Latest / Ridiculous History / When People Thought They Were Made of Glass

Transcript

When People Thought They Were Made of Glass · Ridiculous History

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and I am about to ask a massive favor of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: my co host, who doesn't know what I'm about to ask,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: but is so super cool one of my best friends,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and hopefully isn't mad at me for putting them on this.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I'm mad at you, like in advance. I also has
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: banged my knee on the desk here, so I'm super cranky,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: but go ahead, alright, okay, ladies, gentlemen. Uh Noel Brown.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Uh Noel is a very talented multi instrumentalist and has
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: pipes for the Angels, So nol, I was going to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: ask you if you would do uh, just a small
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: rendition of that Heart of Glass song? Absolutely not all
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: right up, damn David found out a swattered town. A
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: piano was a dude down, leave it up down one, Yeah,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: thank you. I don't know that I'm see. I may
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: have pipes to the Angels, but unlike my my dear
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: friend Frank, who hopefully is listening, I don't remember lyrics
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: quite well. Well, the melody was important there, That's exactly.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And you might ask, then why are you putting? Why
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: are you putting this? Poor guy on. I'd like to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: know you can feel the attention in the room here.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Our super producer Casey Pegram is uh raising up the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: yellow card for me. That means I'm not Oh wow,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: he had one? He did? I was, I was making
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that up. Oh gosh, Okay, I'll teach you. Yeah, I'll
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: teach me. You guys are amazing. We are talking about
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a very very very very strange phenomenon in European history today,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and I guess we'll just set it up this way.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: In fourteen two, King Charles the six died after ruling
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: France for more than four decades forty years. He had
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a couple of different nicknames. One of them was Charles
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the Mad, the Mad King, the Mad King, Charles the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Mad is he the one who who set everyone on fire?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, that's that's that's not real. That's came
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of thrones. But man, what a great show. Just while
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: we're at a pretty pretty dope show, I feel like
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Winds of Winter, that next book is never going to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: come out. George R. Martin, if you're listening to do
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: whatever you want, man, Yeah, it's fine, you don't owe
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: anything on. HBO will finish it. For you, it's fine,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: oh that it probably is true. Charles the Mad, although
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: he did not burn an entire palace is worth of people,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: was still u kind of wonky and we touched a
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: little touched, Yeah, yeah, but a bit different. And he
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: may have been the first person to exhibit what is
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: known as the glass delusion. What do you think about
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: this one? Nol, Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: sure as specific, like how would you arrive at this
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: particular conclusion that you are made of glass and would break?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: So this delusion for our boy Charles was brought on
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: by melancholia, which is a fabulous film from from Lars Fontrier.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And I thought it was a made up word, but
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: it's actually what they used to refer to depression as um.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And this continued to pop up weirdly because, like I said,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: it seems like such a specific malady tied to a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: particular person and a very you know, particular kind of delusion.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: But it kept popping up throughout history. Even Hippocrates, um,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: you know, used the term melancholia in his Book of Aphorisms,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: called it a long lasting fright or despondency and profound depression. Again,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the term over time became depression, right right. Uh. The
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: condition of melancholia affected people who are isolated, who are
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: generally around a lot of people and ding ding ding
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: ding ding. That sounds like something that could easily happen
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to a queen or a king, especially just being surrounded
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: by you know, sycophants who just tell you what you
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: want to hear, and being completely isolated from any real
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: meaningful let's say, human contact, maybe even not knowing enough
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: to differentiate to right. Scary, Yeah, it's super scary. So
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: some of these folks with melancholia in this time. Uh,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: this condition produced this glass delusion, which was also accompanied
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: by something called photophobia, which is sensitivity to light. Yes, yeah, oh,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and we should mentioned just for backg out for the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: time here. Charles was born in thirteen sixty eight in
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: December and died in October fourteen twenty two. The mad
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't his only nickname. He was also called the beloved Man.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: That's too two extremes there, That's very wise. You can
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: be mad and and beloved. Yeah, sure, I mean maybe
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the madness was sort of like cookie and then it
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: didn't like he didn't like, you know, murder his his people,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: in droves. He just was a little a little touched
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and maybe some people found it charming, and he was convinced,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: he was convinced that he was physically made of glass.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: He did some he had some very specific request or
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: demands from everyone in court, so he needed to have
