sleep

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Speaker 1: just knowing that dozens of nuclear ballistic missile submarines haunt

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Speaker 1: the world's oceans, each containing the million means to reign

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Speaker 1: nuclear annihilation down on the world. But what's it like

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Speaker 1: to sleep aboard these uh, these arcs of doom? If

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Speaker 1: you will? Uh, it actually ties into long term military

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Speaker 1: study and the results may actually help us send humans

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Speaker 1: to other planets one day. Right, So today we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be talking a little bit about life and sleep and

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Speaker 1: a little bit about psychological health aboard these deep arcs

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Speaker 1: of doom. And I want to throw in a quick note.

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Speaker 1: I know we've covered a fair amount of underwater episodes

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Speaker 1: this year, have we Yeah, we have under underwater humanoids, uh,

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Speaker 1: the bathmosphere, etcetera. We keep returning to the ocean and uh,

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Speaker 1: and really, I guess that's unavoidable because we live on

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Speaker 1: a water world. The ocean is where we encounter all

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Speaker 1: these various mysteries and all of these fabulous stories of

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Speaker 1: scientific exploration and and mythic dreaming. It's the part of

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Speaker 1: space we explored that actually has aliens, right, And so

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Speaker 1: we couldn't we couldn't decide on the show not to

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Speaker 1: cover the underwater realm even if someone demanded that we

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Speaker 1: we do so. But one of the reasons that that

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Speaker 1: I've been drawn to a lot of underwater topics this

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Speaker 1: year is because I've been writing an upcoming sci fi

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Speaker 1: underwater podcast for How Stuff Works. Yeah, congratulations, Robert, Oh

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Speaker 1: thank you. This is where we're saying it in public.

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Speaker 1: That's right, We're we're we're letting it leak out a

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Speaker 1: little bit here. Uh. And Joe, you're gonna actually be

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Speaker 1: on it as well. We've got a wonderful little part

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Speaker 1: lined up for you. I'm sure it'll be magnificently dehumanizing.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, speaking of de humanization, let's let's get

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Speaker 1: back to this world of nuclear submarines and uh and

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Speaker 1: why we have them to begin with? Yeah, what are

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Speaker 1: nuclear submarines? You've heard the phrase, but why do we

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Speaker 1: have nuclear submarines? Is the Cold War still going on?

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Speaker 1: Well that's a loaded question, is um? So we should

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Speaker 1: we should talk just a minute about submarines. So I

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Speaker 1: have to admit, when I was a kid, uh, my

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Speaker 1: understanding of submarines was largely based on World War Two

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Speaker 1: era books and documentaries and movies. Uh, you know, stuff

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Speaker 1: like Doss boot about the German submarines boats you're thinking

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Speaker 1: about like an attack you boat, like sinking a cargo

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Speaker 1: ship or something. Yeah, you know, they're also called hunter

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Speaker 1: killer submarines. So they're gonna be taking out enemy war

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Speaker 1: vessels or cargo ships or occasionally, uh, interacting with other submarines.

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Speaker 1: And certainly various nations that are still employ attack subs.

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Speaker 1: And some of these are nuclear powered, uh and they

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Speaker 1: and they can go out for prolonged unprolonged missions and

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Speaker 1: spend a lot of time beneath the waves. But then

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Speaker 1: there's the nuclear powered ballistic missile sub and this is

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Speaker 1: a different beast all together. Yeah, these are sometimes referred

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Speaker 1: to as strategic submarines. They're not. They're not made for

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Speaker 1: battle tactics and combat. They are strategic as part of

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Speaker 1: the nuclear triad, that's right. The nuclear triad is essentially

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Speaker 1: a defense slash offense strategy concerning the possibility of nuclear war,

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Speaker 1: right as part of the mutually assured destruction deterrent system. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you hit me with nuclear weapons, I will hit

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Speaker 1: you with nuclear weapons and then everybody loses. That sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. But in order to fully offer that vision

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Speaker 1: of doom, you have to essentially have these three things

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Speaker 1: lined up according to the nuclear triads. You need strategic bombers, okay,

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Speaker 1: so those would be flying around in the air. You

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Speaker 1: need intercontinental ballistic missiles or i C b M. So

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Speaker 1: these would be launched from launch sites right and then

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Speaker 1: contravel ideally anywhere in the world or at least far

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Speaker 1: enough to reach the key targets of interest. And then

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Speaker 1: there are the submarine launched ballistic missiles or s l

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Speaker 1: b m s, and that's what would be launched from

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Speaker 1: these submarines. Now, these are really key for a very

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Speaker 1: specific reason. Imagine you've got a bunch of intercontinental ballistic

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Speaker 1: missiles and the reason you say you have them at

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Speaker 1: least and by the way, I don't want to say

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Speaker 1: we're necessarily advocating like the goodness of nuclear weapons or

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Speaker 1: the correctness of nuclear weapons defensive strategy, but this is how,

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Speaker 1: this is how the mutually assured destruction system is supposed

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Speaker 1: to work. In theory, the ideas you have all these

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons to prevent anyone from attacking you, because they

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Speaker 1: can be assured that if they attack you, then you

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Speaker 1: will respond with devastating force. And that's supposed to prevent

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Speaker 1: nuclear war from ever breaking out in the first place,

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Speaker 1: nobody can strike first because they would get hit back

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Speaker 1: so hard. Um. But under that logic, if that's actually working,

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Speaker 1: there is a problem with the idea of there just

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Speaker 1: being ground based launch areas because what if one side says, Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we've got really good surveillance and we've got spies,

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Speaker 1: and now we think we know where you know, at

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Speaker 1: least nine percent of their launch sites are. So what

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Speaker 1: if we can launch a first strike and take out

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Speaker 1: all of their launch sites to begin with. And likewise,

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Speaker 1: the same applies to the strategic bombers, because you could say, well,

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Speaker 1: we know where their airfields are, and or we know

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Speaker 1: where the planes are in the air that are out

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Speaker 1: on regular maneuvers. Yeah, we can use radar, we yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we can figure that stuff out. What if you

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Speaker 1: get one side saying we think we could launch a

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Speaker 1: first strike and mostly get away with it. You know,

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Speaker 1: we can prevent their ability to strike back. So then

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Speaker 1: submarines really become important to maintain the deterrence, as the

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Speaker 1: theory goes, because if you have marines capable of launching

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Speaker 1: nukes from all over the world and the enemy can't

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Speaker 1: really know where they are. They're hidden under the ocean somewhere,

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Speaker 1: and you can't find them. Then it ups the deterrence.

