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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. It is Saturday, so we have

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Speaker 1: a vault episode for you. You know where we're going

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Speaker 1: with this one, because we are what halfway through the

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Speaker 1: Pretend to Play series that we're re airing. This is

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Speaker 1: going to be part three of five, and it originally

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Speaker 1: published one sixteen, twenty twenty five. Let's jump right in.

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

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert.

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

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Speaker 3: the third part in our series on pretend play, the

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Speaker 3: type of play that involves non literal understanding, So when

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Speaker 3: a child or an adult, but it's usually a child.

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Speaker 3: When a child runs around the living room saying, room room,

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Speaker 3: I am a truck. Or when they turn a cardboard

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Speaker 3: box that a package came in into a house and

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Speaker 3: live in the house and do things in there and

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Speaker 3: talk about the tiny people who live in there with them,

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Speaker 3: When they pretend to feed and care for a plastic

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Speaker 3: dinosaurs if it were a baby, when they have adventures

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Speaker 3: with an imaginary friend. All of these are forms of

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Speaker 3: pretend play. It's play that takes anything in the world

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Speaker 3: and the situation in an object in the self as

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Speaker 3: something other than literally what it is now. In the

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Speaker 3: past two episodes we got into a number of fascinating

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Speaker 3: ideas and concepts from the academic study of pretend play.

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Speaker 3: We talked about the standard schedule on which pretend play

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Speaker 3: appears to emerge, usually with the first type of play

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Speaker 3: being object substitution. So you know, this stick is a sword,

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Speaker 3: this dinosaur toy is a baby, this remote control as

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Speaker 3: a phone. We talked about the evidence for possible links

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Speaker 3: between pretend play and the development of complex cognitive capacities

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

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Speaker 3: in part two we talked about some of the existing

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Speaker 3: research on imaginary friends and imaginary companions, how prevalent they

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Speaker 3: are within and across different cultures, how they work, what

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Speaker 3: different forms they take, and what children believe they know.

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Speaker 3: And today we're back to talk about more.

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Speaker 1: When you mentioned how they work, it instantly made me

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Speaker 1: wonder if there are some imaginary friends who have jobs.

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Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to find that some imaginary

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Speaker 1: friends do have jobs, but I don't think I read

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Speaker 1: anything about that in particular.

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Speaker 3: Oh well, based on what I've been reading, there are

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Speaker 3: a good number of observations of imaginary friends doing what

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Speaker 3: the child themselves cannot, So you know, there's a kind

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Speaker 3: of vicarious attainment of life goals or vicarious participation in

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Speaker 3: activities through the use of imaginary friends. So maybe if

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Speaker 3: in the same way that the child can pretend they

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Speaker 3: can play mom and dad and go to work even

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Speaker 3: though they're not actually going anywhere, they could also have

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Speaker 3: the imaginary friend have a job. And that's another way

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Speaker 3: of simulating, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Now, as we discussed in the last episode,

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Speaker 1: and I would encourage everyone to go back and listen

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Speaker 1: to the previous episode. The previous two episodes actually take

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Speaker 1: these in order because a lot of the things we're

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Speaker 1: discussing they may stand alone, but we're also building upon

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Speaker 1: what we talked about previously. But one of the things

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Speaker 1: we talked about with imaginary friends and or imaginary companions

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Speaker 1: is that, of course they seem to be widespread and

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Speaker 1: fairly common, but there's a lot to discuss about samples

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Speaker 1: and where you're looking and also even time. So is

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Speaker 1: this a capacity that all children have, and is that

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Speaker 1: capacity not really maxed out in every culture and certainly

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Speaker 1: at every time in human history. I don't know. There

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Speaker 1: are some interesting cases to be made for that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. In fact, that very thing might come up with

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Speaker 3: some stuff I want to talk about later in this episode.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So as we roll into what we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about next, it is just important to bear in

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Speaker 1: mind that there are a lot of caveats involved here.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the research. Most of the research is

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Speaker 1: certainly focused on children in the West, and therefore it's

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Speaker 1: not necessarily allowing for cultural differences that may be in

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Speaker 1: play regarding how these trends are expressed in given children. Now,

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Speaker 1: having talked about imaginary friends and imaginary companions, we've touched

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Speaker 1: on one very fascinating phase in the imaginative lives of children. Storytelling,

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Speaker 1: of course, weaves its way through this and other examples

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Speaker 1: of imaginative play that we've discussed so far, even in

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Speaker 1: its simplest forms. Right, dinosaur is hungry for crayons, therefore

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Speaker 1: eats crayons.

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Speaker 3: Is a sort of story, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy.

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Speaker 1: It depends on the exact the exact line graph of

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Speaker 1: how the plot flows right, Is the dinosaur getting everything

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Speaker 1: it wants on it and its lead up to downfall?

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Speaker 1: Or is it? Or is it just one disappointing meal

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Speaker 1: after the other and eventually it will rise to the

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Speaker 1: top of a crayon buffet.

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Speaker 3: I think something about does it end in a marriage?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? It may, it may. Marriages sometimes do occur for

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Speaker 1: toy dinosaurs. So you know, our ability to engage in storytelling,

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Speaker 1: of course, only becomes more and more refined as we

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Speaker 1: get older. Even children but also adults who do not

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Speaker 1: think of themselves as storytellers inevitably engage with the power

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Speaker 1: of storytelling on a daily basis. We've talked about this

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Speaker 1: before in the show. We craft events in our lives

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Speaker 1: into stories that we relate to others and to ourselves.

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Speaker 1: We come to live our lives and reflect on ourself

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Speaker 1: as a character in a narrative to varying degrees.

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Speaker 3: You know, this is just reminding me of I think

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Speaker 3: an episode or a couple of episodes that we did

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Speaker 3: years ago. Now I forget what it's even called, but

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Speaker 3: we were exploring the work of a particular philosopher who

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Speaker 3: was this was one of the most like perverse and

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Speaker 3: yet persuasive ideas we've ever encountered. On the show, it

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Speaker 3: was pursuing the idea that ultimately fiction is bad for us,

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Speaker 3: and I remember it was like they this guy made

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Speaker 3: a fairly persuasive case that like it's not very good

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Speaker 3: for us, you know, like it causes us to think

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Speaker 3: about the world in incorrect ways and makes allowances for

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Speaker 3: bad behavior and all this kind of stuff, and yet

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Speaker 3: it's just like, well, we're not getting rid of it,

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Speaker 3: and I like it too much, so it's like too bad.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, there's a whole discussion to be had about

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Speaker 1: how life isn't story shaped, but we often compare it

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Speaker 1: to stories and end up with expectations based on those stories.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's complex, and I think, you know, honestly,

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Speaker 1: I feel like there's give and take on both sides. There.

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Speaker 1: Like stories and storytelling enrich our lives in so many ways,

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Speaker 1: but yes, they can also lead to false expectations, disappointment,

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Speaker 1: and again coming to back what we're directly talking about here, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: thinking about yourself as a character in a narrative, you know,

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Speaker 1: can maybe get into maladaptive territory at times, But we're

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Speaker 1: not going to stop, No, no, why would we stop now?

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Speaker 1: There are many different forms of narrative activities to be

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Speaker 1: found in childhood, and they range from the nonfictional to

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Speaker 1: the fictional, from social to private, from acted out to linguistic,

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Speaker 1: and all with varying levels of character and plot development.

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Speaker 1: There might not be any plot development in the saga

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Speaker 1: of Dinosaur Eats Crayons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't

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Speaker 1: have some form of story to it, right, right, But

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Speaker 1: one particularly interesting form of imaginative storytelling can be found

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Speaker 1: in middle childhood, generally around the ages of eight through twelve,

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Speaker 1: And in this we explore the world of paracosm. So

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Speaker 1: this goes beyond the notion of an imaginary companion and

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Speaker 1: it transcends into the realm of an imaginary world.

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Speaker 3: So if the single imaginary companion or imaginary friend is

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Speaker 3: the equivalent of a fiction writer creating a character, this

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Speaker 3: is the equivalent of world building exactly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And obviously this is a rich area to dream

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Speaker 1: about and indeed to tell stories about. C. S. Lewis's

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Speaker 1: Narnia and mister Rogers neighborhood of Make Believe certainly come

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Speaker 1: to my mind. I'd throw Alice in Wonderland in there

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Speaker 1: as well while we're at it, And these are probably

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Speaker 1: some of the examples that resonate with folks who grew

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Speaker 1: up in the same decade as me on a similar

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Speaker 1: media diet. But there, of course far more number of

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Speaker 1: these that you can think of any number of these, There,

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Speaker 1: of course more concrete ideas of actual fantasy world worlds

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Speaker 1: that one might venture into that are at the same

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Speaker 1: time linked to the concept of creatively imagined worlds. You

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Speaker 1: can also look to any magical treatment of characters crossing

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Speaker 1: over into the worlds of books, TV and movies, as

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Speaker 1: well as so many different sci fi, virtual reality, dream

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Speaker 1: walking scenarios, all creative treatments on the idea that imagine

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Speaker 1: worlds become a place in the mind that we might

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Speaker 1: retreat to play, dream and seek solace in.

