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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Pretend Play Part five is coming at you,

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Speaker 1: Part five of five. This one originally published one twenty three,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Let's have it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And we're back with

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Speaker 3: the fifth and for now the final part in our

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Speaker 3: series on pretend Play. Now, sometimes when we do a

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Speaker 3: longer series like this, we say, you know, devour in

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Speaker 3: whatever order you like, but this really is one series

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Speaker 3: where we do recommend listening in order, because today we're

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Speaker 3: going to build on and refer back to stuff we

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Speaker 3: talked about in some earlier episodes from this series, but

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Speaker 3: to refresh break in those earlier parts, we talked about

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Speaker 3: definitions and subdivisions of pretend play, play that involves non

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Speaker 3: literal action and understanding. We talked about which aspects of

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Speaker 3: pretend play appear to be universal and which appear to

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Speaker 3: be culturally variable. For example, the evidence is pretty strong

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Speaker 3: that all children around the world engage in pretending, even

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Speaker 3: in environments where it is actively discouraged, and it emerges

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Speaker 3: on a pretty consistent developmental schedule, though there is wide

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Speaker 3: variation across cultures and within cultures across like home conditions

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Speaker 3: and different types of parental influence in how much time

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Speaker 3: children spend on pretend play and in what its themes

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Speaker 3: and contents are. Some cultures have more fantasy themes, like

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Speaker 3: talking animals, others are more realism bound in their pretend

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Speaker 3: games and so forth. We also talked about the specific

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Speaker 3: issue of imaginary companions, where those come from, how they

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Speaker 3: usually work, what patterns manifest within and across cultures. We

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Speaker 3: talk about possible links between pretend play and complex cognitive

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Speaker 3: skills like symbolic understanding, counterfactual reasoning, and theory of mind,

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Speaker 3: whether pretend to play may help children develop these capabilities,

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Speaker 3: or whether it makes use of common neural structures with them.

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Speaker 3: We talked about the idea of the paracosm, which is

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Speaker 3: an extension of the idea of an imaginary friend or

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Speaker 3: imaginary companion into a whole imaginary world, maybe even with

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Speaker 3: its own geography, inhabitants, its own history and rules and customs,

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Speaker 3: and we looked at how paracosms develop and whether they're

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Speaker 3: associated with other things later in life, like an adult

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Speaker 3: capacity for creativity. And then finally, we also talked about

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Speaker 3: ways in which imaginative play could be said to carry

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Speaker 3: on into adult life, often in different guises.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and we're going to continue on in this

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Speaker 1: episode to roll out discussion on some of these themes.

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Speaker 1: But I guess we should stress that there is so

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Speaker 1: much out there, and there's so much ongoing research into

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Speaker 1: not only pretend play and but also you know, childhood imagination,

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Speaker 1: adult imagination and so forth. This is really one of

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Speaker 1: those series where we could just keep going and going

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Speaker 1: and find new angles, new studies to discuss each time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. I mean, we've just come across so

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Speaker 3: many interesting things. I keep finding new, fascinating stuff I

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Speaker 3: wasn't even aware of when I first decided I wanted

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Speaker 3: to do this topic on the show. So it just

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Speaker 3: keeps unfolding and there's more and more, and the more

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Speaker 3: and more.

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Speaker 1: Is so good.

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Speaker 3: But we are going to have to cut it off

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Speaker 3: after today. Maybe we'll return to this topic in some

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Speaker 3: form in the future. But one thing I wanted to

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Speaker 3: come back to in today's episode, now that we've looked

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Speaker 3: at a lot of the different cultural environments and varieties

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Speaker 3: of play expression. Is the question of the biological basis

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Speaker 3: for pretend play? Is pretend to play a culturally contingent activity,

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Speaker 3: you know, something that we just kind of like made up,

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Speaker 3: didn't have to be a part of what human life is,

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Speaker 3: something like I don't know, parades. You know a lot

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Speaker 3: of different cultures have parades, but that's probably not a

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Speaker 3: biologically mandated behavior, that's just something culture made up. Or

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Speaker 3: is pretend play actually biologically mandated? Is it biologically programmed

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Speaker 3: in the human animal? And if it is the latter,

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Speaker 3: that sort of implies that it confers a survival or

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Speaker 3: reproduction advantage. So what would that be? So for this question,

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Speaker 3: I wanted to look at a really really interesting paper

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Speaker 3: published in twenty seventeen in the journal Trends in Cognitive

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Speaker 3: Sciences called Why do the Children Pretend Play? By an

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Speaker 3: author named Angeline S. Lillard, who is a professor of

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Speaker 3: psychology at the University of Virginia and she runs a

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Speaker 3: research center there called the Early Development Laboratory. I'm not

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Speaker 3: going to cover everything Lillard gets into in this paper,

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Speaker 3: but I wanted to give kind of a sketch of

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Speaker 3: her main argument and pick some interesting things to pull

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Speaker 3: out and talk about. So at the beginning of this article,

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Speaker 3: Lillard reviews a lot of the same evidence we've already

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Speaker 3: looked at earlier in the series, pointing to a pretty

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Speaker 3: standard schedule for development of pretend play in childhood, saying

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Speaker 3: pretend play usually begins by around eighteen months of age,

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Speaker 3: often with object substitution, though in the last episode we

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Speaker 3: looked at a few kind of very specific types of

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Speaker 3: pretend play that are often observed to pre date object substitution,

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Speaker 3: but object substitution is a big early milestone, usually occurring

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Speaker 3: by around one and a half years old. And then

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Speaker 3: talking about how pretend play seems to peak around the

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Speaker 3: age of three to five and most often stops around

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Speaker 3: the age of eleven. I think in the last episode

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Speaker 3: we cited a researcher who said it's around nine or

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Speaker 3: ten when it starts to wane. Lillard says around the

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Speaker 3: age of eleven is when it usually ceases, though the

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Speaker 3: question of whether it actually ceases is also debatable. In

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Speaker 3: some cases, kids keep pretending longer, and you can make

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Speaker 3: argument that activities sustained into adulthood are actually continued types

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Speaker 3: of pretend play, maybe sort of in disguise or not

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Speaker 3: so much in disguise. Now, Lillard makes the argument that

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Speaker 3: because pretend play of some form is culturally universal and

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Speaker 3: its development schedule is fairly regular and predictable, it's probably

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Speaker 3: an evolved biological trait and not just a contingent behavior

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Speaker 3: that we happen to create through culture. And I think

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Speaker 3: I would agree that this seems likely based on that information.

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Speaker 3: So Lillard asks the question that I brought up a

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Speaker 3: minute ago. If it is a biological trait of our species,

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Speaker 3: and if it's not just an epiphenomenal byproduct of some

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Speaker 3: other capacity like symbolic thinking, what evolutionary advantage does pretending provide?

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Speaker 3: As an aside, we already looked at some possible answers

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Speaker 3: to this question in that twenty fifteen paper by Weisberg

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Speaker 3: that we talked about in earlier parts of the series.

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Speaker 3: So it was brought up that maybe pretend play helps

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Speaker 3: facilitate the development of counterfactual reasoning, symbolic understanding, and theory

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Speaker 3: of mind. Though, as you'll recall, Weisberg highlighted that these

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Speaker 3: correlations are difficult to study in a way that's practical

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Speaker 3: rigorous and ethical. So while some studies do provide hints

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Speaker 3: in support of all three of these links, the evidence

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Speaker 3: is fairly weak. It's mostly just establishing correlations. Lillard's paper

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Speaker 3: also notes how difficult this is to study and the

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Speaker 3: indirect quality of much of the evidence available to us.

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Speaker 3: We have some indications, specifically, like from tragic examples of

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Speaker 3: children who suffered social isolation and infancy, that early deprivation

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Speaker 3: of normal interaction with human caregivers can lead to noticeable

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Speaker 3: deficits in pretend play later in childhood. So like children

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Speaker 3: who don't have enough human social interaction when their babies

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Speaker 3: tend to play pretend much less and they're older, suggesting

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Speaker 3: some kind of link between pretend play and socialization. However,

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Speaker 3: Lillard's paper makes use of a very interesting, totally separate

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Speaker 3: line of evidence for the biological function of pretend play,

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Speaker 3: and that is the analogy of non human animals.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, whether animals play This is probably a question

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Speaker 1: that has already been bouncing around people's minds as they

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Speaker 1: listen to these episodes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and so specifically it'd be the question of

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Speaker 3: whether animals play pretend Because I think it's pretty widely

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Speaker 3: agreed by researchers in the relevant fields that animals do play.

