October 23, 2025 • 44 mins
Have you ever thought much about screaming? Well we have, and today you'll learn everything we learned.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and I'm not going to scream to start this
off because I care about all of you listening.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, that was a new for you. Yeah, we're talking about.
Julia helped us out with this one, and I commissioned
this one. And I don't remember what instigated it. It
definitely wasn't from hearing somebody scream. I may have seen
an article or something that piqued my interest and I
(00:39):
was like, wait a minute, what like screaming? Is interesting
that people scream and for all different kinds of reasons
people scream, and that's why I picked it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Here we are. Yeah, I was very surprised and impressed this.
It's one of those ones where you just think you
know about it because you never really thought about it.
When you diving into it. There's a lot more to
it than you ever realized. Although all of it makes
sense anecdotally, you're like, oh, yeah, oh yeah, I've done that.
I've screamed like that. I'd screamed and screamed and screamed
(01:12):
again it. Yeah, I like ones like this. I guess
human human nature explained, and there's a comment there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Somewhere in there definitely not a colon. We should get
some nuts and bolts out of the way. As far
as like, everyone knows what a scream is. It's obviously
a very loud, high pitched, harsh thing on the ears.
It's a sound that you make with I was about say,
with your mouth, but we'll get to the parts that
make the scream. But nuts and bolts wise, the scream
(01:41):
is in about the eighty to one hundred and twenty
decibel range. In volume, sixty decibels is normal speech unless
you're my wife. That's more like an A seventy five.
I would say she and her her friend Stacy, or
to the loudest humans on earth, and they admit that
(02:04):
they're not wallflowers, and they own it and I respect it.
Nice they reach frequent Not Stacey and Emily, but humans.
I'm sorry. The human scream can reach a frequency in
the range of two thousand to three thousand herts, whereas
a normal talker is about eighty to three hundred herts.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, and for dumb dums with sound like me, the
higher the hurts, the higher the pitch, so hurts is
a measure of actual frequency. Pitch is basically a measure,
a description of how we experience that frequency.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That's right, And just to clear up something for what's
coming later. A sound, a tone can have two different frequencies.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I've got it. I have it now.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, I can't wait to explain it later because it's
gonna get flubbed all over the place.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well, it isn't intuitive like you would think, like a
guitar string makes like, you know, one frequency range. But
it's just yeah, it's not true. It's one of those things.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, this is not true. We'll just leave it at that.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves, chuck.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah. Back to screaming, right.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, because if you think about screaming, I always think
of someone screaming, usually in a horror movie or something
like that. I haven't heard too many, like real deal
screams in real life, which is nice. But we're not
the only animals that scream. There's plenty of other animals
in the animal kingdom that scream that we know of.
(03:35):
I'm quite sure there's plants that scream too, we just
can't hear them. Maybe but birds scream, seals, marmots, mountain lions,
and I didn't know giraffes scream. That's got to be
off putting. The funniest scream of all as a goat screaming. Yeah,
if you have never witnessed a goat scream, go right
(03:59):
now to YouTube and just look up goat screaming videos.
And they don't all scream the same way, but every
once in a while, one of them is going to
come along and scream like a man. And it is like,
you will, you can't not laugh out loud when you
see it. Every time I watched the same goat scream
over and over again, and I laughed out loud every
time I watched it.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, and it's so non goat sounding because it's not
even like a loud bleat that you wonder like, is
somebody punking me? And that's just like, you know, that's
James con from misery that they're looping in there.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Does kind of sound like that. Another one to look
up real quick, or two links in Ontario screaming at
each other. It's like right in their faces. Have you
seen that one?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I haven't seen that.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh, it's it's nuts.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Animals well, they Well, let's just talk about why anything screams.
It's a very effective tool. It's obviously a great fear
response because everyone's going to sit up and take notice
because it's so harsh and loud. It's a very jarring thing.
It can also distract predators, obviously, screaming if you're lost,
(05:07):
you know, scream can travel a great distance in the
woods or anywhere, and you can, you know, alert somebody
from a great distance. So it's a it's a great
communicative tool for humans and animals alike.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, and that loudness. I saw the Guinness record for
the loudest scream is one hundred and twenty nine decibels,
which is one decibel under a jet engine and almost
in almost ten times louder than a police siren.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Wonder you that was.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I don't know, but man, I can't imagine that they
did that too many times because, as we'll see, screaming
can really mess up your your neck junk.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, that's really gross. I'm getting older, so I'm getting
more and more neck junk.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Stress and neck chunk too.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
All right, So humans are are born with this ability.
We know how to scream right away because we come
out of the womb screaming. In fact, that's a very
comforting sound when a baby is born, is that first scream.
They're going to clear that flem in their airway so
they can breathe. It lets everybody know, Hey, I'm here,
(06:15):
I'm ready for action. I'm feeling good despite the fact
that I'm screaming. If a baby is born and there
is no scream, that is a very scary, scary moment
for parents and everybody in that room.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, I can imagine. It's like there the one time
we're not screaming means that there's an issue.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, you know, totally.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And there's a lot of information in a baby's scream.
It says I'm in distress, I'm in pain, I could
use a gnash. There's just a lot that makes a
parent because we're tuned to this kind of thing, especially
if you're the parent of that baby. Studies show that
you respond to your own baby's cries or screams a
(06:56):
lot more easily or quickly than somebody who is not
the parent into that baby. But you rush over there
and you say, here's some food, here's a little blanket,
and way to go. You just got all the phlegm
out of your throat, so now you can breathe normally.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah. I remember when you met Ruby as a baby
and she was screaming, and you're like, what the hell's
wrong with this kid?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah? I just you know, I tried to bounce around
my knee faster and it did the opposite help.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And I said, oh, Josh, I'm in tune already, not
in tune, tuned already. I was also in tune. And
I said, that just means she's hungry. So just raise
your shirt. Yeah, her what she needs.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That didn't work either. She got like hair in her
mouth though.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh my god, this got really disturbing very fast.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, we got it out.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
What about that cat cry?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So, there is a a syndrome that's colloquially called I
think creed a shot cry of the cat in French,
and it has some similarities to down syndrome. But one
of the defining characteristics of creed a shot is a
larynx mauthformation, so that babies, when they cry, like the
loud screaming cry, have a make us, a very specific
(08:09):
cry that sounds very much like a cat crying. Yeah,
if like you can find a couple of videos on
YouTube of people with their baby with crew to a
shot of crying, and it's it's really cute in a
lot of ways. But also you're like, that sounds a
lot like a cat, And it's so distinct that you
can actually initially diagnose an infant with crewdishot syndrome because
(08:31):
of their cry. It's that distinct.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, So I mean that's a benefit that can save
a lot of time and discomfort for this kid and
diagnosing this kind of condition exactly, it's great. It also
is a sign obviously when a kid is screaming saying hey, parent,
go into fight or flight mode because I need something,
(08:54):
and you know, if it's one of distress, even more
so obviously and not just like I'm hungry, like beer distress.
I don't know that we need to discuss fighter flight
in detail because we did it three hundred and sixty
four times over the first like five years of the show, right,
but everyone knows what that is, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Would think, so, I don't think we really need to
describe fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You're like, uh, but it's uh, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I stopped myself. I exercise a great restraint. Nice work, Okay, Well, anyway,
I'll take it from here, Chuck. Yeah, because the reason
you brought that up is screams activate fireflight mode in
some really like basic ways, as we'll see. And so
a scream actually activates in you a human who hears
a scream, that that readiness to like either spring into
(09:41):
action or run like hell or freeze or fawn is
the other one now, because the fight or flight syndromes
really come a long way since we last talked about it,
And fawn is the response that you want when a
baby's crying. You want to go over and be like, oh,
it's okay.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, that's here. Never mind abandoned that line of thought.
So let's talk about sound for a minute. Because all
sound comes from and is perceived by us through a
series of processes in the brain, and most of these
are in the higher brain region. But screams are different.
(10:21):
They happen in the lower brain region. And it's a
very interesting thing. It kind of lives in its own
as far as like humans making sound lives in its
own area. It's very distinct from all the other sounds
we make.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, and it's a lot faster to basically activate us
than the normal speech that we hear. Right, So when
you talk, when you're making just talk like I am
right now, say this is a good example. I'm using
this description as an example in real time. Okay, that's right.
So I'm using my laryngeal motor cortex that's basically running
(10:56):
the show right now, and that is a higher brain process. Right,
So I'm using cognition. I'm figuring out how my mouse
should move, which also requires fine motor coordination and processing sound.