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Speaker 1: It basically makes it say no, you can't launch a

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Speaker 1: first strike and just get away with it. It's like

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Speaker 1: in a in a crime movie where one character is is,

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Speaker 1: you know, basically at gunpoint or at knife point, and

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Speaker 1: they tell the villain, you can't kill me because if

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Speaker 1: I die, I have a mysterious friend who will deliver

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Speaker 1: a letter to the newspaper. Right, it's in a safe

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Speaker 1: deposit box. You know, you can't know where it is,

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Speaker 1: but if I die, it's going to become public. And

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Speaker 1: that's the basic concept here now s lb ms. They

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Speaker 1: emerged during the Cold War as a reality, but the

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Speaker 1: idea goes back to World War Two. The Germans were

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Speaker 1: actually working on a submarine launch platform for their V twos,

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Speaker 1: their their vengeance weapons, these large rockets that could be

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Speaker 1: used to attack other countries. It's one of the very

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Speaker 1: commonly contemplated nightmare scenarios of allternative history is imagining what

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Speaker 1: what would have happened in World War Two if the

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Speaker 1: Nazis had had greater technological advances in their weaponry, right

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Speaker 1: and they already had significant technological advances, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of these ideas they were not able to really get

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Speaker 1: outside of the testing zone on and this was one

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Speaker 1: of those. They never tested it. But the architects of

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Speaker 1: this and other weapons systems, of course continued their work

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Speaker 1: in the US and in the U s s R. Right,

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Speaker 1: which led to a not alternative history, but the real history,

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Speaker 1: terrifying scenario of mutually shared destruction. And you know, the

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Speaker 1: constant sort of hair trigger alert system on which we

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Speaker 1: kept all these nuclear weapons and nuclear strategic submarines throughout

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Speaker 1: the Cold War. Yeah, and I had anyone who's really

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Speaker 1: interested in this topic definitely go check out our episode

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Speaker 1: there but for Science, because that was an episode where

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Speaker 1: we talked about communication with nuclear submarines and how we

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Speaker 1: actually do it, and then this one alleged scheme to

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Speaker 1: try and carry out secret communication with nuclear subs via

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Speaker 1: essentially blood magic. That was a weird episode, but I

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Speaker 1: like it was. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, the idea is that maybe,

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Speaker 1: according to some anecdotes, the Soviets were working on tests

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Speaker 1: to use psychics to communicate with strategic submarines. I mean,

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Speaker 1: who knows if that's exactly true, but that's at least

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Speaker 1: what was alleged. I'll make sure there's a link to

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Speaker 1: it on the landing page for this episode, I feel

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Speaker 1: like it kind of fell through the cracks for some listeners. So, um,

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Speaker 1: we have these vessels out there, and again we have

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Speaker 1: nuclear power on board, so you know, they're not having

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Speaker 1: to worry about about filling filling up with the local

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Speaker 1: gas station. But they require a human crew. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: crew has to work in a very confined environment and

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Speaker 1: they have to stay submerged the entire time, for months

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Speaker 1: at a time. The main restriction, apparently on such a

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Speaker 1: nuclear powered subs is food, and I've read that the

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Speaker 1: meals get kind of interesting towards the end of the

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Speaker 1: mission when they're running out of out of, out of

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Speaker 1: out of stuff to cook. There's a straight Dope message

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Speaker 1: board user who mentioned quote chili mac with a side

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Speaker 1: of canned beets as an example. I read another example

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Speaker 1: from some users somewhere about going for like weeks at

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Speaker 1: a time at the end of the mission just getting

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Speaker 1: pancakes every meal was pancakes for weeks. Well, you know

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Speaker 1: how it is when you make pancakes, You know you

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Speaker 1: have all that leftover batter so do you put the

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Speaker 1: batter away, do you throw it out? Or you just

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Speaker 1: keep making pancakes. Clearly the answer is just keep making

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Speaker 1: pancakes until you return to board. I mean, I hope

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Speaker 1: they were real buttermilk pancakes. Buttermilk makes a difference. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Now all that said, I've actually also read that when

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Speaker 1: it's fresh, submarine food is supposed to be about the

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Speaker 1: best food you get in the armed forces? Have you

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Speaker 1: have you read about this round? Yeah, I've seen that.

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Speaker 1: Sided is one of the reasons UH sailors actually go

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Speaker 1: after the submarine assignment is that there's going to be

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Speaker 1: great food. Yeah. So, and that's supposed to basically be

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Speaker 1: an incentive, one of the incentives to draw sailors into

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Speaker 1: the US in many ways very undesirable task of serving

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Speaker 1: for months at a time on a deep see submarine

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Speaker 1: where you're not going to get to see the sun

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Speaker 1: or look at a tree, or see your family or

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Speaker 1: any of that good stuff. At least you'll get some

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Speaker 1: tasty food, hopefully for as long of the trip as

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Speaker 1: that's possible, though you know, who knows. If you're out

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Speaker 1: there too long and the supplies haven't been planned quite right,

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Speaker 1: then you might get some weird stuff. Later on, I

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Speaker 1: read an article in the l A Times about how

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Speaker 1: good submarine food is supposed to be. This was by

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Speaker 1: a writer named Peter pay Just to read a quote

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Speaker 1: from this. He's talking about a specific meal being served

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Speaker 1: within the submarine. Quote onque mess specialist Richard Yeowen began

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Speaker 1: slicing a twenty five pound prime rib roast into half

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Speaker 1: inch thick pieces, before gingerly transferring the second entree, baked

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Speaker 1: lobster tails with spicy old bass seasoning onto a serving tray.

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Speaker 1: Sauteed mushrooms, baked potatoes, and beef rice soup come next,

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Speaker 1: with baskets full of hot oven baked bread. It was

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Speaker 1: made from scratch. For dessert, you hand, a petty Officer

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Speaker 1: third class and former French pastry baker from Cypress has

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Speaker 1: prepared chocolate and lemon cakes made with real chocolate and

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Speaker 1: freshly squeezed lemon juice. That is not what I would expect.

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Speaker 1: I mean I would have thought, if okay, you're on

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Speaker 1: a submarine, you'd want to pack a lot of extremely

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Speaker 1: non perishable, calorie rich, dense foods. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: like canned meat and stuff, right because space is at

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Speaker 1: such a premium. Yeah. Absolutely, they're just packed in there,

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Speaker 1: so you would think that the food would be something

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Speaker 1: that's very conducive to that environment. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: the psychological well being of the crew is really important

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Speaker 1: in a deep sea submarine. You don't want your strategic

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Speaker 1: submarine to be full of people having deep sea madness

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Speaker 1: because they've been eating spam for months, right. You don't

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Speaker 1: want that spam sandwich to be the straw that breaks

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Speaker 1: the camels back for their sanity. Yeah, it will not

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Speaker 1: be your ice cream bar because obviously you're stuck in

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Speaker 1: a very contained environment with the same people and of

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Speaker 1: course the same air. Yeah. Oh well, that's a good question.

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Speaker 1: So you might be thinking, wait, wait, maybe so you're

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Speaker 1: saying that this nuclear submarine gets into a strategic launch

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Speaker 1: launch position that's a secret. It can't come to the

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Speaker 1: surface or it might be detected, so it's got to

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Speaker 1: stay down for maybe months at a time, at least

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Speaker 1: weeks at a time, and that the main problem is

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Speaker 1: running out of food. Why wouldn't they run out of

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Speaker 1: air first? That seems obvious, right right, Yeah, you would think, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be stuck underwater. I want I want to

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Speaker 1: get the air situation uh taken care of before I wondered,

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Speaker 1: I wonder about my lobster tail. It seems a little important, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if it's like you have to choose between

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Speaker 1: eating and breathing, I mean, I love food, but I

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Speaker 1: would probably pick breathing. Uh. So, obviously it would be

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Speaker 1: difficult for submarine to bring along enough oxygen tanks for

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Speaker 1: and it could be dangerous to bring along enough compressed

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Speaker 1: oxygen for crew members to breathe for nine d days.

