Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie.
Speaker 1: Let's set the stage for this. Uh, let's travel back
Speaker 1: in time to around nine. Um. I was but a
Speaker 1: wee child, so I was not actually watching the news
Speaker 1: or reading the New York Times. But it was reported
Speaker 1: in the New York Times that the CDC Centers for
Speaker 1: Disease Control headquartered here in Atlanta, our fair city. People
Speaker 1: who watch The Walking Dad know that that's a big
Speaker 1: claim to thing. And people who play the board game Pandemic.
Speaker 1: So CDC Centers for Disease Control they were suddenly really
Speaker 1: interested in eighteen deaths that had occurred over the last
Speaker 1: four years. They were all apparently healthy uh Laotian refugees,
Speaker 1: all except for one woman, right, Yeah, one woman the
Speaker 1: rest man. They were all ethnic mong people. These were
Speaker 1: a native ethnic group that had fled Laos due to
Speaker 1: some severe crackdowns. Yeah in front I've read to this
Speaker 1: is an isolated culture or similar to that of the
Speaker 1: American Indian and their religion is an animist one, so
Speaker 1: it's governed by spirits and manifestations of the soul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like like a lot of old religions very you know,
Speaker 1: have this kind of vibe going on. But they escaped
Speaker 1: some brutal conditions, so they you know, they had there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stress most likely going on with some
Speaker 1: postraumatic stress syndrome disorder as well, and they're winding up
Speaker 1: dead like in the wee hours of the morning in
Speaker 1: their sleep, dying right, Completely mysterious and actually really chilling
Speaker 1: that these these mostly men were going to sleep and
Speaker 1: they were fit people, and yep, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this is happening all over the country, right, because they're
Speaker 1: spread out in different cities, just one area of the country, right,
Speaker 1: different refuging this. Yeah. So doctor started to put it
Speaker 1: together and sort of say, oh, this is very odd
Speaker 1: that these same people, the same refugees, these group of
Speaker 1: people are dying in their sleep. What's going on? Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing that they thought might be going on was
Speaker 1: the possibility, and they were looking into this, the possibility
Speaker 1: that they were being scared to death by nightmares in
Speaker 1: their sleep, that nightmares were killing them in their sleep. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And at that time too, they termed it oriental nightmare
Speaker 1: death syndrome, which of course has been updated since then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like every part of that except for except for the
Speaker 1: syndrome has been updated for various reasons, as we'll explore. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not really about nightmares, and of course we don't
Speaker 1: use the word oriental anymore either. But what's what's fascinating
Speaker 1: about it is that it does. It does really give
Speaker 1: you the chills because there is that just the possibility
Speaker 1: that something in our dreams could kill us is it's something.
Speaker 1: It just continues to fascinate us though. I mean, you
Speaker 1: see it in our in our stories and our our fiction,
Speaker 1: in our mythology, in our like third grade lunch room conversations.
Speaker 1: You know where you here maybe for the first time.
Speaker 1: Oh did you know that if you fall in your dream,
Speaker 1: if you don't wake up before you hit the ground,
Speaker 1: you'll die, right right? We always have the Boogeyman in
Speaker 1: the back of our minds, so I can't help it.
Speaker 1: No matter what culture you're from, you have some sort
Speaker 1: of story. And the reason why this is frightening is
Speaker 1: is that it actually does bear some weight. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about this a little bit, but you possibly could scare
Speaker 1: yourself to death, to a certain degree, and it's possible.
Speaker 1: It's possible, um, and we'll talk about that is it's
Speaker 1: um it's not something that obviously happens all the time,
Speaker 1: or else we would all be dropping dead right now, right.
Speaker 1: Don't lose any sleepover, No, nothing to leave sleepover. But
Speaker 1: it is an interesting a reality for some people. And
Speaker 1: so you can see that in some cultures that this
Speaker 1: idea has really taken root, this idea that you could
Speaker 1: dine your sleep or that um, something could come and
Speaker 1: visit you in the middle of the night and basically
Speaker 1: take your life. Yeah, and we'd discussed in the past.
