YouSaid · the spoken record

Matt Walker

lines on the record: 154
first: 2021-08-11
most recent: 2021-08-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And I quickly abandoned that. But if I look back, if there was a shameful act that I have around my sleep, I think it would be that for some years until I really started to get more detailed into sleep. And now I have no shame in telling people that I will probably usually wake up around 6.45 naturally, sometimes 7 when people are looking at me thinking you're a sloth, you're lazy. And I don't finish my daily workout until, you know, I'm not working until probably nine o'clock in the morning. I'm thinking, what are you doing? Now I will work late into the day. You know, if I could, I would work 16 hours. It's my passion just like yours. So I don't feel shame around that, but I have changed my mentality around that.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I am quite the odd Snowflake in that sense, too. So I would usually then try to force myself because I had that same mentality that if I wasn't up at 6.13 in the gym by 7, that there was something wrong with me.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But this included I'm either a strong morning type nor a strong evening type. So ideally, I'd probably like to go to bed around 11, 10.30, 11, probably somewhere between 10, 30, 11, and wake up, you know, I naturally wake up usually most days before my alarm at 7.04. And at 7.04 because why not be idiosyncratic in terms of sitting?”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then I'll say, look, if you are on a desert island with nothing to wake up for, no responsibilities, what time would you normally go to bed and what time would you wake up? And they would say, I'd probably like to go to bed about midnight and wake up maybe 8 in the morning. And then I'd say, so what time do you now go to bed? And they'd say, well, I've got to be up for work early so I get into bed at 10. I'd say, well, you don't have insomnia, you have a mismatch between your biological chronotype and your current sleep schedule. And when you align those two, and I was fighting that for some time too. I'm probably... Mostly right in the middle. I am desperately vanilla, unfortunately, in many aspects of life”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a good line around firstly, people don't really understand chronotype. Because I'll have some people when I'm sort of out in the public, they'll say, Look, I struggle with terrible insomnia, and I'll ask them, is it problems falling asleep or staying asleep? And they'll say falling asleep.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Times railing against my chronotype. So your chronotype is essentially, are you a morning type, evening type, or somewhere in between? And there were times because society is desperately biased towards the morning types, this notion of the early bird catches the worm. Maybe that's true, but I'll also tell you that the second mouse gets the cheese. So I think one of the.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Externally triggered. It's sort of what we would call reactive stress. And so that's sort of point number one about the idiosyncrasies. The point number two is that when you are having a difficult night of sleep, as a sleep researcher, you basically have become the Woody Allen neurotic of the sleep world. Because at that moment, you know, I'm trying to fall asleep and I'm not, and I'm starting to think okay, my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is not shutting down. My noreadrenaline is not ramping down. My sympathetic nervous system is not giving way to my parasites. At that point, you are dead in the water for the next two hours and nothing is bringing you back. There is some irony in that too. I would say for myself, though, if there is something I'm not proud of, it has been...”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have not all of my life, I would say, I've probably had three or four really severe bouts and all of them usually triggered by emotional circumstances by stress.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I know when I'm starting to lose control and it's starting to take control. I understand how to regain But it doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long time.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The funny thing about being a sleep researcher is that it doesn't make you immune. The ravages of a difficult night of sleep. And I have battled my own periods of insomnia in my life too. And I think I've been fortunate in ways because I know how sleep works and I know how to combat insomnia. I know how to get it under control. Because insomnia, in many ways, Is a condition where all of a sudden you're Rather than you control your sleep.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To place yourself in the future at your point of mortality is one way to, I think, as an exercise to retrospectively look. And not lose out on informed choices that you could otherwise lose out on if you weren't thinking about mortality.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lends to focus and ask the following question Is there anything I feel I would regret and therefore change in the life that I currently have now? That's the way I meditate and use mortality as a question is to try and course correct and focus my life. I worry not about dying. But I like to think about death as a way to prioritize my life, if that makes it. I don't know if that makes sense”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're aware of that, and that's the price you pay for the entry into this magical kingdom that you are experiencing, which is a lovely thing. I feel privileged too. I can't believe the life that I live. It's incredible. And just like you, I think about mortality a great deal. I think a lot about death, but I don't worry about. Death, I probably, with the exception of the potential pain that comes before it that some people, many people can suffer, that maybe concerns me. But I actually think about mortality as a tool. I use it as a lens through which I can then retrospect. By placing myself at the point of future mortality, I can then use it as a retrospective.