I think from our Internal Dialogue episode, I'm doing a
quick quality check right before I actually say the words
yeah and Josh exactly, and do I sound like a
(11:19):
muppety tenor I do, let's go. And then this stuff
is sent to the brain stem, which basically says, okay,
laryings and vocal cords and lungs and abdominal muscles, let's talk.
That's normal speech. And again it requires a lot of
higher brain processing. Screaming uses a different set of equipment
to make itself happen. It's nuts because you think screaming
(11:43):
is a form of speech. It's actually not. Even though
we use a lot of the same stuff, a lot
of the same bait and tackle, say like it's its
own thing, which is I just find this is where
I'm like, Okay, this is super fascinating.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Now, yeah, that's right. So for screams, uh, and some
involuntary vocalizations, but really screams, the sound production takes a
different and, like you said, a much faster path. The
signal starts in the limbic system and it skips that
higher brain processing. Uh. The it happens in the amygdala. Basically,
the emotional stimulus that the amygdala is all about just
(12:23):
sends a scream signal. It's it's sort of like a
direct path, like a express train through that brain stem
to all the anatomy that you were talking about in
your in your the you know, the neck junk, and
that scream just comes out immediately. And the craziest part
is our body actually picks up on this before our
(12:44):
ears and brain can even process what we've just heard.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, once the scream comes out of someone else, when
we hear that scream, it puts us in fight or
flight mode before we're even consciously aware that we have
heard a scream. That's how that's how finely tuned we
are too responding to screams, which again, this is something
you just think exists out there, and then when you
dig in, you're like, my god. So there's like a
(13:09):
whole set of processes that take place that again are
different than how we would respond if we hear regular speech, right,
So it follows some of the same processes. It hits
the outer ear, goes through the ear canal, the ear
drum goes boom boom. That is amplified in the middle ear,
and that goes onto the cochlia, which triggers a wave
(13:30):
along the basel or membrane, which says, I'm going to
turn this into an electrical signal, sends it to the
auditory nerve, which sends it to the brain stem and
then to the thalamus. And the thalamus is the sensory
clearing house. It sends this to that and that to that.
All of your sensory information goes to the thalamus. And
here is where it diverges from normal speech.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, And I mean that's why when somebody screams, like
a blood curling scream out in public, you're instantly reacting.
You don't hear that and then decide like, well, maybe
I should go see what's going on over there, Like
your body is instantly reacting because it is unconsciously picked
up on that screen before it's even registered in your brain.
So it's really a pretty remarkable sort of evolutionary trait.
(14:17):
I think, like to help rescue, you know, probably back
in Tiktook's days, the wife or baby that the husband
who's out hunting and gathering has to protect from whatever
dangers are around the fire.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, And the reason why that happens is because when
it hits that balance, it gets sent two different ways. Like,
it gets sent the normal way to that higher brain processing,
and when it goes through that higher brain processing, that's
when you become conscious of hearing that scream. But what's
happened even faster is it got sent to that amygdala
and that sent in the fight or flight response, and
(14:53):
that happened before your higher brain finished processing, which is
just so there's this own pathway for just screams that
the human brain has evolved to basically make you able
to respond to a scream faster. It has its own expressway.
Screams only essentially, is what it says, and if your
(15:16):
regular speech you try to use that same expressway. It's
got those tire bursting spikes that will just stop you
cold right there, and they'll send you back along the
way you're supposed to go to the higher brain.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You go back to talk toown buddy exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And it's gonna take you a while to get there
because you don't have tires. You're driving on just rims
now because you were domin made a poor decision.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, and you shouldn't do that because you're gonna damage
those rims. You need to pull over immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah. Bad.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Should we take a break?
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
All right, we're gonna take a break and come back,
and Josh is gonna explain something called the roughness domain
right after this.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
All right, chuck, here we go. Here's the flubbing.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Okay, well we'll see. It's a little brain breaking, but
we'll get it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I think it's one of those things where if I
just thought too hard about it and I've made it
brain breaking. But so, screams have something in common, and
that is that they exist in a region of human
perception that's called the roughness domain. Okay, And if you
take someone's voice right, it has a certain frequency. My
(16:59):
voice has a certain frequency. You can recognize it as mine.
But you can take my voice and make it modulate, right,
So like the British police car that goes.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Dude, do do do do doo?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
That's modulating right. So it has its own its own frequency, right,
but you're making it change pitch do do do do?
So that's a second frequency that it has. And if
that frequency is between thirty hurts and one hundred and
fifty hertz, that modulation between up and down or left
(17:34):
and right, however you want to look at it. That
is that roughness area. And it also seems to be
reserved as far as human sounds go, just for screams.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, there was a study. They learned this because of
a study.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
We how'd I do?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Oh? You'd a great? Okay kid, I'm sorry I didn't
the customary thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We usually edit the colaps out. I think we should
leave that one in.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, yeah, let's leave that one in. They know this
because in twenty fifteen NYU, the neuroscientists, theyre published a
study supporting this role of amplitude modulation. And the crazy
part is that the only other sound in that rough
this domain, like that's the only sound a human can make.
That's like that. The only other sounds are all artificial alarms.
(18:22):
So the human screen lives in the roughest domain alongside
sirens and car alarms and you know, just other other
like claxon. Maybe what is that?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Is that the bad guys in Doctor Who?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I think a claxon is the Eh?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Oh those are terrible, like pull your credit card out
of the card terminal.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Does it actually do that?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yes, so they did originally. I think they've kind of stopped,
but it would used to be really jarring.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, I mean, because that's the sound that happens when
a nuclear facility is melting down.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Right, forget your credit card, melt on a nuclear facility,
basically the same thing.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, So thanks NYU for that. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, okay, that was just part one of this study.
This is a really robust study. So they analyzed recorded
sounds and they found that screams were all in roughness
and the only other sounds that were in there were alarms. Right.
Then they got a bunch of volunteers, almost guaranteed NYU
undergrads looking for extra credit, and they said, we want
(19:25):
you to make a bunch of sounds. We want you
to scream, we want you to speak normally, we want
you to scream speak yeah, and make a bunch of
meaningless vocalizations like yips, yammers, yelps, that whole thing, right, sure,
And then they analyzed those just like they analyzed the
recorded sounds, and they found that all of the scream
sounds were in the roughness domain, and all of the
(19:48):
non scream sounds, including yips and yamers, were not in
the roughness domain whatsoever. So they're really zeroing in. And
yet there's more to this study. This is how robust
it was.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah. So then they said, all right, we got all
this collection of sounds, neutral sounds is what we'll call,
the ones that aren't screams, and then the screamy things.
And they brought in some other volunteers, other NYU students
for sure, and said, all right, we want you to
rate the scariness like maybe on a one to ten,
one to five, who knows what they used, maybe a
Yelp star system, and they said, rate the scariness of
(20:23):
the sounds. All the sounds in the roughness domain. This
is pretty obvious. We're rated as scarier than the neutral sounds.
And the sounds that were rated the scariest were the
ones that were highest on the roughness scale.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
All makes sense, right, So they're really drilling down here.
It keeps going, everybody. They actually took volunteers, probably the
same ones who rated the scariness of the sounds, and
they scanned them while they were listening to scary sounds
and not just screamed but also the artificial alarms too,
and probably some of the nonsense sounds and musical sounds,
(20:57):
And as they were listening, the scream and the alarms
were the only ones that cause spikes in the amygdala. Remember,
the amygdala is where that set aside pathway for screams is,
and that the higher on the roughness scale, if you
can call it that, that the screams or alarms were,
the greater the amygdala activity, and then the greater the
(21:20):
amygdala activity that was shown in the scans, the higher
those sounds had been rated for scariness by the volunteers previously.
And when they wrapped it up and put all this together,
they were like, I forgot what we were studying in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So the upshot, to borrow a term from Josh, is
that it seems like humans are specifically attuned and our
amygdala is specifically activated by the sound of a scream,
to say like, hey, it's time to panic or it's
(21:58):
time to kick into high gear. They found that this
works if you're awake or asleep. Yeah, at the rough
vocalizations and that rough domain that we were talking about
penetrate human sleep cycles more than neutral vocalizations. And that's
not to say that like, yeah, of course it's louder, dummy.
We're not talking about decibels here, We're talking about a
(22:20):
frequency range. Like I think what they're saying and correct
me if I'm wrong, is that is that a scream
that might be the same decibel level as like a
really loud talk will penetrate that sleep cycle unlike that
really loud talk.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yes, And they think it's because the amygdala is tuned
to that thirty to one hundred and fifty hertz rightness band.
