WEBVTT - Kirk Allen and Maladaptive Daydreaming 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.440 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:16.959 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.920 we're back with our second episode about the story of 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.560 Kirk Allen, or at least based on the story of 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.880 Kirk Allen. Yeah, the story of Kirk Allen being a 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.480 recurring element, but ultimately we're talking about, you know, imagination, 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.760 We're talking about daydreams. We're talking about how we try 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:40.400 to objectively understand the universe even as more subjective narratives 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.760 are presented to us, narratives like UFOs or demons, etcetera, 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.959 or traveling into the future and being a space lord exactly. Now, 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.600 if you haven't heard the last episode, you should probably 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:52.440 go and check that one out first, where we tell 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:54.680 the whole story of Kirk Allen. We're gonna be following 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:56.440 up on some of the threads from it and this 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.920 one and pursuing some research on the idea of malad 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:04.560 active day dreaming, because the idea with Kirk Allen is that, essentially, 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:06.760 the short version is you had a guy with a 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.280 with a very important job, like a nuclear physicist for 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.959 a government institution, that was daydreaming so much that it 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.280 became a problem that his employers said, we want you 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.319 to go talk to a professional about this. Now, the 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.800 story goes, at least as it's presented by his therapist, 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.720 who was writing later and fictionalizing elements of the story, 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.039 both to protect the identity of the patient and as 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.720 far as we know, maybe maybe not also embellishing the 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:33.560 story to make it a better story. We don't know, 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.760 But the story goes that kirk Allen the pseudonym for 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.800 this patient, that he was referred to Robert Linden, or 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:46.080 the therapist, and that Lindener became so involved in kirk 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.760 Allen's beliefs that he could travel into the future and 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:50.960 in his mind and be a space lord and go 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.320 from planet to planet and explore all these technologies and 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.680 galactic civilizations, that he got so involved in that that 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.760 he started to believe it himself. And then it took 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:04.360 kirk Allen admitting that he made the whole thing up 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.040 and didn't actually believe any of it, to snap the 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.880 therapist out of believing in the delusion. And it makes 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.400 for a great story, like it illustrates like the power 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:18.919 the contagious nature of of of of a compelling fiction exactly. 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.400 But today we wanted to explore this other element of it. 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.560 So if we go with the story and we assume 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.880 that Kirk Allen never did believe any of what he 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.960 was saying, He never actually believed he was a space lord. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.160 He just spent a lot of time fantasizing about it, 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.560 though he can tell the difference between his fantasy and reality. 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.480 What would that situation be. Imagine You've got this guy, 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.640 He's doing important nuclear physics or whatever other kind of 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.240 government research, and they can't keep him on task because 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.200 he's always thinking about how he's going to finish his 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.679 paper on the hyperdrive thruster that will get him to 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.240 tow St nine or whatever. Yeah. I mean, the cool 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.960 thing about all this, and I think ultimately the fascinating 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.120 part about it, is that we I think we can 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.079 all relate on some level to the you know, the 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.560 the attractive power of daydreaming. I mean we we we 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.720 all do it, and certainly we all did it when 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.919 we were children. Uh. I mean, I I've always had 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.960 a pretty active imagination as a kid. I was I 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.799 was content to pace around the backyard. I would generally 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.120 have a red or a green rubber band in my hand, 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.680 and I would just daydream a litany of imagined worlds, 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:28.919 inspired you know by typical things that are going to 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.320 inspire a kid, you know, the TV shows, movies, cartoons 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.480 and action figures, that sort of thing. And uh, and 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:37.280 I think everybody in my family probably thought I was 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:39.640 a little bit weird because of it, but they, you know, 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.720 they tolerated it, even only so they could continue to 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.720 make fun of me as an adult. And uh, you know, 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.560 then to their to everyone's credit, they encouraged my creative 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.560 activities later on in life that employed much of the 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.720 same energy, just without the rubber band and all the pacing. Um, 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.200 I guess maybe I still do some of the pacing. 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.960 But you do the pacing if you're not noticed. Yeah, well, 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.640 I you know, it's it's good for one to get up, 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.800 um all the time during work, not trying to call 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.520 you out. I paced two. Well like for well, one 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.240 thing I do now is I I do a lot 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.000 of swimming, and while I'm swimming, I am inevitably doing 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.640 some form of imaginative thoughts, some sort of daydreaming I'm 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.440 thinking about, say, uh, you know, the fiction podcast that 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.240 I'm putting together here for how stuff works and sort 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.120 of plotting that out. Uh, it's and it's all sort 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.560 of an experiment in like constructive daydreaming. Right, if I'm 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.919 lucky enough to visit a beach, that's the kind of 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.560 thing that occupies my mind on long walks, like I 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.800 I love those times in my life when I'm able 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.479 to not worry about the future, you know, or or 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.400 or you know, hang up over the past, and instead 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:56.360 just daydream about something uh, completely different. Well, as I've 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.479 said recently on the show, I think narrative is a 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.000 sacred retreat. But it's not just to sacred retreat when 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.560 you're reading the narratives of others. It's certainly a sacred 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.680 retreat when you're composing your own. Yeah. Now I have 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.440 to say that I'm I'm fortunate to have outlets for 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.520 my creativity and uh, and I'm also very fortunate that 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:19.600 daydreaming and imagination doesn't negatively impact my life and at 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.240 least currently uh and not everyone though, can make these claims. Yeah, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.320 that that's a lot of what we're gonna be focusing 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.200 on today is like when when when it crosses that 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.080 line when daydreaming goes over the line and becomes something 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.960 not not so positive but more destructive to people's lives, 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.200 you know. Thinking about my own childhood, I can specifically 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:45.880 remember the process of trying to prolong or reinter dreams 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.000 that I had exited by waking up. Did you ever 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.520 have this experience? I remember, in particular this one dream 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.200 I had where I found a tunnel in my closet 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.960 and crawling through the tunnel, it went to a beach 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.359 where there was a girl there who was a friend 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.000 of mine, and she could turn into a fish, I think, 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.000 or a dolphin or a cat. But I could also 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.520 in this dream swing around on tree branches by using 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.000 a whip like Indiana Jones, And that was just the 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.800 coolest thing ever, because I loved Indiana Jones, and I 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:24.159 especially loved the swinging action. That sounds amazing. That that 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.200 reminds me of how I once had a Rocketeer dream. 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.400 Only once did I have this dream where I was 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.600 flying with the Rocketeers jet pack and it was just 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.200 so beautiful. It was just so breathtaking, and I've never 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.440 had that dream again. Yeah, I remember this just being 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:43.160 an overwhelmingly fun dream I had a morphin friend, and 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.520 I could swing around in tree branches like like Indiana Jones, 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.440 and for some reason it was just so fun that 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.440 when I woke up, I was like, oh, I've got 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.240 to get back there, and I tried to re enter it, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:56.560 but I couldn't do it. I tried to go back 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:58.800 to sleep again and dream the same dream, but I 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.160 couldn't make myself And I remember trying really hard to 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.120 imagine having the same dream again while I was awake, 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.440 but I couldn't really do that either, at least not 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.160 with the same intensity. And I know this wasn't the 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.920 only time I tried to recreate a dream state while 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.040 I was awake. This is just one really vivid one 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.560 that I remember. And I think this impulse to try 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.280 so hard to imagine myself back into a dream sort 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.760 of is part of what led me to become interested 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.280 in fiction writing. Because while dreams always fade very quickly 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.320 in memory, even very vivid ones tend too if you 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.400 don't talk about them or write them down after you 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:37.440 wake up. Imaginary scenarios coded down in writing those are permanent, 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.840 and you can re enter them with full fidelity at 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.000 any time. You know your story reminds me a lot 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:47.240 of HP Lovecrafts, The dream Quest of Unknown Cats. I 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.840 don't know that it's it's a wonderful and imaginative tale, 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.880 very unlike most of his. It's one of his dream stories, 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.560 so it's it's it's more fantasy than horror, though it 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.400 has you know, the horror elements for sure. But the 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.880 basic idea is that a dream or a man dreams 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:07.320 a dream so beautiful that the gods, the elder beings 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.280 deny it to him, and hasked to go on a 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.840 quest to try and reclaim that dream. Whoa is it 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.520 beautiful or or sad and melancholy? That that's so much 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.080 of what life is is not not necessarily chasing a 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.520 new experience that you haven't had, but trying to recapture 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.200 a perfect experience, you remember, Yeah, it's true. It kind 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.680 of gets to the heart of the power of nostalgia, right. Yeah. 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:32.920 You know, in our previous episode, we we talked a 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:36.240 good a good deal about Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.240 World because that was the context in which we read 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.040 this original story about Kirk Allen. Yeah, and uh and 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.920 and Sagan has a wonderful quote here just about fantasy 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.280 and reality that I wanted to read, He says, quote. 