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Should have said, I want you to have as much high quality life. And if high quality of life means Spend five decades on this planet Yet in that time, I am thrilled every day. I'm turned on every day by what I do. And I reveled in this thing called my life's work. Think that that is a 50 year journey of absolute delight and fulfillment that you should take.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that you're comfortable with it. That is your conscious choice rather than feeling as though you're trapped or that you are just, you haven't thought about it. And you start that job at age 32 and then you wake up the next morning and you're 65 and you think, where did my life go? What was I doing? That to me, I would feel I would want to hug you and I would say I'm just so and I'm not sending, I don't want to sound belittling. Here at all, I would just not wish that for you. I would wish that you could have, you know, thought about what it was that you're doing and not have that regret.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Than I think I've done my job. That's all I want to offer is just added information into the decision algorithm. And what you end up choosing as an output of that algorithm has nothing to do with me. It's not my business and I will never judge anyone for it. And as I said, I'm immensely grateful for people who have sacrificed. Much in their lives to give me what I have.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a life mission. And for that, I think as long as you know what it is that you could be doing to yourself and you are comfortable and AOK with that, I have no problem with that at all. Again, as I said, as a scientist, I cannot, should not, and will not tell anyone what they should do with their life. All I want you to be able to do is say, okay, now I understand more about the previously these were the known unknowns and these were the unknown unknowns. And now I am slightly more cognizant. I have more knowns than I had before regarding my sleep and my health, knowing that information, do I still choose to make this decision? And if that's what I offered,”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I don't have no umbrage with that mentality at all. I think you just have to be very clear about what you're optimizing for. And my worry is that most people fall into the rat race and they never actually ask the question, why am I doing this?”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quicker because of their commitment because they wished to try and solve that problem in their pursuit of greatness scientifically. And I now benefit. Am I grateful that they did that? Incredibly grateful. You know, a simpler demonstration of is this if tonight at 4 a.m. in the morning, I have a ruptured appendix. I have an appendicitis. I am incredibly grateful that there is an emergency team that will take me to the hospital at 4 a.m. in the morning. They are awake. They're not sleeping and they save my life And that is part of what their life's mission and quest is. And they saved another's life by, in some ways, shaving a little of their own off.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree with that. I think if that's a flag you're hoisting, I will definitely salute it because it really depends. What are you trying to optimize for in your life? And if you are, I think the only danger potentially with that mindset is that. If you look at many of the studies of old age and end of life, most people say, I never look back on my life. Wish I worked harder. I wish instead I'd spent more time with family, friends, and engaged in that aspect. Now, I'm not saying, though, coming back to your point, that that is the standard rubric for everyone. I don't believe it is too. And there are many things that you and I are both benefiting from today, even in the field of medicine. Where people have sacrificed their own longevity for the quest of solving a particular medical problem. They died”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That means that you are resilient in all of those other domains as well? The answer is no, you're not. So you can be resilient in one but very vulnerable in another. And we've not found anyone who isn't at least vulnerable in one of those domains, meaning that it's somewhat safe to say that not getting sufficient sleep will lead to some kind of impairment in anyone given individual. It may not be the same impairment, but it's likely to be an impairment. But to come back to the question, I think it's wrong to tell anyone that it's wrong to do what they're doing, even if they are compromising their sleep, even if they're compromising their mental health. You know, as long as they're not hurting anyone else, then I think the answer is that's that person's choice.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But, and I will come back to those two points about is it wrong and is it unhealthy in just a second. When it comes to sleep, we have found huge amounts of inter-individual differences in your response to a lack of sleep. But one of the fascinating things, so let's say that I take you and we're going to measure your attention, your emotion, your mood, your blood pressure, your blood sugar glucose regulation, your autonomic nervous system, and your different gene expression. Let's say I'm just going to measure a whole kaleidoscope of different outcomes, brain and body. And I find that on our measure of cognition, on your attentional ability to focus, you are very resilient. You just don't show any impermanence at all, even after being awake for 36 hours and straight.