The irony of Brandon being nervous about being treated by a young apprentice dental assitant after writing a main protagonist who was a young apprentice surgical assistant lmaooo
I worked in an office once where this 10yo girl was a manager. Was a little odd but she was competent and I just went with it. Turned out she only *looked* young … was actually 30 with a husband and kids.
As a dentist, I found this episode very interesting. Some clarifications though: 1. Brandon most likely saw an Endodontist (root canal specialist) and not Oral Surgeon 2. The really young dental assistant is really strange, but in Canada they require a license and schooling so I would assume she is well trained. 3. Dentists, just like medical doctors, definitely get malpractice insurance (but he's right that you aren't really worrying about people dying) 4. Certain treatment can actually be done without anesthetic just like how Brandon does. Especially shallow fillings and technically you could start a root canal without anesthetic if it's a dead tooth (in fact sometimes this is done if a very large abscess as anesthetic doesn't work and we can drain pus out of the tooth - yes gross - this releases pressure and pain) Most of the time as a dentist we would rather freeze just in case some brave patient suddenly starts flinching because it hurts.
I’m also a dentist and I had some similar thoughts. To clarify #2, Here in Utah dental assistants aren’t required to have any license or schooling. They are required to have a certificate if they are taking x-rays. Most of them have gone to some form of assisting school as it is hard for them to get a job without it. Hygienist of course are required to have a license and to have completed school.
I spent a year on the island of Okinawa back in the 90's. There was a shipwreck about a mile offshore from Camp Kinser, the SS Tatong. During low tide you could walk out to it. The water would be only knee deep. However, at the edge of the coral, the drop off was so abrupt, it was the freakiest thing. You could be standing in knee deep water a mile offshore, and if you leaned forward and looked down, you couldn't see anything but blackness. It was like standing on the tallest wall you could imagine. The feeling is indescribable.
I definitely had the same "space" experience as Dan when I was young. Looking at the stars I would lose my frame of reference for up and down and suddenly feel terrified of just falling up forever, or like there was nothing holding anything up. I remember laying on my back in the yard clutching onto the grass with both hands with my eyes shut, just trying to reorient.
I'm not sure how I had never heard of Brandon Sanderson before last year, and only discovered him because I was looking for videos on how to write novels. I've never read any of his books, yet, but I plan to.
Dan: “I did hit a point where I could feel my heart racing and a shortness of breath, like oh this is definitely what a fear reaction is physiologically even thought I intellectually am not afraid of this” That’s the definition of a phobia
@@danwells9305 ah yes, I was contemplating the extreme annoyance of having real-life phobias that are extreme fear reactions to things you aren't actually "afraid of", and I thought your comment nailed what it is like to have a phobia. Hence my peanut-gallery comment. No offense intended, simply feeding the algorithm.
@@danwells9305 okay thank you, you've saved me from laying awake tonight staring at the ceiling thinking about how after all these years of Writing Excuses that my first interaction with Dan Wells was that of offensive.
Brandon: I am no doctor, but I want to give you a word to mention to your doctor. Don't worry it's not a death thing. Neurocardiogenic Syncope is a fainting disorder. It results in uncontrolled blood pressure, that swings up and down too far. Something that might cause a slight downward adjustment of pressure causes a crash instead. This can result in passing out, in instances of low blood pressure, and in instances of high blood pressure. One treatment is a high-sodium diet. My dad salts his water to keep his blood pressure under control. Without extra salt he feels poorly all day and sometimes passes out. His doctor ordered a low salt diet once and dad felt horrible all all the time, had chronic high blood pressure, and occasionally passed out. Like I said, not a doctor, but there were enough key words in one place to make me want to mention this.
I'm so happy to hear about Dan Wells' gravity fears, because honestly same. I'll lay awake at night wondering/worrying about what might happen if gravity suddenly started pulling everything up.
Dan's comment about the planet resonates with me! I have this irrational reaction to "scale". Like if I think about the size of the planet in relation to the grandness of space I feel anxious - I've had it since I was in elementary school and have no clue where it started. It's worst when I think about the size of a human compared to the size of the planet to the size of space, but it also impacts me when something that is usually a static distance from me changes. I think it's based in anxiety but don't have a clue! So Dan's statement about feeling unmoored in space freaking him out is just like the feeling I get.
I think maybe a good way of overcoming it is exposing yourself to it to the point where it’s familiar to you. Here’s a video that might help: th-cam.com/video/i93Z7zljQ7I/w-d-xo.html
You should look up a game called Space Engine. It’s an extremely accurate fully recreation of the observable universe using procedural generation for unknown/unnamed stars but it’s all to scale and it’s kind of terrifying.
I have had agoraphobia for around 13 years and have had sensations similar to the “sliding/falling off the earth” sensation, which I associate with the sensation of disassociation or derealization. Happy to answer any questions about agoraphobia any time.
What a delightful author. I will have to look at some of his work. Looks better than a robot. He autographs very efficiently, yet carries on a cheerful convo.
If Sanderson wakes up every day on the same emotional state enjoying life... well that explains a lot how prolific he can be! And I'm so happy about it ^^
So I got my Wisdom Teeth out in April, and I had been told by a friend that I could bring headphones and listen to music. I chose a random episode of IB, and I must say, I am very glad this one was not out when I chose the episode to listen to
I recently started listening to The Final Empire (Mistborn series) and It's fantastic. I spend multiple hours listening to it while I work. The version from GraphicAudio is impressive! It feels like I am watching a movie in my mind and there is so much to listen to it's exciting!
For me I pass out when getting blood drawn because I had a semi traumatic experience with getting blood drawn once, and now if I’m not laying down I pass out because of something called vasovagal syncope (basically my brain freaks out and that makes my blood vessels expand and gravity pulls the blood from my brain). But for me it’s pretty speedy, usually I pass out while blood is still getting drawn (tbf I usually have to get 3-4 vials though)
Same. Similar to what Brandon mentioned sometimes it happens even when I'm not consciously feeling anxious about the blood draw. I'll think I'm fine then all the sudden my vision fades out and I'm gone. Usually happens after the fact for me though.
