Learn about how frequent daydreaming may be killing your mood, why ancient Greek temples were purposely built on fault lines; and the invisible forces that make you do the things you do, with author Bill Sullivan.
Learn about how frequent daydreaming may be killing your mood, why ancient Greek temples were purposely built on fault lines; and the invisible forces that make you do the things you do, with author Bill Sullivan.
You Daydream Surprisingly Often, and It's Not Helping by Rachel Bertsche
Ancient Greek Temples Were Purposely Built Over Fault Lines by Reuben Westmaas
Additional resources from Bill Sullivan, author and Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology at Indiana University School of Medicine:
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-invisible-forces-controlling-you-w-bill-sullivan-you-daydream-surprisingly-often-and-ancient-greek-temples-were-built-on-fault-lines-on-purpose
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about how frequent daydreaming may be killing your mood, why ancient Greek temples were purposely built on fault lines; and the invisible forces that make you do the things you do, with author Bill Sullivan.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
When was the last time your mind wandered? ...You totally stopped listening after the “let’s satisfy some curiosity,” didn’t you?! No worries, it’s understandable. According to research, the average person spends nearly half their waking hours daydreaming. That would just be a fun bit of trivia if it wasn’t for this next bit: all that daydreaming makes us unhappy.
By "daydreaming," I don’t mean just those romantic moments sitting at your desk thinking of a loved one or a far-off place. Harvard psychologists count any time your mind wanders as daydreaming, whether that’s thinking about the past, the future or anything unrelated to what you're doing in the moment.
To learn more about daydreaming’s effects, they sent text messages to iPhone users multiple times a day. These texts nudged them to visit an online survey to report how happy they were feeling and describe what they were doing at exactly that moment. They also recorded whether they were thinking about that activity or about something else, and whether that thought was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
After gathering 250,000 data points, the researchers found that the participants’ minds wandered 46.9 percent of the time they spent awake. It also indicated that when someone’s mind was somewhere else, they were more likely to report being unhappy. In fact, the researchers found that how often someone’s mind wanders is a really good predictor of their happiness.
And daydreaming wasn't just an immediate mood-killer. A wandering mind in the morning was shown to dampen a subject's mood later in the day, too. Even when doing something generally considered unpleasant, like cleaning, daydreaming still made participants grumpier.
Overall, the research is a good argument for training your brain to focus. Maybe all those philosophies that say to live in the moment are onto something.
Greece is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in Europe, so it makes sense that Ancient Greece dealt with its share of quakes. What doesn’t make sense is how many ancient Greek temples are built on fault lines. There are a lot of them. Turns out they were put there on purpose, and you’ll never believe the reason.
If you erected a building that was destroyed by an earthquake, you’d probably think twice about putting a new building up in its spot. Not the ancient Greeks. They built and rebuilt temples in the same spot, regardless of how often they were destroyed. At first, researchers marveled at the builders’ bad luck. But then, they realized: this was deliberate.
One of the best-known examples of a temple built over a fault line is at Delphi, where Greece’s most important people traveled to seek guidance from the oracle. Like, in one famous prophecy, the Oracle at Delphi told the mad Roman emperor Nero to “beware the 73rd year.” Nero was relieved, believing he was basically deathproof before he reached 73 years old — except that he ended up being killed in a rebellion led by 73-year-old Galba. The Oracle was mysterious that way.
The hot springs below the temple were a major part of the lore that surrounded the temple at Delphi. There were also reports of mysterious vapors that rose from the ground. In 2001, researchers found evidence of these vapors — as well as their hallucinogenic properties. Ethylene would have been among those gases, and it would have facilitated a disembodied feeling, a sense of euphoria, and a trance-like state.
Delphi wasn’t the only temple like this, either. Researchers have discovered that the sites of several other temples overlap with heavy seismic activity. The temples must have seemed unworldly with vapors, not to mention the sense of euphoria they induced.
So now we know why the oracles risked life and limb by building their temples on earthquake zones. To encourage having visions and prophecies, it helped to get a little high.
Why do people do the things they do? You know — why do you like the people you like? Why do you vote the way you do? What possessed you to do that super embarrassing thing you knew was a mistake? We’re constantly seeking answers to these fundamental human questions, and science is getting closer to the answers. And according to today’s guest, the kinds of food we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold may all be influenced by the DNA in our cells, the microbes in our bodies, and the environment around us. Bill Sullivan is a Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology at Indiana University School of Medicine. Earlier this year he released “Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are.” And in the book, he mixes cutting-edge research and relatable humor to shed a light on who we really are — and how we might become our best selves. In our conversation, he gave us a pretty unsettling overview of all the biological forces that shape who we are — but there's a happy ending, I promise.
[CLIP 3:13]
That was Bill Sullivan, author of “Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are.” You can find a link to pick it up in today’s show notes, and he’ll be back tomorrow to talk about the surprising invisible forces that influence aggression.
Let’s recap the main things we learned today
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Rachel Bertsche [BER-chee] and Reuben Westmaas, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!