So the amygdala has its own route for getting you
aroused and not necessarily in the best way when you
hear a scream, and it's also listening out to a
specific band of modulation to that screams existence. So clearly,
(22:55):
thanks to our NYU researchers back in twenty fifteen, scream
are a really important and kind of overlooked part of
human speech right, and yeah for sure, and they think also, Chuck,
that not only has like have we evolved to develop
this alarm system, which clearly is what it is, because
(23:17):
not only you're saying help, you're also, depending on how
nice or altruistic the people listening are, you're also saying
look out, there's danger, and they may run away if
they're flee or they might run to you to help
you if they're ready to fight. But they also have
shown that screams have evolved in other ways too, Like
we don't scream just out of an alarm system anymore.
(23:40):
There's actually at least six other screams that they discovered
that correlate or correspond to six other separate emotions.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, anger, of course is going to be one you
can scream at somebody in traffic.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
There's a europe song called scream of Anger. Really in Europe,
of course, is known for a different song.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, but you know what I heard? Oh what was it?
That other europe song I forgot about the other day
on hair Nation on serious except OK, which I'm still
pounding by the way, I can't get away from it.
I'm so back into the hair metal. It's really funny
that's awesome. What was it? Keep on walking that road
(24:19):
and I'll follow. Yeah, and if a mirror shit break, superstitious.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
That was Europe.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, that was Europe. That was another big song besides
Final Countdown.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Okay, well so Scream of It it's a great song. Okay,
Scream of Anger is even better. It's like actual metal tinge.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you just made me think of Europe.
They're They're definitely not screamers. They had voices of angels.
They did obviously screaming fear, which is kind of one
of the things we've been talking about. Screaming in pain.
That's something that I have never experienced. I've been I've
felt great deals of physical pain, but I'm very internal.
(25:00):
I kind of go inward. But I've been to emergency rooms,
and a screamer in an emergency room is a very
unsettling situation.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, for sure. The one I always associate with that
is Tom Berenger telling that guy who got shot in
the gut and platoon to eat the pain.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Uh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
That guy was definitely screaming in pain.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah. Yeah, he put his hand over his mouth, was
that j Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So there's also this one's great scream of extreme joy.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah, like at a concert.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Maybe, sure, that's one. Or if you watch The Simpsons
and go back and watch I think the murder House
episode where Marge is a real estate agent selling a
murder house to Ned Flanders. You hear a terrible scream
and it turns out it's Ned Flanders screaming in joy
because there's purple drapes in the house. It's great. Just
(25:53):
go look it up. It's like a tense, pretty good clip.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I guess you know we're not going to dance around this.
We're adults here, obviously during intercourse and orgasm can produce
quite a scream, I'm told.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, next to that, I just have an ellipse.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Right, intense pleasure, so you know that extreme joy and
intense pleasure probably encapsulates both of those if you're doing
it right. And then a scream of sadness, and I
guess this is just like wailing.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Plus yeah, I feel like this one may have just
been mislabeled because I think you can make a case
that what they're describing here is actually a scream of
emotional pain, not physical pain. Emotional pain and.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
What's the sadness? Is right.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, I guess so so sure. I mean, maybe it's
just me that was like, no, that's wrong. A really
good example of it as far as movies go, is
Tony Collette in Hereditary.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Oh God, she.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Finds out that her daughter has died. It's yeah, wrenching
the work she does, like like, oh my god, it's
really tough to watch, and of course it's all over
the internet.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I am about to say something I thought I would
never say. I think I would like to see that
movie again.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Oh what did you not like it the first time?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I loved it, but it was it's a tough movie.
Oh it was one of those where I was like, wow,
that was amazing. But I don't think I need to
see that ever again. But I think I might want
to because it was really that great.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I've seen people here there describe it as potentially the
darkest dark comedy around.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And there's there's this one part that I think kind
of supports it. Do you remember the part where Steven
is in the classroom and he messes himself up pretty good?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Mmmm, it's been a while, but yeah, sort of.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, it's I mean, it's really good. I've seen it.
I think just a couple of times, but the second
time I saw it was not too long ago. But Chuck,
please please watch Saint Maud. As far as a twenty
four horror movies go, that's one of the more overlooked ones.
It is off the chain. It's so good and it's
just so nuts. Man.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Uh, why have I heard of that?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Is that I've told you to watch this before? I think, yeah,
And I don't think you watched it, because you would
have definitely come back and been like.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Dude, okay, Saint Lawed. That's all I need to say. Okay, dude. Yeah,
Well it's a British org. I'm all about those.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
It's good. There's it's rough though, like this is not
for kids, and there's you know, really upsetting stuff throughout.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So just FYI, all right, So back to screaming. Obviously, rage, fear, pain.
These are alarm screams. The non alarm screams, Like we
talked about, the joy, intense pleasure. I don't think I'll
throw sadness in there, because that can be alarm. But
those aren't things that you will find in the animal Kingdom.
(28:40):
It is a distinctly uniquely human instinct to signal something
positive with the scream. Animals don't scream out in joy.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
No, but we do think that some non human primates
scream out in grief though. Isn't that awful?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Oh man, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Think that's a great way to end this section and
start with the ad break. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, let's do it and things all right, So back
(29:37):
to screaming. I was I was afraid you're gonna scream.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
At one point.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Not something we're gonna do. I can't remember the last
time I tried to scream. Yeah, like just like as
a like, Hey, what's your scream sound like at a
party or something? You know, that old party trick? And
I wonder, like I always think of, like the best
scream I've ever heard is probably from American movie, the
(30:02):
documentary you saw that, right, No, the American movie. It
was about the the guys in Wisconsin making the low
budget horror movie. That's why I would say Covin because
he pronounced it covin.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I never saw that. I know what you're talking about
is worth seeing.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, Oh, it's one of the great great documentaries of
all time. Highly recommend it. But Mike Shank rest in peace,
Mike has leftist very sadly. There's one part in there
where the main guy is trying to record screams for
his low budget horror film he's making in the studio,
and Mike shank was this very very low key friend
(30:42):
of his out of nowhere else send you the clip
produces the most blood curdling scream I've ever heard in
my life. It's incredible, definitely, and one of the funnier
parts of that too, because nobody saw it coming, including
his friend, and his reaction is great and it's just
one of the great parts of that movie.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Well, me and everybody listening will definitely see it coming. Now.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Oh it's yeah, I guess that is a little bit spoiler,
but it's a twenty year old documentary.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So all right, I'll watch it though.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Okay, if you watch t Et goes Home to everybody.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Okay. So there's a name that's been kind of bestowed
on some actresses over the years, which is scream Queen.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
I always associate that with Jamie Lee Curtis, who got
that from Halloween and prom Night. It actually dates back
like fifty plus years before Halloween with Fay Ray when
she was in King Kong. In nineteen thirty three. Apparently
I've not seen the original King Kong, but her screams
are supposedly really terrifying, and they did them all in
(31:47):
post production, like apparently American movie, and then they mixed
them together to just make them as disturbing as possible.
But Fay Ray, the nineteen thirties actress, was the original
scream queen.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That's right. It's a pretty good screw. Not nearly as
chilling as Mike Shanks, but it was nineteen thirty three.
They did a pretty good job. You usually associate it
with like a scream queen, like you know, it's usually
a woman screaming in a horror movie. That's just sort
of the trope. But there have been some notable man screams.
(32:18):
James concert Lam mentioned earlier from Misery, but another that
was done in post production, but it is so great.
