Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb.
And I'm Joe McCormick, and it is Monday, the day of each week that we read back messages from the Stuff to Blow your Mind mailbox. If you have never gotten in touch before, why not give it a shot. You can contact us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Any kind of messages or fair game. Usually people send feedback to recent episodes. Maybe if you have something interesting you want to add to a subject we talked about, if you have a question, if you want to suggest a topic for the future, if you want to offer corrections, any of that's fine. Send it on in contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Also, just social messages are fine. If you want to say hi, just let us know how you found out about the show, how you listen that kind of stuff. That's good too. Let's see, Rob, do you want to kick us off today by reading back this message from Michael about the Thing's fingers or is it the thing or just thing?
I think he's the thing, Marvel's the Thing aka Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four. Yeah, we heard from Michael in response to this is one of the Monster Fact episodes I've been doing on the theme of monsters and sort of monstrous things in the Marvel comic universe. Michael writes in and says, hey, guys, I just finished listening to the episode about the Thing and his fused fingers. I'm really loving these Marvel monster episodes. Being a comic book fan of many years. I'm not going to go through all the content of the Monster Fact episode, but basically one of the things ended up looking at was this idea that when Ben Grimm was a human, he of course had five digits on each hand, and then he goes through this cosmic radiation bombardment he becomes the Thing, the sort of stone plate covered bruiser of a superhero, and lo and behold, now he has four digits on each hand, and the book that I referenced speculates that the end digit of that hand would contain the fused bones or the fused fingers anyway of digits four and five. So anyway, this is what Michael has to say on the matter. I also speculate I compared this to a few different animals where there's some level of fusing of digits. While listening, I couldn't help myself but to force my ring and pinky finger together so I could picture what the thing's hand would look like under all that rock, much like I remember doing as a kid, also with my index and middle fingers, so that I could have the hands of a ninja turtle. In doing so, I could definitely see how making a good old clobber and fist would still be possible. I found it awkward to open and close my hand with my outer two fingers held together like that, based solely on how it felt for me. The gripping and dexterity would seemingly decrease with two fingers fused to each other, although I don't see dexterity as one of Ben Grimm's prime attributes. I kept thinking about it though, through the other examples you gave, and I think it holds up that two sets of bones in a single digit would not be something used for gripping. The kangaroo going from climbing to jumping seems applicable if the toes were previously separated when it was an animal that climbed regularly. Then by the time it was hopping, it could be better to put those toes together permanently best.
Michael, Sorry, I'm still laughing about the idea of dexterity being one of Ben Grimm's prime attributes. Like the thing has to do a sleight of hand check.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, like I did read that. It's something in the comics where he often can't use technology correctly because he doesn't have these big, clunky digits and doesn't have the same number he had when he was human and so forth. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, ultimately it's you know, it's a silly thing in a comic book that we needn't think too much about, but it is kind of fun to speculate, like what what purpose could that serve? If there is any purpose to have this, uh, this fused digit. On the hand, there's not nothing directly comparable to the thing in the natural world, however, but like some of the examples I looked at, there there are the there's a you know, there are different hypotheses regarding a fuse digit on certain species having being connected to some sort of arboreal lifestyle at some point in their evolution or grooming like a grooming digit, So I didn't explore that so much that it could be a grooming digit for for bonding with the other members of the Fantastic Four.
I see, like picking lice off of mister mister Fantastic Doctor. Is there one that's called.
I think yeahs for the stretchy guy.
Yeah, yeah, okay, because I don't think you'd have to pick lice off of the fire guy. He could just burn it off.
Well, yeah, unless I don't know, there's some stuff I was reading about there being like this layer between him and the fire. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know if you would actually be able to like superheat his own parasites off or not. It's a is it something probably hasn't been explored in comic books all that much.
