1060: Dreams | Skeptical Sunday

1060: Dreams | Skeptical Sunday

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Michael Lio on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, though we do skeptical Sunday, where a rotating guest, co-host and I break down a topic that you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions.

Topics such as circumcision, diet supplements, the lottery, GMOs, energy drinks, internet porn, and more. And if you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion negotiation, psychology, disinformation, cyber warfare.

Crime and cults and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started today. On Skeptical Sunday. In the last line of the movie, the Maltese Falcon Humphrey Bogart describes the small statue in namesake of the film as being the stuffed dreams are made of that line in the movie was most likely borrowed from Shakespeare, who may have taken the notion from Aristotle.

Poetic License Aside, man has been inspired, baffled, even scared by our dreams since the beginning. Many have tried to interpret them for their meaning. Others have dismissed them as meaningless, and some scientists have wondered why we even have them at all Today On Skeptical Sunday, skeptic and comedian Michael Lio is here to help lift the fog of dreams, I mean of dreams, dreams,

[00:01:43] Michael Regilio: dreams.

I like that. Hey, Jordan. If you're like me, you can't really tell

[00:01:51] Jordan Harbinger: that you're dreaming when you're in a dream. Okay. So I've definitely noticed that. Of course, I've woken up incredibly grateful to realize it was all just a dream, and I didn't actually, I don't know, try to smuggle a brick of cocaine into Egypt.

I do lucid dream though, which is kind of a different thing, right? It's like, you know, you're dreaming when you're dreaming and then stuff. All kinds of crazy stuff happens. And maybe we'll get into that.

[00:02:11] Michael Regilio: No, you know, I we're gonna get a lot into lucid dreaming. That is so great that you're a lucid dreamer because you guys are a very small percentage of the population.

Yes, we will definitely get into that. But you've also had the dreams where you don't know that you're dreaming, of course. Where it's completely weird and you don't know. So let me ask you this. How do you know that

[00:02:27] Jordan Harbinger: this isn't

[00:02:27] Michael Regilio: a

[00:02:27] Jordan Harbinger: dream? Well, yeah, since I'm not panicking for an 11th grade social studies test that I didn't study for, and I appear to be fully clothed, I'm gonna go with, I'm pretty damn sure that this is not a dream.

Yeah, as near as I can tell.

[00:02:42] Michael Regilio: I agree. It's not a dream, but it's actually interesting. You went with the old anxiety about a test and arriving someone naked dream. Those are actually really

[00:02:52] Jordan Harbinger: common dreams most people have. It's interesting to think that people's dreams have commonalities. And of course it's com.

My mom will say, I still have exam dreams and my mom's like 82. So that makes sense. But it's also a little weird because you think that dreams would be as unique as our own personal life experiences. And I guess if we commonly have an experience of taking a test, fine, but why do we all have the dream that we're in school naked?

That's weird. That's never happened to pretty much anybody on planet earth.

[00:03:20] Michael Regilio: Yeah. I mean, did cavemen have these dreams? Clearly not. But some scientists point to these commonalities as evidence that dreams are like for something. They serve a purpose, and most of the evidence emerging from the field actually really supports that notion.

[00:03:36] Jordan Harbinger: I wonder if nudists ever have anxiety dreams that they're naked at school, or is it just like, no, totally different flavor. Like they're stuck in an ugly outfit at school. All right, so people have always believed dreams served a purpose that they actually meant something. Is that like dreams are predicting the future, or is it more like horoscope?

Well, no, they're definitely

[00:03:56] Michael Regilio: not predicting the future horoscope. All the evidence says they don't portend the future, and they don't mean things in that way, but they do serve a purpose. In fact, when scientists talk about the purpose of dreams, they mean the evolutionary purpose, the biological function, and how the brain itself benefits.

But you're right, people have always believed dreams have a deeper meaning Going like all the way back to the third millennium, BCE. Mesopotamian Kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. Why wax tablets? I thought the I. Trend was to carve things in stone back then. Yeah, that's because stone is heavy and really, really difficult to carve in.

Stone was all only carved in when people really, really meant it. Wax was cheap and easy to carve. The ancient Egyptians carved in wax and they also wrote on papyrus, which is exactly what they wrote, the ancient book of dreams. On

[00:04:53] Jordan Harbinger: my 10th grade girlfriend had a book of dreams or, or a dream book or something too.

And of course she also had a dream catcher. Naturally

[00:05:00] Michael Regilio: different book. Same nonsense, I'm pretty sure. But as far as the dream catcher goes, yeah, everyone's 10th grade girlfriend had one of those, but built the book. And the dream catcher do illustrate how there's an innate desire to understand what the hell, these insane b movies that play in our heads each night are all about.

But let me be clear, we now know that dream reading and these dream books, they're, they're like palm reading at best. That is to say. They're complete nonsense. In ancient Egypt, dreams were a really big deal back then. People with vivid dreams were believed to be blessed. Ancient Egyptians thought dreams were like transmissions from the gods.

Of course we know better today, but this is exactly why they would induce or incubate dreams in special Dream temples. Dream temple sounds like something my

[00:05:51] Jordan Harbinger: 10th grade girlfriend would've had. Also,

[00:05:54] Michael Regilio: she sounds like a very interesting person. Anyway, in the ancient world, lots of cultures built temples and altars to their healer gods.

