Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / Dreams with Professor Patrick McNamara: Lucid and Demonic, Nightmares, REM Sleep, Sleep Paralysis and Dreams within Dreams
Transcript
- Zaza: Patrick McNamara received his BA in psychology from Boston University. He was awarded the PhD in behavioral neuroscience also from Boston University. He did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Aphasia Research Center, Boston VA Medical Center. He has over 15 years of experience working directly on the problem of the nature and function of dreaming. Dr. McNamara has published over 50 scientific papers on dreams, as well as several books. He has been the recipient of grant awards from the National Institutes of Health to further study sleep and dreams. Professor McNamara, welcome to Eurotrash. Patrick McNamara: Thank you, Zaza. It's good to be here. Zaza: All right, perhaps this is going to be a little bit too much information, but please do bear with me. A couple of years ago, I developed a terrible case of IBS, you know, the Irritable Bowel Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: Syndrome. And because the onset was kind of so sudden and so severe, my MD suggested that I do a colonoscopy as well as an endoscopy, which are, you know, not the most fun medical exams out there. Luckily, it was all done under anesthesia. Just before the procedure, the doctor put the mask on and they told me count to 10. And before I said three, I was completely out. It was just a total absence of anything really. I've never, you know, gone under before. It was a really unusual experience. When I woke up, I couldn't possibly say how much time has passed. It could have been five seconds or 200 years. know, the off switch seemed so deep. And ever since then, I wondered, why isn't sleep more like that? Or why doesn't it feel more like that? Or should I rather ask Professor McNamara, why do we dream? Patrick McNamara: start off with a really simple question. Zaza: It's the tradition of this podcast. Go big or go home. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, good. Well, of course, there are dozens and dozens of research scientists trying to answer that question. Everybody's got a theory about it. I think there's some consensus that dreaming contributes to consolidation of emotional memories. So one reason why we dream is it seems to facilitate the consolidation of emotional memories. But another theory that's got a lot of empirical backing to it is called the social simulation hypothesis. And what that says is we dream in order to simulate or test out or mentally model social interactions in our lives, particularly significant Zaza: Oh, Patrick McNamara: ones. Zaza: right. Patrick McNamara: So that's another theory. A related theory to that is threat simulation theory, which says we practice threats in our dreams and thereby are better able to avoid threats when we meet them in daytime. Yet another theory, one that I tend to favor, is so-called counterfactual simulation theory about dreaming and that is that during dreams we generate what are known as counterfactuals and these are mental simulations that produce Scenes or ideas or whole simulation whole worlds that counter Some other world that we encountered during the daytime So they hold up sort of a mirror to our daytime events, but then spin out scenarios that subtly modify that daytime event. And thereby, we learn from the events. Take a trivial example. A typical counterfactual is something like if we say to ourselves, if I had taken my umbrella, I would not have gotten wet this morning. So a dream is like, so you're taking the umbrella, so you learn if you do that next time, you won't get wet. Now during the daytime when we generate these counterfactuals, they're constrained by our prefrontal cortex and our executive control systems. But during REM sleep when we have our most vivid dreams, they're unconstrained. So we continue. to spin out these counterfactual scenarios. And they get, you know, and as the spinning gets, moves along, they get more and more bizarre, farther and farther away from the triggering event. Zaza: Hmm. Patrick McNamara: And so they unfold like this panoply of alternative worlds. And because we're presented with all these alternative worlds in our REM sleep dreams, we can look at the world we're in during the daytime and hold it up to scrutiny and say, hey, wow, it doesn't match those simulated worlds I was just in during my dreams. So maybe I can change it for the better, both personally and socially. So that's sort of long-winded way to give you like three or four current empirically supported hypotheses about why we dream. There's many more theories, but those are some of the ones that I think have the most empirical support. Emotional memory, consolidation, counterfactual, world simulation, social simulation, and threat simulation. Zaza: And can it work? I mean, can they all together work at the same time? Can all of them be true? Patrick McNamara: Why not? Zaza: Are they mutually Patrick McNamara: Sure, Zaza: exclusive? Patrick McNamara: why not? Yeah, Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: I think so. I think so. Yeah, there's no internal, there's no inherent contradictions between like, if I, if I socially simulate as me interacting with socially significant people in my life, there's no reason why once I depict that interaction, I can't spin out counterfactual scenarios to it. Like if I, for example, if during the day, I have an interaction with somebody and I walk away and say, I wish I had said that. And then if I say, I wish I had said that, and then the whole conversation would have gone better. That's a counterfactual. So that's a triggering event and then I'll probably dream about that social interaction, but there'll be a bunch of counterfactual scenarios spinning out against, well, I could have said this, could have said that, I could have said that, and if I said that, then he would say this. You know, and on and on it goes. And that's why we call dreams sort of bizarre sometimes. So yeah, there's no reason why we can't have all of them somehow working together. Zaza: Right. How does this knowledge then get integrated into your daytime? Because I often don't remember my dreams. Does that mean that this knowledge was lost when I woke up? Or is it still somewhere in the brain, you know, tumbling about? Patrick McNamara: I don't think it's lost. I think some of it probably is but there's no reason Why we can't consolidate memories and information without being aware we're doing it. In fact, we do that all the time You know, so we don't have to remember the dreams in order to consolidate The key messages in those dreams that our brain wants to consolidate, you know Like what is the significance of that emotional interaction I had? with my ex-wife, you know. Do I have to reflect about that for days? Maybe, but in my dreams I can probably process unconsciously whatever was significant about that stored in long-term memory and benefit from that storage, you know, without being particularly conscious of it. Zaza: I've noticed that I often dream about the things that I thought of just before I fell asleep. Or if it's a movie that I watched just before I fell asleep, then it's somehow going to be spinning in my mind in a slightly different or odd or like you said, bizarre version. Or if I had an interaction that left some sort of a effect on me right before sleep, then yeah. it's going to play out as well. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, Zaza: Does that Patrick McNamara: I Zaza: make Patrick McNamara: agree. Zaza: any sense? Patrick McNamara: Yeah, no, I agree. What? Zaza: Or Patrick McNamara: Sure. Zaza: like a memory as well, you know, some some person that I think about suddenly from high school or something. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, Zaza: And then they just appear in my dream. Patrick McNamara: whatever Zaza: No, no, no. Patrick McNamara: is emotionally salient tends to get dreamed about. Zaza: Yep. Patrick McNamara: But that's not always true. Like Freud called these kinds of things day residue, like Zaza: Hmm. Patrick McNamara: sort of random fleeting residua from the day's events. When we go into sleep, we go through these different... architectonic stages as defined by electrophysiology. There's stage N1, stage N2, rim and then stage 3. So N1 is where we start to fall asleep and as we start to fall asleep, we get flooded by all these images. They're called hypnagogic images and a lot of that contains day residue. and a lot of just stuff that just clutters our minds Zaza: Hmm. Patrick McNamara: as we're falling asleep. But some of the array of that fast, dense imagery that sort of wells up as we're falling asleep then gets picked up and processed into, which is a light stage of sleep, and then processed in REM sleep when we switch into REM. So a theme gets picked up, gets processed initially in N1, then more deeply in N2, and then very deeply in stage rim. And Zaza: Since Patrick McNamara: presumably Zaza: we're here, Patrick McNamara: also in N3 as Zaza: yeah, Patrick McNamara: well. Zaza: since we're here, this array of images that happens. Once we start falling asleep, I play basketball and I often have this thing happen to me where there's an image of a basketball rushing towards me and I'm too late to catch it. Patrick McNamara: Mm. Zaza: And then I kind of twitch and wake up suddenly, you know, in the midst of this array of Patrick McNamara: Oh Zaza: images. Patrick McNamara: yeah, Zaza: What Patrick McNamara: I Zaza: is Patrick McNamara: know Zaza: that Patrick McNamara: what you Zaza: thing? Patrick McNamara: mean. Zaza: What is that thing? Patrick McNamara: I get similar things after I do long drives on the highway, like three or four hour long drives, where you're seeing nothing but road ahead of you. Zaza: Yeah. Patrick McNamara: And as I fall asleep after one of those long drives, I see I'm put back in that situation. I think we can understand stuff like that as day residues. And also sort of I think they're consistent with a threat simulation theory where we're talking about so We sort of unconsciously say to ourselves Well, if I take my hands off the wheel or if I don't watch where the ball is heading It can go right, you know smash me right in the face So, you know, I need to I need to be more aware and so that those images are then used to simulate that potential threat so that we can avoid it in the future. I mean, that's Zaza: Hmm. Patrick McNamara: one possible, who knows Zaza: Damn. Patrick McNamara: really, but that's one possibility. Zaza: Is our brain ever chilling? Because it sounds a little bit paranoid, to be honest. Always alert, always playing Patrick McNamara: It's... Zaza: out these different threats, like always. Is it? When is it just chilling and taking Patrick McNamara: The closest Zaza: a break? Patrick McNamara: we get to just the chill state is N3, which is otherwise known as slow wave sleep. And it's very, very close to that anesthesia you were talking about, you know, being put out. However, we know even in slow wave sleep, a lot of processing is going on, including a lot of memory consolidation is happening there as well. So no, there is no... The brain is never... completely offline. It sort of down regulates in many respects, but it's still the biggest hog of energy in the body at all times. So yeah, when it goes into slow wave sleep, it sort of revs down as far as it can go without completely shutting off. And during slow wave sleep, a lot of housekeeping functions occur. So there's a lot of... immune system repair, for example, neuronal repair, growth hormone gets released and sort of repairs the body during slow wave sleep. So slow wave sleep is extremely important. You get tons of slow wave and REM sleep during development. You know, so you get the largest amounts of those two forms of sleep during childhood development. and without either one, then the brain doesn't develop normally. Zaza: right. In layman's terms, what is REM sleep and how does it fit into the story of human evolution? Patrick McNamara: Ah, really good question. So REM sleep is rapid eye movement sleep. And it's one of the most peculiar biological systems ever studied. In humans, it occurs every 90 minutes when we're asleep. There are some scientists who say a version of it occurs during daytime as well, every 90 minutes. But. but occurs every 90 minutes during sleep. And during REM sleep, the eyes are typically closed and underneath the closed eyelids, the eyeballs dart back and forth. So that's why it's called rapid eye movement. And however, the body is motorically paralyzed. So you cannot move when you're in REM sleep. Your body's completely paralyzed. And you get what are known as autonomic nervous system storms. So your autonomic nervous system, the fight or flight system, starts to go through these bursts or discharges. And the areas of the brain that deal with emotion and memories and sense of self get more activated than they are during daytime. So those parts of the brain become extremely active, but the more evolutionarily recent parts of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex it's called, tends to down regulate. So that tends to fall asleep. So you got this, the other thing that occurs in both men and women is sexual activation. So with the onset of REM, men get erections, penile erections. and the clitoris gets engorged and there's pelvic