Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Selects: How Fever Dreams Work
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. It's Chuck here and I'm here
- 0:04Speaker 1: to deliver to you my pick for this week's Selects episode.
- 0:09Speaker 1: This is from July twenty seventeen. It's the episode how
- 0:12Speaker 1: Fever Dreams Work. And quite honestly, you guys have picked
- 0:15Speaker 1: this one because I don't remember much about it, so
- 0:18Speaker 1: I'm going to listen to it all over again myself,
- 0:20Speaker 1: so I hope you do as well. Hope you have
- 0:22Speaker 1: a great Saturday and a great weekend. Here we go
- 0:24Speaker 1: with How Fever Dreams Work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
- 0:31Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio.
- 0:39Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. How are you? I'm
- 0:43Speaker 2: Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Jerry's
- 0:46Speaker 2: got a salad. Everything's normal, which means it's time. There's
- 0:50Speaker 2: stuff you should know.
- 0:52Speaker 3: That's right.
- 0:53Speaker 2: Jerry's got this Shwarma special. She said, oh really, yeah,
- 0:58Speaker 2: she loves it. How you doing, good man? Feeling despite
- 1:02Speaker 2: myself kind of relaxed. Okay, I'm not feeling feverish. If
- 1:06Speaker 2: that's what you're driving at.
- 1:07Speaker 3: No, that's not what I was driving at.
- 1:08Speaker 2: Uh yeah, no I'm not.
- 1:11Speaker 3: Do you get fevers a lot.
- 1:12Speaker 2: No, not anymore, although I haven't for a long time. Like,
- 1:16Speaker 2: I've never been like a fever person. I've probably had
- 1:19Speaker 2: like a handful maybe. How many fevers have you had?
- 1:22Speaker 1: Not a ton since I was a kid. Yeah, not
- 1:24Speaker 1: a lot of adult fevers, right, I.
- 1:26Speaker 3: Mean I've had like hip hop fever. I've had rock
- 1:32Speaker 3: and roll fever.
- 1:33Speaker 2: Yeah, yellow fever.
- 1:34Speaker 3: I've had a fever for a flavor of a brindle.
- 1:37Speaker 2: Oh man, me too.
- 1:39Speaker 3: What are those? Those aren't even potato chips, are they?
- 1:41Speaker 2: They're potato crisps, and those are good. They're mashed together
- 1:44Speaker 2: potato parts.
- 1:45Speaker 3: I don't think I want to know how those are made.
- 1:47Speaker 2: No, it's like chicken McNuggets.
- 1:49Speaker 3: I think a unicorn just poops them out.
- 1:52Speaker 2: Have you seen unicorn pizza? It's a little much.
- 1:55Speaker 3: What is it?
- 1:56Speaker 2: There's a restaurant in New York, I'm not quite sure where,
- 1:59Speaker 2: maybe east Side. They have unicorn pizza. It's like dough, okay, good, start,
- 2:06Speaker 2: like a nice pastel colored frosting instead of sauce, a
- 2:12Speaker 2: mound of cotton candy nerds or pop rocks maybe, oh
- 2:16Speaker 2: good lord, and then some other stuff. Supposedly, it tastes
- 2:21Speaker 2: kind of good. I'll eat anything that has enough frosting
- 2:24Speaker 2: on it.
- 2:24Speaker 1: I like frosting, but I'm not into like sugary candies really.
- 2:28Speaker 2: Oh like nerds and pop rocks and stuff. You know,
- 2:30Speaker 2: I did brain stuff once. I'm pop rocks and that
- 2:34Speaker 2: was interesting.
- 2:35Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 2:36Speaker 2: Yeah, your tongue actually warms the pop rocks to the
- 2:39Speaker 2: point where they melt. And since they have CO two
- 2:42Speaker 2: trapped inside during the manufacturing process, that CO two suddenly
- 2:46Speaker 2: is released in a.
- 2:47Speaker 3: Pop so it's just a little bubble of CO two. Yeah,
- 2:50Speaker 3: that's gotta be good for you.
- 2:52Speaker 2: I'm sure.
- 2:54Speaker 3: It's funny.
- 2:54Speaker 1: My head of roommate in college, like, not many adults
- 2:59Speaker 1: eat candy, Like people eat chocolate and stuff like that,
- 3:02Speaker 1: candy bars, but candy candy and an adults.
- 3:05Speaker 3: Is just a little strange anything. Yeah, do be candy?
- 3:09Speaker 2: Sure? Like what mentos? Not mint mentos? Like candy mentos?
- 3:15Speaker 2: I like those.
- 3:17Speaker 3: Well.
- 3:17Speaker 1: I had a roommate that would go to the convenience
- 3:19Speaker 1: store next and this is college granted, but he still
- 3:21Speaker 1: eats this stuff, I think, okay, And he would go
- 3:24Speaker 1: with like fifteen dollars and buy you know, like giant
- 3:29Speaker 1: sweet tarts, you know, those big chewable ones, sure, and
- 3:33Speaker 1: like a fun dip and nerds and just all kinds
- 3:38Speaker 1: of candy fun dip.
- 3:39Speaker 2: Remember liquam made there's the same thing. I think.
- 3:42Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a sugar sugar.
- 3:45Speaker 2: Right, Like I don't have a foot, but I've got
- 3:47Speaker 2: my liquim maide, Oh man, can you can? You guys
- 3:52Speaker 2: out there and podcast Lantel were stalling because we are
- 3:55Speaker 2: a big time because we happen upon a topic that
- 3:59Speaker 2: no one really knows what's what. Yeah, I mean we're
- 4:05Speaker 2: talking about fever dreams. We know about fevers, yep, kind
- 4:10Speaker 2: of know about dreams. Yeah, but apparently no one's really
- 4:15Speaker 2: gotten to work on figuring out what fever dreams themselves are.
- 4:19Speaker 2: So it's largely anecdotal. Yeah, so you're gonna have to
- 4:23Speaker 2: bear with us.