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sleeping in the way that you've described, or that other people may be sleeping in terms of insufficient amounts. Now, to your point too about into individual differences, usually when I see a bar graph and a mean, I usually say show me your variants. I want to see your variant. In other words, show me the distribution of that effect. How many people were below the mean? Is it all tightly clustered around this one thing? So it's a very robust effect or was this huge fan of effect where for some people there was no effect at all and other people there was a whopping effect in everything in between. So I don't discount into individual variability.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They usually starts meaning is like, yeah, yeah, of course, it's good to have a social life, it's good to have a family, it's good to eat well and sleep well, but we should also discover our passion. We should also give our chance to give ourselves a chance to work our ass off towards a dream and make mistakes and take big risks that in the short term seem to seem to me. And I think to come back to how you started about David Gargins, who I've never met but who I admire incredibly and have an immense reverence for the man, you said two things. Is it Is it wrong to do those things to yourself? And is it unhealthy to do those things to yourself? I disagree with the former and I agree with the latter. So from a health biological medicine perspective,”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's like the healthy thing should be a component of a life well lived. But not everything. And I don't know what to do with that because you certainly don't want to espouse. And just like you said when you were working in your book, there is a belief. Sleep was a secondary citizen in the full spectrum of what's a healthy life. But at the same time, I'm bothered by in Silicon Valley and all these kinds of work environments that I get to work with with engineers is there's to me too much focus on work-life balance.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The fact that a lot of people tell me or David that they're doing things wrong. Lot of people in my life, when they see me not sleep. They'll tell me to sleep more. One fundamental aspect that I'd like to complain about. Not enough people, almost nobody, especially people that care for me will come to me and say, You have a dream. Work harder.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Conclusive statement. When people talk about meat, red meat, good for your bad for you, right? It's just so often correlated with other life decisions when you choose to eat meat or not. My sense is that whatever life decisions you make, if they reduce stress and lead to happiness, that's also going to be a big boost that needs to be integrated into the plots in the science, right? So I'll give you an example of somebody who is unarguably seen as unhealthy. My friend Mr. David Goggins. So he's clearly, obviously, almost on purpose destroying his body. And to say that he's doing the wrong thing or the unhealthy thing feels like. I'm not sure exactly in which way it feels wrong. One of the things I'm bothered by, and again, I apologize for the therapy sessions, a framework of this, but I'm bothered by...”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mood outcomes. So from that sense, sleeping like a baby is not perfect for adults. Fascinating dance here. Of the mean and the extreme, like the average and the high performers. So I, um, This gets to like the meaning of life kind of discussion, but Let's go that. And also happiness. When studying sleep and when studying anything like diet and exercise, I think you have to really get a lot more data about individuals to make”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A coronary thrombosis. We also know that insufficient sleep is linked to numerous mental health issues. We know that Churchill had a wicked battle with depression. Gosh, my goodness, he used to call it Black Dog that would come and visit him. And I think many of his paintings, he was exquisite painter, but some of them would depict his darkness with depression as well. Edison is interesting. People have argued that he would short sleep and he didn't put much value in sleep, whether or not that's true. We don't know, but he was a habitual napper. You're right during the day. I've got some great pictures of him on his inventor's bench taking a nap. And in fact, I believe he set up nap cots around his house so he could nap. But what we also know is that he, again, coming out of Harvard just a couple of months ago, demonstrated very clearly that polyphasic sleep is associated with worse physical outcomes, worse cognitive outcomes, and especially worse.