Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Positive News Recap #2: Syncing Brains, Ayahuasca Clarity, & God as a Drug

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Mayim and Jonathan sit down for another positive news stories recap! They cover a study suggesting our brains sync as we interact with one another, breaking down how mirror neurons wire us to fit in a...nd the positive and negative impacts of emotionally connecting with others. They also share the findings of a brain scan study showing ayahuasca’s profound impact, including its effects on the imagination, how hallucinatory drugs dampen some senses while heightening others, and even the cultural connotations of ayahuasca use. Mayim and Jonathan discuss how belief in God can trigger the same parts of the brain as drug use and explain group thinking, ties between the civil rights movement and religion, and why connection to music can be spiritual. Check out our first Positive News Recap: https://mayim.simplecast.com/episodes/create-yourself-anew-breaking-down-2022-with-mayim-and-jonathan BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:02 I just saw an explanation of why dogs always want to be with you when you go to the bathroom. If you haven't had a dog, you may not know this, but they're often like scratching at the door or like post it up outside the bathroom door. And it turns out that wild dogs and wolves, that's a vulnerable time when you're going to the bathroom. So they protect one another. They're looking out for one another. Oh.
Starting point is 00:00:28 Exactly. That's the right reaction. Yeah. That's really special and interesting. I've never heard it described that way. I mean, you know, for men, you know, peeing is something they can do standing up, which means that they also can run real fast. You know, for those of us who cannot pee standing up and have to, like, squat and pull down the thing and get the thing,
Starting point is 00:00:52 it's like it's a more vulnerable thing if you're hiking or, you know, I mean, that's just like a facts of life. You want to be able to run as a human. You could be eaten by a mountain lion. I'm always afraid that something will happen if I'm peeing in the woods. I don't think that people who stand and pee have the same kind of fears. But, Jonathan, do you know the most common time for women to naturally go into labor? At night? That's right.
Starting point is 00:01:20 At night, under kind of like cover of darkness, which sounds scary, but is also in many ways protective because you're not, you know, kind of out in the open. But I was wondering, you know, when a woman goes into labor, you know, like, and if, I mean, I'm a person who had a homebirth. So, like, I think of, like, my cats were there. It was like a whole thing. But I wonder if people with dogs have this experience of the dog knowing, like, oh, they're in a vulnerable place. Like, this lady's going to be dealing with this for a minute. I'd better stay close by.
Starting point is 00:01:55 I'd love to hear from people who had a homebirth and have dogs. It's myambialy's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm Miami Alec.
Starting point is 00:02:14 And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to a very special Thursday breakdown. Today, Jonathan and I are going to do something that we weren't sure would do well. And apparently, y'all really liked when we did positive news stories. We have a very special set of positive news stories today, most of which are also super aligned with what we do here on the breakdown. We'd just talk about mental wellness and science-y things and how sciencey things relate to our life. So, Jonathan, I think we should get into it, yes? Let's go.
Starting point is 00:02:46 Let's be positive. The first thing I'd like to talk about was a really cool news story, actually from a couple years ago. But there's a lot of research in this field that is ongoing and actually, A friend of mine is a professor at USC, and she studies aspects of this. So I think we should talk about it, and I think it's especially appropriate for me and Jonathan to talk about as we're in two different places trying to communicate and interact and sync up, both technically speaking and metaphysically speaking. Brains sinking is a thing as people interact.
Starting point is 00:03:23 So this was a study that was done, and it utilized. things like MRI, which many people have heard of, functional MRI, and EEG, which is electroencephalogram, and also using infrared spectroscopy, which these are all just different ways to correlate what's going on in people's brains when they're interacting. And we can observe these things when we put them in these fancy, super expensive, gigantic magnet machines. So what they discovered was when people were cooperating, a across tasks, parts of their brains kind of lit up, it's the way we kind of talk about it in layperson's terms.
