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Transcript

Scared to Death · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Why We Do what We do. I am
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: your fainting host, Abraham and.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I am your terrified host Shane.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about all of
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the things that people and animals do and psychology related topics.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And in the month of October we take a minute
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a beat, if you will, to stop and celebrate the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: spookier side of psychology and human culture and human behavior.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, and today we are talking about continuing our theme
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: of this holiday spooky season, the conversation about fear and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: fearful things. And so today we are talking about the
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: question of can you be scared to death?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Yes. We started this month's series of Halloween themed episodes
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: by doing a deep dive into the concept of fear,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the emotion of fear, and sort of how that affects
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: us physiologically and otherwise. And this is going to build
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: on that. So if you haven't heard it, that are
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: some useful context there. But this is meant to be
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a fully standalone discussion, so we will unpack the relevant
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: necessary components of fear to help make this conversation make sense.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But as I said, or as Shane said, I didn't
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: say it, but as Shane said, The whole question we were
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: asking is can you be so scared, so terrified and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: frightened and spooked that it actually kills you? Is that
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a thing? And so we learned about it, and that's
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about today.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, we are. We are talking about this. We're going
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: to set some background information, we're going to do our discussions,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and we're going to revisit some of the major things
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: that we've discussed in previous episodes as well, specifically around fear.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: But I think that you all will be pretty intrigued
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: by this one.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's fine, and I should say that if
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you are joining us for the first time, then welcome.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I'm so happy that you made it here. If you
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: are a returning listener who's been with us for a while,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: then welcome back. So happy you are here as well.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And if you end up liking what you hear today
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and would like to support us, you can join us
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: on Patreon, head over to our website, pick up some
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: merch leave us a rating and review. And one of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the best old fashioned ways to really get the word
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: out is to just tell a friend, Just tell them
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: about this cool podcast you heard. Yeah, but you can
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: do any of all of those things if you'd like.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And even before we dive into our answering the question
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: about whether or not you can be scared to death,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I would like to wish you a happy Department Store Day. Hey,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: J C.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Penny, I think Happy Missouri.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Day, National Missouri Day.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry, Yes, National Missouri Day. You're right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It is also Hagfish Day, so have a good day,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: you hagfish out there.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've earned it. It's diction for those of you
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: who like extensive lexicono vocabulary.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: We have a couple of holidays about cats. We have
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Global Cat Day and National Feral Cat Day, so support
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: support our feline friends.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's Global Dignity Day, which is really nice, I
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: feel like.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: And similarly, I think is Global Ethics Day. I think
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: ethics invite dignity among people.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I would hope. So it's Love your Body Day, something
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: that I've not learned to do, but working on it.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the same. Yeah, it is National Boss Day,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: so go out there, bosses and be nice to your employees.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, and be nice to your boss if
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: you like them. I guess it's National cut up your
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: credit card Day.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Fair? It is National take your parents to Lunch Day.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: That's a nice that's a sweet sentiment.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I love that. It's very sweet. It's think You're Cleaner Day.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: So if you are fortunate enough to have somebody who
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: does that type of work for you, then think them
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: because they deserve it.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe take them out to lunch with your parents. Because
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: it's also Unity Day.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. It's World Anesthesia Day, so you know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: thankfully we've got that and we don't have to just
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: like drink whiskey and bite onto a leather belt anymore
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: to get through surgery.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I thought maybe it was that we anesthetize the world today.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean that's fine too, just kidding.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It is World Food Day, which is good.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: We need to support that. Yeah.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: It's also World Spine Day, which is good. We need spine.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: We do. Our biology insists on it. It is Earth
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Science Week, so I would say we could kind of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: call this why we do what we do podcast week.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Then I mean it's related.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I like that. Yeah, humans are on Earth and Earth
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: is science, so I'm gonna just tie all these things together.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: It's Mediation Week.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Which is nice. If you add one more tea to that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It's also meditation week.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Certainly is it's also pet peeve week. I've got so many.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I've got too many, truly.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Fair, I feel that I do, and maybe this will
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: be a pet peeve to all of you. But we
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: are also going to wish a happy birthday to Tim
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Robbins and Angela Lansbury.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: His birthdays are takes interesting.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: It's so nice October the sixteenth, Yes, it is okay. Anyway,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: as we said, we are actually not talking about holidays.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: We are talking about fear and whether we can be
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: so feared of things that we are scared absolutely into
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: our graves. And so let's set the context here. We
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: are a species who kind of actually pursues fear. We
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: go to haunted houses, we watch scary movies, we read
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: scary stories. Shane definitely reads a lot of scary stories.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And we do scary activities. We do base jumping and
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: swimming with sharks and watching presidential debates and things that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: should terrify us. They would do them anyway.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, So when we are scared, our bodies do a
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: variety of responses. Frightening stimuli trigger are amygdala, which determines
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: the relative threat and then signals the hippocampus, our prefrontal
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: cortex starts planning on how to react to that situation.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: So our entire brain starts kind of moving and firing
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: and going whenever we get triggered by something that is fearful.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, there's a complex interaction of neurological systems to react
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to that fear, as we discussed in our fear episode,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and that's a very very fast breakdown of it. But yes, amygdala, hippocampus,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex, boom, okay, fear, fear has happened. Those brain
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: neurological structures also are involved with many other tasks, but
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: they're definitely involved in fear. So don't think that those
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: are just fear parts of our brain. They do lots
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: of things. Right as this process is happening, our brain
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: then releases the neurotransmitter chemical, this hormone called adrenaline. When
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: all of this is happening, that we have other physiological
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: effects that are a sort of byproduct of this or
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: not a byproduct that actually happened by design, which is
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that our digestion slows down, our heart beats faster, basically
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to push blood to our muscles. We increase in perspiration,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: so we might start to sweat. That's more of a
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: byproduct that's sort of a blood going through our body,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and we're heating up our blood. Glue clothes increases. Our
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: levels of that increase, and we start breathing heavily to
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: allow more oxygen into our body to help with the
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: blood pumping, to basically get us ready. Essentially, we're preparing
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: for this fight or flight response. It's our body. Something
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: happens on the environment and our physiological makeup turns into
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I'm either going to have to start throwing punches and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: kicks and bites to defend myself or I need to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: run like hell.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So in this situation, our bodies are primed to
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: respond to fear or to danger stimuli in our environment.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: We are ready to go. Our brains are firing, our
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: bodies prepared. We're not digesting food. Our muscles are bloodified,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I guess is the word I would look for, you know,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: oxygenated is really the word I'm looking for. But we
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: are right. Bloodified feels good, it feels scary. So the
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: thing is, though, it's like our body is under a
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: lot of stress and pressure during that time and that
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: that leads the question of can you be scared to death?
