0:00

Hey, everybody, stuff you should know is

0:02

going on tour. Do do do one

0:06

of the deeds, my friend. Okay, So starting

0:08

August eighth in Toronto, that's

0:10

in Canada. We're gonna be at dan Fourth Music

0:13

Hall. And then Chicago, we're gonna be there

0:15

the next night, August nine, at the Harris Theater

0:17

at Chicago. We want to see your faces.

0:20

Step it up, Step it Up. Vancouver

0:22

or the Vote Theater September. That's

0:25

gonna be a great show, I think, don't you. It's gonna

0:27

be a great of one. And then in Minneapolis

0:29

at the Pantageous Theater where we've been before.

0:31

It's lovely September. Yeah,

0:34

and then we're gonna swing down to Austin. It's

0:36

gonna be during Austin City Limits, although

0:38

it has nothing to do with Austin City limits.

0:41

Will be there October ten, yes, and then we're

0:43

going to Lovely Lawrence, Kansas go Jayhawks,

0:45

yeah on October eleventh. And hey, if you're in Kansas

0:48

City or anywhere in that area, this

0:50

is your chance. Get in your car. Yeah. Uh,

0:52

if you are anywhere near

0:54

Brooklyn, well then you should go to the Bellhouse

0:57

October. Will

0:59

be there all three nights, and finally, we're gonna

1:01

wrap it up here in Atlanta at the Bucket Theater on November

1:04

four for a benefit show where we

1:06

are donating all of the money's to

1:09

Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta and the

1:11

National Down Syndrome Society. Yep.

1:13

So for all this information again visually

1:16

and for links two tickets, just go to

1:19

s y s K Live dot

1:21

com. Welcome

1:23

to Stuff you Should Know from

1:25

House Stuff Works dot com.

1:33

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. How

1:36

are you? I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles

1:38

W. Chuck Priyant, There's Jerry. Jerry's got

1:40

a salad. Everything is normal, which

1:42

means it's time. There's stuff you should know. That's

1:46

right, Jerry's got the schwarmest

1:48

special she said, Oh

1:50

really, yeah, she loves it. How

1:53

you doing. I'm good man, feeling

1:55

despite myself kind of relaxed. Okay,

1:58

I'm not feeling feverish. If that's what you're driving

2:00

at. No, that's not what I was driving at. Uh

2:03

yeah, no I'm not. Do you get

2:05

fevers a lot? No, not anymore. Although

2:08

I haven't for a long time, like I've

2:10

never been like a fever person. I've probably

2:12

had like a handful. Maybe.

2:15

How many fevers have you had? Not a ton

2:17

since I was a kid. Yeah, not a lot of adult

2:19

fevers. I mean I've had like,

2:22

uh, hip hop fever, rock

2:26

and roll fever, yellow fever. I've

2:28

had the fever for a flavor of

2:30

a pringle. Oh Man, me too. What

2:33

are those? Those aren't even potato chips? Are they? Their potato

2:35

crisps? And those are good. They're mashed

2:37

together potato parts. I don't think I want

2:39

to know how those are made. No, it's

2:42

like chicken McNuggets. I think a unicorn

2:44

just poops them out. Have you seen unicorn

2:47

pizza? It's a little

2:49

much. There's a restaurant

2:51

in New York, I'm not quite sure where,

2:53

maybe lowery Side. They have unicorn

2:55

pizza. It's like um dough okay,

2:58

good start um, like a

3:00

nice pestel colored frosting instead

3:02

of sauce. UM,

3:06

A mound of cotton candy, um,

3:08

nerds or pop rocks maybe um,

3:11

and then some other stuff. Supposedly

3:14

it tastes kind of good. I'll eat anything

3:16

that has enough frosting on it. I like frosting,

3:19

but I'm not into like sugary candies.

3:21

Really like nerds. And pop rocks

3:23

and stuff. You know, I did a

3:25

brain stuff once on pop rocks and

3:28

that was interesting. Yeah. Yeah,

3:30

your tongue actually warms the

3:32

pop rocks to the point where they melt. And

3:34

since they have C O two trapped

3:37

inside during the manufacturing process,

3:39

that c O two suddenly is released in

3:41

a pop So it's just a little bubble of C two.

3:44

That's gotta be good for you. I'm sure it's

3:48

funny. My head of roommate

3:50

in college, like, not

3:52

many adults eat candy, Like people

3:54

eat chocolate and stuff like that, candy bars, but

3:57

candy candy, I don't know when adults

3:59

is just a little strange. Yeah,

4:02

do be candy? Sure? Like what mentos?

4:06

Not mint mentos? Like candy mentos.