Speaker 1: I mean sleep and dreams. It's a state of the
Speaker 1: human mind where a lot of the rules sort of
Speaker 1: shift and change. I mean, obviously, the brain is tricked
Speaker 1: into believing that that the dream is reality during the
Speaker 1: dream for the most part, unless you're lucid dreaming that alone,
Speaker 1: you're you're in a world where suddenly even the most
Speaker 1: fantastic of happenings is believed by the mind. And then
Speaker 1: you throw in all these various uh, you know, parasomnia
Speaker 1: events that we've discussed in the past, and it becomes
Speaker 1: even weirder. Like so you're saying like sleep paralysis right
Speaker 1: where you have woken up, but your body is still
Speaker 1: locked down because the body parents sort of goes into
Speaker 1: the state of paralysis to keep you from say, you know,
Speaker 1: you're your kung fu fighting a zombie in your dream.
Speaker 1: You don't want to do that in your bed next
Speaker 1: to your significant other because then a disaster ensues. Sleep paralysis,
Speaker 1: as we've discussed before, you wake up, but those locks
Speaker 1: are still down, so you're like, I'm awake, but I
Speaker 1: a move. What's going on? U? Add that you may
Speaker 1: have just been having some sort of troubling dream. Yeah,
Speaker 1: add that to the mix of h when you have
Speaker 1: sleep apnea. And at times some people can wake up
Speaker 1: and be a little bit confused about what state they're
Speaker 1: in sleep or um, whether or not they're actually waking,
Speaker 1: and they'll have a sexual arousal basically um in mostly
Speaker 1: a sleep state. And so take that with the sleep paralysis, UH,
Speaker 1: cultural taboos, cultural stories, and all of a sudden, you've
Speaker 1: got a suckubus or incubus hanging out with my bed
Speaker 1: right like the I like to think about, like thick
Speaker 1: a medieval monk. They're trying to live this really non
Speaker 1: sexual life and then in the middle of the night, whoa,
Speaker 1: you're you know, your your aroused, your dreaming, You're waking
Speaker 1: up in this weird state. So you end up with
Speaker 1: this cognitive distance where where what's happening is it a
Speaker 1: sharp contrast with what should be happening and uh, and
Speaker 1: so we end up having to create this external version
Speaker 1: of of of you know, it must have been a demon,
Speaker 1: must have been a demon, must have been a spirit,
Speaker 1: must have there was something uh external um attacking me.
Speaker 1: And and you see shades of this throughout different cultures
Speaker 1: and mythologies. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about folklore a little bit more surrounding this, but I
Speaker 1: did want to mention that in South Asian populations that
Speaker 1: this sudden unexplained death syndrome that we're going to get
Speaker 1: into it seems to be a bit higher in this population.
Speaker 1: And you will also see that there is um a
Speaker 1: lot of folklore around this, this idea of being visited
Speaker 1: by a demon in your sleep. Um. In fact, let's
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit. So what do you
Speaker 1: got You gotta listen suspects here I do. This is
Speaker 1: actually from a fourteen Times article that you had sent me.
Speaker 1: And in Japan, um this this type of death in
Speaker 1: your dream or what they think is happening people dying
Speaker 1: from their nightmares is called polke kuri, the Filipinos call
Speaker 1: it and glunt or body bot. And the Mong people
Speaker 1: you're gonna say that the entire podcast, aren't you? And
Speaker 1: the Mong people of Vietnam and laos Um. Of course,
Speaker 1: we just talked about the Latian people that died in
Speaker 1: their sleep suddenly and unexpectedly. They call it sobs swung um.
Speaker 1: And in Thailand it's called the widow ghost who comes
Speaker 1: to steal away the souls of young men. And it's
Speaker 1: mostly young men. They are experienced, that's right. So just
Speaker 1: imagine this. Imagine that this is happening in your culture,
Speaker 1: this sudden death among healthy men mostly. So what do
Speaker 1: they do. They defend themselves by wearing lipstick at night.