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm gonna we're gonna spoil it up front here.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: The answer is yes, kind of, yeah, you kind of
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: can be scared to death. Oh so now here's a
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: new fear for you. So you should be afraid of
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: being scared to.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Death phobophobia and yeah, the MANI we just released.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Uh huh fear.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: And looking in this I did find a two thousand
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: and nine article that was telling a story about a
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: twenty year old man who was charged with the murder
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of a seventy nine year old woman in North Carolina
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: after he robbed her home and essentially police said that
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: he scared her to death. There was no evidence that
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: he touched her at all, but she had a cardiac
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: event and died, and in North Carolina where that crime
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: took place, that was enough to claim that he was
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: responsible for her death and thus be charged as implicated
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: in her death. Unfortunately, though, just to be very transparent
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: about this, as intriguing as the story is, the link
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to the original story was broken, and I tried searching
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: around to find other corroborating evidence and stories to support
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that this actually happened. And I really couldn't find anything
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that directly was a primary source for this, and that
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: should have been pretty easy. I think this should not
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: have been a thing that, if it was real, would
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: have been hard to find. So I am inclined to
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: question the veracity of this story, but it is nevertheless
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: out there. So I don't think it's probably true, just
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: based on the fact that if it were, I should
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: have been able to find more information about it. But
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: it's possible that it did actually happen, or something like
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: it happened.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All that to say, do you have to ask
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a question if we have the idea or there is
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: a thought that we can die from fear itself, we
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: can be scared to death. There are the two questions
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: of how this happens and why this happens. And how
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: is very interesting, and the why is even more interesting
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: than that. But we have to start somewhere, and let's
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: start with the how how does this happen?
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: All right? So first I want to help assuage a
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: little bit of fear here. Let's start by clarifying that
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: being scared to death is extremely rare, extremely right, and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: if in that very infrequent situation that it does occur,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: there are usually other pre existing health conditions that made
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that individual more predisposed to that kind of outcome, right, And.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: So the surprises and hills that we get from scary
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: movies or haunted houses or just getting startled during the day,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: those are actually insufficient to elicit a major health event
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: that will result in death. Instead, to be scared to death,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: it must be or perceived to be a legitimate life
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: or death situation, such as being attacked, being robbed, like
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: being in some kind of like major intensive duress.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, and those even can come from other fearful things,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: one that I didn't include in our list but might
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: count as someone who, for example, is claustrophobic, who is
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: trapped in a very small space might become so afraid
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: that they actually have this type of event. But usually
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: it is very sudden, and so the scare has to
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: be significant enough and perceived to be legitimate enough that
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it can trigger a major surge of adrenaline and other hormones,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: as we discussed, and so anticipating the scare can actually
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: help mitigate how major the surge of hormones will turn
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: out to be. And what I mean by that is
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: that if we sort of see it coming, if we're
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: aware that it's coming, if there's like build up to
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it or we sort of see it, that still can
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: be terrifying, but it will decrease how significant of a
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: release those hormones are, So if we have some expectation
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of it, then it actually might not be all that
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: major of an event. Again, it has to be has
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to be pretty intense, right. Thus, the two conditions that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: are severe enough to result in being scared to death
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: are very surprising life and death emergencies like very out
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: of the like all of the sudden happen, and then
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: prolonged exposure to severe fight or flight stress. So if
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: you're sort of in survival mode stress for a long
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: period of time, or if it happens so fast that
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: you don't really see it coming. Those are the two
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: kind of conditions where this is made more likely out
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: of the extreme unlikeliness that it currently currently exists.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Right right, right, So the autonomic reaction can lead to
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: a condition first ascribed to nineteen ninety by Japanese physicians
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: called Taka Tsubo. Think that's right, tacket Subo, and great
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I get to follow it with another great word cardiomyopathy,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: so talkasubum cardiomyopathy, also called stress induced cardiomyopathy or broken
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: heart syndrome. So, during this event, the adrenaline connects with
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: cardiac myocytes, which are the heart muscle cells, which causes
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: calcium channels in the cells to open. Calcium ions rapidly
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: enter the myocytes, causing the heart to contract, and this
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: process can ultimately stop the heart from beating, leading to
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: shortness of breath, conjestive heart failure, or shock. So in
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: all of those things, especially if they occur in a
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: prolonged way, can cause a lot of uh, cause a
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: lot of problems for you.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Surprise, ADS, all right, So I jump scared you with
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: ADS and that would have been terrifying. So this I'm
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: meant to be a light terrifying. I'm not trying to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: say anyone into this cardiac arrest situation.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Also, we are not liable for anything that happens to
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: you as a result of the scares of this episode.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: We warned you ahead of time.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Correct, okay, listen at your own risk of course, and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: talking about this, we were just describing essentially the process
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: by which a cardiac can just of heart failure, can occur,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and of course we need our heart. It is important
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: in our day today, big deal. So that conditions that
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: stop it from beating can be severely fatal and often
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: are real bad. They're bad, to put it bluntly, heart
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: beating good, heart stopping bad. Yeah, as long as the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: value of life is there somewhere, for most people, this
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: is a non issue. As we said, it's extremely rare. However,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: people with pre existing conditions, especially related to heart conditions,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: as you might imagine, may be more susceptible to heart
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: failure by extreme fright. So just to be aware, right, and.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: So we mentioned too, it is also preventable rights or
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: it may also be preventable in most cases. So doctors
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: and scientists suggest that being active, exercising regularly and being
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: in shape can prevent the worst effects of a sudden