4:09

I like those. Well. I had a roommate

4:11

that would go to the convenient store next and

4:13

this is college granted, but he still eats

4:16

the stuff, I think, and he would go with

4:18

like fifteen dollars and

4:21

buy you know, like giant sweet

4:23

tarts. You know it's big chewable ones

4:26

and like uh, fun dip

4:29

and nerds and just all

4:31

kinds of candy fun dip, remember liquor

4:34

made there's the same thing I

4:36

think, Yeah, it's just right,

4:40

Like I don't have a foot, but I've got my Lika

4:42

made. Oh man,

4:44

can you can you guys out there in podcast

4:46

lantel over stalling because we

4:49

are big time, because we happened upon a

4:52

topic that no one really

4:54

knows what's what? Yeah,

4:58

I mean we're talking about fever dreams.

5:01

We know about fevers, yep, kind

5:03

of know about dreams, but

5:06

apparently no one's really gotten

5:09

to work on figuring out what fever

5:11

dreams themselves are. So it's

5:13

largely anecdotal. Yeah,

5:16

so you're gonna have to bear with us something. We'll leave it.

5:18

We'll leave that there for now. But

5:21

I guess a good place to start is by talking

5:23

about both those things separately. Uh,

5:26

and starting with fevers. You know you've always

5:28

heard ninety eight point six fahrenheit is

5:31

the normal internal

5:34

body temperature of human um.

5:38

That in that was a big study

5:40

that that is really ninety eight point two what

5:43

um, depending on like how

5:45

old you are, what time of day it is, what

5:47

you're doing where you If you put

5:49

it in your butt or in your under your armpit,

5:52

or in your mouth or in your ear, or all

5:54

of them at once, that'd be something

5:56

else. Uh, it can vary a

5:58

little bit. So I think there is a bit of

6:00

a slight sliding scale to that number.

6:02

Yeah, for sure. But I think the key

6:05

is is it's going to be roughly around

6:07

there. And even if

6:09

you have an average body

6:11

temperature that's not exactly ninet

6:14

eight point six, let's say you typically tend

6:16

towards five

6:18

run cooler. Yeah, your

6:21

body temperatures still during the average

6:23

day gonna fluctuate plus or minus about

6:25

a degree fair height either way.

6:27

Yeah, So I looked a little bit into the ninety eight point

6:30

six and the original um dude

6:32

that came up with that was a a German

6:34

physician named Carl Reinholdt

6:37

August Vondelick. That

6:39

was good, a good one. When eight

6:42

sixty eight he wrote a book, Well

6:44

he did his studies where he had this temperature

6:46

rod he would stick under the armpits of all these people.

6:49

He's like, where do you want that exactly?

6:51

And everyone went said, everyone always

6:53

says, you

6:56

know the comedian Rory Scoville, No,

7:01

he should just check him out. He does these

7:04

weird things, like he'll just do his whole routine

7:06

with the German accent, like for no

7:09

reason, whatsoever. I like the sound of that.