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: special clothes. He demanded they have special clothes made for
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: his person to protect him from the possibility of shattering,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: like reinforced with iron on the inside. I could picture
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: is almost like a strange kind of exoskeleton, right, And
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: he would not allow people to touch him because he
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: was afraid that they would break him into tiny smithereens.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And this is not something that was just a passing
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: fancy for him. It followed him throughout his entire life, right.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And he was not the only member of the royalty
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: with this same delusion. There was also Princess Alexandra Emily
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: of Bavaria, and she believed that because she had swallowed
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a glass grand piano as a child, that it is
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: somehow turned her into fragile class. That's a bit of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a jump, yes, yeah, and you can hear this case
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: discussed that Princess Alexandrew's case discussed in detail in stuff
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you missed in history class. Yeah, that you don't have
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a so called the Princess who swallowed a glass piano.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: It's a very appropriate title. Let's just a backtrack here
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: one second. How does one acquire a tiny glass grand
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: piano A? And and how do you accidentally swallow it? Well,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: obviously you are trying to play it with your mouth.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: You know. I once thought that I swallowed an entire
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: wrapped cough drop, and it turns out that I didn't
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and actually do that. But I spent a whole day
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: convinced that I had swallowed a cough drop that was
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: a reco lack that was wrapped, and then I found
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: it later in my pocket, and I felt very foolish.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: But I spent that day kind of probably feeling a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: little bit how this princess might have felt, um, you know,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit less extreme, but you know, I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: definitely felt something was off. I didn't feel like I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: was made of reco luck, but you know, I was spooked.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: And sometimes obsessive thoughts can haunt us. You know, imagine
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: if you've ever had I'm not equivocating these things entirely,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: but just by way of comparison to imagine if you
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: ever had a song stuck in your head to the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: point that it becomes torturous. Right, Oh, it's not that bad.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: That song is not gonna get Second, it's not gonna happen.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Where does happen to me? And I can't live ever? No, no, no,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get you. You could try get you. Well,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: hopefully you will have it. A we have a long,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: long future ahead of that, uh of you trying to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: get songs stuck in my head? Okay? And uh, the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: thing is that when you have a song seck in
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: your head and uh, this thought that will not leave
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: this unwelcome visitor. Yeah, it's unwelcome visitor that shows up
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: in the house of your mind and makes itself at
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: home and begins altering the interior decoration. Uh. Compulsive thoughts,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: thoughts that you don't want to have but you cannot escape,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: can occur for very long periods of time. So this
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: isn't just I guess I'm saying this because this is
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: not just restricted to the glass illusion, which by the way,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: was one of the most prevalent delusions of its time.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: That's the whole point here. That's so interesting and a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: lot of that is tied to the actual technology of glass. Yeah,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: so it's spread to anything that contained glass as well.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: There's a history of psychiatry paper from that dives into
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: this type of melancholy and shows that other people had
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: delusions where they thought they were specifically flasked or what
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you and I would refer to as urinals in the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: modern day, or oil lamps, or like any number of
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: other glass receptacles totally. But it was also the new
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: invention of clear glass that is largely blamed for the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: this delusion because people just had not seen this before
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and it appeared as magic. It appeared as something utterly mystical,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and you know, you could probably see how something like
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that might play into the delusion of people that are
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: possibly predisposed to those cyclical thoughts that you're talking about,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: right exactly, Because according to the author of this paper,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Gil Speak the melancholiacs whose delusions manifested this way, it
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: was manifesting because it was a need to protect the body,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and they were often also preoccupied with protecting their souls.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So in a layered way, in a layer K kind
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: of way, this delusion might have been a side effect
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: or symptom consequence of the internal struggle dealing with the
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: metaphysical reality of death, and of course the overwhelming desire
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: to avoid death at all costs, which is still very
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: understandable in Yeah, I'm into it as well, and these
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: issues have not disappeared. You know, if you're isolated from
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: people today and you're you're suffering from mental illnes this,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: you can see how it would make sense to imagine
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: yourself as a material that's easily breakable, largely invisible, incredibly fragile.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're all living in a material world and
