1060: Dreams | Skeptical Sunday

24:49That makes sense. you know what's funny is I never thought about this until you mentioned it just now, but when I go to bed, I always have to cover my arms with the blanket and sort of pin them in place as I'm falling asleep because otherwise I do that hypnic jerk thing and I often will just bend my elbows really suddenly, which has caused me to hit myself in the face and eyes really, really hard. Wow. To the point where I have like eye bruises or my eye really hurts the next day because I probably like damaged it somehow. I basically punch myself in the face. And I feel when I have my arms pinned down, I feel them moving under the blanket sometimes.

25:27And I'm like, wow, good thing that that wasn't allowed to swing upwards because that was a hard one. I've definitely noticed this. I just never really thought about what it is or why it's happening or anything like that. It's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy, man. I mean, on a side note, it has nothing to do with the sleep phases, but I've slept on my arm to the point where it fell asleep so thoroughly that when I woke up and rolled over, I mean, I clocked myself to the point where I thought I was about to pass out. No one has punched me in the face harder than me to date. And that is not a challenge to anyone to outdo that.

26:00But yeah. So then next we slip into NREM 2 sleep, which is an even deeper sleep. There's not much dreaming in NREM 2. And then we drop into NREM 3. This is the deepest phase of sleep. Our heart rate actually drops, as does our breathing slows down. Our body temperature drops. This is, when somebody's out like a light or sleeping like a log or whatever it is, this is probably NREM3. I see. This is probably the deep sleep that shows up in sleep apps and where your body recovers. And I suspect, slash no, from looking at the time tracker and the Oura Ring app, that I don't get a ton of this. You want to, it's really interesting about NREM3 because I just said we're like out, we're solidly out, but it's actually, it's in NREM three when people sleepwalk, sleep talk, sleep eat, which is a big one, and wet the bed.

26:50Sleep eating is something I hadn't thought about because I don't know anybody who does it, but I bet you were gonna get some emails from people who do crazy stuff. If you do crazy stuff in your sleep, I'm very curious about it. So when a person is in the deepest sleep, I think it's so weird that that's when they get up and walk around. I would have thought it was during REM and they're having a dream and they're acting the dream out, not in a totally dreamless, deep sleep, air quotes, dreamless, deep sleep phase. When I went camping once as a kid, we had a sleepwalker, and he ended up peeing on someone.

27:17And he soaked their entire sleeping bag at about 3 a.m. Nobody noticed or saw it. It was just, we just sort of put it together because the kid woke up covered in pee. Everyone thought he wet it, but it didn't quite check out because his clothes weren't as wet as the bag was. And he was like, as his pee, did it rain? What is it? And then the next days we saw this kid sleepwalking and we're like, wait a minute, did he sleep piss on this guy? And also in a sort of scary version of this, when I went to North Korea on one of my trips there, one of the guys we brought, he was like, oh, I sleepwalk. And he told his roommate or whatever.

27:51And he's like, oh, whatever. And he's like, do I wake you up? And he's like, yeah, you can just wake me up. No problem. Which is weird because I always thought like, oh, you're not supposed to do that. Well, one day we were in this rural hotel. and there's a fence around the hotel because they don't want locals and tourists mixing in North Korea generally at all. And they closed the fence and they closed the barricade in front of the door and all this stuff so you couldn't get in or out of the hotel. Well, around two, three, four, whatever time it was that this guy was in sleepwalk phase, he gets up, leaves the room, leaves the little cabins that we're sleeping in and starts walking around the hotel grounds and is just like aimlessly walking around.

28:29And finally, some security guy who I guess was just patrolling, saw him. And the next day they're like, we need to talk to you. What were you doing awake? Why were you trying to get out of the hotel? And he's like, honestly, I don't remember this. I sleepwalk. And apparently they had never heard of this. So we're convincing them that he has a disorder that they've never heard of. And they're like, you mean to tell me that at the middle of the night you wake up and walk around? He was pretty close to getting in trouble for this. That is incredible. Yes. And by the way, I remember when I was younger, they said, don't wake a sleepwalker for some reason.

29:01But yes, now they say definitely do wake a sleepwalker, mostly because they could hurt themselves falling down the stairs or walking into something. And you could end up in a North Korean prison camp. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They didn't tell us not to wake up. I thought it was like, oh, they might have a heart attack if you wake them up. Not like, oh, if you don't wake them up, they might end up in a gulag. Yeah, exactly. So NRAM3 is also the sleep phase when people have night terrors. And I, again, was surprised to find out that night terrors are not nightmares. So that is surprising. So night terrors, this is where people wake up.

29:35I don't know if they wake up, but they're just screaming. They're screaming and flailing around. And I thought that that was just really bad nightmares. Back in my old training company, we used to have dormitory situation and our clients would come stay with us. And we had a couple of guys with night terrors. And it was really scary because they would scream like somebody was stabbing them with a kitchen knife. And then in the morning, they would be like, oh, how'd everybody sleep? And we're like, wow, you had some nightmares. And they're like, no, no, I didn't. I didn't have any nightmares. And we're like, well, you screamed so loud.