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Speaker 3: You know, just now thinking about it, it struck me

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Speaker 3: how many of these stories about characters who want to

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Speaker 3: escape into an imaginary world focus on showing the characters

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Speaker 3: struggles and unhappiness about real life. You know, it's there

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Speaker 3: in the Never Ending Story. It's there, and I don't

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Speaker 3: know why. This is the other example that came to

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Speaker 3: mind for me. But the last action Hero, you know,

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Speaker 3: there's just like just like, oh, well, real life, you know,

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Speaker 3: it's full of troubles, but there's this other world that's

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Speaker 3: so much more interesting and exciting and better.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many examples of the so many different

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Speaker 1: like subgenres of it, like the changing channels variations you see,

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Speaker 1: and I think at least a handful of not several

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Speaker 1: different movies, especially the nineties, where oh I'm sucked into

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Speaker 1: the television again, I'm going from TV channel to TV channel,

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Speaker 1: you know. And you know, you can even get into

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Speaker 1: things like well Star Trek in general as again as

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Speaker 1: a fictional universe we might escape into imaginatively. But also

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Speaker 1: they have the Holo deck in there, which is its

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Speaker 1: own form of paracosm within a paracosm.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. But I just brought it up because

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Speaker 3: I think it's interesting that in reality, I don't think

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Speaker 3: one need be unhappy with real life in order to

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Speaker 3: enjoy thinking about alternate worlds. But this is like a

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Speaker 3: thing that we sort of go to in fiction when

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Speaker 3: we're sketching this character who wants to escape.

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Speaker 1: No, no, it does, certainly, it does come up. One

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Speaker 1: source I was looking at as a twenty eighteen Artifact

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Speaker 1: magazine article by one George Janes, and Jane cites child

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Speaker 1: psychologist Gwynn Abon, who argues that when faced with trauma,

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Speaker 1: children and adolescents may fall back in their development, returning

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Speaker 1: to a place where they felt more safe and quote

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Speaker 1: a paracosm is similar, the goal being to step out

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Speaker 1: of reality because it is too difficult to process. Now,

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Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I think other things I've

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Speaker 1: read back that backs that up. The idea that you

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Speaker 1: may see this some of the time, certainly, but you

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Speaker 1: don't need to have something in particular you're escaping to

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Speaker 1: engage in paracosm, to to have an imagined world that

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Speaker 1: you're dreaming yourself into and building out in your mind,

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Speaker 1: you know, especially during these vital years.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it might in fact be one way people

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Speaker 3: get there, but it's not the only way exactly.

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Speaker 1: That's my redone it anyway.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry to interrupt your flow.

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Speaker 1: Though, No, no, no, no, but I think it is

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Speaker 1: It is worth noting as well that this is this

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. The energy of this doesn't necessarily go

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Speaker 1: away in the human experience. Obviously, adults are certainly quite

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Speaker 1: capable of escaping into their own imagined worlds in plenty

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Speaker 1: of perfectly healthy ways, as well as some potentially less

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Speaker 1: healthy ways. We discussed the idea of maladaptive daydreaming on

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Speaker 1: the show in the past, so you could line that

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Speaker 1: concept up with some of this. But yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: on any given day, I challenge listeners out there, how

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Speaker 1: many different imaginary worlds have you engaged with so far

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Speaker 1: today in one form or another? And you know, I

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Speaker 1: was just like, I don't have a firm count in

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Speaker 1: my head, but I feel like it's been at least five,

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Speaker 1: you know. So you know, our lives are full of

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Speaker 1: imaginary spaces. It just depends on how much time, what

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Speaker 1: sort of engagement we're getting into there, and so forth.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that does raise an interesting question, like how

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Speaker 3: much engagement is generally required for it to be thought

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Speaker 3: of as paracosm play. I would assume, just like reading

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Speaker 3: a book is not usually would not usually qualify as

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Speaker 3: engaging with paracosms, or would it.

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Speaker 1: Well, the stricter definition of paracosms, as mentioned in that

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Speaker 1: Artifact magazine article by James, is that it would be

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Speaker 1: a paracosm would have to adhere to the idea that

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Speaker 1: quote the formation of the world must occur within childhood

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Speaker 1: or early adolescence, and in many cases continued on into adulthood.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't have to continue on into adulthood, but at least

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Speaker 1: like the memory of it often does. So generally, we're

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Speaker 1: looking at this specific time. You know. You can certainly

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Speaker 1: people dream up very rich imagined worlds as adults, but

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Speaker 1: we might think of that differently because it's not emerging

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Speaker 1: out of this key time period in middle childhood and

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Speaker 1: early adolescence.

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Speaker 3: And it sounds to me, based on that definition, like

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Speaker 3: something about the paracosm experience is usually taken to have

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Speaker 3: a kind of daydreaming aspect, like the child is directly

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Speaker 3: participating in the construction of this imaginary world and thinking

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Speaker 3: about it, apart from just say, participating in a story

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Speaker 3: written by somebody else.

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Speaker 1: Right right, though there are some connections to pre existing work,

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Speaker 1: as we'll get into.

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Speaker 3: So.

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Speaker 1: The other paper that I turned to to understand this

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Speaker 1: topic is a twenty twenty paper published in the journal

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Speaker 1: Childhood Development by Marjorie Taylor at All titled Paracosms The

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Speaker 1: Imaginary Worlds of Middle Children. Now, first of all, no

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Speaker 1: one is denying the existence of paracosms and children. There's

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Speaker 1: plenty of evidence, plenty of reports on this, but exactly

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Speaker 1: what we can draw from the accounts and how it

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Speaker 1: all factors into childhood development requires a bit more effort

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Speaker 1: and varies somewhat in the specific theories. During middle childhood,

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Speaker 1: some children develop and or adapt. So it doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to be a world that's created completely wholesale, and I

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Speaker 1: think ultimately, you know, that's a lot of pure imagination

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Speaker 1: to expect from adult creatives, much less children.

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Speaker 3: But dealing with something more like fan fiction here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I mean you can make a case

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Speaker 1: that everything's fan fiction to some degree, right, but but

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it doesn't have to be created wholesale, but

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Speaker 1: it's a rich imagined world that may entail Each world

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Speaker 1: may entail its own government, geography, language, culture, associated artifacts.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these worlds have particular names, so it

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Speaker 1: gets it gets very deep. Like you know, some maps

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Speaker 1: may be involved either mental or actually recreated physically. Now,

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Speaker 1: what are the percentages you're probably wondering. You know, we

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Speaker 1: talked about the percentages for imaginary friends in the previous

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Speaker 1: episode and those were those were quite high, based again

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Speaker 1: on the on the sample groups generally in the West. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the percentage is here. I think we'll be able to

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Speaker 1: grind the numbers down a little bit in a minute here.

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Speaker 1: But the percentages either referenced in the text or from

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Speaker 1: other studies or produced by the officer there's in this

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Speaker 1: study range from three to twelve percent to sixteen to

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Speaker 1: seventeen percent. And in individual sample groups you see some

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Speaker 1: much higher percentages, like up into the forties. But so generally,

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Speaker 1: just to sum it up, it seems like there's a

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Speaker 1: lower percentage of paracosms compared to imaginary companions or imaginary friends.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, in some of the Western sample data, we were

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Speaker 3: looking at somewhere between one third to two thirds of

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Speaker 3: children having some form of imaginary companion, depending on how

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Speaker 3: strict your definition is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Joe, I have to ask, we talked about

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Speaker 1: imaginary friends in the last episode in our own experience

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Speaker 1: as that or lack thereof with them, did you have

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Speaker 1: any para cosms or something you think might constitute a

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Speaker 1: para cosm when you were younger.

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Speaker 3: Well, I guess again this would be a question of definitions.