A very special episode The Fantastic Four get Lice? Yeah, all right, let's see. Do you mind if I do this follow up from a previous listener mail from Chuck Yeah, okay, subject line follow up from my January listener mail past Live's book Rob you remember this one? About this listener found a book that related to the studies we had cited about about people who stare into the mirror long enough tend to start having hallucinations and imagine that they're they're seeing different kinds of monstrous features and stuff in low light. I think it was low light conditions and prolonged staring tends to cause hallucinations and otherwise typical individuals. Okay, from there, I think Chuck does a recap of what his other message was. Chuck says, Hello, Robert, Joe, and JJ. I hope you're all well. I happen to be in my local library today in San Diego when I stumbled across the book I told you about months ago. To refresh your memory. This is in regards to the mirror experiments and the connection to quote exploring Past Lives. You happen to read my email in early January of this year where I remembered reading some book when I was young about a technique to stare at a mirror in dim light to see what you may have looked like in past lives. So the book is called Your Past Lives, a Reincarnation Handbook by Michael Talbot. I've attached photos of the front and back cover.
Rob.
I've got the in the documents so you can scroll down and look at them if you like. Chuck goes on to say, the publishing date is nineteen eighty seven and the author's photo is very very eighties. Yeah, he seems like he'd be like the rival for the love interest of the protagonist in an eighties action movie. You know, He's like the other guy who maybe she's going to end up with, but she doesn't anyway. Chuck goes on to say. The mirror meditation is mentioned on pages one oh five to one oh six. The author states that he discovered this technique quote quite by accident, and which can be astonishingly effective. He also states that quote various other researchers have also employed this technique, no mention of who those people are. The actual procedure is incredibly similar to the one used in the scientific studies done later, including dim lighting and concentrating on your own reflection. Here's the fun part, listed straight from the book. I guess Chuck is quoting the book here A word of caution. During this meditation, you may see some extremely dramatic changes take place in your features. This can be quite frightening. Only perform a mirror meditation if you feel completely comfortable with this prospect. At any point during meditation, if you become disturbed by seeing your own features change, simply endo your meditation and turn a light on and the process will stop. And then Chuck continues his message. Now, I am glad I was not just relying on a false memory from decades ago, but it's odd to me that this particular memory stuck. Additionally, I was wondering if you've considered an episode or two about current scientific ideas that may have been previously inadvertently explored and accidentally achieved interesting results by people who were definitely not using the scientific method. Then again, many of your topics do touch on this already, e g. Ideas believed in folklore that turn out to be true for reasons completely different than the original believed reason. Apologies, this paragraph was not elegantly worth. Oh you did find, Chuck, Chuck says. Anyways, thanks for your time, Keep up the great work. Sincerely, Chuck from San Diego PS High five to Chuck five. The other listener mail Chuck, I think we've had several.
Number of chucks number of checks.
Yes, But anyway, to come back to Chuck's email, this does sound interesting because it sounds like outside the context of these like psychology experiments where you know, in perception and hallucination, where scientists discovered you could do this technique to pretty reliably cause hallucinations. Somebody totally outside that context also discovered the same thing that by like lowering the lights and staring in the mirror for a long time, you can see changes to your face and see all kinds of interesting stuff. Except I guess he's saying that, like he thinks this is containing genuine revelatory information.
Hmm, fascinating. All right, Well enough about that, Let's get to the pokemons. Oh I guess yeah, this is actually this is a response to the dream episodes we recently did. But Matt listener Matt via Discord wrote in with the following, HI had a couple of thoughts on the Dream Fall into the Dark Part four episode, which featured the Baku. First off, I'm surprised that Drowsy wasn't mentioned, given Rob's son has weighed in as the Pokemon expert in past episodes. It's a taper resembling Pokemon that eats dreams and is explicitly referred to as being a descendant of the Baku image below, and Matt included a picture of Drowsy, and yes, now that I look at him, yes, I'm familiar with Drowsy. I've seen Drowsy in different forms on some of the different Pokemon cards, and I probably even read the description that he eats dreams and completely forgot about it when getting into the Baka research.
I think I have, at least in this image, I'm interpreting Drowsy as having yellow paint spilled over half of his body. It kind of looks like it's dripping down him.
Yeah, it does kind of have that color scheme going on. Matt continues on a more personal note. The name Baku stirred some funny emotions in me, as that was the name of my security blanket at the age of about two. Apparently I could not say blanket yet, and Baku was the best I could manage. I couldn't go to sleep without it. So while I didn't have a Baku print pillow or a Baku skin to wrap myself in, my sleep was aided by a Baku, which I thought was an interesting coincidence.
Yeah, that is interesting.