30:03Everybody woke up. We turned the lights on. We almost called the cops. And he's like, oh yeah, I should have told you. It was terrifying for everyone else, mostly. It sounds like he was scared, but it also sounds like he wasn't even dreaming. Yeah, and it's because he wasn't, or at least that's what the experts say. They say that these activities are not tied to dreaming. So go figure. Night terrors, as it turns out, are terrifying for the people you sleep with way more than you because you don't even remember. So after NREM 3, which is that deep sleep, we actually go back into NREM 2 for a little while, and then we enter the show, baby, the show of shows, REM sleep.

30:44And that's when all the wild dreaming occurs, right? Exactly. The brain looks awake in this phase. In fact, certain areas of the brain have higher levels of blood flow than during waking hours. And the heart rate and the breathing, they kick right back up. So that's interesting that some parts of the brain are even more active during this phase than they are while we're awake. I would not have thought that. I just always assumed when we're sleeping, our brain is sort of on two out of 10. Yeah. No, some parts of the brain are. In fact, this is interesting. It makes a lot of sense. One area of the brain that is not active is the prefrontal cortex.

31:20And that is the part of the brain involved in logic, reason, and self-awareness. Ah, okay, so is that why maybe the dreams we have in REM sleep are so not logical and seem melting clock-ish? Yeah, exactly. In addition, the fact that the logical part of the brain is shut down, this is why we don't notice the dreams that we're having are so weird. I see. So not only is it responsible for us maybe having the weird dreams, It's also responsible for us not noticing that the dream is weird. Everyone can relate to this, right? It's nuts that you can find yourself hanging out with like, oh, it's my best friend from second grade and his arms are Tonka trucks.

31:59You don't go, huh, that doesn't make any sense. You're just like, yep, that's the reality right now. He's got Tonka truck arms and his face is made out of bubble gum. Right. It's like totally fine in the dream. Exactly. We've all had those crazy dreams where you wake up and you're like, how the hell did I not know that was a dream? And it's because the prefrontal cortex is closed down. The other thing that is shut down in REM sleep is norepinephrine, which is a neurotransmitter that plays a role in the regulation of stress, fear, and anxiety. The part of your brain that records memory is also inactive during sleep.

32:35This is why we can't remember our dreams except a few snippets. Like Tonka truck arms. Right. Like Tonka truck arms. About 90 to 95 % of our dreams are forgotten within 10 minutes of waking up. Now, there are several theories about why this is. One that I found interesting was the brain doesn't want us mixing up memories of things that happened in real life with stuff that happened in dreams. Yeah, that'd be nuts if I was confused and I thought Tonka Truck Arms was a real person, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that happens during REM sleep is muscle atonia or sleep paralysis. Yeah, I've heard of this.

33:14People wake up Well, they wake up paralyzed for maybe, is it a few seconds, I suppose? Yeah, more often than not. And let me tell you, it's a damn good thing they are. How? Why? Because we can't have the body. You remember how you thought that people were having like really wild dreams and that's why they were walking around or acting out their dreams in REM1? That's not what's happening there. But in REM sleep, we can't have that because of these wild, vivid dreams that come. So as a precaution, the brain shuts down the body, shuts it down. We're completely paralyzed. Otherwise, we'd be whatever it is, fist fighting a frog in your dream while you're actually punching a wall or you're bobsledding with John Lennon while you're sliding off your roof.

33:57Yeah. Okay. That does make sense. Maybe it's definitely just better to stay in bed at that point. So with sleep paralysis, scientists have conjectured that many alien abduction stories might just be sleep paralysis. People often report waking up unable to move while surrounded by creatures. Those are pretty much the exact symptoms of people experiencing sleep paralysis. So I, of course, never thought it was aliens, but I'm actually impressed though, because I really thought most alien abduction stories were fabricated BS by bored people who wanted attention. Yeah, well, turns out they're not BS.

34:31They might just be SP, or as I said, sleep paralysis. Yeah. Okay. We get it. By the way, before it was aliens, people were seeing demons. Oh, wow. Right. They would say that they would wake up, they would be sitting on their chest, making it hard to breathe. So it's really interesting that it all has to do with the human perspective and our environment. So a couple hundred years ago, somebody would wake up, they would see creatures around them, they couldn't move, and they would say it was demons. And then come sci-fi movies a couple hundred years later, and we think it's aliens. Who knows what it'll be in 100 years?

35:03It's like, I woke up and there are AIs, Terminators, who knows? Sure. So you wake up, your paralysis is still in effect that you have naturally as a part of sleep, but your dream mind is still active and you're also kind of awake, right? So you get this weird, surreal world where you can't move, but also feels real and feels awake, even though part of your brain is just straight up hallucinating. That actually sounds pretty terrifying. That's a different kind of night terror right there. Absolutely. It's super scary. And I think I remember sleep paralysis happening to me once. But for whatever reason, be it the brain or the body or the connection between the two, experts say that sleeping on your back makes sleep paralysis more likely.