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: adrenaline rush in a life or death situation. So basically,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: if you take care of yourself, treat your body like
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the temple that it is, and really make sure that
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: you're kind of like staying ahead of this stuff, you
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: can actually mitigate those and like basically create kind of
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: like a cushion for when this stuff happens. You get scared,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: and like, you have way further to go to be
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: scared to death if you're in shape, then if you're not, But.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Treat it by like a temple. Do you mean let
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of people in my body because a lot
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of people go in temple.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, I yes, specifically yeah, why not?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Also they tend to have stained glass windows, so tattoos
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: are encouraged.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: There you go, we owe a beautiful a beautiful architectural masterpiece.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's great. Now importantly here you're hearing this and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: probably thinking, okay, so you have a heart attack kinda
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: It is very similar to a heart attack. It's a
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: little different from a heart attack because heart attacks involved
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: arteries being blocked, usually by some kind of build up
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: or some kind of constriction or something of that nature.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And in this particular case, that's not why the heart
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: stops beating. It's not because of blocked arteries. It's because
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the heart seizing basically up, particularly with those calcium ions
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: rushing into the heart muscle cells. But it is similar
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: because like a heart attack, the outcomes are basically the same,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: which is that we have restricted or completely stopped blood flow,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: which our brain needs constant supply of blood flow and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: our also to our organs. As soon as blood stops
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: pumping to the rest of our body, we die. And
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: so that's how the end result of heart attack is
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: blood no longer goes to the brain. The end result
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of Takatsu subo cardiomyopathy is blood stops pumping of the brain.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: In either case, the brain dies, the organs shut down,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: we stop living, So that there is a similar outcome
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: but slightly different process.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Right, So, of course, prolonged exposure chronic prolonged exposure specifically
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: just type of stress this like high level of like
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: fight or flight, Like I am like so stressed out
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: all the time, I could just die. That level of
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: stress can actually lead to exhaustion and assuming if you
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: survive it, which you most likely will, this type of
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: trauma can lead to anxiety and the development of other
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: phobias in specific traumas. Right, So, like being exposed to
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: these types of situations which you will likely survive, will
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: create lifelong learning histories related to this type of situation
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: and in the related stimuli, or.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: At least it can. And with things like general anxiety
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and stress that can come from that trauma, you then
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: can actually develop real other heart issues that may actually
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: then make you more sensitive down the road to being
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: pre exposed to the severe trauma that can come from
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: another fright. So if it doesn't kill you once, it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: might kill you later. Hopefully it doesn't kill you at
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: all when you're not advocating that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: People die right exactly.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Quick side note, just kind of a thing that I
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: thought I was trying to figure out how to slot
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: this in here. But there is commonly a rush of
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: blood to the muscles as we are describing, and between
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: that and the adrenaline, there is sort of this idea
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: that you get sort of a freakish burst of strength
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and energy. That's kind of true. The energy and the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: blood being directed to our muscles and the intake of
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: oxygen that we're sort of pumping ourselves up, you can
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: actually get a somewhat measure for some people in certain circumstances,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: a measurable increase in their strength because of how much
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: energy they're able to burn and expend in a brief moments.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: There again, not sustainable, but it can it can help
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in the moment if you have like this rush of
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: adrenaline going to your muscles.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Right, and that also kind of explains those stories that
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: you hear about like parents lifting cars up off their
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: kids and stuff like that. In those moments, right, like
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: you have this like kind of quick burst of strength
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: that you're like, I could do anything, but it's only
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: it's very, very brief, and it's still within the limits
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: of human capacity.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, definitely. Yeah, you're not actually going to like be
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: able to fly or lift a building or punch through
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a solid brick wall or something, but you can do
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a lot more than you normally be able to.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Do, right, right, Right, So, we remember hearing about people's
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: pet rabbits being scared to death if they were attacked
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: or a predator got in to their enclosure, assuming they
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: suffered not tissee damage, and so there was some curiosity
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: about whether this was actually real or possible, and it is.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Similar physiological processes occur for other animals as with humans. Further,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: their resting heart rate is one hundred and forty to
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty beats per minuted, so their little,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: tiny little hearts are already going more rapidly than ours are,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and so now you're kind of like boosting that up.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It's like turbo hearts, and they're just like they're at
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: the level like, yeah, they just they can't keep up.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: It's like an absurd amount of like an absurd amount
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: of beats per minute.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: By the way, I guess turbo Hearts is a good
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: band name if it doesn't already exist. So if you're
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: considered considered too turbo Hearts, what kind of band is that?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, Turbohearts would be kind of like they sound like
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the Bronx.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. So they're like a.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Punky They're like a punky rock band.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think so. I was thinking more sort of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: like folk indie folk rock sort of thing.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: That would be good too. I would like that. Yeah,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: that would be nice just for fun.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I was curious because I think hummingbirds have the fastest
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: heart rates. Their little tiny hearts beat a whopping twelve
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: hundred beats per minute. That is incredible.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: It's a lot those tiny little guys are just going.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I think the like on the low end. One source
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing here on the low end says that it
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: can be as low as two hundred beats per minute,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: which is insanely fast. So twelve hundred six times faster
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: than that is that's quick.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Fast, little heart, they're faster the same bolt of hearts.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: It's very good, very good, all right, all right. So
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: all of this we've been describing so far is the how.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: This is the how. Part of how being scared to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: death would work is understanding the physiological and neurological mechanisms
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that lead to the cascade of events that ultimately result