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Speaker 3: In this paper, Lillard refers to one particular definition of

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Speaker 3: play that has been popular used in a lot of research,

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Speaker 3: and it comes from a psychologist named Gordon Berghart. And

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Speaker 3: Burghart's criteria for play, I think he had five of them.

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Speaker 3: The criteria or that one we've already talked about this

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Speaker 3: that it's not functional, meaning that it's it's not activity

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Speaker 3: that is necessary for survival in any direct way. So

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Speaker 3: even if you enjoy chopping wood, chopping wood is not

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Speaker 3: considered play. To use Lillard's summary quote, is voluntary and pleasurable.

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Speaker 3: It differs in form or some other way from the

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Speaker 3: functional expression. It is repeated, and it tends to occur

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Speaker 3: under conditions of abundance not stress. Now, if you look

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Speaker 3: at those criteria, I think it's widely agreed that many

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Speaker 3: species of non human animals, especially a lot of vertebrates

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Speaker 3: and mammals, engage in play. But do these animals play pretend?

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Speaker 3: This is more controversial, but Lillard makes the case that

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Speaker 3: at least some forms of animal play should be considered

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Speaker 3: examples of pretense. And both of these are fortunately going

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Speaker 3: to be familiar to us and to listeners because we

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Speaker 3: can see them in our pets. I think, in fact,

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Speaker 3: it's maybe not even a coincidence that play would be

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Speaker 3: especially common among the animals that we happened to make

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Speaker 3: our domestic companions. So first example is playing with inanimate

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Speaker 3: objects as if they were live prey. You can see

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Speaker 3: this in cats, you can see this in dogs. I'm

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Speaker 3: sure you've seen plenty of this in your home, Rob.

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Speaker 3: You know, a cat will often any little furry thing,

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Speaker 3: or maybe doesn't in some cases, maybe doesn't even have

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Speaker 3: to be all that furry. It could be an aluminum ball,

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Speaker 3: or it could be a piece of string or something

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Speaker 3: like that. They will play with it and treat it

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Speaker 3: as if it were a mouse or some other kind

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Speaker 3: of prey animal. They will bat it around, they will

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Speaker 3: bite it, they will chase it, and so forth.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, we see this all the time. Yeah, ranging

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Speaker 1: from what we call the most dangerous game of finger mouse.

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Speaker 1: This is where you move your finger underneath the blanket.

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Speaker 1: Not recommended because it's an easy way to get your

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Speaker 1: finger scratched in or bitten. But yeah, all manner of toys,

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Speaker 1: laser beams, you name it.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't even think of the laser pointer. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: but I used to do the same thing when I

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Speaker 3: had cats. You know, you move your hand or your

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Speaker 3: toes around underneath the blanket. Yeah, and it drives absolutely nuts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And my cat does not need any encouragement to

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Speaker 1: attack body parts. She attacks my feet all the time.

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Speaker 3: Now, there's an interesting finding that Lillard notes, which is that, apparently,

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Speaker 3: in like formal studies of this type of play behavior

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Speaker 3: in cats, apparently as cats become older, on average, the

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Speaker 3: object needs to be increasingly similar to an actual prey

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Speaker 3: animal to induce the playing response. This will obviously vary

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Speaker 3: from cat to cat, but on average, more often a

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Speaker 3: kitten will attack anything you know. It will play with string,

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Speaker 3: will play with aluminum balls, whatever you know. It's all

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Speaker 3: a mouse to the kitten. But an older cat, as

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Speaker 3: it matures, will increasingly only be enticed into this type

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Speaker 3: of game by something that resembles in some way an

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Speaker 3: actual prey animal.

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Speaker 1: Well, my cat, I can safely say, is not average.

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Speaker 1: She's quite old at this point, but her she still

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Speaker 1: plays and some of her favorite items just recently have

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Speaker 1: been things like a plastic milk cap like off of

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Speaker 1: an oat milk jug. How if she had a great

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Speaker 1: time with that, buttons things like that, anything she can

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Speaker 1: get her claws on, so it doesn't seem to necessary.

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Speaker 1: We have other toys that do resemble rodents or birds

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Speaker 1: or whatever, and she's into those as well. But otherwise

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Speaker 1: she doesn't seem to discriminate. Now, not making this an

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Speaker 1: episode about cats, but I think obviously there's something to

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Speaker 1: be said here too about the domestic, like in house cat,

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Speaker 1: like a fully indoor cat versus a cat that's going

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Speaker 1: indoors and outdoors. This is a fully indoor cat, and

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Speaker 1: I know there have been various observations made about like

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Speaker 1: what that does. Does that keep a cat in more

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Speaker 1: sort of a semi permanent stage of kitten hood to

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Speaker 1: some degree, maybe has an effect on how they associate

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Speaker 1: with toys. Maybe you see more of this average situation

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Speaker 1: that's laid out here. If the cat actually has physical

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Speaker 1: access to normal prey animals on a regular.

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Speaker 3: Basis, yeah, that seems quite plausible to me.

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Speaker 1: Though.

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Speaker 3: An interesting thing that Lillard notes here is that there

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Speaker 3: is the opposite observation in humans that as children get older,

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Speaker 3: it's usually less important for the play object to resemble

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Speaker 3: the real object. In order for them to play pretend

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Speaker 3: with it. And so because of differences like this, Lillard

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Speaker 3: thinks that the treating and inanimate object as life prey

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Speaker 3: is not a great analogy for human play. However, there's

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Speaker 3: another thing observed in animals which she thinks is maybe

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Speaker 3: a good analogy for human pretend play, and that is

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Speaker 3: play fighting. We've probably all seen this before in dogs,

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Speaker 3: but in the scientific literature, play fighting is characterized as

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Speaker 3: a social locomotive play activity where animals try to gain

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Speaker 3: temper very physical advantage over one another in a way

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Speaker 3: that somewhat resembles the behavior of those same animals as

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Speaker 3: adults in violent competition, but is different in that the

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Speaker 3: animals typically take turns being the aggressor and that the

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Speaker 3: fight behaviors are truncated. So the dog might in a

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Speaker 3: play fight, it might put its jaws around the other

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Speaker 3: dog's body, maybe put the jaws around the neck, but

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Speaker 3: it does not bite down, or it doesn't usually, and

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Speaker 3: if it does, that's a you know, that's clearly not

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Speaker 3: what the behavior is intended to produce. Lillard argues that

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Speaker 3: play fighting could be viewed as an analog for pretend

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Speaker 3: play in humans and gives a number of reasons. For example,

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Speaker 3: both of these activities, pretend to play in humans and

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Speaker 3: play fighting involve creating an as if scenario where the

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Speaker 3: play activity appears to be a modified representation of a

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Speaker 3: real activity, but with limits put on it. Like the

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Speaker 3: play fighting stops for the bite pressure is too much,

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Speaker 3: and so forth, Lillard writes quote. As Baitsen also pointed out,

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Speaker 3: an animal that is engaged in play fighting must read

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Speaker 3: a behavior as denoting a behavior different from the behavior

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Speaker 3: it resembles. And then the sub quote of baits In

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Speaker 3: here quote the playful nip denotes the bite, but it

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Speaker 3: does not denote what would be denoted by the bite.

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Speaker 3: In other words, the playful nip is a pretend bite,

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Speaker 3: just as a child can pretend talk into a pretend

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Speaker 3: phone to symbolize really talking into a real phone. In

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Speaker 3: this way, both pretend play and play fighting behaviors are symbolic.

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Speaker 3: They mean something other than what they are. She also

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Speaker 3: calls attention to the fact that both pretend play in

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Speaker 3: humans and play fighting in other mammals rely on the

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Speaker 3: exchange of specific ritualized gestures and indicators that the activity

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Speaker 3: is play and not real. And I don't think I

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Speaker 3: was aware of a lot of this. For example, she

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Speaker 3: talks about a bunch of observations in rats that when

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Speaker 3: rats playfight, and apparently they do this a lot. Rats playfight.

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Speaker 3: She says, when they play fight, they don't bite at

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Speaker 3: or target the same areas of the body that they

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Speaker 3: do when rats are actually fighting in real violent competition.

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Speaker 3: So when they're playfighting, she says, they target a nuzzle

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Speaker 3: like the nape of the neck, whereas real fighting and

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Speaker 3: tends to involve attacks on the flanks and the lower back.