Speaker 1: I read that, so that the ghost mistakes them for
Speaker 1: women and leaves them alone. It's also an excellent excuse
Speaker 1: for why you woke up the next morning with lipstick
Speaker 1: all over your face. You know that too. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had to defend myself from the body. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like I wasn't out snoozing it up. I wasn't out
Speaker 1: wearing lipstick. I just protective measure against the spirits to night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just yeah, of course. And then you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: that is this ironclad excuse I cannot say anything about that.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about that body about just a little
Speaker 1: bit more because I find it fascinating, um and the
Speaker 1: and the Philippines. The body is an obese female demon
Speaker 1: that lives in the trees. There is a picture of
Speaker 1: this that you found an artist interpretation, um and well,
Speaker 1: I will I will definitely link to it in the
Speaker 1: accompanying blog post for this yes, which you'll find on
Speaker 1: the house stufforks blogs and and linked on the Facebook.
Speaker 1: Can you describe this image? She appears to be made
Speaker 1: out of pooh. That's That's the first thing that I
Speaker 1: think came to mind for you. And then the second
Speaker 1: is that she's got red lasers that are coming out
Speaker 1: of her eye holes and her her mouth hole, and
Speaker 1: she's sitting on the poor unsuspecting person, like sitting on
Speaker 1: there face and suffocating them to death. And it was
Speaker 1: we I've never have you see plenty of artists depictions
Speaker 1: of a night terror or a night spirit a setting
Speaker 1: on the chest. Like there's you know, the famous series
Speaker 1: of paintings European paintings where you see the little squat
Speaker 1: little man sitting on the person's chest and there's like
Speaker 1: a nightmare horse or just you know, a nightmare sticking
Speaker 1: its head through the curtain behind. Yeah, like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a famous image. So the idea of setting on
Speaker 1: the chest is well established. But but the but sitting
Speaker 1: on the face, that's just really through well in the
Speaker 1: arts depiction too. Of whether or not here she knew it.
Speaker 1: Maybe this, this being this demon being made out of
Speaker 1: pooh makes it even a little bit more unsavory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you might want to know, like or you might
Speaker 1: say to yourself, why in the world would she exact
Speaker 1: this revenge on this person anyway? And the reason is
Speaker 1: is because her beef is she was sitting up in
Speaker 1: that tree. You hacked it down and then you used
Speaker 1: it for either your bed post or is a support
Speaker 1: beam in your home. So she conveniently shape shifts into
Speaker 1: one of the little peg holes and then when you
Speaker 1: fall asleep, that is when she makes remove again. We
Speaker 1: get back to like these animistic views of the world
Speaker 1: in which every part of nature has some sort of
Speaker 1: spirit to it, and therefore, if you're striking out against
Speaker 1: anything in the world, you're potentially ticking off a spirit. Yeah. Right, So,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's kind of again, it's the cultural thing,
Speaker 1: like don't don't without potentially angering the spirit. World really
Speaker 1: a touchy world. It's a very touchy world. But I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's definitely an environmental factor. They're right, don't
Speaker 1: denied the forest or she will sit on your face. Um,
Speaker 1: but let's talk about what was really going on with
Speaker 1: these locations. Yeah, we will get to that right after
Speaker 1: this quick break. This podcast is brought to you by Intel,
Speaker 1: the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel,
Speaker 1: we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. Join
Speaker 1: us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers to
Speaker 1: life's questions. All right, So, eighteen deadly oceans, all in
Speaker 1: the course of four year period, four of them in
Speaker 1: the eighteen month period, right, Yeah, Yeah, which was really freaky,
Speaker 1: and all of them seemingly healthy. These are not old people,
Speaker 1: they're not infirmed, they're they're not suffering from some sort
Speaker 1: of weird illness. They're just suddenly dead, and they died
Speaker 1: in their sleep, and there's the suspicion, what if it
Speaker 1: was a nightmare? Well and and again they before this
Speaker 1: uh in that back in the day one, they had
Speaker 1: called it the nightmare death syndrome um. And this sort
Speaker 1: of became the key candidate for what was going on.
Speaker 1: They thought, Okay, someone just just died in their sleep.