PS. One notable difference is that it seems to eat nice dreams rather than nightmares, which doesn't seem quite as helpful. Yeah, that's a good point. It depends how you think about the eating of dreams, Like maybe that nice dream is something you want to carry with you into the day and oops, here comes Drowsy to snatch it up. But I don't know, it depends on how you think about that. Now, after this struck my attention, of course, looked Drowsy up in one of my son's Pokemon books, and I was curious, well, what does Drowsy evolve into? Because the evolutions of the Pokemon, that's half the point, right. Indeed, Drowsy evolves into hypno hypno like a lot of the evolutions while the while Drowsy is cute and huggable, hypno is as the kids say, a little bit sus he's got his own energy going on here.
What does that that mean? He's a little, a little dangerous, a little sketchy.
Yeah, he's a little suspect. He's got this big like sort of human like nose and pointed cat ears. He's slimmer, and he's carrying some sort of hypnotizing apparatus, some sort of medallion on a string. Yeah, he looks he looks like he's not up to something good here.
What is this white ruffle around his neck? That's not a beard, is it. That's like it goes around his neck like an Elizabethan collar.
Yeah, it's kind of like that, like a fluffy Elizabethan collar.
It's like we're looking at Christopher Marlowe or something.
As far as I can tell, there's no evolution past this one though, so I guess we're fortunate.
Okay. Then after this, we've got an email from Taylor that actually mentions this Discord post by Matt.
Yes, it opened the floodgate.
Taylor says, Hello, Robin. Joe loved the dream Fall into the Dark series. After listening to part four, I was itching to write you about a few Pokemon based on the Baku. I noticed that Matt from the Discord had already pointed out the dream eating Drowsy, but the poke well is deep and has plenty of space for a few more dream monsters. Matt correctly noted that the pokemon Drowsy and its grown up form Hypno differ from Baku in that they eat good dreams, not nightmares. In fact, the pokemon Hypno goes so far as to abduct children whose dreams are particularly good, presumably to keep the children asleep and feast on their dreams. That's that's more than sus that's sinister.
Yes.
Later games also introduce the pokemon Mana and Musharna, two monsters who more directly mirror the Baku. These pokemon eat good dreams and nightmares alike, and don't kidnap anyone. After Mna or Musharna has eaten a dream, they excrete a psychically charged mist from their foreheads. Good dreams yield pink mist, and nightmares yield black mist. As with the Baku, a dream eaten by Manna and Musharna is forgotten by the dreamer, but Muna and Musharna also pull a reverse Baku. It is said that the dreams or nightmares have awaken person who inhales their mist become a reality. Oh all right, so this one, This looks kind of like a floral print Kirby, sort of a cross between like Kirby and a water bear.
Yeah, they're kind of egg shaped. They're not as distinctive as as as drowsy for example. So I mean, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen this guy on a T shirt.
Taylor goes on a few other Pokemon delve into the domain of dreams. The wraith like Pokemon Dark Cry defends itself by dropping trespassers on its territory into nightmare filled comas. Oh wow. A person afflicted by dark Rise Nightmare Sleep can only be healed with the feather from its counterpart, Crysalia.
Yes. Now, I'm not familiar with with the with the with the first guy, but Chris Chrysalia or Chrysalia. Uh, this one, I think is one that my son really likes and has drawn before Chrysalea.
It kind of looks like the Lockness Monster, but crossed with a faery with pink wings.
Yeah. It's like a splendid space pheasant or something.
Yeah. Yeah, and it also has a sort of a bunch of Banana's swoop haircut crescent moon shaped haircut. Anyway, Taylor goes on to say, while the Pokemon franchise is primarily targeted at children, it's rich with fascinating and sometimes shockingly dark monsters. My childlike adoration for the franchise has never left me. I also can't write in about dream monsters without making reference to the Slake Months from China. Mieville's Perdido Street station talking about them too much would spoil major plot reveals from the book. But if you are fascinated by dreams and dream monsters, I couldn't recommend a better novel than Perdido Street Station. I hope you've enjoyed what has not been my first and will not be my last, Pokemon themed email. As a closing note, I think there's something too Joe's theory about spatial reasoning and dreams. I play a lot of video games, and I find that the ones with the greatest dream relevance are those focused on manipulating objects in space. I've had quite a few dreams about Tetris and map based strategy games like Fire Emblem. I don't know what that is. H Taylor finishes by saying, may the Baku devour your nightmares.