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.320 Out of all these contending propensities and child rearing practices, 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.240 some people emerge with an intact ability to fantasize and 0:08:55.360 --> 0:09:01.040 a history extending well into adulthood of confabulation. Others grow 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.880 up believing that everyone who doesn't know the difference between 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.319 reality and fantasy is crazy. Most of us are somewhere 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.880 in between. That's a good point. I mean, I so 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.439 obviously somebody who is U two wrapped up in their 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.720 in their fantasies, in their own head, that person is 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.120 obviously going to be having trouble. And when you you 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.440 encounter somebody like that, you can often recognize it. But 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.280 I think equally, you don't trust somebody at the far 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.600 opposite end of the spectrum who just has no tolerance 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.160 for imagination. You know, you sometimes meet people like this. 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.280 Oh yeah, I saw a guy at um It was 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.719 a tiki bar in uh in, Hawaii, and he was 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.400 ordering a drink, probably a mind hie or something, but 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:48.240 he had specific directions for the servery. He said, he said, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.199 bring me one of these, but no umbrellas, no fancy 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.160 mug just makes you basically make this drink as boring 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.400 as possible, no fun for me, no umbrellas, Like I 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.040 refuse to pretend that there's a tiny man living on 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.320 the surface of my drink that needs shade from the 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.080 sun exactly. It's like, why are you even here if 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.680 you're if you're not here to engage in in funny 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.720 umbrella drinks, that's a tiki bar. Heretic right there. But 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.880 let's come back to just the subject of day dreaming 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.000 and creativity. Robert you know who had some interesting thoughts 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.720 about daydreaming and creativity, Good old Sigmund Freud, who I 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.200 bet he did dr joy So he talked about this 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.800 in a nineteen o seven essay called Creative Writers in Daydreaming, 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.000 And I just want to preempt please do not take 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.120 this discussion as an endorsement in general of Freudianism. While 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.880 Freud is of course a very important figure to read 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.040 in the history of ideas, a lot of his influence 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.360 on psychology has given way too much more rigorous, more 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.640 explicitly science based practices. I think these days Freud is 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:51.839 more worth reading in the vein of thinking about him 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.400 as a kind of like philosopher or something. But so 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.200 Freud starts with one of those great questions that we 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.640 might sometimes think of as too simple bowl or too 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.880 fundamental to actually ask out loud. The Robert. You might 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.160 have heard this one before. Somebody knows you write fiction, 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.480 or they read one of your stories and they ask you, Robert, 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.480 where do you get your ideas? How do you think 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.120 up what to get the characters to say and to do? 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.640 Have you ever been asked this? Yeah, I've been asked 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:23.959 versions of this before. I've been asked this too. I 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.880 was actually asked it fairly recently, and it's always struck 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.600 me as a bizarre question because I thought, I don't know. 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:32.440 I would think the answer is obvious. It's like I 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.120 get ideas by using my imagination and imagining what the 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.040 character would do. But the fact that some people end 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.040 up asking this question of other people indicates that obviously, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:46.880 not everybody has the same propensity for imagining fictional characters 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.319 and places and scenarios and all that. So to some 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.319 people it comes more naturally than it does to others. 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.439 I mean, I'm always reminded of the subject of a fantasia, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.000 you know, the idea that not everyone can form mental images, 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.880 which doesn't directly relate to what we're talking about here, 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.680 but it's a reminder of just how different our brains 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.400 can be. So I can you know, see why someone 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:12.199 might not initially grasp how an imagined character uh comes 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.800 to speak or act uh, and they might find it 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.000 harder still to understand how these fictional characters that people 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.320 dream up may well think or act in ways that 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:26.040 the imagineer does not expect. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.200 I mean, one of the things I noticed in writing 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.439 is that the process of creativity, at least for me, 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:36.240 is very highly uh shaped by the act of recording 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.440 the creative process. So it's like writing a story is 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.080 very different than just trying to think out a story 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.320 in my head. Once once it turns into words, then 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.040 you realize, oh, all this has got to change. Yeah. 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.400 I I often feel like I have two processes that 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.960 I'm working with. One is that that day dreaming while 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.360 I'm swimming laps or whatever. But then there's the process 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.719 of actually writing things, and things may change drastically, uh, 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.840 depending on the demands of that process. Just to point 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.440 out quickly, also before we move on, you mentioned the 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.960 idea that not everybody can form images in their head 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:16.000 as one possible uh factor affecting whether people can compose fiction. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.920 But we've heard from people who are fiction writers who 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.360 have a fantasition. Know, yeah, I I don't. I bring 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.600 it up more as just an example of how our 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.880 brains are different. Not that it would would impact, it 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.560 would change, not it would change the way one composes fiction, 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.800 I think. But but yeah, certainly someone of the fantasia 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.040 can and and they do write fiction. They do, uh 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.240 come up with fabulous ideas. Um. But yeah, we we 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.320 we often fall into that trap of thinking that everyone 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.959 has a brain more or less like mine. Maybe it's 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.600 you know, maybe it's it's it's it's you know it. 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:52.760 Maybe it's more powerful than mine, or maybe it's not 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:54.880 as finely tuned as mine. But all our brains are 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.800 basically the same, and an example like a fantasia just 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.920 reminds you know, this is not the at all. Yeah, 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.840 you're exactly right. So Freud began by observing this idea 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.840 that not all brains are the same, and that not 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.280 all brains are the same in terms of ability to 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.840 be creative, to come up with creative stories, and specifically 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:14.840 for the purpose of this conversation. We are talking about 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.520 creativity in terms of like making up stories, not the 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.240 more generalized idea of creativity, right, which can well and 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.840 does entail things that are not like you know, literature 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.480 major creativity. I mean, certainly there is creativity within science, 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.640 there's creativity within programming, etcetera. There's creativity and getting a 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.800 piece of meat out of a cage trap exactly. But 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.479 no way, So we're talking about like coming up with ideas, 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.400 like creative storytelling and stuff. So so, Freud says, you know, 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:48.280 even non creative people do have some experience with the 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.600 thinking of creative writers. Even if you're one of these 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.520 people who asks how do you come up with your ideas? Well, 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.400 how do you know what the characters should do? These people, 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.680 Freud says, do have experience with that because it's in 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.400 the imagination based play of their childhood. Think back on 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.880 your childhood, what was it like to play pretend? And 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.200 he writes, quote, might we not say that every child 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.640 at play behaves like a creative writer, and that he 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.880 creates a world of his own, or rather rearranges the 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.320 things of his world in a new way which pleases him. 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:22.440 It would be wrong to think he does not take 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.280 the world seriously. On the contrary, he takes his play 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.320 very seriously, and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.520 The opposite of play is not what is serious, but 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.920 what is real? Might we not say that every creative 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:42.200 writer is a giant baby? I'm kidding, well, I I 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.960 agree with that last part of what Freud says, because 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.920 play play is a departure from constraints, not a departure 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.640 from stakes. There's nothing in the world more serious and 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.720 important than what happens in a child's game. I'm sure 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:57.920 you know from experience. If the floor is lava, the 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.400 floor is lava. Yeah. Though, I have to say, play 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.880 is definitely a topic that demands its own episode at 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:04.640 some point. I mean, there's so much going on when 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.240 a child plays, even when an adult engages in play. 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.680 And then of course we have other mammals that engage 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.960 in play as well, especially when they're young. Totally true. 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.360 So Freud says that the creative writer just extends this 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.680 type of play into adulthood and then uses the help 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.880 of writing to record the play. Otherwise, the process is 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.840 very similar. The creative writer creates a world of fantasy 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.120 and then takes it very seriously by investing huge amounts 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.720 of genuine emotion into it, but keeps it separated sharply 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.120 from the constraints of reality. So what's happening here? Why 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.320 does the day dreamer or the fiction writer do this? 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.160 You know? Why does the play in the imagination happen? 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.800 And Freud notes something. He says, what's common to almost 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.760 every single work of fiction. Well, we gotta have a hero, 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:56.200 right exactly the song says we need a hero, right. 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.000 I'm holding out for a hero for Freudian reasons. There 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.080 now this. Obviously, there's all kinds of fiction out there 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.960 in the world today. There's experimental fiction and fiction that 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.840 breaks every rule in the book, right, but most fiction 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.040 still does abide by this. You've gotta have a hero 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.320 around which the interest of the story is centered and 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.040 to which the author wishes to engender the audience's sympathies. 