- 4:23Speaker 3: We'll leave it. We'll leave that there for now.
- 4:25Speaker 1: Yeah, but I guess a good place to start is
- 4:29Speaker 1: by talking about both those things separately and starting with fevers.
- 4:34Speaker 1: You know, you've always heard ninety eight point six fahrenheit
- 4:37Speaker 1: is the normal internal body temperature of human that in
- 4:45Speaker 1: ninety two there was a big study that said is
- 4:47Speaker 1: really ninety eight point two depending on like how old
- 4:51Speaker 1: you are, what time of day it is, where you're doing,
- 4:54Speaker 1: where you if you put it in your butt or
- 4:57Speaker 1: in your under your armpit, or in your mouth or in.
- 4:59Speaker 2: Your ear or all of them at once.
- 5:01Speaker 3: That'd be something else. Yeah, it can vary a little bit.
- 5:05Speaker 1: So I think there's a bit of a slight sliding
- 5:07Speaker 1: scale to that number.
- 5:09Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. But I think the key is is
- 5:12Speaker 2: it's going to be roughly around there. And even if
- 5:16Speaker 2: you have an average body temperature that's not exactly ninety
- 5:20Speaker 2: eight point six, let's say you typically tend toward ninety
- 5:22Speaker 2: seven point.
- 5:24Speaker 3: Five, you run cooler.
- 5:25Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, your body temperature still during the average day
- 5:29Speaker 2: gonna fluctuate plus or minus about a degree farent hide
- 5:32Speaker 2: either way. Yeah.
- 5:34Speaker 1: So I looked a little bit into the ninety eight
- 5:35Speaker 1: point six and the original dude that came up with
- 5:39Speaker 1: that was a German physician.
- 5:41Speaker 3: Named Carl Reinhold August Vondelich. It was good, a good one.
- 5:47Speaker 1: When eighteen sixty eight he wrote a book, Well he
- 5:50Speaker 1: did his studies where he had this temperature rod he
- 5:53Speaker 1: would stick under the armpits of all these people.
- 5:55Speaker 2: He's like, where do you want exactly?
- 5:57Speaker 3: And everyone once said, everyone always says, do you know
- 6:03Speaker 3: the comedian Rory Scovel? No, he should just check him out.
- 6:08Speaker 1: Okay, he does these weird things, like he'll just do
- 6:12Speaker 1: his whole routine with a German accent.
- 6:14Speaker 3: Okay, like for no reason whatsoever.
- 6:16Speaker 2: I like the sound of that.
- 6:17Speaker 1: And he did one about stealing old people, like kidnapping
- 6:22Speaker 1: old people for the German accent.
- 6:25Speaker 3: He's from South Carolina, I think.
- 6:26Speaker 1: But he's done shows with like a severe Southern accent
- 6:30Speaker 1: and one just normal accent, and he'll do a German thing.
- 6:33Speaker 2: He just likes semester with people.
- 6:35Speaker 3: I guess. So he's great.
- 6:35Speaker 2: I will check him out.
- 6:36Speaker 3: Thinks he's one of my favorites.
- 6:38Speaker 1: So anyway, eighteen sixty eight he wrote a book called
- 6:43Speaker 1: after these experiments, called dos Vehauten Eerkin Frauma and kink
- 6:49Speaker 1: and Heighten.
- 6:50Speaker 3: That is good and I looked at it. It's funny.
- 6:53Speaker 1: The real translation I think of that as on the
- 6:55Speaker 1: temperature in diseases, but if you type it into Google
- 6:58Speaker 1: Translate comes out as the behavior of the intrinsically warm
- 7:03Speaker 1: and sick units.
- 7:07Speaker 2: That's the subtitle.
- 7:08Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 7:09Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway, he's a guy that came up in
- 7:11Speaker 1: ninety eight point six, and that stood for a long time.
- 7:13Speaker 2: But that's just so that was just based on his observations,
- 7:18Speaker 2: his study, and it's stuck.
- 7:19Speaker 1: It was an average. It wasn't like this is what
- 7:21Speaker 1: you should be. It was just the average of all
- 7:23Speaker 1: these people.
- 7:24Speaker 2: Right, And then one hundred thirty years later we finally
- 7:29Speaker 2: got around to verifying whether that was actually true or not.
- 7:31Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it says in ninety two that they
- 7:33Speaker 1: said it was ninety eight point two from another study,
- 7:35Speaker 1: but then everything I still read says ninety eight point six.
- 7:39Speaker 2: So all right, well, I know what you're talking about,
- 7:41Speaker 2: though I had heard in the last few years that
- 7:42Speaker 2: they're like that ninety eight point six Chazz is kind
- 7:45Speaker 2: of kind of made up. So the point is is
- 7:49Speaker 2: that your body's going to be roughly somewhere around there, right,
- 7:52Speaker 2: that's your normal body temperature, yes, and then depending on
- 7:55Speaker 2: the time of day, it's either going to be a
- 7:58Speaker 2: little cooler in that or a little warmer than that.
- 8:00Speaker 2: And our body temperature is regulated by something called the hypothalamus.
- 8:05Speaker 2: And like I said, depending on the time of day,
- 8:07Speaker 2: your body temperature is going to fluctuate, and that's tied
- 8:11Speaker 2: to sleep apparently, so as your body temperature is rising,
- 8:14Speaker 2: usually in the late afternoon is about where it peaks
- 8:17Speaker 2: during the day. That's associated with wakefulness. Alertness not necessarily
- 8:22Speaker 2: just having a high body temperature, but an incline in
- 8:26Speaker 2: the temperature in your body means you're awake, you're alert,
- 8:30Speaker 2: you're ready to go, right yeah, ready for action. Once
- 8:34Speaker 2: it starts to decline, that's associated with drowsiness and it
- 8:38Speaker 2: hits it's it's trough. Your body temperatures at its lowest
- 8:44Speaker 2: right about before you wake up, and that's actually associated
- 8:48Speaker 2: with r EM sleep. Yeah, so there are some stuff
- 8:51Speaker 2: starting to come out. Just bear with us, everybody.