Uh, we had Immo TE in Egypt and Asclepius in Greece just to name a few. These gods had the power to cure people and they would

[00:06:10] Jordan Harbinger: use sleep and sacred dreams. Look, I'll be honest, getting a good night's sleep works wonders for me as well, that possibly just because of the kids, but I get it right, right. And

[00:06:21] Michael Regilio: you know what?

As we'll see, dreams are actually a part of that. So these people were definitely onto something, whether iot E had anything to do with it or not. In fact, back in iot E'S heyday, people would travel hundreds of miles to reach his temple. Once they get there, they would get some shuteye and incubate their dreams.

Once a person incubated these dreams, there was the Egyptian Dream book to tell them what they meant. And I'm guessing it probably wasn't too different from the book of Dreams your 10th grade girlfriend had, and again, equally full of crap.

[00:06:53] Jordan Harbinger: You know? I don't know. She told me that because she dreamt she saw me on a horse that meant I was gonna grow up to be a movie star.

You know? I was kind of hoping that she was onto something with that.

[00:07:03] Michael Regilio: Yeah, I'm sure we'd all hope that these dreams mean something like that, but Right. It's funny that she said that because horses do show up in a lot of Dream books, the Egyptian Dream book interpreted like 108 different dreams, including horses.

As well as the meaning of dreaming about different foods and the meaning of that ever. So common dream. The dream of doing it?

[00:07:26] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, doing it. Oh yeah. It. I get it right. The classic recurring dream of teenage boys everywhere. Actually, more like the dream

[00:07:35] Michael Regilio: of everyone, and no one was more interested in that particular dream than Sigmund Freud right now.

Freud, he also believed that dreams were deeply meaningful, but not because they, again, predicted your fate, but because he thought they were a window into your subconscious. Freud was the first person to really try and understand dreams from a more scientific point, even if, quite

[00:08:00] Jordan Harbinger: frankly,

[00:08:00] Michael Regilio: he

[00:08:01] Jordan Harbinger: was mostly wrong, mostly wrong about a lot of, so it is not like a Freudian slip, not a real thing.

[00:08:06] Michael Regilio: No, really. Definitely. Sadly not. In fact, most of what Freud believed has been discredited, but it doesn't diminish his role in starting science down the path of understanding our minds. Freud believed dreams revealed our genuine desires, and because those desires were sometimes embarrassing. Our brains would deliberately confuse the dreams to hide their

[00:08:29] Jordan Harbinger: true meaning what?

So Freud believed. That our brains were trying to hide stuff from our brains. Yeah, okay.

[00:08:38] Michael Regilio: He thought that's why dreams were weird because we couldn't just come out and acknowledge our genuine desires. So our mind would mask them in weird interpretive

[00:08:48] Jordan Harbinger: French, novo style dreams. Right. And so, let me guess, the desire everybody was hiding was an Oedipus complex or something.

[00:08:56] Michael Regilio: Yeah. You know, Freud, he believed that it was always one thing. Or your mother. Nice. In 1900, Freud published the book, interpretations of Dreams. So basically a dream book in a lab coat. Mm-Hmm. Freud was inspired to write the book because of a dream he himself had called Irma's Injection. Okay.

[00:09:21] Jordan Harbinger: What would Freud say about somebody who had a dream called Irma's injection?

[00:09:28] Michael Regilio: Yeah. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say Freud definitely wanted to do it with Irma. Yeah. Anyway, the dream itself was about a former patient of Freud's who could not completely heal because she refused treatment from Freud in the dream. Freud runs into her at a party and examines her. Uh, his friends and colleagues were there, and some stuff was a little weird.

Like one guy who normally had a beard was now clean shaven.

[00:09:55] Jordan Harbinger: Another dude was walking with a limp. This is such a weird dream. I'm imagining him running through this party being like, she needs my injection. She needs my injection. I mean, this is so like Freud's just straight up. One thing he got was projection, right?

I guess eventually. So that's it. The father of modern psychology insisted dreams or secret desires because he examined a patient in a dream at a party, and his friends looked weird.

[00:10:18] Michael Regilio: Well, that, and his mother was naked on a bed having an orgy. What? What? Okay, just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. Okay. I was like, oh, you left that part out.

Yeah. I think probably in Freud's case, all of his dreams included something like that. But Freud's. Dream as he revealed it to us, was kind of boring. Which is strange since Freud had a definite belief that sex was the root of all neuroses. In fact, this dogma on Freud's part was a point of contention between him and his friend and the other father of modern ology Carl

[00:10:51] Jordan Harbinger: J Ah, yeah, Carl Jung.

So he, this guy's got a bunch of devotees running around all over the place. So you see him quoted on Reddit and stuff all the time, or mentioned in books?

[00:11:00] Michael Regilio: Yeah. In fact, a next girlfriend once dragged me to a lecture at the Hammer Museum here in la. And by the way, what would Freud say about a place called the Hammer Museum?

Yeah, Uhhuh. Yeah,

[00:11:09] Jordan Harbinger: exactly.