7:11

And he did one about stealing old

7:14

people, like kidnapping old

7:16

people. For the German accent. He's

7:19

from South Carolina, I think, but he's done shows

7:22

with like a severe Southern accent

7:24

and one just normal accent, and he'll

7:26

do a German thing. He just like people,

7:28

I guess. So he's great. He's

7:31

one of my favorites. So anyway, UM

7:35

sixty eight he wrote a book called

7:37

after these experiments, called doshen

7:41

Elkin Pharma and kind can

7:43

Heighten. And

7:46

I looked at It's funny. The real translation

7:48

I think of that is on the temperature in diseases,

7:50

but if you type in Google Translate,

7:53

it comes out as the behavior of the intrinsically

7:56

warm in sick units. That's

8:01

the subtitle. Yeah,

8:03

So anyway, he's a guy that came up with ninety eight point six

8:06

and that stood for a long time. But that's

8:08

just so that was just based

8:10

on his observations, his study, and

8:12

it's stuck. It was an average. It wasn't

8:15

like this is what you should be. It was just the average

8:17

of all these people. And then hundred

8:20

thirty years later we finally

8:22

got around to verifying whether that was actually

8:25

true or not. Well, I mean it says a ninety two that

8:27

they said it was ninety eight point two from another study,

8:29

but then everything I still read says

8:32

point six. So all right, well, I know what you're

8:34

talking about, though I had heard in the last few years

8:36

that they're like that point six jazz

8:38

is kind of kind of made upright, So,

8:41

um, the point is is that your

8:43

body is going to be roughly somewhere around

8:46

there, right, that's your normal body temperature, and

8:48

then depending on the time of day, it's

8:51

either going to be a little cooler in that or a little

8:53

warmer than that. And our

8:55

body temperatures are regulated by something called

8:58

the hypothalamus. And like

9:00

I said, depending on the time of day, your body temperature

9:02

is gonna fluctuate, and that's tied

9:04

to sleep apparently, so as

9:06

your body temperature is rising, usually

9:08

in the late afternoon, is about where it peaks

9:11

during the day. That's associated

9:13

with wakefulness alertness not

9:15

necessarily just having a high body temperature,

9:18

but an incline in the

9:20

temperature in your body

9:22

means you're awake, you're alert, you're ready to go

9:25

right, ready for action. If once

9:27

it starts to decline, that's associated

9:30

with drowsiness, and it

9:32

hits it's um,

9:35

it's trough. Your body temperature

9:37

is at its lowest right about before

9:39

you wake up, and that's actually

9:41

associated with R E. M. Sleep. So

9:44

there are some some stuff starting to come out. Just

9:46

bear with us, everybody. We're laying

9:48

the groundwork. So your body temperature changes,

9:51

the hypothalamus is directing the whole

9:53

thing, and sleep and

9:56

wakefulness has something to do. It's

9:59

related to your body temperature changes.

10:02

All right, good night, you take it from here. Well,

10:04

you know what, let's take a break because I'm

10:07

not sure where I should go. We'll

10:09

be right back. Okay,

10:32

I was being coy, you said stage

10:35

very nicely. Okay. Uh

10:38

So, if your body gets

10:41

let's say, some bad bacteria

10:43

gets in it, and your body

10:45

is alerted warning intruder

10:48

is coming, your immune system

10:50

kicks into gear and

10:53

it starts producing this biochemical

10:56

material called a pyrogeny. This

10:59

is my new favorite thing the body

11:01

does. Yeah,

11:04

well you knew that before, right or did you just

11:06

not know the mechanism. I mean, I knew humans

11:08

get fevers, and I knew the fever was to kind of

11:10

like cook out everything. I didn't understand

11:13

the mechanism. I understand answer your question, then,

11:16

oh yeah, can I So these

11:18

pyrogen's, right, they

11:21

are um these

11:23

biochemical markers that are released

11:25

by the immune system in the body

11:27

or and this is why I love this. There's

11:29

some bacterias, some pathogens that make

11:32

humans sick that produce pyrogen's

11:34

naturally. So when they show up,

11:37

they just start releasing them, and they

11:39

just give themselves away. It's

11:42

they're big dummies in that way. They're

11:44

like, hey, where's the party. They kick open the

11:46

door. They're carrying like a pony keg

11:48

under one arm, their guts sticking

11:50

out. It's just that that's that's like that

11:53

kind of bacteria, right. So the

11:55

pyrogans enter the bloodstream and they travel

11:57

to the hypothalamus because remember

11:59

the hypothal mis controls your um

12:02

your body temperature, and this is

12:04

what they do, Chuck, are you ready for what the pyrogens

12:06

do. They

12:09

go to your hypothalamus and they

12:11

dampen the

12:13

heat sensing neurons and the hypothalamus,

12:16

and they excite the cold sensing

12:19

neurons and your hypothalamus, and they

12:21

trick your hypothalamus in the thinking your

12:23

body is suddenly gotten very very cold,

12:25

so that your hypothalamus turns the temperature

12:28

up and says, don't let any of this heat

12:30

out. We gotta we gotta warm back up.

12:32

It tricks your body and your hypothalamus

12:34

and creating a fever. That's right. And they

12:37

do this because well they don't do this

12:39

because but what happens from there.