You should just check out this clip on YouTube. Is
that the chilling ending of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
from nineteen seventy eight with Donald Sutherland. And you know
who was in charge of that scream? My friend, you
probably looked this up, but it's our old pal from
(32:41):
Star Wars, oh, who was hitting that high tension wire
with a wrench. Ben Burt.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, he was just a legend, wasn't he.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, apparently this was layering pig squeals on top of
each other. And it's a sort of a classic ending
to that movie because that is the same that the
pod people make when they see a human. And well,
I mean, I guess this is all spoiler stuff, but
it's from nineteen seventy eight. Donald Sutherland makes that sound
at the end when he sees a human, indicating chillingly
(33:15):
that he is now a pod person.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, so keep an eye on Donald Sutherland when you
watch that movie for the first time.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
There's a couple others. Thomas Jane gives a really terrible
scream at the end of The Mist, which has one
of the unsettling endings I think of any movie ever,
maybe tied with it Comes in the Night, which is
another really unsettling a twenty four movie. Bruce Campbell he's
(33:43):
a great man, screamer, I guess, scream king.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
He does everything great and then justin.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Long He's definitely he's been in like way more horror
movies than you would think, but he I'm pretty sure
he screams pretty well in Barbarian Man. And then also
I can't help but bring up since I mentioned Justin Long,
He's in a new movie called Coyotes, which is a
horror comedy about coyotes going on a rampage. And it
just so happens that my niece, Mela Harris is in
(34:10):
that movie too. She plays his and Kate Bosworth's daughter.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Oh that's great. I love that. The odd connection of
Justin Long and Hodgman. Of course with the mac Apple
commercials for sure. When I was out in New York
that time, after hanging out with Hodgman, you and I
think went to a thing with him. Then later that
night I saw Justin Long out, Oh weird, and I
had to say something to him. I was like, you know,
(34:37):
John's a friend of mine. I was just hanging out
with him. It's funny that I saw you. And he said, well, Mela,
Josh's future niece is right behind me.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
It was very funny.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Thanks for a circling back like though. That was really
kind of course.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And then you know we have to also give a
do to the a couple more scream queens. Very famously
Janet Lee and Psycho and you got to talk about
Nev Campbell in the movie Scream.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yes, And I would make an assertion that Mia Goth
is the current Scream queen from the Maxazine trilogy.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I think she's great.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
He's the one killing it right now.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah, she's awesome. And speaking of Scream, and I'm only
plugging an old movie crush because guest Nate Bargetzi is
now the biggest comedian on planet Earth.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I know it's so great.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
But I had Nate on because I was a fan
of Nate's very early on and I just wanted to
meet Nate. So I drove to Nashville and had Nate on,
and his movie crush pick was Scream.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Did he know you were coming?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah? I took cornered him in a studio and he's like,
who's this guy?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
He's such a good guy too, man, It's like his
comedy's perfect, like he's it's I'm just really happy that
he's so huge now.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
He's a great guy and super super nice in person,
and I'm sure he is still that way even now
that he's super famous. He seems like he's still a
great guy. But Nate was very charming guests, So you
can if you want to. If you're a big fan
of Nate's now and you want to hear him talk
to me, you can check out that old movie crush.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Don't just check out that old movie crush, check out
all the movie crushes because they are all priceless gems.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, I definitely missed that show, but you know, some
things just have to be retired eventually.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Exactly, Chuck, So did you mention death metal? I thought
you did.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I don't think so, but that's obviously a place where
screaming can be a profession in a way.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
So yeah, So, the University of Utah conducted these tests
where they took dynamic MRI, so like you don't have
to just be laying down still to get an MRI
image of a person. They took MRIs of a guy
named Will Ramos who's a death core singer for a
band called Lorna Shore, and he is extraordinarily talented. Whether
(36:43):
you like death core or can't stand death cores, go
look up to the hell Fire the Lorna Shore video
and his range of the work he does with screaming,
like death core screaming is you can't help but be impressed.
He's really good, right, so they got a really good
person to study, because not only is he really good
(37:04):
at screaming deathcore wise or death metal wise, his vocal junk,
his neck junk is like entirely intact, like it's really healthy.
He's been doing this for years and he hasn't done
any damage. So these University of Utah researchers are like,
what are you doing? Can we take MRIs of you singing?
And they did, and it's really cool because the one
(37:27):
of him just singing normally, you can barely see any
movement inside the neck. Right when he screams, it just
is chaos in there. And apparently people who know what
the anatomy is can look at him and be like,
oh my god, he's doing this and this is how
he's keeping from ruining his vocal cords. So they actually
got pretty far with it. But it's worth checking out
(37:49):
that article because just for the MRIs side by side amazing.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
I thought, so yeah, and you know, it sounds like
he has something special going on in his neck junk,
because screaming can definitely like it's very hard on your throat.
So good for him. He found his calling.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
He found his niche he got him where he fought in.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
That's right. Another reason to scream kind of here is
where finishing up is pain control. They did a pretty
interesting survey in twenty twenty of children that had been
in the hospital and pain like screaming to relieve pain control.
It turns out is probably a thing I haven't seen
like the most robust scientific study, but at least from
(38:34):
this survey, children routinely described feeling a feeling of liberation
when they screamed, and then a feeling of calmness afterward
that helped them experience pain in a more manageable way.
The problem is is that adults and doctors and nurses
can't take it. Obviously, parents, it's going to be very
(38:56):
disturbing because they're going to try and get their kid
to not scream, and the same goes for doctors and
nurses trying to comfort them. But the status quote of
all it seems like it helped them. In an eight
year old noted, maybe it's good to scream, but they
don't know that. Nobody asks me, my god.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I know it said it's awful. The reason why they
think that it does help with pain relief is because
one of the hormones or one of the chemicals released
in the fight or flight response is are endorphins, which
can dull pain. So it does make sense that screaming
could help you with pain. There's another clever use of screaming,
(39:35):
if you ask me, then screaming in the emergency room,
which is replacing the current paradigm for creating anxiety inside
a lab to study anxiety for research, which is to
threaten people with a shock. And they've actually found that
you can threaten people that with a scream and generate
(39:56):
anxiety just as reliably. So people are like, we should
stop threatening people with shocks because it's unethical and just
start saying somebody's gonna scream in a second or maybe
two seconds. You're never going to know, and that can
generate anxiety as well.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
But you know, we're so soft. Before long, they're gonna
be like, you can't scream with people either, right.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
They'll be like, we want you to feel anxiety right now.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Please, yeah, and would you do that for.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I'm sure the participant would be like, I feel anxiety
all the time, can do right?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Then? I guess finally we should at least mention scream
therapy or primal scream therapy. I feel like we talked
about this at a certain point, but this has been
around since the sixties. I felt like it was probably biggest,
maybe in the late sixties and seventies. The original primal
scream therapy psychologist was Arthur Janoff and this was based
(40:50):
on the idea that like we all have this repressed
trauma from childhood, it's stored as primal pain. And Arthur
Janell said, well, you know what, a good old fashion
screaming session can release that stuff and get it out there.
The bad news is it turns out there's not a
lot of evidence that supports it as being a credible
(41:11):
form of therapy.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
No, and actually I think it's possible it can hurt
in trauma therapy because screaming can arouse anxiety in the
person screaming even too, so not necessarily the best thing
to do.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
No, but very sixty seventies I could see that being
a thing.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Super There's like one of those wicker chairs that people
used to take prom pictures in one of the wicker throne.
There's definitely one of those in the office.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, I think Black Moses album cover wasn't Isaac Kay's
in one of.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Those, I believe, So, yeah, was there like a panther
laying at his feet too?
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Probably there should have been.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Okay, Well, obviously, since we started talking about Isaac Hayes,
I think we've just unlicked listener mail.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Chuck, that's right, and I am wrong actually, because of
course the Black Moses album cover was just that great
picture of Isaac Kay's with the shades on and wearing
that sort of striped colored hood. But maybe it was
on the back. I definitely have seen Isaa Kays in
a wicker throne.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Here, Joe.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Maybe it was Escape from New York. All right, guys,
this is Leslie. All right, guys. I don't remember how
I was turned onto your podcast, but I've been a
regular listener for several years now, and finally I'm getting
around to writing. Often. Wish I was in the studio
during her recording so I could comment or applaud hey
like I did today. Yeah. I was sad to learn
that you weren't doing San Francisco's Sketch Fest this year,
(42:38):
but I'm hoping you come back next year. My friend
Christina and I will be there. I wanted to write
when the topic was animal communication because the musical interlude
was an homage to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, which
was brilliant. You thank Jerry for that. By the way,
I work in animal care, you see, so I love
your animal episodes. I appreciate how you guys accept a
(42:59):
correction showing up. It's okay to make a mistake as
long as you learn from it. And I appreciate how
you present important yet sensitive topics in a respectful way,
or how you share multiple points of view on divisive issues.
I just want to thank you for keeping me company
during my commute, explaining complex things, making seemingly unsavory topics palatable,
entertain me, educating me, and more ps in support of
(43:22):
your efforts to grow your listenership. Still, I shared your
Sesame Street episode on my Facebook page, so Leslie really
appreciate that. Yeah, and then there's a PPS. I've often
thought a good drinking game could be to drink every
time Chuck says that's right, roll off the tongue or
for sure for sure. But I don't drink alcohol, so
if I were to play, I'd probably just get really
(43:43):
well hydrated. It's very funny, Leslie s in the San
Francisco Bay area. And yeah, Leslie, we'd love to see
you at our show next year because hopefully we'll be there.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
That was really really sweet when a very nice email, Leslie,
thank you for taking the time to write all that,
and thank you for sharing our Sysame Street episode. That's
a pretty good one to share. If you ask me,
and if you want to be like Leslie and send
us a very nice email. We always love getting those.