thrusting and other sexual behaviors in women during REM sleep. Zaza: There's pelvic thrusting during REM sleep. Patrick McNamara: quote unquote, yeah, yeah. Zaza: Okay, why do we Patrick McNamara: And Zaza: get sexually activated in such a Patrick McNamara: nobody Zaza: vulnerable Patrick McNamara: knows, Zaza: position? Patrick McNamara: nobody Zaza: When Patrick McNamara: knows. Zaza: we're sleeping. Nobody knows. Patrick McNamara: Not that I'm aware of, no, nobody Zaza: Okay. Patrick McNamara: knows, nobody knows. So to sum it all up, so you got this extremely activated brain state. You've got the body, you can't move, yet you're sexually activated. and your autonomic nervous system's going wild. And to top it all off, we're forced to watch these things we call dreams. So you asked me, what is the evolutionary background or history or function of REM sleep? It's a very difficult question because what could possibly be the evolutionary function of a system like that? It takes enormous amounts of energy. And it makes us very vulnerable to predators, you know, because you can't move. So what could possibly be the function? Again, there's tons of theories out there. None of them have achieved any kind of scientific consensus, though. Zaza: What do you think is the most plausible explanation? Patrick McNamara: Ah, um... I think it has something, its function has something to do with the brain, start with, you know, whatever it's doing, it's not doing it for the body per se, it's doing it for the brain, that part of the body, and therefore it's doing it for, at least in part, for cognitive functions. However, in my view, it's going, it's room sleep. puts us in brain states that are turbulent, what are technically called turbulent. And when we're in brain states that are extremely turbulent, we're processing information at much more denser rates, rapid rates more effectively. So an enormous amount of information is being processed during REM. And That's the function of rim in my view, to process the unknown unknowns out there, stuff we don't even know that we don't know. New adaptive landscapes maybe. frontiers of human innovation, creativity. We're in the most creative state possible in a REM state because it has a very high cholinergic environment in the brain and under those physiologic conditions, the brain makes very disparate, semantic connections. So things that we don't ordinarily put together, we put together and that is the basis of creativity. is thinking outside the box. So I know that's a long-winded answer, but I think the best evidence for the function of REM sleep is that it has something to do with creativity and exploring novel brain states and novel cognitive frontiers. Zaza: Back home in the Balkans, where I'm originally from, I remember every granny I knew having this thick tome with the title, The Big Old Book of Dreams on their shelves. And in it, you had kind of very clear cut interpretations of every element of your dreams. For example, dreaming of a big brown dog, I don't know, meant that somebody will do you a favor, that kind of stuff. Very precise sort of. Now, is there some sort of a universal key that can help us unlock the meaning of our dreams or are our dreams more like a completely improvisational kind of, I don't know, straight to DVD Steven Seagal flick that contains no actual insights? Patrick McNamara: I think there are some common themes that seem to be, you see it sort of cross culturally, some universal themes. Zaza: such as, for example, Patrick McNamara: Being chased, teeth Zaza: yeah. Patrick McNamara: falling out, sexual encounters, social interactions with significant others. common threats. These you see even in hunter-gatherer tribes who are pre-literate, pre-industrialized. So, these common themes tend to also be associated with symbols that are rather transparent. And those symbols, I would say, the dream code books going way back, you know, we have dream interpretation manuals going back to 2500 years. And you see the same sort of themes there. So when those common themes emerge and they're associated with sort of transparent symbols, and I'd say the dream interpretation manuals are probably more or less correct for that narrow set of cross-cultural themes. But then once you get beyond that, then... Dream interpretation, I don't think there's any empirically validated system yet. Zaza: Mm-hmm. Patrick McNamara: I mean, there are some interesting patterns that have emerged empirically. For example, we and others have done studies where you analyze the content of, say, 40,000, 50,000 dreams cross-culturally. And we find patterns like my group did. I confirm this, but other groups found this. For example, when... Whenever a stranger appears in a dream, the odds of a physical aggression against the dreamer are significantly increased. So the symbol of a stranger appearing in a dream indicates or points to physical aggression against the dreamer. So we see patterns like that. So there's something to symbolic interpretations of dreams. We don't yet have the key to unlock all of it, but we're making progress. Zaza: So would it be fair to say that whenever there's a new element appearing in the dream, it's usually in the form of a threat and the brain is again playing out these different threat scenarios? Patrick McNamara: I wouldn't Zaza: No. Patrick McNamara: say so no, no, Zaza: Okay. Patrick McNamara: but that happens frequently Frequently, you know, there are threats But when new elements occur, it could mean many different I mean And that real novelty occurs in dreams. This is another very important point Stuff that you've never seen in your life as far as you know and That means that real creativity is occurring in dreams you know, real novelty is occurring there. So Um, yeah. Zaza: You made a wonderful video for The Well on YouTube. Everybody can watch it there. I really recommend it. And the title is The Neuroscience of Nightmares. Why does our brain sometimes turn into this really sadistic, nasty horror film director? You know, it goes beyond just playing out the threats. Like you said, I remember I I vividly still remember my childhood nightmares. much more than any sort of later nightmares. And I was being chased by this school teacher that didn't really exist in the kindergarten. And she had an abnormally large chin. And it was just us in the kindergarten, which looked the same as the real Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm, Zaza: life Patrick McNamara: mm-hmm. Zaza: version. And she would just chase me around. And then I started flying and she would start flying. And then I went to the ground and she went to the ground and stuff like this. And it was really scary. I still remember. not just the contents of