Speaker 1: And again you're dealing with people who have been refugees,
Speaker 1: who have experienced lots and lots of stress, right, and
Speaker 1: lots of he will lots of change. Um. But what
Speaker 1: they find out is that this is actually something called
Speaker 1: Brugata syndrome. Yeah, it's the underlying cause for the sudden,
Speaker 1: unexplained death. And and and it's noteworthy that it's connected
Speaker 1: to people of the Southeast Southeast Asian descent. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's a genetic factor. It's uh in the same way
Speaker 1: certain genetic markers appear in certain ethnic groups more than others,
Speaker 1: or or appear in exclusively in certain ethnic groups. Southeast
Speaker 1: Asia is where you encounter this, or people of Southeast
Speaker 1: Asian descent. Yea. Not everyone who has the condition dies
Speaker 1: in their sleep. And you know it actually has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with with nightmares. It's an inherited heart rhythm disorder,
Speaker 1: and we can actually pinpoint the gene responsible to it.
Speaker 1: It's a gene called sc N five A, which controls
Speaker 1: the flow of sodium ions into heart cells. All right,
Speaker 1: This flow of ions generates the electrical field that controls
Speaker 1: heartbeat regularity. Isn't that trippy? Yeah? So when the flow fails,
Speaker 1: the heart fibrillates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean just I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew that we had an electrical field around our heart,
Speaker 1: but to think that it's so sensitive that something like
Speaker 1: that could just trip it and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you've got these irregularities. Um. And in fact, there's Dr
Speaker 1: Pedro Brugatta of Brugotta syndrome. He came across this unusual pattern.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. He found that he had a patient who
Speaker 1: he suspected had something weird going on, and uh so
Speaker 1: he hooked him up to e G and it showed
Speaker 1: this activity and the heart and it, as you say,
Speaker 1: it looked like a shark fin, which became known as
Speaker 1: br Brugatta sign a sign it's Brugatta sign Um. I
Speaker 1: don't know. He's Italian now, right, Brugatta. But what is
Speaker 1: when of the key indicators that the patient could suffer
Speaker 1: from this really rare syndrome. UM. And that, my friend,
Speaker 1: is what was happening with our friends, the loations that
Speaker 1: that all died in this four year period. Now, the
Speaker 1: cool thing is is that we can we can treat this.
Speaker 1: We can with severe cases, you can actually put an
Speaker 1: electrical implant in the body that will will address the problem.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh in the foreseeable future. I mean we're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to to use like gene therapies on
Speaker 1: this and tack tackle the mutation head on. So that's
Speaker 1: even even more encouraging. Yeah, which is I mean, you
Speaker 1: know that's the it's it's awful that people had died
Speaker 1: from that. In certainly it must have been terrifying in
Speaker 1: that culture too, because we all know we have this
Speaker 1: confirmation bias, right, we take all these different details from
Speaker 1: our lives and we put it together to make some
Speaker 1: sort of case about something. So imagine you're from this um,
Speaker 1: from from Laos and this happens, and you say, ah, yes,
Speaker 1: it was the demon that got them, you know, because
Speaker 1: they have these weird amount of people dying from something
Speaker 1: that was completely unexplained. Um. Heretofore. Now, we know about
Speaker 1: the eighteen louisitions, but that doesn't explain why we have
Speaker 1: a disproportionately large amount of um deaths in this culture. Again, uh, stemming,
Speaker 1: it seems from fear. Yeah, it's possible that you could
Speaker 1: be scared to death, right, Yeah, it's possible. I mean
Speaker 1: you have to sort of break down, like what happens
Speaker 1: when we get afraid. Obviously, there is a it's a
Speaker 1: physical there's a physical manifestation to the fear. It's a
Speaker 1: it's flight or fright. Something bad is happening in your
Speaker 1: body needs to prep for possibly running away from it
Speaker 1: or duking out, duking it out, you know. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, you're your strength surges through your strength surgers
Speaker 1: through your muscles. Uh, so you can run or you know,
Speaker 1: or or punch something. Your pupils dilate your you start
Speaker 1: breathing faster, and a number of chemicals, a whole cocktail
Speaker 1: of things, including adrenaline, began pumping through your bloodstream so
Speaker 1: intense you know, the activity in the body is intensified. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you have that going on, and then you have
Speaker 1: something that's almost like a self fulfilled prophecy, because again
Speaker 1: you've got this cultural equation going on. And in one
Speaker 1: of the studies I read, they were looking at and
Speaker 1: I can't believe. I can't remember if it's a Korean
Speaker 1: or it's a Chinese similar word for fourign death, but
Speaker 1: they're very very close, so foreign death. It's not not
Speaker 1: a good number in this um, in this culture. And
Speaker 1: what they were finding is that there there seemed to
Speaker 1: be a larger number of deaths happening on the fourth
Speaker 1: of each month. And it's not that that, you know,
Speaker 1: four has some sort of power over people in this culture.