You can send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and I'm not going to scream to start this
off because I care about all of you listening.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, that was a new for you. Yeah, we're talking about.
Julia helped us out with this one, and I commissioned
this one. And I don't remember what instigated it. It
definitely wasn't from hearing somebody scream. I may have seen
an article or something that piqued my interest and I
(00:39):
was like, wait a minute, what like screaming? Is interesting
that people scream and for all different kinds of reasons
people scream, and that's why I picked it.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Here we are. Yeah, I was very surprised and impressed this.
It's one of those ones where you just think you
know about it because you never really thought about it.
When you diving into it. There's a lot more to
it than you ever realized. Although all of it makes
sense anecdotally, you're like, oh, yeah, oh yeah, I've done that.
I've screamed like that. I'd screamed and screamed and screamed
(01:12):
again it. Yeah, I like ones like this. I guess
human human nature explained, and there's a comment there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Somewhere in there definitely not a colon. We should get
some nuts and bolts out of the way. As far
as like, everyone knows what a scream is. It's obviously
a very loud, high pitched, harsh thing on the ears.
It's a sound that you make with I was about say,
with your mouth, but we'll get to the parts that
make the scream. But nuts and bolts wise, the scream
(01:41):
is in about the eighty to one hundred and twenty
decibel range. In volume, sixty decibels is normal speech unless
you're my wife. That's more like an A seventy five.
I would say she and her her friend Stacy, or
to the loudest humans on earth, and they admit that
(02:04):
they're not wallflowers, and they own it and I respect it.
Nice they reach frequent Not Stacey and Emily, but humans.
I'm sorry. The human scream can reach a frequency in
the range of two thousand to three thousand herts, whereas
a normal talker is about eighty to three hundred herts.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, and for dumb dums with sound like me, the
higher the hurts, the higher the pitch, so hurts is
a measure of actual frequency. Pitch is basically a measure,
a description of how we experience that frequency.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That's right, And just to clear up something for what's
coming later. A sound, a tone can have two different frequencies.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I've got it. I have it now.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, I can't wait to explain it later because it's
gonna get flubbed all over the place.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well, it isn't intuitive like you would think, like a
guitar string makes like, you know, one frequency range. But
it's just yeah, it's not true. It's one of those things.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, this is not true. We'll just leave it at that.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves, chuck.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah. Back to screaming, right.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, because if you think about screaming, I always think
of someone screaming, usually in a horror movie or something
like that. I haven't heard too many, like real deal
screams in real life, which is nice. But we're not
the only animals that scream. There's plenty of other animals
in the animal kingdom that scream that we know of.
(03:35):
I'm quite sure there's plants that scream too, we just
can't hear them. Maybe but birds scream, seals, marmots, mountain lions,
and I didn't know giraffes scream. That's got to be
off putting. The funniest scream of all as a goat screaming. Yeah,
if you have never witnessed a goat scream, go right
(03:59):
now to YouTube and just look up goat screaming videos.
And they don't all scream the same way, but every
once in a while, one of them is going to
come along and scream like a man. And it is like,
you will, you can't not laugh out loud when you
see it. Every time I watched the same goat scream
over and over again, and I laughed out loud every
time I watched it.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, and it's so non goat sounding because it's not
even like a loud bleat that you wonder like, is
somebody punking me? And that's just like, you know, that's
James con from misery that they're looping in there.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Does kind of sound like that. Another one to look
up real quick, or two links in Ontario screaming at
each other. It's like right in their faces. Have you
seen that one?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I haven't seen that.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh, it's it's nuts.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Animals well, they Well, let's just talk about why anything screams.
It's a very effective tool. It's obviously a great fear
response because everyone's going to sit up and take notice
because it's so harsh and loud. It's a very jarring thing.
It can also distract predators, obviously, screaming if you're lost,
(05:07):
you know, scream can travel a great distance in the
woods or anywhere, and you can, you know, alert somebody
from a great distance. So it's a it's a great
communicative tool for humans and animals alike.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, and that loudness. I saw the Guinness record for
the loudest scream is one hundred and twenty nine decibels,
which is one decibel under a jet engine and almost
in almost ten times louder than a police siren.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Wonder you that was.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I don't know, but man, I can't imagine that they
did that too many times because, as we'll see, screaming
can really mess up your your neck junk.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, that's really gross. I'm getting older, so I'm getting
more and more neck junk.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Stress and neck chunk too.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
All right, So humans are are born with this ability.
We know how to scream right away because we come
out of the womb screaming. In fact, that's a very
comforting sound when a baby is born, is that first scream.
They're going to clear that flem in their airway so
they can breathe. It lets everybody know, Hey, I'm here,
(06:15):
I'm ready for action. I'm feeling good despite the fact
that I'm screaming. If a baby is born and there
is no scream, that is a very scary, scary moment
for parents and everybody in that room.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, I can imagine. It's like there the one time
we're not screaming means that there's an issue.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, you know, totally.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And there's a lot of information in a baby's scream.
It says I'm in distress, I'm in pain, I could
use a gnash. There's just a lot that makes a
parent because we're tuned to this kind of thing, especially
if you're the parent of that baby. Studies show that
you respond to your own baby's cries or screams a
(06:56):
lot more easily or quickly than somebody who is not
the parent into that baby. But you rush over there
and you say, here's some food, here's a little blanket,
and way to go. You just got all the phlegm
out of your throat, so now you can breathe normally.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah. I remember when you met Ruby as a baby
and she was screaming, and you're like, what the hell's
wrong with this kid?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah? I just you know, I tried to bounce around
my knee faster and it did the opposite help.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And I said, oh, Josh, I'm in tune already, not
in tune, tuned already. I was also in tune. And
I said, that just means she's hungry. So just raise
your shirt. Yeah, her what she needs.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That didn't work either. She got like hair in her
mouth though.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh my god, this got really disturbing very fast.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, we got it out.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
What about that cat cry?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So, there is a a syndrome that's colloquially called I
think creed a shot cry of the cat in French,
and it has some similarities to down syndrome. But one
of the defining characteristics of creed a shot is a
larynx mauthformation, so that babies, when they cry, like the
loud screaming cry, have a make us, a very specific
(08:09):
cry that sounds very much like a cat crying. Yeah,
if like you can find a couple of videos on
YouTube of people with their baby with crew to a
shot of crying, and it's it's really cute in a
lot of ways. But also you're like, that sounds a
lot like a cat, And it's so distinct that you
can actually initially diagnose an infant with crewdishot syndrome because
(08:31):
of their cry. It's that distinct.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, So I mean that's a benefit that can save
a lot of time and discomfort for this kid and
diagnosing this kind of condition exactly, it's great. It also
is a sign obviously when a kid is screaming saying hey, parent,
go into fight or flight mode because I need something,
(08:54):
and you know, if it's one of distress, even more
so obviously and not just like I'm hungry, like beer distress.
I don't know that we need to discuss fighter flight
in detail because we did it three hundred and sixty
four times over the first like five years of the show, right,
but everyone knows what that is, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Would think, so, I don't think we really need to
describe fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You're like, uh, but it's uh, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I stopped myself. I exercise a great restraint. Nice work, Okay, Well, anyway,
I'll take it from here, Chuck. Yeah, because the reason
you brought that up is screams activate fireflight mode in
some really like basic ways, as we'll see. And so
a scream actually activates in you a human who hears
a scream, that that readiness to like either spring into
(09:41):
action or run like hell or freeze or fawn is
the other one now, because the fight or flight syndromes
really come a long way since we last talked about it,
And fawn is the response that you want when a
baby's crying. You want to go over and be like, oh,
it's okay.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, that's here. Never mind abandoned that line of thought.
So let's talk about sound for a minute. Because all
sound comes from and is perceived by us through a
series of processes in the brain, and most of these
are in the higher brain region. But screams are different.
(10:21):
They happen in the lower brain region. And it's a
very interesting thing. It kind of lives in its own
as far as like humans making sound lives in its
own area. It's very distinct from all the other sounds
we make.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, and it's a lot faster to basically activate us
than the normal speech that we hear. Right, So when
you talk, when you're making just talk like I am
right now, say this is a good example. I'm using
this description as an example in real time. Okay, that's right.
So I'm using my laryngeal motor cortex that's basically running
(10:56):
the show right now, and that is a higher brain process. Right,
So I'm using cognition. I'm figuring out how my mouse
should move, which also requires fine motor coordination and processing sound.
