At Reed’s Local we talk about Romero’s The Crazies, the history of women labeled “hysterical, insane asylums, sleepless nights, the rest cure, and one scary word: thud

In Episode 88 of the Rabbit Hole of Research, Joe, Nick, and Georgia take the show on the road to Reed’s Local, where Melissa and Luc join them to dig into what we really mean when we call someone “crazy.” Using George Romero’s 1973 cult film The Crazies as a starting point, we explore psychosis, sleep deprivation, and how madness is portrayed in horror, sci-fi, and music, the long history of women being persecuted as “hysterical,” and real-life cases of the mind playing tricks, from contagious laughing, a dancing plague and the how the insanity defense changed over time. And who gets to decide whose reality is real?

And there is an awesome horror list of media mentioned in the episode.

Reed’s Local Events:

3017 W Belmont Ave
Chicago, IL 60618

Cycling club, Oct 29 at 5:30, 4 to 8 miles through Avondale, checking out Halloween decorations.
Halloween karaoke, Oct 31, with costume contest and cash prize.

Georgia and Jim’s Touch of Noir 2027 Wall Calendar —

12 months of all-original art by Jim and Georgia; orders are open now, with mailing expected in September

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

Named by the Guild Literary Complex as one of the 35 Writers to Watch!
Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories Anthology featuring a story by Joe!
Joe’s Sci-fi physiological thriller Novel: Will You Still Love Me If I Become Someone Else?
Joe’s Rom-Com Novella: Tomorrow May Be Too Late

Future Events to Hang with the Crew:

Podcast Cross-Appearances

Joe on GoIndieNow: 21grams with Joe Compton talking about villains.
RHR Crew on This Podcast Will Change Your Life with Ben Tanzer

Events & Conventions:

Joe:

Family Day: Seeing the Invisible World to Build a New One; in conjunction with the fall exhibition: teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity, at the Smart Museum of Art In Hyde Park, IL, Nov 14th, 11-3pm
Art and Science lecture about the Science of Zombies at Parlour and Ramp Art Gallery, 2130 W 21st St, Chicago, IL 60608, Dec 10th, 7-10pmGeorgia:
The Inaugural 4th Street Print Fest exhibit at Chesterton Art Center is still up (go check out Georgia’s artwork and a panel with Georgia on Nov 7th). The exhibit goes until November 28th.
Black, White and Gray Exhibition — Fulton Street Collective, Chicago

It’s Science for Weirdos

Want to support the show? Tell your friends. Follow us on social media, Discord, share the podcast, and let us know what topics you are excited about. Leave a Comment. And for email alerts sign-up for the Substack newsletter and never miss an episode, exciting updates or the bonus images we talk about on the episodes.

We discussed these questions on the episode and now want to Hear From You (leave a comment):

Do you sleep eight hours straight or in pieces? Has a lack of sleep ever made you feel not quite yourself?
Have you ever had a moment where you wondered, “Am I losing it?”
How much of a “haunted” experience is the place, or how much is our wanting something to happen, or group think?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. We read them all, and your ideas often shape future episodes.

Future Episodes

Episode 90: Witch PleaseGuest: Bill Halliar (@skeletongue)
Episode 92: Surviving After the ApocalypseGuest: Wil McCarthy
Episode 94: Doomsday series 1: Dr. Doom, Science and AlchemyGuest: Rengasayee (Sai) Veeraraghavan, PhD
Episode 96: Doomsday series 2: Building Dr. Doom and His WorldGuest: Julio A. Guerra (@artedeguerra)
Episode 98: Season 3 recapGuest: TBA

Show Notes & Fun Facts

Stuff crew said they’d put in shownotes

Luc mentioned a man who could sleep:
- The real-life condition where a person completely loses the ability to sleep is called Fatal Insomnia (FI)
- Silvano (1984): An Italian man whose case helped discover FFI. He developed total insomnia, hallucinations, and passed away within months. An autopsy showed that misfolded proteins (prions) had destroyed his thalamus, the brain’s sleep-regulating center.
- Tai Ngoc: A Vietnamese man who reportedly stopped sleeping around 1962 after having a fever during the Vietnam War. Unlike people suffering with FFI, he has lived for decades without normal sleep while remaining active.
Georgia mention the woman that killed her children while suffering with postpartum depression:
1. Andrea Yates, a Texas mother who suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and postpartum depression, drowned her five children in a bathtub in June 2001. She had a history of psychiatric hospitalizations and suicide attempts. She was initially convicted of capital murder in 2002, but that verdict was overturned on appeal because of false testimony from a prosecution expert witness. In 2006, a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity, and she was committed to a mental health facility.
2. Lindsay Clancy, a former nurse from Duxbury, Massachusetts, killed her three young children in January 2023 and has said that postpartum psychosis was the cause. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Her trial ended in a mistrial in September 2026, and the case remains unresolved.
Melissa Mentioned “Sleeping In Pieces”:
Melissa wondered whether humans are really meant to sleep in one unbroken eight-hour block. Sleeping in pieces is known as segmented sleep (biphasic) or polyphasic sleep. It has deep historical roots, but modern health views are mixed
- Historian A. Roger Ekirch documented pre-industrial accounts of a “first sleep” and “second sleep” separated by a waking period, in his 2001 paper “Sleep We Have Lost” (American Historical Review).
- Where did 8 hr rule come from:Mattress companies did not invent the 8-hour sleep rule, though they have historically used the benchmark in their advertising
  - Labor Movements: The 8-hour sleep standard evolved from the 19th-century labor movement’s slogan of “8 hours work, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest,” championed by Welsh reformer Robert Owen as early as 1817.
  - Medical & Scientific Consensus: Major health organizations, such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society, recommend 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night for healthy adults based on extensive clinical and epidemiological data.
  - The “Short Sleeper” Genetic MutationsWhile the average person requires 7 to 9 hours of sleep, natural short sleepers comfortably function on 4 to 6 hours. Recent genome-mapping studies have identified a series of rare, inherited genetic mutations responsible for this trait.

Movies and TV

The Crazies (1973), dir. George A. Romero
The Crazies (2010), dir. Breck Eisner
White Zombie (1932), dir. Victor Halperin
28 Days Later (2002), dir. Danny Boyle
Fallen (1998), dir. Gregory Hoblit
30 Days of Night (2007), dir. David Slade
Psycho (1960), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Halloween (1978), dir. John Carpenter
The Silence of the Lambs (1991), dir. Jonathan Demme
The Fisher King (1991), dir. Terry Gilliam
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), dir. Miloš Forman
Jacob’s Ladder (1990), dir. Adrian Lyne
Girl, Interrupted (1999), dir. James Mangold
12 Monkeys (1995), dir. Terry Gilliam
The Thing (1982), dir. John Carpenter
Solaris (1972), dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Solaris (2002), dir. Steven Soderbergh
Annihilation (2018), dir. Alex Garland
Event Horizon (1997), dir. Paul W.S. Anderson
The Shining (1980), dir. Stanley Kubrick
Session 9 (2001), dir. Brad Anderson
Shutter Island (2010), dir. Martin Scorsese
Shock Corridor (1963), dir. Samuel Fuller
The Visit (2015), dir. M. Night Shyamalan
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), dir. Steven Spielberg
Cropsey (2009, documentary), dirs. Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio
Blindness (2008), dir. Fernando Meirelles
The Professor and the Madman (2019), dir. Farhad Safinia
The Wall (1982), dir. Alan Parker
The Wailing (2016), The Chaser (2008), Yellow Sea (2010), all dir. Na Hong-jin
Hope (2026), dir. Na Hong-jin
The Boroughs (2026, TV series), Created by Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews

Books

The Republic (c. 375 BCE), Plato
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Robert Louis Stevenson
“The Yellow Wall-Paper” (1892), Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“Diary of a Madman” (1836), Nikolai Gogol
Psycho (1959), Robert Bloch
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), Ken Kesey
The Shining (1977), Stephen King
The Silence of the Lambs (1988), Thomas Harris
Shutter Island (2003), Dennis Lehane
Girl, Interrupted (1993), Susanna Kaysen
Solaris (1961), Stanisław Lem
Annihilation (2014), Jeff VanderMeer
Blindness (1995), José Saramago
The Professor and the Madman (1998), Simon Winchester
The Mad Wife (Sept 30, 2025), Meagan Church
Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II (Aug 18, 2026), eds. Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
Never Whistle at Night anthology (2023) eds. Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Comics

Batman, first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), DC Comics
The Joker, first appeared in Batman #1 (spring 1940), DC Comics
Two-Face, first appeared in Detective Comics #66 (August 1942), DC Comics
The Punisher, first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), Marvel Comics, created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr., and Ross Andru
30 Days of Night (2002), Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, IDW Publishing

Music (not requested, but it came up)

“Mind Playing Tricks on Me,” Geto Boys, We Can’t Be Stopped (1991)
“Diary of a Madman,” Gravediggaz, 6 Feet Deep (1994)
The Wall (1979), Pink Floyd
“Institutionalized,” Suicidal Tendencies, Suicidal Tendencies (1983)

Fun Facts to Impress Your Friends With or Win Trivia:

The 1518 dancing plague. In July 1518, a woman known as Frau Troffea began dancing uncontrollably in the streets of Strasbourg. Within a month, as many as 400 people had joined her, and some reportedly danced to death from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion. Nobody has determined a biological cause. One idea blamed mold, but it doesn’t explain why everyone reacted the same way.
The Tanganyika laughter epidemic. On January 30, 1962, three students at a school in what is now Tanzania started laughing uncontrollably. It spread to 95 of the school’s 159 students, forced the school to close, but this didn’t stop the laughter, but moved into surrounding villages. Roughly 1,000 people were affected, and about 14 schools closed over 18 months.
The Rosenhan experiment (1973). Healthy volunteers got themselves admitted to psychiatric hospitals by faking one symptom: hearing the word “thud.” Once inside, they acted completely normal. Staff never declared any of them sane, and all were discharged as “in remission.” Later scrutiny: Susannah Cahalan’s 2019 bookThe Great Pretender questioned the study’s methods and found details that couldn’t be verified.
“Hysteria” was an official diagnosis until 1980. The word comes from the Greek for uterus, and Hippocrates and Plato theorized a “wandering womb” behind women’s psychological and physical symptoms. The diagnosis was an accepted medical diagnosis until the DSM dropped it in 1980.
The insanity defense started with a case of mistaken identity. In 1843, Daniel M’Naghten, suffering paranoid delusions, shot and killed Edward Drummond, secretary to British Prime Minister Robert Peel, believing he was Peel. M’Naghten was acquitted by reason of insanity. Queen Victoria personally pushed for stricter standards, and the House of Lords formalized the M’Naghten Rule, which still underpins the insanity defense in the UK and some U.S. states. After John Hinckley Jr.’s 1981 attempt on President Reagan ended in an insanity defense acquittal, the U.S. passed the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984.
A real asylum starred in a horror movie. The film Session 9 (2001), about a crew removing asbestos from an abandoned psychiatric hospital, was filmed at the Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts. Danvers was one of the Kirkbride Plan asylums, which opened in 1878.

Episode Highlights

00:23: Meet the Guests. Joe, Nick, and Georgia kick off their third visit to Reed’s Local and introduce Melissa (third appearance) and Luc, his second appearance.
01:22: Defining Crazy. Joe opens with the Plato’s cave though exercise, then explains that “crazy” can mean mentally ill or just “crazy delicious,” while psychosis is a symptom rather than a diagnosis.
05:00: Sleep Deprivation Effects. Melissa, fresh off a shift that ended at 4 a.m., notes that lack of sleep can feed delusions and wonders whether eight unbroken hours is natural at all.
06:30: Circadian Rhythm Talk. Luc and Joe explain how morning sunlight resets the body clock and how sleep cycles through deep and light stages, and Luc and Nick talk about infant sleep cycles and how that affects parents.
13:54: Romero’s The Crazies. Georgia asks whether this was Romero’s first step beyond zombies, and the group digs into the Trixie agent, the government response, and the film’s Watergate-era mistrust compared with the 2010 remake.
17:34: Fictional Crazy Tropes. Joe walks through his categories of fictional “crazy”: the contagion crowd, the threat, the oracle, the genius-adjacent, and the tragic victim.
21:51: Women Labeled Hysterical. Joe covers The Yellow Wallpaper, the rest cure, and the “wandering womb,” while Melissa shares her thesis on Mary Todd Lincoln and Georgia recommends The Mad Wife.
28:40: DSM and Misdiagnosis. The group traces hysteria’s removal from the DSM in 1980, then moves through insurance codes, misdiagnosis, diagnoses as social control, and the lack of a mental health safety net.
36:26: Back to Horror Movies. Needing a break from real-world horrors, Joe notes that fiction rarely depicts psychosis accurately and offers Jacob’s Ladderas a non-violent example.
37:44: Isolation Horror Picks. Melissa and Joe point to Girl, Interrupted, 12 Monkeys, and The Thing as stories where isolation and lost sleep warp the mind.
38:02: Space Madness Movies. Luc raises Solaris and Annihilation, Joe adds Event Horizon, and Luc jokes that putting people in a “big metal tube in the middle of nowhere” guarantees they’ll lose it.
39:46: Aging and Mistrust. Nick asks how age affects mental health, and Joe cites dementia before the group recalls stories where elders and kids aren’t believed, from The Visit to E.T.
42:08: Asylums to True Crime. Joe describes Danvers State Hospital, the real Kirkbride-plan asylum behind Session 9, and Luc recounts the documentary Cropsey.
44:22: Mass Hysteria Cases. Joe recounts the 1518 dancing plague in Strasbourg and the 1962 Tanganyika laughter epidemic.
45:50: Psych Experiments Explained. Joe explains the Rosenhan “thud” experiment, in which healthy volunteers faked one symptom and were never declared sane.
47:38: Sleep Deprivation Spiral. Nick shares his college experiment with audio hallucinations, Luc recalls all-night youth lock-ins, and the group jokes about how cults use sleep deprivation.
50:37: Ghost Hunting Suggestibility. Melissa asks how much of a “haunting” is wanting something to happen, Joe says we’re social animals prone to going along, and Luc raises Shock Corridor, the Milgram and Stanford experiments, and Blindness.
55:09: Insanity Defense History. Joe covers the 1843 M’Naghten case and John Hinckley Jr.’s 1981 acquittal.
58:23: Madness in Music and Art. Joe cites Geto Boys, Gravediggaz, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Melissa adds “Institutionalized,” and Luc brings up artists whose self-portraits fragment with dementia.
1:05:17: Plugs and Sign Off. Melissa promotes Reed’s karaoke and Halloween events, Luc recommends Hope, and Melissa and Georgia add The Professor and the Madman and Never Whistle at Night Part II before signing off.