[00:11:10] Michael Regilio: I'm guessing I'm something of a tra ludite because in truth, I couldn't really follow a single

[00:11:15] Jordan Harbinger: word. Yeah, it sounds like a law school lecture. Freud would probably tell you that you didn't follow a single word because you were fantasizing about sex the whole time. And he would be

[00:11:24] Michael Regilio: Right.

Okay, fine. Back to young, young, believed dreams could be interpreted as well. He also saw universal characters in dreams like the sage. The trickster,

[00:11:35] Jordan Harbinger: again, the concept comes up of the brain trying to trick or be tricky with the brain and that that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. What's the point? Why would the brain need to trick the brain?

It's one brain.

[00:11:45] Michael Regilio: Well, I mean, it's because these gentlemen, for all their good intent didn't fully understand the brain at that time. But according to Young Dreams had two functions. They compensated for things as in repressed memories, and they look forward to things. That's to say they contained Harbinger, if you know what I'm saying here, Jordan.

[00:12:03] Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah. I see what you did there. Did he have anything to say about what it means if you see a harbinger riding a horse? Ha. Yeah, I'm sure

[00:12:11] Michael Regilio: he did. But again, both these men's theories have been completely debunked by modern science. But as with everything, humans don't give a rat's ass about what science has to say.

We just go with our beliefs. In fact, lots of people still see dreams as harbinger and still seeing what you're doing there. I, I guess in fact, interestingly enough, one study, and this is a relatively recent study, a reveal that people would be more likely to cancel a plane trip if they dreamt of a plane crash the night before they went on that trip over if the government had a warning about a likelihood

[00:12:44] Jordan Harbinger: of terrorism.

In truth though, I think I would also be tempted to cancel a flight if I dreamt of a plane crash the night before I was supposed to get on a plane. And I am, you know me, I am not superstitious or anything. I just feel like that's a little Yeah. I

[00:12:56] Michael Regilio: think in truth that, yeah, okay, fine. So would I.

[00:13:01] Jordan Harbinger: Damn you, Carl

[00:13:02] Michael Regilio: Young, you've

[00:13:03] Jordan Harbinger: won this round.

Yeah. Yeah, I think he won this round. All right. Okay. So people, thousands of years ago, I. People 100 years ago, new dreams were important, but didn't quite understand how. What do we know now? Given, I don't know, MRI technology or whatever it is that they didn't know, then

[00:13:19] Michael Regilio: you really nailed it. I wanna reinforce, dreams are important and since we spend about one third of our lives sleeping, which on average means six years of our lives is spent dreaming, it's a really good idea that we understand them.

[00:13:34] Jordan Harbinger: Hmm. Yeah. Well, sadly, with two small kids at home, I'm now spending maybe a quarter or a fifth of my life asleep now at best. If that, I would like to get back to one third though. Ideally, really?

[00:13:45] Michael Regilio: Well, I mean, the fact of the matter is lack of sleep has really negative effects on mood, attention span, uh, the immune system, energy levels, personal appearance, memory and weight.

I can vouch for unfortunately, all of those, I can completely vouch for that. But here's an interesting fact I came across that I. Lack of sleep is a factor in about 20% of car accidents. So Jordan, dude, I am definitely advising you to get a little extra

[00:14:11] Jordan Harbinger: shuteye. Luckily, I let my wife drive who gets even less sleep than I do and also, yeah.

Oh, get some more. Shuteye says The standup comedian who doesn't have kids. Got it. Noted. Thank you. Very helpful. Lio.

[00:14:23] Michael Regilio: Look, it's super important. In fact, from an evolutionary standpoint, sleep like must be crazy important. What makes you say that? I. Because in survival, it's not a great idea to lie unconscious for long periods of time while there are things out there, you know, trying to eat you.

So evolutionarily speaking, sleep must have some really significant benefits.

[00:14:48] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, right. So like we would've evolved not to sleep because we would've been getting eaten, except for we couldn't evolve not to sleep because sleep is so important, basically. Okay. Exactly. Yes, that makes sense. I never thought about that.

From what I remember back in the day, I did feel good after a full night's sleep. You know, it felt good to just kind of shut down, I guess.

[00:15:05] Michael Regilio: Ah, no, that's the thing. You're not shutting down. The brain doesn't shut down. In fact, certain areas of the brain during certain phases of sleep are even more active than in waking life.

[00:15:16] Jordan Harbinger: That's, well, okay, well, I suppose that makes sense, right? So I'm aware there are phases we go through while sleeping, but what are they exactly? Do you know?

[00:15:23] Michael Regilio: Yes. There are four phases of sleep en rem, one en rem, two en REM three, and REM sleep. REM sleep, of course, refers to rapid eye movement and REM sleep is when all the really vivid crazy dreams happen.

And when we're in that dream state, our eyes are darting around under our closed eyes. Researchers Eugene Aserinsky and Nathan Kleitman discovered REM sleep in 1953 because apparently nobody noticed our eyes moving crazily under our eyelids while we slept before 1953. But I say that and then I realize, in truth, I've never noticed it.

