WEBVTT - Can my nightmares kill me? 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:14.080 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.960 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.360 Let's set the stage for this. Uh, let's travel back 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:24.759 in time to around nine. Um. I was but a 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.920 wee child, so I was not actually watching the news 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.760 or reading the New York Times. But it was reported 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.519 in the New York Times that the CDC Centers for 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:40.040 Disease Control headquartered here in Atlanta, our fair city. People 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.239 who watch The Walking Dad know that that's a big 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.479 claim to thing. And people who play the board game Pandemic. 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.000 So CDC Centers for Disease Control they were suddenly really 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.680 interested in eighteen deaths that had occurred over the last 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:57.480 four years. They were all apparently healthy uh Laotian refugees, 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.520 all except for one woman, right, Yeah, one woman the 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.680 rest man. They were all ethnic mong people. These were 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.040 a native ethnic group that had fled Laos due to 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.320 some severe crackdowns. Yeah in front I've read to this 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.319 is an isolated culture or similar to that of the 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.600 American Indian and their religion is an animist one, so 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.640 it's governed by spirits and manifestations of the soul. Yeah, 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.040 like like a lot of old religions very you know, 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.400 have this kind of vibe going on. But they escaped 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.119 some brutal conditions, so they you know, they had there's 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.200 a lot of stress most likely going on with some 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.280 postraumatic stress syndrome disorder as well, and they're winding up 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.280 dead like in the wee hours of the morning in 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:42.679 their sleep, dying right, Completely mysterious and actually really chilling 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.440 that these these mostly men were going to sleep and 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.160 they were fit people, and yep, all of a sudden, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:52.680 this is happening all over the country, right, because they're 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:57.080 spread out in different cities, just one area of the country, right, 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.560 different refuging this. Yeah. So doctor started to put it 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:02.880 together and sort of say, oh, this is very odd 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.640 that these same people, the same refugees, these group of 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.440 people are dying in their sleep. What's going on? Yeah. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.800 One thing that they thought might be going on was 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.800 the possibility, and they were looking into this, the possibility 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.320 that they were being scared to death by nightmares in 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.919 their sleep, that nightmares were killing them in their sleep. Yeah. 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.160 And at that time too, they termed it oriental nightmare 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.119 death syndrome, which of course has been updated since then. Yeah, 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.200 like every part of that except for except for the 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.800 syndrome has been updated for various reasons, as we'll explore. Uh, 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.519 it's not really about nightmares, and of course we don't 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:45.000 use the word oriental anymore either. But what's what's fascinating 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:49.079 about it is that it does. It does really give 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.720 you the chills because there is that just the possibility 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.800 that something in our dreams could kill us is it's something. 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.000 It just continues to fascinate us though. I mean, you 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.320 see it in our in our stories and our our fiction, 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.680 in our mythology, in our like third grade lunch room conversations. 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:06.959 You know where you here maybe for the first time. 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.560 Oh did you know that if you fall in your dream, 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.519 if you don't wake up before you hit the ground, 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.880 you'll die, right right? We always have the Boogeyman in 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:16.359 the back of our minds, so I can't help it. 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.000 No matter what culture you're from, you have some sort 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:23.520 of story. And the reason why this is frightening is 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.720 is that it actually does bear some weight. We'll talk 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.120 about this a little bit, but you possibly could scare 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.560 yourself to death, to a certain degree, and it's possible. 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.040 It's possible, um, and we'll talk about that is it's 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.840 um it's not something that obviously happens all the time, 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:38.960 or else we would all be dropping dead right now, right. 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.800 Don't lose any sleepover, No, nothing to leave sleepover. But 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:47.080 it is an interesting a reality for some people. And 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.560 so you can see that in some cultures that this 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.440 idea has really taken root, this idea that you could 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.800 dine your sleep or that um, something could come and 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.440 visit you in the middle of the night and basically 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.040 take your life. Yeah, and we'd discussed in the past. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.400 I mean sleep and dreams. It's a state of the 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:08.600 human mind where a lot of the rules sort of 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:13.080 shift and change. I mean, obviously, the brain is tricked 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.800 into believing that that the dream is reality during the 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.599 dream for the most part, unless you're lucid dreaming that alone, 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.080 you're you're in a world where suddenly even the most 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:26.000 fantastic of happenings is believed by the mind. And then 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.440 you throw in all these various uh, you know, parasomnia 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.479 events that we've discussed in the past, and it becomes 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.360 even weirder. Like so you're saying like sleep paralysis right 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.039 where you have woken up, but your body is still 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.760 locked down because the body parents sort of goes into 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.159 the state of paralysis to keep you from say, you know, 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.679 you're your kung fu fighting a zombie in your dream. 