12:42

They do this because they're dumb. But what

12:44

happens from there is, like you said, the fever,

12:46

what a fever is, and why you want

12:48

that fever for at least a little while that

12:51

it does. It's it's trying to cook and

12:54

burn and bake that bacteria

12:56

until it dies. It is your

12:59

body's fighting. Like when you

13:01

hear, you know, like your fever broke, that's

13:03

usually a good sign. That means yeah, right, that

13:06

your fever did its job and it's

13:08

cooked all that bacteria up and you're going

13:10

to be on the men soon. Uh

13:13

So basically that's what's happening. And this is the great

13:15

thing about a fever. But um,

13:18

you know, fever makes you feel like crap because

13:20

it's a lot of hard work to

13:22

kill all those things. Well it is, there's a lot

13:24

of um. Your sympathetic nervous

13:27

system is kicked into high gear, which I found

13:29

out is one reason why they say you want to feed

13:32

a cold starve a fever because

13:35

you don't want to introduce digestion because

13:37

it requires the parasympathetic nervous

13:39

system, right fight or flight,

13:41

and you don't want those two things going on while your body

13:43

has a fever. It's just a lot of extra work

13:46

for it, right, But one of the one

13:48

of the things that is going on when

13:50

your body has a fever, when that

13:52

temperature rises, it's hard enough

13:55

on your organs, but it's also hard

13:57

on the level just the fact that they're operating

14:00

outside of their normal operating temperature,

14:02

and that makes it very hard on them and can

14:05

actually cook some of the ingredients inside

14:07

yourselves. Yeah, I mean, it's like working in

14:09

a too hot of an environment. It's just

14:11

it's never fun for anyone. Although

14:13

we've got some people love that stuff, yeah,

14:16

but they're still they might like it, but they

14:18

still aren't working fast. They

14:21

might be happy, but they're slow. So

14:23

if you have a fever, what's considered a fever

14:26

now, if

14:28

you're an adult and your oral temperature

14:31

is above one point four or

14:33

if your rectal or ear temperatures

14:36

above one oh one then that's considered

14:38

a fever. If you're a kid, um,

14:41

good luck getting anything besides the rectal

14:43

temperature, because it's just tough. You

14:46

have basically no right well

14:48

ye which you have as wiggly

14:50

kids who aren't like, sure, stick

14:52

something in my ear for four seconds, but

14:55

up the up the kazoo. There's

14:58

not really anything you can do about that. All

15:00

they can do is say, yeah, exactly.

15:04

So the rectal temperature for a kid above

15:07

one point four and

15:09

um. With adults like you don't have to really

15:12

worry about your fever too much. If

15:14

it if it tops a hundred and five for

15:17

you know, any period of time, you probably

15:20

want to do something about that. That's what I saw was

15:22

the hundred and five degree hype mark

15:24

was about where you should start to worry. Yeah,

15:26

as an adult, and you're gonna feel so awful.

15:29

If your temperature is one oh five, you're

15:31

you've probably already been to a doctor at that points.

15:34

For kids, it's different though. If you

15:37

don't want to let your child get up to one oh five,

15:39

that's bad, bad, bad. So what is it for kids

15:41

that you really want to start worrying? But did you say,

15:44

you know what I'm not exactly sure.

15:46

I mean, it probably depends on whether you're

15:48

a first time pairent or this is your second kid.

15:51

Well, and it varies with the age, you

15:53

know, it's like zero to eighteen months. It's something,

15:56

and like what you should do is consult

15:59

that your doctor. Yeah exactly. But

16:01

you know, any kind of temperature you should for

16:04

a child, you should kind of be a little more alert

16:06

about, right. But we're not in medical experts

16:08

here, no, we're not. And everything we're saying assumes

16:10

that you have healthcare coverage. That's

16:13

right. Um,

16:15

all right, so that's fever in

16:17

general. You got anything else on that? Yeah? One

16:19

other thing? Um? Uh

16:22

the pyrogens um

16:25

Piro. By the way, it's a mistake,

16:27

man, I did have some coincidence. No,

16:30

it's not. What is the Latin for fire,

16:32

Greek word for fire? Yeah, Piro

16:35

def Leppard, right, Um,

16:38

a great song. It really is the

16:40

whole album. Yeah.

16:43

They just mentioned it in Rock of Ages that

16:45

comes up. They

16:47

should have a song called Pyromania wonderful.

16:50

But that's pretty cool. It's like the antithesis

16:53

of your band, your

16:55

album, and your song all being the

16:57

same name, like Big Country. Oh

17:00

I love that song. Sure, But it's

17:02

pretty uncreative, but

17:04

you're basically saying, like, here's our basket

17:07

and we're gonna play every egg we have into it. That's

17:10

the one one thing we came up with. I

17:12

saw David Spade bit once and he was

17:15

talking about he was complaining it wasn't even comedy.

17:17

He's just complaining that he went and saw a big country

17:19

and they didn't play the song Big Count. Yeah.

17:23

He's like, it's the name of your band. It's

17:25

the one song everybody came to see

17:27

and play it. He's well,

17:30

the longest, the long and short of it is I

17:33

totally forgot what the other thing I had to say about

17:35

Pyritans was, so I'll

17:37

probably think of it. Oh, I know what it was, Pyrogen's

17:40

um. As your immune

17:42

system grows in ages and you become

17:45

a grown up, the pyrigans have a

17:47

little less of an effect on you. So

17:49

where if you're a kid and your immune system is

17:51

young and inexperienced, your fever

17:53

is gonna shoot up quick and it's

17:55

going to it's gonna get hotter

17:57

faster. So you do want to stay

17:59

on top of a kid's fever because their immune

18:01

system is not used to pyrogens coming

18:04

and messing with their hypothalamus like an adults.

18:06

It is. Yeah, it'll spike much faster at this good point.