Starting point is 00:04:06 And there were ways that oscillations in the brain aligned when people were cooperating for tasks. Let's extrapolate what being wired for connection actually means because this experiment is actually showing, you know, what a lot of people talk about, but maybe haven't had scientific evidence. Like the bad version is you're around other people who have an accent and you start to take on the accent.
Starting point is 00:04:37 Like when you were talking to anyone in New York, you become a New Yorker more than you already are. And so you're like wired and you're mirrored to fit in and to be accepted by the group. So, and you know, we know that children, for example, we talk about mirror neurons with babies where they're, you know, observing and taking in their caretakers or their caregivers and they're trying to mimic. So let's extrapolate what this means, you know, in everyday life that may be happening in a way
Starting point is 00:05:08 that we might not be aware of. I mean, first of all, gold star to Jonathan for dropping the mirror neuron system like it's like a thing that everybody knows about. But what some of the kind of most incredible research surrounding this kind of sinking has revolved around is not just the concept of mirroring, which I think we all, you know, kind of can relate to like, oh, like, you know, I act like you and we're together or like Madonna takes on people's accents. And it's the acting class where you put your hands. Right. The mirror neuron system is a network of groups of neurons, which are the cells of the brain and nervous system.
Starting point is 00:05:48 And there are certain regions of the brain that connects in communities. in ways that indicate that the brain essentially has a template for deeply connecting with others in ways that make for a complicated, integrated, integrative experience. So it's not simply, I act like you or I want to be around you. The notion is that our brains have a template for cooperation, for collaboration, and ultimately for really complicated connection. So I think what Jonathan is referring to also is like sometimes you'll be with someone or especially if you're in a creative arena or if you're a musician or something like that.
Starting point is 00:06:34 And it's like, oh, we're really vibing, right? But the idea is that there are certain situations that we can put ourselves in that our brains literally want us to succeed in because it's evolutionarily beneficial. It's kind of like every science news story that we talk about is going to come down to this for me. Like we are finding evidence now for things that evolution has known about. We do better. And I know that there's people like, but I like to be by myself.
Starting point is 00:07:01 Good for you. That's great. There are many cultural reasons. There are many individual reasons why people may seek to be by themselves. And, you know, even in primate groups, you see there's that like one chimpanzee who just like hangs on the outside. He doesn't want to talk to the other kids. But generally speaking, by and large, we are social creatures.
Starting point is 00:07:20 And, you know, studies like this, studies that look at the mirror neuron system. And if you're interested, like, look up anything about the mirror neuron system. It is fascinating. You know, a lot of the original work, of course, was done in primates and actually some of my undergraduate thesis work. I actually studied the mirror neuron system. And it's a lot of monkey research that you read. But what we do know is that in particular for primate brains, you know, that are so socially
Starting point is 00:07:46 connected, that's what this system is there for. Let's talk more about why. advantageous to be able to sync like that. So you talk about musicians, you know, amazing musicians. They're collaborating. They have to almost read what the other person is doing before they do it. And there is a level of anticipation where they're like, they know where it's going next, especially in, you know, jam bands or improvisation. Athletes, they can be also in the same vein where you're trying to work together. For team sports, you mean?