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in our major organs shutting down, primarily our heart and
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: subsequently our brain. But the other, potentially more interesting piece
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: of this is the why. And I'll explain why. The
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: why is so interesting right now. I guess because we're
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: not really at time for a break, which is that
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: in reading about how the severity of the frightening event
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: is one of, if not the most important factor, and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: whether it can lead to a cardiac event, that had
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: me thinking. But what stood out to me immediately was
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: how do we perceive an event as being life or death?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Because it said, like, things that are scary that frighten us,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: we don't have the same reaction to as things that
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: are actually threatening our life right now, like there is
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: actual danger. And I'm like, but that's kind of interesting
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: because by implication, then there is a way we could
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: perceive those same events calmly and casually as not life
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: threatening and not have a big physiological reaction. Presumably, if
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I took a bunch of xanax and then went swimming
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: in the ocean with a bunch of sharks, I'd be like, oh, hum,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: no big deal. But if I went out into the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: ocean and a shark started swimming toward me, I might
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: actually die of fright with my poor little heart beating
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: so beating itself into oblivion, I should say.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: So.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Anyway, there's an aspect of this that is our perception
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: of the event, like why and why do we perceive
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: those things as being so threatening in a way that
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: could actually be detrimental to us?
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what's beautiful about that question is
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I think that most of that is answered through behavioral science,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: which is really fun and that's kind of the thing
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: that we're going to unpack right now. It's funny because
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: like I think about this, and this is the part
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: where we do speculate a bit, because I think that
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: when we start getting into behavioral science, then that gets
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: into the It depends realm, like, it depends on the circumstances,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: it depends on learning history, it depends on all this,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: but there is a lot of We understand enough about
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: behavioral mechanisms to understand how these can shape up without
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: having like and we see enough examples of this, and
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: we understand how these processes work, and we've been able
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: to replicate these processes time and time again enough that
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: we can generalize this to the scared to death circumstance
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: because we understand how the behavioral mechanisms apply to learning
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: and histories and all those things.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: And we do have some literature that already sort of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: speaks to some of these processes as well, specifically, as
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: we discussed in the episode on the Little Albert Experiment. Shane,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you want to briefly summarize the Little Albert experiment for everyone?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man makes babies afraid of things, then writes terrible
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: parenting books and then also burns all of his letters. Yeah. So,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: in order to understand Little Albert, to go back to
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: kind of that episode and all that, the first thing
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: we have to understand is the context. And we also
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: have to understand that there was a study done before
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: this called Little advert.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: We're back. Let's we're summarizing the Little Albert experiment to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: help give some context about what we do already know
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: about perceived threats and fears.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, So to quickly revisit the Little Albert experiment, Little
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Albert was a baby. He was a little baby, and
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: they brought him into a lab and they would have
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: things like rabbits and fuzzy cute things, and this baby
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: would be around it, and then they would scare them
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: out of this baby with loud noises. They would like
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: just crash things behind him. Like really, basically, the idea
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: was that you were conditioning emotional responses and conditioning fear
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: in this baby. So anytime something white and fuzzy or
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: something like that would show up, this baby would have
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: a reaction because there were so many kind of loud,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: startling things around this child during the presence of this other,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: this thing that was kind of a neutral, innocuous and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: actually kind of like warm and fuzzy thing, to the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: point where, like I believe, if if I recall correctly,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: like not only was the baby afraid of like white rabbits,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: but also got to be afraid of like white cats
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: and dogs and other white fuzzy things. And then also
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: like humans wearing fuzzy rabbit suits or like even like
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: white clothing.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: He was pretty good at discriminating, as I recall, like,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I think they tried to give him a Santa's beer
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and that he had no reaction to, but he was
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I think you're right, the other animals that were white
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: did illicit somewhat of a reaction from him. And yeah,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the the over idea here was that, Okay, loud noises
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: are scary naturally, right, but we can show that other
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: fears are learned by virtue of association with the things
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that naturally scare us, like loud noises. And so that
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: was essentially the summary thesis. And yes it worked, and yes,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: no one would ever do that experiment again because it's right,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: lots of reasons, but they're highly unethical. It's not going
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to happen. But the paper does exist, and so we
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: can reference it to talk about these things. Not that
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: we are justifying that it should have happened that way.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: They think they could have done this research in a
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: much more ethical way. But it did happen, and we
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: have it as as something to look at as a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: curiosity of history and the bad ideas that people have
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: had sometimes anyway, right point being what we learned from that,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and what we've kind of known is that we seem
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to be biologically prepared to react to intense stimuli. And
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: essentially what I mean by that is that unexpected touching,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: loud sounds, and loss of propriception such as like when
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you're falling, and even sudden bright lights. Those are things
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: that we have senses that detect, and when those occur,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: then they often stimulate the production of adrenaline and blood
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: rushes that cause reflexive tensing of our muscles. So intensive stimulation,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: our body reacts immediately to that intensive stimulation, whatever it
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: might be. Unexpected touching and sounds are a very common one,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: but there could be other things as well. As I said,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: like all of a sudden you lose yourself in space
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: with the appropriate reception thing, right, But it makes a
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: lot of sense that we would react to intensive stimulation
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of our senses, and that we would not react to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: intensive stimulation of things that we don't have senses to detect.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: So anyway, that is a sort of natural. It seems
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: like way that our bodies have evolved to behave effectively