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.440 You don't want to do that in your bed next 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.800 to your significant other because then a disaster ensues. Sleep paralysis, 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.200 as we've discussed before, you wake up, but those locks 0:04:58.240 --> 0:04:59.839 are still down, so you're like, I'm awake, but I 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.520 a move. What's going on? U? Add that you may 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.600 have just been having some sort of troubling dream. Yeah, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.440 add that to the mix of h when you have 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.960 sleep apnea. And at times some people can wake up 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.680 and be a little bit confused about what state they're 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.800 in sleep or um, whether or not they're actually waking, 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:24.320 and they'll have a sexual arousal basically um in mostly 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:29.120 a sleep state. And so take that with the sleep paralysis, UH, 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.599 cultural taboos, cultural stories, and all of a sudden, you've 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.760 got a suckubus or incubus hanging out with my bed 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.160 right like the I like to think about, like thick 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.320 a medieval monk. They're trying to live this really non 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.719 sexual life and then in the middle of the night, whoa, 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.400 you're you know, your your aroused, your dreaming, You're waking 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.440 up in this weird state. So you end up with 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.719 this cognitive distance where where what's happening is it a 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.160 sharp contrast with what should be happening and uh, and 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.360 so we end up having to create this external version 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.440 of of of you know, it must have been a demon, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.440 must have been a demon, must have been a spirit, 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:11.280 must have there was something uh external um attacking me. 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:15.520 And and you see shades of this throughout different cultures 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.600 and mythologies. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're gonna talk 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.520 about folklore a little bit more surrounding this, but I 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.120 did want to mention that in South Asian populations that 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.000 this sudden unexplained death syndrome that we're going to get 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.240 into it seems to be a bit higher in this population. 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.280 And you will also see that there is um a 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:37.880 lot of folklore around this, this idea of being visited 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.760 by a demon in your sleep. Um. In fact, let's 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:42.520 talk about that a little bit. So what do you 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.840 got You gotta listen suspects here I do. This is 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.840 actually from a fourteen Times article that you had sent me. 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.840 And in Japan, um this this type of death in 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.800 your dream or what they think is happening people dying 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.680 from their nightmares is called polke kuri, the Filipinos call 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:04.040 it and glunt or body bot. And the Mong people 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.760 you're gonna say that the entire podcast, aren't you? And 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.600 the Mong people of Vietnam and laos Um. Of course, 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.400 we just talked about the Latian people that died in 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:18.480 their sleep suddenly and unexpectedly. They call it sobs swung um. 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.800 And in Thailand it's called the widow ghost who comes 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.440 to steal away the souls of young men. And it's 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.360 mostly young men. They are experienced, that's right. So just 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.760 imagine this. Imagine that this is happening in your culture, 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.960 this sudden death among healthy men mostly. So what do 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.960 they do. They defend themselves by wearing lipstick at night. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.920 I read that, so that the ghost mistakes them for 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.960 women and leaves them alone. It's also an excellent excuse 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.000 for why you woke up the next morning with lipstick 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.920 all over your face. You know that too. Yeah, I 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.720 had to defend myself from the body. But yeah, it's 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.280 like I wasn't out snoozing it up. I wasn't out 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:58.360 wearing lipstick. I just protective measure against the spirits to night. Yeah, 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.960 that's just yeah, of course. And then you're like, okay, 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:05.600 that is this ironclad excuse I cannot say anything about that. 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:07.640 But let's talk about that body about just a little 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.720 bit more because I find it fascinating, um and the 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.480 and the Philippines. The body is an obese female demon 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.040 that lives in the trees. There is a picture of 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.760 this that you found an artist interpretation, um and well, 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:21.480 I will I will definitely link to it in the 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.920 accompanying blog post for this yes, which you'll find on 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.480 the house stufforks blogs and and linked on the Facebook. 