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Speaker 3: And apparently they also emit high pitched ultrasonic vibrations when

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Speaker 3: they're play fighting, which other rats can hear, which seems

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Speaker 3: to help the rats avoid mistaking a bid for a

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Speaker 3: playfight with the threat of a real fight. Now, understanding

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Speaker 3: those kinds of gestures and social communication and rats might

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Speaker 3: not be very intuitive to us, but we can easily

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Speaker 3: see the same kind of thing in dogs with the

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Speaker 3: famous play bow. Now, if you've ever seen dogs doing

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Speaker 3: play fighting, you will quite frequently, often at the beginning

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Speaker 3: of the encounter, and then at certain moments throughout the

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Speaker 3: play fighting session, the dogs will kind of back up

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Speaker 3: and then they will bow the front of the body

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Speaker 3: down and spread their paws apart and put their head

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Speaker 3: down with the back of the body up with the

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Speaker 3: haunches the butt raised up. And I've got a picture

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Speaker 3: here for you to look at, Rob, though I'm sure

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Speaker 3: you're familiar with this on your own as well.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, now that it's pointed out to me,

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Speaker 1: I have seen dogs doing this, and I guess I'm

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Speaker 1: realizing for the first time that this must be why

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Speaker 1: we call the pose and yoga down dog, because we

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Speaker 1: are creating a pose that looks like this. I always

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Speaker 1: just thought like, well, okay, it's just I'm on all fours.

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Speaker 1: I'm sort of like a dog right now. But I

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Speaker 1: guess this is the name thing.

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Speaker 3: So in yoga it's the butt is up, the head

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Speaker 3: is down, correct.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, though usually in the picture you're showing here

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Speaker 1: the dogs four pause forearms are on the ground, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's usually not the case with down dog. There are

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Speaker 1: versions of down dog where you do have four arms down.

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Speaker 1: I guess it's more gets inded like dolphin and so forth.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, enough animals. We're talking about dogs, right.

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Speaker 3: So studies show that playbows are they really are used

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Speaker 3: for social communication. Like you can see that they're most

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Speaker 3: common right after a candid play fight has sort of

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Speaker 3: pushed the limits or has for some reason become ambiguous. So,

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Speaker 3: for instance, when a play bite just got pretty rough,

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Speaker 3: you know, like a dog. They're playing, but one bit

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Speaker 3: the other kind of hard, it seems, then the playbow

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Speaker 3: would be deployed. It's used to regulate the shared understanding

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Speaker 3: of the activity and to signal kind of sorry about that,

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Speaker 3: we're still in play mode. This is not a real fight.

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Speaker 3: And in this way this would be considered a form

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Speaker 3: of meta communication, allowing all the participants in an activity

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Speaker 3: to continually understand the correct in which the shared activity

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Speaker 3: should be interpreted. It's the signal this is play this

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Speaker 3: is not real. And it turns out that with pretend

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Speaker 3: play humans do this too. There are specific kinds of

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Speaker 3: gestures and signals that have been observed within human play fighting,

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Speaker 3: but even outside the realm of play fighting and just

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Speaker 3: in pretend play that the kinds we've been talking about

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Speaker 3: in this series so far. Maybe cooking in a play kitchen,

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Speaker 3: or using a banana as a telephone, or using a

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Speaker 3: little block as a car, you know, an object substitution

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Speaker 3: enactment play any of these things. The signals used to

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Speaker 3: communicate pretend to play might be more culturally variable in

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Speaker 3: humans than in dogs. But for example, research in the

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Speaker 3: United States has particularly found that when mothers play pretend

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Speaker 3: with young children, they use specific body language cues such

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Speaker 3: as strong eye contact, mistimed movements, and a smile immediately

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Speaker 3: following the pretend behavior. And so like, I can imagine

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Speaker 3: all these kind of things kind of like exaggerated weird

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Speaker 3: movements and kind of looking at the child, making eye

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Speaker 3: contact and then smiling after you say, like here's the phone. Also,

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Speaker 3: this is not mentioned in the study, but I really

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Speaker 3: thought about like using a different voice. You know, we've

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Speaker 3: talked about about parental voice modulation on the show before.

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Speaker 3: I think we did whole episodes on this of like

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Speaker 3: the you know, the baby voice, the way parents tend

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Speaker 3: to speak to children, and like what kind of purpose

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Speaker 3: that serves where it comes from. But I think there's

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Speaker 3: a version of this with pretend to play too. Like

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Speaker 3: I notice when we start taking on a pretense, I

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Speaker 3: kind of sound different. I'm doing something with the timing

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Speaker 3: of my speaking and the pitch of my voice and

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Speaker 3: stuff that I'm not normally doing when I'm just playing

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Speaker 3: with my daughter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that makes sense. Yeah, I mean we often

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Speaker 1: don't think about it, but we are sort of conveying that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're shifting over one degree to the left or the

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Speaker 1: right here into the imagination space.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh this book is a boat now. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: And so you can think about different reasons for this

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Speaker 3: meta communication within the play itself. So like in play fighting,

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Speaker 3: meta communication is important for physical safety, you know, like

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Speaker 3: you don't want the fight to you don't want the

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Speaker 3: play fight to escalate to a real fight. So meta

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Speaker 3: communication literally helps dogs and rats and humans avoid hurting

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Speaker 3: one another. But with pretend to play in human children,

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Speaker 3: it strikes me that it's probably important for something we

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Speaker 3: talked about earlier in the series information quarantining, to prevent

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Speaker 3: children from drawing incorrect lessons about reality from a game

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Speaker 3: of pretend, you know, so the child does not end

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Speaker 3: up thinking that a remote control can actually place phone calls.

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Speaker 3: We're showing this is play, so the child doesn't learn

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Speaker 3: something that's wrong. So in this paper, Lillard looks at

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Speaker 3: studies of play fighting in animals to see what, if anything,

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Speaker 3: can be established about its survival and reproduction value, what

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Speaker 3: does it do for the animals? This section involves a

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Speaker 3: lot of discussion of the difficulties and limitations in designing

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Speaker 3: these experiments, and the paper is worth a read if

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Speaker 3: you want to learn more about that. But to mention

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Speaker 3: one prominent example type of experiment she brings up. It

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Speaker 3: is an experiment where you take a baby rat and

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Speaker 3: pair it in its enclosure only with a single adult

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Speaker 3: female rat and no littermates. Now, with other littermates present,

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Speaker 3: a baby rat will typically engage in play fighting as

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Speaker 3: it matures, but when it is paired only with an

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Speaker 3: adult female rat, the baby rat will receive socialization from

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Speaker 3: the adults, so it's not like total social isolation or deprivent.

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Speaker 3: But adult female rats specifically will not engage in play fighting,

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Speaker 3: so this seems to reasonably well isolate and remove play

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Speaker 3: fighting on its own. But it's important to note that

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Speaker 3: this is not a perfect isolation of the variable, because

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Speaker 3: having littermates is the norm for baby rats, so this

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Speaker 3: is not just like a perfectly normal baby rat with

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Speaker 3: only play fighting taken away. It's just getting as close

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Speaker 3: to that as researchers can are. There any differences in

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Speaker 3: rat development from this setup. Oh yes, a few examples.

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Speaker 3: Rats that grow up with socialization but without play fighting

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Speaker 3: have trouble interpreting social signals later in life. For instance,

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Speaker 3: later if another rat tries to initiate play fighting, the

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Speaker 3: deprived rat will often misinterpret it as a bid for

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Speaker 3: real fighting. They also have difficulties with other types of

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Speaker 3: social communication. They have difficulties with mating and with copulation,

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Speaker 3: and it seems that across multiple domains, rats that don't

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Speaker 3: have experience with play fighting just have trouble reading social

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Speaker 3: signals from other rats. Also, the lack of juvenile experience

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Speaker 3: with play fighting seems to change the development of the

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Speaker 3: medial prefrontal cortex in a rat's brain, and the behavioral

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Speaker 3: result of this is a difficulty with the inhibition of impulses.

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Speaker 3: And I thought this part was really interesting. Lillard infers

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Speaker 3: that play fighting helps develop a rat's inhibition skills because

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Speaker 3: play fighting is an exercise in inhibition. You are sort

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Speaker 3: of fighting, but you're not really going all the way

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Speaker 3: you have to. In fact, one of the key skills

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Speaker 3: of play fighting is to stop yourself from really biting

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Speaker 3: the other rat hard. So, counterintuitively, when we see, you know,

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Speaker 3: animals or children play fighting. We often think think of

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Speaker 3: this as like, you know, you might have feelings like, oh,

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Speaker 3: are they developing aggression? I mean, it's possible that that

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Speaker 3: could be happening too, But counterintuitively, playfighting seems to be

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Speaker 3: a way to get experience holding back aggression.