the dreams, but the fear itself. It's very palpable still. Yeah, why is the brain going full throttle on the scary stuff? Patrick McNamara: Well, we know that nightmares are more frequently experienced by kids. Most kids have a handful of nightmares throughout their childhood, but then they tend to go away in adults. Estimates vary, but between like three and 20 percent of the population report frequent nightmares. otherwise healthy adults. There's different types of nightmares. So sort of run of the mill nightmares tend to be associated with emotional memories that can't be consolidated. So Zaza: So unprocessed drama? Patrick McNamara: very likely. Yeah. And they, they, but these kind of run-of-the-mill nightmares emerge out of REM sleep. But then there's unprocessed trauma related nightmares that can emerge from any stage of sleep that is associated with trauma and PTSD. And those type tend to be repetitive nightmares where you get the same image, scary image over and over again. And those really haunt people and really make their lives miserable to a great extent. Even run-of-the-mill nightmares make people's lives miserable sometimes. Why does the brain do that? I think the strongest theory is that it's trying to consolidate these unpleasant memories, but it hasn't been able to, and it hasn't been able to for a variety of reasons. Could be that the person is is interfering with the consolidation process by taking drugs or drinking alcohol, for example. That will stop the consolidation process. Zaza: Wow, that's interesting. Patrick McNamara: Or it could be that the individual, the trauma is too big and it's going to just take time for it to be integrated. But REM sleep specializes emotional memories. And that's why the nightmares tend to emerge from REM sleep, because it's the preferred computational mechanism that nature has devised to handle very intense unpleasant experiences. Zaza: Just like your own personal psychotherapist while you sleep. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, very much so. And nature did this because it's very unpleasant experiences, very likely carry very significant information for the reproductive fitness or survival of the individual. So you want a special system handling very unpleasant experiences, because we have to learn from them. so that we don't repeat them, we don't have to go through them again. And REM sleep is that system. REM sleep and dreams. That's the system to handle the most significant memories out there, both pleasant and unpleasant. Zaza: I see. So if you're not, like you said, interfering in the process by inputting other substances in your body, your brain should be able to handle even like Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: heavily traumatic experiences for you. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, I mean it's different for Zaza: Right? Patrick McNamara: everybody obviously, but Zaza: Of course. Patrick McNamara: and it takes time. For most Zaza: Yeah. Patrick McNamara: of us it will take more than one night of sleep. You know, Zaza: Right, right. Patrick McNamara: it takes weeks. You know, depending, you know, the more severe the trauma the longer it will take to integrate. Zaza: What are demonic possession dreams? Patrick McNamara: Yeah, those are really interesting. And they're related to the subjective experience of possession. So if you interview people who claim that they've been possessed by a spirit entity, particularly Zaza: during their waking time. Patrick McNamara: during Zaza: I mean, Patrick McNamara: their waking time, yeah, Zaza: right. Patrick McNamara: they invariably say that they're not possessed. And you say, OK, when did this first happen? They invariably say, I woke up from a dream. And then you explore their dreams, and then you find out that this spirit entity, this sense of agency, this sense of a presence, first occurred in a dream. And when we've done studies where we plotted these scenarios over time, The spirit entity, the sense of presence, is first like in the room somewhere, in the dream with the dreamer, and they're off in the corny camera. You can just sense their presence, and then the entity is experienced as being at the end of the bed, let's say, or somehow closer to the dreamer. Zaza: The entity meaning a demon, for example, Patrick McNamara: For example, Zaza: like Patrick McNamara: yeah. Zaza: a scary entity. Patrick McNamara: Exactly. And then it's sitting on the chest, as in the classic accounts. We have historical accounts of the succubi sitting on the chest and so forth. And then they wake up and possessed. So. Zaza: So it finally the entity entered them. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, that's that's. Zaza: Coming closer and closer and then finally possessing them. And when they wake up, they're possessed. That's scary. Patrick McNamara: That's what's subjectively reported. Now, of course, Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: what the ontological reality of this stuff is, is who knows? Like it's some psychiatric syndrome, perhaps. Like we don't know, but we have to respect the phenomenology that the patient gives us. They Zaza: Of Patrick McNamara: say, Zaza: course. Patrick McNamara: this is how I experienced it. So you can't ridicule that, you have to respect it. And it actually tells you something about what is probably happening, like some, perhaps some, well, there's several hypotheses. One is that the spirit entities are real, and the whole thing is, as the patient reports. Another is that they're sort of symbols or representations of an emotional trauma, or their reaction to an emotional trauma, maybe a reaction of rage or something. And as the spirit entity possesses the individual, they own the rage and they experience that subjectively as demonic. Who knows? I mean, this is all sort of frontier stuff that hasn't been investigated adequately. But there's a deep link between nightmares, REM sleep nightmares, and quote unquote demonic possession that needs more investigation. Zaza: Would it be fair to say that this sort of demonic possession dreams usually happen to more religious people? Because there's a lot of famous instances of people being, claiming that they're possessed, you know, and then Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: a lot of movies were made like The Exorcist Patrick McNamara: Sure. Zaza: and all of that stuff. And it usually happened to people who are brought up in a very religious environment Patrick McNamara: Mm-mm. Zaza: or, I don't know, became religious later or whatever. I don't know any... of any case between my friends or my friends friends who would say that, you know, they see a demon in their sleep. Maybe they're not reporting it. But