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.280 Can you describe this image? She appears to be made 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.480 out of pooh. That's That's the first thing that I 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.360 think came to mind for you. And then the second 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.920 is that she's got red lasers that are coming out 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.080 of her eye holes and her her mouth hole, and 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:46.160 she's sitting on the poor unsuspecting person, like sitting on 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:51.040 there face and suffocating them to death. And it was 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.360 we I've never have you see plenty of artists depictions 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:58.480 of a night terror or a night spirit a setting 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.960 on the chest. Like there's you know, the famous series 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.000 of paintings European paintings where you see the little squat 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.000 little man sitting on the person's chest and there's like 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.520 a nightmare horse or just you know, a nightmare sticking 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.520 its head through the curtain behind. Yeah, like, you know, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:15.360 that's a famous image. So the idea of setting on 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.079 the chest is well established. But but the but sitting 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.560 on the face, that's just really through well in the 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.800 arts depiction too. Of whether or not here she knew it. 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.319 Maybe this, this being this demon being made out of 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:33.720 pooh makes it even a little bit more unsavory. Yeah, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:35.199 but you might want to know, like or you might 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.880 say to yourself, why in the world would she exact 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.640 this revenge on this person anyway? And the reason is 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:42.800 is because her beef is she was sitting up in 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:47.280 that tree. You hacked it down and then you used 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.640 it for either your bed post or is a support 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.880 beam in your home. So she conveniently shape shifts into 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.600 one of the little peg holes and then when you 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.400 fall asleep, that is when she makes remove again. We 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.880 get back to like these animistic views of the world 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.280 in which every part of nature has some sort of 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.199 spirit to it, and therefore, if you're striking out against 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.240 anything in the world, you're potentially ticking off a spirit. Yeah. Right, So, 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.520 I mean it's it's kind of again, it's the cultural thing, 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:22.400 like don't don't without potentially angering the spirit. World really 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.559 a touchy world. It's a very touchy world. But I 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.000 mean there's there's definitely an environmental factor. They're right, don't 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.680 denied the forest or she will sit on your face. Um, 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.240 but let's talk about what was really going on with 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.120 these locations. Yeah, we will get to that right after 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:43.199 this quick break. This podcast is brought to you by Intel, 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.400 the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.640 we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. Join 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.880 us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers to 0:10:54.960 --> 0:11:02.400 life's questions. All right, So, eighteen deadly oceans, all in 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.880 the course of four year period, four of them in 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.720 the eighteen month period, right, Yeah, Yeah, which was really freaky, 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.400 and all of them seemingly healthy. These are not old people, 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.640 they're not infirmed, they're they're not suffering from some sort 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.880 of weird illness. They're just suddenly dead, and they died 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.360 in their sleep, and there's the suspicion, what if it 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.120 was a nightmare? Well and and again they before this 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.640 uh in that back in the day one, they had 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.920 called it the nightmare death syndrome um. And this sort 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.400 of became the key candidate for what was going on. 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.280 They thought, Okay, someone just just died in their sleep. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.679 And again you're dealing with people who have been refugees, 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.640 who have experienced lots and lots of stress, right, and 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.600 lots of he will lots of change. Um. But what 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:46.840 they find out is that this is actually something called 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.320 Brugata syndrome. Yeah, it's the underlying cause for the sudden, 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:55.079 unexplained death. And and and it's noteworthy that it's connected 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.679 to people of the Southeast Southeast Asian descent. Yeah, because 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.400 it's a genetic factor. It's uh in the same way 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.760 certain genetic markers appear in certain ethnic groups more than others, 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:09.160 or or appear in exclusively in certain ethnic groups. Southeast 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.520 Asia is where you encounter this, or people of Southeast 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.400 Asian descent. Yea. Not everyone who has the condition dies 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.560 in their sleep. And you know it actually has nothing 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.680 to do with with nightmares. It's an inherited heart rhythm disorder, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.840 and we can actually pinpoint the gene responsible to it. 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.320 It's a gene called sc N five A, which controls 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.800 the flow of sodium ions into heart cells. All right, 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.240 This flow of ions generates the electrical field that controls 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.800 heartbeat regularity. Isn't that trippy? Yeah? So when the flow fails, 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.040 the heart fibrillates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean just I mean, 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:45.880 I knew that we had an electrical field around our heart, 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.880 but to think that it's so sensitive that something like 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.640 that could just trip it and all of a sudden 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.240 you've got these irregularities. Um. And in fact, there's Dr 0:12:55.360 --> 0:13:00.920 Pedro Brugatta of Brugotta syndrome. He came across this unusual pattern. 