Speaker 1: It's that people were sort of anticipating that the fourth
Speaker 1: was going to come up. So if you have, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of condition or you're under a lot of stress,
Speaker 1: is very possible that he'd almost talk yourself into saying,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, the fourth is coming up, and it becomes
Speaker 1: like this self fulfilled prophecy for yourself. And uh. Molly
Speaker 1: Edmunds wrote this great article on hostaff works dot com
Speaker 1: called can you really Scare someone to death? And she
Speaker 1: was saying that it's very hard to um say how
Speaker 1: often these sudden deaths occur, because most accounts of sudden
Speaker 1: deaths are in otherwise healthy people in this anecdotal, right,
Speaker 1: But what she did say that one of the most
Speaker 1: famous reports of sudden death was published in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: two by Harvard physiologist Walter B. Cannon, and he reported
Speaker 1: a phenomenon that he had called the voodoo death. So
Speaker 1: what he found is that, um that a lot of
Speaker 1: sudden deaths were occurring in places where there were some
Speaker 1: form of voodoo or black magic being practiced South America, Africa, Australia,
Speaker 1: and New Zealand. And he recounted the sudden deaths of
Speaker 1: healthy men who had been cursed by a medicine, man
Speaker 1: accused of eating forbidden food items, and injured by spears
Speaker 1: that were said to be enchanted. So Cannon noted that
Speaker 1: many of the men have possibly brought about their own
Speaker 1: deaths by refusing food and water, but also that they
Speaker 1: died essentially because of this fear that was perpetuated in
Speaker 1: their society. So the corporal scenario, the supernatural scenario is created, yes,
Speaker 1: in which being scared to death is possible. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean what with this article characters, and then that's the
Speaker 1: outcome of the play. And then what he was saying is,
Speaker 1: I think it's an overactive sympathetic nervous system, so the
Speaker 1: conditions are there. All of a sudden, you're a migdala, right,
Speaker 1: which is so great for trying to ferret out to
Speaker 1: saber tooth tiger. UH is overactive now in this other
Speaker 1: instance where the risk you know, is really actually low.
Speaker 1: You know this this UH, this old man with a
Speaker 1: stick and can actually kill you, but it should be
Speaker 1: a very low risk. But that person in the amygdala
Speaker 1: and and the body is now perceiving it as a
Speaker 1: real threat and reacting to it. And this is really
Speaker 1: going to stress out all the tissues in your heart
Speaker 1: um the rest of your body. It's really going to
Speaker 1: take a toll on it again, making it a little
Speaker 1: bit easier for you to possibly die from this, especially
Speaker 1: if you're not taking any food or death or food
Speaker 1: food or death food or water. So they're like cats.
Speaker 1: When cats get sick, then like it creates that scenario,
Speaker 1: like you know where cats refuse to eat and then
Speaker 1: they die because it's like like they're sick, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna eat anymore. Yeah, I don't know. I mean they
Speaker 1: kind of just seem to batten down the hatches when
Speaker 1: cats get sick, sort of like just leave me alone.