- 8:54Speaker 3: We're laying the groundwork.
- 8:55Speaker 2: So your body temperature changes, the hypothalamus is directing the
- 8:59Speaker 2: whole thing, and sleep and wakefulness has something to do.
- 9:05Speaker 2: It's related to your body temperature changes. All right, good night.
- 9:09Speaker 2: You take it from here.
- 9:10Speaker 1: Well, you know what, let's take a break because I'm
- 9:13Speaker 1: not sure where i should go.
- 9:15Speaker 3: We'll be right back. Okay, I was being coy. You
- 9:40Speaker 3: set the stage very nicely.
- 9:42Speaker 2: Okay.
- 9:44Speaker 1: So if your body gets let's say, some bad bacteria
- 9:49Speaker 1: gets in it, yeah, and your body is alerted, warning
- 9:53Speaker 1: intruder is coming. Your immune system kicks in the gear
- 9:58Speaker 1: and art's producing this biochemical material called a pyrogen.
- 10:04Speaker 2: Okay, this is my new favorite thing the body does.
- 10:08Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Well you knew that before, right, or
- 10:12Speaker 1: did you just not know the mechanism.
- 10:13Speaker 2: I mean I knew humans get fevers, and I knew
- 10:16Speaker 2: the fever was to kind of like cook out everything.
- 10:18Speaker 2: I didn't understand the mechanism. I answer your question, Well
- 10:21Speaker 2: take this part then, oh yeah, kind I yeah. So
- 10:24Speaker 2: these pyrogens, right, they are these biochemical markers that are
- 10:31Speaker 2: released by the immune system in the body. Or and
- 10:34Speaker 2: this is why I love this. There's some bacteria, some
- 10:37Speaker 2: pathogens that make humans sick that produce pyrogens naturally. So
- 10:42Speaker 2: when they show up, they just start releasing the me
- 10:45Speaker 2: and they just give themselves away.
- 10:47Speaker 3: Yeah, it's they're big dummies in that way.
- 10:49Speaker 2: Right, They're like, hey, where's the party? They kick open
- 10:52Speaker 2: the door. They're carrying like a pony keg under one arm,
- 10:56Speaker 2: their gut sticking out. It's just that's that's like that
- 10:59Speaker 2: kind of bacteria, right, uh huh. So the pyrogens enter
- 11:02Speaker 2: the bloodstream, they travel to the hypothalamus, because remember the
- 11:05Speaker 2: hypothalamus controls your your body temperature. And this is what
- 11:10Speaker 2: they do, Chuck, are you ready for what the pyrogens do.
- 11:13Speaker 3: Yes.
- 11:14Speaker 2: They go to your hypothalmis and they dampen the heat
- 11:20Speaker 2: sensing neurons in the hypothalamus and they excite the cold
- 11:24Speaker 2: sensing neurons in your hypothalmis, and they trick your hypothalamis
- 11:28Speaker 2: into thinking your body's suddenly gotten very very cold. Yeah,
- 11:32Speaker 2: so that your hypothalamus turns the temperature up and says,
- 11:35Speaker 2: don't let any of this heat out. We gotta warm
- 11:38Speaker 2: back up. It tricks your body, your hypothomis, and in
- 11:41Speaker 2: creating a fever.
- 11:42Speaker 3: That's right.
- 11:42Speaker 1: And they do this because well, they don't do this
- 11:45Speaker 1: because but what happens from there? They do this because
- 11:48Speaker 1: they're dumb. But what happens from there is, like you said,
- 11:52Speaker 1: the fever, what a fever is, and why you want
- 11:55Speaker 1: that fever for at least a little while. Fever that
- 11:58Speaker 1: it does, it's it's trying to cook and burn and
- 12:01Speaker 1: bake that bacteria until it dies.
- 12:04Speaker 2: Right.
- 12:04Speaker 1: It is your body's fighting. Like when you hear, you know,
- 12:08Speaker 1: like your fever broke, that's usually a good sign. That
- 12:11Speaker 1: means yeah, right, that your fever did its job and
- 12:14Speaker 1: it's cooked all that bacteria up, and you're going.
- 12:16Speaker 3: To be on the men soon. Yeah. So basically that's
- 12:20Speaker 3: what's happening. And this is the great thing about a fever.
- 12:22Speaker 1: But you know, fever makes you feel like crap because
- 12:26Speaker 1: it's a lot of hard work to kill all those things.
- 12:29Speaker 2: Well it is. There's a lot of your sympathetic nervous
- 12:33Speaker 2: system is kicked into high gear, which I found out
- 12:35Speaker 2: is one reason why they say you want to feed
- 12:38Speaker 2: a cold starve a fever because you don't want to
- 12:41Speaker 2: introduce digestion because it requires the parasympathetic nervous system right right,
- 12:46Speaker 2: fight or flight, and you don't want those two things
- 12:49Speaker 2: going on while your body has a fever. It's just
- 12:51Speaker 2: a lot of extra work for it. Right. But one
- 12:54Speaker 2: of the things that is going on when your body
- 12:57Speaker 2: has a fever, when that temperature rises, it's hard enough
- 13:01Speaker 2: on your organs, but it's also hard on the level
- 13:04Speaker 2: just the fact that they're operating outside of their normal
- 13:07Speaker 2: operating temperature. Yeah, and that makes it very hard on
- 13:10Speaker 2: them and can actually cook some of the ingredients inside
- 13:13Speaker 2: your cells.
- 13:14Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 13:14Speaker 1: I mean it's like working in a too hot of
- 13:16Speaker 1: an environment. It's just never fun for anyone, right, although
- 13:19Speaker 1: I got some people love that stuff.
- 13:22Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're still they might like it, but they
- 13:24Speaker 2: still aren't working fast.
- 13:26Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
- 13:26Speaker 2: You know, they might be happy, but they're slow.