I have the same thing, only I faint shortly after my blood is finished being drawn. I am very afraid of needles, and them talking about needles here gave me the heebie-jeebies. I have actually almost fainted just by looking at a needle I was in no danger of getting poked by. I should try the lying down next time I get my blood drawn.
When my dentist told me that the only way to save my tooth which was still aching after filling a hole in it was to do root canal I just opted for getting it cut off along with one of my wisdom teeth. I've got no regrets because even though it's really expensive sometimes root canal treatment just doesn't work and the tooth was a number 6 on my lower jaw. Also missing it is just a bonus because 6s are those teeth that get stuff stuck on them for some reason. It's kinda fun to just poke my tongue into the gap between 6 and 7.
I have had way too much dental work done and like Dan, needles and shots get me very anxious. My usual coping mechanism is to slowly drink some water while I get the shot. Which doesn't work when the shot is in the mouth. Have always hated go to the dentist because of it. But in the last year I got a new dentist after moving and he does that same trick Brandon talked about with shaking and massaging the tissue around the injection site and it's a real life changer!
Dan could never be an optometrist based off this episode. There is a day in optometry school where we all give each other shots in our eyes!! Good times! Great episode, one of my favorite!
28:55 oh me too!! I have that with the whole sky really but especially space. It's a void up there.... I don't feel like I'm gonna fall, I feel stuck to the earth. But I do get the sense I'm dangling above infinity. Which I am. There's some vertigo and helplessness and the urge to look away.
I find both eternity and nothingness scary. Constant sameness does sound like hell, but I can't see everything always progressing. But I care too much about my identity to have nothingness. So everything is terrifying.
I have experienced a version of the "fall into space" feeling Dan described a few times in my life when I was studying Astrophysics in college. Because it was basically my whole life and on my mind all the time, I would get pointedly aware of the feeling that on even a relatively small astronomical scale, the amount of space beneath my feet occupied by Earth is absolutely negligible compared to the amount of space occupied by nothingness beyond Earth. And that feeling of the insignificant size of the planet would freak me out and make me feel like I could be flung off the surface of the world.
I have the open blue ocean shivers like Brandon, and something like Dan's feeling about the sky. The sky thing started as a child, laying down looking up at the blue sky and clouds and the terrifying thought, what if up and down suddenly switched places? I would just fall forever into that blue sky. Getting under a roof would help so much. Perhaps my irrational terror of losing a helium balloon and it floating into the sky was related to this--as also the weird feeling of seeing something sinking down out of view into deep water.
Can't believe Brandon would be supportive of burning anything with fire. On a totally unrelated note I do love unproblematic fan favorite characters Spook and Dalinar
I know exactly what Dan is talking about. The easiest way to trigger it is to find a huge flat place under the open sky or stars, and then relax and stare right out into it. It becomes real easy to feel... "untethered" from the world. And contemplating the vastness of space, the volume of it, the scale of it and your relative place in that, is easily overwhelming to our tiny meat. ;)
Interesting. I have the exact opposite, looking at space and sea calms me down. Especially when I think about how insignificantly small I am compared to the huge distances and scales of the universe. I was born in an archipelago village so it probably plays a part in that, the vastness (of the sea) feels very comforting to me.
I have that sensation Dan described whenever I look into the night sky on a clear night. It isn’t as bad when there are mountains around me for some reason, but ever since I moved to the midwest, I can never look at the night sky if there isn’t enough light pollution. Same thing happens when I watch space documentaries where they show the sky from the surface of Pluto or some of the outer celestial objects that doesn’t have a substantial atmosphere. It’s weird. To Brandon’s point, it may have something to do with agoraphobia, since I have some low-key anxiety in crowds (though I wouldn’t characterize it as a full-on phobia per se).
28:48 🌌 Looking at the night sky, brings me the same feeling of free falling into the void of the universe, combined with the insignificance of the earth below me, but instead of phobia its kind of "existential rush" for me.
EMT here. Fully sympathize with Dan about shots. I can't do needles for myself. I cringe when they're in other people but I make it work. But every time I donate blood, I almost faint and I have terrible anxiety throughout the experience. Even thinking about an IV or shot in myself induces anxiety...
I get the vertigo similar to Dan when lying on my back looking up cell phone towers. My head needs to be towards the tower, feet away from it. It looks really weird and makes me feel like I'm falling and overwhelmed.
I started suffering from what Dan was talking about when looking up at the night sky after I had my first panic attack. Its been 2 years and on my better days I could pull a few minutes at most looking at the nught sky
The last time I donated plasma I was 10mL away from being done when my blood pressure suddenly plummeted. I had been feeling fine when I started to feel a little woozy so one of the techs came over and took my pressure. My normal blood pressure is around 110/70, but at that point it was 50/30. They immediately stopped the extraction and started pumping saline into my arm, then they brought over a second machine and hooked that into my other arm are started pumping saline into there as well. This entire time my vision was narrowing like looking down a dark tunnel and I could barely focus enough to string two words together. Though I did manage to ask them to bring my my coat because two bags of room temperature saline being put into your warm body will make you feel very chilly.
29:00 Damn I have the same exact thing!! When I go outside with my friends and we rest on the grass looking at the sky I have to close my eyes and pretend the sky is not there and think that it will NOT swallow me whole.. haha
Same as some others in the comments. Space and open sky, any openness over my head has great potential to make me cling to the nearest fixture. It happens to me in atriums and indoor/outdoor rinks with rising seats. I cannot look up, or I will feel a pull upward and I will instinctively get as close to the ground as I possibly can.
Pro tip from a Diabetic who gets his blood drawn all the time: ask the nurse or whomever is going to give you a shot/ take your blood do let you lie down before you get your shot. Tell them you pass out or get woozy and they will normally find somewhere where you can lay down. When you do, lay flat on your back and pull your knees towards your chest while keeping your feet flat on whatever you’re laying on. Not only will this help you, the nurses will appreciate not having to pick you up off the floor. I used to get really nauseous and light-headed when I had my blood drawn but I did this for a few years and now I can sit normally and I’m totally fine!