18:08

That's what I was trying to think of. Yeah, that's

18:10

true. You need to take that need

18:14

take that rectal temperature way

18:16

more than you're comfortable with. I don't recall

18:18

that ever having been done to me. Well,

18:20

because you don't remember being a baby. No,

18:23

but my parents were pretty strict, pretty

18:27

stern. Mean, by the time a kid

18:29

is old enough to where you can say, like, hey,

18:32

put this under your tongue, or hold still for a minute

18:34

while I put this in your ear, but pre

18:36

that when they're not sentient humans

18:38

and they're just you know, crying,

18:41

whiny little sacks of flesh, you

18:43

gotta stick it right up the butt. Okay, Harry's

18:47

laughing. She almost spit out her schwarm

18:49

a salad. Harry's done plenty of that, so

18:51

she knows. Okay,

18:54

So into dreams, um,

18:57

I always think we've done a general show on dreams.

19:00

I think we did. Finally, I didn't find

19:02

it. What still, No,

19:04

it's a lucid dreaming. Can you control your

19:07

dreams? That's the same thing, wasn't it. I

19:11

think that maybe because no, we

19:13

we did one on dreams. I didn't

19:15

see it. Wow, I can't believe

19:17

it. I can't believe it.

19:20

Well, this contributes

19:22

to the little by little, someone

19:24

will know. Jill Hurley, where

19:26

are you when we need you? Our statistician,

19:29

a minister of stats? All

19:31

right, well we'll talk about dreams a bit here then, Even though we've

19:33

explained this in various episodes here and there

19:36

to some degree, but uh dreams.

19:39

You know, if you're psychologist,

19:42

you you really

19:44

love to spend time talking and dissecting

19:46

dreams, interpreting dreams.

19:48

If you're a um

19:51

more into the neurology

19:53

side of science, you don't really care about that kind

19:55

of stuff. Um. In fact,

19:57

for many years they thought it was

19:59

called activation synthesis hypothesis,

20:02

which was you go to sleep and

20:04

all these uh synapsters

20:07

are just randomly firing and

20:09

they don't really add up to even a

20:11

story. You just do that when you wake

20:13

up because you're human. Yeah,

20:15

but that I mean, that's complete. Bs.

20:17

Well, you almost get the impression that they came up

20:19

with this, and the neurologists came

20:22

up with it to stick out their territory in

20:24

response to years of psychoanalysts

20:26

saying, this is what dreams are

20:29

like, tapping into the collective unconscious

20:31

or um, they're you're repressed

20:34

memories. Neuroscience said,

20:36

no, nothing, they're

20:38

just your stupid, wet brain

20:40

going crazy while you sleep. Yeah,

20:42

which we all know now is not true. I

20:44

saw another one too. What's that um

20:48

threat simulation theory? Have you heard

20:50

of that one? No, but that's a great band

20:52

name. Basically, it's you're training

20:54

to be a ninja while you sleep, Like

20:56

your brain is running threat

20:58

simulations constantly, so

21:01

that it's like working itself

21:03

out, like getting more and more agile and quick

21:05

and like, like, so you can get better

21:07

at running from a savor tooth tiger if

21:10

you actually encounter it. I can

21:12

see that early on maybe, and

21:14

there is an evolutionary advantage to it, so

21:16

evolutionarily speaking, it would

21:18

make sense. The point is

21:21

it that one came along? I was like, no, there's

21:24

obviously some reason for dreams. It's

21:26

not just random yet. Well, and then

21:29

maybe I could have seen that early on. But then at

21:31

some point someone around the fire had a dream about

21:33

Tuktok's wife and woke up and went,

21:36

whoa, there was no savor tooth tiger

21:38

and that I'm not sure what that

21:40

meant, uh,

21:43

but I better not tell tuktok, right, you know.

21:45

And then they went, what's a rectal themome

21:48

hasn't even been invented yet, so

21:51

uh. These days they've

21:53

done actual studies, um, with

21:55

E e. G. Machines and MRI machines,

21:58

and especially in Italy, these Italian

22:01

researchers basically put

22:03

people to sleep, not put them to sleep and

22:06

the sleeper hole. They lay them down in

22:08

a nice Italian bed, feed

22:10

them some postaphazul, and get

22:12

out the rectal thermometer and they hook him

22:14

up to all these wires and machines. And

22:17

then they will wake them up at different points in the

22:19

night and say, hey, what were you dreaming of? Um,

22:22

we'd like to talk about it and study

22:24

what was going on with these machines. And

22:27

um. They actually what they found

22:30

supports the current the

22:32

prevailing theory. I don't think it was their theory. I

22:34

think it was around, but their research supports it called

22:37

affect regulation theory,

22:39

which is basically that we control

22:43

our emotions or we process our emotions

22:45

through our dreams. And these

22:47

Italians found support for this and

22:50

that when they woke people up and asked them

22:52

what they were dreaming about. The

22:54

ones who had the best recall were

22:56

the ones who had the most Theta waves in their frontal

22:59

lobes, which are slow

23:01

moving waves. Right. Yes, And when you look

23:03

at an e G machine, if you looked

23:05

at those dreamers brain waves,

23:08

it looked like the brain waves

23:10

of somebody who was sitting there forming

23:13

and recalling memories. So

23:15

these people said, that's what they're doing.