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

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Transcript

00:00:00 nick: for myself.” We

[00:00:01] joe: welcome back to the Rabbit Hole of Research.

Down here in the Basement studio.

Well, actually we’re not

[00:00:09] nick: We’re on the road today, We are

[00:00:11] geo: We’re on the road today,

[00:00:13] joe: at Reed’s Local. This is part of our, Oh …

[00:00:16] nick: did a light just turn on over there?

[00:00:17] joe: As you know, we’ve done a couple episodes here.

We had the ghosts

visit us,

[00:00:21] geo: Yeah. so third time. so

with

[00:00:23] joe: that, it’s me, joe

[00:00:25] nick: Oh,

you got Nick. Sorry I’m distracted

[00:00:27] geo: Georgia,

[00:00:28] joe: We got Georgia, and then we have two guests joining

us.

[00:00:31] melissa: Hey,

Melissa

from Reed’s Local.

[00:00:34] geo: Thank you,

[00:00:34] nick: back. Yep …

again. Thanks for having us

Words.

[00:00:37] luc: Luc

the handyman, also a regularReed’s.

[00:00:40] joe: man,

[00:00:40] melissa: Yeah,

[00:00:41] joe: awesome.

And-

[00:00:42] nick: is also your second appearance

[00:00:43] luc: This is. right.

My Second.

yes. And

[00:00:46] joe: very

brief…

Gave a list of movies at 40.

[00:00:50] geo: very very- He

[00:00:51] joe: in with

some deep

[00:00:52] geo: cuts,

yeah, some Very good- was that

[00:00:54] nick: first time around?

[00:00:55] joe: first

visit,

[00:00:56] geo: that

the- r- Yeah the actually recorded? recording? Or the- No, that was

[00:00:59] nick: [00:01:00] the

second one. that was

[00:01:01] joe: Yeah, we

had the

[00:01:02] geo: one that

was,

Yeah.

so- The one that actually- Yes. The one that people heard.

[00:01:04] joe: that

actually- Yes. The one

[00:01:04] geo: the

[00:01:04] nick: people

[00:01:05] geo: one that mattered. I was- I was- Yeah. That was the one that I was

recording on. It

[00:01:07] joe: mattered. Luke was, on

[00:01:08] melissa: heard. You’ve been here four

[00:01:08] luc: was- on it. I went and heard it.

I, oh,

[00:01:10] geo: right. Somebody, heard me. Yeah,

it wasn’t like

[00:01:12] nick: on the edit

floor. Like,

[00:01:13] geo: “Oh, did I…”

[00:01:15] nick: “Oh, just-” At

[00:01:15] luc: I heard

myself. Yeah,

[00:01:16] nick: Yeah, That’s it. I

[00:01:17] luc: I didn’t have headphones. I’d have gone deaf.

[00:01:18] joe: no.

[00:01:19] nick: Neither do I.

But

[00:01:20] joe: Yeah,

everyone’s talking about the headphones. But,

hey,

we’re here to talk about,

Crazies. And

so we can interpret that

as we like,

[00:01:28] nick: Is that how we’re gonna be acting with the whole-

like, ghost? Well,

[00:01:31] joe: guys started

[00:01:32] nick: a

[00:01:32] geo: I mean, I

think this is gonna go through- I

[00:01:34] melissa: bartend karaoke, so- Oh

are those horror stories for the

Crazies or It’s

[00:01:38] nick: like I feel like it, it’s pretty damn close.

[00:01:42] joe: So I do have my opening

[00:01:45] nick: Oh, you have a mono- monologue

[00:01:46] geo: Wow … coming up

[00:01:47] joe: Just a little before,

[00:01:49] geo: so.

[00:01:50] joe: Have you ever lost your mind, laughed uncontrollably during a serious situation, held a conversation with yourself, or swear you saw someone pass you in a [00:02:00] hallway that no one else saw at the party?

Our minds are complex, wonderful biological machines that take in millions of data points every second and filter them to form your reality. But

what if the filtering is corrupted, enhanced, different than the average consensus?

Like Plato’s cave, prisoners chained since birth, watching shadows on a

wall, and because shadows are all they saw, they formed their reality based on that.

One day, a prisoner broke free, went outside, and sees the sun, trees, the real world. Excited, he goes back to tell the others, and they don’t call him enlightened, they call him crazy. So

[00:02:38] geo: I thought you were gonna

[00:02:39] nick: say he was, like, afraid of what was going on out there, and he just went back to his cave- No, he was- and then told the stories of, that he,

[00:02:45] geo: what would happen now.

[00:02:46] nick: a,

[00:02:46] luc: Yeah,

[00:02:47] joe: exercise, right? That if your reality is challenged, do you… Are you…

How perceptive are you to, think about and how curious, how enlightened would you go, or would you just dismiss that

[00:02:58] nick: So would that just be like- how skeptical [00:03:00] you are about things in life,

then?

[00:03:01] joe: about things in life then? I- you could

[00:03:03] nick: if

that

just paranoia?

[00:03:07] joe: You’re paranoid.

[00:03:08] nick: Yeah, and I mean, and,

the

[00:03:09] joe: crazy

is a hard one. I mean, it, it means it can mean mentally ill, extremely

foolish, wildly enthusiastic. We use it in a lot of different ways. So that, that term crazy is like, the sandwich we had earlier was crazy delicious, right?

So that’s

[00:03:23] nick: Oh, the slang type?

[00:03:24] geo: the slang type?

Just

[00:03:24] joe: crazy … it was… But it’s

like, but it’s all, like,

used that way,

so,

But fiction, probably psychosis is what we think about, or… And that’s a break from reality, hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thought.

More a symptom than a diagnosis ’cause there’s a lot of disorders that can have this type of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, drug reactions, sleep deprivation, fever can induce kind of

this, departure from reality. So that’s,

[00:03:53] melissa: that’s

[00:03:53] joe: At,

so…

And Crazies comes from the

’73

Romero

movie. [00:04:00] That, that’s where the, the title of the episode comes from, but it’s been in our literature and fiction for some time, so…

You guys have thoughts on cra- I’m just talking.

Maybe I’m just

[00:04:10] melissa: and

other people?

[00:04:11] joe: people?

Like,

[00:04:12] luc: all captivated by your monologue. I-

[00:04:14] geo: hear other people, like, introduce stuff, so Yeah. Yeah. I,

[00:04:16] melissa: So

I was distracted the bar’s making funny

noises just for Nick today.

[00:04:19] joe: is.

[00:04:19] geo: It

[00:04:19] nick: is. I love it. I’m like, where am I supposed to be looking today?

[00:04:22] melissa: I make-

[00:04:23] joe: Am I going

[00:04:23] nick: crazy? Is

[00:04:24] geo: Is

happening?

Yeah.

[00:04:26] melissa: make the joke that,

[00:04:27] joe: make

[00:04:28] melissa: come from a family of, like, Sicilian witches or schizophrenia that’s never been diagnosed. because, like, we have stories that go back

[00:04:37] nick: to, like-

I think it’s a blurred line of the

two.

[00:04:39] melissa: I know.

We have- … like- …probably a little

bit of both. Like, we have

stories that go back to,

like, our family,

in Sicily, and Italy, like doing stuff. And

sisters and I and my aunt, we’ve all, like, seen stuff, heard stuff,

done weird shit. I’m like, or are we just just it’s a friend. I don’t know. I, not

to make light of mental illness- …but we’re like [00:05:00] there’s something. So I’m like, Yeah, anyway, I’m a little tired. I worked

till 4:00 in the morning last night. Apologies.

[00:05:05] joe: is sleep deprived.

[00:05:06] nick: the morning last night. Apologies. There

it is. Sleep deprived. So, so y- so You’re- definitely gonna be- Sleep deprivation hearing these things. Sleep addiction. Plus, minus two delusions.

[00:05:09] melissa: sleep deprivation also adds to delusions .

[00:05:13] joe: Yes.

It can indeed.

[00:05:14] melissa: indeed. So that could also-

be it.

[00:05:16] nick: Yeah, the whole insomnia- just the lack of sleep …

[00:05:18] melissa: just never slept my whole life .

[00:05:20] nick: Is I, is that like a true thing? Like, people get eight hours of sleep? like-

[00:05:23] melissa: sleep? I

actually …read something interesting about that. Oh. That the eight hours, and this also makes sense to me, ’cause I

very rarely

can sleep through an entire night.

Yeah. And I’ve always had a weird

schedule. Like, I’ve always liked

to be up. Like, even as a kid, I would read till

very late night. And, you know, like, the parents would, my parents would come in and be like, “Stop reading.” I’m like, “Well, I just got a few more pages left of this,” And then would wake up and go back to sleep, and apparently that’s how humans are supposed to sleep, is not eight hours through. It’s supposed to be sleep in pieces to catch it all up.

[00:05:59] nick: Interesting. [00:06:00]

[00:06:00] melissa: And That the eight hours was actually a con from a mattress company so they could sell mattresses.

[00:06:06] nick: And How many matt- like, all right. N- Yeah, like, that’s just ridiculous. Yeah. Do they really need that much of a con to m- sell mattresses?

It’s a

mattress.

Yeah.

[00:06:16] joe: Whenever it’s like the, the eight hours, I mean, there is something about sleeping in there, and some people do need that six to eight hours I think is the average then. I mean, I think there’s some science to that,

That’s what

[00:06:26] nick: but that’s what- But

is it, like- other- … supposed to be a consistent sleep

a broken-up sleep?

[00:06:30] luc: Yeah. The Sleep

The way they describe it, it’s the circadian rhythm. Right. So the idea that your

body

regist- and evidently the way

we are s-

[00:06:40] geo: The …

[00:06:41] luc: The way you can reset yourself is when you get up in the morning and you go

outside

in the

sunshine,

because

that will

tells your

body, “This is when I’m awake,” and you’re gonna go cycle for

so long in daylight

to the

point where so

many hours later you

will

[00:07:00] automatically conk out.

[00:07:01] joe: Yep.

[00:07:01] nick: Interesting.

[00:07:01] luc: And

that is how you will set your sleep

schedule.

That being said, the way that our

bodies

use rest

are in hour and a

half increments. I don’t know why. But that seems to

be it. yeah. So you’ll get-

hour and a you’ll do like a half-hour nap To an hour and a half is

enough

time that your

brain will

like set. Yeah. And then most people will get somewhere between six to

seven and a

half- mm-hmm …or something.

So when they say eight, it’s like- well, you’re not quite like- don’t

on the number. …Right, right. Yeah. But It’s a weird- notion. And I

have a similar thing. I also don’t sleep through the night. I have a

d- I’ve just become a terrible

sleeper, I think via apnea and weight or whatever. But just not being able to

breathe,

All those things that play into it. But that, that can also lead to it.

[00:07:50] joe: Yeah. And your sleep cycles, right? So at night you have a sleep cycle between deep sleep, REM sleep, core sleep, and then, or maybe a period of wakefulness.

But you usually [00:08:00] try to minimize the wakefulness, but your body naturally cycles through this deep sleep cycle to a lighter sleep. And so I think that registers also, you know, you’re thinking, “Oh, I was awake,” but really you’re just in a less deep sleep to maybe fully awake. And then they found also there’s people genetically who don’t need that six hours.

They can actually function quite well on four hours of sleep. And so

there is this, this little bell curve that happens, and they’re finding out more

about some of the, the sleep cycle and how that works. And then circadian rhythm is a rhythm that’s set by day, night cycles. And so every organism has a circadian rhythm to them where they do certain things at night versus

things they do during the day. And that’s set, you know, on a cellular level that you have this, this rhythm

[00:08:46] nick: I feel like We touched on that during the living underground episode, right?

[00:08:50] joe: We did, yep, ’cause That’s where you have to be mindful that if you’re, if you disrupt that or space travel, things like that, if you disrupt that

[00:08:57] geo: Or you work a second shift …You get to,

[00:08:59] joe: [00:09:00] well, you get into the psychoses and, you know, you become like crazy on the spaceship. And that’s

You know,

[00:09:05] geo: But it’s also really related to age, I think, because kids definitely- need, They say like 10 hours of sleep, I think. 10 hours.

And I think that’s related to, like, brain development. That’s right, yeah. And then

[00:09:18] luc: little- one- They want them to sleep for 12 hours … and I think that’s related to, like, brain development. That’s

right. Yeah. And then

as you-

[00:09:19] nick: as

[00:09:20] geo: you’re older, people

that are elderly, don’t they say they don’t sleep they sleep much less than-

[00:09:25] luc: That’s true. yeah.

[00:09:26] geo: Is that… Yeah, I

[00:09:27] joe: you sleep much less, not, doesn’t mean that you might need less sleep,

right?