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Speaker 1: This is also a topic that may tie into some

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Speaker 1: things I've read about domestic cats and whether, like to

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Speaker 1: what extent a given cat has been exposed to other cats.

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Speaker 1: I'm to understand this can have an impact on, say,

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Speaker 1: how likely they are to bite if they are perturbed

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Speaker 1: or wishing to express something like, you know, have they

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Speaker 1: had enough of I guess the feline equivalency of the

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Speaker 1: play fighting model.

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Speaker 3: Wow, I've never heard of that. But if I'm understanding

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Speaker 3: you right, you're saying it's the idea that if a

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Speaker 3: cat has grown up around other cats, they are more

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Speaker 3: likely to inhibit or hold back the expression of aggression

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Speaker 3: with say, humans in the household.

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Speaker 1: That is what I've heard. Now. I did not go

435
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: into research on this for this episode, so it's entirely possible.

436
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I get it the most wrong, it's in

437
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: cases like this where it's nothing I researched. It's just

438
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 1: something floating around in my head. So I would say,

439
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 1: don't take that to the bank. But it's out there

440
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: at least in the form of like cat owner folk wisdom,

441
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 1: and it may have scientific underpinnings as well. Well.

442
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,239
Speaker 3: I feel like if that's true, that would line up

443
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,360
Speaker 3: exactly with these findings, and that would be really interesting.

444
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: My cat is here, but she's asleep, so I can't

445
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: I can't get any foul to asker.

446
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, but anyway, in the conclusion of this section, Lillard says,

447
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 3: quote taking turns at being dominant also involves inhibition. You

448
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 3: think about it that way, So it's not just like,

449
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 3: you know, when you get the better of another animal

450
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 3: in play fighting and you bite down on them, but

451
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 3: you don't really bite down all the way. That's inhibition.

452
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 3: You have to have the executive function to hold back.

453
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 3: But also taking turns involves a type of holding back.

454
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 3: I would imagine. I haven't done research on this either,

455
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 3: but I would imagine just in general in the human analogy,

456
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 3: like any kind of sharing or relinquishing power over something

457
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 3: within a game involves a type of inhibition control.

458
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense, So Lillard.

459
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 3: Says, maybe play fighting is really important for strengthening the

460
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 3: neural circuitry behind inhibition, and if you don't have play

461
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 3: fighting in these animals where it's common that circuitry for

462
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 3: inhibition doesn't really develop fully. So looking over all this

463
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 3: research in rats, Lillard says that that playfighting is probably

464
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 3: important for the development of a rat's ability to read

465
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 3: social signals from other rats, to coordinate social activity with

466
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 3: other rats, to regulate stress, and exercise inhibition or holding

467
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 3: back behaviors. Now the question is, of course, could pretend

468
00:27:54,400 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 3: to play serve similar functions in human development. Lillard argues yes,

469
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,639
Speaker 3: though she's cautious to say, you know, we shouldn't conclude

470
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 3: too much on the basis of analogies with other animals,

471
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 3: but in the absence of stronger experimental designs on humans,

472
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,159
Speaker 3: which are probably not going to be forthcoming for very

473
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 3: understandable reasons, this is a really interesting, if only partial

474
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 3: piece of the picture. So essentially her idea is that

475
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 3: pretend play in humans might be important for understanding social

476
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 3: signals and for emotion regulation. I mentioned earlier that pretend

477
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 3: to play in humans involves a lot of reading of

478
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 3: social information or metacommunication between parents and children or at

479
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 3: older ages between children and other children. So we had

480
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 3: those things like the strong eye contact, the smile after

481
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 3: the pretend action. You know, we alluded to the kind

482
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 3: of pretend play voice. These signals let the child know

483
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 3: that what is taking place is play and it is

484
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 3: not to be taken literally.

485
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: This also reminds me of some of the research we've

486
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: discussed in the past concerning laughter. Laughter is a social cue.

487
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: Oh yes, potentially to let other individuals know that there

488
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: is not a risk and so forth.

489
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 3: Totally, I think they could fit right in the suite there.

490
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 3: So anyway, from here, Lillard goes on to analyze a

491
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 3: number of other experiments that have tried to establish links

492
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 3: of this sort between early pretend to play and specifically

493
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 3: with theory of mind, which is heavily involved in social

494
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 3: communication and understanding. So there's some big overlap there, and

495
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 3: Lillard proposes a possible causal model that goes something like this,

496
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 3: So early pretend to play sensitizes a child to social signals.

497
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 3: This is the meta communication that goes on when you're

498
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 3: playing pretend. All the little eye contact cues and the

499
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 3: changes of voice and the little things you do to

500
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 3: let the child know that the banana is not really

501
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 3: a phone. We're playing a game right now. This is

502
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 3: a separate reality, and so that makes the child sensitive

503
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 3: to those social signals. This sensitivity in part helps a

504
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 3: child develop the capacity for symbolic understanding, Lillard writes, quote

505
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 3: Yet this sensitivity alone would not develop the symbolic function. Rather,

506
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 3: it is the sensitivity in concert with the fact that

507
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 3: the parent is presenting reality at two levels to the child,

508
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 3: where one level serves as a symbol for the other. Thus,

509
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 3: both parental pretend and the child's sensitivity to social signals

510
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 3: are postulated to undergird the symbolic function, which is also

511
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 3: used in language and the interpretation of other symbols. And then, finally,

512
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 3: after this, the symbolic understanding in turn helps the child

513
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 3: with theory of mind. Now, how would symbolic understanding lead

514
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 3: to theory of mind? Lillard says that it is crucially

515
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 3: quote learning that reality can exist at two levels, the

516
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 3: nip and the bite, the banana and the telephone, the

517
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 3: false belief and the reality. So this ties into the

518
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 3: theory of mind. So like the symbolic understanding that there

519
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 3: can be two different realities, like what I know to

520
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 3: be true versus what I know sally incorrectly thinks to

521
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 3: be true. It is this ability to think at multiple

522
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 3: levels of reality that leads to typical adult social functioning,

523
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 3: in large part through theory of mind. So Lillard writes

524
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 3: about this in the end quote there might be continuity

525
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 3: then with pretend to play and play fighting. In both cases,

526
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 3: metacommunication is key and fundamental in humans. This ties into

527
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 3: a symbolic capacity that is not well developed in other species,

528
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 3: but a common root is reading social signals indicating that

529
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 3: a behavior is to be interpreted at other than face value.

530
00:31:57,360 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 3: And then finally, also Lillard goes on to have another

531
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 3: section about the connection between between pretend play and self

532
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 3: regulation or inhibitory control, like we already talked about, and

533
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 3: that one also seems plausible too, because the very act

534
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 3: of pretending is in a way an exercise in holding back.

535
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 3: It could be in play fighting holding back aggression. But

536
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 3: in the case of just say, like playing pretend, playing

537
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 3: in a play kitchen, or playing bananas telephone, you are

538
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 3: holding back the exercise of what you know to be

539
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 3: really the case. It's an inhibition type of impulse that

540
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 3: allows you to say, actually, I will not act on

541
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 3: what I know to be reality. Instead, I will act

542
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 3: on this secondary pretense scenario. So anyway, I found this

543
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 3: model very interesting, and especially in the way that I

544
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 3: don't know, it highlights just how convoluted human development can be.

545
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 3: Like if Lillard is correct about this, say about the

546
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,719
Speaker 3: pathway that sort of starts with a child being sensitized

547
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 3: to social signals and communication through pretend to play in

548
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 3: the same way that animals probably are through play fighting,

549
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 3: and that's somehow leading to like all of these complicated

550
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 3: adult capacities through the mediating capacity of symbolic understanding. I

551
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 3: don't know, it's fascinating to imagine just how unpredictable the

552
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 3: development process of a human mind could be, that you

553
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 3: wouldn't necessarily make that connection without having all of these

554
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 3: pieces of evidence to establish in between make that connection

555
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 3: between you know, like reading gestures and body language in

556
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 3: pretend play to the final conclusion of adult socialization and

557
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 3: theory of mind.