- 13:29Speaker 1: So if you have a fever, what's considered a fever
- 13:32Speaker 1: now in twenty seventeen, If you're an adult and your
- 13:36Speaker 1: oral temperature is above one hundred point four, or if
- 13:39Speaker 1: you're rectal or ear temperature is above one oh one,
- 13:43Speaker 1: then that's considered a fever. If your kid, good luck
- 13:48Speaker 1: getting anything besides the rectal temperature because.
- 13:51Speaker 3: It's just tough.
- 13:52Speaker 2: You have basically no right.
- 13:54Speaker 1: Well, yeah, which you have as wiggly kids who aren't like, sure,
- 13:58Speaker 1: stick something in my ear for force second. Yeah, but
- 14:02Speaker 1: up the up the kazoo.
- 14:04Speaker 3: There's not really anything they can do about that.
- 14:06Speaker 2: All they can do is say glavin.
- 14:08Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
- 14:11Speaker 1: So the rectal temperature for a kid above one hundred
- 14:14Speaker 1: point four, and with adults like you don't have to
- 14:17Speaker 1: really worry about your fever too much. If it tops
- 14:21Speaker 1: one hundred and five for you know, any period of time,
- 14:25Speaker 1: you probably want to do something about that.
- 14:27Speaker 2: That's what I saw was one hundred and five degree
- 14:29Speaker 2: farenthype mark was about where you should start to work.
- 14:32Speaker 1: Yeah, as an adult, and you're going to feel so awful.
- 14:35Speaker 1: If your tempera is one oh five, you've probably already
- 14:38Speaker 1: been to a doctor at that point, let's hope.
- 14:40Speaker 3: So for kids it's different though.
- 14:42Speaker 1: If you don't want to let your child get up
- 14:44Speaker 1: to one o five, that's bad, bad, bad.
- 14:46Speaker 2: So what is it for kids that you really want
- 14:48Speaker 2: to start worrying about?
- 14:49Speaker 3: Did you say, Oh, you know what, I'm not exactly sure.
- 14:52Speaker 2: I mean, it probably depends on whether you're a first
- 14:55Speaker 2: time pairing or this is your second.
- 14:57Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and it varies with the age. It's like
- 15:00Speaker 1: zero to eighteen months. It's something.
- 15:02Speaker 2: And I guess you like what you should do is
- 15:04Speaker 2: go consult your doctor.
- 15:06Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
- 15:07Speaker 1: But you know, any kind of temperature you should for
- 15:10Speaker 1: a child, you should kind of be a little more
- 15:12Speaker 1: alert about.
- 15:13Speaker 3: Right. But we're not in medical experts here.
- 15:15Speaker 2: No we're not. And everything we're saying assumes that you
- 15:17Speaker 2: have healthcare coverage.
- 15:19Speaker 3: That's right, all right, So that's fever in general. You
- 15:24Speaker 3: got anything else on that?
- 15:25Speaker 2: Yeah? One other thing. The the pyrogen's.
- 15:31Speaker 3: Piro by the way, it's no mistake. Man, I did
- 15:34Speaker 3: have some coincidence.
- 15:36Speaker 2: No, it's not. What is it Latin for fire? Greek
- 15:38Speaker 2: word for fire? Yeah, Piro eat def Leppard. Right, great song,
- 15:45Speaker 2: it really is, all right the whole album album.
- 15:48Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 15:48Speaker 2: Yeah. They just mentioned it in Rock of Ages. Yeah,
- 15:51Speaker 2: it comes up.
- 15:53Speaker 3: They should have a song called Pyromania wonderful.
- 15:56Speaker 2: But that's pretty cool. It's like the antithesis of your band,
- 16:01Speaker 2: your album, and your song all being the same name.
- 16:04Speaker 2: Like Big Country. Oh I love that song, sure, but
- 16:08Speaker 2: it's pretty uncreative. But you're basically saying, like, here's our
- 16:12Speaker 2: basket and we're gonna put every egg we have into it.
- 16:16Speaker 2: It's the one one thing we came up with.
- 16:18Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 16:18Speaker 2: I saw David Spade bit once and he was talking
- 16:21Speaker 2: about He's complaining it wasn't even comedy. He was just
- 16:23Speaker 2: complaining that he went and saw a Big Country and
- 16:26Speaker 2: they didn't play the song Big Country. Now. Yeah. Really,
- 16:29Speaker 2: He's like, it's the name of your band, It's the
- 16:31Speaker 2: one song everybody came to see and they play it.
- 16:35Speaker 3: He's funny too.
- 16:36Speaker 2: Well. The long, the long and short of it is
- 16:39Speaker 2: is I totally forgot what the other thing I had
- 16:40Speaker 2: to say about pirate tins was, so I'll probably think
- 16:43Speaker 2: of it. Oh, I know what it was pyrogens. As
- 16:48Speaker 2: your immune system grows in ages and you become a
- 16:51Speaker 2: grown up, the pyrogens have a little less of an
- 16:54Speaker 2: effect on you. So where if you're a kid and
- 16:56Speaker 2: your immune system is young and inexperienced, your fever's gonna
- 16:59Speaker 2: shoot up quick, and it's going to it's gonna get
- 17:03Speaker 2: hotter faster. So you do want to stay on top
- 17:06Speaker 2: of a kid's fever because their immune system is not
- 17:08Speaker 2: used to pyrogens coming and messing with their hypothalamus, making
- 17:12Speaker 2: adults it is.
- 17:12Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll spike much faster. That's a good point.
- 17:14Speaker 2: That's what I was trying to think of.
- 17:16Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. You need to take that.
- 17:18Speaker 1: You need to take that rectal temperature way more than
- 17:22Speaker 1: you're comfortable with.
- 17:23Speaker 2: I don't recall that ever having been done to me.
- 17:26Speaker 3: Well, because you don't remember being a baby. No, But my.
- 17:30Speaker 2: Parents were pretty strict, pretty stern. No.