[00:09:31] geo: That could

just be- …

other issues, but- How

[00:09:35] joe: get and want are

two different… And you just might, you know, ‘ cause like you said, if you

train yourself, if

[00:09:40] luc: you,

[00:09:41] nick: you know,

[00:09:41] geo: there’s a

[00:09:41] joe: lot of

things your

body

repeats. So if you are used to waking up at 3:00 AM and then becoming functional and doing things, then even if you try to sleep through the night your body’s gonna wake you up.

You almost have to untrain yourself and do things as to start resetting that. Either take care of physiological things that might be impeding [00:10:00]

sleep cycle or, your environment. Maybe there’s a loud noise. Your neighbor leaving for work at 3:00 AM wakes you up.

Even when they don’t

leave and make the loud noise, you still wake up. Like, people notice that, and like that’s now become part of your rhythm ’cause your brain is now,

once again, filtering all these signals. It’s trying to make sense of your world and relay that to you in a way that makes sense, but what you’re seeing and feeling. So if that’s what you’ve set as your

normal, it becomes your new normal, and you live with it so… And

I’m, pointing at Luc

[00:10:29] luc: I didn’t I didn’t mean to single you out.

the wrong person. This is my normal.

Yes, it’s

[00:10:33] melissa: That’s sad.

[00:10:34] luc: Two things come to mind. One, one is the when having an infant and the fact that you have to try to teach them to sleep- because they will just awful. Wake

up.

And I, don’t, I

[00:10:45] geo: curious- …

[00:10:46] luc: how, h- has your child, taken to sleeping regularly, or is, are they- still- …off on own, off the rage?

[00:10:53] nick: So,

S-

she is a little bit more on her,

[00:10:56] geo: like,

[00:10:58] nick: getting that bedtime [00:11:00] routine. Yeah. But she’s

also

changing it herself. So what we’ve never been ones to be like, “All right, this is when you’re going to bed, and this is when you’re waking up.”

We kinda just like, “All right, when you’re tired, we’re gonna start, like, winding down, and then we’ll-“

[00:11:15] luc: Yeah, ’cause the b- the best thing- to do- Yeah … is with a routine. But it’s always that first, when you bring them home, infant-

[00:11:21] nick: Oh, that was … always- you come in- …and it’s

[00:11:23] luc: sort of like- this child just wants to sleep every half hour,” And then

just wake ‘ up screaming cause

they’re hungry …or …they wet themselves. and you’re like, “Ah.” and then

you are, doing what you do, and you don’t have any rest ‘

cause you- you walk around with coffee in your hand like, ” I just

found the new drug.” you know.

It’s

[00:11:39] geo: like…

[00:11:40] melissa: This is the first of three I’ll probably have today. But like, I was also kind of thinking, like, as far as the sleep thing, like we’re talking sleep deprivation, trying to get back on crazies, I was like, there’s also, because my schedule is so chaotic and so busy, and,

Like I have a nighttime schedule. I’ve had a nighttime schedule for as long as I can remember. [00:12:00] However I also am a daytime person. It’s very strange.

[00:12:04] joe: Yeah.

[00:12:04] melissa: And, i- I’m like, there’s been times where it’s, I’ve been up for 24 hours, and if, God forbid, anyone sees me at the end of, like, after 24 hours awake, I am not myself. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m seeing things and hallucinating at that point, but, like, sounds will sound strange to me.

Like, things that would normally be comforting, like, they get in my head and they sound completely different, where I’m like, “Ah.” It’s, you know, like,

[00:12:32] nick: That’s ’cause you’re losing it. Yeah.

[00:12:34] luc: yeah.

[00:12:34] geo: I’m

[00:12:34] melissa: absolutely- …losing

it at that point.

Like, there’s been times where I’ve had to, like, I’m like, “I might hurt somebody, and I might not remember it, so I’m going to go now.”

But then when I try to go to sleep at the end of that 24 hours- …it’s difficult

and I can’t go to sleep. I have

[00:12:49] nick: just hit that wall.

of- …

Yeah.

[00:12:50] melissa: It’s like I’m ready to go another 24.” so that’s a dangerous thing with-

[00:12:55] nick: when you hit there, do you end

[00:12:56] melissa: point,

[00:12:56] nick: do you ever end up going for that another, like, do you

[00:12:59] melissa: Oh, [00:13:00] no. The, if I stayed up for two days straight,

…I-

am scared

of myself.

[00:13:04] nick: to give yourself a rest

I definitely

have been in that point where it’s like, I know I’ve been up for way too long, but I’m not gonna sleep, and once I lay my, down, it’s not working.

Yeah.

So I’ve just- said, “

All

right. I’m back up again,” and then I just continue on with the day.

[00:13:17] melissa: I will- I’m gonna refrain from what I actually call it ’cause it’s

not appropriate for ears. I will usually- … have, like, it’s a sleep- You can

[00:13:25] nick: We can bleep it.

[00:13:25] melissa: yeah. It’s

a sleepless sleep that I have a lot of those times.

[00:13:30] nick: a lot of those shifts. Ah, yes.

[00:13:30] melissa: it’s like I’m laying down, and I can’t remember if I’ve actually fallen asleep or not. Yeah. Like, ’cause I can feel and hear everything, but I’ve felt like I’ve slept, and I’ll feel well-rested, and that’s even scarier. But usually I’ll do that, and then go through the rest of the day, and then I’ll go back to normal.

[00:13:45] geo: Yeah.

[00:13:45] nick: I know

that. feeling.

[00:13:46] melissa: Yeah.

[00:13:47] joe: And

usually, oh, go ahead,

[00:13:48] geo: Oh, no.

[00:13:49] nick: I usually … Do you have a question?

[00:13:49] luc: ahead, No.

[00:13:50] geo: No, I actually,

was

kinda changing the subject.

But The Crazies by

Romero- was that pretty much I should know [00:14:00] his work better,

but

I feel like the prim- he’s primarily zombies. Was that the first time he went into,

like, mental health for his, do you know what I mean?

[00:14:11] joe: Right,

[00:14:12] geo: was a de- departure from a zombie-

[00:14:14] joe: health was his focus.

[00:14:16] luc: I think the detail was that the government- Yeah. Right. that’s right

[00:14:19] geo: did Right. It was a, virus, right?

Well,

it was-

[00:14:21] luc: it

was-

[00:14:22] geo: Or- ……Trixie. It was a

[00:14:23] luc: chemical chemical

agent,

right, which I think was supposed to mirror-

perhaps …Agent

Orange or- a vir- virus. Yeah, I’m not even sure what the whole- Trixie

[00:14:31] geo: Yeah,

[00:14:31] joe: like Trixie

virus, and that was the

[00:14:33] geo: And then …they… But I’m just saying it was an interesting departure- from He usually always talked about undead and zombies.

[00:14:41] nick: and

[00:14:41] joe: you could think of zombies though

as a loss of self and loss of control of self and identity, right? And kind of this very

mindless kind of creature. Oh,

[00:14:50] nick: yeah. there’s different form, there’s different zombies … that you can get.

[00:14:53] joe: like the voodoo zombies from the early, quote-unquote, “zombie movie” like White Zombie in the, or the ’30s, [00:15:00] that was the idea there, that you’ve lost autonomy, and then you could be controlled by someone else.

So-

[00:15:04] nick: would be- Yeah, you know- You’d be

[00:15:06] joe: crazy. And

so- having

[00:15:07] geo: Without The actual undead …

part. Yes. Yeah.

[00:15:10] joe: And then

how would you tell someone is having

psychotic breakdown versus just someone who

[00:15:17] geo: slept

[00:15:18] joe: hasn’t slept for

24 hours or had to, ran the long

shift, right?

So you had this thing and he played with

that in that movie

really

well, where you had that, and then you had the government

response, and then you had this, the ’73, so you had all of the government mistrust, which, you know, still probably exists.

[00:15:33] nick: What?

I don’t know What you’re talking

about.

[00:15:35] luc: you’re talking about.

[00:15:36] joe: yeah, so

you had that. You know, Watergate

was kind of in that timeframe. So you really had a lot of,

[00:15:41] nick: I think We’ve had 10 since we’ve walked into this place.

[00:15:44] joe: yeah. Very, I think it was more political commentary

versus the remake, which was a straight horror-thriller in, in 2010, ’11, somewhere in that ballpark.

[00:15:54] luc: but

[00:15:55] joe: yeah, this started it.

[00:15:56] melissa: up some steps.

[00:15:58] joe: started-

[00:15:59] nick: What? We’re not [00:16:00] going crazy. We’re just- no,

no … sitting here

recording. You’re

[00:16:02] joe: looking over your shoulders, and that makes me stop and go, like, “What’s happening over in the corner?”

[00:16:06] nick: a

[00:16:07] joe: but yeah, so that

was that was

R- Romero’s kind of take on it. So

[00:16:11] melissa: of take on it, so

[00:16:11] luc: Yeah,

I was just looking well, I was trying to find the name of one character, ’cause there

was

fella

in…

thought it was a Japanese man who

at some point just stopped sleeping.

He’s

now deceased, but I was- trying to

get a- register on how long he l- survived- without 80s form of

rest. Yeah

[00:16:30] joe: Yeah, I think I know who you’re talking about. He did… I think that came up in the… Well, there was a living underground, like, going sensory deprivation idea. But yeah, there was that thing. Was it weeks? was a while.

[00:16:43] luc: I don’t know. But- then

[00:16:44] nick: know what he was- using to keep himself awake, or was

[00:16:47] luc: he wasn’t trying. to. He literally

[00:16:49] nick: it was just like, insomniac?

[00:16:51] joe: Yeah.

[00:16:52] luc: made himself… And then he just- stopped being

able to function- Essentially, He would just lie there

and- be,

Yeah …you know,

eyes

wide

[00:16:59] joe: I wanna say people

[00:17:00] have done experiments on people, like to have, where they’ve locked them in-

That’s-

some

[00:17:05] luc: different

[00:17:05] joe: kept them

[00:17:05] luc: cases …kept

them up with music

[00:17:07] joe: just- Right, yeah. It was like this,

you know, how long

can you function? And I think it was more a military applica- how long can you run

troops- Yeah …

[00:17:13] luc: can you last? Yeah, with the whole thing with Afghanistan- where their CIA was doing

all sorts of things …to get people to talk … I don’t think those things

really

work.

They did the similar thing in Panama.

It’s like we’re

just- …gonna

play, you know- …Metallica until you

come up. Oh.

[00:17:27] joe: until you do

[00:17:27] nick: I

don’t know. If someone plays

Baby Shark to me constantly- Something like that.

I’m gonna lose it.

But, the,

but then in the

[00:17:33] luc: in

[00:17:33] joe: crazies,

I mean, in the fictional world, we think about it, we have the crazies, and I had some kind of categories

a little bit, and I

think that was like the contagion crowd

category

with like 28 Days Later, with Fallen, with the Crazies.

It was the rage virus, and that was kind of, you

[00:17:49] nick: got 28 Days Later was… Oh, no. I was thinking 30 Days of Night. Sorry.

[00:17:52] joe: that was vampire. Yeah. Yeah, no. 28 Days Later was

the rage virus. Yeah. And then you had that, and then people got it, and then it was who do you trust? Break, social

[00:18:00] breakdown.

But then I had the, the, like a,

a threat character. The unknown, seems kind but, you know, they’re kind of have disassociated from reality. Norman Bates, Psycho Michael Myers, Hannibal Lecter. These characters, they have some connection to reality. Well, Michael Myers might not as

[00:18:19] nick: I mean- But the

other ones, they,

they

[00:18:20] joe: seem like, right? They have…

But

[00:18:22] luc: they seem like they have- We just know

he was- certifiable. Or So he was Diagnosed

care, according to the

[00:18:27] joe: made decisions that

were very

targeted. Like, it wasn’t just… I mean, at, in the later m- the first movie,

he seemed to be very, he had a

focus, and he kinda went about his business. And if you p- necessarily got in his way, then he took care of you.

But if you were across the street, he didn’t necessarily cross the street just to kill you, right? I mean, that was kind of his thing. He, you had to be… Like, he was driving a car, right? I mean, there was that scene where he drove the

car. I mean,

[00:18:52] luc: was- Yeah, for a guy who’s never driven a car- …He

seemed

take- to that pretty

[00:18:55] nick: the car.

[00:18:55] joe: so he had

some mental

capacity

Function

[00:19:00] reality

[00:19:00] nick: and present

[00:19:01] joe: as semi-normal, and then it was like, well,

he’s not.

He, something’s wrong with him.

[00:19:05] nick: think that was just writing just so they can have him drive?

[00:19:08] geo: Maybe.

[00:19:09] joe: don’t know

[00:19:09] nick: if he could drive. They’re just

[00:19:09] joe: to drive?

like- it was kind

[00:19:11] nick: He

[00:19:11] geo: gets everywhere

[00:19:12] nick: quickly on foot. Yeah.

I don’t think-

don’t

ever- think I

need to see him in the car.

[00:19:16] joe: He, we’ve talked about in

episodes,

[00:19:18] geo: Even though he’s not really moving that quickly, he gets there

quick, you know?

[00:19:22] joe: Yes. Always lock the doors especially car doors. I don’t know.

[00:19:25] nick: Is this a PSA now?

[00:19:26] joe: That’s right,

yeah.

Then I had the,

like,

the oracle or seer

kind of a character who seems mad. They can see truths that others can’t. You know, Fisher King McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, even the Joker at some level.

He’s kind of, “I’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve.” Like, he kinda has this kind of, of,

[00:19:46] nick: would never think of him as an oracle, though. Crazy,

yes …Or seer.

[00:19:50] joe: But that, he’s …saying he can see into

the future. He can prophesize. He’s

seeing

[00:19:54] nick: lore? I’m like…

[00:19:55] joe: Yeah,

I mean, I think, yeah,

[00:19:56] luc: It’s I would say- There

is- a piece to it where he, Because of the way [00:20:00] that he suddenly has all these =followers, that he has this fandom because everyone’s suddenly

into him, Even though it’s sort of farcical and the idea of saying,

[00:20:09] nick: of “

[00:20:10] luc: Oh yeah,

the crazy,” you know-

Right.