558
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: I think one of the really interesting takes on pretend

559
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: play and creativity in general that we've been looking at

560
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: is this idea that you know, you can sort of

561
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: look at it as this scaffolding that is used to

562
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 1: sort of struck the mature psyche, you know, and our

563
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 1: sort of semi completed adult forms. And yet the other

564
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: interesting side of the coin is to look at ways

565
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:19,240
Speaker 1: in which we continue to engage in creative endeavors, including

566
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: pretend play, and the possibility that, okay, all that scaffolding

567
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 1: is still there and perhaps it can be reutilized to

568
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: help us with problems and challenges that we face as adults.

569
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I talked more broadly about creativity in

570
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 1: general and pretend play specifically in adults. In the last

571
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: episode we touched on some examples such as Dungeons and Dragons,

572
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: a tabletop role playing game. I imagine most people listening

573
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: to the show know at Dungeons and Dragons, says, we

574
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: didn't stop to describe it, but of course it is

575
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: you know, pen and paper, sometimes miniatures, books of rules,

576
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:03,879
Speaker 1: and of course sometimes it has digital components. But at

577
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:07,760
Speaker 1: the core, it is a scenario that's taking place within

578
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 1: the heads of the players. It is a shared storytelling

579
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: creative endeavor. And so that is frequently brought up as

580
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: an example of pretend play that kids engage in and

581
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 1: adolescents engage in, but also plenty of adults do we

582
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: also have the example of improv theater as a big

583
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: one that lines up with pretend play in a number

584
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: of ways. And then we also touch briefly on Graveside

585
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: conversations with the Debt as an example of adult humans

586
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 1: speaking to an imagined mind state, something that you could

587
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: almost compare to speaking with an imaginary friend with all

588
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: the caveats that we discussed in that last episode. So

589
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: today I wanted to follow up on all of that

590
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: with a look at some additional literature that gets a

591
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: little more in depth about the benefits of adult pretend play.

592
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 1: But I do want to drive home again that this

593
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: is certainly an example where there's so much material out

594
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: there and our understanding of how imagination play and creativity

595
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 1: factors into adult lives and what the benefits are. You know,

596
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 1: this continues to develop. So I've had a really helpful

597
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 1: article by Alyssamwison titled do grown Ups Pretend Play? Or

598
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, do grown Ups Play Pretend? And her primary

599
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 1: focus professionally is on mental childhood development, but in this

600
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: she also lines things up with the adult experience of

601
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: engaging and pretend play, and she explores different imaginative adult

602
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:45,879
Speaker 1: activities that arguably match up with the idea of pretend play.

603
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,399
Speaker 1: She brings up D and D of course, she brings

604
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: up cosplay, which we briefly touched on. I think, you know,

605
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 1: the idea that you might dress up as a favorite

606
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: fictional character and to certain extents, act as that fictional

607
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: character her at say, some sort of a convention. She

608
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: brings up LARPing live action role playing, which also crosses

609
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,799
Speaker 1: over into the realm of play fighting of course, you know,

610
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: on stage fighting and so forth, which is interesting. You're

611
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: not actually trying to kill somebody with a LARPing sword.

612
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 3: Hopefully not. Yeah.

613
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 1: And then she also brought up an example that I

614
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought of that much in terms of pretend play,

615
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: but engagement with fictional media, especially books, but also movies

616
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,439
Speaker 1: and TV shows. And I think that this is something

617
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 1: that might not line up with every definition of pretend play,

618
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: but it's food for thought, especially so far as written

619
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 1: fiction goes. I was thinking about this, and we might

620
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: we might throw non visual works in there as well,

621
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: audio books, podcasts certainly, and also I think low five

622
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: visual storytelling as well. Like I'm thinking, you know that

623
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: sweet spot of like retro role playing games where the

624
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: visuals on the screen gave you a representation of what

625
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:03,879
Speaker 1: things were and where they are, but then you might

626
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: have this additional mental image and a mental version of

627
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: what was happening. It's more akin to say, engaging with

628
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: a book.

629
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 3: And do you make this distinction, because something like engaging

630
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 3: with a book is more of a participatory imaginative action

631
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 3: than say, passive media like watching a TV show.

632
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: By and large, But at the same level, I have

633
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that even like it's easy to say be

634
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,760
Speaker 1: dismissive of cinema and say, well, the movie is giving

635
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: you everything you need, is giving you the visuals, the sound,

636
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 1: and then it doesn't leave anything to the imagination. But

637
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 1: certainly not every scene is laying it all out there.

638
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 1: There are plenty of moments where we as the viewer

639
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: have to imagine what is being seen by the protagonist.

640
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: We imagine the monster that's been glimpsed, or we imagine

641
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:51,800
Speaker 1: the monster in full and when we only see its feet,

642
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:55,720
Speaker 1: or you know, various scenes where characters are describing something

643
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: and we don't see it. They're just telling a story.

644
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: It's essentially more of an odd audio based storytelling situation.

645
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,720
Speaker 1: But certainly with a work of written fiction. You know, okay,

646
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 1: it's it's going to tell its story, it's going to

647
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: describe thoughts and action, and it's going to guide you

648
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 1: along its course. It's going to plant its seeds. But

649
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 1: the author, sometimes from beyond the grave, is of course,

650
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: you know, thinking thoughts directly into your active mind, or

651
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: not directly via the book. But but you know, reading

652
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: is a social work. It's you know, it's not an

653
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: entirely devoid of personal imagination or even imaginative choices. I

654
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 1: imagine many of you have this, have had this experience

655
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: where you make a like a mental note of what

656
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: a character looks like, or you even decide how you

657
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 1: will cast them in your imagination. I used to do

658
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:52,399
Speaker 1: this a lot when I was a younger reader, and

659
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: I'll occasionally lean on this technique if I'm reading something

660
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: that has a confusing cast of characters, or I'm having

661
00:39:59,880 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: a trouble keeping track of everyone. I'm like, Okay, what's

662
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: this person's last name? And then I'm like, okay, you're

663
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 1: Harry Dane Stanton. We're just gonna we're just gonna try

664
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: and streamline this a little bit. And I imagine various

665
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: folks engage in varying degrees of this, though you know

666
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 1: it's not always the case. But even if you don't

667
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 1: actively decide how you're going to interpret something visually, when

668
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: you're reading, your your mind is still visualizing the information

669
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: that has been conveyed to you, like via your your

670
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: own mind. You know, it's working off the various models,

671
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:39,399
Speaker 1: the various people you've you've seen and encountered. So there

672
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 1: is still this like creative endeavor to that's entirely a

673
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: product of your mind as a particular story is coming

674
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: to life in your head. Now, some of that is

675
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: me just spitballing there. But she argues that adults engage

676
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: in such activities as these for many different reasons, and

677
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: these reasons generally line up with some of the reasons

678
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: that children engage in imagination play. To learn, to have

679
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: the experience of traveling somewhere, to have various experiences you

680
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't have in your normal life, to laugh, and all

681
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: of these experiences can be empathetic, they can be personally empowering,

682
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: and much more. Now, Mewison mentions the importance of mastery

683
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 1: and psychological distance in play for children. We see both

684
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,760
Speaker 1: of these. Of course, children tend to pretend to be older,

685
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: more experienced individuals when they're playing. There are, of course

686
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 1: counterexamples to that, but she refers to something that has

687
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 1: been dubbed the Batman effect, where children will stick to

688
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:46,879
Speaker 1: a task longer if they're pretending to be someone else,

689
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: generally someone with a greater degree of mastery. In this term,

690
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 1: the Batman effect stems from a twenty seventeen study by

691
00:41:55,760 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: White at All published in Child Development Batman Effect improvingance

692
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: in young children. You can probably guess what this consistent of.

693
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 3: I've heard of this, yeah, yeah.

694
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 1: So they in this study, they looked at six and

695
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,720
Speaker 1: four year olds and they found, quote, children who impersonated

696
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,320
Speaker 1: an exemplar other, in this case, a character such as Batman,

697
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 1: spent the most time working, followed by children who took

698
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: a third person perspective of the cell on the self,

699
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:27,800
Speaker 1: or finally a first person perspective, so, you know, creating

700
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: that psychological distance and embodying like a person of mastery,

701
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 1: the extreme of course being Batman.

702
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, this makes me think about the nature of

703
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 3: enjoyment in an activity and flow states and such. You know,

704
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 3: it's often said that you are essentially in a flow

705
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:53,879
Speaker 3: state when you are engaging in an activity that's sort

706
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 3: of maximally challenging but also still within your ability to do,

707
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 3: and you're getting consistent feedback that you are doing it correctly.

708
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 3: So like an activity that's too easy can be boring,

709
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 3: an activity that is too hard, if you feel like

710
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 3: you're just failing at it over and over, it becomes frustrating.