I don't feel the vertigo when looking at the sky orthinking about the earth, but when I think of how thin a floor is when there is another level below me I get the weightlessness. I first remember it happening laying on the airport floor trying to sleep, and thinking how thin the floor felt when suddenly it felt like I was in free fall
I had that experience of looking at the stars and getting freaked out once, too! I was looking at the stars, admiring how pretty they are, and then I suddenly became a lot more aware of the vast distance between me and the stars. It was like suddenly looking down over the edge of a cliff. Super weird! I'm not scared about looking at the stars on a regular basis, but that experience freaked me out.
I had the BEST root canal. The Novocain meant that it didn't hurt at all, but they didn't give me too much and give me that unpleasant numb sensation. The oral surgeon made genuinely funny jokes the entire time. Basically, I went to a comedy show paid for by health insurance. Only downside was having my mouth held open the whole time. If you ever need a root canal, go to Rajiv Patel in Flower Mound, TX. It was such a weirdly good experience.
Interesting thing about pain and medication is that for people who cant have things like local or general anesthetic they give them anti anxiety medication, its often just as effective as pain medication but doesnt have the potentially serious down sides.
My uncle was a police officer for many years. He had no problem with other people's blood, but he would faint (or sometimes nearly faint) at the sight of his own blood
I’ve never heard someone describe my exact feelings on the concept of eternity better than Dan did in this episode. I know intellectually that it will be a great thing, but I can’t get over the idea that it will just keep going… and going… and going…
I think the horror of eternity comes from attempting to grasp the entire thing... Which of course you can't. But the experience of it would just be continuing to exist in the present. So it wouldn't actually be horrible to be in it.
My brother has that same thing happened to him when he gets blood taken. He has to lie down in order to have any amount of blood be taken, or his body just won't even produce any and he will pass out at the same time. Asking a doctor at one point, I remember hearing them say that it had something to do with iron deficiency
Ok, but we NEED an episode about the Good Place. Also I don't get anxiety/fear from looking up at the sky, BUT if I try to comprehend how big space is it literally hurts my brain
I have a phobia of being trapped, which is often mistaken for claustrophobia. It doesn't really matter what size of room I'm in, if I feel like I can't leave it (or I actually can't leave), I panic. Even not being able to move freely if I want to can cause me some distress. Wearing too many layers of clothing, or clothing that's too thick, can cause me distress because I feel like my movement is too restricted. This is why in hot vs. cold debates, whenever someone makes the "you can always add layers" point, I want to commit crimes.
When I was deployed to Afghanistan one of my teeth decided to develop an abscess, after a couple days of antibiotics I then got the fun experience of getting a root canal from an Army Dentist in Afghanistan. I'm usually fine with novacaine/shots/etc, when he put the needle in and pushed in the novacaine it was a starburst of pain in my lower right jaw; yes, it actually felt like fire moving from that central point along 5 different paths. After that it was fine, I then later had a more complete root canal on the same tooth as they didn't have fine enough instruments in Afghanistan to complete it. The bad part is they never put a crown on it, so the tooth cracked and then later had to be extracted, nothing like that wrenching, jarring motion of them trying to pull the tooth out of my jaw.
I find Dan's interpretation of The Good Place utterly bizarre. He says the show was portraying "an eternity of sameness", in contrast to his own belief's eternity of "growth and progression". But, like...did he _watch_ The Good Place's final episode? It's an entire story about how they lived essentially an eternity improving themselves, and once they believed there was no more growth possible, they could step out and end it. It's quite literally the opposite of an eternity of sameness.
That Writers Sprint story of being haunted by a body reminds me of an old speed awareness advert in the UK, where every time the guy turned around he saw the body of the child he hit.
I am the same as Dan when it comes to shots/needles. Some people say that if you would just get a lot of shots, you would get used to it. Was getting a shot every week and nope, did not help at all. Was still as uncomfortable at the end of it, as I was at the start.
I have the same space fear as Dan! I didn’t have it as a child/teen, but in my 20’s and 30’s, it has gotten progressively worse. I cannot stand looking up at the sky for any extended period of time anymore. Some days (seems to be windy + cloudy? hard to identify the specific trigger), when I am outside or especially in a vehicle, I will have itty bitty bursts of vertigo that feel like gravity is threatening to turn off. I’ll start imagining the back of my car being gently tipped upward and then falling into the sky. Also can’t stand any camera view that goes more than 90° up (like “slow back flip camera”) or anything else that messes with my visual sense of gravity, including in video games where (a) it’s fake and (b) I am in complete control of the camera. It sounds so dumb but it really affects my ability to watch sci-fi (which I otherwise love!) because my entire body is like “NOPE” any time a planet is oriented in any orientation other than below or directly ahead of the ship. Ships are allowed to be miles and miles in the air and outside of atmosphere/gravity/etc and that’s fine, but by god, down must stay down, even if gravity IS turned off.
I think this is similar to Brandon's "deep ocean" feeling, but I've always been freaked out by zooming in on the satellite image view on maps, with the dark blue oceans being particularly freaky to me. I've often had nightmares of waking up on the edge of space and falling to earth.
I'm also absolutely terrified of the idea of falling into oblivion upon death, and I don't have any religious background or current beliefs to soothe me. The only thing that gives me some relief is the idea which makes the most sense to me: time is infinite, the universe is one among many, and consciousness is a database, which is to say every one of us is a consciousness value, and when a life is created, the universe randomly assigns one of the values in this insanely large database. Of course, because it's random, it could take a long time to "hit" our number, but since we can only experience time while living, even if it's trillions of years before it is assigned again, it will feel instant.
I felt the kind of vertigo Dan talks about when I was a teenager, but it happened when I was lying in bed trying to sleep, and I started thinking about the concept of life, and the fact that we are alive and did not exist before that. I remember it happening when I thought about the universe as well like Dan said, I think my brain couldn't fully process it or got scared so I had that type of vertigo. It was more related to the fact that I was trying to process something way too big for my brain, rather than being scared of death, life, or anything like that, I think.