Starting point is 00:08:21 Any type of team sports. If you've like doubles pickleball and you just know where your partner is going to go or I was playing yesterday and all of a sudden you've got to switch sides quickly and the person is communicating, you kind of are on the same flow. Where else does that, you know,
Starting point is 00:08:40 create this level of flow state or being advantageous as an evolutionary advantage? My Ambialx breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water. There's no real data, there's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times,
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Starting point is 00:10:28 Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. Well, I think we've all had experiences, and I'm not a great doubles pickleball player. You know, I tend to... Your mirror neuron system is a little broken? I was just going to say, there's definitely something to like, you know, sometimes you enjoy, let's say, playing music on your own, but when you try and play with other people, like there's not that sinking, it doesn't mean you're broken, but if you think about that all of these systems are designed, again, for evolutionary purposes, you think about, you know,
Starting point is 00:11:02 take yourself out of this culture, take yourself out of a place with microphones and cars and AI and whatever. And like put yourself back in a state of nature and think about, especially before we had, you know, verbal communication, right? I mean, if you believe in evolution, stick with me. there are ways to communicate, especially when you're hunting, even when you're playing, which is really just, you know, simulation of hunting. Think about hunting. You can't be like, yo, it's over here. Willie mammoth. It's like saber-tooth tiger. It's right here. So nonverbal communication is incredibly important. You know, body communication, which has to be perceived by another, you know, another being, that's incredibly important. So that's, like,
Starting point is 00:11:44 that's sort of the system. That's the template. And then add on to it, like culture, religion, religion, the patriarchy, you know, add on everything. And then you get us acting out different aspects of survival and intuition in the world that we're living in. And I also, like, I can't help but think about like the social implications of, you know, musicians and how that's attractive. And a lot of people want to like, date a bad boy. I'm like, whatever that means. But the notion also that these kinds of skills are still kind of often what determines kind of social standing, especially with athletes. It makes me think about the Matrix, of course,
Starting point is 00:12:22 which is that we can plug in in a way, or we have sensory perception, or there's an element of us in this current state with microphones and technology and AI, that we may not be harnessing, which are inherent human skill set or wiring, and we've sort of moved away from that. So when we lean into it and recognize that,
Starting point is 00:12:45 It also is really important to think about, like, have you ever been around someone who's like really upset? And it's difficult to be around them as, you know, we have empathy. We're wired for that empathy and that connection. So, you know, I think about my 15-year-old and the saying that, you know, you're the amalgamation of the five people closest to you. Or you're a reflection of that is that, you know, because we have these, we're wired for this type of connection, we do have to be aware of, you know, what are we mirroring? What are we around? What states are we potentially connecting to? I think it's also important to realize that just like we talk about highly sensitive people, right? HSPs, we talk about people with different capacity for kind of tolerating other input
Starting point is 00:13:34 or other stimulus and other stimulation. This is a great example of the specificity of each individual's brain. There's still enough specificity, right, to make us interesting. and different. And if you, you know, have studied evolution at all, what you probably remember is that every evolution comes from a mutation, a change, something that was outside of the realm of what had been. That's the only way that we can kind of have progress and grow. So, you know, for people, for example, who don't have great vision, you know, if you're a male person or a male-oriented person, if you don't have great vision, you probably wouldn't have been a successful hunter. You'd be like hanging with the ladies, making baskets. Like, it's,
Starting point is 00:14:15 that would have happened. So there's also all this variation in people's skill sets and, you know, where people fall in. There's always going to be differences. But I don't think we should go around bragging like, I've got a really good mirror neuron system. I think that might set us up for problems. Jonathan, let's tackle, let's tackle ayahuasca next. We're going to do it. Speaking of extra sensory perceptions, let's do some ayahuasca. The Guardian just published earlier this year, psychedelic brew ayahuasca's profound impact revealed in brain scans. So this is not me and Jonathan telling people to do ayahuasca. This is not us telling you that it's the only way to have a life or creativity or insight. But there are people who are studying the brain on DMT, which is dimethyltiphtamine.