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the elastic band of sleep deprivation can stretch only so far before it snaps, and it ultimately seems to snap. You know, Nickel Tesla, I think he goes to see, I think, died of a coronothrombosis, I believe. And there was a wonderful study done out of Harvard where they took a group of people who had no signs of cardiovascular disease. And what they found is that when they track them for years afterwards, they were completely healthy to begin with. Those people who are getting less than six hours of sleep ended up having a 300% increased risk of developing calcification of the coronary artery, which is the major sort of corridor of life for your heart. When someone says, you know, he died of a massive coronary, it's because of a blockade of the coronary artery. And Tesla passed away from a”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would feel as though I'm doing you a disservice to say it's okay, that won't come with some blast radius, some health consequences. You can add Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to that list too. Both of them were very proud chess beaters of how little sleep that they get. Thatcher said four hours Reagan something similar. And I, knowing the links that we now know between sleep and Alzheimer's disease, I've often wondered whether it was coincidental then that both of them died of the terrible disease of Alzheimer's. Meaning, you know, maybe it doesn't get you by way of, you know, being popped out of the gene pool in a car accident because you had a microsleep at the wheel at age 32, or it doesn't get you at 42 with a heart attack or even 52 with cancer or a stroke. Maybe it gets you in your 70s.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Today, it's the most beguiling thing in the world to me. And I could easily, and I have, you know, it's kept me up at night when my mind is fizzing with experimental ideas or I think I've got a new hypothesis or theory, I will struggle with sleep. I really will. It doesn't come easy to me because my mind is just so on fire with those ideas. So I understand the struggle. But I couldn't advocate from a scientific perspective the schedule because the science just doesn't.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Love the Seuss quote. And I've had that experience too, like you, I adore what I do. Someone gave you enough money to live the rest of your life, got a roof above my head, rice and beans on the table. And they said, you don't have to work anymore. I would do nothing different. I would do exactly, you know. Sounds a little crass, and I hope it doesn't sound this way, but. Being a scient Not what I do, it's who I am When that's the case Sleep working out, showering, and eating are the things that I do in between my love of fur. Sleep. I fell asleep like a blind roofer. And And it was a love of fur that started 20 years ago. And I remain utterly besotted.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All I want to do is empower people with the understanding of the science of sleep, and then you can make an informed choice as to how you want to live your life. And I often know judgment on how anyone wishes to live their life. I just want to try and see if the information that I have about sleep would alternatively change how you would think about your life decisions. And if it doesn't, no problem. And if it does, I hope it's been of use.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was genuinely trying to help people, but certainly for some people for whom sleep does not come easy, then it was probably, you know, Tricky book to read too, and I think I feel more sensitive to those people now and empathetically connected to them. So, I think The point was simply that I don't mean to sound too puritanical in all of this. And the same way with caffeine and coffee. I am just a scientist, and I am not here to tell anyone how to live their life. That is not my job at all. And life is to be lived to a degree. And life is to be lived if you want to do a startup.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For years before I'd been doing public speaking and I'd tell people about the great things that happen when you get sleep, people would say, that's fascinating. And then they would go back and keep doing the same thing about not sleeping enough. And then I realized you can't really speak about the good things that happen. It's like the news, what bleeds leads. And if you speak about the alarmingly bad things that happen, people tend to have a behavioral change. And so the book as a consequence, I think, probably came out a little bit on the strong side of, you know, trying to convince people.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I truly don't want to sound puritanical either about sleep, and I think I've come off that way many a times, especially when I started out in the public. The tone of the book in some ways, you know, I look back and think, could I have been a little softer? And the reason was I was that way back in when I started writing the book, which was probably something like 2014 or 15. Sleep was the neglected stepsister in the health conversation of the day. And I was just so sad to see the amount of suffering and disease and sickness that was caused by insufficient sleep.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I suspect it usually comes at the cost of something else. So maybe he is able to direct and focus his sleeping cognition on those particular topics that will gain him better problematic resolution the next day when he wakes up. The question is, though, at what cost of the other things that didn't make it onto the menu of the finger buffet of sleep that night? And is it that you don't process the emotional difficulties or events? And therefore, you are less emotionally resolved the next day, but you are more problem resolved the following day. And so I always try to think.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To that idea of not just trying to use what Mother Nature gave, but seeing if you can do something more or different. In a conservative mindset I would then post the question at what cost because when you do something perhaps that deviates from the typical pre-programmed The Natures program.