[00:16:02] Jordan Harbinger: Well, yeah, I'm not surprised. You have to have somebody to sleep with you for you to notice it. But you, you, you know, it's funny, I can tell you're really into music. I mean, I knew that you're really into music because you said REM sleep, did I? Which is not some, not what we say. Yeah, but that's funny because I was waiting for you to make that mistake and you didn't, and I was like, oh, okay.

And then you did right then. And I was like, ah, yes. Ah, yes. Can't resist a, a band reference. Yes. Uh, in every

[00:16:27] Michael Regilio: episode as a big fan of the band, I, when I see that word in print, it comes out RM. Okay. I will try to correct

[00:16:34] Jordan Harbinger: that. It's not the end of the world as we know it or anything.

[00:16:40] Michael Regilio: That was a very good one.

[00:16:41] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You know what's dreamy lio? Fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Orgain. So true story. The other day, Jen and I were running short on time. It was like this back to school night meeting parent conferences, kind of.

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[00:20:11] Michael Regilio: NREM sleep refers to non rapid eye movement, this phase of sleep, nrem sleep Researchers also call this slow wave sleep, which refers to the brainwaves that the scientists see in sleep labs when they hook up people's heads to the, you know, that bunch of wires.

[00:20:28] Jordan Harbinger: Right? Yeah. I've actually done that during a sleep study.

And it's cool until you have to go pee and then they're like, oh yeah, we'll send someone in there to disconnect all those wires, and then you do it again. And they're like, really, dude? There's like 40 wires. You're gonna make us unplug those things again. So yeah, I should have. Wow. Thought of that.

[00:20:46] Michael Regilio: I'm surprised that they don't, they have a better plan for that.

They should just put people, I don't know, in a diaper or give you a A jar or something. Yeah. Anyway, that's called an EEG or an electroencephalogram. Scientists use this machine to monitor the brainwaves. As we said, in a full night's sleep. People go through slow wave sleep and REM phases about four to six times a night with each cycle lasting around an hour and a half.

[00:21:11] Jordan Harbinger: Ah. Some nights I go through like one phase. I look through my sleep app, you know, for my oral ring, and it's like, oh, you didn't get any REM sleep, or you didn't get any deep sleep or anything like that. Also, I think it's kind of ridiculous that the phases of sleep are called. Not REM one, not REM two, not REM three and rem.

That's like you couldn't think of three other names for the fa. Just not this, not this, not this three and then, oh, this one.

[00:21:34] Michael Regilio: Well, scientists, yeah. I mean they love the very simple as, uh, I suppose Neil Degrass Tyson points out, what do we call it when there's just nothing or this black holes, we just call 'em a black hole, you know?

Right. Sleep experts say it takes an hour and a half before

[00:21:50] Jordan Harbinger: you start dreaming. Okay. But I know that I've had dreams during quick naps. In fact, I did a blood draw once and I was really, really hungry and really, really fasted. And I was sitting up and I passed out. And the first time it's ever happened to me in my life and I had like a full dream between.

Him realizing I was falling asleep with a needle in my arm and him catching me in a chair. When I woke up, I was like, what happened? And my wife's like, you passed out for a second. I was like a second. I had a full on dream about going somewhere and doing something and leaving and coming. Like I felt like I just woke up from almost like a full nap, and that was out for seconds.

[00:22:30] Michael Regilio: Okay. I, that is really interesting. And I'm not sure if that there's a difference between passing out from blood loss Yeah. But from blood loss and getting a quick nap. But people do say all the time, like, yeah, oh, I, I know I've had dreams in naps. But those are not the powerful dreams that you get in Remley.

I see. Right. Slow wave sleep dreams are far more

[00:22:49] Jordan Harbinger: sedate. So that's when you dream about. You gotta fix a broken faucet in the bathroom or run an errand or something.

[00:22:56] Michael Regilio: I mean, maybe, but probably not. I mean, you're in between sleeping and awake. You experience what are called hypnagogic

[00:23:02] Jordan Harbinger: hallucinations. Okay.

Definitely gonna need you to define was say, hypnagogic hallucinations, for sure. Hypnagogic

[00:23:09] Michael Regilio: hallucinations are also sometimes called waking dreams. They're a kind of hallucination that happens as a person is drifting off. They involve seeing, hearing, feeling, or smelling something that's not there. In fact, Salvador Dali famously tried to capitalize on hypnagogic hallucinations.

He would intentionally fall asleep in a chair while holding a heavy skeleton key over a plate. And then when he would doze off, he'd drop the key on the plate, immediately waking him up. And in this sleepy waking dream

[00:23:41] Jordan Harbinger: stupor, that's when he would go and paint. Ah, okay. Yeah. And I guess it worked, right?

Because his work looks like something from a dream or, yeah, like an acid trip or something. And I feel like the skeleton key thing is funny because I'm imagining him doing this, and then I'm imagining all the people that look at their phone in bed at night and drop it on their face because they have the exact same thing happen, and then they wake up and.

And they do it all over again? Or am I just, is that just me? Who does that? You drop the damn thing right? In your nogging.

[00:24:09] Michael Regilio: Oh, many times. In fact, I actually had this realization recently. I was in a restaurant and somebody dropped their phone and everybody looked and I was like, oh my God, we've all been conditioned to recognize the sound of a dropping phone.