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Speaker 3: I absolutely did dream up imaginary worlds, but I always

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Speaker 3: remember thinking of them as ideas for stories I wanted

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Speaker 3: to write. So it wasn't like I was dreaming of

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Speaker 3: living in these imaginary worlds or say, playing like, oh here,

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Speaker 3: you know, here I am in my imaginary worlds. As

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Speaker 3: long as I can ever remember thinking about these places

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Speaker 3: I would dream up. I was thinking about them as

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Speaker 3: stories that I was creating.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, you know, I don't know that that would

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Speaker 1: necessarily disqualify any of this, because certainly, as we'll explore,

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Speaker 1: there are examples of paracosms certainly becoming written created works,

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Speaker 1: or you know, some sort of a creative endeavor later

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Speaker 1: on in life. For my own part, I remember two

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Speaker 1: specific things, like, in around third grade, I had some

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Speaker 1: sort of an elaborate scenario going on in my head

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Speaker 1: that was based loosely on something from the Gi Joe

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Speaker 1: cartoon that involved like a space station, as well as

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Speaker 1: a snippet of an animated film i'd seen part of

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Speaker 1: on TV, which I would later come to believe was

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Speaker 1: likely a snippet from nausicaa something with the Giant Warriors,

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Speaker 1: but I didn't know what it was at the time.

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Speaker 3: Well, what a privilege to have that as an inspiration

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Speaker 3: for your para CAUSM. That's a yeah, that's a good one.

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Speaker 1: Now, this this world had no name, and I even

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Speaker 1: hesitate to call it a world, but I would say

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Speaker 1: that it was a recurring imaginary space that I would

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Speaker 1: often go into, like I remember doing going into it

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Speaker 1: at school a lot. If I got a little bit

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Speaker 1: bored or distracted in school in third grade, that's where

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Speaker 1: I would go. And so that one comes to mind.

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Speaker 1: And then in junior high I had a world that

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Speaker 1: was loosely inspired by Ian Flux cartoons. Oh, which was

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Speaker 1: you know, pretty exciting at the time. I hadn't seen

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Speaker 1: a lot of animation from outside of the US at

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Speaker 1: the time, you know, only a little bit of anime.

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Speaker 1: And of course, you know, this was a highly stylistic

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Speaker 1: cartoon with graphic violence and a lot of sex appeal.

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Speaker 1: So and it was on MTV, so I watched it

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Speaker 1: like everything else on MTV at the time.

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Speaker 3: Well, this is really interesting. So in what sense exactly

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Speaker 3: were you mentally engaging with these paracosms. Were you like

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Speaker 3: just sitting there sort of mentally building them out, like

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Speaker 3: thinking about new details of them, or were you imagining

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Speaker 3: inhabiting them bodily or like do you know what I mean, I.

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Speaker 1: Know, not bodily. Maybe there was a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: bodily presence in the third grade example, but in this

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Speaker 1: junior high example, I was not there at all. It

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Speaker 1: was other characters, different factions, and you know, it was

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Speaker 1: like stuff sort of built on top of rough Ian

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Speaker 1: flux inspiration, so.

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Speaker 3: More equivalent to kind of like writing a fiction in

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Speaker 3: your head.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. But at the same time, this was definitely a

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Speaker 1: time period when I was also you know, trying to

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Speaker 1: write things and thinking about things that could be made

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Speaker 1: into a short story or a book. And this was

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Speaker 1: never an idea that I pointed in that direction, you know,

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Speaker 1: you know I was, and I wouldn't even I wasn't

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Speaker 1: even exploring it in things like dungeons and dragons at

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Speaker 1: the time, which I was also a creative outlet then

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Speaker 1: as it is now. But yeah, based on some of

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Speaker 1: these parameters, I would think that maybe this second one

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Speaker 1: constitutes some form of paracosm, though certainly not as rich

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Speaker 1: and elaborate as some of these other examples that I've

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Speaker 1: read about. You know, this is not a place that

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Speaker 1: had a name, It didn't have a it didn't have

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Speaker 1: its own language. I had no maps, but it had

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Speaker 1: you know, rather distinct action sequences laid out.

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Speaker 3: I would say, well, maybe we can come back to

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Speaker 3: this question later on. But yeah, this is making me

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Speaker 3: more and more curious about really what are the key

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Speaker 3: distinctions between having a paracosm and just say, writing a

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Speaker 3: fiction that you don't share with anybody else or maybe

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Speaker 3: the judiciary, you know who knows.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, as is pointed out in that

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Speaker 1: one definition, there's the idea that you might take it

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Speaker 1: on into adulthood and it becomes this cherish world that

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Speaker 1: you keep going. That is not the case with my

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Speaker 1: influx fan fiction or whatever it was you know at

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Speaker 1: the time. I mean, some of the sensibilities that I

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Speaker 1: that are associated with that I've certainly you know, carried on.

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Speaker 1: You know, I still like the idea of life forms

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Speaker 1: growing on spaceships. I still like you know, kick ass

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Speaker 1: female action heroes, that sort of thing. But you know,

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Speaker 1: this is not on the level of say like a

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Speaker 1: Middle Earth or something you know, or where the seeds

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Speaker 1: of it were present in middle childhood imagination and then

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Speaker 1: carries on into you know, grown up creative endeavors.

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Speaker 3: This made me just realize I might be able to

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Speaker 3: amend my earlier answer, this isn't. This was never something

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Speaker 3: super elaborate. But I remember there were a few times

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Speaker 3: when I was a kid when I would wake up

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Speaker 3: from having a really good dream. I would be frustrated

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Speaker 3: that the dream was over and want to be able

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Speaker 3: to continue the dream. So I would just sort of

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Speaker 3: like try to remember the world and the scenario of

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Speaker 3: the dream and keep thinking about it, and usually it

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Speaker 3: would go away pretty quick anyway. But like I remember,

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Speaker 3: there were a few I think that had similar contours.

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Speaker 3: Often they were about like discovering a secret passage or

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Speaker 3: a tunnel from my house that went somewhere really amazing.

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Speaker 1: Oh nice, Yeah, I think that does line up with

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Speaker 1: some of the things you know we're discussing here, and

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Speaker 1: is reference the role of dreams is referenced in that

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Speaker 1: tailor at all paper.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, though I don't think any of these ever really

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Speaker 3: continued for you know, more than a day or so,

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Speaker 3: But like I remember, at least a few of these

401
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:55,640
Speaker 3: instances making a strong impression, even if I didn't continue

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Speaker 3: to develop the world or re engage with it. So

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Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know where I fit into

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Speaker 3: this whole thing.

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Speaker 1: I'm hoping we'll get some really robust examples from listeners.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure there are some para cosms out there that

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Speaker 1: they can write in about now. As the authors point out,

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Speaker 1: one of the first challenges to understanding all of this is,

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Speaker 1: of course, the history of our understanding of paracosms. The

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Speaker 1: earliest accounts all centered around nineteenth and twentieth century authors

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Speaker 1: who enjoyed tremendous success with their works, the likes of

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Speaker 1: the Bronte Sisters. They shared. The sisters shared three different

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Speaker 1: worlds named Gondel, Angria and Galdin. I'm not super familiar

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Speaker 1: with them, but yeah, they had not one, not two,

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Speaker 1: but three para cosms between them. Robert Louis Stevenson is

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Speaker 1: another J. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Desmond Morris, Nietzsche,

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Speaker 1: also Thomas de Quincy I've seen thrown in there as well.

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Speaker 1: And you know, obviously this can present a fallacy of

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Speaker 1: excellence when it comes to paracosms. The idea that well,

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Speaker 1: if you've got imagine worlds in your middle childhood brain,

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Speaker 1: then you have everything. You just got your your futures

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Speaker 1: paved for you. So not to discount the vividness of

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Speaker 1: each individual's dreams. But I think I think it's fair

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Speaker 1: to say that none of them achieved success solely on

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Speaker 1: the strength of their childhood imaginations, though I think it's

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Speaker 1: likely somewhere in the equation.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this seems like a kind of selection bias, right,

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Speaker 3: Like you're just looking at famous authors who engaged in

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Speaker 3: paracosms when they were younger, but like you're not finding

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Speaker 3: out about all the people who had paracosms who didn't

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Speaker 3: become famous, right, right, But.

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Speaker 1: At the very least, these accounts linked the concept with

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Speaker 1: adult creativity, and we see subsequent research coming back to that.

434
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: So Robert Sylvie conducted UK research in the eighties on

435
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 1: the topic, finding a wide variety of paracosms and self

436
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 1: reports by adults. So I believe he reached out via

437
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,200
Speaker 1: publications and was asking, like, hey, write in to me,

438
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: tell me about your paracosms. This is what a paracosm

439
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: is slash was. And some of these were based on

440
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,360
Speaker 1: toys or props, others more or less forged fresh from

441
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: the individual's mind. So there's you know, there's a wide

442
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: variety there, you know. So this leads me to believe

443
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: that you know, loosely based on Gi Joe cartoon can

444
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: certainly count. Again, it need not be just this, you know,

445
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:24,400
Speaker 1: rich original imagined world, and some para cosms seemed quote

446
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 1: to serve as vehicles for storytelling and as a way

447
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: to explore real life interests. I believe the example that

448
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 1: one of the examples that Sylvie brought up was that

449
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 1: of some kids who were taking a foreign language class,

450
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: and then therefore their para cosms had a lot to

451
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 1: do with imagined languages.