There is a story that uses the concept of haunted by a body (but not the soul) REALLY well! It is a Tor book called "Harrow the Ninth" and it is the second book in the series of "The Locked Tomb". This is a book series that absolutely requires reading the books in order, and they are incredibly fantastic and So weird.
So I have arachnophobia. This episode was like toeing the line because you weren’t talking about spiders for most of it, but I was thinking of spiders the entire time. But this was fascinating and a great episode
I have low blood pressure and I too pass out if my blood is taken, but the doctors recommended that I lie down while they take it plus a couple more minutes, since then I haven't passed out.
So, I had a phlebotomist explain to me, as he was taking my blood, that this reaction is actually genetic. Something in your genes causes your body to just shut down for a bit when it experiences blood loss. Particularly from the limbs. Nothing anyone can really do about it aside from some gene therapy, I guess. If I understand it correctly, that is.
I get the dizziness when looking at the night sky! Nothing as intense as described, just a faint dizzying or swaying sensation, like laying in bed when drunk.
Not exactly the same as the gravity failing, but I get an intense sense of stress whenever I am on a plane. I have to actively stop myself from thinking about crashing or thinking that there's nothing under me.
Even when not family High Schoolers can work as dental assistants. Vocational Schools frequently have Dental Hygienist programs and many of those kids will be working as dental assistants as they work toward getting their certificates/licenses.
I can imagine it now. Stormlight 5 will have a scene where Lirin is operating on someone and he says feel the shake of the sensation to trick the patient's mind into not feeling the pain of the needle. If Dan read Rythym of War, did he have an adverse reaction to reading the scene where there was an issue with gravity?
So, the funny thing with fear of spiders or snakes is that while the phobias themselves aren't genetic in and of themselves, we're genetically predisposed to develop them as opposed to fears of most other animals, so if arachnophobia or any of those is modeled by your parents or you have a bad experience, you're more likely to develop it than fear of something else.
I have the vertigo with the sky thing at times. For me it seems to be when I focus on the actual distance, the "empty space" above, that the vertigo kicks in. Same thing when I did a swim call off the coast of the Bahamas about 2k fathoms deep. I was okay swimming over the vast blue green nothing right until I saw a dolphin swimming ~40 feet down crystal clear, and my brain comprehended the actual distance. Instant vertigo - almost couldn't swim.
I had an issue with my knee (affected my entire leg though) and one of the examinations for that was they jammed a needle into the muscle and told me to tense up that muscle with the needle in it, to measure activity. That was done to I think three different muscles in my thigh and emotionally it was just really difficult to force myself to do that. I was like 11 at the time.
Hey, I do have the same thing as the one Dan mentioned regarding vertigo and open sky/stars - except for me my subconscious says to me "what if you suddenly teleport to that spot high above you're looking at and start falling", which does sound ridiculous, but physical and psychological feeling is still the same. Also for me it's probably connected to my fear of heights, which is kind of everpresent for me, while this thing where I look at something very high above and feel extremely uncomfortable is a relatively new development.
I have that feeling but not for outer space. But being upside down in a large open space like the prairies would give me that feeling of vertigo, like I'd fall into the sky.
I'm not religious but I'm with Dan on the eternal life. That would be hell for me. I'm not afraid of it... since I don't believe in life after death. But fathom how people think it's a good thing. Like... I would love to live thousands of years... maybe millions. But eternity is forever. It's non ending existence. After a trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion years... that thing is not gonna be me anymore. The Good Place, one of the best TV Shows in existence, deals with this topic very well.
I had that same nerve test that Dan did once. For me its the fear of electricity that was hard for me. Somehow I kept it together and when I got in my car, just cried. and I am not sure why.
The irony of Brandon being nervous about being treated by a young apprentice dental assitant after writing a main protagonist who was a young apprentice surgical assistant lmaooo
SO true!
"Kaladin will remember this."
perhaps the inspiration?
I worked in an office once where this 10yo girl was a manager. Was a little odd but she was competent and I just went with it.
Turned out she only *looked* young … was actually 30 with a husband and kids.
@@debarberach How could it be an inspiration? Way of kings was published 12 years ago
The best title yet
As a dentist, I found this episode very interesting. Some clarifications though:
1. Brandon most likely saw an Endodontist (root canal specialist) and not Oral Surgeon
2. The really young dental assistant is really strange, but in Canada they require a license and schooling so I would assume she is well trained.
3. Dentists, just like medical doctors, definitely get malpractice insurance (but he's right that you aren't really worrying about people dying)
4. Certain treatment can actually be done without anesthetic just like how Brandon does. Especially shallow fillings and technically you could start a root canal without anesthetic if it's a dead tooth (in fact sometimes this is done if a very large abscess as anesthetic doesn't work and we can drain pus out of the tooth - yes gross - this releases pressure and pain) Most of the time as a dentist we would rather freeze just in case some brave patient suddenly starts flinching because it hurts.
I’m also a dentist and I had some similar thoughts.
To clarify #2, Here in Utah dental assistants aren’t required to have any license or schooling. They are required to have a certificate if they are taking x-rays. Most of them have gone to some form of assisting school as it is hard for them to get a job without it. Hygienist of course are required to have a license and to have completed school.
I was as a child more scared by the anaesthetic than the pain of the procedure
I spent a year on the island of Okinawa back in the 90's. There was a shipwreck about a mile offshore from Camp Kinser, the SS Tatong. During low tide you could walk out to it. The water would be only knee deep.
However, at the edge of the coral, the drop off was so abrupt, it was the freakiest thing. You could be standing in knee deep water a mile offshore, and if you leaned forward and looked down, you couldn't see anything but blackness. It was like standing on the tallest wall you could imagine. The feeling is indescribable.
That’s so rad. And terrifying.