35:46And I have definitely noticed that when I sleep on my back, I wake up with weirder dreams. I feel weirder. So there's something to that. About one-third of people have reported waking up to sleep paralysis, by the way. And sleep paralysis, again, for as weird and as crazy and as horrifying as some of the experiences might be, you're lucky you're experiencing it because the alternative is way worse. Because some people actually do punch the walls and slide off the roofs while they sleep. They have a disorder called RBD, which stands for REM behavior disorder. So when people with RBD have those crazy REM dreams, they physically act them out in real life?

36:27That sounds incredibly dangerous. I feel like people would die from this regularly. And they do. In fact, comedian Mike Berbiglia, people might be familiar with him. He talks about this a lot in one of his specials. You can go check it out. He's a really funny guy. He's really cool. He famously has RBD. And he was diagnosed after he jumped out of a hotel window during a dream. Wow. That is really insane and scary. I mean, was he okay? He's alive. I mean, he's not, I've seen him. I mean, okay, it depends on how you put it. I mean, he received 33 stitches for these massive gashes in his legs. And again, as weird as to say, Birbiglia was one of the lucky ones because other people with the condition have died.

37:12In fact, some people with the condition, and this is almost more heartbreaking than die, they've murdered people in their dreams. But they say if you die in a dream, you die in real life. Well, not true. But if you have RBD and you murder somebody in a dream, you might be murdering somebody in real life. And that has happened. Yeah. Wow. I've got to see that legal case, right? I was asleep when it happened. Okay, but you still have to go to prison because you're incredibly dangerous. Oh, man. There's your legal mind. Because I read about that and that never crossed my mind. But now I'm actually kind of super curious.

37:47Yeah. Because there's no intent, right? You were asleep. But also good luck proving that you were asleep. You'd have to have a doctor's note that says you have RBD. And even then it's like, okay, but we still kind of want to put somebody like that into an insane asylum or a care facility because you can't just have somebody who murders people in their sleep walking around even if they're not dangerous when they're awake. That's not safe. Yeah, clearly not. One more sad statistic about RBD is that 98 % of people with it develop Parkinson's or dementia. So it's some sort of, it's related to those.

38:18That is sad. And I do not want RBD. And I guarantee you somebody listening to this has it. And I'm very curious about their experiences. It just makes having occasional crazy dreams seem incredibly tame. You know, it's a great gift for the hypnic jerk in your life. Something from the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Don't forget about our newsletter. You can find it at jordanharbinger.com slash news. Every week we go back and service a little something-something from the back catalog, a little takeaway from the show. If you're a fan of the show, this is going to be great for you.

38:46Great feedback on the newsletter so far. Keep it coming in, folks. All right. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. Why do humans dream at all? Do we know? I feel like I've talked about this on my show, but I can't remember the answer. Okay. Well, first off, you said humans. And the fact of the matter is most mammals have similar sleep cycles. Evidence suggests animals dream. And this is related to what we were just talking about. In one study done with cats, scientists removed the part of their brain responsible for sleep paralysis, giving these cats RBD. and when asleep, these cats fought imaginary foes, hunted and groomed.

39:20So it sounds like that one, it sounds cute. And two, it sounds like they were dreaming. So I get it. Oh, little kitties sleep grooming. Yeah. As to why we humans dream, there's no one answer. Maybe there never will be a single answer. Maybe it's a bunch of things together. But currently, scientists have several theories like we dream to rehearse. The thing is, though, OK, fine. but rehearsing what? Fist fighting a frog or taking a multiple choice test completely naked? I mean, I get, you know, if you're thinking about something big, you have to do the next day. Fine. But usually it's just nonsense.

39:54I mean, by the way, if you're taking a multiple choice test completely naked, when in doubt, choose C, by the way. All of the above. No, that's D. I don't know. I did, again, went to music school. Got a lot of scantrons. Yeah. When we talk about the rehearsing, scientists call that primitive instinct rehearsal theory. And they state that anxiety dreams are so you can practice your fight or flight instincts just to keep them sharp. Ah, okay. So dreams are necessary for survival somehow, or at least surviving in the primitive world that we came from. Right. And another theory says we dream to heal from emotional damage.

40:29This is really interesting. Stress neurotransmitters in the brain are much less active during REM sleep, so the brain can relive stressful events in our lives without getting stressed out. this helps us to heal and process. REM sleep is when we actually decouple our emotions from our experiences. Interesting. That's kind of what therapy is, right? Not to forget the bad things in life, but to remember them without that same intense emotional in the moment response. Right. It's almost like our dreams are our own personal psychologists. I never thought about our minds having a natural way to process traumatizing things.

41:06I guess it totally makes sense. It seems almost dumb that I didn't think of that before. The body really is amazing, man. I absolutely agree. I mean, we are the coolest supercomputer robots to date. Good luck topping humans, AI creators or whatever. It might happen faster than we think, unfortunately, but so far we're top dog. Yeah. We're still top dog. Scientists also think we dream to solve problems. In your dreams, your mind can create limitless scenarios in order to work out problems. John Steinbeck called this the committee of sleep, and research shows the effectiveness of dreaming on problem solving.

41:43In studies, mice are put into mazes, and scientists can observe which parts of their brain are used as they try to solve it. Later, as the mice sleep, these scientists can see the same parts of the brain lighting up. Sure enough, when these little cute mice wake up, they are far better at solving the maze. That's crazy. It's like visualization, only you're doing it automatically while you sleep. That's also amazing. Your brain is really going to work while you're checked out. I love it. Absolutely, and this also applies to us human beings. Many studies show that people work out problems in their sleep and then are far better at whatever the problem it was that they were trying to work out.

42:23A 2010 study shows that people given a problem were up to 10 times better at it if they slept and dreamt about the problem between the first and second attempt as compared to those who stayed awake and merely thought about that problem or those who took a nap but did not dream about the problem. So I guess sleeping on it really works. I guess I'd always assume when people say like, oh, I'm gonna sleep on it, that they were going to sleep because they were tired or they needed a rest or they were kind of giving up and they needed a break from whatever they were doing, not because our brains were actually processing the problem while we sleep.

42:56I always thought that was kind of a cop-out. Now I guess it's not. Oh, yeah. The history books are full of examples of people who work stuff out in their dreams. August Kekele famously dreamt about the structure of the benzene molecule. Famously might not be the right word here because I've never heard of that person in my entire life. Oh, never heard of August Kekele? Okay, fine. I admit it. Never heard of the dude until I did this research. Not on my top list of super popular chemists. Yeah. Okay. Other famous dreams that led to breakthroughs include the periodic table of elements, the structure of DNA, and the freaking theory of relativity.

43:36Really? Relativity? What was the dream? Well, it was a dream, so it was weird. And it was Einstein, so it was doubly weird. But it involved cows gathered by a fence. And he saw the cows jump away from the fence, but he realized that the farmer also watching saw them in a different, I don't know, it was Einstein. But oh, Google also comes from a dream. Google as in Google, Google, like the web, the search engine. Yes, this is true. You can Google this. Larry Page, I'm sure everybody knows that that's the dude who came up with Google. He had an anxiety dream about getting into college. In it, he imagine downloading the entire web onto some old computers.

44:20And then when he got up in the middle of the night, he realized that it was actually possible. Jeez, I wish any of my dreams created a multi-billion slash trillion dollar industry or whatever that's worth now. I mean, Larry Page has a really nice, yeah, it's funny to think of that guy being like, oh, I hope I get into college because he's probably one of the most brilliant innovators of the 21st century or even the 20th century, I guess, depending on which timestamp you want to put on Google. And here he is freaking out about his SAT scores or whatever. Yeah. Well, I mean, self-doubt and insecurity seem to go hand in hand with a certain brand of genius.

44:58So I'm not that surprised. Oh, here's a really strange one. The sewing machine was invented as a result of a violent murder dream. Really? Okay, go on. In 1845, Elias Howe dreamt that he had been captured by cannibals, and they stabbed him repeatedly with spears that had a hole in the tip. And when he woke up, he realized that that was the exact thing he needed for this thing he was working on, the sewing machine, the hole in the tip of the needle. And he invented the sewing machine because he dreamed that a bunch of cannibals were stabbing him, no doubt, to eat him. Wow, that's very weird. And who knew violent dreams could be so beneficial?

45:40I always felt like those are kind of a vice or like a way to burn off tension. Maybe they are. Google has definitely benefited the world to some degree. I'm sure relativity serves some purpose somewhere. But far, the dream that has benefited the world the most has got to be the greatest of them all because the Terminator came to James Cameron in a dream. Well, that must have been a scary dream. And it depends. Are we talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator or the T-800 endoskeleton thing? Because that's scarier than just Arnold. I don't think it was either of them, to be honest with you, because the dream was like he saw an explosion and this robot came out of the explosion, like walked out of the explosion carrying knives, which just goes to show you how the creative mind works.

46:24He was able to take that and spin it into Terminator, right? which actually, speaking of scary dreams, gets us to the next theory of why we dream called threat simulation theory. Now, this theory says that the brain may be preparing for bad things and dreaming may have developed to prepare us for these unpleasant situations like sparring to train in a fight. We dream of threats to prepare to take them on. Taking on the Terminator is generally useless unless you're an 11-year-old and then he's completely toast. But yeah, it's a really interesting theory that we're training for something. I mean, it goes back to the rehearsal thing.