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: with the environment around us switches that there is some
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: stimulation thresholds where we can barely detect something, so we
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: can clearly detect something to its way above what we
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: can clearly detect and is actually frightening because it's so intense.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Right right, exactly, So many of these basic responses that
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: we're talking about are called unconditioned reflexes or unlearned reflexes. Right. So,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the idea, the stimulus response combination, the two of these
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: things together create this relationship where this unexpected, loud, scary
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: thing produces an involuntary response in us, right So, and
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: that's what we're saying here, like we are biologically prepared
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: to respond to these things from the day that we're born.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: If something is loud, we're gonna startle, if something is hot,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: we're gonna sweat. And we don't have to learn those things.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: We are hardwired as a species to do that. It's
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: highly invariant in form It looks exactly the same across many, many, many,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: many many members of the species. The majority of the
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: species do engage in that unless they have some kind
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: of other thing going on. And people that are born
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: with some of these senses will not respond to stimulation
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: of said senses. So somebody who does not have site
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: who is born and blind is not going to respond.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: They're not going to have pupillary reactions to changes in light.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: So you so it's important to kind of know that,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Like when we say the majority of the species, we
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: mean the majority of the species responds to these types
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: of stimuli, just.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Unless they have one of those sense impairments, Like people
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: without born deaf will not react to loud sounds because
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: they don't register.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Them, right.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: They might react to vibrations from those sounds because this
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is something that they can feel, but just the sound
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: itself would be insufficient to elicit any kind of reaction.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: But as you said, most people will respond to those
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: intensive stimulus thresholds, assuming that they can detect those stimuli.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: But Okay, what we were talking about this whole time
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: is this unexpected piece. There's an unexpected sound, an unexpected touch.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: But that by itself isn't really an answer because what
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: is unexpected mean? Like what is expected mean? We can't
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: measure the extent to which something was expected, right, we
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: don't know. Then there's really no clear way to know,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: But there is a way we can understand it by
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: just unpacking what that would potentially mean. Essentially, what happens
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: is there are events that happen around us that signal
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the onset of that physical stimulation sound or touch or
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: what have you. And that's kind of what we mean
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: by expected, is that there are other things that happen
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: first that signal a big intensive stimulus is about to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: take place. If we see someone approaching a musical instrument,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and if we have learned that that typically is something
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: that we see someone approaching on in the musical instrument,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and then loud sound happens. Now we can expect we
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: know what's going to happen because we have a history
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of learning that when I see someone approaching an instrument,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden there is very intensive auditory stimulation,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: and then will be less surprised that there is a
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: loud sound that follows that thing. So that's essentially what
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the unexpected and expected means here.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think of like roller coasters, right,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: So you get on a roller coaster and you get
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: to the top of that hill, like you expect the
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: drop because you see that drop, So that's not going
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: to scare It might not. It's going to give you
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: a thrill, but it's not going to scare you. The
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: same way that like if you're sitting in a chair
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden the earth opened up and
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: you fell suddenly, right, Like, it's the same sensation, it's
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: same feeling, same thing is happening, gravity is working upon
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: your body. But it's two different experiences because one you
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: are seeing that drop and you're doing that. The other
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: one is the earth swallowed you whole. And that's very
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: scary in itself. That would be very scary. Yes, that's
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying. Well, I live in Florida, so sinkholes,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: so so sinkholes are scary. Anyway, everything is trying to
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: kill you here in Florida. So the logic holds for
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: things that we can see or know is coming. So
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: when we see those things but don't know what the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: simulation they will be, they will produce. So like basically
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: this is saying, like, we see this thing happening, but
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: we don't know what it's going to do, and that's
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: going to kind of produce some unique sensations and kind
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: of experiences. So imagine a situation in which you watch
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: someone walk over to a remote press a button and
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, the seat you are in starts
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: to starts to rapidly, shake starts to vibrate. Even seeing
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: the person walk through all of those steps will not
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: lessen the surprise if we don't have a history of
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: what follows. Right, If you have never sat in a
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: room and somebody grabbed a remote control and then press
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the button and your seat started vibrating, if you've never
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: had that experiences, you would never know to expect that,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So that would be shocking and surprising and pretty startling.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I would imagine.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, even though we can see it happening, we don't
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: have a history with telling us that that's going to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: be the outcome, right, and now that we do will
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: be less surprised in the future when it happens. But
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: up to that point, I wouldn't have had that experience,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: So there's no reason for us to predict that that
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: would be the thing that happens next. And that can
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: be very frightening, right again, because we have no history
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Like the great George W. Bush once said, fool me once,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: shame on you for me twice. Won't be fooled again.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Brilliant. So anyway, it is worth clarifying that, like, even
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: though you might expect you might have some history with
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: those that tells you, like there's about to be the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: onset of some very intensive thing loud or touch or whatever.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that it won't scare us at all.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: It just means that we'll have enough preparation that will
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: scare us less than if we had no idea was
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: coming right right, So no history with that thing producing
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: that outcome. Now. Another important feature, though, is that this
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: can be significantly mitigated by language. If the person said so,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: it's going back to this example of the person with
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: the remote vibrating the chair. If they specifically say I'm
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: gonna make the chair shake, and then they go over
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and press the button, you likely would not have as
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: significant a reaction as if they just walked over and
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: did it with no warning. Right. Similarly, if someone warned