I definitely had the same "space" experience as Dan when I was young. Looking at the stars I would lose my frame of reference for up and down and suddenly feel terrified of just falling up forever, or like there was nothing holding anything up. I remember laying on my back in the yard clutching onto the grass with both hands with my eyes shut, just trying to reorient.
YES EXACTLY
When I was a kid I would sometimes get that looking up at distant clouds as well
Yeah, I suspect this just comes from the lack of horizon to judge distance by. I do wonder why it seems to impact some people more than others.
I get it in the daytime when seeing the moon in the sky. Something about seeing a big rock floating up there screams wrongness to my brain.
I'm not sure how I had never heard of Brandon Sanderson before last year, and only discovered him because I was looking for videos on how to write novels. I've never read any of his books, yet, but I plan to.
I was in your situation about a year ago. Fricking go for it, you are in for a treat.
I also started reading his books because of his writing lectures years ago.
If you're look for recommendations on his work Mistborn the Final Empire and Warbreaker are solid for newcomers.
What was Brandon's first book published?
@@wylanvallotton4462 Elantris. It's not particularly good; it has some pitfalls, but I enjoyed it more than I didn't enjoy it.
Dan: “I did hit a point where I could feel my heart racing and a shortness of breath, like oh this is definitely what a fear reaction is physiologically even thought I intellectually am not afraid of this”
That’s the definition of a phobia
As someone with an actual real phobia, I can assure you that my one-time reaction to trypophobia images is not the same in any way.
@@danwells9305 ah yes, I was contemplating the extreme annoyance of having real-life phobias that are extreme fear reactions to things you aren't actually "afraid of", and I thought your comment nailed what it is like to have a phobia. Hence my peanut-gallery comment. No offense intended, simply feeding the algorithm.
@@KatiePayneVlogs No offense received either, no worries :)
@@danwells9305 okay thank you, you've saved me from laying awake tonight staring at the ceiling thinking about how after all these years of Writing Excuses that my first interaction with Dan Wells was that of offensive.
I don’t believe so!
Brandon: I am no doctor, but I want to give you a word to mention to your doctor. Don't worry it's not a death thing.
Neurocardiogenic Syncope is a fainting disorder. It results in uncontrolled blood pressure, that swings up and down too far. Something that might cause a slight downward adjustment of pressure causes a crash instead. This can result in passing out, in instances of low blood pressure, and in instances of high blood pressure.
One treatment is a high-sodium diet. My dad salts his water to keep his blood pressure under control. Without extra salt he feels poorly all day and sometimes passes out. His doctor ordered a low salt diet once and dad felt horrible all all the time, had chronic high blood pressure, and occasionally passed out.
Like I said, not a doctor, but there were enough key words in one place to make me want to mention this.
Huh that’s interesting because Brandon is a salt fanatic and has a bunch of fancy books
This episode starts with medicine and ends with philosophy. I love these episodes; it's like all the late-night conversations I have with my friends.
I'm so happy to hear about Dan Wells' gravity fears, because honestly same. I'll lay awake at night wondering/worrying about what might happen if gravity suddenly started pulling everything up.
Dan hitting the full Calvin & Hobbes "Mom! Did you forget to pay the gravity bill again?" vibe.
Glad someone else thought of that!
Dan's comment about the planet resonates with me! I have this irrational reaction to "scale". Like if I think about the size of the planet in relation to the grandness of space I feel anxious - I've had it since I was in elementary school and have no clue where it started. It's worst when I think about the size of a human compared to the size of the planet to the size of space, but it also impacts me when something that is usually a static distance from me changes. I think it's based in anxiety but don't have a clue! So Dan's statement about feeling unmoored in space freaking him out is just like the feeling I get.
Definitely, anxiety based. I have many of the same feelings and I have really bad anxiety disorder
I think maybe a good way of overcoming it is exposing yourself to it to the point where it’s familiar to you. Here’s a video that might help:
th-cam.com/video/i93Z7zljQ7I/w-d-xo.html
You should look up a game called Space Engine. It’s an extremely accurate fully recreation of the observable universe using procedural generation for unknown/unnamed stars but it’s all to scale and it’s kind of terrifying.
I have had agoraphobia for around 13 years and have had sensations similar to the “sliding/falling off the earth” sensation, which I associate with the sensation of disassociation or derealization. Happy to answer any questions about agoraphobia any time.
What a delightful author. I will have to look at some of his work. Looks better than a robot. He autographs very efficiently, yet carries on a cheerful convo.
Brandon Sanderson talking being happy every day but not feeling as strong emotions is putting into words how I always feel
Are you describing "Contentment" then?
@@uarthchylde yeah
If Sanderson wakes up every day on the same emotional state enjoying life... well that explains a lot how prolific he can be! And I'm so happy about it ^^
So I got my Wisdom Teeth out in April, and I had been told by a friend that I could bring headphones and listen to music. I chose a random episode of IB, and I must say, I am very glad this one was not out when I chose the episode to listen to
I recently started listening to The Final Empire (Mistborn series) and It's fantastic. I spend multiple hours listening to it while I work. The version from GraphicAudio is impressive! It feels like I am watching a movie in my mind and there is so much to listen to it's exciting!
For me I pass out when getting blood drawn because I had a semi traumatic experience with getting blood drawn once, and now if I’m not laying down I pass out because of something called vasovagal syncope (basically my brain freaks out and that makes my blood vessels expand and gravity pulls the blood from my brain). But for me it’s pretty speedy, usually I pass out while blood is still getting drawn (tbf I usually have to get 3-4 vials though)
Same. Similar to what Brandon mentioned sometimes it happens even when I'm not consciously feeling anxious about the blood draw. I'll think I'm fine then all the sudden my vision fades out and I'm gone. Usually happens after the fact for me though.
I have the same thing, only I faint shortly after my blood is finished being drawn. I am very afraid of needles, and them talking about needles here gave me the heebie-jeebies. I have actually almost fainted just by looking at a needle I was in no danger of getting poked by. I should try the lying down next time I get my blood drawn.
When my dentist told me that the only way to save my tooth which was still aching after filling a hole in it was to do root canal I just opted for getting it cut off along with one of my wisdom teeth.