Starting point is 00:15:09 If you'd like to know, that's actually the compound that's found in ayahuasca, which is from a flour and it's an Amazonian drink that is used very specifically in indigenous communities, but has now gained, of course, popularity among hipsters and seekers and everything in between. Which is different than when Chelsea Handler talked about licking a toad. Well, licking a toad is something that there are, yes, there are certain toads you can lick to have very strong specific experiences, but this was a study that it was a study that it a small study, and I like to make sure that we point this out. Most of the studies that we talk about, unless I say, like, this is a study analyzing a thousand different papers or a thousand
Starting point is 00:15:55 different subjects. This was a small study, but it's important, especially if it comes from a university that has a lot of rules and restrictions around not being able to lie around data. So, for example, the Imperial College London, Chris Timmerman was ahead of this research group. They recruited 20 volunteers, and they got an injection. of dn.T and a placebo. And then they used electroencephalography and functional MRI. So again, you're going to hear these two things that's picking up electrical impulses that are taken from the surface of the brain and putting people in a scanner, an MRI machine, which you may have had for a knee or a shoulder. But functional MRI allows us to look at blood flow in the brain. It's a gigantic
Starting point is 00:16:40 magnet and it basically upsets all the magnetic things in your brain. And we can measure. that as a measure of blood flow. Anyway, they recorded brain activity before, during, and after the drug took hold. So I'll sort of break down the main findings in layperson's terms. So the brain has a hierarchical structure and organization that we sort of can measure, and that is measured usually by collapsing a lot of different images and saying, like, what does the sort of structure look like and what does electrical activity look like? And when a brain is on ayahuasca, this electrical activity becomes anarchic.
Starting point is 00:17:23 That means like there's a little bit of anarchy. But certain connectivity between regions that don't normally communicate very actively gets activated. So we're seeing more connectivity between the kind of regions, again, that lead to a notion of like higher awareness, imagination, you know, having an intense experience on these kinds of drugs. It's very common for people to say, like, it was really,
Starting point is 00:17:58 really intense, right? And the reason is not necessarily because, like, magic is coming down that has no explanation. The explanation is there's things happening in your brain that are producing a lot of flow and a lot of connection between activities that don't normally communicate that way. So what a lot of people will report is feeling like they have deep understanding of things. This often happens also when people have mushroom experiences, like everything became so clear. That's my favorite thing that I hear people say, like, it was so clear. It's like, yeah, because like literally a lot of your sensory input is being dampened so that others can be heightened. But yes, it's very, very clear.
Starting point is 00:18:41 And then you reread your notes the next day. There's also indications that, you know, regions of the brain that normally would inhibit kind of imaginative and creative thinking that in your daily life would not make it easy to function, those parts of the brain that normally inhibit are kind of released. And they're released for a period of time so that you can, you can experience things that are dreamy and fantastic and outside of the realms of your normal understanding. And, you know, I think that's, that release of inhibition is evident if you've
Starting point is 00:19:24 ever, you know, had half a glass of alcohol, you know, or, you know, really any kind of experimental medication, more so than kind of, you know, over-the-counter things, which tend to have a different mechanism. But that's, that's not, not an unusual. unusual report. So this is kind of me being like boring, mean scientist lady who also is 47 years old. So yes, there are profound experiences. And I'd like to point out that indigenous communities that utilize ayahuasca do so in a completely different cultural construct than we do. And even if you go to the Amazon and even if you're going and it's an authentic experience, which if that works for you, that's fantastic.
Starting point is 00:20:09 You do not have the structure of a culture that receives information the same way as cultures that are raised with an indigenous consciousness of ayahuasca, the way the world is structured, the way the universe was created, how you receive information, how you process it. Which is not to say you can't enjoy it and it can't be transformative. And a lot of people report tremendous breakthroughs from trauma and depression. But I just want to remind you that, you know, going to a place, and being like, I didn't speak Spanish, but I still got it. Like, that's amazing.