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: you there's about to be a really loud sound, you'll
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: be less surprised than if it just comes out of nowhere.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: And again, it just has all to do with a
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: history of learning with respect of those things. And an
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: important feature of this, and this is why we still
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: have to have a history of learning even though we've
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: never experienced it before, is language can shortcut that. If
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: someone said to me in Swahili, they're about to press
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: this chair, that this button that vibrates the chair. I
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: would still be surprised because I have no history of
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: learning with Swahili. But if someone says in the language
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I do speak, then I will now be prepared. So
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the history of learning is both important with respect to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: learning and with respect to actual experiences. But with that
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: language piece, you can really undercut it. Without having direct experience,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: it can actually alter the way that we perceive the world,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: which is an amazing thing about language.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Right, And there's another part of this too. We can
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: be very scared of things that can have significant biological
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: relevance to us, and so babies are a really great
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: example of this. They will immediately react to the kinds
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: of stimulation that are biologically relevant, but they will not
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: react at all to things that we have learned to
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: be afraid of. So babies are not afraid of the
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: same things that adults are. And that's why when we
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: grow up, we get more and more and more and
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: more scared, and we are big scaredy cats. When babies
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: are not. Children are brave, and I love that for them.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: We are not because we are terrified of everything.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, and So imagine you come like you turn around
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: wherever you're sitting right now, and right behind you is
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: a live, wild fully grown grizzly bear into it. Shane
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: is like, oh, someone let a candle, cleazy.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I'm ready for most of.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Us, at least I, and I think many of us
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: would have a kind of reaction that is pretty biologically
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: relevant to me in that case, which is that I
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: would be very scared and my body would immediately prepare
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: for fight or flight. So we come to face to
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: face with this bear, we're likely to have these significant,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: powerful emotions. But that's actually not something our genes can
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: know about. Our genes don't know what other animals are.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: They really don't like. They seem very very commonplace to us,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: but our genes aren't prepared for that. The things they
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: do know how to respond to are loud sounds and
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: some forms of like touch and pain, that sort of
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: appropriate exception thing, and sometimes like bright flashing unexpected images
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and maybe smells, I mean that might be in there somewhere,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: but like oh, and then also the loss appropriate eception
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: like falling, Like those are things that we don't really
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: have to learn those associations. We're pretty much ready to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: respond to those sensations right out the gate. The bears
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: are something we actually have to learn about.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we can go even further and talk about
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: spiders and snakes. These are often considered something that we
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: are biologically prepared to fear or be afraid of, but
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: they don't reliably elicit any sort of fear responses in
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: you in very young babies. Similar to learning the stimuli
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: or those cues that proceeded to otherwise fearful stimuli. Most
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: of our fears are things that we learn through association
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: and experience, and or even like part of our experience
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: being the languaging around that. Stay away from that, that's scary,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Stay away from that that's dangerous. You don't want to
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: touch that, that will hurt, and so like, sometimes we
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: may not even have exposure to that thing and still
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: develop a fear of that thing. Like as an example,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: as somebody who has never been afraid of skydiving, it
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: terrifies me thinking of like jumping out of a plane.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I want to, but there is like I've never had
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the experience of falling out of a plane. Yet here
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I am saying this is very dangerous. It is very scary,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and it does elicit a level of fear response having
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: no physical experience with that. That's why language is so,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: like you mentioned earlier, so critically important to all of this.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it can, really, it can create fear where fear
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: does not already exist and not necessarily a bad thing.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: It's really helpful to tell people be afraid of running
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: across the highway. Yeah, don't do that, because that is
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: there are no circumstances under which that's a good idea.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: It is dangerous, and so like fear by itself, is
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: not necessarily a bad thing. The fact that we can
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: coach people to be afraid of dangerous things is not
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: a bad thing. But it can of course go awry
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: when we become afraid of things that pose little or
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: no danger to us. Right. But here's just some more
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: examples of things that, like, we think of as being
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: very frightening and are so frightening in fact that with
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: our learning history, they could be frightening enough to have
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: us die. Affright, Guns are not inherently frightening, but someone
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: pointing at me might actually scare me to death. Right,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: But you point a gun at a dog like a dog,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: don't do that. Please, But like you point a gun
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: in an animal, the animal has no sense whatsoever that
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: they're in danger, because those are usually a one and
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: done type of experience, Like they don't get to learn
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: that that thing is frightening, but they would actually if
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: they weren't we if it was just loud and they
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: weren't actually hurt by it. Right, Driving along a narrow
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: road with a steep drop off might be extremely scary,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: although this one does have the drawback that it's unlikely
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: to have that sort of sudden onset that would sort
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: of be unexpected enough to predict that cardiomyopathy because you
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: usually kind of see it coming as it's happening. Nevertheless,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: can be extremely scary. As we mentioned in our fear
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: episode that we released recently, allowed knocking at the door
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night might be extremely terrifying.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: A plane experiencing sudden high turbulence, experiencing a sudden large
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: explosion or a fire, seeing a loved one experience a
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: major health episode such as a seizure. These are kind
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of things that we learn about that can trigger an
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: enormous fear reaction in us, and sometimes enough to actually
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: be like cause us to basically be scared to death
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: and the rare, rare instances in which that happens.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what's funny is you brought up
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: the guns being inherently scary, and I have had a
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: gun pulled on me more than once and not been
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: scared to death.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Also, I want to be clear, was not my fault,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: so I didn't put myself in a situation that somebody