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Speaker 1: So how do the humans on board a submarine get fresh,

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Speaker 1: breathable air. Well, think about it. What do you have

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Speaker 1: in a undance that you can work with on a

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Speaker 1: deep sea submarine with a nuclear reactor inside of it. Well,

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Speaker 1: you've got power, that's right, You've got electricity, and you've got,

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Speaker 1: of course plenty of water. So nuclear submarines have the

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Speaker 1: power to actually create fresh oxygen using oxygen generators. And

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Speaker 1: this is done through a process known as electrolysis. So

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Speaker 1: a water molecule is H two oh, it's two parts hydrogen,

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Speaker 1: one part oxygen. And if you will apply a strong

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Speaker 1: chemical current to a container of water in the right way,

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Speaker 1: it'll split into its atomic constituents. Those water molecules will

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Speaker 1: break up under the influence of the electrical energy, and

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Speaker 1: they will release oxygen gas and hydrogen gas. This is

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Speaker 1: actually sort of the inverse of what happens in a

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Speaker 1: hydrogen fuel cell, right. Fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen

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Speaker 1: to produce electricity and water. This process combines electricity and

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Speaker 1: water to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Now, of course, if

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Speaker 1: you think about things like the Hindenburg, it can sound

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Speaker 1: kind of scary to have pure hydrogen and pure oxygen

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Speaker 1: and your submarine, right, Yeah, that sounds explosive. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and we can actually think back to tragedies in the

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Speaker 1: history of space exploration where uh, you know, enriched oxygen

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Speaker 1: environments lead to deadly fires. Right, So you want to

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Speaker 1: be careful when dealing with pure hydrogen or or high

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Speaker 1: oxygen content in your environments. So you've got to get

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Speaker 1: rid of that excess hydrogen for one thing, so the

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Speaker 1: oxygen is preserved for atmospheric circulation, but then the hydrogen

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Speaker 1: byproduct of the electrolysis is purged into seawater or burned

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Speaker 1: in a controlled system. And of course that's not the

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Speaker 1: only issue with breathing breathable air. Right, you also have

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Speaker 1: to worry about the toxic byproducts of human respiration like

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Speaker 1: CEO two and there they use chemical scrubbers, right, like

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Speaker 1: a monoethanol amine can be used to absorb carbon dioxide

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Speaker 1: and then that can be purged. This would of course

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Speaker 1: be a more robust system than what we saw in

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Speaker 1: the bathosphere, where you just had trays of chemicals lining

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Speaker 1: the top of the sphere. Yeah. Just what did they have?

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Speaker 1: It was bayly, just like a tray of lime or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: something to that effect. I don't remember exactly what it was.

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Speaker 1: It was something like that. Um, but yeah, so you

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Speaker 1: clearly start to get a sense of the the delicate

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Speaker 1: balance that one must maintain in a pressurized environment in

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Speaker 1: a submarine deep under the ocean, where, of course, if

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Speaker 1: there was to be a leak or something like that,

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Speaker 1: you know, you could have you could have the depths

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Speaker 1: and compression of the sea water kill you. You could

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Speaker 1: have contaminants in the atmosphere inside the submarine kill you.

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Speaker 1: You've also just got super cramped conditions. Everything's tight everywhere.

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Speaker 1: So it starts to make you wonder what's it like

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Speaker 1: to be one of these people aboard the submarine. What's

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Speaker 1: it like to be a submariner? How does that get

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Speaker 1: to your psychological health and how does it affect your

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Speaker 1: your daily patterns of behavior and things like sleep exactly.

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Speaker 1: And that's what we're gonna be talking about the rest

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Speaker 1: of this episode. We're gonna look at a few different

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Speaker 1: papers that have come out over the years that try

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Speaker 1: and get to the autom of just what's going on

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Speaker 1: with the submariner's sleep. So we're gonna take a quick

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Speaker 1: break and then we'll be right back. Thank alright, we're back.

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Speaker 1: So one of the sources we looked at for this

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Speaker 1: episode is a nineteen nine paper titled Human Adjustment to

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Speaker 1: an Exotic Environment the Nuclear Submarine by Jim h Earls,

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Speaker 1: m d. Of Oklahoma City. And this was based in

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Speaker 1: part on his observations as a doctor aboard to nuclear

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Speaker 1: propelled Polaris missile firing submarines. And this is it's a

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Speaker 1: very readable paper and uh and while it's nearly half

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Speaker 1: a century old at this point, we have to we

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Speaker 1: do have to recognize, uh. And it doesn't attempt to

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Speaker 1: speak to the conditions on all subs. It's still worth discussing.

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Speaker 1: It still makes some uh in a way, it's it's

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Speaker 1: one of the more useful papers that's come out because

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Speaker 1: he's willing to just sort of observe the submariner in

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Speaker 1: its unnatural environment, almost like it's an animal, yes, and

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Speaker 1: a passionate animal at that. So, I mean a lot

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Speaker 1: of this is it's almost borderline Freudian. And he's talking

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Speaker 1: a lot about how different types of mood affects but

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Speaker 1: also urges and things like that and how they get

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Speaker 1: elevated or sublimated. It's it's a really interesting read, all right.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna move through the paper here

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Speaker 1: in touch on some of the high points. So he

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Speaker 1: pointed out that, to quote the U. S. Navy and

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Speaker 1: apparent recognition of man as the limiting factor, has elected

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Speaker 1: to man each Polaris submarine with two complete crews. These

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Speaker 1: crews alternate between being on the submarine for about ninety

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Speaker 1: days and receiving refresher training at the U. S. Navy base.

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Speaker 1: This method of manning the Polaris submarine has apparently been

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Speaker 1: adopted to obtain the maximum submerged patrol time on a

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Speaker 1: continuing basis. So the idea here is people are going

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Speaker 1: down for months at a time on this, but then

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Speaker 1: they have to bring it back. They have to bring

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Speaker 1: the submarine back, they have to put in a new

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Speaker 1: crew and also do some maintenance on the vehicle before

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Speaker 1: it goes back out again. Yeah, and apparently something that

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Speaker 1: was true both then and now is that if you

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Speaker 1: want to be on a submarine crew, you have to

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Speaker 1: go through a lot of training and screening ahead of time.

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Speaker 1: That's right. They're screening for intellectual level, emotional stability, physical status. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And they just run tests on you, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: for you basically your submarine competence. Yeah. And each of

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Speaker 1: the the subs that that the author here discusses would

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Speaker 1: have been crewed by a hundred and forty men and

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Speaker 1: they would live there sixty days at a time, and

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Speaker 1: then there would be this twenty eight day upkeep interval. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But of course, one thing when you think about on

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Speaker 1: a submarine is you just mentioned like length of days.