Speaker 1: We see if I can heal myself, and I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna get over to this corner like the witch doctor
Speaker 1: is essentially making them act like a cat. It's possible,
Speaker 1: It's possible. But this other this article talked about another
Speaker 1: instance in which Boston neurologist Martin A. Samuel's believes that
Speaker 1: the sudden death of the former and ron CEO Kenneth
Speaker 1: lay And July thousand and six could have been the
Speaker 1: result of fear of a looming prison sentence or black
Speaker 1: magic or black that's very possible that he had some
Speaker 1: some voodoo dolls with sticks in him with his name
Speaker 1: on it. But there's also something called broken heart syndrome,
Speaker 1: which believe that people die broken heart. And again it's
Speaker 1: not that they die from a broken heart per se,
Speaker 1: but it could be that extreme extreme emotions caused something
Speaker 1: that looks like heart failure or heart attack. Um, but
Speaker 1: in fact it's a little bit different because blood clots
Speaker 1: and clogged arteries that caused cardiac conditions were absent. Instead,
Speaker 1: the heart was just weak from stressful emotions. My mom
Speaker 1: claims that she almost had a heart attack when she
Speaker 1: saw the first Dirty Harry movie in the theaters. Really well, okay,
Speaker 1: so she was frightened. She was what it was just
Speaker 1: so tense, It was so you know, exhilarating, you know
Speaker 1: that she just she was just like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I think I almost had a heart attack. Well have
Speaker 1: you ever had someone sneak up on you and you
Speaker 1: really literally gasp for breath and in your whole body
Speaker 1: just stops, it just kind of shutters itself. Every time
Speaker 1: you come up to my desk listening to music in
Speaker 1: my headphones, I try to tap gently and get your
Speaker 1: attention before I scare you. Well, it's not every time,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I'll be really into something and and somebody
Speaker 1: will come up and you know, so, yeah, I I
Speaker 1: that happens every day. I think you know, it's possible.
Speaker 1: I Mean, the good news here is that it's very
Speaker 1: rare to die from from something like this. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you'd have to have some sort of conditions in place.
Speaker 1: And when you think about the Louisian refugees again, this
Speaker 1: is an instance where they were undergoing extreme stress, right, um,
Speaker 1: and presumably and emotionally, well I'm sure and physically we're
Speaker 1: having to deal with that, and that could certainly have eroded. Um,
Speaker 1: their health to a degree, although they were otherwise healthy.
Speaker 1: You know, sod the gene. Yeah, I mean the gene
Speaker 1: was the main factor there. But but but from what
Speaker 1: we looked at, it is conceivable that one could have
Speaker 1: a nightmare, and if one's physical condition was such to
Speaker 1: facilitate this, you could be scared to death by a nightmare.
Speaker 1: But then who would know? Right, I mean, well that's
Speaker 1: the problem, right. It's kind of hard to do a
Speaker 1: double blind study on that one. Yeah, it is um
Speaker 1: until we really get that inception technology going, and then
Speaker 1: we'll we'll figure it out. We're getting there. It's also
Speaker 1: worth noting and I did a blog about this aspect
Speaker 1: of it. This New York Times article came out in
Speaker 1: eight one and about the CDC study and and made
Speaker 1: the headlines. And then in the first Nightmare on Elm
Speaker 1: Street movie came oh right, right right, You have a
Speaker 1: great blog post about this. Yeah, this was a news
Speaker 1: item that partially inspired West Craven to create Nightmare on
Speaker 1: Elm Streets. So if you like those movies, this is
Speaker 1: where it came from. Interview. Don't like those movies? This
Speaker 1: is something the story you can blame that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but again, nothing to fear of really, I mean, when
Speaker 1: you think about it, low scare folks, um, when you
Speaker 1: think about actual high risk situations in our lives, like
Speaker 1: getting into our cars, that's that's nuts. Yeah, So be
Speaker 1: careful there, Please one one more thing before we move
Speaker 1: on to a listener. Mail I was looking through Carol Roses, giants,
Speaker 1: monsters and dragons and Encyclopedia Folklore, legend and myths looking
Speaker 1: for some sleep related demons. And I think all the
Speaker 1: sleep most of the sleep demons are hiding in her
Speaker 1: her other book about fairies that I don't have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I keep some some serious scientific books on hand here.