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: pulled a gun on me. And I was like, yeah,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I had that come in, but like it was like
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: one of those things where like I thought I would
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: be more scared, but it was still pretty like, Oh,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: I don't want that to happen again. Yeah, that'd be
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: cool if that never happened again.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I would make the case
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: that the vast, vast majority of people who have guns
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: uphold on them did not deserve to have guns pulled
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: on them.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think generally, like, yes, I agree
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: with you, that's fair.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the conditions under which that might be
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: considered appropriate are exceedingly rare, and the number of times
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that it actually happens relative to the times that it
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: is warranted is disproportionate. Just at the least.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for clarifying that point, because I agree
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: with you, Like, I'm not saying that if you've had
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: a gun pulled on you that that is your fault.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: That is certainly not what I'm saying. It was just
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: more so my specific circumstance. I didn't do anything to
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: deserve it that way.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Ethos of this show, in case you were not already familiar,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: is stop being killing people.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that, and get rid of guns. So
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: here's an ad for bullets.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: All right. Talking about like, the research on guns has
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: been something I've wanted to tackle for a long time
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: because it's so much more nuanced than the sort of
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: political rhetoric around it.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, And I.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Think it's one of those conversations that I've been wanting
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: to hear somebody have and I have heard a couple
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: of times, but it's not the way the conversation usually
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: plays out, and I think it warrants a nice nuanced conversation.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: So yeah, anyway, we do have some sort of interesting
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: tidbits here, and kind of really only one. But one
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: thing I thought was I couldn't find a place where
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: it made a lot of sense to include in other
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: parts of the discussion here. But I thought was really
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: interesting is that what we didn't really talk about as this,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: this tuck goutsu subo cardiomyopathy is also called broken heart syndrome.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Did we mention that, I think yes we did earlier. Yeah, okay, cool,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: the broken heart syndrume. What this all means is that
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: fear is not the only emotional response that can can
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: trigger this exact same series of events. Actually, the things
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: they listed that have caused this specific outcome, or intense exercise,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: even people getting really worked up and excited at sporting
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: events have had this happen. Even making love have caused
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: this to happen.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: All of these can sort of trigger this tuckutsubo cardiomyopathy.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: But again just saying extremely extremely rare. The vast majority
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: of the time people have I mean the vast majority
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: of the time in this like tiny, tiny fractions of
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: instances where it occurs, people had other underlying health conditions
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that made them more predisposed to be susceptible to that
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: as an outcome.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, thinking of them making love thing real quick
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: before you get into the last part that is the
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: premise of gerald game, by Stephen King. Like that is
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: like the preceding event that leads to the story that
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: is Gerald's game. So like that that the husband dies
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: while they're making love. Uh huh.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: That was also the setup for the movie Wag the
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Dog as I.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Read, Yeah, yeah, forgot about that movie.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an old one. It's like a nineties movie.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, it very much so is.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, if we have scared you today, then happy Halloween,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: and please don't die. Please practice some mindful meditation, have
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a nice relaxing nap or something. There's some some fun
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: in sort of bringing a little bit of fright to
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: your day for the Halloween month. But also we wish
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: you all the best and and do not wash harm
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: on any of you.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, safe travels in whatever world you're traveling in.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: You know, behind the scenes, I said this might be
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: a shorter episode, and that is usually the death knell
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: that signals it will not be a short episode, but
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: might even be a very long episode. And I didn't
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: say that out loud, and a recording and it is
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: on the shorter side of things, So congratulations, would that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: be Halloween?
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: And everybody, Yeah, look at us, look at us.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Go.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: It's a fun size episode.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: It is. That's true, fun size. That's good. But we're
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: not done because we are going to recommend some things.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: If you're joining us for the first time, I'll give
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a little context for this, which is at the end
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: of each and every one of our full length discussions.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: We will just recommend some fun stuff that's like, you know,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: it's just fun. It's a thing that we do. But
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: before I do that, I must first acknowledge all the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: credits writing in fact checking from Shane and myself are.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: A social media coordinator is Emma Wilson, who I think
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: has has been recovering from the hurricanes as well, so
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I wish her the best. The person who does all
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: of the audio engineering in production is just In Greenhouse,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: with whom it'd be really difficult to make this show.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: So my team of people are very, very critically important
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: to help make this show continue to happen. But in
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: addition to that, we do have to like pay for stuff.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: We have to pay for the website. It's like not
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: free to do this. So we also need to acknowledge
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: the people who have very generously made it part of
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: their mission to help us continue our mission. And that
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: is our group of people on Patreon who get access
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: to behind the scenes content, early episodes, add free episodes,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and all kinds of goodies. Plus they can kind of
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: like talk to us directly, which a lot more on
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: that in a minute, but would like to just send
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: a special shout out and thank you to those who
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: have been so generous with their time and their money
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: with us, and that is Mike, m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Kiara and Michelle. Thank you all, just ongoingly.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, we appreciate y'all so so so much.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I think that is everything that I have before we
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: get to Oh wait, no, before I do that. As
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, you can join us on Patreon on as
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: one way the Patreon I said that as like extra syllables,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: but that does help us out. You can also leave
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: us the rating and review you can like and subscribe.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Tell a friends, I don't know, go pick up some
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: merch from our merch store and were are that around?