Starting point is 00:20:41 And also, ayahuasca exists in indigenous communities in a very sacred and specific way that, in my opinion, we don't just get to be like, knock, knock, I'm ready. Tune in next Thursday, when Mime does ayahuasca, discovers the secret of the universe and magically start speaking Japanese. Anyway, Jonathan, do you have anything else to say about my report of this study from Imperial College London. Nope, I think you summed it up, and I'm excited to do the documentary where you go to the Amazon. Let's go to a different kind of brain study that doesn't involve drugs, likely won't send you
Starting point is 00:21:20 to the ER with a panic attack, just saying. Believing in God can trigger the same reward regions of the brain as taking drugs. And this is something that appeared in Wired, that we're basing our discussion on. it was a study out of the University of Utah. Utah is a good place for Jeffrey Anderson, the neuroradialologist, who did this study to operate in, because when you do studies where you're trying to decide anything, this is just like Science 101, you want to try and find the least variability in your subjects so that you can reliably say, we think that what happened is consistent with this population. So if you're going to look for people with a very specific religious
Starting point is 00:22:03 mindset that, you know, are raised with a similar, you know, dogma, for lack of a better word. I don't mean that in a derogatory fashion, but a similar belief system. He studied 19 young Mormons. And, you know, what this study found and what a lot of studies have found is that, you know, belief in God and that kind of like, especially like, devotional belief in God activates essentially the reward system in your brain that, you know, is designed to accept pleasure and kind of a sense of accomplishment with a lot of systems. Now, is this system the same as the one that's activated if you're a gambling addict or if you're a drug addict? I'm not going to go so far as to say that God is a drug, but the notion of belief
Starting point is 00:22:54 and belonging activating a system, especially if you're in a community of like-minded people, Again, let's remember the brain is wired for us to survive and reproduce. Like that's like literally what it wants us to do. That's what we do. We're animals. We just want to live. We just want to live. And seek pleasure, but also avoid pain and danger.
Starting point is 00:23:18 And so, you know, group thinking in many ways has guaranteed, you know, for really, I mean, all of primates and many other animals. group thinking, group connectedness. It's safe. You know, I think of lemurs, you know, and how they patrol for each other. You can even think of, like, you know, ant communities and bee communities, you know, ants and bees also group think. It's important.
Starting point is 00:23:45 Speaking of patrol for one another, I just saw an explanation of why dogs always want to be with you when you go to the bathroom. If you haven't had a dog, you may not know this, but they're often like scratching at the door or like post it up outside the bathroom door. And it turns out that wild dogs and wolves, that's a vulnerable time when you're going to the bathroom. So they protect one another. They're looking out for one another.
Starting point is 00:24:12 Oh. Exactly. That's the right reaction. Yeah. That's really special and interesting. I've never heard it describe that way. I mean, you know, for men, you know, peeing is something they can do standing up, which means that they all.
Starting point is 00:24:28 also can run real fast, you know, for those of us who cannot pee standing up and have to like squat and pull down the thing and get the thing, it's like it's, it is a more vulnerable thing. If you're hiking or, you know, I mean, that's just like a facts of life. You want to be able to run as a human. You could be eaten by a mountain lion. I'm always afraid that something will happen if I'm peeing in the woods. I don't think the people who stand and pee have the same kind of fears. but Jonathan, do you know the most common time for women to naturally go into labor? At night? That's right.
Starting point is 00:25:04 At night, under kind of like cover of darkness, which sounds scary, but is also in many ways protective because you're not, you know, kind of out in the open. But I was wondering, you know, when a woman goes into labor, you know, like, and if, I mean, I'm a person who had a homebirth. so I think of like my cats were there. It was like a whole thing. But I wonder if people with dogs have this experience of the dog knowing like, oh, they're in a vulnerable place.
Starting point is 00:25:33 Like this lady's going to be dealing with this for a minute. I better stay close by. I'd love to hear from people who had a home birth and have dogs. Back to religion for a minute. I've never been deep into organized religion. But recently I got turned on to the religious... It's deep into you. Recently I got turned on to the religious rock channel on my local radio
Starting point is 00:26:00 and was introduced to Andrew Rip, who has some feel-good music. And I even shared it with Maim, who was very hesitant at first, but I was like, you know what? This praise rock really makes you feel good. Well, hang on one second, because I want to go back to this study. That actually relates really nicely. So what they did in this study is they took people who had done missionary work, which I think this is also a good population to kind of study because Mormon young men and women are sent on mission to proselytize, which is a different category. But they're spending time specifically during mission work.