Speaker 1: But you're not gonna bring the fairies book to work,
Speaker 1: is what I'm hearing. Well, I'm gonna have to buy it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, like, yeah, I'll put it on
Speaker 1: my bookshelf. But it did have an item about the Sandman,
Speaker 1: which this is fascinating, says. This is the name of
Speaker 1: the fearsome nursery bogey in the late eighteenth and early
Speaker 1: nineteen centuries of England. The sandman was a vicious and
Speaker 1: terrifying ogre who came during the night to throw handfuls
Speaker 1: of course sand into the eyes of children who would
Speaker 1: not go to sleep. And it gets worse. When the
Speaker 1: eyes of the screen child were rubbed, they dropped out
Speaker 1: all bloody on the floor. The sandman gathered these eyes
Speaker 1: to take in his sack as food for his long
Speaker 1: beaked progeny nesting in the crook of the crescent moon.
Speaker 1: This was the image of the salmon nursery boogie in
Speaker 1: the fairy tale written by E. T. A. Hoffman in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventeen and then in subsequent years. We uh we we,
Speaker 1: I think we There are also other folk tales where
Speaker 1: there's you know, they're fairies that bring like sleep dust
Speaker 1: and put in your eyes. And we've been along with
Speaker 1: with those ideas. We ended up turning the salmon into
Speaker 1: this more benign uh or even benevolent spirit that comes
Speaker 1: in and sprinkles, and they of rubbing your eyes out
Speaker 1: all bloody on the floor and feeding them to some
Speaker 1: sort of bird like creatures that live on the moon.
Speaker 1: It's uh terrifying. So you know, I've been looking for
Speaker 1: a good story to read my daughter. Yeah, we went
Speaker 1: through the whole doctor SEUs thing, So that's thank you.
Speaker 1: Just set her down and have a talk with us.
Speaker 1: I look, um, but Sam and the sand Man. This
Speaker 1: is how it works, that's how it's gonna go down.
Speaker 1: Well cool, let me get to the listener mail here.
Speaker 1: So we recently covered electronic music, or at least week
Speaker 1: we sort of did an introduction to electronic music because
Speaker 1: as we as we mentioned, we can't possibly cover everything
Speaker 1: about it. It is very vast. So yeah, we had
Speaker 1: some some people wrote in with some interesting feedback on that.
Speaker 1: A number of people actually UM. A listener by the
Speaker 1: name of Ian wrote in and said, Dear Robert and Julie,
Speaker 1: I love the podcast, especially the recent episode and electric music. UM,
Speaker 1: but when Robert said he did not know what a
Speaker 1: Nintendo step was, I thought I'd clarified. Uh, And this
Speaker 1: is good for me because I'm I truly didn't there
Speaker 1: what it was. Uh. Nintendo step is a subgenre of
Speaker 1: dub step, but instead of using electronic electronics synthesizers on samplers, computers,
Speaker 1: or keyboards, they use chip tunes, which is music from
Speaker 1: older video game consoles I think original Mario to create
Speaker 1: the warbling, robotic sounds of normal dub staff. That he
Speaker 1: included a few samples which I listened to, which I
Speaker 1: think they were from Ruscoe and they were they were
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Thanks for getting me through a few six
Speaker 1: hour bus rides to ex country ski races. Sincerely again. Cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go, a Nintendo stuff. I think we're all
Speaker 1: richard for knowing what that is. It is. But you
Speaker 1: know part of that trend where you see, uh, you
Speaker 1: see a lot of artists going back to older electronics
Speaker 1: sounds and bringing them back like I've I've really been
Speaker 1: into this one chill wave. Um, I guess you've called
Speaker 1: chill wave artists that goes by the name Calm Truise
Speaker 1: like Tom Cruise with the letters and uh that alone
Speaker 1: for that alone, and uh and he has his style
Speaker 1: is like very much calling back to like, uh like
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, um, kind of like Miami Vice soundtrack kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Um, but in a good way. Uh. It
Speaker 1: sounds like listening to the music makes you feel like
Speaker 1: you're in the best possible like convertible. Well now I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about like like psychedelic Miami vibes and you know,
Speaker 1: movie of some kind. But okay, yeah, all right, Clubs
Speaker 1: and Crockett there you go. And we also heard from J. J.
Speaker 1: Rodan said, I just listened to your electronic music podcast
Speaker 1: and really enjoyed it. However, I was surprised you didn't
Speaker 1: mention of vocaloid music. It's been around long enough to
Speaker 1: not be a fad. Even though it is wildly popular
Speaker 1: in Japan and East Asia, there have been some very
Speaker 1: successful concerts in the US. The amazing part about this
Speaker 1: is that vocal oid singers are completely virtual. They are
Speaker 1: software programs, not people. So in order to have a concert,
Speaker 1: the vocal oad characters have to take the stage as holograms. Um.