I've got no regrets because even though it's really expensive sometimes root canal treatment just doesn't work and the tooth was a number 6 on my lower jaw. Also missing it is just a bonus because 6s are those teeth that get stuff stuck on them for some reason.
It's kinda fun to just poke my tongue into the gap between 6 and 7.
I love your books and lectures! You make it fun to write.
Brandon feels the same every day but somehow wrote Kaladan and it resonates with people fighting depression. Bravo.
I have had way too much dental work done and like Dan, needles and shots get me very anxious. My usual coping mechanism is to slowly drink some water while I get the shot. Which doesn't work when the shot is in the mouth. Have always hated go to the dentist because of it. But in the last year I got a new dentist after moving and he does that same trick Brandon talked about with shaking and massaging the tissue around the injection site and it's a real life changer!
Dan could never be an optometrist based off this episode. There is a day in optometry school where we all give each other shots in our eyes!! Good times! Great episode, one of my favorite!
28:55 oh me too!! I have that with the whole sky really but especially space. It's a void up there.... I don't feel like I'm gonna fall, I feel stuck to the earth. But I do get the sense I'm dangling above infinity. Which I am. There's some vertigo and helplessness and the urge to look away.
I find both eternity and nothingness scary. Constant sameness does sound like hell, but I can't see everything always progressing. But I care too much about my identity to have nothingness. So everything is terrifying.
I'm excited for the next episode, "58"
I hope the one after that is "59."
34:42 as someone who shares Brandon's worldview: I greatly look forward to reading book 10,956,103 of the Cosmere.
I have experienced a version of the "fall into space" feeling Dan described a few times in my life when I was studying Astrophysics in college. Because it was basically my whole life and on my mind all the time, I would get pointedly aware of the feeling that on even a relatively small astronomical scale, the amount of space beneath my feet occupied by Earth is absolutely negligible compared to the amount of space occupied by nothingness beyond Earth. And that feeling of the insignificant size of the planet would freak me out and make me feel like I could be flung off the surface of the world.
Hearing you guys talk about sports medicine today...my worlds have been crossed.
I have the open blue ocean shivers like Brandon, and something like Dan's feeling about the sky. The sky thing started as a child, laying down looking up at the blue sky and clouds and the terrifying thought, what if up and down suddenly switched places? I would just fall forever into that blue sky. Getting under a roof would help so much. Perhaps my irrational terror of losing a helium balloon and it floating into the sky was related to this--as also the weird feeling of seeing something sinking down out of view into deep water.
Can't believe Brandon would be supportive of burning anything with fire. On a totally unrelated note I do love unproblematic fan favorite characters Spook and Dalinar
I know exactly what Dan is talking about. The easiest way to trigger it is to find a huge flat place under the open sky or stars, and then relax and stare right out into it. It becomes real easy to feel... "untethered" from the world. And contemplating the vastness of space, the volume of it, the scale of it and your relative place in that, is easily overwhelming to our tiny meat. ;)
Interesting. I have the exact opposite, looking at space and sea calms me down. Especially when I think about how insignificantly small I am compared to the huge distances and scales of the universe. I was born in an archipelago village so it probably plays a part in that, the vastness (of the sea) feels very comforting to me.
I have that sensation Dan described whenever I look into the night sky on a clear night. It isn’t as bad when there are mountains around me for some reason, but ever since I moved to the midwest, I can never look at the night sky if there isn’t enough light pollution. Same thing happens when I watch space documentaries where they show the sky from the surface of Pluto or some of the outer celestial objects that doesn’t have a substantial atmosphere. It’s weird. To Brandon’s point, it may have something to do with agoraphobia, since I have some low-key anxiety in crowds (though I wouldn’t characterize it as a full-on phobia per se).
I sometimes get the same feeling when I look at the night sky, Dan. I have panic disorder tho so lots of things give me irrational anxiety lol.
28:48 🌌 Looking at the night sky, brings me the same feeling of free falling into the void of the universe, combined with the insignificance of the earth below me, but instead of phobia its kind of "existential rush" for me.
I'm with Dan on the slimy things in the ocean scaring me more
I loved this episode! Also, completely random, but I did enjoy the short discussion on The Good Place.
EMT here. Fully sympathize with Dan about shots. I can't do needles for myself. I cringe when they're in other people but I make it work. But every time I donate blood, I almost faint and I have terrible anxiety throughout the experience. Even thinking about an IV or shot in myself induces anxiety...
I have the outer space thing that Dan was describing around 29 minutes in. If I look directly up at the stars I get that exact same feeling.
I've mostly worked past it now. I ran a writing conference last week of which stargazing was a major component, and never freaked out once :)
I get the vertigo similar to Dan when lying on my back looking up cell phone towers. My head needs to be towards the tower, feet away from it. It looks really weird and makes me feel like I'm falling and overwhelmed.
I started suffering from what Dan was talking about when looking up at the night sky after I had my first panic attack. Its been 2 years and on my better days I could pull a few minutes at most looking at the nught sky
Dan - right there with you. I pass out if my subconscious realizes I have a needle in me.
The last time I donated plasma I was 10mL away from being done when my blood pressure suddenly plummeted. I had been feeling fine when I started to feel a little woozy so one of the techs came over and took my pressure. My normal blood pressure is around 110/70, but at that point it was 50/30. They immediately stopped the extraction and started pumping saline into my arm, then they brought over a second machine and hooked that into my other arm are started pumping saline into there as well. This entire time my vision was narrowing like looking down a dark tunnel and I could barely focus enough to string two words together. Though I did manage to ask them to bring my my coat because two bags of room temperature saline being put into your warm body will make you feel very chilly.
29:00 Damn I have the same exact thing!! When I go outside with my friends and we rest on the grass looking at the sky I have to close my eyes and pretend the sky is not there and think that it will NOT swallow me whole.. haha
Same as some others in the comments. Space and open sky, any openness over my head has great potential to make me cling to the nearest fixture. It happens to me in atriums and indoor/outdoor rinks with rising seats. I cannot look up, or I will feel a pull upward and I will instinctively get as close to the ground as I possibly can.