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, she's gifted us the architecture and the capacity to do that. What we do with that is Is what life's experience dictates. She gives us the blueprint to do many.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, that's just basically the difference between, as you said, a passive approach to it versus. An active deterministic or hope for a deterministic approach to it. In other words, that you are actually trying to harness the power of sleep in a deliberate way rather than an unthoughtful way. I still think that Mother Nature, 3.6 million years of evolution has probably got it mostly figured out in terms of what information should be uploaded at night and worked through. I think her algorithm is probably pretty good at this stage. It's not to suggest, though, that we can't try to tweak it and nudge it. It's a very lighthand on the tiller is what he's doing. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That riff came to him, one of the most famous riffs in all of rock and roll, came to him by way of a dream inspired insight. So I think, you know. There is too many of those anecdotes, and we've now got the site. I don't rely on anecdotes of science. We've now done the studies in the laboratory, and we can reliably demonstrate that sleep inspires creativity, inspires problem solving capacity.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anyway, and then he said in his autobiography, and I'm paraphrasing here, but one morning I woke up and I realized that the tape had recorded all the way to the end. So I rewound the tape and I hit play. And there in some kind of ghostly form were the opening chords to satisfaction, the most famous successful Rolling Stone song of all time. Followed by then 43 minutes of snoring.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Young kids can't do drugs because you've done all of the drugs. I always thought, but Keith Richards described he would always go to bed with his guitar and a tape recorder. And then probably he would have a whole set of other things in the bed with him and who knows how many other people.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And filming, and he came up with that song, the melody, in his sleep, not to be outdone by the Beatles. And by the way, let it be also came from a dream that McCartney had. People usually give it religious overtones, you know, Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, let it be. If you've ever asked who Mother Mary is, it's not the biblical content. It's his mother. It's Mary McCartney. And she came to him in a dream and gifted him the song. But the best story I've heard is not to be outdone by the Beatles, The Stones. Keith Richards, who I think once was suggested at. Was it a comedian who was saying that in an interview with Rolling Stone, Keith Richards suggested or inferred that young kids should not do drugs?”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know atomic weights, etc., etc. And it wasn't his waking brain that solved the problem. It was his sleeping brain that solved the impenetrable problem that his waking brain could not. And there's been, you know, even in the arts and in music, some wonderful dreams, you know, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's epic gothic novel came to her in a dream at Lord Byron's home. And then we've got, you know, Mc Yesterday the song came to him in a dream. What was the movie? I don't recall it. I should be shocked because I'm from Liverpool myself. But he was on Wimpole Street in London.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good look. It was non trivial at the time. And he would try and try. He was so obsessed with it. He created playing cards with all of the different elements on. And then he would go on these long train journeys around Europe. And he would just sort of deal these cards in front of them. And he would shuffle them. Shuffling and shuffling. And he would just try to see if he could find what the answer was. And then so the story goes, you know, he fell asleep and he had a dream. And in that dream, all of these elements started to dance and play around and they snapped into a logical grid.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there's many scientific demonstrations of this. The Mendeleya with a periodic table of elements, he was trying for months to understand, I mean, talk about an ecumenical problem of epic proportions. Here's your question today. You have to understand how all of the known elements in the universe fit together in a logical way.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not a Boolean like system where you have the sort of assumptions of true and false. Maybe it's more fuzzy logic system. And I think REM sleep is a perfect environment within which we do, you know, it's almost like memory pinball. You know, you get the information that you've learned during the day and then you pull the lever back and you shoot it up into the attic of your brain, you know, this cortex filled with all of your past historical knowledge. And you start to bounce it around and see where one of those things lights up and you build a new connection there and you build another one there too. You're developing schemas. And so in that way, I think you could argue. We dream, therefore, we are.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It turns out that there actually is a link if I look at it to Distant, non obvious one. And to me, I find that exciting because when you fuse things together, that shouldn't normally go together, but when they do, they cause marked advances in evolutionary fitness. It sounds like the biological basis of creativity. And that's exactly what I think dream sleep and the algorithm of dream sleep is designed to do.”
2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source