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Speaker 1: So you imagine you're on a submarine at the bottom

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Speaker 1: of the ocean for sixty days. What does sixty days

401
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Speaker 1: mean at the bottom of the ocean. Obviously there is

402
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Speaker 1: still a measurable length of time, like you could count

403
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Speaker 1: out the hours, and it's not like a general relativity issue,

404
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Speaker 1: like it's still the same number of hours that the

405
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Speaker 1: surface would measure. But if you're never seeing the sun

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Speaker 1: rise and set, and you're never seeing the moon, you're

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Speaker 1: never hearing the crickets chirp at night, you never hear

408
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Speaker 1: the rooster crow in the more warning, and nothing happens

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Speaker 1: to mark the sort of the daily milestones of the

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Speaker 1: passage of time. What do days mean? Well, this is

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Speaker 1: a This is where Earl's describes it as a quote

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Speaker 1: some loss of circadian and geographical orientation. So you'd imagine, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so your body is not really sure what what time

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Speaker 1: it is, and and so you're getting into this um

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Speaker 1: what I've seen referred to and some papers as diurnal flattening. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And then you're you have no idea where you are really,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know you're under under the under the sea,

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Speaker 1: you know you're deep in the ocean, and perhaps depending

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Speaker 1: on you know who you are in the crew, perhaps

420
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Speaker 1: you know more specifically where you are, but it doesn't

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Speaker 1: how much does that? What does that mean to you

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Speaker 1: if you can't actually observe it. Yeah, so you're operating

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Speaker 1: somewhat independently of the passage of days and nights on

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Speaker 1: the surface. So if you still want to operate on

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Speaker 1: the basis of days, there being such a thing as

426
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Speaker 1: a day, and that mattering, what do you have to

427
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Speaker 1: judge that by. Well, Earl says, you have the meals,

428
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 1: your three meals a day, and then you have the

429
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 1: evening movie, and these become the pillars of your understanding

430
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 1: of time. I wonder what movies they were showing on

431
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:14,159
Speaker 1: submarines in the nineteen sixties. Oh, man, i'd have to

432
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:16,439
Speaker 1: I'd have to really dive into IMDb, but I'm guessing

433
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 1: they were probably they probably weren't watching submarine pictures that

434
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 1: that much, I assume. I'm guessing they were watching, you know,

435
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:26,120
Speaker 1: stuff with some nice beach scenes, maybe some beach comedies.

436
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the

437
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 1: submarine brought along one movie. The movie was Monster Ago Go,

438
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: and they just watched it every night. Oh that that

439
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: is not something It is a legitimate psychological experiment. I

440
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,960
Speaker 1: don't see that going over well. I mean, it's about

441
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: the right time period. I think it works. Yeah, Well,

442
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 1: I can see monster movies as being the type of

443
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: thing that would go over well, oh, I would love

444
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 1: to watch monster movies on the submarine. I just would

445
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,919
Speaker 1: want to be able to leave the submarine afterwards. Yeah. Now,

446
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,439
Speaker 1: on top of this, Earl's points out that you're in

447
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: a very stationary world, but one where these just constant

448
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 1: white noise. It's like being in a white noise machine.

449
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: And then the only but the only time you really

450
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: notice what's going on is if there's some change in

451
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 1: the white noise, and then you might wonder, what's wrong,

452
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 1: let's change exactly? I mean, he describes the white noise

453
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,439
Speaker 1: as being sort of part of a larger background of

454
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,679
Speaker 1: not just the sound, but a white background, like a

455
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: totally unchanging environment. That your environment is just static and

456
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: nothing happens to it. There's no weather, there's no day

457
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: night cycle. That it's just it's like living a purely

458
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 1: artificial existence, right, And then you have almost no private space.

459
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: The points out that like the room you watch the movies,

460
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: and it's not like they have they would have had

461
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 1: a dedicated movie theater. No, that was some other space

462
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: perhaps where you ate that got converted. Uh. If some

463
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:55,679
Speaker 1: sort of medical procedure needed to be uh conducted, that

464
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: would take place in one of these uh these these

465
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 1: rooms as well, so everybody sharing the same space, spaces

466
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: are being used for different purposes, and he paints a

467
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: picture of like basically just crawling all over each other.

468
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: I think one of the problems for us surface folk

469
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what it's like to be in

470
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:16,199
Speaker 1: a submarine is we have all these submarine movies and

471
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: the submarine sets. I've always enjoyed this, like watching an

472
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: old submarine movie especially and seeing how large they make

473
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:25,439
Speaker 1: the space appear, because you need in this space for

474
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: a fistfight. Usually. Yeah, oh, they seem quite spacious. I

475
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: think about scenes in The Hunt for Red October where

476
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,880
Speaker 1: people are like running around and there are these rooms

477
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: with all this like empty floor space. Yeah, It's been

478
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: a long time since I've seen dos Boot, so I

479
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 1: could be completely wrung, but I seem to remember there

480
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: being a lot of really cramped uh sets in that movie.

481
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 1: But unsure some movies do it better than others. Yeah,

482
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,679
Speaker 1: I met some of them just really go wide, like

483
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:54,920
Speaker 1: let's basically have a basketball court in there. What's what's

484
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: that room? In the Hunt for October, I remember there's

485
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: a scene on the Soviet sub where they starts singing

486
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: the national anthem, and it's in this like if my

487
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: memory is right, it's this like echo e hall. Wow,

488
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 1: it's been too long since I've seen that. Well, I've

489
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: maintained for years that they should turn The Hunt for

490
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 1: Red October into a Broadway musical. Seriously, I've got it

491
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: all planned out. I think like I've got some of

492
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: the songs written. I think it could be really good. Wow. Well,

493
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 1: that that's how I want to see this movie again.

494
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: And as a as a musical. All the songs are

495
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: written by Jim Steinman, so they're very funny. One called

496
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 1: like a lesson in tactics, alright, very rock oriented as well.

497
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 1: That's all I got right now, Okay, you're not gonna

498
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:39,120
Speaker 1: sing anything? No, okay, um. Now on top of no wait,

499
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: starring meat Loaf is Captain Ramios. I've done. I'm done, alright,

500
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 1: so on to on top of of all this we

501
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: discussed so far. H Earls also mentions that, I mean,

502
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: at the heart of this, you have this terrible purpose,

503
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: like every day is pretty going to be much the

504
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 1: same rule by routine. Nothing is really happening aboard one

505
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: of these subs. But if it does happen, if the

506
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: if the submarine's key purpose comes into play. Uh, that

507
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 1: is because it is involved in a in a in

508
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 1: a nuclear exchange, he says. He the submariner is also

509
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: aware that these missiles are to be fired only in

510
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: retaliation to a nuclear attack on the United States. So

511
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: if they do the job that is sort of like

512
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 1: their primary potential job down there, it's only because something

513
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: terrible has happened to the world. Yeah, something just horrifying

514
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:33,919
Speaker 1: has occurred, and and and it of course raises all

515
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: these questions like the family that you're potentially separated from

516
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: the world, the daily life that you are a dreaming

517
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: of in the sub what has happened to it, you've

518
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: had to act, and what kind of world are you

519
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 1: going to surface to. Earl says this sort of leads

520
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: to this feeling of avoidance about the idea and also

521
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: the idea that the quote payload is referred to in

522
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: in highly technical terms, like they don't necessarily talk about

523
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 1: the nuclear missiles, right, they talk about an abstracted, euphemistic

524
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,159
Speaker 1: technical type words. Now, one of the cool things he

525
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,199
Speaker 1: does in this article is he he divides up the

526
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: mission into into four phases. Yeah, I like this Yeah,

527
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:17,160
Speaker 1: he talks about like the opening weeks and how people

528
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 1: are are feeling about things, and and then how their

529
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 1: psychological condition seems to change. Basically, what what is the timeline,

530
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: what are the ups and downs from departure to return

531
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: and so a lot of what we've been talking about

532
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,640
Speaker 1: here occurs during that initial phase, the first week or so.