- 17:34Speaker 1: And by the time a kid is old enough to
- 17:36Speaker 1: where you can say like, hey, put this under your tongue,
- 17:39Speaker 1: or hold still for a minute while I put this
- 17:40Speaker 1: in your ear. Yeah, but pre that when they're not
- 17:44Speaker 1: sentient humans, and they're just, you know, crying, whiny little
- 17:48Speaker 1: sacks of flesh.
- 17:49Speaker 2: I got you.
- 17:49Speaker 3: You got to stick it right up the butt. Okay,
- 17:52Speaker 3: Harry's laughing.
- 17:54Speaker 2: She almost spit out her schwarm of salad.
- 17:56Speaker 1: Harry's done plenty of that, so she knows. Okay, So
- 18:01Speaker 1: into dreams. I always think we've done a general show
- 18:05Speaker 1: on dreams.
- 18:06Speaker 2: I think we did. Finally, I didn't find it.
- 18:09Speaker 3: What still, No, I saw lucid dreaming. Can you control
- 18:13Speaker 3: your dreams?
- 18:13Speaker 2: That's the same thing, wasn't it.
- 18:17Speaker 3: I think that was the maybe. Yeah, No, we did.
- 18:20Speaker 2: One on dreams.
- 18:21Speaker 3: I didn't see it.
- 18:22Speaker 2: Wow, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Well,
- 18:27Speaker 2: this contributes to the little by little.
- 18:30Speaker 3: Someone will know.
- 18:31Speaker 1: Okay, Jill Hurley, where are you when we need you?
- 18:34Speaker 1: Our stattician Minister of stats?
- 18:36Speaker 3: Right, all right, Well we'll talk about.
- 18:38Speaker 1: Dreams a bit here then, even though we've explained this
- 18:40Speaker 1: in various episodes here and there to some degree, but uh, dreams.
- 18:45Speaker 1: You know, if you're a psychologist, you really love to
- 18:50Speaker 1: spend time talking and dissecting dreams, interpreting dreams.
- 18:55Speaker 3: If you're a.
- 18:57Speaker 1: More into the neurology side of some cis, you don't
- 19:00Speaker 1: really care about that kind of stuff. In fact, for
- 19:03Speaker 1: many years they thought it was called activation synthesis hypothesis,
- 19:08Speaker 1: which was you go to sleep and all these synapses
- 19:13Speaker 1: are just randomly firing and they don't really add up
- 19:16Speaker 1: to even a story. You just do that when you
- 19:19Speaker 1: wake up because you're human. Yeah, but that, I mean,
- 19:22Speaker 1: that's complete bs.
- 19:24Speaker 2: Well, you almost get the impression that they came up
- 19:26Speaker 2: with this and the neurologists came up with it to
- 19:28Speaker 2: stick out their territory. In response to years of psychoanalysts
- 19:33Speaker 2: saying this is what dreams are, right, like tapping into
- 19:36Speaker 2: the collective unconscious or your repressed memories, neuroscience said, no, nothing, Yeah,
- 19:44Speaker 2: they're just your stupid wet brain going crazy while you sleep.
- 19:48Speaker 3: Yeah, which we all know now is not true.
- 19:51Speaker 2: I saw another one too, what's that threat simulation theory?
- 19:55Speaker 2: Have you heard of that one?
- 19:57Speaker 3: No, but that's a great band name.
- 19:58Speaker 2: Basically, it's you're training to be a ninja while you sleep,
- 20:02Speaker 2: Like your brain is running threat simulations constantly, so that
- 20:07Speaker 2: it's like working itself out, like getting more and more
- 20:10Speaker 2: agile and quick and like like, so you can get
- 20:13Speaker 2: better at running from a saber tooth tiger, right, if
- 20:16Speaker 2: you actually encounter it.
- 20:18Speaker 3: I could see that early on maybe.
- 20:19Speaker 2: Sure, And there is an evolutionary advantage to it, so
- 20:23Speaker 2: evolutionarily speaking, it would make sense. The point is it
- 20:28Speaker 2: that one came along and was like, no, there's obviously
- 20:31Speaker 2: some reason for dreams, it's not just random.
- 20:34Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 20:34Speaker 1: Well, and then maybe I could have seen that early on.
- 20:37Speaker 1: But then at some point someone around the fire had
- 20:39Speaker 1: a dream about TikTok's wife and woke up and went, whoa, right,
- 20:43Speaker 1: there's no saber tooth tiger in that. I'm not sure
- 20:46Speaker 1: what that meant, but I better not tell tiktook right,
- 20:51Speaker 1: you know.
- 20:52Speaker 2: And then they went, what's a rectal thermometer? It hasn't
- 20:55Speaker 2: even been invented yet.
- 20:57Speaker 1: So these days they've done actual studies with EEG machines
- 21:03Speaker 1: and MRI machines, and especially in Italy, these Italian researchers
- 21:08Speaker 1: basically put people to sleep, not put them to.
- 21:11Speaker 2: Sleep in a sleeper hole.
- 21:13Speaker 1: They lay them down in a nice Italian bed, feed
- 21:16Speaker 1: them some pasta fazoul.
- 21:18Speaker 2: And get out the rectal thermometer.
- 21:19Speaker 1: Yep, and they hook them up to all these wires
- 21:22Speaker 1: and machines and then they will wake them up at
- 21:24Speaker 1: different points in the night and say, hey, what were
- 21:26Speaker 1: you dreaming of? We'd like to talk about it and
- 21:30Speaker 1: study what was going on with these machines.
- 21:32Speaker 2: Right, And they actually what they found supports the current
- 21:38Speaker 2: the prevailing theory. I don't think it was their theory.