maybe it's also because they're not religious. Would that would that be fair to say or is there Patrick McNamara: Yeah, Zaza: a correlation? Patrick McNamara: I would think that would be fair to say that, you know, unless your extant culture has these supernatural entities that you can call upon to explain your experience, you're not going to invoke them. However, Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: there is a condition called sleep paralysis, isolated sleep paralysis, where and they're still partially in REM sleep. So they can't move their body. And they experienced this entire phenomenology. There's a malign or demonic presence in the room with them. They're wide awake now. They're not sleeping. They're awake, but their body is still in REM. So they're still paralyzed. They sense this presence in the room and Then as the sleep paralysis goes on, it gets closer and sits on the chest, etc. etc. And I've seen, I've read accounts of these experiences by people who claim to be atheists, rational atheists, and who nevertheless experience these entities as evil. They don't call them demons, but they call them, you know, like evil entities. Sometimes they'll say space aliens, but most of the time it's evil spirit entities. And then... Zaza: I have a, yeah, go ahead, sorry. Patrick McNamara: Well, very quickly, and then there's the experience with psychedelics. You know, for example, psychedelics reproduce the dream state. They have the same 5-HT 2A serotonin receptor signaling system at the base of it. So the physiology is the same as REM dream, not the same, but there's a lot of overlapping physiology between REM dreams and the subjective experience on serotonergic psychedelics. And many atheists who have taken quote unquote heroic doses of a serotonergic psychedelic like DMT or something, experience quote unquote demonic entities. And they'll call them that, even though they've been atheists for years. So, you know, it's a mixed, it's a mixed bag. But anyway, I interrupted you were about to ask a question. Zaza: Oh, not at all. This is fascinating stuff. Are those the so called machine elves? Patrick McNamara: Well, Zaza: The DMT creatures? Patrick McNamara: there are many more than machine elves reported. But Zaza: Okay. Patrick McNamara: machine elves, my understanding is machine elves tend to get reported as the initial threshold. Once you get into the alternate world on DMT, the first group of entities you encounter are what Terence McKenna called the machine elves, for lack of better. And these were, they were not especially evil. They were sort of welcoming presences, but they weren't especially good either, sort of more or less neutral. But then as you reach a second threshold and a third threshold, then you start to encounter entities that are often experienced as gating entities that are experienced as evil. Ultimately, after ego dissolution, you'll experience, the tendency is to experience a loving, benign entity. But along the way, you encounter those guardian spirits which are experienced as evil. Often. Not, you know. Zaza: Sorry, going back to demonic possession one last time. So if people report being possessed, do drugs then work or do they actually need to have some sort of an exorcism? Patrick McNamara: I wouldn't want to... I wouldn't want to... recommend one way or the other. You know, my study of the issue tells me that for people who are believers, exorcism can help in chronic cases, but the first thing to do with psychiatric medicine typically helps. So, yeah. Zaza: Also the sleep paralysis thing, now I remembered I have a friend who used to suffer terribly from sleep paralysis. She's not a believer and she reported somebody standing on the balcony which was really close to her room so she could see it. Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: And this person had a knife always kind of like up in the air. So there was always a threat of, you know, I'm going to kill you Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: kind of hanging in the air. And then he would also sometimes come closer and stuff. Patrick McNamara: There you go. Yeah. Zaza: sounded positively terrifying. Patrick McNamara: Oh, I mean, for these people who undergo these experiences, even if they've gone through them dozens of times, it typically is terrifying. You know, even Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: they can even say to themselves, okay, I know, I've been through this before, you know, and the paralysis is going to go away. And yet they can't shake the feeling that that presence has some sort of ontological status, some sort of reality, and it intends them harm. Now you might ask like from a scientific or evolutionary point of view, why would that sort of phenomenology happen? Zaza: Exactly. Patrick McNamara: Why should we, if we're in a hybrid state, you know, we're partially awake, our brain is awake, but our body is still in REM sleep, that's a hybrid state. Why would we have that phenomenology of a sense of an agent who intends us harm? Zaza: It must be dreadful also that you're afraid to fall asleep then. That Patrick McNamara: Yeah, Zaza: can't be good for you. Patrick McNamara: people with nightmares, they avoid sleep. You know, because they don't want to Zaza: Jesus. Patrick McNamara: go through the horror again. You know, so they end up sleep deprived all the time. Which Zaza: Do you Patrick McNamara: is Zaza: have Patrick McNamara: sad Zaza: any tips? Patrick McNamara: because Zaza: Yeah, go ahead, sorry. Patrick McNamara: it's sad because there's very effective treatments for run-in-the-mill nightmares. Zaza: Okay. Patrick McNamara: There's cognitive Zaza: Oh, I'm. Patrick McNamara: treatments and there's Zaza: Yeah. Patrick McNamara: medication. There's no need to suffer from run-of-the-mill nightmares. They're very effective treatments. Zaza: Okay, that's good to know. What about lucid dreaming? Can lucid dreaming, so the kind of dreaming where you're aware of the fact that you're dreaming and Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: you can also control aspects of the dream world or what I never experienced it, I'm very jealous. But can lucid dreaming be taught and what do you think of that skill if that's possible? Patrick McNamara: Yes. Yeah, it can be taught. There are religious traditions that are thousands of years old that cultivate lucid dreaming and teach people who want to learn that religious tradition. They're actively taught to lucid dream in order to... The idea is in a lucid dream, you can call up a spirit entity. consciously interact, you know, in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, they call tulpas. You can consciously interact with that spirit entity in a lucid dream and