Making Sense with Sam Harris - Absolutely Mental Season Two

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Sam shares a clip from the second season of Absolutely Mental, his audio series with Ricky Gervais. All 10 episodes have been released today (Friday September 24th, 2021) and are available for purchase at AbsolutelyMental.com. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Well, today I want to share a clip from the second season of Absolutely Mental, the podcast I've been doing with Ricky Gervais. Many of you will have heard the first season, in whole or in part, and I think the second season is actually better. We have hit our stride here, I think. The genesis of this podcast is that Ricky and I would have an occasional phone call, and it occurred to me that

these conversations were fun enough that we should record them and see what happened. So the podcast itself really is virtually indistinguishable from telephone conversations we were having anyway. Hence the conceit of making it a phone call. Obviously we're aware that we're recording it, and it's a podcast. But to a remarkable degree, it really is the kind of conversation we were going to have anyway. Which is unusual unusual and a lot of fun. So for many months I've had the pleasure of rolling out of bed on a Saturday morning and getting on a line with Ricky, only to be reminded that with civilization unraveling all around us,

he's primarily afraid of spiders. And as you'll hear, he is very good company. So now this is a clip from season two, episode two, and I hope you enjoy it. And if you want to hear the rest of the series, both seasons are available at absolutelymental.com. mental dot com. Hey, how's it going? Good. How are you? I'm good. I'm good.

Although I was just anesthetized, which doesn't happen often. And that's an interesting experience. When's the last time you were put out? I don't think I've ever had a general since I was about maybe 10 to have a tooth out. This wasn't a general. You got a general to have a tooth out? Well, we used to. I mean, in the late 60s, it was gas. Whenever you get one of these urchins who are covered with coal dust, you just put them right out to take their teeth out? No, and I'd always wake up crying because I don't know what it was. I assumed it was some sort of mix of nitrous oxide.

Yeah, that wouldn't be a general, but that would that would be oh well no they used to dentists no i was unconscious yeah no you know i guess so the the distinction between a general and and and what might be called a twilight anesthesia or you know anything other than a general is that in a general in a general you're not breathing under your own power anymore oh really you're you You're that deep, but, and there may be more, there may be gradations that I'm not aware of. I'm not an anesthesiologist, but the... Oh, so they really put everything to sleep. You can be completely unconscious, but, you know, still, it's not a general. It's a much lighter anesthesia. Then I've never had a general. But you've never had a proper surgery. You didn't have one?

Then I've never had a general. But you've never had a proper surgery? No, I had the glorious intervention of a colonoscopy. And so they give you propofol, which is what Michael Jackson was using recreationally to sleep with his crazy doctor, which wound up killing him, apparently. Is that why you went for it? Because it's celebrity endorsement. You said, whatever I want to...

Do you wear one glove as well? Yes, I wore a sequin glove. is that why you went for it because celebrity endorsement you said whatever i want to do you wear one glove as well yes i wore i wore a sequin glove yeah anyway everything's okay but it's amazing to have the the lights uh turned out that emphatically that's it's unlike it's certainly unlike going to sleep at night yeah so do you think so it's so it's deeper than your unconscious sleeping self even it's deep it's deeper than that is it yeah well presumably it must be because i'm pretty sure i would wake up if someone was sticking a camera one hopes one always hopes i sort of meant yeah no you're right yeah but but you're but um in sleep don't we don't don't the body freeze itself so you can't get injured so when you're

imagining you're fighting and running you're dead you're deadly still you're sort of frozen is that true yeah during REM sleep you are and um and there's there's a disorder of REM sleep where you're you're basically you you kind of wake up but you're still frozen so you can you can feel like you're that's the explanation for many kinds of like UFO abduction experiences and and other weirdness I Well, that usually ends with a finger up the ass as well, doesn't it? Just not a human finger. A really long green one. That would wake you up.

I'm pretty sure that would wake you up. Well, I mean, this conversation makes my question seem a bit tame. I was going to ask ask you although it's probably in the ballpark do you know about hypnosis and how it works if it works and if it works how does it work and i mean i don't mean the the mechanics of doing it i mean why does it work first of all does it work yeah well i have very little direct experience with it although i do have i have one experience that i can describe which was interesting so i i'm from the literature i can certainly say that it works for some things on some people i mean there are people who are

there's a there's a spectrum of hypnotizability and there's a yeah a a Stanford scale of hypnotizability that ranks people based on a test. And actually, when I was an undergraduate, I had that test. I was in Psych 101, and they were looking for experimental subjects, and they gave some subset of the class this test. Oh, you mean there's literally a scientific scale that's been peer-re been peer reviewed and that is, oh, and this really proved to me that there was something there, because I think I was fairly, I recall being fairly skeptical that there was anything to this. Right. But you're asked to do various things, and then one thing I remember being asked to do was to, I'll describe the procedure in a second, but you're inducted into the state of hypnosis

and you're given various suggestions. So sort of two parts to hypnosis. There's the induction and then the suggestion phase. And one suggestion was kind of an age regression. We were now told we were now nine years old, I think it was, and then given a piece of paper and a pen and asked to write the year. And I remember writing the year in 1976 without any arithmetic in my head. I mean, I just wrote it. And then I was asked to sign my name. And without any conscious, I guess there could be an unconscious wish to comply with this thing. But at the time, it really felt like an automaticity. I signed my name in precisely the bubbly, childlike handwriting that would have been appropriate to a nine-year-old. It certainly wasn't appropriate to my 18-year-old self.