I think from our Internal Dialogue episode, I'm doing a
quick quality check right before I actually say the words
yeah and Josh exactly, and do I sound like a
(11:19):
muppety tenor I do, let's go. And then this stuff
is sent to the brain stem, which basically says, okay,
laryings and vocal cords and lungs and abdominal muscles, let's talk.
That's normal speech. And again it requires a lot of
higher brain processing. Screaming uses a different set of equipment
to make itself happen. It's nuts because you think screaming
(11:43):
is a form of speech. It's actually not. Even though
we use a lot of the same stuff, a lot
of the same bait and tackle, say like it's its
own thing, which is I just find this is where
I'm like, Okay, this is super fascinating.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Now, yeah, that's right. So for screams, uh, and some
involuntary vocalizations, but really screams, the sound production takes a
different and, like you said, a much faster path. The
signal starts in the limbic system and it skips that
higher brain processing. Uh. The it happens in the amygdala. Basically,
the emotional stimulus that the amygdala is all about just
(12:23):
sends a scream signal. It's it's sort of like a
direct path, like a express train through that brain stem
to all the anatomy that you were talking about in
your in your the you know, the neck junk, and
that scream just comes out immediately. And the craziest part
is our body actually picks up on this before our
(12:44):
ears and brain can even process what we've just heard.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, once the scream comes out of someone else, when
we hear that scream, it puts us in fight or
flight mode before we're even consciously aware that we have
heard a scream. That's how that's how finely tuned we
are too responding to screams, which again, this is something
you just think exists out there, and then when you
dig in, you're like, my god. So there's like a
(13:09):
whole set of processes that take place that again are
different than how we would respond if we hear regular speech, right,
So it follows some of the same processes. It hits
the outer ear, goes through the ear canal, the ear
drum goes boom boom. That is amplified in the middle ear,
and that goes onto the cochlia, which triggers a wave
(13:30):
along the basel or membrane, which says, I'm going to
turn this into an electrical signal, sends it to the
auditory nerve, which sends it to the brain stem and
then to the thalamus. And the thalamus is the sensory
clearing house. It sends this to that and that to that.
All of your sensory information goes to the thalamus. And
here is where it diverges from normal speech.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, And I mean that's why when somebody screams, like
a blood curling scream out in public, you're instantly reacting.
You don't hear that and then decide like, well, maybe
I should go see what's going on over there, Like
your body is instantly reacting because it is unconsciously picked
up on that screen before it's even registered in your brain.
So it's really a pretty remarkable sort of evolutionary trait.
(14:17):
I think, like to help rescue, you know, probably back
in Tiktook's days, the wife or baby that the husband
who's out hunting and gathering has to protect from whatever
dangers are around the fire.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, And the reason why that happens is because when
it hits that balance, it gets sent two different ways. Like,
it gets sent the normal way to that higher brain processing,
and when it goes through that higher brain processing, that's
when you become conscious of hearing that scream. But what's
happened even faster is it got sent to that amygdala
and that sent in the fight or flight response, and
(14:53):
that happened before your higher brain finished processing, which is
just so there's this own pathway for just screams that
the human brain has evolved to basically make you able
to respond to a scream faster. It has its own expressway.
Screams only essentially, is what it says, and if your
(15:16):
regular speech you try to use that same expressway. It's
got those tire bursting spikes that will just stop you
cold right there, and they'll send you back along the
way you're supposed to go to the higher brain.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You go back to talk toown buddy exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And it's gonna take you a while to get there
because you don't have tires. You're driving on just rims
now because you were domin made a poor decision.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, and you shouldn't do that because you're gonna damage
those rims. You need to pull over immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah. Bad.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Should we take a break?
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
All right, we're gonna take a break and come back,
and Josh is gonna explain something called the roughness domain
right after this.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
All right, chuck, here we go. Here's the flubbing.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Okay, well we'll see. It's a little brain breaking, but
we'll get it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I think it's one of those things where if I
just thought too hard about it and I've made it
brain breaking. But so, screams have something in common, and
that is that they exist in a region of human
perception that's called the roughness domain. Okay, And if you
take someone's voice right, it has a certain frequency. My
(16:59):
voice has a certain frequency. You can recognize it as mine.
But you can take my voice and make it modulate, right,
So like the British police car that goes.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Dude, do do do do doo?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
That's modulating right. So it has its own its own frequency, right,
but you're making it change pitch do do do do?
So that's a second frequency that it has. And if
that frequency is between thirty hurts and one hundred and
fifty hertz, that modulation between up and down or left
(17:34):
and right, however you want to look at it. That
is that roughness area. And it also seems to be
reserved as far as human sounds go, just for screams.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, there was a study. They learned this because of
a study.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
We how'd I do?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Oh? You'd a great? Okay kid, I'm sorry I didn't
the customary thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We usually edit the colaps out. I think we should
leave that one in.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, yeah, let's leave that one in. They know this
because in twenty fifteen NYU, the neuroscientists, theyre published a
study supporting this role of amplitude modulation. And the crazy
part is that the only other sound in that rough
this domain, like that's the only sound a human can make.
That's like that. The only other sounds are all artificial alarms.
(18:22):
So the human screen lives in the roughest domain alongside
sirens and car alarms and you know, just other other
like claxon. Maybe what is that?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Is that the bad guys in Doctor Who?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I think a claxon is the Eh?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Oh those are terrible, like pull your credit card out
of the card terminal.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Does it actually do that?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yes, so they did originally. I think they've kind of stopped,
but it would used to be really jarring.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, I mean, because that's the sound that happens when
a nuclear facility is melting down.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Right, forget your credit card, melt on a nuclear facility,
basically the same thing.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, So thanks NYU for that. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, okay, that was just part one of this study.
This is a really robust study. So they analyzed recorded
sounds and they found that screams were all in roughness
and the only other sounds that were in there were alarms. Right.
Then they got a bunch of volunteers, almost guaranteed NYU
undergrads looking for extra credit, and they said, we want
(19:25):
you to make a bunch of sounds. We want you
to scream, we want you to speak normally, we want
you to scream speak yeah, and make a bunch of
meaningless vocalizations like yips, yammers, yelps, that whole thing, right, sure,
And then they analyzed those just like they analyzed the
recorded sounds, and they found that all of the scream
sounds were in the roughness domain, and all of the
(19:48):
non scream sounds, including yips and yamers, were not in
the roughness domain whatsoever. So they're really zeroing in. And
yet there's more to this study. This is how robust
it was.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah. So then they said, all right, we got all
this collection of sounds, neutral sounds is what we'll call,
the ones that aren't screams, and then the screamy things.
And they brought in some other volunteers, other NYU students
for sure, and said, all right, we want you to
rate the scariness like maybe on a one to ten,
one to five, who knows what they used, maybe a
Yelp star system, and they said, rate the scariness of
(20:23):
the sounds. All the sounds in the roughness domain. This
is pretty obvious. We're rated as scarier than the neutral sounds.
And the sounds that were rated the scariest were the
ones that were highest on the roughness scale.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
All makes sense, right, So they're really drilling down here.
It keeps going, everybody. They actually took volunteers, probably the
same ones who rated the scariness of the sounds, and
they scanned them while they were listening to scary sounds
and not just screamed but also the artificial alarms too,
and probably some of the nonsense sounds and musical sounds,
(20:57):
And as they were listening, the scream and the alarms
were the only ones that cause spikes in the amygdala. Remember,
the amygdala is where that set aside pathway for screams is,
and that the higher on the roughness scale, if you
can call it that, that the screams or alarms were,
the greater the amygdala activity, and then the greater the
(21:20):
amygdala activity that was shown in the scans, the higher
those sounds had been rated for scariness by the volunteers previously.
And when they wrapped it up and put all this together,
they were like, I forgot what we were studying in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So the upshot, to borrow a term from Josh, is
that it seems like humans are specifically attuned and our
amygdala is specifically activated by the sound of a scream,
to say like, hey, it's time to panic or it's
(21:58):
time to kick into high gear. They found that this
works if you're awake or asleep. Yeah, at the rough
vocalizations and that rough domain that we were talking about
penetrate human sleep cycles more than neutral vocalizations. And that's
not to say that like, yeah, of course it's louder, dummy.
We're not talking about decibels here, We're talking about a
(22:20):
frequency range. Like I think what they're saying and correct
me if I'm wrong, is that is that a scream
that might be the same decibel level as like a
really loud talk will penetrate that sleep cycle unlike that
really loud talk.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yes, And they think it's because the amygdala is tuned
to that thirty to one hundred and fifty hertz rightness band.