47:00It seems only useful if you're not fighting a frog that's also Bruce Lee or whatever. Right. I mean, I guess those are overlapping theories. When it comes to this one and like nightmares, children, very often what they dream of is being attacked or chased by an animal. And you have to remember that for the first several million years of our brain's experiences on this planet, that was the greatest threat to us. It's only in the blink of an eye that getting hit by a car or whatever was a greater experience. And so yes, the brain is training you or it's preparing you so that when it really happens, maybe you're a little calmer or maybe you know what to do better.

47:39In fact, one of the very few dreams I remember from having as a kid, and I came across nothing about this specifically was I was being chased by an animal. In this case, it was a bunny rabbit, go figure for whatever reason. And it bit me in the ass. And when I woke up, Jordan, I swear to God, in even fully awake, my ass really hurt. It felt like it had been bitten. Yes. That's very odd. You didn't have a mark though, right? You checked for a mark, no mark, just purely in your brain? Completely in the brain. Wow. No mark. No bunny or anything else had bitten me while I slept. So yeah, very strange.

48:16Other theories focus on memory consolidation. The brain may be sorting through the memories of your day, remembering the important and forgetting the garbage. There's some really good evidence backing this one up. When new tasks are learned, people tend to spend more time in REM sleep. Plus, babies under six months spend about half their time sleeping in REM sleep. This could be a sign that, I almost said REM again, this could be a sign that REM is important in learning and cognitive development. It's important to remember, memories, they're not there. The brain doesn't want your memories so that you can reminisce and think about the good old days.

48:52They're there to help us with future events. That's clearly true. The film Memento comes to mind. I don't know if you've seen that, but the guy can't remember anything. He basically doesn't have anything but short-term memory. If you can't remember the past, it's really hard to move forward into the future. Right. Plus, when REM sleep is disrupted, people have memory problems. That's more evidence right there. There's another theory based on the importance of vision. This is super interesting that says dreams are meant to keep the visual cortex working at night. Before we get into that, that makes sense about the memory thing.

49:25Because if you drink and it screws up your sleep phases, this isn't true with everybody. But for me, I can see that I've had no REM sleep, but I also can't remember stuff from the night before, even if I've only had a few drinks. And people are like, yeah, that was hilarious when Kevin fell. And I'm like, Kevin fell? and they're like, dude, you had two old fashions in three hours and you don't remember when Kevin fell and we like died laughing? And I'm like, no. That's one reason I sort of stopped drinking because I'm thinking, this is kind of brain damage-y, this feeling. So dreams are just to keep our visual cortex working, you said, and that, I'm remembering now, David Eagleman talked about that on the podcast and I can't remember, he's been on like four times, so I'm not sure which episode it was, but he was saying that our brain regions or functions in the brain, they fight to take over neurons or almost like real estate in the brain.

50:14So you know how blind people might have a better sense of smell or hearing as a result of not having sight? It's in part because their visual cortex essentially gets taken over by another part of the brain. So since we sleep so much, you were saying it's like a third of our day, David was telling me that we dream so that other parts of our brain don't go, oh, the visual cortex isn't being used? I'm going to take over that processing power because it can happen quite quickly. I want to say this is episode 929. Again, he's been on like four times, so I might be mistaken. But I found that really interesting that your brain is like, I better activate the visual.

50:48It's almost like the visual cortex's defense mechanism. I better be active doing something so that the part that processes hearing or feelings or some other thing doesn't just like decide to squat on my land while I'm out. Yeah. And in fact, that was a really excellent explanation of what's going on there. The only thing I can add to that is that you mentioned that blind people, you know, their brain rewires in order to enhance hearing and whatnot. If you blindfold a person, I believe it's within just a few hours that scientists can already see the brain refiguring things out. So it happens quick.

51:22So yes, so quickly so that perhaps in order to keep the visual cortex relevant and working, because God knows we need our eyes, we dream. Huh. And those are a few of the theories. And the fact is, most likely, we dream because of a bunch of stuff, maybe a couple of those or all of those might be the case. I wonder, and this is a little bit off topic here, but I wonder if that's why people in prison, you ever read those accounts of somebody in prison, and then it's like one weekend or a month in or whatever, they can hear the water dripping, but they're like, is it a hallucination? but they're in the same area, the same room.

51:58Your brain is surely rewiring itself to accommodate this, right? If you've got nothing that you can see or nothing new that you can see, clearly your brain is gonna rewire and be like, oh, I need super hearing because that's the sense that's working. I can hear people talking really far away and you start having these people write them like they're auditory hallucinations or something, but I'm not sure that they are. Right, that's super interesting. That is really interesting. I actually hadn't heard that at all. This is slightly unrelated, But I always wonder, in prison, it's almost cruel that people don't get to see at various distances, that everything is only a certain amount of distance.