- 21:40Speaker 2: I think it was around, but their research supports it
- 21:42Speaker 2: called affect regulation theory, which is basically that we control
- 21:49Speaker 2: our emotions or we process our emotions through our dreams. Yeah,
- 21:53Speaker 2: and these Italians found support for this and that when
- 21:57Speaker 2: they woke people up and asked them what they were
- 21:59Speaker 2: dreaming about, the ones who had the best recall were
- 22:02Speaker 2: the ones who had the most Theta waves in their
- 22:04Speaker 2: frontal lobes.
- 22:05Speaker 3: Right, which are slow moving waves. Right.
- 22:08Speaker 2: Yes, And when you look at an EEG machine, if
- 22:11Speaker 2: you looked at those dreamers brain waves, it looked like
- 22:16Speaker 2: the brain waves of somebody who was sitting there forming
- 22:19Speaker 2: and recalling memories.
- 22:21Speaker 3: Right.
- 22:21Speaker 2: So these people said, that's what they're doing. That's what
- 22:24Speaker 2: all of us are doing. While we're dreaming, we're forming memories.
- 22:27Speaker 2: We're taking emotions that we've experienced through the day, and
- 22:30Speaker 2: we're creating memories. Out of them so we can file
- 22:33Speaker 2: them away. So we're processing our emotions in our dreams.
- 22:37Speaker 2: That's the point of dreams. That's the current understanding. Yeah.
- 22:40Speaker 1: And then I mean other parts of the brain that
- 22:43Speaker 1: have been active all sort of deal with emotion, whether
- 22:46Speaker 1: it's the amygdala and the hippocampus or the lingual gyrus,
- 22:51Speaker 1: which I think.
- 22:51Speaker 3: We just talked about that in another episode.
- 22:54Speaker 2: I don't recall.
- 22:55Speaker 3: I can't remember, but.
- 22:56Speaker 1: They're all areas of the brain that relate to emotion
- 22:59Speaker 1: and memory, right, and some with visual activity.
- 23:02Speaker 3: And you know that kind of makes sense. I like
- 23:05Speaker 3: that theory. Yeah.
- 23:06Speaker 2: And then under that current theory, so that's like the
- 23:08Speaker 2: explanation for regular dreams. And you can't just have a
- 23:11Speaker 2: theory for dreams without including nightmares or else your theory's broken. Right,
- 23:16Speaker 2: So the affect regulation theory considers nightmares. Basically, it's an
- 23:23Speaker 2: emotion that's being put into the process of being, of
- 23:25Speaker 2: creating a memory, a false memory, right, a dream memory,
- 23:29Speaker 2: I guess you put it. But it's a real emotion, right,
- 23:32Speaker 2: and it's so big it breaks the process, and all
- 23:37Speaker 2: of a sudden, this process of creating a fake memory,
- 23:40Speaker 2: a fake experience goes haywire, and now all of a
- 23:43Speaker 2: sudden you're enduring some terrible, horrifying experience because the emotion
- 23:49Speaker 2: that was being processed was too big and got out
- 23:51Speaker 2: of control. And now you have a nightmare ts for you.
- 23:55Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we did one night terrors, right.
- 23:58Speaker 2: We did for sure, all right? And sleep paralysis, we've
- 24:04Speaker 2: covered it all.
- 24:04Speaker 3: I think I.
- 24:05Speaker 2: Guess we really haven't done a dreams one.
- 24:07Speaker 3: All right, So let's take another break.
- 24:09Speaker 1: We're gonna come back and finally talk about fever dreams.
- 24:34Speaker 2: You robbed me of a Saturday night fever reference. I
- 24:37Speaker 2: just want to go on record as saying.
- 24:39Speaker 3: That I was wrong.
- 24:41Speaker 2: So Chuck, here's where everything just kind of goes totally
- 24:44Speaker 2: off the rail. We've talked about fevers, We've talked about nightmares.
- 24:51Speaker 2: The problem is really understanding both doesn't necessarily amount to
- 24:57Speaker 2: understanding them together. Right, So, knowing what fevers are, knowing
- 25:02Speaker 2: what dreams are, it doesn't mean you know what fever
- 25:04Speaker 2: dreams are. But you can make stuff up if you want.
- 25:08Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm boy, I don't even think we even
- 25:11Speaker 1: said if you've never had a fever dream, you might
- 25:13Speaker 1: even know we're talking about. Oh yeah, feel kind of
- 25:15Speaker 1: dumb at this point in the podcast. But a fever
- 25:17Speaker 1: dream is basically a nightmare on steroids. It's just so
- 25:23Speaker 1: vivid and so real and scary, right, that happens, you know,
- 25:29Speaker 1: when you are sick with a fever.
- 25:31Speaker 2: Yes, obviously, so they're fever dreams, right, So they are
- 25:34Speaker 2: a thing. Yeah, but the scientific literature on them is
- 25:38Speaker 2: super thin, basically non existent.
- 25:40Speaker 1: It seemed to get them, if not more, at least
- 25:43Speaker 1: they stand out more to children, right, And so anecdotally
- 25:46Speaker 1: people seem to recall having fever dreams more when they
- 25:49Speaker 1: were kids. Whether or not that's true or just a
- 25:52Speaker 1: memory is or you know, what do you call it,
- 25:55Speaker 1: like a memory bias or whatever.
- 25:57Speaker 3: Yeah, no one really knows.
- 26:01Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, I mean we don't really know because.
- 26:04Speaker 1: I don't remember the last time I had a fever
- 26:07Speaker 1: and if I did, whether or not I had a
- 26:09Speaker 1: fever dream.
- 26:11Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever had a fever dream.
- 26:13Speaker 3: I did when I was a kid.
- 26:14Speaker 2: I don't remember having fever dream.
- 26:16Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember being sick as a kid and having
- 26:18Speaker 1: like nightmares when I was sick.