Pro tip from a Diabetic who gets his blood drawn all the time: ask the nurse or whomever is going to give you a shot/ take your blood do let you lie down before you get your shot. Tell them you pass out or get woozy and they will normally find somewhere where you can lay down. When you do, lay flat on your back and pull your knees towards your chest while keeping your feet flat on whatever you’re laying on. Not only will this help you, the nurses will appreciate not having to pick you up off the floor. I used to get really nauseous and light-headed when I had my blood drawn but I did this for a few years and now I can sit normally and I’m totally fine!
I don't feel the vertigo when looking at the sky orthinking about the earth, but when I think of how thin a floor is when there is another level below me I get the weightlessness. I first remember it happening laying on the airport floor trying to sleep, and thinking how thin the floor felt when suddenly it felt like I was in free fall
Getting light headed just hearing you talk about this. First episode I didn't finish haha.
This guy is such a good author, that I'll gladly spend 40 min listening to his dental experiences.
o.O
this was the best episode ever
I had that experience of looking at the stars and getting freaked out once, too!
I was looking at the stars, admiring how pretty they are, and then I suddenly became a lot more aware of the vast distance between me and the stars. It was like suddenly looking down over the edge of a cliff. Super weird!
I'm not scared about looking at the stars on a regular basis, but that experience freaked me out.
I had the BEST root canal. The Novocain meant that it didn't hurt at all, but they didn't give me too much and give me that unpleasant numb sensation. The oral surgeon made genuinely funny jokes the entire time. Basically, I went to a comedy show paid for by health insurance. Only downside was having my mouth held open the whole time.
If you ever need a root canal, go to Rajiv Patel in Flower Mound, TX. It was such a weirdly good experience.
Interesting thing about pain and medication is that for people who cant have things like local or general anesthetic they give them anti anxiety medication, its often just as effective as pain medication but doesnt have the potentially serious down sides.
I've never gotten a root canal, but it sounds like it's not the best time to be thinking about a new novel. B$ is crazy.
My uncle was a police officer for many years. He had no problem with other people's blood, but he would faint (or sometimes nearly faint) at the sight of his own blood
I’ve never heard someone describe my exact feelings on the concept of eternity better than Dan did in this episode. I know intellectually that it will be a great thing, but I can’t get over the idea that it will just keep going… and going… and going…
I think the horror of eternity comes from attempting to grasp the entire thing... Which of course you can't. But the experience of it would just be continuing to exist in the present. So it wouldn't actually be horrible to be in it.
My brother has that same thing happened to him when he gets blood taken. He has to lie down in order to have any amount of blood be taken, or his body just won't even produce any and he will pass out at the same time. Asking a doctor at one point, I remember hearing them say that it had something to do with iron deficiency
Brandon finally admits he's a writing robot.
It's been known, we love him for it.
Ok, but we NEED an episode about the Good Place. Also I don't get anxiety/fear from looking up at the sky, BUT if I try to comprehend how big space is it literally hurts my brain
This. THIS is the content we show up for. :)
I have a phobia of being trapped, which is often mistaken for claustrophobia. It doesn't really matter what size of room I'm in, if I feel like I can't leave it (or I actually can't leave), I panic. Even not being able to move freely if I want to can cause me some distress. Wearing too many layers of clothing, or clothing that's too thick, can cause me distress because I feel like my movement is too restricted. This is why in hot vs. cold debates, whenever someone makes the "you can always add layers" point, I want to commit crimes.
Wow, that was the best episode so far
When I was deployed to Afghanistan one of my teeth decided to develop an abscess, after a couple days of antibiotics I then got the fun experience of getting a root canal from an Army Dentist in Afghanistan. I'm usually fine with novacaine/shots/etc, when he put the needle in and pushed in the novacaine it was a starburst of pain in my lower right jaw; yes, it actually felt like fire moving from that central point along 5 different paths. After that it was fine, I then later had a more complete root canal on the same tooth as they didn't have fine enough instruments in Afghanistan to complete it. The bad part is they never put a crown on it, so the tooth cracked and then later had to be extracted, nothing like that wrenching, jarring motion of them trying to pull the tooth out of my jaw.
I find Dan's interpretation of The Good Place utterly bizarre. He says the show was portraying "an eternity of sameness", in contrast to his own belief's eternity of "growth and progression". But, like...did he _watch_ The Good Place's final episode? It's an entire story about how they lived essentially an eternity improving themselves, and once they believed there was no more growth possible, they could step out and end it. It's quite literally the opposite of an eternity of sameness.
Hooray, an episode that's not about films or TV shows that I haven't seen!
That Writers Sprint story of being haunted by a body reminds me of an old speed awareness advert in the UK, where every time the guy turned around he saw the body of the child he hit.
I am the same as Dan when it comes to shots/needles. Some people say that if you would just get a lot of shots, you would get used to it. Was getting a shot every week and nope, did not help at all. Was still as uncomfortable at the end of it, as I was at the start.
I have the same space fear as Dan! I didn’t have it as a child/teen, but in my 20’s and 30’s, it has gotten progressively worse. I cannot stand looking up at the sky for any extended period of time anymore. Some days (seems to be windy + cloudy? hard to identify the specific trigger), when I am outside or especially in a vehicle, I will have itty bitty bursts of vertigo that feel like gravity is threatening to turn off. I’ll start imagining the back of my car being gently tipped upward and then falling into the sky. Also can’t stand any camera view that goes more than 90° up (like “slow back flip camera”) or anything else that messes with my visual sense of gravity, including in video games where (a) it’s fake and (b) I am in complete control of the camera. It sounds so dumb but it really affects my ability to watch sci-fi (which I otherwise love!) because my entire body is like “NOPE” any time a planet is oriented in any orientation other than below or directly ahead of the ship. Ships are allowed to be miles and miles in the air and outside of atmosphere/gravity/etc and that’s fine, but by god, down must stay down, even if gravity IS turned off.