Taylor, Oh wow, it seems possible. Then with the Pokemon card game, you could have an entire deck of just maybe just dream based creatures, and then you could also just expand that to sleep as well and throw a few snore Laxes in there.
What does snorlax do? Just put you to sleep?
Now?
He sleeps, He just sleeping. He beats you by sleeping. He's great, he just sleeps, Yeah, sleep him to beat him.
Yeah, I have. You know, I've only watched a few of the Pokemon cartoons. There's one I watched with my son that has like a like a jungle narrative and uh, and that one was that one was actually really good. I had a lot of it was like a movie and it had some almost mia Zakis qualities to it, and I like that one a lot. But uh, he showed me like one random episode and it was just some of the weirdest stuff I'd ever seen. It was it was, It was great. So there's some I think it's it's easy to sort of dismiss the Pokemon franchise. Uh, you know, it's just sort of video game silliness. But yeah, there there are a lot of dark monsters, and I keep hearing about darker ones here, and there's a lot of just really weird choices that go into the franchise or have gone into it over the years.
I was just thinking about how I have no idea, uh if Pokemon will still be an age relevant obsession when my daughter's old enough to get into things like that, Like, do I have Pokemon in my future or did she just miss the wave.
I don't know. Yeah, it's curious the way that nostalgia bumps go on the things, But I don't know. It seems seems like it's a big enough deal that it's probably still going to be around. So we'll see, we'll see.
Maybe one day i'll know them all. I'll be the one saying like, oh, yeah, that's going to be your snore. Lax.
All right, here's another. When this one comes to us from Jim. I'm not sure which gym.
This is one of the gyms not in the New Jersey gym right right.
This gym sends us an email titled time Traveling Vampires. Hey, guys, I've been wanting to bring this up for a while. In your discussion on Dracula, time traveling seems like the best time to talk about this. In the late sixties, there was a supernatural soap opera called Dark Shadows. It had a vampire named Barnabas Collins. In seventeen ninety five, he became a vampire through a witch's curse. His father was going to put a stake through his heart, but couldn't, so instead he chained Barnabas up in his coffin in the late nineteen sixties and let him out. Eventually, he overcame the curse and became human again, But a year or two later, some ghosts started haunting the family home. The solution was to go back in time and prevent the people from becoming ghosts. To do that, Barnabas used the eaching to travel back one hundred years. He astral projected to a hall with eaching hexagrams on different doors. He had to find the one that had the hexagram called change. When he found it, he opened the door and saw the coffin he was imprisoned in for two hundred years. He had to become a vampire again to solve the crisis. Thanks for letting me vent, Jim.
Is that venting? Okay? Thanks for sharing. I don't think I fully understood the last part there. Wait, how did becoming a vampire again fix the ghost issue? I think I've missed something here.
That I'm not entirely sure either, But there does seem to be some sort of a time travel and changing the timeline in order to deal with the situation. It sounds complex and a little bit ludicrous, so I like it. I remember seeing episodes of Dark Shadows on I think they showed them on Sci Fi Channel back in the day, and I remember like digging the vibe, but never Maybe I just wasn't patient enough to get into the show because I remember it feeling kind of slow paced but has all the elements that I would love and of course I like, you can't help it, like Barnabas Collins.
Yeah, I've never seen it. I think I recall having a friend whose mom was really into it. That's about as close as I've come.
Well, anyway, Jim, thanks for writing in and letting us know about this incident of vampire time travel. We just we need to be made aware of all time travel incidents involving Dracula or any other major vampire. All right, Well, on that note, we're going to go and close out this episode of Listener Mail, but we'll be back next Monday with more listener mails to read. We have a backlog of them to get to, and you all just keep sending neat, neat and thoughtful stuff into us, so keep it coming. We love hearing from everyone. A reminder that our core episodes publish on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the stuff to blow my podcast feed on Wednesday's short form artifact or monster fact. They're mostly monster facts these days, but occasionally I throw in an artifact. And then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns just talk about a weird film on a weird house cinema.
Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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