That’s right, yeah … mixed up

guy- Right, …is suddenly leading us astray. Right. But then you could compare that to all sorts of other sorts

[00:20:19] nick: mean-

[00:20:19] geo: was gonna say some- something came to

my mind. when you were saying that,

but-

[00:20:23] nick: man then too, like-

[00:20:25] joe: he doesn’t have… I mean, his followers aren’t… I mean, they just want

protection.

[00:20:29] nick: That’s why they- The rich?

[00:20:32] joe: Well,

right. I mean,

well, the rich don’t really associate with

Batman. I think he’s…

[00:20:37] luc: Well

[00:20:38] nick: and

[00:20:39] joe: once you asked for, about lore, what,

where does he, where does…

He goes to the parties and stuff as Bruce Bruce Wayne, but he

[00:20:45] nick: does- So he’s,

has split personality.

[00:20:48] joe: Sure, you can say that.

He,

he has

[00:20:50] nick: psychosis.

[00:20:50] luc: thought that was Two-Face,

[00:20:51] nick: So he’s a crazy man. He’s crazy.

I will- So if you’re gonna split the man between- I …the bat and

the

[00:20:57] melissa: don’t think

[00:20:57] joe: I think he

would

be… I got other [00:21:00] categories.

You know, I

[00:21:00] nick: a-

[00:21:01] joe: him

in either

[00:21:02] nick: the,

[00:21:02] geo: i,

[00:21:02] joe: I’d

put him into,

like, the genius adjacent kind of category. Interesting.

A smart guy,

[00:21:06] geo: a

[00:21:07] joe: lot of money, but he’s got some, some problems,

[00:21:09] nick: Kinda like the Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Hyde?

[00:21:12] joe: genius trope, where he’s kind of there and it’s cost him something, ’cause he just goes out and beats up on people who have psychosis.

Yeah. He probably needs some institutionalization and corrective behavior and it’s like,

and corrective behavior. It’s no, he just goes and beats them to a pulp and kills them.

Yeah, so you have that. Then I have the tragic victim trope,

where you have something, someone’s

been wronged, and then, or oppressive system, and then

They’re manifesting their quote-unquote crazy through… That, that’s

[00:21:39] nick: kind of thing.

[00:21:40] geo: Maybe

[00:21:40] joe: Hi, mayor.

[00:21:40] nick: after that murder, you know what I’m saying?

[00:21:43] geo: verse. Oh,

[00:21:43] luc: society’s

getting me down. gonna

have to tell you who’s wrong here.

[00:21:46] geo: Maybe The Punisher, in that case. Like,

[00:21:49] nick: Punisher? yeah

The Punisher,

[00:21:51] joe: yep, could be in there.

And I was gonna say one of the, the writings that I found was in The Yellow Wallpaper, and it, w-we can get into, how people were helped,

Cure their [00:22:00] psychoses. But in, 1982, it, this

woman Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote a short story about a woman confined to her room by her physician husband under a rest cure. And then she kinda gradually really descends into psychoses and becoming a convinced woman as she’s trapped inside of a room with, yellow wallpaper.

So it was really fascinating. So this was, a, almost a firsthand account, I think she actually was… This actually ha-kinda happened to her, and then she wrote this story about it. So really interesting in the history, especially with women, I think, in being labeled as crazy.

[00:22:35] melissa: and, My master’s thesis I wrote

it 15 years ago, so I can’t give details right now off the top of my head, but my master’s thesis was on Mary Todd Lincoln, who- I’m kind of glad she’s having a resurgence right now, but, you know, she was put in an institution and she was called crazy. And originally I was going back to diagnose her with my thesis, to be like, how would we diagnose her now?

And when I was going back and reading the original papers and reading her notebooks, I’m like, [00:23:00] she wasn’t crazy. Are you kidding me? She was

literally this brilliant woman who pissed off all these men. And then she was selling her clothes because she wasn’t getting her pension that she should have gotten after Lincoln was killed.

She watched her husband and her son die in front of her. Like- She might

have been a little, you know, dealing with that could have used

[00:23:19] nick: very deep- I mean, that was probably just some hard depression. Like- Right

[00:23:22] melissa: But what happened what happened was she was selling her clothes because she was broke, and they’re like, “She’s crazy. She’s selling her clothes. She’s embarrassing the family.

We’re gonna put her in an institution.” And I’m like, “No, it was all these things that led up to her just becoming absolutely destitute.” And there were, like, men who, like… They’d be like, “Hey, Mary Todd,” like, before she got married to Lincoln. And she’d be like, “Eh, no.” she had standards.

she had standards. and they did not like that, and then they would go back and call her a snake.

So I’m like, yeah, like, women have been vilified- and called crazy and put into institutions

[00:23:55] nick: for- And witches

[00:23:56] melissa: and-

[00:23:56] geo: Witches Abort. Yeah. But just, her things Just

[00:23:59] melissa: for [00:24:00] you know-

[00:24:00] luc: Existing

[00:24:01] geo: existing. Non-conformity.

[00:24:02] joe: Yeah. Just for things, just for, you know- existing.

Nonconformity, I mean, and going.

So ever since, like, 400 BCE, like, I was looking up some of this hysteria, which is the Greek for uterus Hippocrates and Plato, they theorized a wandering womb causing psychological and physical symptoms. So that was back, like, 500 BCE.

[00:24:19] nick: And

[00:24:20] joe: And then 19th century, kind of hysteria became a catch-all diagnosis for women showing anxiety, emotional intensity, fatigue, sexual excess, infertility, or nonconforma- conformity to

[00:24:30] luc: to

[00:24:30] nick: Estimates suggest that this made up

[00:24:31] joe: domestic

roles.

And so, estimates suggest that this made up a large majority of psychiatric hospital patients during this kind of time period, were just women.

And your husband could have you committed just on their word. So they didn’t really have to have proof or anything. It was just like, “Oh you know, she’s not doing the laundry.” you know, you would

go.

And then, yeah, they

[00:24:52] nick: She has Postpartum depression

Yeah, right. Throw her

[00:24:55] geo: Throw her away

[00:24:56] joe: And so

one of the things was this you know, in the rest [00:25:00] cure, it was developed by an American physician Silas Weir Mitchell, in the 1870s, and he would prescribe extreme bed rest.

So it was like this prolonged strict confinement to a bed for weeks or months, isolation, and enforced idleness for women. Doctor’s orders?

Doctor’s orders. You just stay in bed. Which leads to

[00:25:19] nick: sounds Great … issues.

[00:25:20] joe: I, for… That’s all you do. You just lay in a bed. You don’t do

[00:25:24] nick: anything Oh, yeah, this was a time Before internet. and- Yeah … that would kinda suck. But,

like- …

[00:25:28] luc: like- …I wouldn’t

[00:25:29] nick: I wouldn’t mind some,

like, “

[00:25:30] geo: I’ll try it.”

[00:25:31] nick: right, now. I- You, want a rest cure? I don’t

[00:25:32] joe: you want the rest

cure?

No.

[00:25:33] melissa: now. Yes.

[00:25:34] joe: I don’t think you want what they had in mind for the

rest cure. That wasn’t just go take a nap or two and, you know. This was, “

You’re just, you’re st-

[00:25:41] geo: s- you know,

[00:25:42] joe: in bed. Do not

step foot out of bed.”

[00:25:46] luc: But is part of it that then they would be, like, strapped in the bed?

[00:25:50] nick: I

think s-

[00:25:50] geo: I mean,

the

[00:25:50] luc: that would …I imagine- that there’s something- …to the tone of like- Yes

Yes

“No, you can’t leave the room- Right, even if you want to. right. Right. Yes.

And then you

[00:25:57] joe: then you’d be there- Yes. they would hope you would, [00:26:00] conform to that, but probably they would take measures to…

Yeah.

Yeah

[00:26:04] geo: I recently

read the book The Mad Wife. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It’s

[00:26:09] melissa: my list.

[00:26:09] geo: it’s so good.

and it’s by Megan Church, and it’s set in the ’50s and

Goes into a lot of these issues. And sh-

she did such a good job incorporating, actual history

of these types of treatments. I don’t wanna go too much into it cause you should read the book.

[00:26:28] luc: book. What

[00:26:29] nick: What was the name of the book?

[00:26:30] geo: the book? The Mad Wife.

[00:26:32] nick: The Mad Wife. Got it.

[00:26:33] joe: it.

[00:26:34] melissa: Yeah. Just, like, from personal experience as a woman, like, that bed rest would drive me absolutely bonkers.

Like, that is something I could never do. I also, like, A, I have had to do extreme bed rest because of health issues- I had- when I was younger, and- it was probably also the drugs they were giving me-

but I was hallucinating, and it was a very strange time when, [00:27:00] like, you literally cannot get out of bed.

I always joked, like, unfortunately I can’t run like

I used to because of my hamstring tear, but, like, activity and movement is how I process things. Like, literally, like… And I know that there’s also scientific reasons behind that, especially, like, just the steady beat, but activity and stuff, like, if I’m stressed out, I have to go out, do activity, then my brain can finally process it while I’m in the act of moving. So I imagine for… And I, know that’s not the same for everybody, how we process things, but I’m sure for a lot of these women who were pegged as crazy

for them to not be able to move, for them to be stuck in a bed or stuck in a room, like, that just will exasperate it ’cause they cannot

[00:27:42] nick: that part of their plan?

That’s why they’re being put into these beds, so You mean

[00:27:46] melissa: men are

[00:27:46] nick: they, Yeah. I mean,

Like-

[00:27:48] melissa: Right,

No offense

[00:27:49] geo: it’s, like- To break somebody.

Right. Yeah. To break

[00:27:52] nick: Stockholm syndrome- Yeah … is essentially- what they’re doing, where it’s like- social control. Yeah. Like, you, You can’t leave your bed … a- [00:28:00] And now you’re gonna be breaking down because you’re under this- thumb. there’s

[00:28:04] luc: angle to it, too, in the sense that

when you talk about

mental issues or the, or anything that had to do with mental health was sort of like,

[00:28:14] nick: like,

[00:28:15] luc: it

was the equivalent to the physical ailments of being bloodletting and, you know- like- Okay …oh, we’ll just-

[00:28:21] joe: yeah. Yep.

[00:28:22] luc: Clearly you have too much blood. That’s

why we need to- Or

[00:28:25] nick: we need to-” We need to

[00:28:25] luc: it would be the equivalent of, of- Bad blood …”Well, They’re crazy. It’s like, “Well, we’ll tie them to this pole- … and … then they’ll- when they calm down, we’ll let them go.” And it’s like- Right … that’s not really a cure. That’s,

[00:28:35] geo: a-

Yeah, like Being

[00:28:36] nick: tied down to a pole makes me freak out

[00:28:38] geo: issues, right?

[00:28:39] luc: you freak out more.

[00:28:39] joe: no, I think that was…

And I was gonna say hysteria was a formal diagnosis. It persisted until the 20th century. It wasn’t until the 20th century. What was it,

1980 when the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM, dropped it and it got phased out, and then it kinda turned into other,

more, clinical kind of diagnoses. So really, it persisted

for [00:29:00] for some- for some

[00:29:00] nick: 1980 was the last time there was someone labeled as hysterical, or no?

[00:29:06] geo: That it w- could be, like, a professional-

Yes …diagnosis.

right,

[00:29:10] joe: that was the last time when a professional would say

you-

You’re being diagnosed with hysteria. Disorder. Right,

yes.

[00:29:17] geo: Yeah. But the

DSM has so many huge issues. and- right, yeah, it’s

[00:29:20] joe: gone under revisions,

[00:29:22] geo: and, yeah. tied to lots of political and- right, yeah …social issues.

Well,

[00:29:28] luc: concerns the concerns are also sometimes where doctors, if the concern of a doctor not wanting to label you with something because it will affect- Health insurance … you… Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They you won’t get it

covered anymore if they Well, you’re actually-” fine. Right, you

don’t have that code. like, Yeah.

So always

careful- not

to-

[00:29:49] joe: Yeah …

[00:29:50] nick: m-

[00:29:50] luc: misdiagnose somebody. Although, e- even having said that, that seems to

happen all the time when it comes to mental illness because so many [00:30:00] cases

where someone goes out and has caused these horrific events, and then they realize, like, “Well, we kept asking for help, but we never got it.”

And then turns out to have been, like, a, had

schizophrenia or bipolar or s- or multiple personality disorders or all sorts of things that come into play. And that’s part of the… th- that also spins back around to, like, “Well, who’s crazy now?” You know? Because- Right.

[00:30:25] nick: And

I mean, like,

also, Goin’- going off that,

pe-

we have people using AI now and self-diagnosing themselves.

And

then-

[00:30:33] geo: Yeah,

WebMD

[00:30:34] nick: into a

whole different hole down there.” Yeah.

[00:30:38] melissa: there’s

there is a… s- This is another podcast.

[00:30:41] luc: right.

[00:30:41] joe: Yeah. That’s- It’s too

AI otherwise. But Yeah,

[00:30:43] nick: have?

[00:30:44] geo: yeah. How long do we have?

Do you ever

[00:30:44] nick: episodes, right?

[00:30:45] melissa: I was getting- When I got my master’s degree, they were changing over the DSM,

and so it went from Asperger’s and autism, and I know asperger’s has

issues with the terminology, but it went from two different diagnoses to the autism [00:31:00] spectrum.

And I predicted, and I have always felt, and I n- know there’s people who disagree, when I saw the autism spectrum, I was like, “There’s going to be issues with this,” because anyone can be diagnosed as autistic- at the bottom of the spectrum.

the spectrum.

And a lot of people like I I have seen it a lot with friends who are be like there’s a certain spoon I like, I must be autistic.