I think this is similar to Brandon's "deep ocean" feeling, but I've always been freaked out by zooming in on the satellite image view on maps, with the dark blue oceans being particularly freaky to me. I've often had nightmares of waking up on the edge of space and falling to earth.
I'm also absolutely terrified of the idea of falling into oblivion upon death, and I don't have any religious background or current beliefs to soothe me. The only thing that gives me some relief is the idea which makes the most sense to me: time is infinite, the universe is one among many, and consciousness is a database, which is to say every one of us is a consciousness value, and when a life is created, the universe randomly assigns one of the values in this insanely large database. Of course, because it's random, it could take a long time to "hit" our number, but since we can only experience time while living, even if it's trillions of years before it is assigned again, it will feel instant.
I felt the kind of vertigo Dan talks about when I was a teenager, but it happened when I was lying in bed trying to sleep, and I started thinking about the concept of life, and the fact that we are alive and did not exist before that. I remember it happening when I thought about the universe as well like Dan said, I think my brain couldn't fully process it or got scared so I had that type of vertigo.
It was more related to the fact that I was trying to process something way too big for my brain, rather than being scared of death, life, or anything like that, I think.
There is a story that uses the concept of haunted by a body (but not the soul) REALLY well! It is a Tor book called "Harrow the Ninth" and it is the second book in the series of "The Locked Tomb". This is a book series that absolutely requires reading the books in order, and they are incredibly fantastic and So weird.
So I have arachnophobia. This episode was like toeing the line because you weren’t talking about spiders for most of it, but I was thinking of spiders the entire time. But this was fascinating and a great episode
Eternity terrifies me too. It's one of the things I feel keeps me from having any joy In faith.
39:40 it has happened yo me once when I wad camping under the stars on top of a mountain
If Brandon ever finds out what causes his passing out from having blood taken, I'd really like to hear about it. I experience the same thing.
You'll probably read about it in one of his books.
Could be a range of things there
I have low blood pressure and I too pass out if my blood is taken, but the doctors recommended that I lie down while they take it plus a couple more minutes, since then I haven't passed out.
So, I had a phlebotomist explain to me, as he was taking my blood, that this reaction is actually genetic. Something in your genes causes your body to just shut down for a bit when it experiences blood loss. Particularly from the limbs. Nothing anyone can really do about it aside from some gene therapy, I guess. If I understand it correctly, that is.
Same.
I get the dizziness when looking at the night sky! Nothing as intense as described, just a faint dizzying or swaying sensation, like laying in bed when drunk.
Not exactly the same as the gravity failing, but I get an intense sense of stress whenever I am on a plane. I have to actively stop myself from thinking about crashing or thinking that there's nothing under me.
For Episodic adventure books ever checked out Expeditionary Forces by Craig Alanson? It feels like a space buddy cop (military edition) tv show.
Even when not family High Schoolers can work as dental assistants. Vocational Schools frequently have Dental Hygienist programs and many of those kids will be working as dental assistants as they work toward getting their certificates/licenses.
I can imagine it now. Stormlight 5 will have a scene where Lirin is operating on someone and he says feel the shake of the sensation to trick the patient's mind into not feeling the pain of the needle.
If Dan read Rythym of War, did he have an adverse reaction to reading the scene where there was an issue with gravity?
That would be glorious
I think the hypothesis about the uncanny valley stems from an evolutionary benefit to avoiding corpses.
So, the funny thing with fear of spiders or snakes is that while the phobias themselves aren't genetic in and of themselves, we're genetically predisposed to develop them as opposed to fears of most other animals, so if arachnophobia or any of those is modeled by your parents or you have a bad experience, you're more likely to develop it than fear of something else.
I have the vertigo with the sky thing at times. For me it seems to be when I focus on the actual distance, the "empty space" above, that the vertigo kicks in. Same thing when I did a swim call off the coast of the Bahamas about 2k fathoms deep. I was okay swimming over the vast blue green nothing right until I saw a dolphin swimming ~40 feet down crystal clear, and my brain comprehended the actual distance. Instant vertigo - almost couldn't swim.
Finally, a topic I care about.
When id have fevers, i will suddenly have an existential fear of how big the world is
When I was a kid we'd go swimming in a big lake, and just the thought of not seeing what was under me was terrifying
That's weird. I DO have depression, but I also don't fear eternity for the same reasons that Brandon suggested.
Best title
I had an issue with my knee (affected my entire leg though) and one of the examinations for that was they jammed a needle into the muscle and told me to tense up that muscle with the needle in it, to measure activity. That was done to I think three different muscles in my thigh and emotionally it was just really difficult to force myself to do that. I was like 11 at the time.
I get the same fear/vertigo from looking into the stars at night sometimes. I know exactly what he’s talking about!!
Feels like there is an extra space in the title of the video, after "blank"
Hey, I do have the same thing as the one Dan mentioned regarding vertigo and open sky/stars - except for me my subconscious says to me "what if you suddenly teleport to that spot high above you're looking at and start falling", which does sound ridiculous, but physical and psychological feeling is still the same.
Also for me it's probably connected to my fear of heights, which is kind of everpresent for me, while this thing where I look at something very high above and feel extremely uncomfortable is a relatively new development.
My dad never got wisdom teeth, either. I have them, but they've so far stayed up in my bones and not tried to come down and bother me.
I have that feeling but not for outer space. But being upside down in a large open space like the prairies would give me that feeling of vertigo, like I'd fall into the sky.
I'm not religious but I'm with Dan on the eternal life. That would be hell for me. I'm not afraid of it... since I don't believe in life after death. But fathom how people think it's a good thing. Like... I would love to live thousands of years... maybe millions. But eternity is forever. It's non ending existence. After a trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion years... that thing is not gonna be me anymore.
The Good Place, one of the best TV Shows in existence, deals with this topic very well.
I had that same nerve test that Dan did once.
For me its the fear of electricity that was hard for me.
Somehow I kept it together and when I got in my car, just cried. and I am not sure why.