23:17

That's what all of us are doing. While we're dreaming.

23:19

We're forming memories. We're taking emotions

23:22

that we've experienced through the day and

23:24

we're creating memories out of them so

23:26

we can file them away. So we're

23:29

processing our emotions and our dreams.

23:31

That's the point of dreams. That's the current understanding.

23:34

Yeah, and then I mean other

23:36

parts of the brain that have been active all sort of

23:38

deal with emotion, whether it's the

23:41

a magdala and the hippocampus or the

23:43

lingual gyrus, which I think we just talked about

23:46

that in another episode. I don't

23:48

recall. I can't remember, um,

23:50

but they're all areas of the brain that relate

23:52

to emotion and memory, and

23:55

some with visual activity. And you

23:57

know that kind of makes sense. I like that theory and

24:00

then under that current theory, so that's like the

24:02

the explanation for regular dreams.

24:04

And you can't just have a theory for dreams

24:06

without including nightmares or else

24:08

your theory is broken. Right, So the

24:10

affect regulation theory considers

24:13

nightmares. Um,

24:15

basically, it's an emotion that's being

24:17

put into the process of being, of creating

24:20

a memory, a false memory, right,

24:22

a dream memory, I guess you put it. But it's

24:24

a real emotion, right, and um,

24:27

it's so big it breaks

24:29

the process. And all of a sudden,

24:32

this process of creating a fake memory of fake

24:34

experience, UM, goes haywire.

24:37

And now all of a sudden you're enduring

24:39

some terrible, horrifying experience

24:42

because the emotion that was being processed was

24:44

too big and got out of control. And now

24:46

you have a nightmare t s for you.

24:49

Yeah, I think we did one of night

24:51

terrors. We did for sure,

24:54

and sleep paralysis. We've

24:58

covered it all. I think I guess we were. They

25:00

haven't done a dreams one, all right, So let's

25:02

take another break. We're gonna come back and finally talk

25:04

about fever dreams.

25:28

You robbed me of a Saturday night fever

25:30

reference. I just want to go on record

25:32

this thing that I was wrong, So

25:35

Chuck, here's where everything

25:37

just kind of goes totally off the rail. We've

25:40

talked about fevers, We've talked

25:43

about nightmares. The problem

25:45

is really understanding

25:48

both doesn't necessarily

25:50

amount to understanding them together.

25:53

Right, So, knowing what fevers are,

25:55

knowing what dreams are, it doesn't mean you know what fever

25:57

dreams are. But you

26:00

can make stuff up if you want. Yeah,

26:02

and I don't. I'm boy, I don't even think we even

26:04

said if you've never had a fever dream, you might even

26:07

know we're talking about. Feel kind of dumb

26:09

at this point in the podcast. But a fever

26:11

dream is um,

26:13

basically a nightmare on steroids.

26:16

It's just so vivid and so real

26:19

and scary. Um

26:21

that happens, you know, when you are sick with

26:24

a fever. Yes, obviously,

26:26

so their fever dreams, right, so they are a thing.

26:29

Yeah, but the scientific literature

26:31

on them is super thin, non

26:34

existent. Kids seemed to get them, if

26:36

not more, at least they stand out more

26:38

to children, and so anecdotally

26:40

people seem to recall having fever

26:42

dreams. More when they were kids. Whether or

26:44

not that's true or just a memory is

26:47

uh or you know what

26:49

do you call it, like a memory bias or whatever, There's

26:52

no one really knows. Yeah,

26:55

well that yeah, I mean, we don't really

26:57

know because I don't remember the last time

26:59

I had a fever and if I did,

27:01

whether or not I had had a fever dream.

27:05

I I don't think I've ever had a fever dream.

27:07

I did when I was a kid. I don't remember having fever

27:10

dreams. I remember being sick as a kid and

27:12

having like nightmares when I was sick,

27:14

so like they're noticeably worse

27:17

than your average nightmare. Really,

27:20

so would you keep waking up from them?

27:22

Mm hmmm, that I don't remember.

27:25

See, that's that's a big question to me. Um.