533
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: But he says that during the second week of submergence,

534
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: the crew members begin to experience sleep disturbances, and this,

535
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: he says, can range from insomnia to hyper insomnia, so

536
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: not being able to sleep or sleeping way too much.

537
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: It seems like normal kinds of reactions you might expect

538
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: from being confined to an artificial environment without natural light

539
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: or changes in light. Yeah, you're just your circadian rhythms

540
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: all over the and this is what he calls the

541
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: first quarter syndrome. And there's another interesting aspect of first

542
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 1: quarter syndrome that he points out, and that is gang behavior. Specifically,

543
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: he says quote adolescent gang behavior. Because he talks about

544
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: how the parts, you know, the different cruise within the

545
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: submarine sort of the sub cruise like you've got the

546
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: sonar crew, you've got the weapons crew, or the missile crew.

547
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: You've got the navigation crew. They all they all sort

548
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: of break into their own natural tribes because they work

549
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: with one another, and that they will essentially behave like

550
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: gangs against one another, pranking one another, stealing totemic objects

551
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 1: from the other gangs. That's what you want to hear

552
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: about adolescent pranks on a on a nuclear submarine. It's

553
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: tactics within strategy, and strategy within tactics. So the mission continues,

554
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,719
Speaker 1: and you're going to reach the point where what Earl's

555
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: calls halfway syndrome kicks in. And this, he says, is

556
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: going to be characterized by depression comp lanes, very subjective complaints, right, Yeah,

557
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: he says, the major portion of the crew experience changes

558
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: in appetite, changes in bowel function, headaches, muscle leggs, difficulty

559
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: and concentration, and sweet disturbances, on top of just general pessis, pessimism,

560
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: and boredom. Now, before this stage, Earl's mentions that there

561
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: is a lot of joking among the crew, especially sexual jokes,

562
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: and this would I guess coming into play during the

563
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: pranking period as well. Yeah, I mean it's not I

564
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: guess that's part of the cliche, right, is that sailors

565
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: are going to tell dirty jokes. But he says that

566
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: this stage the humor actually changes in tone, right, and

567
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 1: in content. Yeah, it goes from being mostly sexual to

568
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: being sarcastic humor. There was an interesting section I just

569
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: wanted to read from Earl's about this. He says, quote

570
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: this change in humor style appears to serve two functions.

571
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: One is the discharge of hostile and aggressive affect, which

572
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 1: is personally and culturally unacceptable, in which my it otherwise

573
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,479
Speaker 1: be physically acted out. The second is the keeping of

574
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: the other shipmates at a comfortable distance, resulting in the

575
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: temporary expansion of an individual's personal territory. I thought that

576
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: was really interesting about the the idea of changes in

577
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: just types of humor playing these very important psychological roles,

578
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: one of which is that obviously, when you're living in

579
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: a cramped space with a bunch of other dudes, especially

580
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: if they're doing adolescent pranks and stuff, you're gonna start

581
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: getting mad and you want to display anger. But that's

582
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: not acceptable under the command structure for for Navy officers, right.

583
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: And also it's just such an enclosed, tight environment, like

584
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: there's no there's all there's almost literally no room for

585
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: that kind of response. Yeah, exactly, So you you can't

586
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: you can't lash out in anger at your crewmates. So there,

587
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: so you have to sublimate the anger somehow, and it

588
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: turns into this this sort of hard edge sarcastic humor,

589
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: and the other part being if you're sarcastic with people,

590
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: you psychologically keep them in an arm's length. When you're sarcastic,

591
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: it's sort of makes you more invulnerable and keeps people

592
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 1: more separate from you. Discourages emotional vulnerability and and this

593
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: feeling of closeness with others which actually helps make you

594
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: feel like you've got a bubble of personal space around you,

595
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: even if it's only imaginary and psychological. Now, he says

596
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 1: that occasionally during this period, you'll have some individuals who

597
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: begin to complain about the loss of normal circadian clues

598
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: and may eventually report quote brief de realization or depersonalization

599
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: like episodes that's creepy. And then three quarters syndrome UH

600
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: sets in, and he says this is a sudden but

601
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: short lived elevation of the mood. I guess that the

602
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: idea is, hey, we're over the hump. We're on the

603
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: we're essentially on the way back sort of. And in

604
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: this point we'll see the sexual humor return, he said, Okay.

605
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: And then in the final weeks we say an elevation

606
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: and mood. There was some anxiety about a return to

607
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: the surface, lie, if you know, without the structure of

608
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: the submarine world, at least for some of the individuals. Uh.

609
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: And then also a diminished need for sleep amongst some Yeah.

610
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: I also thought the section was interesting because Earl's talks

611
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: about the stresses of the environment in a way being

612
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: offset by a kind of strange set of psychological circumstances,

613
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: fostering a mindset of childlike dependence. He writes, quote, the

614
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: sailor has been living in an emotionally stressful environment, but

615
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: an environment which also regularly, reliably and abundantly met his

616
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: physical needs, with the singular exception of sex. The sailor

617
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: has not had to employ even the normal terrestrial maneuvers

618
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: needed to obtain food, shelter, clothing, etcetera. By necessity, all

619
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: has been provided for him. It is not uncommon during

620
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: the submerged patrol to hear the submariner make joking references

621
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: to returning to the womb, and he is capable of

622
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: recognizing the omnipresent justification for his aren't. Yeah this was

623
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: that found this really interesting as well, because I feel

624
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: like I can relate to a certain extent, like there

625
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: have been time. I don't get sick that often, but

626
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: when I do get, like truly sick, there's almost a

627
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:16,280
Speaker 1: comfort at times in this becoming your sort of prime

628
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 1: adversary in life, this being the prime battle. You know,

629
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: I have to to stop puking, and when that is when,

630
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: when that's accomplished, then I can worry about all the

631
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: other paper tigers in my world. Well. Also, it might

632
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 1: be the case, I mean it might not might not

633
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: be the case, but it might be the case when

634
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 1: you're sick that you have other people doing more to

635
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: take care of you directly than you normally would. Normally

636
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 1: these are things you need to take care of yourself,

637
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 1: but when you're sick, sometimes family members or friends will

638
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,320
Speaker 1: do things to to take care of you and watch

639
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: out for you, and it can create this feeling like

640
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: almost not wanting to return to the self self responsibility. Yeah, yeah,

641
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: like you. You You you've been able to at least get

642
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: one leg out of the adult world and back into

643
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: the world of childhood. Yeah. One interesting point of comparison

644
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 1: I thought was that it was in observed patterns of

645
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: adaptation to wintering in the Antarctic. So you imagine you're

646
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,959
Speaker 1: in an Antarctic research station and you know you're trying

647
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: to get through the winter. It's sort of like being

648
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: in a submarine. Not maybe not quite as confined as

649
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: being totally submerged in the submarine, but you're basically stuck inside.