And it like a hundred percent freak us out. We're like, oh my God, that $1,200 computer that I carry around, it goes my paycheck. That's right. And it's also funny that it was a skeleton key That is so Dolly. He could have held anything. Yeah, but he had, it had to be like a 15th century skeleton key. Right.

Not a coin. Just

[00:24:40] Jordan Harbinger: to get like a weird antique with a skull on it or something. Exactly.

[00:24:44] Michael Regilio: In fact, Dolly himself famously dreamt about those melting clocks. Nrem one is also the sleep phase where you get the nic

[00:24:52] Jordan Harbinger: jerk. Okay, the Nic jerk. Since I'm 12 years old today, I'm gonna just leave that one right there.

[00:25:01] Michael Regilio: Okay. Well, the hypnic jerk is actually really interesting. It's not a dream again, it's in this falling asleep phase. Many people, your legs will kick sometimes. That's the jerk itself. But another really interesting thing is you get this feeling of falling and you catch yourself and you wake up, you're like, holy shit.

I felt like I was falling. This is not perfectly understood. I looked into it though, and my favorite theory about it is that it dates back to when we were primates sleeping in trees, and when you're sleeping in a tree, you have to be super uber aware of if you're falling or not. So that this. Internal falling detector we have in our brains is so sensitive that it gets, you know, a false detection easily.

And so we think we're falling and we have to wake ourselves up because let's face it, it's better to think you're falling and wake yourself up and not be falling than it is to be actually falling while you're snoring away and rem sleep. That

[00:25:55] Jordan Harbinger: makes sense. You know what's funny is I, 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 nic 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, I feel when I have my arms pinned down, I feel them moving under the blanket sometimes and I'm like, wow. Good thing that that wasn't allowed to swing upwards. 'cause 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.

[00:26:42] Michael Regilio: 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, uh, when I woke up and rolled over, I mean, I clocked myself to the point where I thought I was about to pass out. I, no one has punched me in the face harder than me to date.

Nice. And that is not a challenge to anyone to, to outdo that, but, right. Yeah. So then next we slip into NREM two sleep, which is an even deeper sleep. There's not much dreaming in en interim two. Uh, and then we drop into en interim three. 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

[00:27:29] Jordan Harbinger: it is. This is probably NREM three. I see. This is probably the deep sleep that shows up in sleep apps and that your, where your body recovers and I suspect. Slash No from looking at the time tracker and the ordering app that I don't get a ton

[00:27:42] Michael Regilio: of this.

You wanna, what's really interesting about en interim three, because I just said we're like out, we're solidly out, but it's actually, it's in en interim three when people sleepwalk sleep, talk, sleep, eat, which is a big one. Oh wow.

[00:27:54] Jordan Harbinger: And wet the bed Sleep eating is something I hadn't thought about 'cause 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've 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 quote, dreamless deep sleep phase.

When I went camping once as a kid, we had a sleep walker. He ended up peeing on someone and he soaked their entire sleeping bag at about 3:00 AM. 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 'cause 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, I sleepwalk.

And he told his roommate or whatever and he is like, oh whatever. And he is like, do I wake you up? And he is like, yeah, you can just wake me up. No problem. Which is weird 'cause 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.

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 2, 3, 4, whatever time it was that this guy was in sleepwalk phase, he gets up, leaves the room, leaves the little cabins that we are sleeping in and starts walking around the hotel grounds and is just like aimlessly walking around.

And 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 is 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

[00:30:01] Michael Regilio: is incredible. Yes. And by the way, I remember when I was younger, they said don't wake a sleepwalker for some reason. But 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.

[00:30:17] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't tell us not to wake up. They, I thought it was like, oh, they might have a heart attack if you wake 'em up. Not like, oh, if you don't wake 'em up, they might end up in a gulag.

[00:30:24] Michael Regilio: Yeah, exactly. Yikes. So en REM three is also the sleep phase when people have night terrors. And I again was surprised to find out that night terrors are not nightmares.

[00:30:36] Jordan Harbinger: So that is surprising. So night terrors, this is where people wake up. I 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.

We back in my old training company, we used to have dormitory situation and our clients would come stay with us. We had a couple 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. Everybody woke up, we turned the lights on. We almost called the cops. And he is like, oh yeah, right. You know, 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.

[00:31:20] Michael Regilio: 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. Huh. So go figure. Night terrors, as it turns out, are terrifying for the people you sleep with.

Way more, right? Yeah. Than you, because you don't even remember exactly. So after Ed REM three, which is that deep sleep, we actually go back into REM two for a little while, and then we enter the show baby. The show of shows. REM sleep. And 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,

[00:32:04] Jordan Harbinger: 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 are awake. I would not have thought that.

I just always assumed when we're sleeping, our brain is sort of on two outta 10.

[00:32:16] Michael Regilio: 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, and that is the part of the brain involved in logic, reason, and

[00:32:29] Jordan Harbinger: 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.

[00:32:38] Michael Regilio: 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

[00:32:48] Jordan Harbinger: 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, 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. You 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, and his face is made out of bubblegum.

Right. It's like totally fine in the dream. Exactly. We've

[00:33:18] Michael Regilio: all had those crazy dreams where you wake up and you're like, how the hell did I not know That was a dream, right? And it's 'cause the prefrontal cortex is closed down. The other thing that is shut down in REM sleep is no epinephrine, 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. This is why we can't remember our dreams, except, you know, 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.