thereby more quickly achieve conscious awareness or some sort of spiritual advancement, you know. But yes, lucid dreaming can be taught to anybody. I mean, I find it difficult to lucid dream as well. But... Studies show that most people can be taught it. It's not entirely easy, but it's teachable. It takes a few weeks and there's several different techniques that tend to work. And I think it's for many people, it would be worth cultivating because it's, it's just a very fascinating realm. You know, you can, you just said you can control your dreams during lucid dreaming. That's partially true. You can control some aspects of it. Like when you told me you had a dream of flying when you were a kid, that's another common theme by the way, in dreams. The, the, my, my impression has always been that people who have flying dreams more easily learn how to lucid dream. Because one of the first things people do after they lucid dream is Zaza: Oh, they're like, I'm gonna Patrick McNamara: they Zaza: fly. Patrick McNamara: They fly around because it's so much Zaza: Yeah. Patrick McNamara: damn fun. You know? And then the second thing, second most common thing they do is, of course, have sex with whoever they want. You know? Zaza: That makes sense. Patrick McNamara: But there's so many fascinating things. And there's been some breakthrough studies, even just last year, six months ago, of communicating with people while they're lucid dreaming. Somebody sitting in a lab, and they have these pre-arranged signals to signal, now I'm lucidly dreaming. And then they send a signal saying, OK, tell us what's 2 plus 2. And then the i's go back and forth four times. And they go through a series of question and answers. And Zaza: How Patrick McNamara: you Zaza: come Patrick McNamara: can. Zaza: you don't wake up if you're so hyper aware? Patrick McNamara: That's a problem. They do tend to wake up the more tasks you give them, they'll wake Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: up. Yeah. So you gotta watch it. But proof of principle is there that you can communicate with somebody while they're in lucid REM Zaza: That's Patrick McNamara: sleep. Zaza: really fascinating. So simple tasks, they keep on lucid dreaming. But if you give them an Excel sheet, like do Patrick McNamara: Yeah, Zaza: my Patrick McNamara: they're Zaza: taxes Patrick McNamara: gonna wake Zaza: or whatever, Patrick McNamara: up then. Zaza: they're going Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: to wake up. Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: Well, OK. Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: It just occurred to me, then if you're sleeping around in your dreams, is that cheating then? Or is that fine if Patrick McNamara: I-I-I- Zaza: you have the ability to lucid dream? Patrick McNamara: Um... Zaza: and you're married, for example, Patrick McNamara: Yeah, you'll have to Zaza: asking Patrick McNamara: ask Zaza: for a friend. Patrick McNamara: them to do it. Zaza: Okay, right. Patrick McNamara: I mean, Zaza: You have to Patrick McNamara: there is an interesting literature on the morality of actions we do in dreams. Zaza: Wow. Patrick McNamara: Really interesting philosophical literature on that. So that's a whole other rabbit hole. Zaza: I've heard plenty of urban myths regarding to lucid dreaming, though the most common Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: one, it's usually it's always someone who knows someone's brother's cousin's sister, whose husband, Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: you know, Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: became addicted to lucid dreaming that he could do everything he possibly wanted in the dream world, which meant that he was just waiting to go to sleep again and kind of stop participating in waking life. Is that a plausible scenario? Or is that more Patrick McNamara: I've Zaza: something Patrick McNamara: known Zaza: out Patrick McNamara: people Zaza: of Hollywood? Patrick McNamara: like that. No, no, I've Zaza: Really? Patrick McNamara: not. I have. I mean, there's some people who find it very easy to attain the lucid state and find it like incredibly adventurous. But they're, you know, they're not that many of those people, these kinds of psychonauts, you know, like who really explore the You know, very interesting things, you know, like some of the landscapes and the places, the houses remain the same across lucid dreams. So they don't change from dream to dream. There's like continuity across dreams along the temporal dimension. So that's really interesting. You know, like they can go back to the same places and find stuff that they stored there, you know, and pick it up and use it in their current dream. There's all kinds of stuff going on. So those people, there are a handful, there's probably a few thousand who, I wouldn't say they're addicted to lucid dreaming, but it's where they find the most fascination. And so they can't wait to get back there. And I wish they would write books and stuff because they probably know more about it than any scientist investigating it. doesn't lucid dream themselves. Zaza: I mean, it does make sense. If you can do a lot of stuff you can't do in real life, why wouldn't you just you know, Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: wait to fall back asleep and fly around and Patrick McNamara: and Zaza: do Patrick McNamara: visit Zaza: magical Patrick McNamara: all Zaza: quests Patrick McNamara: these Zaza: or whatever. Patrick McNamara: alternative worlds, you know, Zaza: Yup. Patrick McNamara: these alternative universes. Zaza: which you kind of build yourself and you're aware of that, right? Patrick McNamara: Yeah. There are Zaza: Wow staying up. Yeah, Patrick McNamara: interesting Zaza: please go ahead. Patrick McNamara: experiments where when you encounter these entities in a lucid dream, you know, like say, like if you're religious, a religious entity, like an angel, or if you're Zaza: Mm-hmm. Patrick McNamara: non-religious, like some sort of entity from another world, you know, space alien or what have you. And you can ask them, so are you real? Or are you just a part of my mind? And sometimes you get very interesting answers. Like sometimes, I mean, there are some lucid dreamers, and this is not reported in empirical literature yet, but in online forums, for example, or in books on lucid dreaming, you find reports that the entities respond with information that the dreamer could not possibly have known. And Zaza: Really? Patrick McNamara: then the... And then the dreamer goes and checks it out and it's true. Turns out to be Zaza: What Patrick McNamara: true. Zaza: kind of information for example do you know of a story or an example? Patrick