I overshare, I must be autistic.” Whereas I have dealt with people who are on the farther end, and I’m like, “They should not… They both need treatment completely separate.” they’re total- to me, they’re totally different diagnosises. They may stem from the same thing, but to group them together, but that’s a whole- nother podcast I’m so sorry. That’s just a rant. This is just a rant at this point. for me.

Sorry.

[00:31:44] joe: No, I think it’s good.

[00:31:45] geo: me.

[00:31:46] melissa: and it is controversial. People disagree with me on this, but

[00:31:49] nick: I think

[00:31:50] melissa: I’m right. But I was also gonna joke, like, how you’re talking about how they’re, they don’t want to diagnose.

I’m like, “Have you ever been a woman going to a doctor though?” Because a few years ago I went to a [00:32:00] doctor for my colitis issues that I’ve been having since I was 17 and had surgery for. And the last doctor I went to, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. So they go, “Well, this is something that should start calming down your colon.”

And I started taking it, and I was like, “This makes me feel really funny,” and I stopped taking it. And I went to my primary care. She goes, “

They gave you, like, Buspirone,” which was basically like an anti-anxiety med. I’m like- …”Why would they give that to me?” She goes, “Because they think that you’re just crazy.”

She’s like, …”They didn’t believe that you were having all these problems, so they’re just like- ‘We’ll ‘Calm her down and give her this.'”

[00:32:37] nick: I was like, “Okay, look.” That is a super common thing, isn’t it?

[00:32:39] melissa: see see me go crazy now.”

[00:32:41] geo: Like, that is a super

common thing, right?

I think that is- pretty common. And

[00:32:44] melissa: common … for women.

[00:32:45] nick: And e- Even with women who are giving birth, like if you’re a woman of color- they don’t always give you. the… Oh, Man, I feel like this- is taking a weird turn. I We can never

[00:32:57] geo: Very

tied

[00:32:58] joe: There’s

[00:32:58] luc: We went from crazies to

[00:32:59] nick: [00:33:00] insane, the madness of… human failure. Diagnoses,

[00:33:02] luc: failure.

[00:33:03] joe: they were always used

either, A, for, a, a lot of it was social control, so for women, and even explaining why people didn’t wanna be bound in chattel slavery in America, right?

It was like, oh, they’re just, they’re crazy. This it was one of these

things. So people have used these labels and the things they didn’t

like out of behavior to go, oh, this

[00:33:23] luc: is…

[00:33:24] joe: We can easily label

this, and then codify it, and then have a system set up to try to control that population or, whoever they want, and isolate it.

So we do see that in history how these labels are used. So no, I think it’s a natural, Reflection of the real, actual, factual- Horror …

you know, right, horror.

The

[00:33:44] nick: The actual horrors that live with among us.

[00:33:47] joe: women, like some of the diagnoses, the treatment was like extreme surgeries and procedures. So hysterectomies and things like that to try to

cure, to try to break, as, as Georgia, I think you said, break the women and make [00:34:00] them conform to

whatever their husband’s wishes were or society’s wishes. So

[00:34:05] geo: were. Well, it’s

very timely because, and I wish I was more up on this, but the case where the woman killed her children and then she had- Oh

yeah extreme postpartum depression. And a lot of people are coming out and very much supporting her because she tried so hard to get help. And no one listened to her. And I don’t… And I partially because I was out of Wi-Fi and internet for a while, and I didn’t really follow. I know that went to court. I don’t know where they’re at with

that

[00:34:36] joe: follow. I know that.

went to court. I don’t know where they’re

[00:34:37] geo: that, … case.

[00:34:38] nick: on it ’cause I’ve been just reading bits on it. Yeah. And I feel like I’m gonna get be wrong, and- that’s me too. I don’t

[00:34:45] geo: That’s me, too. I don’t feel

like I know that story completely,

[00:34:47] nick: but Yeah …

[00:34:48] joe: a pin on it for the mini.

[00:34:49] geo: I mean, if someone’s reaching out and- saying they’re having some issues, that needs to-

[00:34:55] luc: Yes … be taken seriously.

[00:34:55] geo: be taken seriously.

[00:34:57] joe: we’ve no… I mean, examples of people who [00:35:00] reach out and then their children are taken or things like that as unfit when really they’re just asking for… They need sleep, right? That’s it. It’s like, “I haven’t slept in two days straight, and I’m just losing my mind ’cause my kid is colicky,” or whatever.

And that’s… These are serious issues. It’s not one of these things that… And we don’t have the infrastructure.

It’s not funded well enough, right? So we had in the 1880s into the 1900s the system of the insane asylums and kind of government funded, private funded.

Most were moral based, not actual scientific and medical based, but there were these places that were funded. The sites were created, and then they became underfunded, and then jails and homelessness became kind of the outlet now. And so really there is no mental health, safety net in America really to speak of. So when you have these cases like this, where do people really turn for help? How do you get help? And Nick used AI now. That’s where people are going because they can’t… No

[00:35:58] nick: you say Nick uses

AI [00:36:00] now? What?

[00:36:00] joe: AI now? What? What

[00:36:00] geo: No, like you brought it

[00:36:01] nick: No, like people- Oh, I thought you were like, “Nick uses AI now- for his problems.” And I’m

[00:36:05] geo: it

up that AI is-

[00:36:07] nick: Yeah, if I couldn’t hear you. That would be great.

[00:36:09] melissa: And

[00:36:09] geo: there was a case recently where the woman committed suicide

And not a lot of people around her knew about her issues, but there were recorded hours and hours of talking to an AI bot

[00:36:24] melissa: Yeah

[00:36:24] joe: And anyway

[00:36:26] geo: anyway- Yeah, So people are turning to that But back in fiction land,

[00:36:31] joe: let’s go, ’cause the real stuff is a little horrific, and,

[00:36:34] luc: it?

[00:36:35] melissa: Let’s go back

[00:36:35] nick: I’m trying

[00:36:36] joe: The problem

[00:36:36] melissa: horror movies

[00:36:37] geo: Yeah,

let’s get back to like- Horror

[00:36:39] nick: the, the- Yeah, Let’s get back to the- The fun

[00:36:39] geo: to like-

Staying with

[00:36:40] nick: Horror movies … we can get into

[00:36:40] joe: bit,

You know, really in fiction you don’t really get a true depiction of the psychoses accurately. Generally it’s the idea of it, and then other anxieties overlay into that and often the person with the psychoses is seen as violent

and aggressive. Where in reality, that’s not always the case. [00:37:00] And so I was trying to think of examples where I think Jacob’s Ladder might be one,

where you have someone going through this kind of psychotic break and then, sleep deprived, war trauma and then, just totally disconnected from reality.

But not necessarily violent. Like it wasn’t, don’t know. Is… Do you guys

[00:37:21] nick: The…

[00:37:22] melissa: I haven’t seen it in years, but I just remember, I’m, like, thinking back, like, ’90s movies, that there were a couple that just dealt with the Crazies, which was like Girl, Interrupted, which I loved, and then I’m trying to think. 12 Monkeys, I remember-

[00:37:35] geo: Oh, yeah.

[00:37:36] melissa: Monkeys was a good one. Yep. Yeah.

[00:37:38] nick: I feel like I’m drawing blanks today. when it comes to the movies with-

[00:37:42] joe: but

[00:37:44] melissa: another

one that’s kinda coming to

mind is

The Thing, but that’s a-

completely different Thing?

but That’s

a Thing.

That’s right,

[00:37:48] nick: than- Yeah …

The Thing

[00:37:49] joe: is- yeah.

[00:37:50] nick: them being isolated

[00:37:52] melissa: been drawing blanks today when it comes to the movies with- I mean, like, another one That’s, kinda come into mind is The Thing but that’s a completely different thing. That’s, The Thing is- from

them

being isolated and there being a monster, but, like, the psychosis around it is because they’re isolated.

[00:37:57] joe: And it was sleep deprived- I’m sure they

weren’t sleeping very

[00:37:59] luc: [00:38:00] they weren’t sleeping very well. you know.

One that also sort of plays into that is Solaris, which was remade.

The, it was the Russian film by Tarkovsky, but there was the remake with George Clooney and that based on the idea that they a spaceship goes to this planet in another galaxy,

and the idea is that they don’t hear any communication from it, and they go to seek out what’s happened to the crew. Most of them have turned up dead, but part of what’s happened is it’s the planet that’s effectively

[00:38:32] geo: feeding-

[00:38:32] luc: off of their mental state. So it’s if their memories are of someone they love, suddenly that person appears.

[00:38:39] geo: Yeah.

Interesting. I guess

[00:38:40] luc: it also

[00:38:42] geo: brings

[00:38:42] luc: to

mind Annihilation

is another one-

because it- That’s right. yeah sort of- Yeah … sets a domain that a, how a foreign entity would-

Predict or try to-

[00:38:50] joe: try to- Yeah …

[00:38:51] luc: Interpret

human, Yeah,

yeah.

[00:38:52] joe: yeah.

[00:38:53] melissa: behaviors. Oh, Is that, the Jeff VanderMeer book? Okay. yeah … I

[00:38:56] joe: but then the movie also was… They did the

[00:38:58] luc: based on- yeah, the Alex Garland film was- Okay …[00:39:00]

was really good.

[00:39:01] joe: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Another one, I was gonna say Event Horizon, when you’re talking about the space.

Yes.

[00:39:06] melissa: Oh, yeah.

[00:39:06] luc: That film. yes. that

also…

[00:39:07] geo: Also,

[00:39:08] joe: I mean, it was a…

Once again, it

was more a ghost ship in space.

[00:39:11] luc: Space, Space, right. But

[00:39:12] joe: he was going through some sort of psychotic break where it, you should have pulled back and, like, “Hey, let’s just go,” but he was, like, totally

seeing his, dead wife, and it was, like, this

[00:39:21] luc: I think that’s a common-

Yeah …thing. that happens in sci-fi genre- It’s sort of like- you put people in a big metal tube- in the middle of nowhere- … and they’re gonna lose it. You know? how do they deal with this? Yeah … it’s like, well- either the monsters- come

[00:39:35] geo: or- Mm-hmm it’s

[00:39:36] luc: all in their mind. yeah,

[00:39:36] joe: or you go back, like The Shining. That, that also had that,

[00:39:39] luc: one also had that,

[00:39:39] melissa: had

[00:39:40] joe: that kind of thing there, so I’d

[00:39:41] melissa: thing there, so.

[00:39:42] nick: age also get you to go,

[00:39:45] joe: yeah.

[00:39:45] geo: Yeah, it’s hard. Would age

[00:39:46] nick: also have an effect on the mental health of someone? Like, to be not all there anymore? Sure. I mean,

[00:39:53] joe: especially you think of things like Alzheimer’s and dementia.

[00:39:56] nick: top of my head. Well,

[00:39:57] joe: Those are age

[00:39:58] melissa: kinda

[00:39:58] joe: specific… It [00:40:00] can happen younger, but most of the time you’re usually in advanced age when you start having these kind of mental breakdowns and, , deteriorations. So that, that comes into

[00:40:10] geo: play. Mm-hmm. I don’t know fictional

examples. Well, there’s a very new show that we watched.

watch

Shoot. The

[00:40:17] joe: one

out in the the suburb? What, like the, the community,

The, nursing community?

[00:40:21] geo: about, and it’s set, like, in a nursing home. And then it’s like nobody will believe certain things they say because, oh, they’re just- they’re just, old. and- I feel like

[00:40:31] nick: was

an M. Night Shyamalan film that came out, and I didn’t like it, but I remember it having something to do with grandparents being crazy and what? I think she tried to shove her granddaughter in the oven or something.

[00:40:43] luc: Oh. Okay. Something. Yeah, I know the one you’re speaking of. They, The, kids go to visit Grandma and Grandpa- Yeah and they just drop them off, and they’re there, and then they come to realize that isn’t Grandma and Grandpa.

[00:40:54] nick: Yeah.

[00:40:55] geo: Just like- which

[00:40:56] luc: the twist,

[00:40:57] geo: and it’s who are those

old people?” You know, it’s like,

they’re

[00:40:58] joe: old

[00:40:59] melissa: people?

You know,

[00:40:59] luc: [00:41:00] like, “They’re crazy people. “They’re

murderers who escaped from the asylum,

You know, it’s like, “Oh, my children.”

you know? It’s

[00:41:05] geo: children,” you know? It’s like,

oh.

That

[00:41:06] joe: It w- that was The buroghs

[00:41:08] geo: oh.

right, right, Right. Yeah.

[00:41:09] luc: The Buroghs the Buroughs I, the whole thing. I enjoyed that. for-

[00:41:13] geo: I did enjoy

It yeah. As you get

[00:41:14] joe: Especially

when you got a little

[00:41:15] geo: older,

you can start appreciating the…

[00:41:16] joe: dad one

[00:41:17] luc: Right.

[00:41:17] geo: Right, right.

[00:41:18] luc: Yeah, especially when you gotta put Dad

[00:41:19] geo: dad away.

[00:41:20] luc: it’s like, “Dad, “

[00:41:21] nick: Dad,

[00:41:21] luc: can’t be on your own

anymore.” It’s

[00:41:24] geo: really good. But it had that thing

[00:41:25] joe: about

mistrust and about mental, decay that you have as you get

older.

A little slower to recall.

Things like that happen, and so now if you’re put in a situation in a sci- in, in a monster flick it’s the same thing with young kids, right? Like, so the young pre-teens, early teens telling their parents about, , Martians behind the the mulch pile building up in Munster, they don’t believe you, right?

They

[00:41:49] geo: Or like ET,

like, basically. like, okay, well.

[00:41:52] joe: Jeez

Louise, yeah.

[00:41:53] geo: Like Brute-

[00:41:54] melissa: some ET lore.