[00:34:04] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that that'd be nuts if I was confused and I thought Tonka truck arms was a real person, I suppose.

[00:34:10] Michael Regilio: Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that happens during REM sleep is muscle atonia or sleep paralysis.

[00:34:18] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I've heard of this. People wake up. Well, they wake up paralyzed for maybe a, is it a few seconds, I suppose?

[00:34:25] Michael Regilio: 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 bo 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, right? In Nrem one, 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.

[00:35:02] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Okay. That does make sense. And maybe it's, it's definitely just better to stay in bed at that point.

[00:35:08] Michael Regilio: 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.

[00:35:25] Jordan Harbinger: So I of course never thought it was aliens, but I'm, I'm actually impressed though, 'cause I've really thought most alien abduction stories were fabricated BS by board people who wanted attention.

[00:35:35] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Well, it turns out they're not bs. They might just be sp. Or as I said, sleep paralysis. That, yeah. Okay.

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's all has to do with human perspective and our, 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, couple hundred years later. And we think it's aliens who knows what it'll be in a hundred years. It's like I woke up and there Wereis. Uh, yeah, terminators.

[00:36:12] Jordan Harbinger: Who knows? Sure. So your 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 you're. Part of your brain is just straight up hallucinating. That actually sounds pretty terrifying. That's a different kind of night terror right there.

[00:36:36] Michael Regilio: 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.

And I have definitely noticed that when I sleep on my back I, 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. 'cause some people actually do punch the walls and slide off roofs while they sleep. They have a disorder called RBD, which stands for REM behavior disorder. So

[00:37:25] Jordan Harbinger: when people with RBD have those crazy REM dreams, they physically act them out in real life.

That sounds incredibly dangerous. I feel like you would, people would die from this regularly. And they do. In

[00:37:37] Michael Regilio: fact, comedian Mike Lia, 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 is really cool. He famously has RBD and he was diagnosed after he jumped out of a hotel window during a dream.

[00:37:53] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. That is really insane and scary. I mean, he was he okay? He's alive. Yeah. I mean, he's not, I've seen him,

[00:38:01] Michael Regilio: 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, BIA was one of the lucky ones because other people with the condition have died.

In fact, some people with the condition, and this is almost more heartbreaking than die, they've murdered people. Oh yeah. In their dreams, but. You know, 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.

[00:38:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Wow. I would, I've gotta 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.

[00:38:45] Michael Regilio: 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.

[00:38:52] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 'cause 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 wanna put somebody like that into a, 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,

[00:39:14] Michael Regilio: 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 Wow.

[00:39:22] Jordan Harbinger: It's related to those. That 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 jerk in your life. Something from the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Progressive. Let's face it, sometimes multitasking can be overwhelming.

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So give co spirituality, listen, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget about our newsletter. You can find it at Jordan harbinger.com/news. Every week we go back and surface a little something, something from the back catalog, a little takeaway from the show.

If you're a fan of the show, this is gonna be great for you. Great feedback on the newsletter so far. Keep it coming in folks. Alright, now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday, why do humans dream at all? Do we know? I feel like I've talked

[00:42:03] Michael Regilio: 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 remove the part of their brain responsible for sleep paralysis, giving these cats RBD, and when asleep, these cats fought imaginary foes, hunted and groomed.

[00:42:28] Jordan Harbinger: So it sounds like that one, it sounds cute, and two, it sounds like they were dreaming.

So yeah, I get it.

[00:42:34] Michael Regilio: 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.

[00:42:49] Jordan Harbinger: The thing is though, okay, 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. I mean, by the way, if you're taking a multiple choice, test completely naked. When in doubt choose C. By the way,

[00:43:07] Michael Regilio: all of the above.

No, that's DI 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.

[00:43:26] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so dreams are necessary for survival somehow, or at least surviving in the primitive world that we came from.

[00:43:32] Michael Regilio: Right? And another theory says we dream to heal from emotional damage. This 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.

[00:43:55] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, 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

[00:44:08] Michael Regilio: our own personal psychologists.

[00:44:10] Jordan Harbinger: I never thought about our minds having a natural way to process traumatizing things, but I guess it totally makes sense.

It seems almost dumb that I didn't think of that before. The body really is amazing, man.

[00:44:19] Michael Regilio: I absolutely agree. I mean, we are the coolest super supercomputer robots to date. Mm-Hmm. 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. Uh, 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 in 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 my sleep, these scientists can see the same parts of the brain lighting up. Sure enough, when these little cute M wake up, they are far better at

[00:45:06] Jordan Harbinger: 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.

[00:45:19] Michael Regilio: I love it. Absolutely, and this also applies to us human beings. Many studies show that people workout problems in their sleep and then are far better at whatever the problem it was that they were trying to work out. A 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

[00:45:46] Jordan Harbinger: problem.

So I guess sleeping on it really works. I guess I'd always assumed 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.

I always thought that was kind of a cop out. Now I, I guess it's not.