711
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:16,320
Speaker 3: And so I wonder if assuming a kind of exemplar

712
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 3: character mind state allows you to simulate flow even if,

713
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 3: like for you, this activity you neither you maybe don't

714
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 3: have actual mastery of it. You are continually making mistakes,

715
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 3: but it's part of the game to just not acknowledge

716
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 3: that and say like, I'm doing it perfectly or maybe

717
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,279
Speaker 3: around the maybe on the other side, maybe it makes

718
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 3: it more exciting an activity that would otherwise be so

719
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 3: easy that it's boring.

720
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or I mean you're just you're becoming Batman. You're

721
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: taking on grim determination to finish a task. Like would

722
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: Batman stop sweeping the floor halfway through? No, he would

723
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: buckle down and finish the job, because that's how Batman

724
00:43:57,080 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 1: does it.

725
00:43:58,000 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 2: Well.

726
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 3: You never see Batman finish the job. It always cuts

727
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 3: away right after the most exciting part. Do you see

728
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 3: Batman like making the hand off to the police and

729
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 3: all the I guess occasionally.

730
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:12,359
Speaker 1: He often leaves them right hanging by battering in an alley. Yeah,

731
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 1: so interesting to think about, and I would, of course,

732
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: I would be gained to hear any examples of the

733
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: Batman effect from anyone's lives or the lives of children

734
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:27,280
Speaker 1: in someone's life. But the question then emerges, do adults

735
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: do this as well? Well? Muissen mentions an acquaintance of

736
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: hers who she says channeled something she's dubbing the Buffy effect.

737
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 1: So this individual was preparing for childbirth and channeled Buffy

738
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: the vampire Slayer just sort of find the like, I

739
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 1: don't know, to get in the zone for what was

740
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 1: to come. So that's and that's that's interesting, and I

741
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 1: would love to hear from any listeners out there who

742
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: have some version of this, Like if you ever embodied

743
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: or you know, pretend played to some extent a fictional

744
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: character in order to make it through some you know,

745
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: big or small trial in your life. Maybe it's sweeping

746
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: the floors, maybe it's childbirth, very different endeavors, but you

747
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 1: can imagine where Yeah, you can sort of like psych

748
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 1: yourself into it a little bit, like it reminds me

749
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 1: of This is a much, I guess, more casual version

750
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: of this. But you hear people talking about like engaging

751
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: in beast mode or something, you know, to sort of

752
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:29,840
Speaker 1: like beast through a particular challenge or a workout, et cetera.

753
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:32,319
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, on one level, yeah, it's

754
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 1: just a saying, but is it, Like you know, language

755
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 1: is powerful, and if we're engaging in beast mode, are

756
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 1: on some level are we engaging in some sort of imaginablecanthropy,

757
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: some imagined a hulking out in order to complete a task.

758
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 3: I can speak from personal experience that sometimes a difficult

759
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 3: like workout, physical workout task is easier if you make

760
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 3: the kinds of noises that are not polite to make

761
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:00,439
Speaker 3: at the gym, you know, if you like really roar

762
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 3: or grunt. I mean, I understand why Jim's would prefer

763
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 3: people not do that, but it kind of does help.

764
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot that there's like a no grunting,

765
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: no sound effects rule in some gems.

766
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 3: I don't know if they all have that, but yeah,

767
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 3: I think someplaces they're like, please, please don't scream at

768
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,319
Speaker 3: your you know, the person on the machine next to you.

769
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 3: But no, I think it does kind of help. And

770
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 3: I wonder, I don't know, maybe there's a totally different

771
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 3: mechanism at play there, but one could see how it

772
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 3: could also just be part of like imagining yourself in

773
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 3: some more dramatic kind of scenario than you actually are. Like,

774
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 3: you're not just doing a workout, you are, you know,

775
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 3: you're crossing some incredible hurdle in some kind of dramatic scenario.

776
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:44,840
Speaker 1: Well, even if you are not, like on any level,

777
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: pretend playing that you were a beast during your workout,

778
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: you still might be entering into like a slightly different

779
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,839
Speaker 1: mindset and a slightly different version of yourself, you know,

780
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 1: like like and you're not just gym now your workout Jim,

781
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 1: you know, or workout Jane or you or whatever the

782
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: case may be. You know, And I think that makes

783
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:06,879
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. You know, we we often think

784
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: of a cohesive self, but we know that under close scrutiny,

785
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: this doesn't you know, completely pan out. We the person

786
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: we are changes over time, and there are often sort

787
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: of like different versions of ourselves depending on what our

788
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: environment is, you know what time of day it is,

789
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: and so forth. So you know, you may have a

790
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,279
Speaker 1: you know, a workout self that is, you know, a

791
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: little bit to the left or the right of who

792
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: you were before you came into that workout, and then

793
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 1: hopefully the person after the workout has yet another person

794
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 1: that is maybe a couple of degrees removed from your

795
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: starting point. Ewison also mentions in passing the fake it

796
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 1: till You Make it mantra, I believe she kicked off

797
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:51,359
Speaker 1: the article sort of bringing this up, you know, sort

798
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 1: of like, hey, is this imagination play? And I think

799
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 1: maybe there is something to go on there as well,

800
00:47:57,040 --> 00:47:59,439
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of you know, generally, when people

801
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:01,439
Speaker 1: were talking about faking it till you make it, they're

802
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: talking about I guess it's not unlike the Batman idea.

803
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: It's like you're not saying I'm going to be Batman.

804
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to be you know, the professional that I

805
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: think I should be in the situation, or that the

806
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 1: parent I think I should be, the spouse I think

807
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 1: I should be, and so forth, and engaging in that

808
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: until on some level that becomes more than norm.

809
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 3: Why do I have a negative feeling about that phrase.

810
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 3: I guess it's perfectly fine in some scenarios. For some reason,

811
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 3: I'm associating it with like engaging in fraud.

812
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, there has been You do see pushback against that

813
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: turn of phrase, in part because it can be interpreted,

814
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 1: I think, to sort of discount hard work and actual

815
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: striving for change in your life and the idea that

816
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: I would just fake it and you'll eventually you know,

817
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: it's I don't think we should maybe take it too literally.

818
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:54,359
Speaker 3: The charitably interpreted version of it is fine. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

819
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: Now again, the Batman effect entails a certain amount of

820
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: psychological distance, and Muisen also points out that we see

821
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: element of this an adult imaginative choices. She says that,

822
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: you know, one may wish to engage with media that

823
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: offers a subjectively preferred level of psychological distance from whatever

824
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 1: your reality might be. The example she gives is that

825
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 1: of parents wishing to avoid media in which children are

826
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 1: in danger. You know, I can speak to that, you know,

827
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: especially when I had a young child, I was like,

828
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: what was the movie The Babba Duke that came out?

829
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:27,800
Speaker 1: I think my child was very long. I was like, no,

830
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 1: thank you, I'm not going to skip on the Babba Duke,

831
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 1: and I still haven't gotten around to seeing.

832
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 3: Oh it's really good, but yeah, I saw it. But

833
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 3: before I had a child, I can absolutely speak to this, Like,

834
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:44,800
Speaker 3: you know, becoming a parent completely changed what my sensitivities

835
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 3: in media and storytelling were, and like certain types of

836
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 3: things that wouldn't really have bothered me before, like children

837
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 3: in danger suddenly became very difficult to watch.

838
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, an example that came to my mind reading this

839
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 1: article was, of course the height of the pandemic. I

840
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 1: know a lot of us may be chose not to

841
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: watch plague oriented media, you know, like it seems like

842
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:11,879
Speaker 1: maybe a time to skip on the zombie apocalypse scenarios

843
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:14,799
Speaker 1: and so forth. So I think there are different levels

844
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 1: of this depending on you know, highly subjective, you know,

845
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: whatever's going on in your world and more importantly in

846
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 1: your life, because there could be things going on in

847
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: your world that are just not weighing, particularly on your

848
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: your psyche, or you're not aware of. And then she

849
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 1: stresses mastering control in both adult and child models here,

850
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,799
Speaker 1: and I think this is this is pretty straightforward. You know,

851
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 1: there's so much in our lives as adults that feel

852
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: out of our control, and it may just be objectively

853
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 1: out of our control, and yet you know, we have

854
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 1: these responsibilities and you want to at least have this

855
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 1: feeling of control, and so you sometimes find it in

856
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,319
Speaker 1: large acts, but often in small acts. And also these

857
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 1: are the things you can find via involvement in various

858
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: imaginative games. I think many video games fit this, and

859
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 1: I believe that some of the most frequent examples, though,

860
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 1: concerned tabletop gaming and especially tabletop role playing games like

861
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons. A hallmark of some of these experiences

862
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 1: that I've seen discussed in past papers that I've read

863
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:22,880
Speaker 1: is the idea of too of a fixed, small scale universe,

864
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, you think of so many different

865
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 1: sandbox video games. There is the corner to the screen,

866
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: like there is a limit to the world, and so

867
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: you feel like you can master it in a way

868
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:37,800
Speaker 1: that you cannot be a master of reality.