Starting point is 00:26:44 You're typically not interacting with your family, I think like once or twice a year. and this is not false. Like I have extended family and in-laws who, you know, have had these experiences. I'm not just like they can't speak to their families. But you're supposed to spend your time focusing on God and spreading the word. So these are people who have lived presumably
Starting point is 00:27:01 pretty devout and connected lives. So what they do is they put them in an MRI machine and they have them, they put goggles on them. You know, because like if you're in an MRI machine it's usually super dark, right? And that cut-unk, that loudness. But you have these goggles. And they showed them different videos.
Starting point is 00:27:16 And what you had to do is you have to press a box, button, because you can't move a lot in an MRI machine, so it's got to be like a small way to respond. You press a button when you experience heightened spiritual feelings. So, Jonathan, I'm going to read a list of things, and I'd like you to visualize them. And if you feel a heightened spiritual feeling, I'd like you to say, ding. All right. Visualization in progress. All right. Okay. So maybe close your eyes. Close your eyes, Jonathan. And I want you to pretend like you're seeing the images of what I'm saying. Let's go. But they were actually showing them the images, right?
Starting point is 00:27:51 They were showing them the images. They didn't have to imagine them. They were showing, they were shown video. Ready? I'm showing you a video on membership and church finances. Not feeling it. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:28:08 Now I'm going to show you some biblical excerpts. Nope. Still not feeling it. You know where my mind does go, though. Are you thinking about sex? It's going to mess up the study. No. I mean, if we're going more optimistic, we're on a like wide open plane, beautiful sky. You know, if it has to be religious, people are in like white robes maybe and it's like the sun is shining. There I'm hopeful. Okay. All done. Okay, but you're not designing the experiment. So when you design an experiment, I would love to be part of that study.
Starting point is 00:28:47 But here's your third image. There's some quotes from religious leaders. No, still no. Still no quotes. Although I'm sure if I showed you some Talmudic excerpts in like on some parchment, your dopamine would go through the roof. Okay, your last image, here you go. Your last image is an image of people praying.
Starting point is 00:29:12 I mean, I think that's potentially more because I have an association with like a congregation or community in prayer and in worship and sort of like that vibe of everyone sort of singing in unison is very uplifting. So that one gets me a little bit more. Ah, okay. Okay, so I'm just, and look, not all of these images are supposed to, you can open your eyes, not all these images are supposed to evoke heightened spiritual feelings. For example, like, I think the church video membership in finances is
Starting point is 00:29:42 probably like to see a baseline because what happens in these studies is if you show things and everybody's always activated, you have nothing to compare it to. So that would be like, for me, not a heightened spiritual feeling. But I am a person of faith. So I'll be honest, there are certain excerpts from the Torah, from the Old Testament that definitely give me heightened spiritual feelings. These tend to be ones that are more mystical. You know, the prophets have all these like awesome visions, things like that. Quotes from a variety of religious leaders, it's going to be hard for me just because I'm, you know, Jewish. So it's like a little bit like, you know, if it was rabbis and like people that like I consider
Starting point is 00:30:24 my spiritual leaders, I can imagine having heightened spiritual feelings. And I do feel a heightened spiritual sense when I pray. And again, mirror neuron system. If I see other people praying. And yeah, even if they're praying, even if they're a Muslim praying or there's something in me that's like, ooh, something happens. Like I know something. happens when I sit with people who are similarly aligned. And so that might get a little heightened
Starting point is 00:30:53 spiritual feeling for me. But I get very deeply moved by religious things. Like put me in a scanner. It's going to be insane. That's why I like going to synagogue. About the quotes, the reason why that would elicit something for you is because you can sort of conjure up a collection of quotes that are meaningful to you. I don't have that. So I just sort of see some words on a scroll and I'm like, they don't do much for me. Okay. I'm going to give a. one of my favorite quotes. It's not a Bible quote. It's from the Middle Ages, but it's a spiritual leader. The quote is, for the intellect is the glory of God. The reason this makes me feel a heightened sense of spirituality is there's no gender in it to make my brain be like, God's not a he.