452
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 3: Oh okay, but his.

453
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: Work indicated that paracosms peaked at nine and diminished by

454
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: age twelve.

455
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 3: Oh, and that would line up with because earlier you

456
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 3: said the most common range of paracosm activity is like

457
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 3: eight to twelve. So I guess it would like peak

458
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 3: by nine years old or so.

459
00:25:58,440 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

460
00:25:59,280 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 2: Now.

461
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: Creativity researcher Robert rut Bernstein explored the concept in subsequent decades,

462
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 1: factoring it into his interdisciplinary view of creativity, exploring the

463
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: idea that para cosms were perhaps more likely in recipients

464
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,640
Speaker 1: of the MacArthur Fellowship, though of note, he was also

465
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and had pera cosms

466
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: as a kid, So you know, that seems to be

467
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: where that idea came from. But you know, he speculated

468
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: that they that para cosms might be more prevalent in

469
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: individuals who later pursued a creative and artistic career to

470
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 1: be surprising. Yeah, to put some numbers on that, he

471
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: reported a rate of five to twenty six percent in

472
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: MacArthur Fellowship winners, as opposed to a rate of three

473
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: to twelve percent in the world at large. Okay, However,

474
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,719
Speaker 1: Taylor at all that main paper I was referencing earlier

475
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: stressed that by the year twenty twenty, at any rate,

476
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: most of what we'd put together on para cosms were

477
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 1: from adults looking back on their childhoods and not from

478
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: children in the rain age range associated with the height

479
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: of paracosms. Ah.

480
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 3: Okay, So there could be a strong bias in the

481
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 3: data we're getting based on what adults remember as opposed

482
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 3: to what children are actually doing with their minds in

483
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 3: their time.

484
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I don't know, I just you know, shooting

485
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: from the hip here, but you know, not oftentimes we're

486
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: looking back in our childhood represented with an idea like

487
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 1: paracosms and we're like, that sounds great. I wish I

488
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: had one of those what do I recollect that I

489
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: might be able to shoehorn into or into that category?

490
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: You know, like, if I'm being critical, I have to

491
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,359
Speaker 1: like second guess my own account here, Like, was that

492
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 1: was daydreaming about something related to a Gi Joe cartoon

493
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 1: actually a paracosm? Or do I just like the idea

494
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: that that was present in my imagination at the time.

495
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: Oh, we both now have just had the experience of

496
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 3: sitting here like half remembering our childhood thoughts and trying

497
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 3: to say does it fit the box or not?

498
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I mean not to say that you know,

499
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: it's completely wrong or anything, but obviously it would add

500
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,360
Speaker 1: to our understanding if we could also talk to children

501
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: who were right there in the thick of it, in

502
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: the same way as we discussed imaginary friends. There's a

503
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: lot of most of the research into imaginary friends and

504
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: imaginary companions really focuses now on talking to both parents,

505
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 1: all the children, and the children themselves to sort of

506
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 1: play one against the other and see what seems to

507
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: be the case. So Taylor at All's work attempts to

508
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: remedy this a bit. Looking at some seventy seven children

509
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: ages eight through twelve, they conducted a pair of studies

510
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: consisting of a series of questions as well as creativity

511
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: and storytelling exercises and evaluations, as well as at least

512
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: questionnaires to the parents to also get their view on everything.

513
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: So they found that seventeen point two percent of the

514
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: children reported having paracosms, while ten point one percent reported

515
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: what they call pre paracosm. So this would be a

516
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: specific place, either partially or wholly imagined, but with little

517
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: or no evidence of repeated engagement with the place and

518
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: or not much elaborated detail. So I don't know, it's

519
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: like a place you went once in your head or

520
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: you worked on a little bit, but it's not there's

521
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: nothing habitual about it.

522
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 3: I guess, Oh, this sounds more like my dream examples,

523
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 3: Like I had a good dream once and then I

524
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 3: really kept entertaining that idea for I don't know, a

525
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 3: day or two, but it's not something that stuck with

526
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 3: me throughout childhood.

527
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, nineteen percent engaged in pretend play, which we've been

528
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: talking about. Ten point one percent reported engagement with an

529
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: unelaborated pretend world from a book, movie, or video game.

530
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: So I don't think my Gi Joe example quite fits

531
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: that because it wasn't like one hundred percent Gi Joe.

532
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: But I can imagine it's very easy for children to

533
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: fall into this imaginative space of just engaging with a

534
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:00,479
Speaker 1: franchise that you really like and imagine world that has,

535
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: you know, already been presented to you pretty much wholesale.

536
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: Like you you're into Lord of the Rings, Well, take

537
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: your imagination there, like Tolkien's created all the details you need.

538
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a prefab Yeah.

539
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Four point seven percent engaged in thoughts about a

540
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: real world place they had visited or would like to visit.

541
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: Those sound like darling children. I was never one of them,

542
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: but but but yeah, yeah, it's like they went there before,

543
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: they have some experiences and they would like to go back,

544
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: or they're very fond of it, and they imagine the experience.

545
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: So yeah, that sounds good all day.

546
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 3: I dream of Abilene.

547
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Three point three percent reported dreams, so I

548
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: think in this we're maybe getting a little bit into

549
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: your dream example. And then forty three point eight percent

550
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: said no or provided no detail. So you know, based

551
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: on this one study, again, something like seventeen point two

552
00:30:54,920 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: percent of the kids had paracosms, and then uh, less

553
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 1: than half had nothing. But then there's also some wiggle

554
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: room for things that were adjacent to para cosms. So

555
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: what does all of this mean. Well, the author's stress

556
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: that paracosms do seem distinct from imaginary companions. Imaginary friends

557
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: are friends you engage with. They are individuals, while the

558
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: child's role in a paracosm is more of creator and observer,

559
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: so it's not a world you're really active in. It's

560
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: more world building. Like you said, Sometimes children seem to

561
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: generate para cosms as realms associated with a previous imaginary companion,

562
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: but other para cosms had no connection to previous imaginary companions.

563
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: And while I don't think they nailed this down specifically,

564
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: I gather it's possible for a child to engage in

565
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: paracosms without ever having had an imaginary companion to begin with.

566
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: My self report would seem to indicate this, unless, again,

567
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: I had an imaginary companion at some point that I

568
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: don't remember, and my mom doesn't remember either.

569
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 3: Which is very likely, yes, totally possible.

570
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: Here's some other general observations they make they said, paracosms

571
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: are not always private and maybe shared among children. We

572
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: can go back to the example from the Bronte sisters earlier, right,

573
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: you don't have to keep it all to yourself. You

574
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: can share it with those around you, and you can

575
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: have like a you know, it's almost like a role

576
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: playing setting. At that point. The link between paracosms and

577
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 1: creativity seems to vary, perhaps more pronounced when it comes

578
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: to storytelling as opposed to other creative exercises. So if

579
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: someone were just say, oh, well, this person had had

580
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: a parocosm when they were younger, so you know they

581
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: are more creative than those around them, you know that

582
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: that would be incorrect. Though it's possible they might have

583
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: a slight advantage on some storytelling creativity exercises.

584
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 3: Oh, that would also make sense to me. Not to

585
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 3: totally discount the idea that there might be some sort

586
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 3: of general creativity juice that is shared among the different

587
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 3: creative activities, but if one engages in paracosms, that sounds

588
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 3: to me more like practice toward experience in storytelling and

589
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 3: the writing of fiction than it does towards say, the

590
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 3: creation of music or of painting or something.

591
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, there may also be a correlation between paracosms and

592
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: decreased inhibition. The authors here point out that in other studies,

593
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 1: inhibitory control is also sometimes negatively correlated with creative behavior.

594
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 3: That's interesting. This may be something they already controlled for.

595
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 3: But I would also wonder if if a decreased roll

596
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 3: of inhibition makes a child more likely to tell people

597
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 3: about their paracosms, as opposed to just making them more

598
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 3: likely to have them. So that makes sense.

599
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: That is a great point. Yeah, I don't know that

600
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: they got into it in this study so much, but

601
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point because reporting, self reporting

602
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: is pretty much the main factor here. There's no other

603
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: way to know if there's an imagined world in there

604
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:56,479
Speaker 1: than by asking the child or the adult the child becomes.

605
00:33:57,080 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 3: Like, I wonder if just on self reports for all

606
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 3: kinds of any unusual behavior, you would get more. You

607
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 3: would find a correlation that people with lower inhibition are

608
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 3: more likely to say they do it, doesn't necessarily mean

609
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 3: they're more likely to actually do it.