52:33Because that's really bad for your eyes and possibly bad for your brain. That should be part of prison life, that you get to go out and look out to the mountains a couple hours a day or something like that. So your brain and your eyes can use different distances. Damien Eccles, who was one of the West Memphis Three, do you remember those guys? No. What was that again? It was three kids accused of murder in West Memphis, Arkansas, back I think in the early 90s. And they were basically convicted for nothing more than they listened to heavy metal music and they wore black clothes and whatnot. And they were ultimately exonerated in a very, very strange case.

53:11There's a bunch of movies about it. Damien, who's an artist now, he complains that his eyes are so damaged because he never could see further than a few feet in front of him. So that's a big side note there, but still interesting stuff. That stuff's interesting though, man. It's interesting because if our brain refigures itself, if we lose a sense, what happens if a sense is modified, right? Like you said, you can't see more than 10 feet in front of you because your world is 10 feet in front of you at most. Your brain surely adapts to that too. Anyway, now we're talking about David Eagleman stuff from an armchair and it's probably not helpful.

53:44One last thing about dream studies though is what's one thing that is immensely helpful and you could be a part of this. Maybe another dream study, bring your jar to pee in, is lucid dreamers and the study of lucid dreams. And why don't you tell people a little bit more about what it is since you are a lucid dreamer? Sure, yeah. Of note, I now always remember to bring my jar to pee in. But yeah, I do this sometimes, the dreaming thing, not the peeing in the jar thing. I do this sometimes when I was a kid, I did it a lot. So lucid dreams are dreams in which the person dreaming is conscious and more or less fully aware that they are having a dream.

54:18I don't mean awake. I mean, they're just conscious that they're having a dream. You're still from, as I understand it, asleep, but something will happen, for example, that signals to me that I'm in a dream. So for example, I'll be saying something in like German in my dream, and I'll realize I don't know the word for the thing that I'm saying. And I'll just suddenly go, oh, why would I have tried to use that word if I don't actually know that word. I must be in a dream. Okay, well, instead of freaking sitting in chemistry class in Germany during this dream, I'm going to go fly around and do something more exciting, and I'll just be able to start controlling things.

54:58And if the dream goes awry, like, oh, no, I got hit by a truck in the dream, I'm just going to rewind and not do that. And sometimes I end up hitting the same wall or getting electrocuted by the same thing or falling from the sky because I can't get my flying working, and I can just back up and redo it. or I might even be like, you know what? I don't want to fly. I want to go to a place where there's lots of girls or whatever. Like I could just do kind of whatever I wanted and it was really interesting. I figured everyone did this, but apparently not. I don't think I've ever done it to be, but that was an excellent description.

55:30Sehr gut, meine Freunde. Danke schön. Yeah. Stories about lucid dreams date back to Aristotle, actually. He may have been the first person to mention them in his famous work on dreams. and if Aristotle and Jordan Harbinger are having lucid dreams, they are definitely in the minority. About 50 % of people have said that they've had one, but only 1 % of people have them regularly. I have them, I won't say all the time these days because my sleep is all screwed up because of the kids, but like I said, when I was younger, and I don't even mean as a small child, I mean like even through my 30s, I had them all the time.

56:06Like I would say a third of the time or something like that, multiple times per week. Yeah. Well, they're pretty rare. Interestingly enough, there was really no real proof of them existing outside of people like yourself claiming that it happened, but that is now not the case. There's actually now super solid evidence that lucid dreams are actually real. So you're not nuts. Yeah, no, I didn't. Thanks. I never thought I was nuts. I just assumed everybody did that. And I remember talking with other people and you're right. Nobody really ever said like, oh yeah, I control my dreams. I just never, so I just stopped talking about it, I guess.

56:43So what's the evidence that I'm not nuts in this case? Yes. In sleep labs, when hooked up to those EEGs we talked about, scientists can tell if you're asleep or not. There's no faking it. You cannot fake if you're asleep or not with scientists. They can tell when your brain is in these steps. And lucid dreamers like yourself can signal to these researchers from inside the dream. Whoa, what kind of signal? Because to my knowledge, I'm not moving around while I'm doing this. Right. Well, one thing they can do is they can move their eyes like hard left and then hard right, which is not exactly what you see during ARIA.

57:17There we go again. Michael Stipe, how dare you? This is not what we usually see in REM sleep. They can go hard left and then hard right and then hard left, and they see that. And one other thing that lucid dreamers are now doing is sniffing. They sniffed a signal. and researchers are so into this because now, finally, these dream researchers can talk to people about their dreams while they're having them, while they're in the dream. That is really interesting. If it's like sniff, if you're in a dream, sniff if you're doing Kung Fu right now, because it is a little bit like Neo and the Matrix, at least for me.