869
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:42,399
Speaker 3: I think that's a really insightful point. When people talk

870
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 3: about like video games or RPGs being I don't know,

871
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 3: freeing or empowering in a way, I think they're usually

872
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 3: focusing on the on the power of the characters played

873
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 3: like that it can be an empowerment fantasy in that

874
00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 3: you play as someone who is very capable and can

875
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 3: do a lot of things. And I'm sure that is

876
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 3: part of it as well, but I think it's absolutely right.

877
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 3: Maybe what is maybe even more important is that within

878
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:13,759
Speaker 3: video games or within a tabletop RPG, you can understand

879
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 3: what all the rules are. You can and that's never

880
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 3: true in reality and in life. We're all living our

881
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 3: lives playing a massive game, a massive RPG where the

882
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 3: rules are not clear and maybe they're changing.

883
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: And you know, very often in our video games and

884
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 1: our imaginative media, there is often a very clear line

885
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 1: between good and evil. You know, it's it's it's zombies

886
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:41,360
Speaker 1: or invading robots or aliens, whatever the case may be. Like,

887
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: there's a clear distinction, at least on some level in

888
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:48,760
Speaker 1: terms of how you're supposed to tackle adversity and so forth.

889
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are clear ways to know how to play,

890
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:54,880
Speaker 3: which in reality it's confusing.

891
00:52:55,280 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, transitioning out of Muissen here, she does mention

892
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 1: embassing in therapeutic use of tabletop roleplaying games, and she

893
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: references a twenty twenty two Wired article by Cam Burns

894
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 1: Health therapists. You're using tabletop games to help people. And

895
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:22,879
Speaker 1: I was looking at that article. The author of this

896
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 1: Burns speaks with clinical psychiatrist Raphael Bokemazo, and in this

897
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 1: conversation it's stressed that tabletop roleplaying games, and I think

898
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 1: this is important to note, they're not therapy in and

899
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:43,359
Speaker 1: of themselves, and you know you can't, like realistically look

900
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:45,319
Speaker 1: at your own Dungeons and Dragons night and say I

901
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:49,439
Speaker 1: am going to therapy. Rather, they can be used as

902
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 1: a tool in therapy by trained professionals, opening spaces for

903
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 1: patients to explore things like identity, mortality, gender, social skills,

904
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:02,840
Speaker 1: overcoming social anxiety, and so forth. Yeah.

905
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:05,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think in the same way that like sports

906
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 3: are not therapy, but could in some scenarios be therapeutic.

907
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and could you tap into some of those therapeutic

908
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: effects on your own most certainly, but not to the

909
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,760
Speaker 1: degree that a trained professional would be able to utilize

910
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: it with specific games with the right patients. Now, there's

911
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:26,439
Speaker 1: been quite a lot written on the possibility of using

912
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop role playing games for

913
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:33,720
Speaker 1: therapeutic purposes. I was looking at one paper from nineteen

914
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,360
Speaker 1: ninety four by Wayne d. Blackmun titled Dungeons and Dragons

915
00:54:37,360 --> 00:54:40,720
Speaker 1: The use of a fantasy game in the psychotherapeutic treatment

916
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 1: of a young adult. The adult in question had schizoid

917
00:54:43,640 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 1: personality disorder, and more recently you see this rolled out

918
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: as a tool in specially aimed therapy groups. I found

919
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 1: a nice article on Johns Hopkins University's website by Claire

920
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: Gudreau titled tabletop Therapy, How Dungeons and Dragons can improve

921
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 1: mental health. This is from twenty twenty three, and it

922
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:07,319
Speaker 1: highlights a session in which players engage. This is not

923
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: like you know, this is just one example of how

924
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: one particular therapy group handles it. But you might have

925
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 1: sixty to ninety minutes of OURPG time. Granted that's you're

926
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:17,359
Speaker 1: packing a lot in, but I trust the professionals. Here

927
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:20,440
Speaker 1: followed by a session in which quote the players take

928
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:22,720
Speaker 1: a step back to reflect on the session and see

929
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 1: how it relates to their own lives. And I thought

930
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 1: this was interesting because it reminded me of the pivotal

931
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:33,839
Speaker 1: integration step in some models for psychedelic assisted therapy, where

932
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: you engage in some sort of an altered state and

933
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:39,280
Speaker 1: then you top it off with therapist assisted reflection.

934
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:42,359
Speaker 3: I can see that comparison as well.

935
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:48,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, so engaging in this imaginative pretend play gaming scenario,

936
00:55:49,440 --> 00:55:53,359
Speaker 1: but then you know, couching it in a discussion of

937
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:55,800
Speaker 1: how this relates to where you are in your life

938
00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:01,160
Speaker 1: and whatever your current obstacles might be. The other big

939
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: thing that of course is stressed in this article and

940
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: in other places as well, is the goal is also

941
00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 1: making therapy fun and approachable for target patients, so generally

942
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 1: that that is part of the scenario as well. Like

943
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 1: perhaps someone is a little adverse to a therapy environment,

944
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:19,799
Speaker 1: but it's kind of like a great icebreaker. Well, we're

945
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,080
Speaker 1: not going to just get in and start talking about

946
00:56:22,080 --> 00:56:25,120
Speaker 1: our feelings or our problems. We're going to play a game.

947
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 1: And you know, you'll find multiple examples of this where,

948
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: if not tabletop role playing games, sometimes just other games,

949
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 1: card games, board games, and so forth are used to

950
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, break that ice down a little bit.

951
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 3: I wonder how this interacts with Robert. I'm sure you

952
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 3: know what I'm talking about here that at least in

953
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:48,880
Speaker 3: my limited experience with tabletop RPGs, there is kind of

954
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 3: a difficulty adults have taking it too seriously and so

955
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 3: there's often a lot of joking involved where like, you know,

956
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 3: it's not like we're embarrassed to be playing D and D,

957
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 3: but you know, we all came here for fun. This

958
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 3: is what we like to do. But there is a

959
00:57:05,280 --> 00:57:09,360
Speaker 3: kind of ongoing like rhythm of being in the game

960
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 3: and then moments of stepping back and kind of meta

961
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:15,240
Speaker 3: commentary and joking about what's going on and then changing

962
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 3: the subject and talking about something in the real world

963
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 3: and then getting back to the game. And at least

964
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,640
Speaker 3: that's my experience, and I wonder if that's there's just

965
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 3: a difficulty I think for a lot of adults to

966
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:30,400
Speaker 3: engage and sustained pretend to play like like a tabletop

967
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 3: RPG in the way that kids can, where kids can

968
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,440
Speaker 3: just you know, like really take it seriously, stay in

969
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 3: character and keep it going.

970
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been it's been my experience that this is

971
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: very hard to come by with adults, even if you

972
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:46,440
Speaker 1: kind of like set a goal for yourself. And I

973
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 1: mean I would also stress just you know, casually, whatever

974
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: your gaming environment is. Yeah, it's like, you know, you

975
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:53,720
Speaker 1: don't want to force anything on your group. Maybe your

976
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:56,560
Speaker 1: group is doz Lean more serious, maybe it's a bunch

977
00:57:56,600 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 1: of goofballs. If it's a bunch of goofballs, maybe don't

978
00:57:59,680 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: go for that super grim dark serious scenario unless I

979
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: don't know. I think sometimes you can find a nice

980
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,800
Speaker 1: balance though, where like, for instance, when I recently ran

981
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:12,440
Speaker 1: Alien RPG stuff with my group, we're generally more on

982
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,479
Speaker 1: the goofball spectrum, but for some reason we were able

983
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:18,280
Speaker 1: to do that one in a way which felt appropriately serious,

984
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: but we still had a lot of like goofball moments

985
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 1: doing it. And maybe there was a certain maybe to

986
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:25,680
Speaker 1: a certain extent, it had to do with like distance

987
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: from the character. So it's almost like you were watching

988
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:31,200
Speaker 1: a movie play out and you could you could have

989
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:34,920
Speaker 1: these laughs while still engaging in the seriousness of the story.