- 26:21Speaker 2: So like they're noticeably worse than your average nightmare. Yes, really,
- 26:26Speaker 2: so would you keep waking up from them that I
- 26:30Speaker 2: don't remember. See, that's that's a big question to me. Well,
- 26:34Speaker 2: let's talk about the anecdotal theory of what is behind
- 26:38Speaker 2: fever dreams. Right, Okay, So when your body's undergoing a fever,
- 26:42Speaker 2: we said that your body's not functioning at its top performance,
- 26:47Speaker 2: and that includes the brain. The brain itself is an
- 26:50Speaker 2: extremely special organ if you didn't know already, it's like,
- 26:55Speaker 2: I think two percent of the body's mass, yeah, but
- 26:58Speaker 2: it requires twenty percent of the bodies energy.
- 27:00Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 27:01Speaker 1: And the neurons compared to regular old dumb cells, they
- 27:07Speaker 1: burn or they need about between three hundred and twenty
- 27:10Speaker 1: five hundred times more energy, right than a regular old
- 27:14Speaker 1: dumb cell in your body.
- 27:16Speaker 3: Right.
- 27:17Speaker 2: And so when all these chemical processes, when all of
- 27:19Speaker 2: this energy is being exploited to power cells, it produces
- 27:24Speaker 2: the byproduct of heat.
- 27:25Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 27:26Speaker 2: So the brain is super sensitive to overheating. Right already,
- 27:29Speaker 2: it's just under normal circumstances.
- 27:30Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's generally taken care of by your body
- 27:35Speaker 1: likes you know that it's cooled down right and regulated.
- 27:38Speaker 2: Right. So, if you have a fever and your brain
- 27:44Speaker 2: is not operating at optimal conditions, but you're asleep, so
- 27:50Speaker 2: it's trying to go through its normal processes. If you
- 27:54Speaker 2: have a nightmare, it's entirely possible that that nightmare is
- 27:58Speaker 2: going to be far, far worse because the normal processes
- 28:00Speaker 2: of broken down, or it's even further possible. Apparently, the
- 28:06Speaker 2: amygdala is frequently implicated with nightmares because it has to
- 28:10Speaker 2: do with being terrified or angry or fearful. The amygdala
- 28:15Speaker 2: might be functioning at an abnormal level. Yeah, and it's
- 28:20Speaker 2: just basically going haywired while you have a fever.
- 28:24Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 28:24Speaker 1: And then the fact that most dreams occur during rim sleep,
- 28:28Speaker 1: and I think that's when your body is warmest sleep anyway, right.
- 28:32Speaker 2: That's when see, this is where it all gets kind
- 28:35Speaker 2: of hinky. During r em sleep, your hypothalamus says I'm done,
- 28:39Speaker 2: I'm not working right now, so it stops regulating temperature,
- 28:43Speaker 2: which is usually why your body temperature is lowest right
- 28:45Speaker 2: before you wake up.
- 28:46Speaker 3: Oh I thought it was highest right before you wake up.
- 28:48Speaker 2: No, it's highest in the afternoon while you're awake. It's
- 28:51Speaker 2: lowest right before you wake up.
- 28:52Speaker 3: I feel like I always wake up hot.
- 28:56Speaker 2: You I mean, you may be like sleeping with too
- 28:58Speaker 2: many blankets. Your room might be a little.
- 28:59Speaker 3: Too warmlankets, huh.
- 29:02Speaker 1: Or maybe it's my stupid you know, schedule of my
- 29:06Speaker 1: ac I mean it could be you know, it might
- 29:08Speaker 1: have cut off a couple hours before or something.
- 29:10Speaker 3: Right, it could be right, so fires up after I
- 29:12Speaker 3: get up.
- 29:12Speaker 2: Because supposedly, when you are sleeping and you're in ram sleep,
- 29:17Speaker 2: your hypothalamus is not regulating temperature during that period. So
- 29:22Speaker 2: if you if you are already hot and remember high
- 29:27Speaker 2: body temperatures associated with wakefulness, Yeah, then maybe you are
- 29:31Speaker 2: waking up more frequently than you normally would, and when
- 29:34Speaker 2: you wake up in the middle of a dream, you're
- 29:36Speaker 2: more prone to remember it. If you wake up in
- 29:38Speaker 2: the middle of a nightmare, it's going to seem even
- 29:40Speaker 2: worse than one that you had and woke up normally from.
- 29:44Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I had a series of not nightmares
- 29:47Speaker 1: last night, but just sort of anxiety dreams. And I
- 29:51Speaker 1: don't have any anxiety about anything right now. I think
- 29:53Speaker 1: it was just after reading all this stuff. Oh yeah,
- 29:56Speaker 1: I'm just suggestible.
- 29:58Speaker 2: You had anxiety dreams.
- 29:59Speaker 3: Yeah, huh, but not about like nothing specific.
- 30:03Speaker 1: No, like there's you know, usually if I have anxiety dreams.
- 30:06Speaker 1: I'm just like, because something's going on in my life,
- 30:07Speaker 1: I'm anxiously sure. Yeah, but there was just a research
- 30:10Speaker 1: h I think. So, man, you're dedicated. But they're also
- 30:13Speaker 1: celebrity dreams because you know I've talked about those before. No, yeah,
- 30:18Speaker 1: yeah that I have just celebrity dreams all the time.
- 30:21Speaker 1: But they're just very normal that I'm just like friends
- 30:24Speaker 1: with celebrity people.
- 30:26Speaker 2: But they were they anxiety ridden last night?
- 30:29Speaker 1: Yes, Like I was hanging out with the band Luna.
- 30:31Speaker 1: Dean ware them of Luna, all right, and there was
- 30:34Speaker 1: but there was I can't remember exactly what was going on,
- 30:37Speaker 1: but you know, there was anxiety involved, like I was
- 30:39Speaker 1: trying to get somewhere and couldn't get there, like the
- 30:41Speaker 1: typical stupid dream stuff, you know.
- 30:44Speaker 3: But Dean was in there somehow.
- 30:46Speaker 2: Yeah. Have you talked to him today?
- 30:49Speaker 1: I don't know him, but uh, I think I know
- 30:52Speaker 1: why they were in there, that's all I'll say.
- 30:54Speaker 2: Oh, okay, wink wink.