57:54Things start off as a totally normal dream. I'm in a dream, Tonka truck, arms, whatever, chemistry class in former East Germany, speaking German, or I'm in a lecture, doing a show, whatever it is. But once I sort of take the red pill, it's never conscious though. I usually, I bump into something where I'm like, wait, this is a dream. So like I'll get flayed by Edward Scissorhands and I'm like, wait, that's Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp's not a murderer. This is a character. Oh, I'm in a dream. So like my prefrontal cortex starts to wake up slightly and is like, this doesn't make any sense. That's kind of what it feels like is happening.

58:29And I start, like I said, I start to control things like the physics in the dream. And usually other people disappear at that point. There might still be a monster or an animal chasing me, but I'm rarely interacting with other people at that point. Usually I'm like, oh, I'm gonna fly from skyscraper to skyscraper using my magic wings physics control flying thing. Right, you just said something so interesting and I didn't come across it when I was researching this episode at all, but now I'm dying to know, is lucid dreaming in any way related to the prefrontal cortex waking up? Is there some infusion of the logic part of the brain into the dream?

59:06Is that what's happening? I didn't come across that. I promised to do that research and we can update people in the future on that because you really piqued my interest on that when you said that because you do kind of have logic then. Now you have those faculties, super interesting. Because something has to trigger that it's a dream. Right. And if the prefrontal cortex is off and it says this doesn't make sense, because it's always something that just doesn't make sense, that makes me think I'm dreaming. I don't like wake up and go back to or at least not consciously wake up and go back to sleep.

59:36And I'm like, oh, I'm kind of that also. Actually, I take it back. Sometimes that is what it is. I'll get up and I'll go to the bathroom and I'll come back and I'll go into REM sleep. But I'm like, oh, I'm dreaming right now. So maybe I wake up and I'm awake just long enough for the prefrontal cortex to sort of kind of wake up a little bit. and then it doesn't fully go back to sleep at the same time as the rest of my brain starts dreaming. Like there's an overlap between the prefrontal cortex shutting down and my REM sleep kicking back up or the dream state kicking back up. I would love to know the answer to that because then you could, and I think a lot of people listening might too, because then you can trigger this.

1:00:12And I will tell you, lucid dreaming is fun as hell. There's nothing like it. Yeah, it seems fun. And by the way, I mean, there are ways to, I mean, people can't condition themselves to lucid dream. And one of them is to condition yourself to check whether or not you're dreaming throughout the day, make it part of your everyday habits. So if you say once an hour, every hour, you're going to set your phone and you're going to say, am I dreaming or not? Am I dreaming or not? And you're going to look around, you're going to establish I am not dreaming. Well, if that habit can then make it into your dreams, as our habits tend to do, then in a dream, you can say to yourself, am I dreaming or not?

1:00:51Am I dreaming or not? In hopes of you going, aha, yes, I am dreaming. Right. It's like a habit that transfers to your sleep. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Some people just do nothing more than tell themselves they're going to have a lucid dream, which is what this guy I came across who's an artist, this is what he does. He just meditates on having a lucid dream. And he is the only artist I know that actually works in the medium of lucid dreaming. What he does is he has lucid dreams in which he then draws, does his artwork in the dreams, which come out dreamy, obviously, and strange. And then he wakes up and he tries to recreate those drawings.

1:01:30The second he wakes up, he runs to his materials and he tries to recreate it. Huh, that's fascinating. I don't know if I could do anything like that. I mean, I can't draw anyway, but what about if somebody has a sleep disorder or like PTSD, for example. I've heard that that has something to do with sleep and dreaming, or it affects sleep and dreaming. People with PTSD and other certain mental disorders are often dream deprived. The scientists think that's part of the problem is that they're not receiving what we already talked about, that restorative and those helpful effects of dreams, because they either don't sleep or they don't sleep properly.

1:02:05Yeah, through no fault of their own, by the way. I don't want people to think we're blaming PTSD the sufferers from suffering more from bad sleep. So dreaming I'm late for an exam for a class I've never taken while butt naked, you're saying that that's essentially keeping me mentally stable? That's a tough argument to make. I mean, well, it does seem to be the case. And it's not just late for an exam. Like we said at the beginning of the discussion, there are a lot of commonalities in human dreams, like being chased, which I was by a bunny rabbit that bit me in the ass, being lost, being killed in a disaster.

1:02:36And one that I've definitely never had, but apparently is really common, is finding a new room in your house. Huh, okay, I've had the getting chased one. That one seems like a recurring thing. That often also triggers lucid dreaming, where I have some sort of super high jump gliding device, like I mentioned before, superpower that I can control, and I end up jumping around the city and easily escaping. And then I'm like, well, this is fun. I could just toy with this thing that can only walk and run. But I've never had the finding a new room in my house dream. I don't think I've ever had that dream.

1:03:03That doesn't sound familiar at all. Same with the disaster thing. I never think about that stuff. Yeah, and interestingly enough, there are differences in the way men dream and women dream. Well, let me guess. Men leave the seat up in dreams. Hey, don't get me started on that one because I don't understand why the onus is on us to leave the seat down. I'm standing up for men's rights right now. I always tell my wife, I'm like, hey, could you please be considerate? You're not the only one living in the house here. Can you please make an effort to leave the seat up when you're done? How's that working out for you?