610
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, However, they stress that surprising to them, children

611
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,720
Speaker 1: with para cosms don't really stand out from their peers

612
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: all that much. So it's easy to sort of have

613
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 1: this in your head, this idea of this remarkably weird

614
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:30,479
Speaker 1: Victorian child, you know, spilling the beans about their imagined world.

615
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: But and you know, and again standing out from the

616
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: crowd in major ways. But they write quote. They are

617
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: similar to their peers in verbal comprehension, working memory, and

618
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: the most commonly used creative creativity task in which children

619
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: are asked to generate uses for a common object. Where

620
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: they do stand out is story is in storytelling. Not

621
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: only were the narratives of their paracosms impressive, they invented

622
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: more creative endings to a story than the endings proposed

623
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: by other children, a finding that was consistent across the

624
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: two studies and in the combined analysis. And on top

625
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 1: of that, on a sort of broader level, they discuss

626
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: how creative storytelling seems to have, you know, broad positive

627
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,760
Speaker 1: influence on our ability to examine alternative viewpoints and engage

628
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: in different modes of empathy, and how paracosms and children

629
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 1: may relate to this.

630
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 3: Well, we've already talked about the likely link and cognitive

631
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 3: development between pretend to play in general, of which paracosms

632
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 3: are sort of one extreme form and counterfactual reasoning. I

633
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:35,439
Speaker 3: would say that there is a broad overlap between counterfactual

634
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 3: reasoning and the ability to tell stories.

635
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. So it's you know, this

636
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: is really fascinating stuff. You know, I honestly can't remember

637
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: how much we may have gotten into paracosms in discussing

638
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,919
Speaker 1: that topic of maladaptive daydreaming. Maybe not at all. Maybe

639
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: we touched on it a little bit, but at any rate,

640
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: it's not a topic I'd really looked at recently, and

641
00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 1: so this was and certainly not since twenty twenty when

642
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: this paper came out. So yeah, this was really fascinating,

643
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 1: and I would of course love to hear anyone out

644
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: there who wants to write into the show and tell

645
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 1: us about your para cosms from your childhood, what you

646
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,720
Speaker 1: took with you, what you left behind, what they seemed

647
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: to consist of, and how they sort of ranked up,

648
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: how they matched up with this ranking system that we

649
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: just ran through.

650
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 3: Top five all time para cosms. All right, Well, the

651
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 3: next thing I wanted to look at on the subject

652
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 3: of pretend play is the idea of pretending across cultures.

653
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:44,320
Speaker 3: As we've discussed multiple times already, pretend play research, like

654
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 3: most psychological research, suffers from the deficiency that subjects tested

655
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 3: in the published literature are not a perfectly random sample

656
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 3: of humankind as a whole, but instead are predominantly from

657
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:01,800
Speaker 3: the weird cultures western educated industry realized, rich, democratic cultures.

658
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,320
Speaker 3: The majority of these studies were conducted in the United States, Canada,

659
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:07,839
Speaker 3: and Europe, so it would be great to know more

660
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 3: about pretend play across different cultures around the world. Is

661
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 3: it largely the same or are there major cultural differences?

662
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 3: Now this was addressed a little bit in one of

663
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 3: the big papers that I've been talking about in this series.

664
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 3: This was a review of the research on pretend play

665
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 3: as of the year twenty fifteen by a researcher named

666
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 3: Dina Skolnik Weisberg, published in WIHY Interdisciplinary Reviews Cognitive Science. Again,

667
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 3: that was the year twenty fifteen, and Weissberg goes through

668
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 3: a basic review of the cross cultural literature and summarizes

669
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 3: some of the main findings, one of which is that

670
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,280
Speaker 3: some form of pretend play in childhood really does appear

671
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 3: to be universal. As far as we can tell. This

672
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 3: is something basically all children in all cultures do, but

673
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 3: there are some big differences, and I'll get to that

674
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 3: in a second. Another that seems to be fairly universal

675
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 3: is the developmental sequence. So it appears that the sequence

676
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 3: is roughly the same across different cultures. Seems that it

677
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 3: often begins on a similar schedule, and I think this

678
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 3: means that usually you will get the first observable form

679
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 3: being object, substitution, and so forth. However, there are clearly

680
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 3: major cultural differences in pretend play that manifest in the

681
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 3: amount of time spent on it and the themes and

682
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 3: contents of the play. And this is interesting because it

683
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 3: varies across national culture lines. So you can look at, say,

684
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 3: the cultures of different countries and how the children do

685
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 3: pretend to play in each country, and you can find

686
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:47,719
Speaker 3: some differences, but you also find subcultural differences within countries.

687
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 3: And that's going to lead us to one of the

688
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 3: big things I want to talk about in the section here.

689
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 3: But to start off, Weisberg sites one study that compared

690
00:38:55,960 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 3: the play themes of American children and Chinese children and

691
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 3: found that while pretend play exists in both cultures, obviously

692
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 3: American children's play tended to have more fantasy content in

693
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 3: these studies, fantasy content is non realistic material, so things

694
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 3: like talking animals, magical beings, and so forth, and that

695
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 3: the pretend play of Chinese children on average tended to

696
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 3: have more realistic content. And within some cultures or subcultures,

697
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 3: it's clear that this is to some extent influenced by

698
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 3: the preferences and instruction of parents. Like in some cultures

699
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 3: and subcultures, parents will be more or less encouraging of

700
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 3: pretend play, and these tendencies affect how much children do it.

701
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 3: But even in cases where parents are actively discouraging it,

702
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 3: it really seems that it doesn't stamp it out completely.

703
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 3: And this brings me to a paper that I wanted

704
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 3: to talk about, which actually shares one of the authors

705
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 3: of one of the main PARACOSM papers you were just

706
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 3: talking about. This is a paper that's looking at pretend

707
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 3: play across different religious subcultures within the United States. So

708
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 3: the paper is called The Influence of Culture on Pretend

709
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 3: Play The Case of Mennonite Children, published in the Meryl

710
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 3: Palmer Quarterly in nineteen ninety eight by Stephanie M. Carlson,

711
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor, and Gerald R. Levin, and this study wanted

712
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 3: to look at attitudes toward pretend play within Mennonite society

713
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 3: in two different branches of Mennonite culture. One was looking

714
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 3: at what they called Old Order Mennonites and then also

715
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 3: at New Order Mennonites. I can mention differences in a

716
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 3: second and then also comparing that to non Mennonite Christians. Now,

717
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,760
Speaker 3: apologies to the Mennonites for the brevity of the summary

718
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 3: of their culture I'm about to give you know you

719
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 3: can't summarize the entire culture and a sentence, but essentially,

720
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 3: Mennonites are known for having a fairly strict, community oriented

721
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 3: way of life that emphasizes modesty, hard work, and piety.

722
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:12,320
Speaker 3: Often Mennonites are engaged in agriculture for a living, and

723
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 3: they often deny the use of certain modern technologies and

724
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 3: limit interface with the broader culture, though this varies within

725
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 3: different branches of the Mennonite tradition. The Amish are one

726
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 3: well known branch of the Mennonite faith. In the specific

727
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 3: context of this study where they were where the authors

728
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 3: were framing New Order Mennonites versus Old Order Mennonites, the

729
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 3: New Order Mennonites seem to be less stringent in some

730
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 3: particular areas of faith doctrine and social lifestyle. So, for example,

731
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 3: had apparently fewer sort of social conformity mechanisms to enforce

732
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,839
Speaker 3: adherence to the social doctrine about about dress and use

733
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 3: of technology and things like that. And it appears, just

734
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 3: based on the small sample of like looking at the

735
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,479
Speaker 3: teachers in this study and what different technologies they used,

736
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 3: that the New Order Mennonites were engaging with or were

737
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 3: generally permitted to use more modern technology in a wider

738
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 3: range of scenarios than people in the Old Order. So

739
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 3: the survey of teachers found that like neither the Old

740
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 3: nor the New Order, Mennonites went to the movies or

741
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 3: had a TV at home, but the New Order teachers

742
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 3: were more likely to have electricity in the home and

743
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 3: to drive a car. So why focus on the example

744
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 3: of Mennonite children when looking for differences in parental culture

745
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 3: on how children engage in pretend play? Well, there was

746
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 3: already some background literature the on Mennonite attitudes towards children's

747
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 3: pretend play and toward fantasy. The authors say that in general, quote,

748
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 3: acceptable reading material for Mennite children include stories that represent

749
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 3: an American rural way of life and teach a moral

750
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 3: lesson such as the value of hard work. Stories that

751
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 3: have a fantasy orientation are considered unacceptable. The Amish quote

752
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 3: do not want their children and to read fairy tales

753
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 3: or myths. Many object to any stories that are not true,

754
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 3: such as those in which animals talk and act like people,

755
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 3: or stories that involve magic, such as the Pied Piper

756
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 3: of Hamlin. And this is citing older research by Hostetler

757
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 3: and Huntington from nineteen seventy one. And then the authors

758
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,240
Speaker 3: of this paper go on to mention that the founder

759
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 3: of the Mennonite faith Minno Simons, who was a Catholic

760
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 3: priest in the sixteenth century who became an Anabaptist, and

761
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 3: again the founder of this faith was down on pretend play.