[00:41:55] geo: Drew Barrymore

[00:41:57] melissa: and Dr. Ellis

[00:41:58] geo: tried to tell

[00:41:58] joe: came out or something. yeah.

[00:42:00] Yeah.

[00:42:00] nick: So-

It’s an episode that, that’ll release later this year.

Or did It already release? It did, yeah.

Oh,

[00:42:06] melissa: I have to catch up. Sorry.

[00:42:07] joe: yep, ET, yep. But

I was gonna

say that one of the things, ’cause I, I, did,

Some history of kind of insane asylums

In starting up. But a set of them were the, the Danvers State

Hospital in Massachusetts. It was part of this Kirkbride Plan of asylums that opened up in 1878. And it was interesting as I was looking up movies I saw that had kind of people descending into madness, and one was Session 9. So 2001, it it it was like a crew removing asbestos from an abandoned psychiatric hospital, and they kinda slowly… They started listening to the tapes

of Session, and then started hearing things and not sleeping well. But

that location was one of the actual… It was the actual, the site Right

[00:42:48] luc: Site of the- … of one

[00:42:49] joe: of these asylums that were opened in the 1870s.

Mm-hmm. it it was really kind of interesting, that little tether

to an actual place, so,

[00:42:58] geo: There

[00:42:58] luc: There was a weird [00:43:00] documentary

that I saw

that was

Co-directed by two different filmmakers a, a guy and gal, and it was called Cropsey. And it’s

[00:43:08] nick: Oh, yeah. It

[00:43:10] luc: about in new york and how they used to have this, as teens would talk about- this old asylum and how the, the Cropsey was gonna get you. Like, it was like the, g- the ghosts of the old crazies.

[00:43:21] nick: He was started, like, he was like an urban

legend. to them, wasn’t he? Right,

[00:43:24] luc: Yeah. But then what they come to understand is, like, well, there were a lot of homeless people, and there were a lot of ex patients who were there, and then it opens up this portal into, like, pedophiles. And then it goes down the rabbit hole chasing all different children who went missing, and these, this

still ongoing case of this one guy who had committed

[00:43:45] geo: And this is a documentary? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. But it

[00:43:48] luc: starts off as this sort of wildly, like, …weird ghost story, but in in reality

it’s like, no. once

[00:43:55] geo: they-

It’s even- …turn it over. It’s More horrific. It’s, a real

[00:43:58] luc: messed up people.

[00:43:59] nick: It [00:44:00] definitely

was something I was not expecting.

[00:44:02] geo: Yeah, I,

[00:44:02] luc: it, it- yeah. That’s what’s most sort of, like, taken by that- Yeah … especially, is

[00:44:07] nick: were just like, “Oh,

[00:44:07] geo: yeah” … just …sort of unearths

[00:44:08] luc: this whole other

thing- Yeah … and just

keeps going,

[00:44:10] geo: and-

Wow.

That,

[00:44:12] luc: that

was

the wildest one

[00:44:13] joe: and- Wow.

That, that was

the wildest one. Well, there was…

I had, looking up things,

I found a few that were, like, these bizarre cases. So we’re going from fiction to, you know, stranger than fiction which is fact. Which was the dancing plague of 1518.

[00:44:26] nick: yeah. Wow. You dance till you’re dead.

[00:44:28] joe: Strasbourg- Right there was a woman known as Fra Troffea,

began dancing uncontrollably in the streets in July of 1518. Within a month, as many as 400 people had joined her some reportedly dancing to death from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion. And it was funny ’cause the town originally, started getting bands to play music and stuff, then they realized it was like, hold on, they’re not stopping. They just kept dancing and when the music

[00:44:52] nick: the music stopped.

[00:44:53] joe: yeah,

there was no… And still to this day, no one can explain. There’s no clear biological vector or what happened. It was kind of this weird…

[00:45:00] Some people said maybe it was a mold, but they said that doesn’t explain why everyone reacted the same

way.

Like, it would- Yeah …

so,

[00:45:05] nick: yeah, But

[00:45:05] luc: were all… up- Something- got into their systems- that just had them going.

[00:45:09] nick: move. So

[00:45:09] joe: And they go, yeah. It was really,

Yeah. So that was one, and then had the the Tanganyika laughter epidemic In January 30th, 1962, in,

What’s now Tanzania, three students began laughing uncontrollably, and then the epidemic spread to 95 to 159 students forced the school to close, surrounding villages, and eventually 1,000 people were just kind of, closing about 14 schools or 18 months, just uncontrollably laughing, like

just couldn’t

[00:45:41] nick: That feels like the Joker had something to do with this one. Like, laughing gas. He’s just-

[00:45:47] melissa: Like, laughing gas. He’s just-

[00:45:48] nick: having fun down

there …

[00:45:49] joe: That was one of the,

The ones there. But then there was an experiment, the Rosenhan experiment in 1973, and this kind of made me think of you, Nick, and the story you told about your [00:46:00] sound.

Maybe this, this episode might be more appropriate for that, the repeat. But they were testing out, they had got pseudo-patients, so they were clinically normal,

But gained admission to psychiatric hospitals by faking a single symptom of hearing the word thud. So they just said, “Oh, I keep hearing this word thud.”

[00:46:19] melissa: And

[00:46:20] joe: And then they went in, and then they behaved completely normal once they were admitted. And none of the staff would declare them sane. They kept them there, and they all were discharged with a diagnosis in remission rather than them admitting, oh, these were actually nothing was wrong with them. And so this led to the questioning,

And it was a science article written up about can diagnoses be reliable and separate sane from insane even at this, this moment.

So it was really interesting how that, that works and that perception that when someone says or says, “Oh this is happening to me,” then you don’t even really diagnose something’s not, but then we’re quick to say nothing is happening, right? So it’s what you were [00:47:00] talking about there earlier where this was like the opposite of that.

So really interesting. So, that’s about hearing a noise

[00:47:05] nick: Yeah … So

[00:47:06] luc: like

[00:47:06] geo: w-

[00:47:06] melissa: this …w-

[00:47:08] nick: w-

was

it only one noise that they heard or? Just the

[00:47:11] joe: the word thud. that was

That was it.

[00:47:13] nick: The

word

thud. Not like the sound Thud. It was Just-

[00:47:17] joe: The word. Yeah.

[00:47:19] nick: All right. Yeah. Like thud Thud Thud That’s all you hear in your head.

[00:47:23] joe: Thud, that’s all you hear in your head. Thud No

[00:47:24] nick: Thud. Not

[00:47:26] joe: You kind of crazy, though

[00:47:27] melissa: No

Mm-hmm.

[00:47:27] nick: dong.

That kinda is an

[00:47:29] joe: onomatopoeia- Yeah …

so it makes a noise, right? So that, it sounds like the noise, so

But you want to tell, so I mentioned your

[00:47:35] nick: Oh, yeah.

The, the one where I was walking around? Chicago with my head-

So I was writing a paper for college, and I wanted to really put, get some hands-on work with this. So I went ahead and downloaded some audio hallucinations and threw my headphones in, had them to where I can still hear the environment around me, but it was just that nice [00:48:00] whisper that got loud sometimes. And yeah, after a whole day of that, I was like, “Oh, maybe I am gonna go crazy.” ‘Cause you kinda just start losing. it. You hear these voices over and over again. And I had them, like, looping, and they would go through a whole playlist of, like people talking really nice, and then it would go to a little bit more angry, and then it would go slightly-

[00:48:25] geo: this is probably not something we suggest anyone try.

[00:48:27] nick: I, I think it was fun.

[00:48:29] joe: think it was

[00:48:30] nick: I don’t,

[00:48:31] geo: I’m not re- We’re not- endorsing this.

[00:48:33] joe: Yeah. That, Maybe

[00:48:34] nick: I’m not … liable for you trying this, but yeah,

Yeah,

[00:48:37] geo: he

says,

[00:48:37] joe: the Rabbit Hole of Research.

[00:48:39] geo: were you gonna say, Hayley? Oh, I

[00:48:42] nick: were

you gonna say-

[00:48:42] melissa: Oh, I was gonna make a joke, like, do it after not sleeping for 24 hours. and then listen to that and see. Oh. Come back to us and let us know how it is.

[00:48:50] nick: I’ll try, you know. I’ll just…

[00:48:51] joe: in.

[00:48:54] melissa: try it. right now. Right in.

[00:48:56] luc: As

As a teenager,

I was in, like, a youth group [00:49:00] club kind of thing for a time, and they would do lock-ins, they’d call them, where you would stay up all night. Yeah. So you …This whole idea of, like, yeah, you’re gonna party and go crazy and drink soda and just play basketball and, do whatever. yeah,

So as a teen, it’s like it was this cool thing to do because you were like, “Yeah, I’m wired. We’ll do this.” Like, “Let’s go.” and yet by Sunday, you’re just like dead to the world- and …you’re gonna sleep all afternoon …’cause you you can’t function anymore.

And I remember doing a similar thing with the same group, where it’s like they would prepare for this big garage sale, and they would get all these donations to raise money or whatever.

And but it would be that thing where, like,

after

you hit that 24-hour mark, it’s like that part of your head is just, like…

Y- everything’s fuzzy. Everything is just not… like you can’t- m- you know… e- everything is giddy as could be because you are not…

……You’re not used to being- in your own skin.

It’s like you are just… like is is just a [00:50:00] little fuzzy.

It’s so really weird-

[00:50:02] nick: I definitely feel like that’s the time where if I was running a cult, I’d be like, “Hey, you wanna come join my cult?

You know, it’s a good time.”

[00:50:10] joe: Well, I think that’s what

they…

[00:50:11] melissa: know what I’ve always said when I

retire? I

want a good cult.

[00:50:15] nick: A good cult? A good cult. A

[00:50:16] melissa: cult? Like a good-

cult. Yeah,

Like a nice cult.

[00:50:17] nick: cult. Like a, you know-

[00:50:19] melissa: down for that.

[00:50:20] joe: Yeah.

[00:50:20] nick: Not having to think? Yeah, great.

[00:50:22] luc: course. I think that’s one of the, like,

[00:50:24] melissa: another… Yeah.

[00:50:25] geo: But they have,

[00:50:26] joe: that they

do the sleep deprivation as part of it, where they’ll play their music or sounds or something to kind of that breaking process- Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say … to

[00:50:33] nick: a whole breaking down.

[00:50:35] joe: so

mentally.

[00:50:36] nick: Yeah.

[00:50:37] melissa: A little off subject, but another thing I was thinking of, just ’cause like you were talking about like earlier, like going into like haunted asylums and stuff like that, like,

I… And

[00:50:45] geo: I…

[00:50:45] melissa: And this is somebody who, like I

s- I believe in ghosts, but I am also a skeptic at the same time. I’m like, “You need to like make me believe it.” And I wonder if like some of these psychoses in like haunted houses is, like, it’s an old house that makes noise. [00:51:00] Like how much- of these psychoses is from people wanting something to happen so badly.

Like, I’ve gone on ghost hunting excursions, and I’ve had some where I’m like there is shit that happened I’m like, “Okay, there’s other witnesses. There’s no denying that this happened.” But there’s other things where they’re like, “This happened.” I’m like, “That’s…” Like, like earlier, I’m like, “There’s somebody- Yeah who …lives over there.” That’s just the ATM going off. W- this is 120-year-old building. It makes funny noises in the

[00:51:26] luc: squeak all the time.

[00:51:28] melissa: It squeaks

all the time …

[00:51:29] nick: Security thing- And then, yeah … is on around that corner- Right … where I was like there’s a light there. Yeah. I know you went over there to, un- to turn off the alarm.

Yeah. Like,

yeah. It-

[00:51:36] melissa: But then

there’s also ghosts. But you know, like a lot of

[00:51:39] nick: yet to h- I’ve yet to have any reason to believe this place is haunted. So if you wanna go ahead and show yourself- now would be a good time.

[00:51:46] melissa: It’s 2:00 in the afternoon. They’re not gonna bother you now. An experiment proves, right? That once you prompt people with some sort of,

[00:51:48] geo: AM. They’re not

[00:51:48] nick: the afternoon. That not gonna happen. Yeah. The Rosenhan experiment Ugh.

[00:51:49] joe: right?

That once you prompt people with some sort of, you know, thing, something’s gonna

[00:51:54] melissa: They’re gonna

believe it … It’s like-

[00:51:56] joe: you begin to

buy into that. A, we’re social animals, [00:52:00] so we wanna buy into… So if,

you know, one person laughs, so you might laugh or you know, you don’t wanna be left out. So if you’re hearing funny noises during this

tour, then I’m gonna, “Oh, I heard something too.” Yeah, you’re gonna

jump in. Or you

[00:52:12] melissa: gotta play s- And you might believe

[00:52:13] joe: Yeah, Right.

Right. Or you gotta play

hard skeptic and go, “I don’t… You know, I…

Or- You’re gonna play devil’s

[00:52:17] nick: you play complete fool and

[00:52:20] joe: like-

Yeah

[00:52:21] nick: I’m lying about hearing these things.

Did you hear that? I think It whispered in my ear and you, then You’re

like, “

Oh.”

[00:52:28] joe: Right,

[00:52:28] nick: You can hype it up. Thanks. You can build

that

[00:52:29] melissa: Mm-hmm …

[00:52:30] joe: psychosis

where

[00:52:31] nick: psychosis where everyone- See, I would go with Georgia

first to tell that to.

[00:52:34] joe: coming out,

[00:52:35] luc: the other m- another movie that

it made me think of immediately especially was Shock Corridor, which is an, a 1963- Sam Fuller film where he

The, the character’s a, an investigator, and he has himself committed into a psychiatric ward because he’s trying to figure out a murder that had occurred.

And he thinks he’s gonna solve it by going into the- by committing himself.

and [00:53:00] instead- yeah …doesn’t kinda work that way. Shutter Island,

I believe, follows in the same-

[00:53:05] melissa: Shutter Island.