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I'm a material girl made of material. In Speaks paper
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: in this review, they address this concept of mortality and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a fantastic quote here that builds after
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: speak is placing this concept, this delusion in the context
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of theologians reacting to the world of free thinkers versus
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the strict boundaries of orthodoxy, right, like, is it is
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it heretical to think that you were made of glass
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: in a world that is governed by strict religious monotheistic dogma,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: where there is an absolute odd with an absolute plan.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: So people try to people try to address this both
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: as a social conundrum man and internal struggle, and I'll
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: just read the quote here, and I want to see
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: what you think. For those whose faith was strong enough
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to shoulder the church's advocation to prepare oneself for dying,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and there was prolific literature on this topic, the melancholic
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: delusions manifest itself in a fervent wish to be released
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: from this earthly form. James Howell is an example of
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: this is Reflections as he languished imprisoned embody, the manifestations
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: of the glass delusion. The soul is a spark of immortality.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: She is a divine light, and the body is but
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a socket of clay that holds it in. Some this
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: light goes out with an ill favored stench, but others
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: have a save all to preserve it from making any
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: snuff at all. So this idea of like dying a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: good death choosing the way in which you die seems
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: central to this class delusion, because now you're you know,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: if you know you're going to die right, and you
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: have a spiritual belief that something happens after you die,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and you live in a society that tells you more
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: or less an if then scenario, you know, if you
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: are a good person. If you follow the rules of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the church, then you will go to a paradise. You know.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: It's it's an action of retaining control. Like I'm not
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm the King of France. I'm not gonna accidentally
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: shatter because I shook someone's hand. I'm not done yet.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Build me a suit of I I see what you're saying,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: because at first I was sort of like, it seems
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: like you'd be very out of control. But we've given
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: those powers to guard against a something that you could
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: more or less control than. Maybe that is a form
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: of that. It's interesting and actually, as it turns out,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: this delusion carried on into the into there isn't even um.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: There are quite a few cases of glass delusion up
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: into the eighteen eighties in the footnotes of a Servantes
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: home called the Glass Graduate Um talking about contemporary cases
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: in in a Parisian asylum and doesn't have too much
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: too much else on that, but it does discuss it. Um.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Do you do you do you know of any other
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: case has been Yeah? Actually, uh so. Tchaikovsky, Peter Eliot
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Tchaikovsky has some of his actions, some of his neurotic
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: behavior had led people to think that he was suffering
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: something similar to the class delusion, at least in terms
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: of his perception of his fertility. He had this deep set,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: dead certain belief that if he did not hold his
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: chin while he was conducting, that his head would fall off, physically,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: just fall off. And you know, people debate over whether
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: this legend is exaggerated, but it seems to have a basis.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: In fact, he had said himself that he felt his
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: head would fall sideways unless he constantly fought to keep
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: it upright. So he's scared to conduct. And he said
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that he also had a tremendous insecurity about conducting because
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: he was aware that his condition might make him look weird,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense. This was an eighteen sixties In
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighties six, he said that he was haunted by
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: this idea of conducting, but it followed him for quite
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a while in his life. In that servant's story I
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, the Glass Graduate is actually a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: short story. Um The circumstances were that the hero of
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the story eats a poisonous for quince and it's meant
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to be an afrodisiac, but it actually triggers the delusion,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: which I would I would think was probably inspired by
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the glass piano story of like ingesting something and then
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: having it, you know, having some kind of overpowering effect
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: on in your mind, you know the actual composition of
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: your body. And here's another interesting thing. So we said,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Tchaikovsky is uh suffering from something similar to this, but
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: it's not specifically glass. The weird thing is, we have
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to ask ourselves what happened. What happened to this delusion
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that was once relatively well known such that authors like
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Servants were writing about it. The general assumption for a
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: long time was that around the eighteen thirties, cases of
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: glass delusion disappear from the literature, from the medical records,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and at first glance, it would be easy to assume
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that society and culture had changed so extremely over time