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: And then people will ask you what is WWD WWD
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: and then you'll tell them at great length and then
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: they'll want to also become a Patreon, and that would
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: be lovely true. But if you have some thoughts on
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: being scared to death or any of the recommendations we're
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: about to share, then you can email us directly at
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com, or you can read us
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: on the social media platforms and we will interact with
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: you there. Now, I think I'm ready for our recommendations.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: If you're ready, let's do it.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Recommendations, all right. So I'm going to share a record.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: The last couple of weeks have put out really really
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: awesome like new music for me, and I'm really happy
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: about it. And this album is from a and called
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: chat Pile, and if their new record called cool World,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: those two names chat Pile, cool World do not evoke
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: certain feelings that when you listen to this record, you go, oh,
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: this is very different. This is a very different than
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: I expected, okay. And I would say that in line
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: with like Spooky Season and and some recommendations along that
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: I think this is scary music.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: It's very noisy, it's very loud, it's very confrontational, I
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: think is a way that I would put it. And
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I think I mentioned the band ken Mode on here
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: before and so like Ken Mode Coalesce. If you're familiar
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: with those bands, it's in that world where it's like
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: very like aggressive, loud, lots of feedback. Yeah yeah, kind
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: of fast. Yeah, I got a little bit of that
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: because you wouldn't expect that with a song like I
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Am Dog Now or Frownland or Milk of Human Kindness.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: So when you listen to it, you're like, oh, this
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: is scary. It sounds like it sounds like found footage
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: that you would find in that basement of an abandoned hospital.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: That's what it sounds like.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Wow, and it's really selmless.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: It's so good. I love it. So anyway, chap pile,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: cool world, enjoy that, give it a lesson and let
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: us know what you think.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Is this a newer thing or is this one of
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the older recommendations, like it's been around for a while.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: No, this record just came out like last week.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, maybe maybe you said that I missed it.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this band is a newer band, Okay, and they
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: have like a black metal logo. They have a bramble
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: bush black metal logo. Okay, they're not they're not at
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: all black metal band like so, which is like kind
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: of fun.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, very cool. Yeah, I am recommending a board game.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: You think I would run out, but I will not
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: trust me. I know it would have to. I would
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: have to recommend two board games every episode for like
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: a thousand episodes, and even then I wouldn't run out.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: There's so many. This one is called Rolling Realms. It
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: is a dice game, and it's also called a roll
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and write game. What that means is that there is
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: a big chunk pair of dice, somebody rolls them, and
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: then you have three cards in front of you that
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: you drawn with a dry erase marker, and then you
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: can just like wipe it right off, and you will
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: choose one of those dice to use. Like, all these
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: different cards you have in front of you have different
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: scoring parameters, and so you essentially choose those dice to
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: try and score something. It's sort of like it's sort
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: of like YACHTSI in that way, except rather than use
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the two dice together, you use them separately. And rather
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: than one card, you have three different cards with different
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: ways of scoring on each and you can only use
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: one at a time, and so you'll use one die
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: for one card, one die for the other card, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: all the cards are like loosely themed after other board games,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: like the core mechanisms, yeah, or themes of those board
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: games so like. And there's lots and lots and lots
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: of different cards that you could potentially be using to
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: play this, so it's pretty quick. It was specifically designed
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: during the early days of lockdown of the COVID pandemic
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: where people could join online and they could just print
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: off these cards from the printer and then one person
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: with a paradise roll and then everybody would play, So
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: there's really no limit to like how many people could play,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and it takes a good forty five minutes to an
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: hour probably to get through it. It could be faster
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: depending on how quickly people are making decisions about their dice,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: but it's just a really I don't know. It's a
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: light game with enough opportunity for strategy, and it scales
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: up so easily that it seems like it's pretty applicable
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: to a team of two or a group of two
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: people wanting to play, or a group of twenty people
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: wanting to play, and you just need a paradise and
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: some cards to write on and you've pretty much got it. So,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and it's like cheap. I think it's only like twenty
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: five bucks or something nice, maybe thirty. But it's just
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: not very much and it doesn't take it very much
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: self shelf space. It's not a very large box either.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for a board game that has
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: some dice and rolling and writing, Rolling Realms is a
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: good one. I would say it's probably more on the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: strategic end than something like Clue, more strategic than Clue.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: But it's not like so comp implicated, like what's the
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: game A lot of people know that's very complicated Monopoly. Yes,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: it is less complicated than Monopoly.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I like that. Okay, that's very cool.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: All right, So that's Rolling Realms. And then you recommended
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Chatpile the album Cool World. Yes, and those are recommendations,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: all right. As I said, thank you so much for listening,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you for recording with me today, Shane. Is there
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: anything that you'd like to add or anything that I
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: forgot before we let our people get back to their day.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it for this time.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, then this is Abraham.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: And this is Shane.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: We're out.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: See. Yeah, you've been listening to Why we do What
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: we do.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.