So the amygdala has its own route for getting you
aroused and not necessarily in the best way when you
hear a scream, and it's also listening out to a
specific band of modulation to that screams existence. So clearly,
(22:55):
thanks to our NYU researchers back in twenty fifteen, scream
are a really important and kind of overlooked part of
human speech right, and yeah for sure, and they think also, Chuck,
that not only has like have we evolved to develop
this alarm system, which clearly is what it is, because
(23:17):
not only you're saying help, you're also, depending on how
nice or altruistic the people listening are, you're also saying
look out, there's danger, and they may run away if
they're flee or they might run to you to help
you if they're ready to fight. But they also have
shown that screams have evolved in other ways too, Like
we don't scream just out of an alarm system anymore.
(23:40):
There's actually at least six other screams that they discovered
that correlate or correspond to six other separate emotions.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, anger, of course is going to be one you
can scream at somebody in traffic.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
There's a europe song called scream of Anger. Really in Europe,
of course, is known for a different song.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, but you know what I heard? Oh what was it?
That other europe song I forgot about the other day
on hair Nation on serious except OK, which I'm still
pounding by the way, I can't get away from it.
I'm so back into the hair metal. It's really funny
that's awesome. What was it? Keep on walking that road
(24:19):
and I'll follow. Yeah, and if a mirror shit break, superstitious.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
That was Europe.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, that was Europe. That was another big song besides
Final Countdown.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Okay, well so Scream of It it's a great song. Okay,
Scream of Anger is even better. It's like actual metal tinge.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you just made me think of Europe.
They're They're definitely not screamers. They had voices of angels.
They did obviously screaming fear, which is kind of one
of the things we've been talking about. Screaming in pain.
That's something that I have never experienced. I've been I've
felt great deals of physical pain, but I'm very internal.
(25:00):
I kind of go inward. But I've been to emergency rooms,
and a screamer in an emergency room is a very
unsettling situation.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, for sure. The one I always associate with that
is Tom Berenger telling that guy who got shot in
the gut and platoon to eat the pain.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Uh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
That guy was definitely screaming in pain.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah. Yeah, he put his hand over his mouth, was
that j Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So there's also this one's great scream of extreme joy.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah, like at a concert.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Maybe, sure, that's one. Or if you watch The Simpsons
and go back and watch I think the murder House
episode where Marge is a real estate agent selling a
murder house to Ned Flanders. You hear a terrible scream
and it turns out it's Ned Flanders screaming in joy
because there's purple drapes in the house. It's great. Just
(25:53):
go look it up. It's like a tense, pretty good clip.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I guess you know we're not going to dance around this.
We're adults here, obviously during intercourse and orgasm can produce
quite a scream, I'm told.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, next to that, I just have an ellipse.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Right, intense pleasure, so you know that extreme joy and
intense pleasure probably encapsulates both of those if you're doing
it right. And then a scream of sadness, and I
guess this is just like wailing.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Plus yeah, I feel like this one may have just
been mislabeled because I think you can make a case
that what they're describing here is actually a scream of
emotional pain, not physical pain. Emotional pain and.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
What's the sadness? Is right.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, I guess so so sure. I mean, maybe it's
just me that was like, no, that's wrong. A really
good example of it as far as movies go, is
Tony Collette in Hereditary.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Oh God, she.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Finds out that her daughter has died. It's yeah, wrenching
the work she does, like like, oh my god, it's
really tough to watch, and of course it's all over
the internet.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I am about to say something I thought I would
never say. I think I would like to see that
movie again.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Oh what did you not like it the first time?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I loved it, but it was it's a tough movie.
Oh it was one of those where I was like, wow,
that was amazing. But I don't think I need to
see that ever again. But I think I might want
to because it was really that great.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I've seen people here there describe it as potentially the
darkest dark comedy around.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And there's there's this one part that I think kind
of supports it. Do you remember the part where Steven
is in the classroom and he messes himself up pretty good?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Mmmm, it's been a while, but yeah, sort of.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, it's I mean, it's really good. I've seen it.
I think just a couple of times, but the second
time I saw it was not too long ago. But Chuck,
please please watch Saint Maud. As far as a twenty
four horror movies go, that's one of the more overlooked ones.
It is off the chain. It's so good and it's
just so nuts. Man.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Uh, why have I heard of that?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Is that I've told you to watch this before? I think, yeah,
And I don't think you watched it, because you would
have definitely come back and been like.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Dude, okay, Saint Lawed. That's all I need to say. Okay, dude. Yeah,
Well it's a British org. I'm all about those.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
It's good. There's it's rough though, like this is not
for kids, and there's you know, really upsetting stuff throughout.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So just FYI, all right, So back to screaming. Obviously, rage, fear, pain.
These are alarm screams. The non alarm screams, Like we
talked about, the joy, intense pleasure. I don't think I'll
throw sadness in there, because that can be alarm. But
those aren't things that you will find in the animal Kingdom.
(28:40):
It is a distinctly uniquely human instinct to signal something
positive with the scream. Animals don't scream out in joy.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
No, but we do think that some non human primates
scream out in grief though. Isn't that awful?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Oh man, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Think that's a great way to end this section and
start with the ad break. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, let's do it and things all right, So back
(29:37):
to screaming. I was I was afraid you're gonna scream.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
At one point.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Not something we're gonna do. I can't remember the last
time I tried to scream. Yeah, like just like as
a like, Hey, what's your scream sound like at a
party or something? You know, that old party trick? And
I wonder, like I always think of, like the best
scream I've ever heard is probably from American movie, the
(30:02):
documentary you saw that, right, No, the American movie. It
was about the the guys in Wisconsin making the low
budget horror movie. That's why I would say Covin because
he pronounced it covin.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I never saw that. I know what you're talking about
is worth seeing.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, Oh, it's one of the great great documentaries of
all time. Highly recommend it. But Mike Shank rest in peace,
Mike has leftist very sadly. There's one part in there
where the main guy is trying to record screams for
his low budget horror film he's making in the studio,
and Mike shank was this very very low key friend
(30:42):
of his out of nowhere else send you the clip
produces the most blood curdling scream I've ever heard in
my life. It's incredible, definitely, and one of the funnier
parts of that too, because nobody saw it coming, including
his friend, and his reaction is great and it's just
one of the great parts of that movie.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Well, me and everybody listening will definitely see it coming. Now.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Oh it's yeah, I guess that is a little bit spoiler,
but it's a twenty year old documentary.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So all right, I'll watch it though.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Okay, if you watch t Et goes Home to everybody.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Okay. So there's a name that's been kind of bestowed
on some actresses over the years, which is scream Queen.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
I always associate that with Jamie Lee Curtis, who got
that from Halloween and prom Night. It actually dates back
like fifty plus years before Halloween with Fay Ray when
she was in King Kong. In nineteen thirty three. Apparently
I've not seen the original King Kong, but her screams
are supposedly really terrifying, and they did them all in
(31:47):
post production, like apparently American movie, and then they mixed
them together to just make them as disturbing as possible.
But Fay Ray, the nineteen thirties actress, was the original
scream queen.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That's right. It's a pretty good screw. Not nearly as
chilling as Mike Shanks, but it was nineteen thirty three.
They did a pretty good job. You usually associate it
with like a scream queen, like you know, it's usually
a woman screaming in a horror movie. That's just sort
of the trope. But there have been some notable man screams.
(32:18):
James concert Lam mentioned earlier from Misery, but another that
was done in post production, but it is so great.