[00:46:06] Michael Regilio: Oh, yeah. The history books are full of examples of people who work stuff out in their dreams. August Kle famously dreamt about the structure of the benzene molecule. Fa famously

[00:46:18] Jordan Harbinger: might not be the right word here, because I've never heard of that person in my entire life.

[00:46:23] Michael Regilio: Oh, never heard of August Kle. Okay. FI, I admit,

[00:46:27] Jordan Harbinger: never heard of the dude until I did this research. Not on my top list of. Super popular chemists. Yeah.

[00:46:33] Michael Regilio: Okay. Other famous dreams that led to breakthroughs include the periodic table of elements, the structure of DNA and the freaking theory of relativity.

Really 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 like 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, it was Einstein, but Got it.

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 had it. Who's the I? 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 imagined downloading the entire web onto some old computers, and then when he got up in the middle of the night, he realized that it was actually possible.

[00:47:32] Jordan Harbinger: Geez, 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. 'cause 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 wanna put on Google.

Yeah. And here he is freaking out about his SAT scores or whatever.

[00:47:59] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Well, I mean, self-doubt and insecurity seemed to go hand in hand with a certain Yeah. Brand of genius. So I'm That's true. 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, how 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.

Oh. And he invented the sewing machine because he dreamed that a bunch of cannibals or stabbing him or stabbing him. No doubt to eat

[00:48:43] Jordan Harbinger: him. Wow. That's very weird. And who knew violent dreams could be so beneficial? I always felt like those were kind of a vice or like a way to burn off tension. Maybe they are.

[00:48:52] Michael Regilio: Google has definitely benefited the world to some degree. I'm sure. Relativity. Mm-hmm. Serves some purpose somewhere. But right 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,

[00:49:10] Jordan Harbinger: that must have been a scary dream.

And it depends like. Are we talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator or the T 800 Endoskeleton thing? 'cause that's scarier. Well than just Arnold.

[00:49:20] Michael Regilio: I don't think it was either of them, to be honest with you. 'cause he, the dream was like he saw an explosion and this robot came out of the explosion, like walked outta the explosion carrying knives, which just goes to show you how the creative mind works.

He 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

[00:49:55] Jordan Harbinger: 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, I mean, it goes back to the rehearsal thing. It seems only useful if you're not fighting a frog that's also Bruce Lee or whatever,

[00:50:13] Michael Regilio: 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 it 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. In 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 really

[00:51:10] Jordan Harbinger: 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.

[00:51:18] Michael Regilio: Wow. No mark, no bunny or anything else had bitten me while I slept, so yeah, very strange. Other 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. They're there to help us with future events.

[00:52:02] Jordan Harbinger: That's clearly true. The, the film Memento comes to mind. I don't know if you've seen that, but the guy can't remember anything he like basically doesn't have anything but short-term memory.

So if you can't remember the past, it's really hard to move forward into the future.

[00:52:15] Michael Regilio: 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

[00:52:29] Jordan Harbinger: working at night.

Before we get into that, that makes sense about the memory thing. 'cause 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'd like died laughing. And I'm like, no. That's one reason I sort of stopped drinking. 'cause I'm thinking this is kind of brain gy, 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. So 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 gonna take over that processing power because it can happen quite quickly.

I wanna say this is episode 9 29. Again, he is 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 the, it'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.

[00:54:07] Michael Regilio: 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. So yes, so quickly. So. Perhaps in order to keep the visual cortex relevant and working. 'cause 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 'cause of a bunch of stuff. Maybe a couple of those or all

[00:54:47] Jordan Harbinger: 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, 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.

Your 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 don't, I'm not sure that they are.

[00:55:24] Michael Regilio: 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 is like in like prison, it's almost cruel. People don't get to see at various distances that everything is only a certain amount of distance. 'cause that's really bad for your eyes and possibly bad for your brain like that.

Sure. It's 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 Eckles, who was one of the West Memphis three, do you remember those guys? The, no, what was that again?

It was three kids accused of murder in West Memphis, Arkansas, back, I think in the early nineties, 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. There's a bunch of movies about it.

Damien, who's an artist now, he, he complains that his eyes are so damaged 'cause he never could see further than a few feet in front of him. Yeah. So that's a big side note there, but

[00:56:31] Jordan Harbinger: still interesting

[00:56:32] Michael Regilio: stuff.

[00:56:33] Jordan Harbinger: That stuff's interesting though, man. It's interesting because if our brain refigure itself, if we lose a sense, what happens if a sense is modified, right?

Like, 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, we're now we're talking about David Eagleman stuff from an armchair and Right. It's probably not helpful.

[00:56:51] Michael Regilio: One last thing about dream studies though is what's one thing that is immensely helpful, and you could be a part of this maybe at other dream study, bring your, your jar to pee is Lucid Dreamers and the study of Lucid dreams, and why don't you tell people a little bit more about what it

[00:57:06] Jordan Harbinger: 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, 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.

I 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. 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 fricking sitting in chemistry class in Germany during this dream, I'm gonna go fly around and do something more exciting and I'll just be able to start controlling things. And 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.

Or, and sometimes I end up hitting the same wall or getting electrocuted by the same thing or falling from the sky 'cause I can't get my flying working and I can just back up and redo it. Or I'll, you know, I might even be like, you know what? I don't wanna 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

[00:58:35] Michael Regilio: done it to be, but that was an excellent description. Mina Feer. Dan Khun. 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.