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.959 And another thing he points out is that the hero is, 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.280 by necessity of the plot invulnerable. The reader can always 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.520 trust that the hero will not be killed in chapter two, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:30.960 or else there would be no story, or at least 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:32.800 that's what it's like as an adult. I feel like 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.520 any time I get my son to watch any time 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.920 we introduce him to a new film. Um, he does 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.360 not realize that the main character is going to make 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.879 it to the end of a children's film. Man, Like, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.520 I wish I could go back to that. That's amazing. 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.439 I know it's it's at once uh amazing and frustrating, 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.040 because on one hand it's like, wow, he is experiencing 0:17:55.080 --> 0:18:00.240 this film with such raw uh you know, vulnerability and 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:01.919 the other and then on the other side, it's like, 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:03.879 I just want you to be able to watch Muana 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.040 and uh and with the with the family. We just 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:08.480 want to make it to the end of this movie. 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.840 It's just a Disney princess movie. We should be able 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.240 to handle it, don't you dare take that magic away 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.960 from him? That No, that's a beautiful thing. Oh my god, 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.720 I can't believe it. I remember what that was like 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.960 back before I understood all of the like cliches of 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:28.480 story structure, when every when, every narrative was a radical 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:33.280 surprise to me. Things aren't quite like that anymore, and 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.960 I and I wish I could return to that mind state. 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.240 But anyway, Sorry, going back to Freud, so Freud notices 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.359 that the hero is always invulnerable by necessity of the plot, 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:46.280 and also the hero enjoys unrealistic good fortune in like 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:51.000 love and romance. So Freud writes, quote, through this revealing 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:56.640 characteristic of invulnerability, we can immediately recognize his majesty, the ego, 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.840 the hero alike of every day dream and every story. 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.280 It's probably telling about the kind of fiction I read. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:05.600 But I can't remember the last time I read something 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.440 where the protagonist had great fortune in love in romance, 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.040 I feel like, I feel like they're mostly having a 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.359 pretty bad time. Well, I think if you take the 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.760 long view, okay, when the stories resolve, there are a 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:19.600 lot of stories where people go through a lot of 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.920 tragedy and then in the end that everything comes out right. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:24.640 All right, I'll get back to you on that. I'm 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.800 gonna do a full cataloging of of recent reads for that. 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.439 What's your Freudian analysis of the ar Scott Baker books 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.960 that everybody has a pretty tough time with relationships. For 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:39.239 starters is something about death drive maybe maybe anyway, So 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.399 ultimately Freud gets Freudian right. He says that both the 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.200 daydream and the act of creative writing, which are really 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.040 sort of one and the same, thing realized through different means. 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.200 He says these are the result of unconscious memories which 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.480 give rise to an unfulfilled wish, and the wishes then 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.280 fulfilled through the daydream or the act of creative writing, 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.680 but in a way that is tempered about the social 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.679 and moral restraints imposed by society. This obviously is you know, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.639 classic Freudian kind of stuff. But you don't have to 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.920 give any credence to this repressed childhood memory part, which 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.720 is probably nonsense to appreciate. There may be some insight 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.919 in the earlier parts about drawing this connection between the 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.520 creative process and what's going on in daydreaming. Oh, by 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.400 the way, if anyone would want, anyone wants like a 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:28.840 deeper exploration of like early childhood trauma and Freudian ideas. Uh, 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:30.560 there's an older episode of stuff to blow your mind 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.879 about the work work of hr Geiger and some Freudian 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:40.840 explanations for his His visual style was Gieger or Freudian. Uh. 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.600 I don't think it was quite a Freudian, but at 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.200 least one major commentator on his work was and pointed 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:52.760 to a lot and basically the the death and birth imagery. Uh. 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:57.439 That that that weird. Uh, you know, bio mechanical synthesis 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.560 of things that are both the vibrantly alive and just 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:06.919 unredeemably dead. Interesting. You know, I can actually see a 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.840 redemptive arc of of Freudiani is um maybe not so 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.119 much as a as the best tool for for psychology, 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.640 but maybe as like a literary and artistic criticism school. Well, yeah, 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:20.280 Like it comes back to what you said earlier about 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.680 Freud being perhaps more useful today if you think of 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.280 him as a philosopher and I and I do think 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.840 there's something to his insight here, like drawing this connection 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.520 between daydreaming and the creative impulse in order and and 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.840 and appreciating that the story spinning impulse, whether it's in 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:39.520 creative writing or simple daydreaming, is psychologically important, and it 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.639 does in many cases fill some psychological need and provide 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:48.280 some psychological benefit. But as we're exploring today, can spill 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:52.679 over into territory that's clearly not beneficial, such as in 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:55.159 the case of Kirk Allen, like we were talking about earlier, 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:57.560