Speaker 1: I hope this subject will blow your mind. It certainly
Speaker 1: has blown mind. Sincerely, Jay Um. Yeah, that's uh. I
Speaker 1: think Josh Clark did a blog post about this, uh
Speaker 1: ball back um where yes, like the the the frontman
Speaker 1: or front woman for the group the The the singer
Speaker 1: is a hologram on stage and people were like going nuts.
Speaker 1: But the the the the main character, that the main
Speaker 1: persona of this band does not exist in physical reality.
Speaker 1: M I think about this movie called Wild Palms by
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone, and I feel like there was a such
Speaker 1: a of that movie that has something very similar. You
Speaker 1: could just beam in your own music, you know, you'd
Speaker 1: have like I don't know, I think in this like
Speaker 1: the Pointer Sisters. Well it makes you wonder like in
Speaker 1: the future, it's like we we we depend more and
Speaker 1: more on holographic pop stars, and then would we be
Speaker 1: able to well, be able to preserve past pop stars
Speaker 1: this way or recreate them? So like would you have
Speaker 1: holographic Elvis concerts? Well, I mean I can definitely see
Speaker 1: cable companies really continent to this, right because they would say, okay,
Speaker 1: well we're gonna have Selean Dion or Justin Bieber you
Speaker 1: know who remember at this point come on and uh
Speaker 1: and we're gonna you know, for extra one hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: you can get them beamed into your living room. Oh man,
Speaker 1: imagine the benefit. What was the song that they did,
Speaker 1: like the sort of fiebe children kind of things, where
Speaker 1: they we are the world, we are the world. You
Speaker 1: know what do you imagine that we are the world?
Speaker 1: Concerts of the future, you could you could actually go
Speaker 1: to this concert and they would have hallgrams of like
Speaker 1: all these like past pop stars, and that would be
Speaker 1: you know, be like Beethoven and Elvis. We'll see. I
Speaker 1: kind of loving this too for a cocktail party, right,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know you got like you said Elvis
Speaker 1: and Beth heaven hanging. I mean they're obviously not able
Speaker 1: to interact, I would assume, but still, no, you make
Speaker 1: them interact, yeah, make them eat all the notches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you you could tweak their musical setting. So like,
Speaker 1: imagine this idea you have, like Elvis doing like dub
Speaker 1: step in your house. Like, how horrifying is that? It's
Speaker 1: pretty great? The future is shiny, it is so Hey,
Speaker 1: if you have any thoughts about the future, about what
Speaker 1: about the pasture? Why not we're gaining the present. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll listen to that too, especially if they have any
Speaker 1: thoughts about dreams and nightmares. I'm I'm very interested. How
Speaker 1: many of you have ever died in a dream? Um,
Speaker 1: and of course not died in real life the person?
Speaker 1: How would you write us? Uh? Because we were talking
Speaker 1: about this earlier. How you said that you've mentioned that
Speaker 1: him dream You've had dreams where you have died or
Speaker 1: about to die and obviously you're still alive. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm alucid dreamer. And it was more like a movie
Speaker 1: watching myself. It wasn't There wasn't any sort of real
Speaker 1: fear there. Okay, I'm for my part, I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever had a dream where I actually died. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's really fascinating to think about it. So,
Speaker 1: but let us know, tell us what tell us all
Speaker 1: about your dreams and uh and how they line up
Speaker 1: with this podcast? Who else ask you to do that?
Speaker 1: I know everybody loves talking about their dreams. Let us know,
Speaker 1: and even if we don't respond, we will. We will
Speaker 1: read them for sure. Indeed, so if you want to
Speaker 1: check out what we're up to, drop our Facebook and
Speaker 1: Twitter feeds. We are blow the Mind on both of those,
Speaker 1: and you can also drop us an email at blow
Speaker 1: the Mind at house to works dot com. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Speaker 1: Join House to Work staff as we explore the most
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.