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: such that people who are suffering from mental illness would
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: no longer manifest this particular delusion. Going back to the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: earlier point about new technology, maybe it's a case where
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: someone believes they are made of a different new substance, right,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: just for the sake of argument, carbon fiber. You know,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: we don't know if there's an actual case, but the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: point is, like a newer material might have launched the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: same thing. However, a psychiatrist named Andy Lemaine at Leaden
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: in the Netherlands uncovered more cases and he felt that
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: he was finding an authentic case of genuine glass delusion,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and his research in this field at the psychiatric hospital
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in Leyden where he was serving as director led him
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to discover lost cases recorded after that eighteen thirties disappearance
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: day Uh he found a lecture in three from an
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Edinburgh mental hospital that cited the symptoms of three female patients,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and one of them was convinced that her legs and
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: her back, part of her back, all of her back,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: we don't know, but her legs in her back were
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: made of glass. She had such a fear of this,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of this condition that just like Charles the six, she
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: would not allow people to touch her. Nurses could not
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: get near her to change her clothes or help her.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And this, you know, this is an interesting thing. I
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: don't think we mentioned people who have the glass delusion.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I think that what's interesting is that the glass they
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: imagine comprising their body is much more fragile than actual
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: real world glass, because you could touch a glass were
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: we hold glasses and drink out of them. Yeah, I
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: mean it's it's a it's a it's more durable than
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you give it credit for. I mean, most of the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: drinking glasses at my house there were Mason jars, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I dropped those all the time, and they over time
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: do develop little cracks, but they don't usually just explode.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: What if? What if these people were made of pyrex? Though,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you know what happens in pyrex, drops everywhere, explodes everywhere.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Pretty wild. But then this guy Lemaine and were, I
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: don't know, we're being a little liberal with his pronunciation.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: It's l A M E I J. And I'm assuming
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: this soft J. I couldn't find anyone speaking it online,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: But we are doing our best. Um. He later discovered
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a young man at a clinic in Letten, the university
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: clinic where he worked, who specifically said he was made
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: out of glass. He was so jazzed about the opportunity
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to talk to only like modern day case of this
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that that had been found for decades. Uh, and was
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: incredibly excited. So he dropped everything he was doing, he says,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and he you know, high tailed it and and made
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: this happen. So he hung out with this gentleman for sometime,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and he did, in fact confirm that the guy believe
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: that he was made of glass. There's a fabulous quote
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: from this this patient. They're having a conversation and the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: patient points to a window in the room where they're meeting,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and he asked the professor what could you see? What
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: can you see? This is positively cinematic, but it really
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: as man that that should be a this should be
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a moment. So uh, Lemaine says, well, he gives it
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the old college. Go, you know, a gold college. Try.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: He says, I see a street, I see some cars,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I see some more buildings, and I see people walking past.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: And then a moment of silence filled the room. Ah,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you missed the glass in the window. You didn't see it,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: but it is there. That's me. I'm there and I'm
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: not there like the glass in the window. Spooky. Yeah, yes, spooky.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And you know what, not to pat ourselves on the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: back too much, but well done, right, well I think
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: we said that anything um so that on your party. Thanks, thanks,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I can't take all the credit. He didn't want to.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: He wanted to be very careful when he was speaking
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: with this patient. He didn't want to accidentally let's say
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: go too far, too fast, and distort the conversation by
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: right out opening up with well, maybe you have ideas
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: of fragility and transparency and they're manifesting in this way,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: you know. And this led to the class in the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: window conversation, which again is just I can see it,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I can see that film. So Lemaine continued
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: his conversation and ultimately he he came to the belief that,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: based on some of the life events the patient told
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: him about, including a recent accident, he believed that the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: class delusion was, in a way an attempt to regain privacy.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: What's interesting about this patient is that he felt that
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: he could switch it on and off, so he wasn't
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: stuck forever like Glass. But that's cool. He felt like
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: he could become it, so that that kind of goes