650
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: And so when you're in that environment. Apparently military subjects

651
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: showed very similar types of symptoms to what Earls is

652
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:35,399
Speaker 1: reporting from the submariners, like depressive symptoms, but the civilians

653
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: apparently did not show similarly depressive symptoms and instead showed

654
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:44,320
Speaker 1: symptoms of anger and wrath lashing out that the military

655
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: subjects basically couldn't display because it was not acceptable as

656
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 1: part of their culture. Here's a quote from Mullen quote.

657
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 1: We were impressed by the relative absence of overtly expressed hostility.

658
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 1: Group and individual tensions and irritations are ever present. But

659
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: the most important lesson a wintering over man learns is

660
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 1: that he cannot afford to alienate the group that in

661
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,760
Speaker 1: this tight little society. He is dependent in large measure

662
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: upon the goodwill of the next man and of the

663
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 1: group as a whole for his vital feelings of security, worth,

664
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 1: and acceptance. Makes you think about the nature of small

665
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: group tribal existence as well, like how to group dynamics

666
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 1: change when the people around you are essential for your

667
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: survival and you know you can't get away from them. Yeah,

668
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: I mean it almost feels like a team building exercise, right,

669
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: and instead of doing icebreakers, you just need to, you know,

670
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: get your I t UH team and just put them

671
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: in a submarine for three months. Now. There are a

672
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,280
Speaker 1: lot of reasons that this research we've been talking about,

673
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,200
Speaker 1: that this sort of set of case studies from nineteen

674
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: sixty nine might not be applicable to what life could

675
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: be like on submarines today. I'm sure a lot of

676
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 1: the same conditions are present, but things have probably changed

677
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: a lot too in technological ways, in social and psychological ways.

678
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: One thing I I definitely wonder about is the extent

679
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: to which these symptoms would remain the same or change

680
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: in a mixed gender crew environment as opposed to the

681
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 1: all male cruise of the late sixties. Yeah, that's a

682
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: great question. So we did look at some other information

683
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: about about sleeping upon a military submarine. There was a

684
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: nine Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory Report on Work and

685
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: rest on nuclear submarines, And I'm just gonna roll through

686
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: the key findings here. This this paper was was not

687
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: nearly as delightful as the Earl's paper. More clinical. Yeah.

688
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 1: So they pointed out that the workload of of the

689
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: average of submarine or averages about twelve hours a day,

690
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: with considerable individual variation. Uh the smallest thirty day average

691
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 1: record was seven point four hours in the largest was

692
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 1: fifteen point six hours. The sleeping habits were affected by

693
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:54,280
Speaker 1: the eighteen hour activity cycle created by the six hours

694
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 1: on twelve hours off watch schedule. Said sleep may be

695
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: considered mildly fragmented in that men average one point three

696
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: sleep episodes of somewhat less than six hour duration in

697
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, but the total daily quantity of sleep

698
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: was considered adequate, and subjective sleep quality was slightly lower

699
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: on patrol than in a post patrol period. They said

700
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:19,720
Speaker 1: that want there was a lot of sleepiness reported fifty

701
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: of the time. They do point out that the stability

702
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: of their environment actually seems to make them sleep better

703
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: and report less sleepiness than other active duty environments on

704
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,720
Speaker 1: the surface. Yeah, this is the thing that I wouldn't

705
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 1: have considered before I read about this, But that when

706
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: you're on a surface vessel, of course you're dealing with

707
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 1: the rocking of the waves and all that. You've got

708
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 1: to get your sea legs basically right. But when you

709
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,879
Speaker 1: are on a submerged submarine in the deep, apparently it's

710
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: it feels very stable. You might as well be on

711
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 1: the surface, that's right. Uh. The paper says, quote sleep

712
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 1: on submarines may be considered mildly fragmented in the sense

713
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,800
Speaker 1: that daily sleep quota is not taken in a single

714
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 1: episode at a usual time of day, even from men

715
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: standing uh six eighteen watches. Shipboard sleep is considerably more

716
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: irregular than in most shore settings. The quality of sleep

717
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: is somewhat lower unpatrolled than at home. By the sleep

718
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: quality indices do not suggest that sleep quality is so

719
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: poor as to be considered a problem. The slight reduction

720
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: in sleep quality may be related to the eighteen hour cycle,

721
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 1: or simply to shipboard living conditions. Now, considering sleep on

722
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 1: modern submarines, one thing I've read about in multiple sources.

723
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:35,439
Speaker 1: Is uh. Specifically, it's a slang term in that's used

724
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 1: in British Royal Navy subs, but apparently crew members have

725
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: a slang term for a common type of nightmare, or

726
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: possibly based on the reports, what seems to me like

727
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,839
Speaker 1: maybe a hypnopompic hallucination state just would be a hallucination

728
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: you experience as you're in that that netther world betweens

729
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: being awakened, being asleep as you're waking up, specifically, as

730
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 1: opposed to the hypnogogic hallucination, which tends to be when

731
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: you're falling asleep. Yeah. Um, but yeah, they're called coffin dreams.

732
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:05,959
Speaker 1: So just a few things I've read about them from.

733
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: For example, from a two thousand three Telegraph article I

734
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: was reading about life aboard Royal Navy submarines, quote the

735
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: men grab what sleep they can racked three deep in

736
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 1: dark cabins with barely a foot of space between the

737
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: opposing rows of bunks. They quote hot bunk sharing the

738
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: use of Iraq with a shipmate working on an alternate watch.

739
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: Sometimes they get quote coffin dreams nightmares from which they

740
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: come to in the close dark, not knowing where they

741
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: are and panic. And so I've read that, for example,

742
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: the coffin dreams can be triggered by a sense of claustrophobia,

743
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: maybe even actually thinking you are waking up in some

744
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: type of coffin or container, because, according to the Friends

745
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 1: of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, basically in a sleeping

746
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,800
Speaker 1: condition on a typical submarine bunk, you've got another bunk

747
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: maybe close above you, or or a flat surface like

748
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,839
Speaker 1: a roof right above view, with like an inch or

749
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: two clear all around your body. Basically, I mean it

750
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:09,320
Speaker 1: just it just doesn't sound like there's much room to move. Uh,

751
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: And I can imagine waking up in that state, would

752
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: you could be terrifying? Oh? Absolutely, yeah. I imagine if

753
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: you just come to you're just you're just gonna go

754
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: face first or the back of the head first, right

755
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: into the into the bulkhead exactly. Or the person below you,

756
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:27,359
Speaker 1: if you're stacked on bunks, might be kneeing you and

757
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:30,799
Speaker 1: stuff while they wake up having a coffin dream on

758
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: a on a totally unscientific online poll I found on

759
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: the Friends of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum website. So

760
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 1: you know, unscientific poll, but for what it's worth, thirty

761
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 1: eight percent of respondents on this online poll claimed to

762
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 1: have had coffin dreams when they were aboard submarines. And then,

763
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 1: from a article in The Guardian by Stephen Moss, in

764
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 1: which he experienced his life aboard a nuclear submarine, he

765
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: writes quote, several men mentioned coffin dreams nightmares in which

766
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 1: the sleeper shouts out that the control room is flooding

767
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,440
Speaker 1: or he's being pursued by a torpedo. I sympathize. I

768
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: have no nightmares. I don't sleep deeply enough for that.