McNamara: What the hell was it? I'm blocking on it at the moment. But I remember Zaza: No Patrick McNamara: when Zaza: problem. Patrick McNamara: I read it, I was impressed that, Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: you know, that Zaza: So it couldn't be information that this person picked up on accidentally and forgot about it. And Patrick McNamara: Nice. Zaza: then this knowledge gets activated in your sleep Patrick McNamara: That's Zaza: again. Patrick McNamara: a really good point. I think most of the time that's exactly what it is probably. But in this particular case, I satisfied myself after I read it in the online forum that Zaza: I see. Patrick McNamara: this could not have been something like that, like unconscious memory kind of thing. Zaza: Hmm. Patrick McNamara: So anyway, it's unexplored. And it needs a lot of these dream topics need. you know, more exploration, empirical exploration, not just verbal reports, but you know, actual facts. We need more researchers in this field. Zaza: We're going all over the place, I apologize, but I just remembered one more thing about sleep paralysis, Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: that a lot of people who say that they've been abducted by aliens, Patrick McNamara: Mm. Zaza: that this can often be perhaps explained by sleep paralysis Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: mechanism sort of, is that true or Patrick McNamara: I think Zaza: is that a common right? Patrick McNamara: that's one explanation for the abduction phenomena, that these people had sleep paralysis. However, the people, and I don't know really very much about this, but my understanding is like for example, the psychiatrist, Mack, who did a lot of the in-depth interviews with a lot of the abductees. Way back, I mean we're talking like in the 70s or 80s or something like that, when he did these in-depth interviews with a few hundred of these abductees, he couldn't find any history of sleep paralysis in most of them. Zaza: Wow, okay. Patrick McNamara: But who knows? Zaza: So I see Patrick McNamara: I Zaza: there's, Patrick McNamara: mean, it's, Zaza: yeah. Patrick McNamara: you know, that's one study. Who knows? Zaza: There's still a lot of mystery out there. Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: Sleep science hasn't figured everything out yet, as I understand now that we're talking. Patrick McNamara: And you know, Zaza: I Patrick McNamara: that... Zaza: think it's all neatly laid out already. All the theories check out. And we can explain sleep paralysis and angels and dreams and machine elves and everything, nightmares. But I see there's Patrick McNamara: Oh no, there's Zaza: still a long way to go. Patrick McNamara: a lot of very unexplained phenomena. As soon as you bring up the UFO abductees, all the tsunami of information we've had about UFOs in the past five years complicates the entire story. Once again, we need more empirically oriented scientists and scholars to be investigating all this stuff. Zaza: Coming back to lucid dreaming. Did you see Christopher Nolan's inception movie? Patrick McNamara: I did. I don't remember much about it. I remember liking it. Zaza: Right. Would it theoretically be possible with future technologies to hack someone's dreams in this way? Patrick McNamara: I think so. Zaza: You know, they kind of go into somebody's dream and they try to plant an idea there, what's called an inception or whatever, and then they Patrick McNamara: Mm. Zaza: have Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: a dream within a dream and they complicated a little bit too much, but it's an interesting movie. But I was just wondering if that would even theoretically be possible at all. Patrick McNamara: I think it might be, but the reason is complicated. So to start with, there are people who have these dreams within dreams within dreams. That's a pretty scary phenomenon. Some of them aren't scared by it, but I find it pretty scary. You have this dream, you wake up, you start your day, you're washing your face, you're starting breakfast. and you're about to go off to work, and then you really wake up. You know, you were not aware that you were dreaming. Then you really wake. So there's a dream within a dream within a dream, you know. And then recent work using neural imaging and AI algorithms have shown that we can, just by looking at neural imaging scans of a brain, we can tell. not only that that person is in REM sleep, but to some extent, we can tell what they were dreaming about in terms of, you know, broad scenes and stuff. So... Zaza: Wow. So ultimately you'll be able to kind of see what the person is dreaming about Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Zaza: more vividly and in more detail. Patrick McNamara: And then you couple that with the longstanding ability of cognitive neuroscientists to implant memories. Zaza: That's a little bit of a scary prospect, Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: to be honest. Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: Right. So sort of like, have you seen Blade Runner? Patrick McNamara: years ago. Zaza: Okay, there's these replicants and, you know, because they want them to be as human as possible, they implant fake memories in them. Patrick McNamara: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there you go. Zaza: So they have a fake childhood and they can relate to other humans and stuff. And I always thought that was one of the scariest kind of aspects of the idea. Patrick McNamara: Unfortunately, I don't want to alarm your listeners or viewers, but Zaza: Please do. Patrick McNamara: I don't want to. But I think that the cognitive neuroscience of implanting ideas in memories and in such a way that they're experienced as self-owned and self-generated, I think we're there already. We can do that. Zaza: Really? Patrick McNamara: We can. Yeah, we can do that. Zaza: How? Patrick McNamara: Well, there's lots of different techniques. We can do it with what is called targeted memory reactivation techniques, for example. But marketing teams have been doing stuff like that for decades. Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: So it's not that difficult. In fact, it's so easy to implant a memory. It was done experimentally just using narrative reports, just having people read a narrative report in the laboratory and then implanting one phrase in that narrative report. And that's the thing that got, even though that one sentence was totally unreal, had no basis in reality. but it was remembered as well simply because it was embedded in information that was trusted. You know, so there's very easy techniques to implant concepts, ideas, and memories, and then there's very much more potent targeted techniques. So you pair that with AI algorithms now that can make things extremely... powerfully accurate. And unfortunately, I think there's going to be a lot of very powerful tools in the hands of the wrong people. Zaza: Oh, more good news. So it's not even that difficult as the inception movie portrays. You have to hack somebody's dreams and stuff. You can do it much more easily, Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: as you've just said, with simple techniques. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, unfortunately, yeah. Zaza: Wonderful. Patrick McNamara: I signed a letter, this was like a year or two ago. I can't remember what occasion this, but a lot of dreams signed. There was some company, like maybe a beer company, that wanted to do an advertising campaign around dreams. I don't know what it was, I can't remember what it was. You know, it woke up a lot of dream scientists and, you know, some three or four hundred of us signed a letter saying, you know, we've got to watch out for this stuff and it may not be ethical to consult with these companies who want to do this. You know, I only point that out to say that the dream science community is becoming aware of the ethical issues involved in all of this stuff. techniques are now available to alter the dreams and therefore the daytime behavior, you know, because dreams affect daytime behaviors. Zaza: In one of the videos I watched, you recommended doing a dream journal to people. Why is that beneficial? Patrick McNamara: It may not be beneficial for everyone, but it's probably going to be beneficial for most people. You have to understand that a great deal of the most significant Things in our lives get processed via the dream portal. So why not access that portal, monitor it for a little while, and see what turns up? For most people who have done it, gold turns up. Zaza: Wow. So how does that work if we're being very practical? So as soon as you wake up, you try to remember the dream and write it down as much as you remember it or Patrick McNamara: Yeah, Zaza: is that Patrick McNamara: I Zaza: right? Patrick McNamara: like the old Zaza: That Patrick McNamara: fashioned Zaza: is Patrick McNamara: way of getting like a really cool Looking dream journal putting it next to the bed and a pen and physically writing it because if you physically write it it's encoded more deeply and you get more out of the The dream images if you do it that way But a lot of people just you know, they pick up their smartphone next to bed in and literally say, okay, I just dreamed this and they say it and then it's transcribed later. Zaza: And maybe an idea for a movie or a novel will come out of this. Patrick McNamara: Absolutely. Zaza: Or what's the goal that you're referring to? In what form does it Patrick McNamara: Oh, my God, Zaza: manifest? Patrick McNamara: all kinds of ways. I mean, we could talk for hours about all the discoveries made via the Dream Portal, Zaza: Ah, of course, I see. Patrick McNamara: both scientific and artistic discoveries, all kinds of Zaza: Right. Patrick McNamara: musical songs, like you said, novels, movies, I mean, all kinds of creative products. But not only that, personal gold, like what are the motivational roots of some of your behaviors, for example. There's a whole. new set of empirical studies that support some ideas around so-called pre-cognitive dreams, where you can anticipate events that are coming up. It's just, I mean, it's a gold mine. It's like waiting to be uncovered. I mean, Zaza: Wow. Patrick McNamara: in the ancient world and in hunter-gatherer societies and Native American societies, for example, the dreams were considered more real than reality, if you know what I mean. They were considered portals into other worlds where you could find out all kinds of really important things about yourself and your tribe. I mean, everything from how to heal an illness to where to stock your prey. I mean, just... Zaza: you would get answers in a dream. Patrick McNamara: in a dream. Yeah. And since they were used for, as far as we know, at least 50,000 years, because we have cases of dream images on these paleolithic cave art walls, you know, people use these dreams for healing for literally thousands. So they must have been doing something, you know, beyond just placebo. Zaza: title of this podcast is Eurotrash. So I have to ask you something a little bit trashy at the end. If my podcasting career fails and I want to become a modern day sort of Slavic shaman, predicting people's futures from their dreams, where would I start with that? Patrick McNamara: Start Zaza: With Patrick McNamara: with Zaza: my Patrick McNamara: a dream Zaza: career? Patrick McNamara: journal. Zaza: All right, so understanding my own dreams first before Patrick McNamara: Yeah. Zaza: I can advise other people. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, Zaza: and get money Patrick McNamara: and Zaza: from Patrick McNamara: I Zaza: it. Patrick McNamara: would say don't anyone take any advice from any dream experts. You know, find out for yourself. Zaza: There goes my career. Alright, so fortune tellers, dream experts, all of those people kind of Patrick McNamara: No, Zaza: maybe not. Patrick McNamara: I think you should interact with them, but just be skeptical always. Everybody's got some gold to give you, so take whatever gold they have, Zaza: with a grain of salt. Patrick McNamara: with a huge grain of salt, but be enriched by what they do have and move on. But do your own explorations. Zaza: That sounds like really sound advice. Thank you, professor. Where can people find your work? You've written several books. Patrick McNamara: Yeah, you can find me on Amazon, Zaza: You have Patrick McNamara: of Zaza: a website, Patrick McNamara: course. Zaza: right? Patrick McNamara: Yeah, I have books on spirit possession. I have books on dreams. I have books on evolution of religion. I have books on all kinds of brain topics. So you can get those at Amazon. My latest, Zaza: Do you have any social media? Patrick McNamara: I don't. I don't like social media. But my latest website is cognitiveneuroscienceofreligion.org because I'm doing a bunch of studies on brain basis of religious and spiritual experiences. Zaza: Professor McNamara, thank you so much for taking the time. Patrick McNamara: Thanks Zaza: This Patrick McNamara: for those Zaza: was Patrick McNamara: great Zaza: really, Patrick McNamara: questions. Zaza: really cool. Patrick McNamara: Those were really good questions. Appreciate it. Zaza: Oh, thank you so much. I hope we get a chance to do this again Patrick McNamara: Yeah, it'd Zaza: in Patrick McNamara: be Zaza: the Patrick McNamara: great. Zaza: future. Patrick McNamara: Thanks, Sasa.