1:03:35not great, but I still have my pride. It's a strange hill to die on, I think. Honestly, put it up when you need it. Put it down when you need it. Can we agree on this? It's a strange hill to die on, man, or pee on, whatever. Fine. It is. I just, whatever. I don't know why it's on me. The seat works both ways. Why is it I have to do something? Anyway, that's fine. Maybe 50-50, whatever. Look, it's not just the toilet seat positions, though. Men and women dream a lot of stuff differently, like sex dreams, the dream of doing it that we talked about. Men tend to dream of multiple partners, while women dream of high-status partners.

1:04:11I think that probably applies to daydreams as well, right? I'm not sure men have to even be asleep to fantasize. You are correct about that. Fine. Also, men have more violent dreams. Men dream more about men, and women dream more about both sexes. Men have more confrontational dreams, and women have more social dreams. This is really on the nose, man. It sounds like guys basically dream action movies and women dream rom-coms. It's so predictable. Yes, yes, yes, you nailed it. Another interesting thing I learned, dreaming in black and white has gone down. It used to be more common. I'm not even sure I knew people ever dreamt in black and white.

1:04:49I don't know if I ever have, maybe I have. I don't even know if that's the kind of thing you can know about. I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say the reason it's becoming less common is that black and white movies, TV shows, photographs are also less common. Exactly. I think this relates to the reason people waking up and thinking they're being surrounded by demons has become less common and aliens is more common is a man as high def and 3D movies, which I'm sure are coming and who knows what else is coming. Will that change our dreams too? If we were affected by dreams or if we were affected by black and white movies back in the day and people would dream more in black and white, What's next as entertainment goes into its next iteration?

1:05:31I'm curious. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how dreams sort of match this. I bet you that heavily religious people or highly religious people dream more about demons and less about aliens. And people who watch more sci-fi and believe in more UFO stuff dream more about aliens than they do about demons. Although I'm just sort of speculating here. You know, I think you're right. But I'm also, again, maybe they're onto something just like my high school girlfriend was right to think that the dream of me on a horse meant I'm going to be a movie star. Back to the... Okay, fine. Look, I've purposely avoided talking about all those damn dream books and the meaning and symbolism of dreams because they are mostly just the horoscopes of the dream world.

1:06:09But fine. Traditionally, dreams of horses have represented strength, power, and fun. So even if you don't become a movie star, Jordan, it would seem that your 10th grade girlfriend and like really, really liked you. Yes, yes, going out on a high note. I'm sure there's a ton more actually that we could discuss when it comes to dreams. Even lucid dreaming could probably be its own episode, but it'll have to wait for another time. If y 'all have more dream-related questions that might be a fit or topics for Skeptical Sunday, definitely send them on in, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. Thanks, Michael.

1:06:42This episode was truly a dream. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show with a top sleep expert about why we dream, what happens when we sleep, and why chronic lack of sleep and driving while tired is more dangerous than driving under the influence of alcohol. Sleep is not an optional lifestyle luxury. Sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity. Sleep is a life support system. It is Mother Nature's best effort yet at immortality. And the decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is now having a catastrophic impact on our health, our wellness, as well as the safety and the education of our children.

1:07:21It is a silent sleep loss epidemic, and I would contend that it is fast becoming the greatest public health challenge that we now face in the 21st century. The evidence is very clear that when we delay school start times, academic grades increase, behavioral problems decrease, truancy rates decrease, psychological and psychiatric issues decrease. But what we also found, which we didn't expect in those studies, is the life expectancy of students increased. So if our goal as educators truly is to educate and not risk lives in the process, then we are failing our children in the most spectacular manner with this incessant model of early school start times.

1:08:01And by the way, 7.30 a.m. for a teenager is the equivalent for an adult waking up at 4.30 or 3.30 in the morning. If you're trying to survive or regularly getting five hours of sleep or less, you have a 65 % risk of dying at any moment in time. When you wake up the next day, you have a revised mind-wide web of associations, a new associative network, a rebooted iOS that is capable of divining remarkable insights into previously impenetrable problems. And it is the reason that you have never been told to stay awake on a problem. Instead, you're told to sleep on a problem.

1:09:11Also connect with me on LinkedIn. And you can find Michael Regilio at Michael Regilio on Instagram. We'll link to that in the show notes. Because as always, nobody can spell Regilio. Tour date's up for your comedy now as well, man. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, Milio Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. And I'm certainly not a sleep doctor. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Also, we might get things wrong here and there, especially on Skeptical Sunday.

1:09:43If you think we really dropped the ball on something, please do let us know. We're pretty receptive to that. Y 'all know how to reach me, Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism we doled out today. If you know somebody who's interested in sleep, dreams, lucid dreaming, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

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