[00:59:01] Jordan Harbinger: I have them. I won't say all the time these days because my sleep is all screwed up 'cause 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 thirties, I had them all the time like I would say a third of the time or something like that.

Multiple times per week. Yeah. Well, they're pretty rare.

[00:59:21] Michael Regilio: 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 are not nuts.

[00:59:38] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, no, I, 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. So what's the evidence that I'm not nuts, right?

So in this case,

[00:59:54] Michael Regilio: 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, 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? 'cause 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 our, uh, there we go again. Michael sti, how dare you? Uh, 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 not doing is sniffing. They sniff 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.

[01:00:49] Jordan Harbinger: That is really interesting. I if it's like sniff, if you're in a Dr. Sniff, if you're doing kung fu right now, 'cause it is a little bit like neo in the matrix, at least for me. Things start off as a re a totally normal dream. I'm in a dream Tonka truck, arms, whatever, chemistry class in East Ger, 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 flailed by Edward Scissor hands and I'm like, whoa, that's Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp's not a murderer.

This is a character. Why I'm, 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. And 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.

[01:01:58] Michael Regilio: 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? Is 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. 'cause you really sure piqued my interest on that when you said that.

'cause you do kind of have logic, then now you have those, those faculties. Super interesting

[01:02:29] Jordan Harbinger: 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. 'cause 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 and I'm like, oh, I'm kind of dreaming 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 I. The prefrontal cortex shutting down and the 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. 'cause then you can trigger this. And I will tell you lucid dreaming is fun as hell. There's nothing like it.

[01:03:23] Michael Regilio: 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 gonna set your phone and you're gonna say, am I dreaming or not? Am I dreaming or not? And you're gonna 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? Am 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, uh, 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. Wow. The second he wakes up, he, he runs to his materials and he tries to, uh, recreate it.

[01:04:43] Jordan Harbinger: 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. I've heard that that has something to do with sleep and dreaming, or it affects sleep and dreaming People,

[01:04:56] Michael Regilio: uh, 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.

[01:05:13] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Through no fault of their own. By the way, I don't wanna feel, I don't want people to think we're blaming PTSD sufferers from, you know, suffering more from bad sleep.

So dreaming, I'm late for an exam for a class I've never taken while, but naked. You're saying that that's essentially keeping me mentally stable. That's a tough argument to make.

[01:05:29] Michael Regilio: 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, and one that I've definitely never had, but apparently is really common is finding a new room

[01:05:49] Jordan Harbinger: 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. That doesn't sound familiar at all. Same with the disaster thing. I never think about that stuff.

[01:06:13] Michael Regilio: 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

[01:06:40] Jordan Harbinger: out for you? Uh,

[01:06:42] Michael Regilio: not great, but I still have my pride.

[01:06:46] Jordan Harbinger: It's a strange hill to die on. I think honestly, like put it up when you need it. Put it down when you need it. Like, can we agree on this? It's a strange hill to die on, man or or pee on whatever fine it is.

I just, uh,

[01:06:56] Michael Regilio: 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. Yeah, well it that we talked about.

Yes. Men tend to dream of multiple partners while women dream of high status partners.

[01:07:19] Jordan Harbinger: I think that probably applies to daydreams as well, right? I'm not, I'm not sure men have to even be asleep to fantasize. You are

[01:07:26] Michael Regilio: 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

[01:07:36] Jordan Harbinger: 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.

[01:07:45] Michael Regilio: Yes, yes, yes. You nailed it. Another interesting thing I learned, dreaming in black and white has gone down.

Huh? It used to be more

[01:07:53] Jordan Harbinger: common. I'm not even sure I knew people ever dreamt in black and white. I 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.

[01:08:11] Michael Regilio: I think this relates to the reason people waking up and thinking they're being surrounded by demons has become less common. Yeah. 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?

[01:08:39] Jordan Harbinger: I'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. I. Dream more about aliens. Yeah. 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 gonna be a movie star. Oh,

[01:09:05] Michael Regilio: back to the ho. Okay, fine. Look, I've purposely avoided talking about all those damn dream books and the meaning and symbolism dreams because they are mostly just the horoscopes of the dream world.

But 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 like really, really

[01:09:30] Jordan Harbinger: 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 inJordan@jordanharbinger.com. Thanks, Michael. This episode was truly a dream. You are 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.

[01:10:07] Matthew Walker: 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.

It 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.

And by the way, 7:30 AM for a teenager is the equivalent for an adult waking up at four 30 or three 30 in the morning. If you are 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 defining 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

[01:11:53] Jordan Harbinger: for more on sleep, including why we dream and how we can increase the quality of our sleep. Check out episode 1 26 with Dr. Matthew Walker on the Jordan Harbinger Show. Thank you so much for listening.

Show notes as always@jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts included in the show notes, advertisers deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and you can find Michael Lio at Michael Lio on Instagram.

Will link to that in the show notes because as always, nobody can spell Lio Tour date's up for your comedy now as well, man. This show is created an association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird Mil, OC Campo, and Gabriel Rahi. 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. If 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@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'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.