27:27

Well, let's talk about the anecdotal theory

27:30

of what is behind fever dreams. Right,

27:33

So, when your body is undergoing a fever,

27:35

we said that your body is not functioning

27:37

at its top performance. Um,

27:41

and that includes the brain. The brain

27:43

itself is an extremely special

27:45

organ if you didn't know already,

27:48

it's like, I think two of the

27:50

body's mass, but it requires

27:52

twenty of the body's energy. Yeah,

27:55

and the neurons compared

27:57

to regular old dumb cells. Uh

28:00

uh, they they burn or they

28:02

need about between three times

28:06

more energy than a regular

28:08

dumb cell in your body. Right. And

28:11

so when all these chemical processes, when all

28:13

of this UM energy is being exploited

28:15

to power cells, UM, it

28:17

produces the byproduct of heat. So

28:20

the brain is super sensitive to overheating

28:22

right already, just under normal circumstances,

28:24

and it's generally taken care of, uh

28:28

by by your body, like it's you know that it's

28:30

cooled down and regulated. Right.

28:33

So, Um, if

28:35

you have a fever and your

28:37

brain is not operating at

28:39

optimal conditions, but

28:42

you're asleep, so it's trying

28:44

to go through its normal processes. Um,

28:47

if you have a nightmare, it's

28:50

entirely possible that that nightmare is going

28:52

to be far far worse because the normal processes

28:54

have broken down, or

28:57

it's even further possible apparently. Um.

28:59

The amygdalas frequently

29:01

implicated with nightmares because

29:03

it has to do with being terrified or

29:05

angry or fearful. Um,

29:08

the amigdala might be functioning

29:11

at an abnormal level

29:14

and it's just basically going haywired while

29:16

you have a fever. Yeah,

29:18

and then the fact that most dreams

29:20

occur during R E M sleep, and I think that's

29:22

when you're body is warmest

29:25

sleep anyway, right, that's when see, this is

29:27

where it all gets kind of hinky. During

29:30

R E M sleep, your hypothalamus

29:32

says I'm done, I'm not working right now,

29:34

so it stops regulating temperature, which

29:37

is usually why your body temperature is lowest

29:39

right before you wake up. I thought it was highest

29:41

right before you wake up. No, it's highest in the afternoon

29:44

while you're awake. It's lowest right before you

29:46

wake up. I feel like I always wake up hot.

29:49

You. I mean, you may be like sleeping with too

29:51

many blankets, your room might be a little too warm,

29:56

or maybe it's my stupid you

29:58

know, schedule of my see, I

30:01

mean it could be you know, it might have cut off a

30:03

couple hours before or something. Right, it could be right,

30:05

so fires up after I get up. Because supposedly,

30:08

um, when you are sleeping and

30:10

you're in R E M sleep, your hypothalamus

30:12

is not regulating temperature during

30:14

that period. So if

30:16

you if you are already hot,

30:19

and remember high body

30:21

temperature is associated with wakefulness,

30:24

then maybe you are waking up more frequently

30:26

than you normally would, and when you wake

30:29

up in the middle of a dream, you're more prone to remember

30:31

it. If you wake up in the middle of a nightmare, it's

30:33

going to seem even worse than one that you had

30:36

and woke up normally from. Yeah,

30:38

I mean I had a series of not nightmares

30:41

last night, but just sort of anxiety

30:43

dreams. And I don't have any

30:45

anxiety about anything right now. I think it was just after

30:47

reading all this stuff. Yeah, I'm

30:50

just suggestible you had anxiety

30:52

dreams. Yeah, but

30:55

not about like nothing specific.

30:57

No, like there's you know usually if I have anxiety dreams

30:59

and just like because something's going on in my life, I'm anxious.

31:02

But it was just a research huh,

31:04

I think so. I men, you're dedicated. But they

31:07

were also celebrity dreams because

31:09

you know I've talked about those before. No, Yeah,

31:12

yeah, that I have just celebrity dreams

31:14

all the time. But they're just very normal that

31:17

I'm just like friends with celebrity

31:19

people. But were they were the anxiety written

31:22

last night? Yes, Like I was hanging

31:24

out with a band Luna Dean were um

31:26

of Luna and that was but

31:28

there was. I can't remember exactly

31:30

what was going on, but you know that was anxiety involved,

31:32

like I was trying to get somewhere and couldn't get there,

31:35

like the typical stupid dream stuff, you

31:37

know. But some Dean was

31:39

in there somehow. Yeah. Have you talked

31:41

to him today? I don't know him,

31:44

but uh, I think

31:46

I know why they were in there, That's all I'll say. Okay,

31:50

wink wink, I guess. So. Here's

31:52

another thing that was in our own article I thought was interesting

31:55

and just a little tidbit, was that, um,

31:58

some recreational drug like meth and ecstasy

32:02

can raise brain temperatures. That

32:04

is one of the reasons they think that it kills

32:07

so many brain cells when you do those drugs. Yes,

32:09

supposedly you're not supposed to take ecstasy

32:12

and warm climates. Yeah, never have

32:14

heard that. Yeah, just norway. Well

32:18

there you have it, only it's fall barred.