- 30:57Speaker 3: I guess.
- 30:58Speaker 1: So here's another thing that was our own article I
- 31:00Speaker 1: thought was interesting, just a little tidbit, was that some
- 31:05Speaker 1: recreational drugs like methan ecstasy can raise brain temperatures. Right,
- 31:10Speaker 1: That is one of the reasons they think that it
- 31:13Speaker 1: kills so many brain cells when you do those drugs.
- 31:15Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly you're not supposed to take ecstasy in warm climates.
- 31:19Speaker 3: Yeah, never, I have heard that.
- 31:21Speaker 2: Yeah, just norway. Well, there you have it, only it's
- 31:25Speaker 2: fall barred.
- 31:29Speaker 3: What else? Is there anything else in here?
- 31:31Speaker 2: No? Man, I can't believe we stretched this one out
- 31:33Speaker 2: as far as we did. Alrighty, we never have to
- 31:36Speaker 2: talk about fever dreams again, Chuck Good. If you want
- 31:40Speaker 2: to know more about fever dreams, well you might as
- 31:42Speaker 2: well start at HowStuffWorks dot com. There's nothing wrong with that.
- 31:46Speaker 2: And you can also just go around and look at
- 31:48Speaker 2: how sparse the research is on the internet for yourself.
- 31:52Speaker 2: And if you are a researcher and you know more
- 31:55Speaker 2: stuff about fever dreams, that you can point us to
- 31:58Speaker 2: let us know. Yeah. In the meantime, I think I
- 32:01Speaker 2: said search bars somewhere in there, which means it's time
- 32:04Speaker 2: for listener mail, you know what.
- 32:08Speaker 1: I think Another reason the anxiety dreams is because I'm
- 32:11Speaker 1: barreling through the season of Fargo and the third season. Yeah,
- 32:16Speaker 1: and the two episodes I watched last night, which I
- 32:18Speaker 1: believe were if there are ten, I think it was
- 32:22Speaker 1: eight and nine. We're both just like ratcheted.
- 32:26Speaker 3: Up with tingin. I'm sure that's what it was, and
- 32:29Speaker 3: I think that probably had something to do with it.
- 32:30Speaker 2: That happens to me sometimes I'll be watching something I
- 32:33Speaker 2: won't realize how on top of me it's gotten, and
- 32:35Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, like it goes to an
- 32:37Speaker 2: ad and I'm like really uptight about like this scratching
- 32:40Speaker 2: dent washing machine sale that's going on somewhere, and I
- 32:43Speaker 2: don't understand why, and I'm like, oh, wow, that TV
- 32:46Speaker 2: show really got to me.
- 32:47Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think Fargo had something to do it.
- 32:49Speaker 2: I think you may have nailed it.
- 32:51Speaker 3: All right.
- 32:52Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one garden variety fan mail, which
- 32:55Speaker 1: we don't read a lot of these, so I'm going
- 32:58Speaker 1: to dig in. Hey, guys, that's all this is fan maail.
- 33:02Speaker 1: You guys are doing a great job, always have. It's
- 33:04Speaker 1: clear that with every episode you take great pains to
- 33:07Speaker 1: provide the most accurate information you can in the most
- 33:10Speaker 1: thoughtful way possible.
- 33:11Speaker 2: How ironic that you would read this on the fever
- 33:13Speaker 2: Dreams of Us day.
- 33:14Speaker 1: This has never been more evident to me than in
- 33:16Speaker 1: the episodes you did on puberty. I know it's been
- 33:18Speaker 1: a little while since he's came out, but just listen
- 33:21Speaker 1: to them, and it was touching to see how frequently
- 33:22Speaker 1: you tried to reassure young listeners what they're experiencing is
- 33:25Speaker 1: normal and that there was nothing wrong about what was happening.
- 33:28Speaker 1: To hear two grown men do their best talk to
- 33:31Speaker 1: young boys and girls about such sensitive material.
- 33:33Speaker 3: What's a pleasure?
- 33:35Speaker 1: Yes, at times I could practically feel you nervously twitching
- 33:38Speaker 1: while trying to discuss menstruation in an informative yet reassuring way,
- 33:44Speaker 1: but it was absolutely charming. Just reaffirm what we've always known.
- 33:47Speaker 1: You two are just a pair of great dudes.
- 33:49Speaker 2: Oh that's nice. Yeah, I like this guy.
- 33:51Speaker 1: I've only been listening for a few years, but I'm
- 33:53Speaker 1: a lifetime fan. Now if you're keeping count, like to
- 33:57Speaker 1: put in a vote for DC for live shows. Josh
- 34:02Speaker 1: h E d G E E sorry E d G
- 34:07Speaker 1: E is edge and then ed two l's Edgel Edgel. Sure, yeah,
- 34:12Speaker 1: Josh Edgel or Edgel? I like Edgel or ed Gil
- 34:17Speaker 1: L or Edge.
- 34:19Speaker 2: I think Edgel Edgel sounds like a kid next door.
- 34:22Speaker 1: Josh Edgel, It's Josh and Josh. You know what, We
- 34:25Speaker 1: usually come to DC once a year. I don't think
- 34:29Speaker 1: we're coming this year though.
- 34:30Speaker 2: No, we probably will be there early ish twenty eighteen.
- 34:33Speaker 3: Yeah. DC's always great to us, so what we'll definitely be.
- 34:36Speaker 2: Back yeah soonish yeah. Uh. And you can always fly
- 34:40Speaker 2: somewhere in the continental United States or Canada. Josh, take
- 34:43Speaker 2: that Asla Express up to Brooklyn exactly.
- 34:45Speaker 3: It's a pleasure train.
- 34:46Speaker 2: There you go. There's Rechtel thermometers everywhere. Uh. And if
- 34:51Speaker 2: you want to get in touch with us, you can
- 34:52Speaker 2: send us both and Jerry an email to Stuff podcast
- 34:56Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
- 35:02Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio.
- 35:04Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
- 35:08Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.