769
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 1: The racks do feel like coffins. Now, I've definitely personally

770
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: had the experience of my environment to the environment in

771
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: which I'm sleeping seeming to affect my dreams or maybe

772
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: hypnopompic hallucinations as I'm waking up. But but yeah, I've

773
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:28,800
Speaker 1: never experienced anything like this, nothing this cramped, nothing, this strange,

774
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: and pile that on all of the strange environmental stresses

775
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: that exist in normal life while you're on a submarine.

776
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: So these experiences are piling up while you're awake throughout

777
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: the day, and then you go sleep in the coffin,

778
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: It's not hard to see why you would get certain

779
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: types of nightmares being very common and recurrent. Yeah, and

780
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 1: depending on during a which era you are sleeping. You're

781
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 1: talking about all sorts of repressed anxiety about torpedoes seeking

782
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: you out of of depth, charges of of the actual

783
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: terrible purpose that these uh, these a nuclear weapon equipped

784
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: subs are tasked with. All right, Well, on that note,

785
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be

786
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 1: right back. Thank thank Alright, we're back. All right. So

787
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: we've been talking about life aboard nuclear submarines, especially when

788
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: the remains submerged for long periods of time, and how

789
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: that affects the psychology of crew members and especially the

790
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 1: sleep of the crew members. But I thought we maybe

791
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: should look at a couple more sources before we wrap

792
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 1: it up for today. Yeah, and these are far more

793
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 1: recent sources. Um. There's one titled three decades of Nuclear

794
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: Submarine Research Implications for Space and Antarctic Research, And this

795
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:40,720
Speaker 1: came from Benjamin B. Way Brew. Uh, and he pointed

796
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:43,800
Speaker 1: out some of the following points. Uh. He mentions that

797
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: it's sometimes called inner space as opposed to outer space. Okay,

798
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 1: so we're back to Quaid territory, right. And he also

799
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: mentions that bathaphobia is very real as opposed to the

800
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: fear of de pressurization in space. So would this be

801
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: fear of what of the submarine being crushed like a

802
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: tin can? Yeah, just knowing all that pressure out there.

803
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: He also points that it points out that is the

804
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,879
Speaker 1: submerged missions of thirty to eighty days progress. Uh. There

805
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:16,439
Speaker 1: also is this tendency to to to worry more about

806
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: the possibilities of atmospheric contaminants. Yeah, I mean you gotta

807
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:22,919
Speaker 1: worry if your air is clean. Right. Well, you think

808
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: of like a lot of the things we fear in life,

809
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: we fear change, and you have such a static environment,

810
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: you have to look to the areas where change can occur,

811
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:34,799
Speaker 1: such as air quality or machine failure. Now, when we

812
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: were talking about William bb in the bathmosphere, I remember

813
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: one of the creepiest thoughts I had about it was that, Okay,

814
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: this is a heavier than water vessel. Uh, that that's

815
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 1: being lowered down basically on a chain. What were to happen,

816
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: What would happen if it were to have its connection

817
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 1: to the surface vessel severed? Well, this bathosphere, it just sink, right,

818
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: It just sink to the bottom of the ocean, and

819
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: you'd be done all right. But they're similar concerns in

820
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,360
Speaker 1: place with the with the nuclear submarine, loss of power

821
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:08,840
Speaker 1: could prevent the subsibility to blow ballast and return to

822
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: the surface, at least in the examples at this time,

823
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: at least in these examples, and during all this way,

824
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: Route points out that the individuals may experience sleep problems

825
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:22,000
Speaker 1: and UH and diurnal flattening. So again we're just coming

826
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: back to the idea that circadian rhythm is disrupted by

827
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,919
Speaker 1: the environment. And then there's this point that he makes.

828
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: This was interesting as well. Quote psychologists specializing in vision

829
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: demonstrated in the late nineteen forties that the close viewing

830
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: distance and subs caused the lateral fourias to become s aphoric.

831
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: In response to this finding, it was recommended that landscapes

832
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: and seascapes with deep depth cues be installed on the

833
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: bulkheads of selected compartments. So s aphoria is the tendency

834
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 1: of the eyes to want to turn inward more than

835
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 1: they need to when focusing on something close up. So

836
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:04,919
Speaker 1: if I'm interpreting that correctly, that seems like there could

837
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,919
Speaker 1: be a risk of sub mariners going cross eyde. Yeah,

838
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: I mean, because again you have to realize that we,

839
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 1: of course did not evolve to live within a submarine,

840
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: within a confined to. We evolved to to live in

841
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 1: a much more open world. And that's that's what our

842
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: eyes are designed to take in. Right. If you're just

843
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: constantly looking at stuff close to your face all the time,

844
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: like say, maybe you're a person who's always staring at

845
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:30,439
Speaker 1: a computer screen, or you're in a tightly closed environment, yeah,

846
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to wonder if that's messing with

847
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 1: your vision to some extent. And so it sounds like

848
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: here they're saying, we need to put in place something

849
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: that at least gives them the feeling of being able

850
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: to look at something far away. Let's put a motivational

851
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: poster up on this bulkhead. This also seems where movie

852
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 1: night would have become essential, you know, and it might

853
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:51,240
Speaker 1: have dictated the type of movies that they would have watched.

854
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: You get something with some night's wide open countryside, maybe

855
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: some Westerns. I recommend orson Welles movies for those the

856
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: deep focus scenes right where you can see the folk

857
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: us way in the back of the field of oh,

858
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: of what they're shooting. Yeah, let's have a few showings

859
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: of touch of Evil for the ship now. The author

860
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:13,240
Speaker 1: also identified quote effects of absence of circadian cues upon sleep,

861
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: noise level, work overload and underload, and environmental conditions tending

862
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: to produce boredom and fatigue. However, there's good news. He

863
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: says that the incidents of acute or chronic psychopathology during

864
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: UH during long missions is incredibly low, between only one

865
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:30,879
Speaker 1: and four percent. But wait a minute, if you've got

866
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: a crew of a hundred and forty, that that means

867
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 1: you've got at least one statistically, well, ok, it's not

868
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: doing great. Yeah, I guess that's when you have a

869
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:43,879
Speaker 1: dock on board right to to mitigate that those situations. Uh.

870
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: He also brings up something that was that that was

871
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: apparently introduced as a way to to mitigate some of

872
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 1: these other effects, and that is periscope liberty. What does

873
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:55,239
Speaker 1: that mean? So this is the idea here, is that

874
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: you would let crew members glance at the outside world

875
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 1: through the periscope for the purpose of quote cognitive anchoring.

876
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: And this is also interesting as well. He he points

877
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: out that errors and time perception tend to occur in

878
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: the direction of overestimation of time intervals, which makes sense

879
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: if your board and your fatigued, you might say, oh, man,

880
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:16,200
Speaker 1: I can't believe we've been down here three months, and

881
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 1: then Greg turn student says, this is day three. And

882
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: in closing, the author points out a few key areas

883
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: of concern for that we can take away from all

884
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: this when we consider Arctic, submarine and space mutant missions

885
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: of the future. Uh. He points out atmospheric revitalization and

886
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 1: contaminant control, development and validation of procedures for the medical

887
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: and psychological screening of recruits, identification of techniques for initiating

888
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: and sustaining individual motivation and group morale, stress or identification,

889
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: assessment of the severity of p O s R or

890
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:58,360
Speaker 1: patterns of stress reactivity for person, and development of effective

891
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: stress coping strategies. Now, I wonder to what extent those

892
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 1: actually do get mapped on to how we deal with life,

893
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:09,720
Speaker 1: Say aboard the International Space Station, Yeah, I mean, obviously

894
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 1: we don't send just anybody up to the I S S.