[00:53:05] geo: everybody- Oh, Shutter Island. Ooh,

[00:53:06] luc: Yeah. Yeah,

So tho- those kinda like roll into that same- arena. And then the other ones ……that come to

my mind were the

Specifically

when you, we’ll speak to like reading into people’s behavior.

I’m

forgetting the way that it, This was a real

case, but it’s been like a fictionalized version, was the

the guy who would do the tests he would have a regular person come in, and the idea is, like, you’re quizzing someone in the other room, and if they answer wrong, you’re supposed to give them so many volts.

[00:53:33] geo: Oh, god. And

[00:53:33] luc: then the guy in the other room is like,

[00:53:34] geo: like, “Ah,” You know, and

[00:53:35] nick: was like, …keep

[00:53:36] geo: going.

[00:53:36] luc: And the idea that they will just continue …to-

respond. Well, he would do similar

tests where, like, he would get into elevators and he would face the other

[00:53:45] geo: way,

[00:53:46] luc: and then

it would cause everyone else

to sort of

respond in kind-

because they’re

all-

Nobody wants to

be-

[00:53:51] joe: Right, because they’re all, “Nobody wants to

be-“

[00:53:52] luc: Right,

Like, awa-

[00:53:53] nick: like-

[00:53:54] luc: opposing

the

[00:53:55] nick: the wave

Of,

[00:53:56] luc: whatever the majority

does.

It’s- There’s some

strange [00:54:00] kind of, like- phenomena when

it comes to

those. And then there was also the, the one about the

The case of the pretending… the, s- the Stanford experiment.

[00:54:08] nick: Oh.

[00:54:09] geo: Yeah. it

[00:54:10] luc: it was, Like The jailers and prisoners.

That’s Right.

and-

[00:54:12] nick: were all students- and- Yeah …

[00:54:13] luc: they were all students, and all of a sudden it just

[00:54:15] joe: Yeah, it

Went,

[00:54:16] luc: of control. That

[00:54:16] nick: really- gave into that role. Right.

[00:54:18] geo: Everybody got way too into

[00:54:19] luc: their

[00:54:19] geo: roles.

Yeah.

[00:54:20] nick: Blindness

[00:54:21] joe: by was it Jose he won the Pulitzer Prize, Jose Sagra-

Santiago …

[00:54:26] geo: Santiago.

[00:54:27] luc: Santiago. Yeah.

[00:54:28] joe: So Blindness was like that where

everyone

[00:54:31] geo: went

[00:54:31] luc: blind.

Correct.

[00:54:33] joe: Except for

the one, the protag- the one woman, the wife, and then she could see. But the jail scene where they went and everyone…

I mean, it just devolved

[00:54:41] geo: And

[00:54:41] joe: into

[00:54:42] geo: the movie is actually really good. too …the movie was like,

[00:54:45] joe: it was

scene by scene of the

Book, I mean, it was probably one of the most faithful reproductions book to movie,

which at some scenes you probably wished they had not

reprinted, but

[00:54:54] geo: was- Yeah, it gets- yeah. It gets pretty intense,

[00:54:56] luc: depraved. yeah. “

[00:54:57] nick: Ugh,

are

[00:54:58] joe: are

we, would we really do this?” But yeah, [00:55:00] it’s one of those

where that, that break, societal breakdown then leads to kind of people doing kind of questionable things really fast. Like, it’s interesting.

And

speaking of that, I was gonna say there was a couple incidences, ’cause we talk about, like, pleading guilty or insanity as a defense, but a couple famous cases, one was the M’Naghten Rule. In 1843, Daniel m. M’Naghten suffered paranoid delusions

delusions and shot and killed Edward Drummond, the secretary to British Prime Minister Robert Peel, mistaking him for Peel

himself.

But he was quitted, he was acquitted reason of insanity, and then Queen Victoria really personally advocated for stricter standards, and in the House of Lords they formalized the M’Naghten Rule, and it was kind of set the basis for defense in the UK and in United States for many, states today.

[00:55:54] geo: And

[00:55:54] joe: in 1981, we had John hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of President [00:56:00] Reagan to impress a young Jodie Foster, and he was acquitted also by reason of insanity, which then triggered,

A lot of reforms, the Insanity Defense Reform Act in, in 1984.

[00:56:12] luc: He just recently, guess was interviewed or talked to, and he evidently made a shout-out to Jodi.

[00:56:21] geo: Yep. No. “

[00:56:22] luc: I hope she’s okay- I hope the family’s all right,”

[00:56:25] geo: Sort of like- Oh, no. that’s the last person

[00:56:27] luc: I wanna talk to.

[00:56:29] geo: And

I mean, he, was …

[00:56:30] joe: Right,

so he probably had some mental issue, but- Yeah … yeah, it

was

[00:56:34] nick: he’s still really into Jodie. That’s- Right. that that’s the moral of

[00:56:37] geo: that he brought her up- to

[00:56:38] luc: with. was

A like, Oh- don’t Do that” … he’s consistent,

[00:56:41] nick: you know?

[00:56:42] joe: I mean,

[00:56:42] luc: I don’t know.

[00:56:43] geo: begin with. Well, who isn’t? Come on. don’t

do that. He’s getting released. He’s consistent, you know…

I, don’t know.

[00:56:44] luc: He might be out. I don’t know. I don’t- know.

[00:56:46] melissa: no, He I think he, is ’cause Didn’t he,

[00:56:48] nick: like-

[00:56:49] melissa: he

was, like, doing a tour and he was- at the Chicago Theater not. Like- a few years

[00:56:53] nick: He, doing a tour for?

[00:56:54] melissa: Don’t know, Music … Oh, he’s a musician. Yeah.

[00:56:56] joe: He plays music and Right. yeah. Any good? I don’t-

[00:56:59] nick: [00:57:00] I

don’t … Oh.

[00:57:00] joe: he

[00:57:01] geo: was

[00:57:01] melissa: know.

[00:57:01] nick: a-

[00:57:01] luc: I’m familiar.

[00:57:02] joe: He

[00:57:02] melissa: go- I didn’t go.

We did not book him here.

[00:57:04] joe: he’s out. I mean, he didn’t, I don’t, he didn’t, serve

[00:57:07] luc: the whole level of- So ……The states have very distinct- That’s right.

rules on claiming- insanity. Claiming

[00:57:13] joe: and the proof of it and things like that.

[00:57:15] geo: Right.

[00:57:15] joe: it is very

interesting, ‘ cause what we just talked earlier and gave

plenty of examples where insanity and

being committed, uncommitted, have all sorts of

diagnoses.

It’s not

[00:57:26] nick: Mental health needs- … to have more, you know, more given into it.

[00:57:30] joe: Yeah. No. I think … And there’s,

I mean, there’s people studying it, but you’re right, we don’t give enough to that. Like, we have the,

you

know, neuro average, and then everything else is either, you get bounced around that but we don’t really think tails the tales of, mental capacity, mental health, and how that looks or should look.

And situational, that in this situation you’re gonna have … You’re more susceptible to a breakdown than in this situation. And, you know, that’s just,

we don’t, we

don’t, yeah, we don’t take that. I don’t think that’s [00:58:00] factored in

a lot.

[00:58:01] geo: But I do think that what is normal, I don’t

think- most people don’t fall into that. And

[00:58:08] melissa: Georgia,

[00:58:09] nick: I do. I’m the most- Normal.

[00:58:11] melissa: We,

[00:58:12] geo: Point in case

here.

[00:58:13] joe: normal.

[00:58:14] melissa: writing, you know-

[00:58:17] geo: no. I

[00:58:17] joe: gonna… We touched on fiction, writing, you know, movies, TV shows.

But the other area that hit me was was music, and in particular I thought of two, and then I started digging a little deeper, and then you guys could jump in. But one was Mind’s Playing Tricks on Me by the Geto Boys in ’91,

which this… you know, it’s a hip hop

and they just talk about kind of paranoia, being in, the hood, gang violence, the whole thing, and then just

really

losing their minds

through

this narrative.

And

the other one was The Gravediggaz

in the

’94,

which was this kind of first hip hop horror kind of

idea.

And Diary of a

Mad Man,

which actually was a,

[00:59:00] A short story written in the 1800s by the same kind of title and the same kind of idea, just a diary of someone losing their mind slowly through the narrative and documenting it through their own diary, so.

And then the other one was Pink Floyd’s The Wall, which that album had the concept of it, just someone struggling with reality. And then if you’ve ever seen that movie, it was a struggle of, with reality after you finish watching it, so I don’t know.

[00:59:29] nick: Wait, there was a movie?

[00:59:30] joe: There was a movie?

There was,

Yeah.

[00:59:30] nick: I didn’t know that. Oh,

[00:59:31] joe: The Wall. Yeah.

[00:59:32] luc: Alan Parker directed. it.

yeah.

[00:59:33] nick: Oh.

[00:59:34] joe: It’s

pretty intense.

[00:59:35] nick: I

legit just-

[00:59:36] luc: Did not know.

[00:59:37] nick: know. No

I just know the album and- yeah. that was about as deep as that went.

[00:59:41] joe: Yeah.

no,

so I think music has and kind of looking, and I started headed down that way. But, you know, that’s another exploration that people have where they talk about their mental state and explore these kind of topics, so.

As well

[00:59:53] nick: as, like, art, people have where they talk about their mental state and explore these kind of topics, so. As well as, like art, like just the painting and stuff- right. and the,

[00:59:58] geo: Mm-hmm …Where,

[00:59:59] nick: Georgia, I n- [01:00:00]

think you

showed me some artist who had a series of, like, they knew that they were h- having dementia and they were trying to- do paintings. Or was it schizophrenia was it? I don’t remember. But-

[01:00:13] melissa: think

[01:00:14] joe: was

dementia where

they were- Yeah … slowly,

and they would do their drawings and

[01:00:17] nick: and you

slowly saw it pro-

[01:00:19] joe: Yeah,

Progressively-

Yeah.

[01:00:21] nick: Yeah.

[01:00:22] geo: Right.

[01:00:23] nick: Was that you?

Or maybe… I

[01:00:24] geo: I mean, It

seems really

[01:00:25] nick: showed me a lot of things. I’m not sure.

[01:00:27] joe: it’s like

[01:00:27] geo: very familiar, but I can’t

think of it right now.

[01:00:30] joe: dream. is, this

[01:00:31] luc: it. was just a dream.

[01:00:32] nick: it. Is this

my descent into

madness?

[01:00:34] luc: right.

[01:00:35] melissa: dreamt it. It’s just a dream. Is this my descent into madness? Yeah, it’s just a dream. Oh.

Wait-

[01:00:36] nick: podcast is,

The diary

[01:00:38] geo: of

[01:00:38] joe: of

[01:00:38] luc: Bleek, you know.

[01:00:40] melissa: When you were

talking about the music the first one that popped in my head, there were two songs. The first one was just like, a… because the Smash Mouth, songs are my favorite little thing that y- at the end of, like, it’s a hidden Track where it’s like, “I’m going crazy.” But really the the one is Institutionalized by Suicidal Tendencies. Ah. That’s the one that, like, popped up in my head

[01:00:57] luc: only when it was a

[01:00:58] geo: Pepsi. [01:01:00]

[01:01:01] melissa: And Now we got some customers coming in. Oh, it’s just Kevin. Hi, Kevin.

[01:01:04] luc: Kevin. Hey,

[01:01:05] nick: Kevin.

Yeah,

to swing back,

I had the note of

[01:01:08] joe: and it was

Nicola, Gogol, Gogol,

[01:01:10] geo: It was a novella by a golem, a diary

[01:01:11] nick: of a Madman in 1835. It was a

short

[01:01:14] joe: about a clerk. Diary entries chart

his escalating delusions of grandeur,

Culminating in his belief that he was the King of Spain. So you had this whole kind of kind of descent into madness. Once

again,

non…

Not

[01:01:25] melissa: as violent,

[01:01:25] joe: it’s, it’s-

[01:01:26] nick: So

if you have a descent into madness- can you have a descent out of madness, or is

that not a

thing?

[01:01:31] joe: Is it be a ascent out of madness? Yeah. So you can have a crazy descent?

[01:01:32] geo: Ascent.

[01:01:33] luc: be an ascent? Ascent An ascent out of

madness. Recent? A recent?

If you

[01:01:36] geo: Like you come back … out Like you’re com-

[01:01:39] luc: You would- send out, Yeah.

you would

[01:01:40] geo: I

[01:01:40] joe: Yeah.

[01:01:41] nick: I don’t know. Yeah.

Can I

dig myself out

of the madness? I think

[01:01:44] joe: you can, yeah.

[01:01:45] nick: Like-

[01:01:45] luc: there were

two- things on Y-

[01:01:46] geo: there

[01:01:46] luc: are two,

two,

YouTube items I was gonna point. There’s one

that does

show a collection of various artists who,

have some kind of psychological dementia and the idea that as he…

as the paintings progress, they become [01:02:00] more and more just fragmented- Yeah … And detached. And it’s, it, You really see this, like, progression

of, you know, something is awry in terms of the way the artists… It’s because they’re all supposed to be self-portraits that’s the other part. of it. Oh, it’s Like, the artist isn’t able

to- leave the house. Yeah, Oh, yeah … and he’s literally just… This is his… He’s just constantly trying to r- reapproach how he’s envisioning his world around him, and it just, it’s just apart.

[01:02:26] nick: It’s slowly just… Yeah. Each one just has a little bit more dialed of the descent from it.

[01:02:34] luc: Right. And then there was another weird one

only because it’s, Ah, I, I have a way of going down these rabbit holes of dark- … scary, messed up true crime stories. But there was a whole thing about a family and how, it was a big family. The parents had s- six sons. All of them had schizophrenia.