So that regression experience seemed pretty strong to me. And there were like nine other things. I think it was a scale of 10, and I was a nine in terms of hypnotizability. It might have been a scale of 12. So does that suggest to me that you're very weak-willed? So what is the scale to do? So the scale presumably relates to a characteristic. It's not just a random thing.

Have they looked into why some people are more easily hypnotized? Like, you know, joking aside, could it be more complicity? Could it be, you know, that you want, you believe it more or that you're naive or you're cynical. Are there more firm characteristics that would suggest you're a 1 or a 10? I don't actually know. I think there are other things that it's correlated with, like having a fantasy life or having kind of vivid daydreaming. You can really recall what your daydreaming is about. I don't actually know how much is understood about differences in hypnotizability, but the...

And would that be a structure of the brain? Would that be a type of brain? If it was that, say, I won't hold you to it, but if it was that you have, you know, more of vivid imagination, is that a type? Is that a brain type that some people have more vivid imaginations than others? Well, I think we could probably get at it from the side of what's happening when people seem to be successfully hypnotized. And there has been some neuroimaging work on hypnosis. And the place where it's actually, where the effect of hypnosis is, I think, least in dispute is with pain suppression. I mean, there are people who have undergone surgeries, you know, real surgeries, with no anesthetic but hypnosis. And this has been attested to for a very long time.

But I recently had someone on my podcast who's who's been working on this in his lab and yeah there are many many people have undergone surgery under hypnosis and um and then people use hypnosis as a adjunct to anesthesia they'll be given let's say a local when they might have been given more of a twilight anesthesia and so it's all you know just a local when they might have been given more of a twilight anesthesia and so it's all you know just a local okay so that's okay well that's very interesting so tell me what happens there so supposing that works and they're and they're not screaming now are they feeling pain well no well i mean they're not feeling it at all so they're not suppressing they're not going i don't mind this pain right they're going it's something's not getting to them but that's impossible isn't it because isn't pain a literal physical thing of synapse jumps?

It seems, I mean, again, I don't think the work here is definitive because I think this topic is somewhat in ill repute among scientists. I mean, I don't think most neuroscientists are seriously considering focusing on hypnosis as a topic, but the neuroimaging work that's been done, that I'm aware of, has found that actually hypnosis is blocking the painful stimuli from even registering in sensory cortex. Okay, so hold on. How is that possible?

So they're under hypnosis, whatever that is, right? So they're under, okay? They're hypnotized. Whatever that is, whether it's some sort of compliance or subconscious thing. And literally, the pain isn't getting to the pain receptors. Or I can't... Well, there can be downward top-down modulation of sensory cortex. I think probably there's an area in the midline, in the frontal lobes, called the anterior cingulate cortex.

And that shows up in many different paradigms, but it's definitely involved in pain perception. paradigms but it it's definitely involved in pain perception and um wow it's there there are more senior more executive areas that could inhibit sensory cortex and yes i mean that you know that seems to be i'd still say seen in your imaging if that even if that was working and it was going well i still like to think a finger up my ass would bring me out of that well you'll never know until you try and the doctors are furious why did why did you do that he was it was working why did you do that well but there's an interesting thing here because it's not clear whether hypnosis is a state, you know, because it's definitely advertised as being a state that gets induced. And it's on the basis of that state that you then become suggestible. But it's possible that the suggestion itself is really the whole story or much of it.

For instance, I think there have been experiments done where the exact same induction and suggestion process is happening, but in one paradigm it's called hypnosis, and in another it's called a relaxation exercise. And it has a very different effect on people, just the framing of it. I mean, the people thinking they're going to get hypnotized matters as opposed to thinking they're just relaxing. Well, but that's why I can't get by. I know it's all about perception, but I still think of pain as a literal objective thing, like, you know, electricity jumping and hurting and you're, whether you like it or not, you feel something and that is what a pain is. But if it's a pain, no, it's not you feel something and that is what a pain is but if it's a pain no it's not

well just i mean yes the pain signal you know let's say at your at your finger right it's the same it has to be the same from the finger on in but at a certain point what you're imagining is pure sensation is being modulated by the rest of what the brain is doing, right? And it becomes susceptible to significant influence and even cancellation. And where in the network of the brain that's happening, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if maybe someone has a good sense of it now, but I'm just not aware of it. But it may still be somewhat mysterious. But this relates to the placebo effect, which is also well demonstrated for pain and for many other things, but it's also not understood. But it's clearly a belief-based process that gets started

that is medically efficacious. I mean, it becomes a challenge to design drugs that beat placebos in many cases because they're so effective. Okay, so even though there is an actual physical act to do with the laws of physics and electricity and all those things, it then becomes how you perceive it in your brain and it becomes subjective. I suppose that's like if you put your foot into a boiling hot bath by mistake,

for a split second, you think it's cold. You think there's something wrong here. And then you go, no, no, no, it's hot. Well, it's just extreme, yeah. Yeah, you haven't had time to work. Okay, okay, okay, I think I understand that. The point to take on here, I think, is that a belief is also a physical act in your brain. It's no less a physical act than you getting hit with a hammer.

Of course. Of course. Like I said, the man is good company. That could have been the name of the podcast, in fact. But we went with the very British Absolutely Mental. And if you enjoy both our company, you can find more of it at absolutelymental.com. Thank you.