32:22

Um what else is there anything else in

32:24

here? No? Man, I can't believe we stretched this

32:26

one out as far as we did. Alright,

32:30

we never have to talk about fever dreams again, Chuck

32:32

good. If you want to know more

32:34

about fever dreams, well you might as well start at how

32:36

stuff works dot com. There's nothing wrong with that, um.

32:39

And you can also just go around

32:42

and look at how sparse the

32:44

researches on the internet for yourself. And

32:46

if you are a researcher and you know

32:49

more stuff about fever dreams that you can point us

32:51

to let us know. UM.

32:54

In the meantime, I think I said search

32:56

bars somewhere in there, which means it's time for a listener

32:58

mail. Uh,

33:02

you know what. I think another reason the anxiety dreams

33:04

is because I'm barreling through this season of Fargo.

33:08

And yeah, and the

33:10

two episodes I watched last night, which

33:12

I believe we're if

33:15

there are ten, I think it was eight and nine, we're

33:18

both just like ratcheted

33:20

up with sin. I'm sure that's what it was.

33:23

And I think that probably has something to do with it. That happens

33:25

to me sometimes I'll be watching something I

33:27

won't realize how on top of me it's gotten, and then

33:29

all of a sudden, like it goes to an ad

33:31

and I'm like really uptight about

33:33

like this scratching washing machine

33:35

sale that's going on somewhere, and I don't

33:38

understand why. I'm like, oh wow, that TV

33:40

show really got to me. Yeah, I think I think

33:42

Fargo had something to do it. Think you may have nailed it. Um,

33:45

all right, I'm gonna call this one garden

33:47

variety fan mail, which we don't read a lot

33:49

of these, so I'm going

33:52

to dig in. Hey, guys,

33:54

that's all this is fan mail. You guys

33:56

are doing a great job, always have. It's

33:58

clear that with every episode do you take pains

34:01

to provide the most accurate information you can

34:03

in the most thoughtful way possible. How ironic

34:06

that you would read this on the fever dreams of Uh,

34:08

there's never been more evident to me than in the episodes

34:11

you did on Puberty. I know it's been a little while since

34:13

he's came out, but just listen to them,

34:15

and it was touching to see how frequently you tried to reassure

34:17

young listeners what they're experiencing

34:19

is normal and that there was nothing wrong about what

34:21

was happening. To hear two grown men do their

34:23

best talk to young boys and girls about

34:26

such sensitive material was a pleasure.

34:28

Yes, at times, I could practically feel you nervously

34:31

twitching while trying

34:33

trying to discuss um menstruation

34:36

in an informative yet reassuring way. But it was

34:38

absolutely charming, just reaffirm

34:40

what we've always known. You two are just a pair of great

34:42

dudes. That's nice. Yeah,

34:44

I've only been listening for a few

34:46

years, but I'm a lifetime fan. Now. Uh,

34:49

if you're keeping count, like to put it in a vote

34:51

for d C for live shows. Uh,

34:55

Josh, h E

34:57

d G E E. Sorry

35:00

E d G E is edge and

35:02

then add two els edgel

35:05

Josh edgel or a gel, I

35:08

like edgel for ed Gil,

35:10

Gil for Edgar. I

35:13

think edgel edgel sounds like a

35:15

kid next door. Josh, it's

35:17

Josh and Josh. You know what. We usually come to

35:19

d C once a year. Um,

35:22

I don't think we're coming this year though, now we

35:24

probably will be there earli ash two

35:27

eighteen. Yeah. DC is always great to us, so

35:29

we we'll definitely be back. Yeah.

35:31

Uh, and you can always fly somewhere

35:34

in the continental United States or Canada.

35:36

Josh. Take that Sola Express up to

35:38

Brooklyn exactly. It's a pleasure train

35:40

there you go. There's rectel thermometers

35:43

everywhere. Uh.

35:45

If you want to see us on tour, go

35:47

to s y SK Live dot comference tickets.

35:49

You can get in touch with us on Twitter at Josh

35:52

I'm Clark or s Y s K podcast.

35:55

You can join Chuck on Facebook dot com,

35:57

slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or slash

36:00

stuff you Should Know. You can send us both

36:02

and Jerry an email to Stuff podcast

36:04

at how stuff Works dot com and has always

36:07

joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should

36:09

Know dot com.

36:14

For more on this and thousands of other topics,

36:16

is it how stuff Works dot com