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.280 Yeah yeah. He found that he had a patient who 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.640 he suspected had something weird going on, and uh so 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.400 he hooked him up to e G and it showed 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:11.520 this activity and the heart and it, as you say, 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.080 it looked like a shark fin, which became known as 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:19.000 br Brugatta sign a sign it's Brugatta sign Um. I 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.959 don't know. He's Italian now, right, Brugatta. But what is 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:24.920 when of the key indicators that the patient could suffer 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.720 from this really rare syndrome. UM. And that, my friend, 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.120 is what was happening with our friends, the loations that 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.280 that all died in this four year period. Now, the 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:37.760 cool thing is is that we can we can treat this. 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:41.160 We can with severe cases, you can actually put an 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.640 electrical implant in the body that will will address the problem. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.679 Uh and uh in the foreseeable future. I mean we're 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.760 gonna be able to to use like gene therapies on 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.760 this and tack tackle the mutation head on. So that's 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.200 even even more encouraging. Yeah, which is I mean, you 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.959 know that's the it's it's awful that people had died 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.840 from that. In certainly it must have been terrifying in 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.080 that culture too, because we all know we have this 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.480 confirmation bias, right, we take all these different details from 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.920 our lives and we put it together to make some 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:14.480 sort of case about something. So imagine you're from this um, 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.280 from from Laos and this happens, and you say, ah, yes, 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.920 it was the demon that got them, you know, because 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.160 they have these weird amount of people dying from something 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:27.080 that was completely unexplained. Um. Heretofore. Now, we know about 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.240 the eighteen louisitions, but that doesn't explain why we have 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:36.600 a disproportionately large amount of um deaths in this culture. Again, uh, stemming, 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.120 it seems from fear. Yeah, it's possible that you could 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:42.680 be scared to death, right, Yeah, it's possible. I mean 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.200 you have to sort of break down, like what happens 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.160 when we get afraid. Obviously, there is a it's a 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.040 physical there's a physical manifestation to the fear. It's a 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.920 it's flight or fright. Something bad is happening in your 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.520 body needs to prep for possibly running away from it 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.480 or duking out, duking it out, you know. So um, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.280 you know, you're your strength surges through your strength surgers 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.080 through your muscles. Uh, so you can run or you know, 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.360 or or punch something. Your pupils dilate your you start 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.560 breathing faster, and a number of chemicals, a whole cocktail 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:16.000 of things, including adrenaline, began pumping through your bloodstream so 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.200 intense you know, the activity in the body is intensified. Okay, 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.000 So you have that going on, and then you have 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.880 something that's almost like a self fulfilled prophecy, because again 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.800 you've got this cultural equation going on. And in one 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:29.680 of the studies I read, they were looking at and 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.160 I can't believe. I can't remember if it's a Korean 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.640 or it's a Chinese similar word for fourign death, but 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.040 they're very very close, so foreign death. It's not not 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.280 a good number in this um, in this culture. And 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.720 what they were finding is that there there seemed to 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:50.080 be a larger number of deaths happening on the fourth 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.360 of each month. And it's not that that, you know, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.120 four has some sort of power over people in this culture. 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.960 It's that people were sort of anticipating that the fourth 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.200 was going to come up. So if you have, you know, 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.600 some sort of condition or you're under a lot of stress, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.520 is very possible that he'd almost talk yourself into saying, 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:11.320 oh gosh, the fourth is coming up, and it becomes 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.400 like this self fulfilled prophecy for yourself. And uh. Molly 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.640 Edmunds wrote this great article on hostaff works dot com 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.040 called can you really Scare someone to death? And she 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.600 was saying that it's very hard to um say how 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.080 often these sudden deaths occur, because most accounts of sudden 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:32.280 deaths are in otherwise healthy people in this anecdotal, right, 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:34.880 But what she did say that one of the most 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.560 famous reports of sudden death was published in nineteen forty 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.520 two by Harvard physiologist Walter B. Cannon, and he reported 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.960 a phenomenon that he had called the voodoo death. So 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.360 what he found is that, um that a lot of 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.280 sudden deaths were occurring in places where there were some 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:55.560 form of voodoo or black magic being practiced South America, Africa, Australia, 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.400 and New Zealand. And he recounted the sudden deaths of 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.280 healthy men who had been cursed by a medicine, man 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.240 accused of eating forbidden food items, and injured by spears 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.560 that were said to be enchanted. So Cannon noted that 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.760 many of the men have possibly brought about their own 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.680 deaths by refusing food and water, but also that they 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:20.240 died essentially because of this fear that was perpetuated in 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:26.880 their society. So the corporal scenario, the supernatural scenario is created, yes, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.760 in which being scared to death is possible. Yeah, I 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.320 mean what with this article characters, and then that's the 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.720 outcome of the play. And then what he was saying is, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.240 I think it's an overactive sympathetic nervous system, so the 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.439 conditions are there. All of a sudden, you're a migdala, right, 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.280 which is so great for trying to ferret out to 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:51.320 saber tooth tiger. UH is overactive now in this other 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.320 instance where the risk you know, is really actually low. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.399 You know this this UH, this old man with a 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.680 stick and can actually kill you, but it should be 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.040 a very low risk. But that person in the amygdala 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.760 and and the body is now perceiving it as a 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.200 real threat and reacting to it. And this is really 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.359 going to stress out all the tissues in your heart 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:14.960 um the rest of your body. It's really going to 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.560 take a toll on it again, making it a little 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.000 bit easier for you to possibly die from this, especially 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:21.720 if you're not taking any food or death or food 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.560 food or death food or water. So they're like cats. 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.960 When cats get sick, then like it creates that scenario, 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.120 like you know where cats refuse to eat and then 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:33.359 they die because it's like like they're sick, I'm not 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.399 gonna eat anymore. Yeah, I don't know. I mean they 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.240 kind of just seem to batten down the hatches when 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.320 cats get sick, sort of like just leave me alone. 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.399 We see if I can heal myself, and I'm just 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.879 gonna get over to this corner like the witch doctor 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.560 is essentially making them act like a cat. It's possible, 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:52.200 It's possible. But this other this article talked about another 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:56.240 instance in which Boston neurologist Martin A. Samuel's believes that 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.879 the sudden death of the former and ron CEO Kenneth 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.040 lay And July thousand and six could have been the 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.240 result of fear of a looming prison sentence or black 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:09.480 magic or black that's very possible that he had some 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:11.920 some voodoo dolls with sticks in him with his name 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.680 on it. But there's also something called broken heart syndrome, 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.960 which believe that people die broken heart. And again it's 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.240 not that they die from a broken heart per se, 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.720 but it could be that extreme extreme emotions caused something 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.399 that looks like heart failure or heart attack. Um, but 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.159 in fact it's a little bit different because blood clots 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:34.760 and clogged arteries that caused cardiac conditions were absent. Instead, 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.280 the heart was just weak from stressful emotions. My mom 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.879 claims that she almost had a heart attack when she 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:46.159 saw the first Dirty Harry movie in the theaters. Really well, okay, 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.919 so she was frightened. She was what it was just 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.159 so tense, It was so you know, exhilarating, you know 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.439 that she just she was just like, oh my goodness, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.800 I think I almost had a heart attack. Well have 0:19:57.920 --> 0:19:59.879 you ever had someone sneak up on you and you 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.800 really literally gasp for breath and in your whole body 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.720 just stops, it just kind of shutters itself. Every time 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.480 you come up to my desk listening to music in 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.879 my headphones, I try to tap gently and get your 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.560 attention before I scare you. Well, it's not every time, 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.440 but sometimes I'll be really into something and and somebody 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.159 will come up and you know, so, yeah, I I 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.680 that happens every day. I think you know, it's possible. 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.080 I Mean, the good news here is that it's very 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:32.120 rare to die from from something like this. I mean, 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.280 obviously you'd have to have some sort of conditions in place. 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.680 And when you think about the Louisian refugees again, this 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:43.240 is an instance where they were undergoing extreme stress, right, um, 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:49.600 and presumably and emotionally, well I'm sure and physically we're 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:53.880 having to deal with that, and that could certainly have eroded. Um, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.520 their health to a degree, although they were otherwise healthy. 0:20:56.640 --> 0:21:01.000 You know, sod the gene. Yeah, I mean the gene 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.199 was the main factor there. But but but from what 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.000 we looked at, it is conceivable that one could have 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.399 a nightmare, and if one's physical condition was such to 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.680 facilitate this, you could be scared to death by a nightmare. 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.360 But then who would know? Right, I mean, well that's 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.199 the problem, right. It's kind of hard to do a 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.880 double blind study on that one. Yeah, it is um 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.720 until we really get that inception technology going, and then 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.560 we'll we'll figure it out. We're getting there. It's also 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:30.880 worth noting and I did a blog about this aspect 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.000 of it. This New York Times article came out in 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.960 eight one and about the CDC study and and made 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.400 the headlines. And then in the first Nightmare on Elm 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:41.399 Street movie came oh right, right right, You have a 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:43.480 great blog post about this. Yeah, this was a news 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.200 item that partially inspired West Craven to create Nightmare on 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:49.800