YouSaid · the spoken record

David Eagleman

lines on the record: 105
first: 2023-05-26
most recent: 2023-05-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Whole thing that got me interested in this a while ago was understanding, just really thinking about the fact that the brain is locked in silence and darkness inside the skull. And all it ever sees are these little electrical signals, which also, you know, can cause chemical release and so on. But you just got these electrochemical signals running around in the dark. And yet, when you open your eyes and look at the world, you see everything in full color and it looks so rich and so on. And you're hearing music and you're feeling things on your fingertips and you're smelling cinnamon and all these things seem like very distinct senses to you, but they're all made of exactly the same stuff, which is these electrochemical spikes. And so I got really interested in this idea of could we feed information into the brain via an unusual source? And would the brain just figure it out? And so what we did is we built a vest that had vibratory motors on it. And this was for people who are deaf.”
2023-05-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Expect. So for somebody who has colored numbers, normally we memorize the numbers or the weekdays or the months or whatever thing we're forced to arbitrarily memorize as a child. For synesse, they tie it into something like colors or in many cases spatial location. So many synesthetes have, let's say, the months of the year are laid out in front of them. So they say, oh, oh, March is over here and April is kind of up and to the right a bit, and then May is down here and June, July, and it usually circles around their body, that kind of thing, but they have a very spatial sense of the months or the years or the number line, things like that.”
2023-05-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So, like with many things, there's congenital, which means you're born with it or acquired, which means you get it some other way. So for example, there's congenital synesthesia where you're born with this mixture of the senses, but acquired is when people take certain psychedelic drugs and they listen to music and it causes them to see colors and shapes, that sort of thing. So yes, you could be a neminist that acquires your skills through hard training. And usually that training involves just tapping into other modalities like we're really good at location, all animals really care a lot about location. So you know all the stuff about memory palaces and whatever and you're memorizing a sequence by placing things in your mind in different locations in your house, let's say. So that's the way that somebody trains is by tapping in. And really that's what synesthesia is about is neighboring areas of the brain that are sort of tied together more than you would normally.”
2023-05-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To the old woman who's number nine, and so on. There's a whole story there, and that's how Neminists tend to memorize their stuff. But synesthesia turns out is quite common. It's about 3% of the population has some form of synesthesia. And the thing I've always found fascinating about it, the reason I've studied it for about 20 years now, is because it is just an example how reality can be different in your head and in my head. And we would both accept it as, okay, that's how the world is. I should just mention there are all these forms of synesthesia like hearing might lead to a taste in your mouth or tasting something might lead to a feeling on your fingertips or a loud sound might cause you to see something or whatever. It's just any blending of the senses we call that synesthesia.”
2023-05-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, anemones to someone who can memorize anything in their life, as you know from the book, you know, giant list of arbitrary numbers or things like that. Some people have this ability. And it turns out as far as I can tell anyway, that every single one of these people has synesthesia. So synesthesia is where there's an association between some stimulus and something else. So for example, numbers triggering a color experience. So three is purple, nine is yellow, and so on. But it's not only colors, it can be other things like gender and personality and shape and size and things like that. So for someone who has synesthesia, when they're memorizing, let's say, the digits of pi, there's a whole story landscape going on where the small yellow girl who is number three is talking to the angry boy who's number seven and then who's talking”
2023-05-26 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT