BrainStuff Classics: Would Psychic Powers Really Cause Nosebleeds?

you've seen the trope. A mental battle rages between a heroic character and her nemesis. As the struggle wears on, we see the first signs of the toll. It must be taking a trickle of blood. Ruby red appears at one nostril. The strain of invisible psychic abilities is admittedly difficult to illustrate in a visual medium. Perhaps that's why so many authors of comic books, television shows, and movies turn to this tried and true trope, the psychic nose bleed.

When blood comes from a character's nose, it signifies that the character is exerting themselves. After all, blood vessels can rupture thanks to physical exertion, as many a weightlifter knows, so perhaps psychic powers could cause some sort of cranial pressure build up. It's concise and visceral in a way that a mere facial twitch, drop of sweat, or vein

throb can't cover. It's become such a common way to imply a mind pushed to its limits that the Comics meets Medicine blog Polite Descent has been tracking its appearance in comics for nearly a decade. The site even gave the fictional phenomenon a name, Epistaxis telepathica, the medical term

for a nosebleed being epistaxis. The psychic nosebleed has appeared in more than just comics, of course, beyond comic book adaptations like the two thousand and five film Fantastic Four and the TV series Smallville and media directly influenced by comics like Heroes and Chronicle, to other genre media like

The Fifth Element, Star Trek and Carnival. It also features prominently in the Netflix series Stranger Things, in which a mysterious girl called Eleven escapes a creepy government laboratory, then uses her telekinetic powers against her former captors and some transdimensional creepy crawleys. The internal severity of these psychic abilities is evidenced by the blood that trickles sometimes from Eleven's nose.

Stranger Things pays homage to pop culture from the nineteen eighties with the Spielberg meets Carpenter meets Stephen King sort of vibe. So it's fitting that one of the earliest cinematic instances of the psychic nosebleed appears in the nineteen eighty four film adaptation of Stephen King's Firestarter. A seven year old girl named Charlie starts fires using the power of her mind. Evidence did not only buy flames, but

by the occasional nosebleed. But for some of the earliest psychic nose bleeds, we're going to have to go back to the nineteen eighty one paranormal thriller Scanners from David Cronenberg. It's the first film to clearly connect nasal bleeding with psychic exertion. In the movie, Scanners are people born with telepathic and telekinetic powers, the extreme use of which makes them subject to nose bleeds and more. But if psychic

powers really existed, how might this work? There's a theory that using psychic powers could raise the pressure of your cerebrospinal fluid. But pressure in this fluid, which surrounds the brain and spinal cord, would not cause a nose bleed. It would cause a coma. It's actually more likely that a nosebleed would be brought on by enthusiastic nose picking. The scientific term for that, by the way, is epistaxis digitorum.

While the appearance of nose bleeds adds to the nostalgic eighties drama of stranger things, actual nosebleeds can be dramatic and horrific on their own. Anytime a body part starts spouting copious amounts of blood, it's bound to cause a rucus. It seems but a small leap to connect nose bleeds to fictional worlds, but that's all it is. Fiction. Nosebleeds are not caused by how hard we use our brains. If that were true, think of all the situations we'd

need tissues for tests, job interviews, presentations. Surgeons might bleed more than their patients. The majority of nose bled in real life are caused by fist versus nose or finger versus nose collisions. Infections, allergen irritations, and foreign bodies can also be to blame, and high blood pressure can cause one, although it's lower on the list of dangers than strokes or heart attacks. Most nose bleeds occur during winter months and are exacerbated by climates that are dry and cold.

The vast majority, about ninety percent of nose bleeds are of the anterior variety, caused by the rupture of a blood vessel at the front part of the nose. These nose bleeds are relatively easy to control and usually stop within a few minutes. Posterior nose bleeds are a different story and are caused by an arterial rupture at the back of the nose. A most common and elderly people. Posterior nose bleeds are difficult to stop and usually require

hospital admission. Of course, all of this isn't to say that we're not prepared to suspend our disbelief just in case fiction starts bleeding over into reality. We wouldn't want to think about it too hard. Today's episode is based on the article wood psychic powers really cause a nosebleed on how stuffworks dot com, written by Lareel Dove Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four

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