[01:02:55] geo: What? And- and That

sounds familiar too ……one of them

[01:02:58] luc: committed [01:03:00] several murders. The Other one had kind of gotten a grip or I think may have ended his own life, if not two of them. But the w- the weird one is, and when you mention the music part, the one believes he’s Paul McCartney.

[01:03:15] nick: Oh.

[01:03:15] luc: Or maybe it’s Lennon. I forget. He thinks he’s one of The Beatles is what it comes down to.

It’s like all these- guys have these horrible stories, and then the one guy who just- …you know, …apparently escaped it all by thinking he’s somebody else. So W- and I guess you could go up to him today and he’s, carries around a guitar and he’s like, “Hi, I’m and he starts playing Beatles

[01:03:32] nick: I’d believe it?”

[01:03:33] joe: believe It,

[01:03:33] luc: It’s like- it is so …weird. And of course he looks nothing like

[01:03:39] nick: any

[01:03:40] geo: any of

[01:03:40] luc: them.

[01:03:41] joe: That’s his reality, right? right? So you have that thing, right.

[01:03:43] luc: it. and then it’s like- you know, it’s kinda,

[01:03:45] joe: the- Yeah

[01:03:46] luc: it’s the strangest turn- to think that you would have these really… And then part of that saga is the fact that the parents just kept it in the family. Right. They just, you know,

suppressed

[01:03:58] joe: all. Right.

[01:03:58] luc: Didn’t want anybody to know. Everything’s [01:04:00] good under this roof. This is a happy family, and it’s like no it’s not. This is all wrong.

And I wanna say they were all kids, like, in the ’60s and ’70s. ‘

[01:04:08] nick: 70s. Ooh.

[01:04:08] geo: Wow.

[01:04:09] luc: this was a while ago. But

[01:04:11] geo: very,

[01:04:12] melissa: very-

Mm-hmm

[01:04:13] nick: crazy.

[01:04:14] joe: Yeah. Cool.

I think that’s getting close to the end here,

[01:04:19] nick: Why are you looking at me like…

Why do you have that crazy look in your eyes? crazy

[01:04:22] geo: have crazy … it’s not my ears.

He’s taking

[01:04:23] luc: He’s Taking his glasses

off. He’s starting to get all, wildly.

[01:04:26] joe: We’re, you know, wild

[01:04:27] luc: like, I don’t know.

His

hair

[01:04:29] nick: has

progressively gotten bigger. the entire

episode.

It is. Yeah. I mean, why don’t… Why don’t you, the other half of of Question Time-

[01:04:32] luc: it

is. He’s-

[01:04:33] geo: bigger and more out

of control. It is.

[01:04:35] joe: thoughts? You usually have a last,

[01:04:36] geo: We usually have a last

[01:04:37] joe: a

question,

[01:04:38] nick: I really

don’t- … So- …know

a good

question. for this one? where it’s

[01:04:42] geo: Like,

What’s your

[01:04:42] joe: crazy person? No.

[01:04:46] nick: You and your crazy friend Exactly. It’s like- Or

[01:04:47] luc: my Other

self.

[01:04:48] joe: myself. Yeah, right.

[01:04:49] melissa: Right. That

[01:04:49] geo: The,

Have

[01:04:50] nick: y’all had a moment in like, your life where you were like, “Eh, is this the time where I’m losing it?” I mean…

[01:04:56] geo: And- I don’t think I think that question,

[01:04:59] nick: Sorry. [01:05:00]

[01:05:00] geo: don’t think

can go there. In a any timely manner. In

[01:05:04] nick: I know a recent time, but I’m not gonna talk

[01:05:06] geo: talk

about it.

Yeah. Yeah,

[01:05:07] melissa: Yeah.

[01:05:07] geo: I think we’re all gonna

just ignore that.

question. I

[01:05:10] nick: like to hear.

[01:05:11] melissa: too

[01:05:12] luc: Do you

[01:05:12] nick: talk about also.

[01:05:13] melissa: to

[01:05:13] luc: have Any-

[01:05:14] geo: confessions to Let’s just- … share right to you right here. I

[01:05:14] joe: you guys want to plug or talk

about?

Melissa, Luke?

[01:05:17] melissa: see.

Oh, there’s so much stuff going up.

[01:05:19] nick: Yeah.

[01:05:19] melissa: We’re gonna have a lot of Halloween stuff going

[01:05:21] geo: that I don’t

[01:05:21] joe: Yep. Yeah.

[01:05:22] melissa: don’t have the schedule yet. Well, I guess some things that I can plug if you wanna come to Reid’s Local and see a bunch of crazies, we have karaoke every Tuesday and Saturday night. from 10:00 PM- … to Last Call hosted by myself and Millie May.

[01:05:37] nick: Now, do you get

up there for karaoke as well? I

do. I knew it. You were part of the crazies.

[01:05:42] geo: Of course, I s- I,

I host

[01:05:43] melissa: host karaoke because I love karaoke.

[01:05:47] nick: karaoke.

[01:05:47] melissa: And I, and Luc also hosts for me sometimes,

so.

it’s- I

[01:05:52] nick: have

to show up to do, some karaoke. sometime.

[01:05:54] geo: doesn’t

do karaoke.

[01:05:54] luc: Yeah.

[01:05:54] geo: Yeah.

he’s

[01:05:55] melissa: I love karaoke. I joke that F- Friday or Saturday nights are a little bit feral-

[01:05:59] luc: [01:06:00] Mm-hmm …

[01:06:01] melissa: most of the time, but they are actually really fun. But if you want to see, like, mass psychosis, and I mean this in a nice way, like karaoke, I guess could be one, of it. it’s

[01:06:08] nick: like

[01:06:08] joe: i-

[01:06:09] melissa: it’s a thing. Like, it’s a whole cultural thing, and you wanna be part of it, and, you know.

[01:06:15] nick: kinda feel left out if you’re there and you’re not doing it.

[01:06:18] joe: karaoke. Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And then any

Halloween,

Halloween is,

[01:06:21] melissa: We do have a bunch of Halloween stuff coming up I can send you a calendar- for that the calendar

[01:06:26] joe: links. Yep.

[01:06:26] melissa: Calendars, yeah … be released soon.

[01:06:28] joe: Yep. Cool. Luc anything? Any

Thing to plug or movies someone should watch?

[01:06:33] melissa: Boy.

[01:06:34] luc: What are…

Well, we named a couple of them here,

[01:06:37] nick: So,

[01:06:37] geo: All

[01:06:37] luc: those that we

were discussed

in the episode, certainly. For upcoming things- that’s coming circa October would be

The film Hope

is gonna be playing. Although, again, that’s gonna- that’s

the new

South Korean director who did the Wailing and The

Chaser Oh, right, right and

Yellow Sea. That’s his new one.

It’s sci-fi. Yeah. It played at Cannes, and then [01:07:00] Michael Fassbender is in it as

well. Although I think the tie-in– I mean, it’s still in Korean. and I don’t think he speaks Korean.

[01:07:07] joe: Yeah.

So-

[01:07:08] luc: so-

how that will play out, we’ll yet to be

[01:07:10] nick: might surprise us

[01:07:11] joe: all. Yeah.

[01:07:12] luc: It definitely– it’s a sci-fi thriller, so it’s definitely gonna be, a high-octane action, kinda thing.

[01:07:18] joe: We’ll put it in the show notes and do that,

[01:07:20] melissa: Thanks. Yeah. there was two

more things I was

thinking of. A book that

I was thinking of

earlier, it’s The Professor and the Madman. It’s just one I recommend to people. It’s about somebody who was in an institution. It’s a true story, true historical story, and he basically helped write the Oxford English dictionary.

[01:07:38] geo: Interesting.

[01:07:38] luc: It was

also made into a movie.

It was? Oh.

Oh, was it? Mel Gibson and Sean Penn?

[01:07:43] melissa: Oh, Yeah. I had No idea about that, but the book Was wonderful.

[01:07:45] nick: the book was

[01:07:46] joe: No idea.

[01:07:46] geo: was the movie as wonderful as the book?

[01:07:48] luc: well? I thought it was quite

[01:07:49] joe: I thought

[01:07:50] geo: Okay.

[01:07:50] luc: It’s an English

[01:07:51] melissa: the movie as wonderful as the book? I thought it was quite good. an English story. Yeah.

[01:07:51] nick: good. English director. Huh.

[01:07:53] joe: it’s gotta be good. Sad. Well, I’m American. Yeah,

it made all the sense.

[01:07:54] luc: I mean, to our American

ears, It all sounds good, doesn’t it?

[01:07:58] geo: And the other thing? [01:08:00] What

[01:08:00] joe: Any other thing? Well, you said-

[01:08:01] nick: You said

two things, yeah? Oh,

no.

No.

[01:08:03] luc: it.

[01:08:03] melissa: Sleep.

[01:08:06] joe: Call the

insane asylum. We’re

[01:08:07] geo: there.

I know The

[01:08:08] joe: no.

[01:08:09] geo: the second-

Oh, yeah

[01:08:10] nick: I’m already on the

[01:08:11] geo: part of Never Whistle

at Night is coming out.

Oh, Yeah,

[01:08:14] nick: is the- Oh,

[01:08:15] geo: Yeah,

that

[01:08:15] melissa: did that just come out.

[01:08:17] joe: Yeah …

[01:08:18] melissa: Oh,

[01:08:18] joe: out.

[01:08:18] melissa: excited- about

[01:08:19] geo: that.

Yes. That looks so much

fun …

Oh, it’s a lot of fun.

[01:08:21] joe: know. I’d- That was so much fun … yeah. Yeah. That one’s a lot of fun. That was a good, that was a good… It’s a collection of short- it was an anthology of short

[01:08:25] geo: And I know, I think Jim Terry’s in this one …

Oh. Yeah. Who? Huh? Who are you- Jim Terry.

[01:08:32] joe: Terry.

[01:08:32] melissa: stories.

[01:08:33] nick: He’s- No no … the drumming.

[01:08:35] melissa: I

know,

[01:08:36] joe: no, that was Tim Curry

you’re thinking

[01:08:38] nick: No, I thought she said Jim Carrey is in this one.

[01:08:42] luc: was in this one.

[01:08:42] joe: Terry?

[01:08:42] nick: yeah. Oh, Terry. not Terry. Carrey. Yeah. Got it. I’m like, What is going on?

[01:08:46] geo: Okay, “I’m confused.” Okay. Carrey. We’re

all

[01:08:48] nick: have the

headphones in.

[01:08:50] luc: ear.

[01:08:50] geo: We

need to sign off.

[01:08:52] melissa: have the headphones in. We’re all going crazy. Well, This has been a hard week.

This

the

week …that we lost …Tim Curry and Dolly Parton,

[01:08:55] nick: love Tim Curry

and Dolly Parton. Ah.

[01:08:56] joe: thud. No.

[01:08:58] geo: So.

[01:08:59] nick: All [01:09:00] right.

[01:09:00] joe: Well, on that note,

I’m gonna thank

Reed’s Local for hosting us as always in our

month of horror in October.

Melissa, Luc

[01:09:07] nick: Thank

[01:09:07] luc: you …

[01:09:08] nick: and our Watch Party in October. Melissa, Luc. Thank you so much both for being here with us today.

[01:09:10] melissa: you, guys. It’s always really fun.

[01:09:12] joe: You did great. Yep.

Well, you had me, Joe.

[01:09:14] geo: Yeah, I

[01:09:14] nick: I

got

[01:09:14] geo: Nick. Georgia.

[01:09:16] joe: I got Georgia.

[01:09:18] luc: got next? And

[01:09:20] geo: we went down some holes

[01:09:22] joe: Stay curious.

[01:09:24] nick: Got a neck. You work here. And we went down some

[01:09:24] joe: we love y’all.

[01:09:25] nick: Bye-bye.

[01:09:25] melissa: Thank you

[01:09:27] geo: Thank you

Author: Jotham

Jotham Austin, II lives in Chicagoland with his wife and two sons. He has his PhD in Botany, and can be found taking electron micrographs of cells at The University of Chicago. His Rom-Com novella, “Tomorrow May Be Too Late” will be published as part of the romance anthology, “Askew Ever After,” January 2021. His debut novel, a sci-fi psychological thriller, ‘Will You Still Love Me, If I Become Someone Else?” will be released February 2021. Jotham recently started a newsletter that explores the science in science fiction (signup at jothamaustin.com). Preorder books and Follow Jotham on social media at https://linktr.ee/Jothamaustin View all posts by Jotham

Newsletter and Transcript of Rabbit Hole of Research Episode 88: The Crazies

Episode 88 Transcript

Reed’s Local Events:

Georgia and Jim’s Touch of Noir 2027 Wall Calendar —

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

Future Events to Hang with the Crew:

Joe:

It’s Science for Weirdos

We discussed these questions on the episode and now want to Hear From You (leave a comment):

Future Episodes

Show Notes & Fun Facts

Stuff crew said they’d put in shownotes

Fun Facts to Impress Your Friends With or Win Trivia:

Episode Highlights

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

Subscribe and Share our Substack newsletter to get email updates, never miss an episode, and spread the word!! Don’t forget to give us 5 stars or a like!

Transcript

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Author: Jotham

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Episode 88 Transcript

Reed’s Local Events:

Georgia and Jim’s Touch of Noir 2027 Wall Calendar —

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

Future Events to Hang with the Crew:

Joe:

It’s Science for Weirdos

We discussed these questions on the episode and now want to Hear From You (leave a comment):

Future Episodes

Show Notes & Fun Facts

Stuff crew said they’d put in shownotes

Fun Facts to Impress Your Friends With or Win Trivia:

Episode Highlights

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

Subscribe and Share our Substack newsletter to get email updates, never miss an episode, and spread the word!! Don’t forget to give us 5 stars or a like!

Transcript

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Like this:

Author: Jotham

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