762
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 3: Essentially said, parents, do not encourage your children to engage

763
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 3: in frivolous activities. Don't you know pretend is no good.

764
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 3: The quote he said was quote wink not at their follies.

765
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 3: The author is also stressed that the Mennonites tend to

766
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 3: believe that children should not just be idols, should not

767
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 3: just like have a lot of free time to run

768
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,479
Speaker 3: around and do whatever that they you know, they should

769
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 3: be engaged in in structured productive time. You know, they

770
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 3: have school laying, and they have helping out with things

771
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 3: and so forth, and that it's detrimental to them to

772
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 3: be idle too much. And we've already talked before about

773
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 3: how sort of a free playtime alone may be a

774
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 3: significant factor in the development of different pretend play skills

775
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 3: and the likelihood of developing certain pretend play elements such

776
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 3: as imaginary companions. So this paper has a couple of

777
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 3: different studies, and one of them is comparing the behaviors

778
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 3: and attitudes of school teachers toward pretend play, and that

779
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 3: was looking at Old Order Mennonite, New Order Mennonite, and

780
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 3: non Mennonite Christian teachers, and then also later looking at

781
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 3: the directly observing the play of children at recess to

782
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 3: look for signs of pretend play and see if there

783
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 3: were differences between the three faith environments. Specifically, when looking

784
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 3: at the attitudes of the adult school teachers, they expected

785
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,839
Speaker 3: to find that the Mennonite teachers would have have more

786
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 3: negative attitudes toward pretend to play and would be sort

787
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 3: of would have negative attitudes themselves about pretense and would

788
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 3: be discouraging of it in children. Did the results actually

789
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 3: match up with that well sort of, but with some surprises.

790
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,440
Speaker 3: They did find that overall, Mennonite school teachers were not

791
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 3: as supportive of pretend to play as non Mennonite Christian teachers. However,

792
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 3: unlike the New Order and the non Mennonite Christian teachers,

793
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:33,240
Speaker 3: several of the Old Order teachers in their study reported

794
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 3: that they actually participated in pretend to play with the

795
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 3: children at recess. That was kind of counterintuitive. They also

796
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 3: found that Old Order Mennonite teachers were also positive about

797
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 3: some types of fantasy, though not all, saying that they

798
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 3: shared their own dreams or daydreams with the children, something

799
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 3: not said by the teachers from the other groups. Also,

800
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 3: Old Order teachers were on the whole, surprisingly positive about

801
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:07,800
Speaker 3: imaginary companions. The authors wrote, quote, it is interesting that

802
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 3: imaginary companions are mentioned in one of the very few

803
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 3: published firsthand reports of Minnite childhood experiences. They cite a

804
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 3: book by Weaver in nineteen eighty three which quote described

805
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 3: how as a child she invented an imaginary companion who was,

806
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 3: unlike herself, able to wear fancy clothes and wear her

807
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 3: hair and curls now. Despite that example in this other book,

808
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 3: the authors stressed that in their direct observations in the study,

809
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 3: there were no reports of imaginary companions allowing a vicarious

810
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:42,839
Speaker 3: way around social restrictions. Instead, they were described as more

811
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 3: filling a social void. However, it's possible that information about

812
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 3: I don't know, thrill seeking or non conforming elements of

813
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 3: imaginary companions were being hidden or filtered out in these reports,

814
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:58,760
Speaker 3: I mean to the researchers, not by the researchers. Another

815
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 3: really interesting costs specifically with respect to the imaginary companions,

816
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 3: Several of the New Order and non Mennonite Christian teachers

817
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 3: were actually somewhat concerned in a psychological or spiritual sense

818
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 3: about imaginary companions, fearing that they might be evidence of

819
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 3: a psychological problem or literally of demonic possession.

820
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean getting into a scenario where the child

821
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 1: is talking about an imagined entity that's speaking to them

822
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: and perhaps sharing knowledge with them that knows more than

823
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 1: they do. Is matching up with what we discussed in

824
00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: the last episode.

825
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 3: I want to come back to that question here in

826
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:40,120
Speaker 3: a minute. But okay, So that was the first study

827
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 3: looking at the attitudes of teachers somewhat lined up. The

828
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 3: Mennonite teachers were on average not as supportive of playing pretend,

829
00:47:48,719 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 3: but there were some surprises, more variation than expected. So

830
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 3: let's go to study number two. This again was observing

831
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 3: the play of children at recess and looking for signs

832
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 3: of pretense of pretend play to see if there were

833
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 3: differences between the three faith environments. The main finding was

834
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 3: that Old Order Mennonite children showed differences in pretend play,

835
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 3: but not deficits. So it was not that they didn't

836
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 3: play pretend, but what they pretended was notably different. The

837
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:33,240
Speaker 3: content was different, and they found that Old Order Mennite

838
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 3: children tended to pretend with more realistic themes about work

839
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 3: and adult roles within their community. There was less fantasy,

840
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,520
Speaker 3: less separation of the play themes from the working order

841
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 3: of reality, and the authors note that this is in

842
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 3: line with previous findings that when you say ask children

843
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:57,320
Speaker 3: to draw pictures, and you compare the drawings of Amish

844
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 3: school children with non Amish children, Amish kids drawings were

845
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:06,360
Speaker 3: much more concerned with realistic daily activities like raking leaves

846
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:09,760
Speaker 3: or taking care of babies, whereas the non Amish children,

847
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 3: by comparison, engaged in a lot more fantasy ideation in

848
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:18,399
Speaker 3: their drawings. Now why this difference, Well, for one thing,

849
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 3: this does seem to be exactly the kind of thinking

850
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 3: that the more strict Mennonite communities encourage. Mennonite adults, on average,

851
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 3: are more supportive of pretend play when it concerns the

852
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:35,840
Speaker 3: children's own intended future lives. So like I am pretending

853
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 3: to be a father or a mother, I am pretending

854
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 3: to be a farmer, and so forth. Also, Old Order

855
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 3: Mennonite children, the authors point out, have limited exposure to

856
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 3: fantasy themes through culture. These children generally do not watch

857
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 3: movies or TV. They usually don't read books with fantasy themes.

858
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 3: So it could be that they are simply given much

859
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:03,880
Speaker 3: less external inspiration and to entertain non realistic ideas and scenarios.

860
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 3: I don't know how much of a role that plays,

861
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,359
Speaker 3: but that does seem significant now.

862
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: I mean, I instantly though, wonder about the Bible's role,

863
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: and I had the same question. Yeah, the Bible is

864
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:18,919
Speaker 1: full of magic and giants and dragons and any number

865
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: of fantastic themes.

866
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 3: I want to ask a question at the end, and

867
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 3: that it'll bring us back to that as well. Okay,

868
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 3: another interesting observation that the authors make here is that

869
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 3: even though the Old Order Mennonite children did play pretend,

870
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 3: they certainly did, they sometimes appeared to lack the vocabulary

871
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 3: to properly discuss the idea of pretend play. And here

872
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 3: I want to read from a passage the author's write quote.

873
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 3: For example, an Old Order Mennonite first grader in our

874
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 3: study did not know the word pretend when he came

875
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:55,240
Speaker 3: across it in a story about a bird who feigned

876
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,320
Speaker 3: death to deceive a predator. So to be clear, this

877
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 3: is not even a story about play. This is like

878
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:04,360
Speaker 3: a story about nature, but it just involves the idea

879
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:06,800
Speaker 3: of pretending, as in like feigning something.

880
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, this lines up with some of the study limitations

881
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 1: that were discussing. That meta analysis that I discussed in

882
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:15,720
Speaker 1: the last episode is that sometimes talking to the children

883
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,799
Speaker 1: is the best source. But also on one hand, they

884
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: just might not have they might not have the linguistic

885
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: ability to really discuss everything, to really couch it in

886
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:27,719
Speaker 1: terms that makes sense.

887
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 3: Right, So, this is a child who comes across the

888
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:33,280
Speaker 3: idea of pretending in a story about nature and doesn't

889
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 3: know what the word means. I want to stress. However, though,

890
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:39,280
Speaker 3: that does not mean that the child did not pretend.

891
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 3: You can do something without having the words to describe

892
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 3: what you're doing, The authors continue quote. On another occasion,

893
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,279
Speaker 3: the first author noted the comments of an old Order

894
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:54,560
Speaker 3: girl who was observing another girl dress adult. She kept repeating,

895
00:51:54,760 --> 00:52:00,200
Speaker 3: in a dismissive tone, it's not a right baby. We

896
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 3: questioned her and learned that she was trying to express

897
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 3: that the doll was not a real baby.

898
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: Oh, how I wish we called baby dolls wrong babies.

899
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 1: That would so great.

900
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:12,959
Speaker 3: I don't want to do this in my house because

901
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 3: it has bad normative implications. But yeah, that would be

902
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 3: hilarious to call everything pretend wrong. This is wrong dinosaur,

903
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 3: this is wrong food.

904
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:28,080
Speaker 1: But that's fascinating. It's so easy to take the concept

905
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:31,359
Speaker 1: of pretend for granted, even with children, that it would

906
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:34,360
Speaker 1: just be a concept that you would latch onto so early.

907
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, not necessarily. You might not have the word

908
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 1: for it, even if the concept is still clearly there

909
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:42,040
Speaker 1: in their mind. But how do you refer to it?

910
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 3: Mm hm. Another possible explanation for these findings, similar to

911
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 3: the last one, is the idea that old Order Mennonite

912
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 3: children had comparatively fewer what the authors call environmental triggers

913
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 3: for fantasy based pretend to play than New Order Mennonites

914
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 3: or non in and Night Christians. And you can think

915
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 3: of a lot of these triggers. Sometimes I think we

916
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:09,239
Speaker 3: might forget to acknowledge how many things and things in

917
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 3: the world were surrounded by that just cause us to imagine.

918
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 3: So examples could be like toys and costumes, other play props, decorations,

919
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 3: classroom decorations with fantasy themes. You might not think about those,

920
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 3: but they talked about, you know, like a poster up

921
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 3: on the classroom wall that has the Easter Bunny on it,

922
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 3: or you know, oh, that actually is a kind of

923
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 3: fantasy theme. They even cite elaborate playground equipment, which the

924
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 3: Old Order Mien and Night children did not have, and

925
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 3: the author I didn't know this, but the authors cite

926
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 3: previous research that had found that more elaborate playground equipment,

927
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 3: as opposed to simpler traditional playground equipment, has been found

928
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 3: to quote promote socio dramatic play themes. So I think

929
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 3: the idea might be that you know, these more complex

930
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 3: kind of I don't know what even the terms for

931
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 3: these things are now, But like these kind of towers

932
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 3: and stuff that children climb on and have a good

933
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:08,839
Speaker 3: time on might promote a more dramatic, collaborative, fictional way

934
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 3: of playing, if that makes any sense.

935
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:12,920
Speaker 1: No, No, I can see that. Spent enough time on

936
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:15,320
Speaker 1: playgrounds that I think I can see it.

937
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 2: You know.

938
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 1: It's like, even if it's certainly you have playgrounds where

939
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 1: the equipment is taking the form of a ship, where

940
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 1: it's taking the form of, oh, I guess generally a castle.

941
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: But even if there's nothing that fixed, yeah, you have

942
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:32,720
Speaker 1: like a dynamic system built out there, like the drama

943
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,760
Speaker 1: kind of rights itself, you know, like you know, differing

944
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:40,239
Speaker 1: heights involved, narrowing spaces, bridges and so forth.

945
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:43,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So I didn't know this, but it makes

946
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:44,960
Speaker 3: sense to me as well. I can I can see

947
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:48,920
Speaker 3: that being true. Okay, So one more explanation the authors

948
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:55,879
Speaker 3: offer that is community orientation. So Old Order Mennonites tend

949
00:54:56,000 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 3: to be very focused on communal harmony and take a

950
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:06,359
Speaker 3: somewhat negative view of individualism. And interestingly, I don't think

951
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:09,359
Speaker 3: I would have put this together, but this really caught

952
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:14,800
Speaker 3: me here. Previous research has found that Pretend play with

953
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:21,880
Speaker 3: realistic themes may help foster communal play between children because

954
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,800
Speaker 3: the script and the roles are more likely to be

955
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 3: familiar to all the children. So I don't think that

956
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 3: would have occurred to me naturally, but it's true, like

957
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 3: if we're kids out on the playground and we're playing

958
00:55:35,239 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 3: I don't know, playing games that I used to play,

959
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 3: which are like, let's act out the latest movie that

960
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:42,680
Speaker 3: I saw and obsessed with. So we're playing Santo versus

961
00:55:42,719 --> 00:55:46,279
Speaker 3: the Martian Invasion. Only the children who have seen the

962
00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 3: movie or are already familiar with the characters in the

963
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:53,839
Speaker 3: game will easily be able to participate. Kids who are

964
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,239
Speaker 3: not familiar with what's going on are really going to

965
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 3: be at a loss here. But if we all come

966
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 3: from farming families and we all play Farmer or we

967
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 3: play house, every child is going to have some kind

968
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:09,879
Speaker 3: of relevant experience and know roughly how to play the game.

969
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 3: So the idea is realistic. Pretend play is more accessible

970
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 3: to more children, more easily, and the author's right. In contrast,

971
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:23,879
Speaker 3: children who have a more individualistic orientation are more likely

972
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 3: to pursue more imaginative themes, which require negotiation and often

973
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:33,480
Speaker 3: result in conflict among play partners. And I know, you know,

974
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:36,759
Speaker 3: we're partisans of imaginative play and fantasy themes and all that,

975
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 3: so we're not down talking it. But I can absolutely

976
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:42,719
Speaker 3: see this being true. Do you see this, Rob Yeah?

977
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:44,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there are I guess a few different

978
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:46,279
Speaker 1: ways to think about it. On one hand, there's the

979
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:49,920
Speaker 1: the You can easily imagine one child having to explain

980
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,320
Speaker 1: their obsession the game they want to play based on

981
00:56:56,080 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: some sort of curated fandom that these other kids don't have.

982
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:02,400
Speaker 1: I feel like it's more common these days, you know,

983
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 1: with kids who you know have grown up on a

984
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,320
Speaker 1: particular media diet that might be a little more niche

985
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: in some regards. You know, you know, one kid wants

986
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 1: to play Thunder of the Barbarian. No other kids are

987
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 1: watching Thunder of the Barbarian anymore, but you know their

988
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 1: parent insisted on handing this nineteen eighties Hanna Barbara cartoon

989
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:24,720
Speaker 1: onto them, and that means they have to maybe have

990
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: a frustrating job of explaining like, no, it's not a lightsaber,

991
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:31,480
Speaker 1: Thundar has a different type of light sun sort or

992
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:32,240
Speaker 1: whatever it was.

993
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 3: Kids could be mean about this.

994
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:38,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you don't know But then on the other hand,

995
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 1: like thinking about what are the differences between playing Star

996
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:44,840
Speaker 1: Wars and playing House or Farm? Like, House or Farm

997
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: don't really have conflict or factions. It's everyone, like you've

998
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: been saying, it's communal, everyone's working together, whereas Star Wars

999
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:54,480
Speaker 1: is all about the factions. Well, like are you going

1000
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: to be? You know, the good guys are the bad guys?

1001
00:57:56,600 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 1: What are your what's your lightsaber like? And who gets

1002
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:01,120
Speaker 1: to win? And so I can imagine a scenario where

1003
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:02,160
Speaker 1: that leads to more conflict.

1004
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 3: Just to set the record straight, I think farm can

1005
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 3: have all kinds of conflicts.

1006
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 1: Oh but how many?

1007
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:11,040
Speaker 3: Maybe not the kids under how many?

1008
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 1: Yeah? How many of those stories have they they actually

1009
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:17,680
Speaker 1: engaged with? But in the Star Wars scenario, though, I

1010
00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:20,919
Speaker 1: will say that eventually a grown up may interfere and say,

1011
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:24,959
Speaker 1: you're all Jedi and you're all fighting invisible droids, stop

1012
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 1: hitting each other with sticks. That's what I did.

1013
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, But in that frame of mind. The authors go

1014
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 3: on to invoke the variable emphasis on like collective social

1015
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 3: well being versus individualistic expression in different cultures and subcultures,

1016
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 3: noting that in general, if a culture or subculture places

1017
00:58:47,880 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 3: more value on social harmony and the avoidance of conflict.