You should just check out this clip on YouTube. Is
that the chilling ending of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
from nineteen seventy eight with Donald Sutherland. And you know
who was in charge of that scream? My friend, you
probably looked this up, but it's our old pal from
(32:41):
Star Wars, oh, who was hitting that high tension wire
with a wrench. Ben Burt.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, he was just a legend, wasn't he.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, apparently this was layering pig squeals on top of
each other. And it's a sort of a classic ending
to that movie because that is the same that the
pod people make when they see a human. And well,
I mean, I guess this is all spoiler stuff, but
it's from nineteen seventy eight. Donald Sutherland makes that sound
at the end when he sees a human, indicating chillingly
(33:15):
that he is now a pod person.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, so keep an eye on Donald Sutherland when you
watch that movie for the first time.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
There's a couple others. Thomas Jane gives a really terrible
scream at the end of The Mist, which has one
of the unsettling endings I think of any movie ever,
maybe tied with it Comes in the Night, which is
another really unsettling a twenty four movie. Bruce Campbell he's
(33:43):
a great man, screamer, I guess, scream king.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
He does everything great and then justin.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Long He's definitely he's been in like way more horror
movies than you would think, but he I'm pretty sure
he screams pretty well in Barbarian Man. And then also
I can't help but bring up since I mentioned Justin Long,
He's in a new movie called Coyotes, which is a
horror comedy about coyotes going on a rampage. And it
just so happens that my niece, Mela Harris is in
(34:10):
that movie too. She plays his and Kate Bosworth's daughter.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Oh that's great. I love that. The odd connection of
Justin Long and Hodgman. Of course with the mac Apple
commercials for sure. When I was out in New York
that time, after hanging out with Hodgman, you and I
think went to a thing with him. Then later that
night I saw Justin Long out, Oh weird, and I
had to say something to him. I was like, you know,
(34:37):
John's a friend of mine. I was just hanging out
with him. It's funny that I saw you. And he said, well, Mela,
Josh's future niece is right behind me.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
It was very funny.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Thanks for a circling back like though. That was really
kind of course.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And then you know we have to also give a
do to the a couple more scream queens. Very famously
Janet Lee and Psycho and you got to talk about
Nev Campbell in the movie Scream.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yes, And I would make an assertion that Mia Goth
is the current Scream queen from the Maxazine trilogy.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I think she's great.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
He's the one killing it right now.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah, she's awesome. And speaking of Scream, and I'm only
plugging an old movie crush because guest Nate Bargetzi is
now the biggest comedian on planet Earth.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I know it's so great.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
But I had Nate on because I was a fan
of Nate's very early on and I just wanted to
meet Nate. So I drove to Nashville and had Nate on,
and his movie crush pick was Scream.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Did he know you were coming?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah? I took cornered him in a studio and he's like,
who's this guy?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
He's such a good guy too, man, It's like his
comedy's perfect, like he's it's I'm just really happy that
he's so huge now.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
He's a great guy and super super nice in person,
and I'm sure he is still that way even now
that he's super famous. He seems like he's still a
great guy. But Nate was very charming guests, So you
can if you want to. If you're a big fan
of Nate's now and you want to hear him talk
to me, you can check out that old movie crush.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Don't just check out that old movie crush, check out
all the movie crushes because they are all priceless gems.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, I definitely missed that show, but you know, some
things just have to be retired eventually.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Exactly, Chuck, So did you mention death metal? I thought
you did.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I don't think so, but that's obviously a place where
screaming can be a profession in a way.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
So yeah, So, the University of Utah conducted these tests
where they took dynamic MRI, so like you don't have
to just be laying down still to get an MRI
image of a person. They took MRIs of a guy
named Will Ramos who's a death core singer for a
band called Lorna Shore, and he is extraordinarily talented. Whether
(36:43):
you like death core or can't stand death cores, go
look up to the hell Fire the Lorna Shore video
and his range of the work he does with screaming,
like death core screaming is you can't help but be impressed.
He's really good, right, so they got a really good
person to study, because not only is he really good
(37:04):
at screaming deathcore wise or death metal wise, his vocal junk,
his neck junk is like entirely intact, like it's really healthy.
He's been doing this for years and he hasn't done
any damage. So these University of Utah researchers are like,
what are you doing? Can we take MRIs of you singing?
And they did, and it's really cool because the one
(37:27):
of him just singing normally, you can barely see any
movement inside the neck. Right when he screams, it just
is chaos in there. And apparently people who know what
the anatomy is can look at him and be like,
oh my god, he's doing this and this is how
he's keeping from ruining his vocal cords. So they actually
got pretty far with it. But it's worth checking out
(37:49):
that article because just for the MRIs side by side amazing.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
I thought, so yeah, and you know, it sounds like
he has something special going on in his neck junk,
because screaming can definitely like it's very hard on your throat.
So good for him. He found his calling.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
He found his niche he got him where he fought in.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
That's right. Another reason to scream kind of here is
where finishing up is pain control. They did a pretty
interesting survey in twenty twenty of children that had been
in the hospital and pain like screaming to relieve pain control.
It turns out is probably a thing I haven't seen
like the most robust scientific study, but at least from
(38:34):
this survey, children routinely described feeling a feeling of liberation
when they screamed, and then a feeling of calmness afterward
that helped them experience pain in a more manageable way.
The problem is is that adults and doctors and nurses
can't take it. Obviously, parents, it's going to be very
(38:56):
disturbing because they're going to try and get their kid
to not scream, and the same goes for doctors and
nurses trying to comfort them. But the status quote of
all it seems like it helped them. In an eight
year old noted, maybe it's good to scream, but they
don't know that. Nobody asks me, my god.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I know it said it's awful. The reason why they
think that it does help with pain relief is because
one of the hormones or one of the chemicals released
in the fight or flight response is are endorphins, which
can dull pain. So it does make sense that screaming
could help you with pain. There's another clever use of screaming,
(39:35):
if you ask me, then screaming in the emergency room,
which is replacing the current paradigm for creating anxiety inside
a lab to study anxiety for research, which is to
threaten people with a shock. And they've actually found that
you can threaten people that with a scream and generate
(39:56):
anxiety just as reliably. So people are like, we should
stop threatening people with shocks because it's unethical and just
start saying somebody's gonna scream in a second or maybe
two seconds. You're never going to know, and that can
generate anxiety as well.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
But you know, we're so soft. Before long, they're gonna
be like, you can't scream with people either, right.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
They'll be like, we want you to feel anxiety right now.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Please, yeah, and would you do that for.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I'm sure the participant would be like, I feel anxiety
all the time, can do right?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Then? I guess finally we should at least mention scream
therapy or primal scream therapy. I feel like we talked
about this at a certain point, but this has been
around since the sixties. I felt like it was probably biggest,
maybe in the late sixties and seventies. The original primal
scream therapy psychologist was Arthur Janoff and this was based
(40:50):
on the idea that like we all have this repressed
trauma from childhood, it's stored as primal pain. And Arthur
Janell said, well, you know what, a good old fashion
screaming session can release that stuff and get it out there.
The bad news is it turns out there's not a
lot of evidence that supports it as being a credible
(41:11):
form of therapy.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
No, and actually I think it's possible it can hurt
in trauma therapy because screaming can arouse anxiety in the
person screaming even too, so not necessarily the best thing
to do.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
No, but very sixty seventies I could see that being
a thing.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Super There's like one of those wicker chairs that people
used to take prom pictures in one of the wicker throne.
There's definitely one of those in the office.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, I think Black Moses album cover wasn't Isaac Kay's
in one of.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Those, I believe, So, yeah, was there like a panther
laying at his feet too?
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Probably there should have been.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Okay, Well, obviously, since we started talking about Isaac Hayes,
I think we've just unlicked listener mail.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Chuck, that's right, and I am wrong actually, because of
course the Black Moses album cover was just that great
picture of Isaac Kay's with the shades on and wearing
that sort of striped colored hood. But maybe it was
on the back. I definitely have seen Isaa Kays in
a wicker throne.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Here, Joe.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Maybe it was Escape from New York. All right, guys,
this is Leslie. All right, guys. I don't remember how
I was turned onto your podcast, but I've been a
regular listener for several years now, and finally I'm getting
around to writing. Often. Wish I was in the studio
during her recording so I could comment or applaud hey
like I did today. Yeah. I was sad to learn
that you weren't doing San Francisco's Sketch Fest this year,
(42:38):
but I'm hoping you come back next year. My friend
Christina and I will be there. I wanted to write
when the topic was animal communication because the musical interlude
was an homage to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, which
was brilliant. You thank Jerry for that. By the way,
I work in animal care, you see, so I love
your animal episodes. I appreciate how you guys accept a
(42:59):
correction showing up. It's okay to make a mistake as
long as you learn from it. And I appreciate how
you present important yet sensitive topics in a respectful way,
or how you share multiple points of view on divisive issues.
I just want to thank you for keeping me company
during my commute, explaining complex things, making seemingly unsavory topics palatable,
entertain me, educating me, and more ps in support of
(43:22):
your efforts to grow your listenership. Still, I shared your
Sesame Street episode on my Facebook page, so Leslie really
appreciate that. Yeah, and then there's a PPS. I've often
thought a good drinking game could be to drink every
time Chuck says that's right, roll off the tongue or
for sure for sure. But I don't drink alcohol, so
if I were to play, I'd probably just get really
(43:43):
well hydrated. It's very funny, Leslie s in the San
Francisco Bay area. And yeah, Leslie, we'd love to see
you at our show next year because hopefully we'll be there.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
That was really really sweet when a very nice email, Leslie,
thank you for taking the time to write all that,
and thank you for sharing our Sysame Street episode. That's
a pretty good one to share. If you ask me,
and if you want to be like Leslie and send
us a very nice email. We always love getting those.
You can send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.