895
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:17,280
Speaker 1: There is a rigorous screening and then training U regime

896
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: in place to get you there. I have heard a

897
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 1: lot less about issues of motivation relating to astronauts. Maybe

898
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 1: it's there, but I feel like I've read a good

899
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,439
Speaker 1: bit about what life is like aboard the I s

900
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: s and accounts of the astronauts who were there, and

901
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,760
Speaker 1: I don't remember hearing a lot about problems with say,

902
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: individual motivation or group morale. Yeah, And as far as

903
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 1: the idea of a lazy astronaut, that's that is his

904
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 1: science fiction concept is as we can possibly bring up

905
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: on the show, because at this stage in space exploration,

906
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 1: you've really got to want to be there. I guess

907
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:54,880
Speaker 1: maybe things would be different if we were talking about

908
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 1: about crude orbiting satellites that were there for the purpose

909
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 1: of maintaining in a nuclear deterrent right right well, and

910
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: or forcing somebody to watch bad movies. But you can

911
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: you can do both. That, you could do both. I

912
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: see you there now. There have been some recent changes,

913
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:15,800
Speaker 1: is reported by the Associated Press. In two thousand fourteen,

914
00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: the Navy began experimenting with fourteen hour days as opposed

915
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: to the eighteen hour activity cycles that had been the standard. Uh.

916
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:27,879
Speaker 1: The article says, quote, submarine crews are not big enough

917
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: to support more than three watch rotations, and beginning in

918
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, the Navy cap shifts at six hours

919
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: in part to limit fatigue as sailors manned the vessel's

920
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: nuclear reactors. But the study by the Naval Submarine Medical

921
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:45,320
Speaker 1: Research Laboratory at the Submarine Base in Groton UH documented

922
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 1: weariness that can set in every third cycle as sailors

923
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: are working when their bodies are accustomed to sleeping. So

924
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: the Navy Laboratory in Groton conducted experiments beginning in two

925
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:59,279
Speaker 1: thousand five looking at sleep patterns, melotonin levels, and all

926
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 1: this through very IS monitoring devices and UH saliva swabs. However,

927
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that when the attack subscrant and tried

928
00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:10,239
Speaker 1: out this new activities cycle during a seven month deployment,

929
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:15,359
Speaker 1: the new schedule initially caused laundry backlogs and frustration over

930
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: laptop and exercise equipment availability. Laundry backlogs, Yeah, I'm what's

931
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 1: the what's the causal connection there? I'm not that one

932
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: is not as as clear to me. I mean, I

933
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: can imagine the laptop and exercise machine right, because suddenly

934
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: there's more overlap in UH, in in in wakefulness, and

935
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: there's more demand for these uh, these devices, and of

936
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 1: course the mention of laptops also brings up the idea

937
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: like your your modern submariner has an entirely different situation

938
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: compared to the submariner in the past, because in addition

939
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,200
Speaker 1: to the evening movie, you've got I mean, certainly you're

940
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 1: not connected to the Worldwide Web, but you have the

941
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: you know all the potential of a laptop computer, maybe

942
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 1: even episodes of stuff to bow your mind to get

943
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: you through the trip. Are you listening to us on

944
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: a nuclear submarine right now? If so, let us know

945
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:06,439
Speaker 1: when you come back to uh, when you come back

946
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:08,919
Speaker 1: within radio range. Yeah, obviously we would love to hear

947
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:13,399
Speaker 1: from anyone out there who has served on a nuclear submarine. Now,

948
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: if a lot of the stress of the submarine environment

949
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:18,359
Speaker 1: is due to isolation from the outside world and sort

950
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: of a lack of exposure to nature, lack of exposure

951
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:25,839
Speaker 1: to sunlight and the cramped claustrophobic conditions, I wonder if

952
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:30,280
Speaker 1: this is not a really prime opportunity for virtual reality therapy.

953
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: We've talked plenty of times about virtual reality therapy on

954
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,320
Speaker 1: the show before UM and there are lots of ways

955
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,319
Speaker 1: it could be used, right One of the important ways

956
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: that I often think about is most interesting about virtual

957
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 1: reality is the sense that it can give you that

958
00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:47,360
Speaker 1: your body is different than what it is, and this

959
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 1: can be used for all kinds of medical therapies. But

960
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,399
Speaker 1: of course, on the submarine, I would imagine the main

961
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 1: thing would be the more traditional type of virtual reality,

962
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: which is that your environment is different than what it is.

963
00:52:57,719 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: It could give you some depth of field to cat

964
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 1: that's full of nice and nurturing kind of natural environments.

965
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 1: So the same way the crew of the Enterprise can

966
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: go to the hollow deck right and hang out by

967
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:11,160
Speaker 1: a cool running stream in the forest, maybe the members

968
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: of a submarine crew on deep submerged time could get

969
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: convincing doses of surface time through VR. That makes sense

970
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 1: because also this is technology that would not take out

971
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 1: much space. It's not like installing a holo deck on

972
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 1: your submarine. I looked for research testing this out, and

973
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:30,839
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find anything. But I would kind

974
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: of be surprised if somebody wasn't trying this, or at

975
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: least talking about trying to try it. Yeah, yeah, I

976
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: mean you obviously you don't want a lawnmower man situation.

977
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,839
Speaker 1: On your nuclear submarine. But but it seems like there's

978
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,240
Speaker 1: a lot of positive potential here. Yeah, keep Jeff Ahy

979
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: off of that thing. All right. Well, there you have it. Uh.

980
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:52,759
Speaker 1: I think this is a pretty delightful episode. We got

981
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the nuclear submarines and

982
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:58,520
Speaker 1: the prospect of nuclear war, but we got to bring

983
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 1: it down to just the base a relatable situation of

984
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 1: trying to sleep in strange places and trying to sleep

985
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: through your various worries. If you want to check out

986
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: more episodes Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over

987
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership.

988
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,400
Speaker 1: That's where we'll find all the episodes, including this one,

989
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: including that uh they're a butt for science episode we

990
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:22,359
Speaker 1: referenced earlier. And also you'll find links out to our

991
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: very social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera.

992
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:28,359
Speaker 1: As always, I want to remind everyone if you want

993
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: to support this show, definitely rate and review Stuff to

994
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,760
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind wherever you get your podcasts. Big thanks

995
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: as always to our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and

996
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: Tarry Harrison. If you would like to get in touch

997
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 1: with us directly, to let us know feedback about this

998
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:45,799
Speaker 1: episode or any other episode, to let us know a

999
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:47,880
Speaker 1: topic you think maybe we should cover in the future,

1000
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: or to just say hi, let us know where you're

1001
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,160
Speaker 1: listening from. You can always email us at blow the

1002
00:54:53,280 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com for more on

1003
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff

1004
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:19,839
Speaker 1: works dot com. Think, Differ,