1018
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 3: This could lead to a d emphasis on fantasy themes

1019
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:58,360
Speaker 3: and pretend to play and a greater preference for realistic

1020
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:00,760
Speaker 3: themes for the reason we just discos. Not that it's

1021
00:59:00,800 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 3: always going to work out that way, but that's one

1022
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 3: thing that could be operative in making these distinctions. Now,

1023
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 3: there's a final question I want to come back to

1024
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:12,120
Speaker 3: that we've sort of touched on a couple of times already,

1025
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 3: and this is something that comes up in the cross

1026
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 3: cultural section of that paper by Weisberg I mentioned, and

1027
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 3: this is the question of how should we think about

1028
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 3: pretend or imaginative play in a cultural context where adults

1029
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:31,600
Speaker 3: and authority figures do not agree that the pretend elements

1030
00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 3: are only pretend. So as a background, you know, we

1031
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 3: talked in part one about the question of can children

1032
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 3: really tell the difference between pretend and reality? This concern

1033
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:45,240
Speaker 3: parents might have and even some you know, some researchers

1034
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 3: have had this concern, or I think that page was

1035
00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 3: concerned sometimes that children couldn't tell the difference between fantasy

1036
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 3: and reality, didn't know whether you know, the pretend game

1037
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 3: was really real or not. By and large, it seems

1038
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 3: like the research says mostly children can tell the difference.

1039
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 3: They make a few more errors along these lines than

1040
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 3: adults do, but generally they know what's real and what isn't.

1041
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 3: But that kind of question seems a lot more cut

1042
01:00:11,880 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 3: and dry when everybody, including like all the parents and

1043
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 3: adults will all agree that yeah, okay, so you're playing dinosaur,

1044
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:24,000
Speaker 3: but you're not really a dinosaur right now, or yes,

1045
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 3: it's great that you have an imaginary companion and you

1046
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 3: play with them, that we're not being discouraging of that

1047
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,720
Speaker 3: at all, But there's not like literally actually another person here,

1048
01:00:32,880 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 3: and the child actually knows that the adults agree. But

1049
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 3: in the case of imaginary friends, there are some cultural

1050
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 3: contexts in which the adults might say, no, wait a minute,

1051
01:00:44,800 --> 01:00:48,640
Speaker 3: there may really be a being. There two versions of this,

1052
01:00:48,840 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 3: one positive and one with negative connotations. Starting it with

1053
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 3: the negative one, we've already mentioned research documenting how some

1054
01:00:56,960 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 3: Christian parents and teachers have regarded imaginary friends and companions

1055
01:01:02,080 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 3: as dangerous, not just because they are an unwelcome fantasy,

1056
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 3: but maybe because of the religious beliefs of the adults.

1057
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:12,840
Speaker 3: They think this imaginary friend might be a demon. So

1058
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:16,880
Speaker 3: the adult says the imaginary friend. So maybe the child

1059
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:21,400
Speaker 3: thinks the imaginary friend is just pretend, but the adult says, no,

1060
01:01:21,840 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 3: the imaginary friend is real and is dangerous.

1061
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:28,880
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Now obviously you can imagine the opposite scenario

1062
01:01:28,960 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 1: as well, where it's thought of as an angel or

1063
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 1: more so sort of just you know, other harmless sort

1064
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: of like I don't know, Victorian notion of a fairy.

1065
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 3: Yes, in fact, I had an example of that. So

1066
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 3: the author here also mentioned studies documenting and I think

1067
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 3: you actually mentioned this in your section on imaginary companions

1068
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:52,240
Speaker 3: in part two, but it's been documented in some East

1069
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 3: Indian households that children's imaginary friends or pretend to play

1070
01:01:57,160 --> 01:02:01,320
Speaker 3: are sometimes thought to be interactions with other worldly beings

1071
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 3: generally benign. It is generally not thought of as like

1072
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 3: this is a demon that's dangerous, but like a benign

1073
01:02:07,040 --> 01:02:10,720
Speaker 3: positive entity or memory from a past life. So in

1074
01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 3: this case, the adult may say the imaginary friend could

1075
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 3: be real, but that's fine. I feel like these kinds

1076
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:21,560
Speaker 3: of situations really complicate the question of looking into do

1077
01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:25,720
Speaker 3: children know what is real versus what is pretend, because

1078
01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:29,160
Speaker 3: surely their frame of reference for that has to be

1079
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 3: taken largely from the cues given by the adults around them.

1080
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:36,880
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, this is a fascinating area to sort of

1081
01:02:36,960 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 1: like dip our toes into, like where you have one hand,

1082
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 1: childhood understanding of the unseen world and creation of the

1083
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:50,920
Speaker 1: unseen world, and then adult and larger cultural concepts of

1084
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:53,919
Speaker 1: the unseen world. What happens when these two meet? Where

1085
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 1: do they coalesce? Where did they where are they at

1086
01:02:58,080 --> 01:02:58,960
Speaker 1: odds with each other?

1087
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:00,520
Speaker 3: You know?

1088
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:02,520
Speaker 1: And it's I mean, it's a it's a it's a

1089
01:03:02,560 --> 01:03:04,320
Speaker 1: weird area because a lot of what is going on

1090
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 1: there's like one idea of of adulthood is that you

1091
01:03:08,120 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 1: and parenthood is that you are telling children what is real.

1092
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: You're preparing them for the real world, the mundane world,

1093
01:03:16,200 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 1: the physical world, and often in very broad strokes, you know,

1094
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:23,040
Speaker 1: when they're young, the idea of like I want to

1095
01:03:23,160 --> 01:03:25,760
Speaker 1: keep you from dying, I need to keep you safe.

1096
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:28,760
Speaker 1: But then you begin to if you begin to introduce

1097
01:03:29,200 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 1: these other concepts of an unseen world of spiritual entities

1098
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 1: and deities, like you know, that that adds this entirely

1099
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:40,040
Speaker 1: other complex layer. Like one one example that comes to

1100
01:03:40,080 --> 01:03:42,880
Speaker 1: mind is the idea of you know, of children saying,

1101
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:46,680
Speaker 1: you know, talking about prayer to God and speaking to God,

1102
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:49,520
Speaker 1: and when the idea is eventually introduced that God will

1103
01:03:49,520 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: speak back, you know what. And depending on what kind

1104
01:03:52,560 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 1: of emphasis is put on that, and how that is

1105
01:03:54,360 --> 01:03:57,080
Speaker 1: explained or not explained to a child like that can

1106
01:03:57,160 --> 01:03:59,720
Speaker 1: create all sorts of of questions, you know, like while

1107
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: why am I not hearing a voice back? Or what

1108
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:04,560
Speaker 1: if I do hear a voice back? And then how

1109
01:04:04,600 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 1: does that get folded up into everything?

1110
01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:09,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this really ties into a question. Actually,

1111
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:10,959
Speaker 3: this I think is probably going to be a major

1112
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:13,800
Speaker 3: thing I want to talk about in the next part

1113
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:16,120
Speaker 3: if you're willing, Robbie willing to go to another part.

1114
01:04:15,960 --> 01:04:16,960
Speaker 1: On particularly with me.

1115
01:04:17,120 --> 01:04:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.

1116
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: We're already getting some great feedback from listeners, so I

1117
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 1: think we should definitely move forward.

1118
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:25,800
Speaker 3: Absolutely keep it coming. Contact at stuff to Blow your

1119
01:04:25,840 --> 01:04:28,440
Speaker 3: Mind dot com. But anyway, I was going to say,

1120
01:04:28,720 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 3: it's the question of what, if anything, do children learn

1121
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:38,000
Speaker 3: about the real world from engaging with pretend scenarios. But yeah,

1122
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:39,960
Speaker 3: more to come in part four and who knows what

1123
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 3: lies beyond, But I think that does it for today.

1124
01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 1: I think, so we'll go ahead and close it out here.

1125
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:46,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, again, we'd love to hear from everyone out there,

1126
01:04:47,160 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 1: just to remind it that Stuff to Blow Your Mind

1127
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 1: is primarily a science some culture podcast with core episodes

1128
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we run a short

1129
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 1: form episode. The one last week was had to do

1130
01:04:57,360 --> 01:05:00,200
Speaker 1: with something from Stephen King's Children of the Corn. I

1131
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:03,520
Speaker 1: think that was largely an accident that if we'd covered

1132
01:05:03,640 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 1: Children of the Corn and Imaginary Friends and so forth

1133
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:10,120
Speaker 1: in such close proximity to one another, and then on

1134
01:05:10,240 --> 01:05:13,040
Speaker 1: Fridays we just set aside time to just talk about

1135
01:05:13,040 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 1: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1136
01:05:15,200 --> 01:05:19,120
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1137
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1138
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:23,320
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other to send

1139
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:27,160
Speaker 3: us your thoughts about childhood, pretend to play paracosms, and

1140
01:05:27,360 --> 01:05:30,040
Speaker 3: any of the rest, you can email us at contact

1141
01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:32,200
Speaker 3: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1142
01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:42,360
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1143
01:05:42,480 --> 01:05:45,240
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1144
01:05:45,440 --> 01:05:48,160
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.

1145
01:06:01,720 --> 01:06:01,760
Speaker 2: U