Starting point is 00:31:35 And it's celebrating an aspect of me that I was not really aware before I learned of this kind of, you know, aspect of philosophy that like your intellect is special. It's It's divine. Thinking about things, pondering, philosophizing. Like, that makes me feel really excited. So, like, that's a quote that other people would be like, oh, that's nice. Also, shout out to my monodies. That's who's quoted as the Rambom.
Starting point is 00:32:00 But, I mean, I think that for me, like, when I feel a sense of, like, ecstatic excitement about I'm a spiritual being. Like, I exist on this planet. Yeah, it's a thing that that fills. me up. It fills me up in a way that I do think is like that's that reward circuit, not just because God told me to do this and I'm following the rules, because I don't always follow the rules. Like the rules are oftentimes made up by like dudes from, you know, 2000 years ago. But yeah, I do. I get something just from the experience itself and not just being like, I'm a good Christian
Starting point is 00:32:38 or I'm a good, you know, Jew and I follow the rules. Like for me, it is more of a mystical experience separate from obedience. I'm fascinated to do a, comparison study between the impact and the influence of religious belief on the brain and exercise and running. People get that runners high. People get that euphoria from physical movement and exertion. I wonder how those two compare. 100%. And if you're running while praying and, you know, being in a devoted state, what is that going to do for you? Sorry. I just got chills. If everyone wants to know, I just got, I just got chills. So I'm going to cry because this is what happens. So Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was a friend and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He's the rabbi that you see marching alongside Dr. King. And when he was asked, you know, what happened that day that they marched, you know, he said, I prayed with my feet. And Heschel's daughter quotes him as saying that he prayed for freedom for 20 years and received no answer until he prayed with his legs.
Starting point is 00:33:56 And it's very interesting because, you know, so much of the civil rights movement, which was, I mean, religiously, you know, inspired, meaning the, a lot of the liturgy that was used to motivate people and the notion of like God created all of us literally equal. Like, literally, that means we have to actually make the Constitution apply. that notion of collective movement as prayer was a huge component of the civil rights movement. So I think that's a very interesting comparison that you just made. But I do also want to give a shout out to what you said about music. You know, the connection that we have with music is itself a spiritual experience, separate from any belief in God. So for me and for you, you're not an organized religion person,
Starting point is 00:34:43 but you are a deeply, a deeply connected person with. with, I believe, something that is divine. And I've really, like, I so resonate with, like, Christian music like you and I have started listening to because I know that Jesus is not for me. That's not my choice. It's not my path. But the notion of, like, love and devotion and feeling safe in someone else's power, like, I feel safe with gravity.
Starting point is 00:35:14 Like, for me, that's really, it's lovely. I'm super into it. Jonathan, I have to say that I like talking about anything and everything with you, but I do really enjoy talking about science and the brain and especially positive news stories around all the incredible things that our brains can experience and also ways that they can be modified and bettered both with drugs and without. I really appreciate when science catches up to all the things that the hippies have been saying for years. It's great to see that these studies are bringing to light and validating a lot of what people
Starting point is 00:35:55 have been talking about for years, so very exciting. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on this Thursday episode. We missed you so much in between Tuesday releases. We just can't help but show up Thursday sometimes. Myam, thank you for explaining this stuff to us. And, you know, I just want to say that a news story that didn't make it into this episode, which has to make it into a later one, is that there's a dinosaur that they discovered
Starting point is 00:36:20 that has things on his head that looked like he had a toothbrush on his head. So if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to stay tuned for more positive news stories for great stories like that. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have,
Starting point is 00:36:32 we'll see you next time. It's My Ambiolyx breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down.

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