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: back to what you're saying earlier about how you know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: in the early cases of glass illusion, it almost manifested
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: itself as in some as some strange form of control,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: kind of like to be able to control your circumstances
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: um or control the manner of your own death or
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: something like that. I think that's really interesting, and maybe
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: then this means in some ways, this this feeling is
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: something that comes from the extreme end of the social
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: anxiety scale, because we've all had social anxiety at some point, right, Like,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming I don't want to put you on the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: spot again based on the top of our show. Having
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: it right now, buddy, you're having it right now. It's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: gonna be okay now of course, of course, you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: but you got you gotta kind of like, uh, you
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: play little little tricks with yourself if you have it
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: to kind of like, um, get rid of it. And
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like the so this seems like a
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: very extreme case, but I could certainly see it as
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: being some sort of deep seated you know device. And
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: to take a phrase from the uh Simpsons, one of
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the one of my favorite words they use, we can
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the big end this phenomenon, because you see the glass
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: delusion feels very specific. And I love the point you
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: made about technology because it was new at the time.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And so now the next question is are there other
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: things that function in the same way? Is there another
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: example of a new material? Right? I think it used
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: carbon fiber just because spoiler alert, I knew that probably
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't true, but why not, like like cotton candy or something,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: you know, like where does where? Where does it end? Yeah,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, when cement became a popular building material,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: there were people who began to have this belief that
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: they were made of cement. And I wonder if it's
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the same thing as uh, you know, people who believe
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: that their minds are being hacked in the information age.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: That's a good point, dude, that's a I mean, it's
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a scary point because again we have to be conscious
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and aware of the fact that just because somebody was
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: born in a different point in time doesn't mean they
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: were in any way less intelligent. I got the same equipment,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: for sure. And there's just different contexts and different historical
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: periods that lead people to you know, experience things different
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and have different anxieties that are tied to their surroundings.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: And I love the connection with technology and with you know,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: being hacked or you know being like surveillance, the idea
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of like being surveilled all the time, with you know,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: our smartphones and our computers listening to us and such. So,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know, what do you guys think what would
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: be a modern day glass delusion? Can you guys think
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: think of any equivalence. We would love to hear it
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: once she email us a native gack Yeah remember gack,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I was more of a floam guy. Yeah, like floam
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and my my kid is really into like kinetic sand
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But yeah, what would be a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: modern equivalent with what do you think about this idea
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of materials magical seeming materials? Is there even anything that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: could infect our minds or fascinate us in such a
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: way that it could cause a delusion of that magnitude?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Let us know. Send us an email ridiculous at how
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And we do want to end
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: on a very important note. Although we were talking about
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a fascinating phenomenon in the past, we are not in
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: any way ridiculing or casting aspersion on people who find
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: themselves struggling with mental illness today. If you have concerns
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: about yourself or loved when we are lucky enough to
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: live in a day and age where there are numerous
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: free resources available, and please make use of them. And
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I don't want us to end on a down note.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: It's just important to know that you're not alone. And
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I also want to know gack or floam, I hope
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: this is not the issue that finally divides a sureparable
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Egal Flak perhaps Flat actually combine the tune that's way
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: better than gome Let's go. I don't even want to know.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I don't want to know either, But if you feel
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: like you have a good pitch for what we should
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: identify as go, you can let us know what the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: same email address. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and Twitter. As always, we're still vision boarding away for
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: our future Pinterest page, and if you feel like it,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: um feel compelled to do so, throw us a review
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: on iTunes. It helps kind of get the show up
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: there and have more people find out about it. So um,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: unless unless you you absolutely can't stand us, in which
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: case just keep it to yourself. But we are glad
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: that you're listening to us just the same, and we
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: hope that you'll join us for the next episode of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. Goodbye, everyone,