990
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:35,520
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.

991
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 3: I mean to be clear, I wasn't trying to say

992
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 3: people should do it one way or the other. It's

993
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:43,000
Speaker 3: just my observation of how these things usually go is

994
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 3: there's a lot of kind of a lot of stepping

995
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:50,840
Speaker 3: back and almost almost maybe deliberate kind of signals of

996
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 3: we're not taking this too seriously. We're joking now. Haha.

997
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean getting it. It's like play fighting, right, Yeah,

998
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 1: Because you are often dealing with these themes of mortality

999
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 1: and failure, you know, rolling a natural one, missing your

1000
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:07,080
Speaker 1: shot and then getting run through by a goblin sword

1001
00:59:07,200 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 1: or something, and you know, and if you're not careful,

1002
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:16,080
Speaker 1: you can let emotions run run high in those those situations. Now,

1003
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:19,240
Speaker 1: I've seen other studies that highlight the potential for tabletop

1004
00:59:19,320 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 1: role playing game assisted therapy with autistic adults to help

1005
00:59:22,560 --> 00:59:26,960
Speaker 1: with social cognition. Like I say, this is kind of

1006
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: a it seems like a rich area of therapy where

1007
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 1: folks are exploring different potential uses. On one hand, play

1008
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 1: seems to certainly be that spoonful of sugar that can

1009
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 1: help the medicine go down, like, you know, let's make

1010
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 1: therapy fun and approachable, but it also seems to have

1011
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 1: unique properties undo itself, you know, again kind of comparing

1012
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:48,480
Speaker 1: it to some degree with the idea of engaging in

1013
00:59:48,520 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: a psychedelic experience and then having a therapist help you

1014
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 1: integrate that into your life, you know, like, let's use

1015
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 1: some of that mental scaffolding that we talked about earlier

1016
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,160
Speaker 1: and see how we can get to where we're looking

1017
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 1: to go with therapy. Now, I mentioned improv as well.

1018
01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:11,520
Speaker 1: I looked at a pair of studies from twenty sixteen

1019
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:15,480
Speaker 1: to twenty seventeen. There is a Comedic improv Therapy for

1020
01:00:15,520 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 1: the Treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder by Sheili at All

1021
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 1: Journal of Creativity and Mental Health, and the other one

1022
01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:24,880
Speaker 1: is Theraprov a pilot study of improv used to treat

1023
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:27,880
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression Kruger at All Journal of Mental Health.

1024
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 1: The former highlighted quote a novel treatment for social anxiety

1025
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:37,280
Speaker 1: disorder by harnessing the following therapeutic elements group, cohesiveness, play, exposure,

1026
01:00:37,520 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: and humor, while the latter article explored a brief therapeutic

1027
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 1: group based intervention model for patients with symptoms of anxiety

1028
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:49,120
Speaker 1: and depression. So I'm not going to get into all

1029
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:52,600
Speaker 1: the beats of these two studies, but both articles expressed

1030
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 1: a great deal of optimism for the use of these

1031
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 1: techniques alongside other treatments, other treatment methods and tools. I've

1032
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:02,560
Speaker 1: also looked at papers exploring the potential for integrative play

1033
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:08,800
Speaker 1: therapy already used for children more in adult situations, and

1034
01:01:08,840 --> 01:01:12,120
Speaker 1: of course there are other play based therapy tools that

1035
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 1: are used with adults as well, including a big one

1036
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:17,960
Speaker 1: that that I completely spaced on and that is art therapy.

1037
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm aware that exists, but I don't really know

1038
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:21,960
Speaker 3: anything about.

1039
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 1: It, right right, I mean I don't. It's one of

1040
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 1: those things where I'm mostly familiar with it from seeing

1041
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 1: it in passing in films like, for instance, there's a

1042
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:32,520
Speaker 1: at some point in Stranger Things, there's a scene where

1043
01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:35,960
Speaker 1: you see people engaging in art therapy, and or you know,

1044
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:39,440
Speaker 1: you'll I've watched TV shows where the characters involved do

1045
01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: something with art therapy. But yeah, you can definitely loop

1046
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:46,680
Speaker 1: art therapy in with other play based therapy models, you know.

1047
01:01:47,520 --> 01:01:49,520
Speaker 1: So perhaps this is a topic we could come back

1048
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 1: to at some point, the idea of play based therapy,

1049
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:55,320
Speaker 1: or more specifically art based therapy, because it's been around

1050
01:01:55,320 --> 01:01:57,960
Speaker 1: since in some form or another since at least the

1051
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:00,800
Speaker 1: mid twentieth century, and there have been a number of

1052
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:04,360
Speaker 1: studies regarding how it can be used to help with

1053
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:08,520
Speaker 1: various conditions and ailments. Well, you know, as we close

1054
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:11,640
Speaker 1: out this five episode look at pretend play, I do

1055
01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:15,480
Speaker 1: feel like I have a more well rounded understanding of

1056
01:02:15,560 --> 01:02:17,840
Speaker 1: what children are doing when they engage and pretend play,

1057
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:21,760
Speaker 1: as well as to the extent to what extent we're

1058
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 1: continuing to engage and pretend play throughout our adult lives.

1059
01:02:26,000 --> 01:02:29,760
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Yeah, it really makes me think about when

1060
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 3: we see these games children play that seem so funny

1061
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:39,760
Speaker 3: that I think sometimes adults are tempted to think of

1062
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 3: play as frivolous, or to think of pretend play as

1063
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:47,040
Speaker 3: especially frivolous. You know, these like silly scenarios that kids

1064
01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 3: are making up is something that's just sort of, you know,

1065
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 3: not an important human activity, And it seems to me

1066
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 3: that that couldn't be further from the truth that play

1067
01:02:58,320 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 3: really is like the important work of childhood, and pretend

1068
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:03,720
Speaker 3: to play is maybe the most important kind.

1069
01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:08,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, children's play is serious. It's building the person they

1070
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:12,040
Speaker 1: will become. And then like the scaffolding is just not

1071
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:15,120
Speaker 1: just abandoned after that, you know, like we're still using

1072
01:03:15,160 --> 01:03:18,760
Speaker 1: it to varying degrees, sometimes kind of invisibly to ourselves

1073
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:21,440
Speaker 1: as we go through our daily life as adults.

1074
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, play is building minds.

1075
01:03:24,720 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 1: There you go, that would look great on a bumper

1076
01:03:26,280 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 1: sticker T shirt what have you.

1077
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:30,520
Speaker 3: But all right, I guess that does do it for

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01:03:30,560 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 3: the series for now.

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01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:34,600
Speaker 1: That's right. Again, we'd love to hear from everyone out there.

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01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 1: We're getting some great feedback from listeners. I'm sure we're

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01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 1: going to have a listener mail in the very near

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01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:40,640
Speaker 1: future where we begin to roll through some of this

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01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:45,400
Speaker 1: examples of imaginary friends and paracosms and so forth. So yeah,

1084
01:03:45,480 --> 01:03:48,600
Speaker 1: right in, we'd love to hear your thoughts on all

1085
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: of this, either from your own personal experience as a

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01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:57,120
Speaker 1: pretender or observations you've made of children in your life

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01:03:57,120 --> 01:04:00,480
Speaker 1: that are pretending, or animals. Certainly we already mentioned dogs cats.

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01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:04,800
Speaker 1: Write in about your dogs and cats and their possible

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01:04:04,800 --> 01:04:09,280
Speaker 1: pretend play and play in general. Just a reminder that

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01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:11,360
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

1091
01:04:11,400 --> 01:04:14,480
Speaker 1: culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We

1092
01:04:14,560 --> 01:04:16,400
Speaker 1: do a little short form episode on Wednesdays, and on

1093
01:04:16,440 --> 01:04:18,400
Speaker 1: Fridays we set us on most serious concerns to just

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01:04:18,440 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

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01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our regular audio producer JJ Posway,

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01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:29,360
Speaker 3: but also big thanks today to our guest audio producer

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01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:30,200
Speaker 3: Andrew Howard.

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01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:30,960
Speaker 1: Thanks Andrew.

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01:04:31,880 --> 01:04:33,920
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

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01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:36,880
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1101
01:04:36,960 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.

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01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:42,120
Speaker 3: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

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01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:53,920
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:56,800
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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01:04:56,960 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.