Comfort in the Box: Human Edition

That previous one, we talked about cats getting in boxes, cats being unable to resist the lure of a cardboard cube, and we discussed some biological facts about cats that could potentially drive the box seeking behavior, including a natural behavioral

preferences for hiding places, especially under stressful conditions. We talked about some studies about that, but then also things that I hadn't thought about as much before, like thermoregulation, which seems to me to be potentially a big part of the explanation of why cats would seek especially some kinds of box as the kinds that don't really afford anything

like a hiding place. But we also talked about the more difficult to explain phenomenon of cats sitting on and in flat squares on the floor, as well as studies into cats and visual illusions. Today, we wanted to come back and look at the human side of this. Humans desiring to get into the box or get into the square. Yeah yeah, because you know your mind can't help. But but go in this direction, because I mean, on one level, the same cardboard boxes that end up attracting the cat

in a household, well, it'll attract children for sure. I mean, if you've been around children, or ever been a child, you know the appeal of a box, a big cardboard box, or so many things you can do with it, cut some holes in it, some windows, some doors you've you've got yourself, you know, potentially a whole afternoon of entertainment. There were you a Ford builder as a child, I definitely was, Um, I think, yeah, I think so, But I don't remember having as I feel like there far.

You know, we live in an age now where they're just where cardboard boxes are just such a regular part of our life, and as a kid, I don't remember having as much access to cool giant cardboard boxes. Oh well, I just mean in general, I mean building small enclosures out of anything you can get, just boxes, because we would pouch cushions of course, a perfect building material for

indoor forts. But also I recall Uh, with a friend of mine, we spent one summer at least building a ford out of sticks in the woods, just sort of like you know, leaning them together to create a very rough sort of hut. I don't think it would have been functional as a living space, because the roof would have leaked if it rained or anything like that, but it was still it felt very cool to have built

something that you could get inside. Yeah, And and so there's definitely the whole childhood to mension to it, and I guess we'll continue to touch a bit on that. But but also I think as adults we can we can look to boxes and box like in environment, and um, it's it's interesting to sort of engage with the degree to which we are drawn to these spaces or repulsed by these spaces, and and sometimes it's hard to figure

out exactly how we feel about them. So we should go ahead and state the obvious, and that is that we know on one level that can that small confined spaces can be extremely detrimental to human well being. Solitary confinement is a cruel and debilitating treatment. It's associated with a whole host of negative mental states. Yes, clearly that's true. And another thing is sort of along the same lines as when I was trying to find good sources for

today's episode. For every you know, one source you could find that has anything to do with a desire for small spaces, there are going to be a hundred about the hatred of small spaces, about claustrophobia and related you know mind states Like obviously, being in a tight, confined space when you don't want to be there or against your will is a major preoccupation of humans. It's really

easy to get obsessed with this idea and really hate it. Yeah. Yeah, though at least for some, at least for a segment of the population, confined spaces of choice can certainly be comforting, at least in moderation and if and also I should say it, sometimes it might be more of a of a desire for the confined space than a reality of

the confined space. Uh. And I'll get a little bit more into what I mean by that, and just a bit um but you know, it should be noted that the human beings might not all think of box living is the ideal way to go. But but we also we do spend a lot of time living in boxes in the modern world. I mean, there's a high chance you're in a box space right now, or if you were outside, perhaps you can see various box spaces from where you are. I mean we are creatures of the box.

Oh you mean not just our houses, but also say our cars, but also boxes within the boxes. So within a house or within an office building where you were, you might have a little office or a little corner that's sort of made into a partially enclosed thing, or a cubicle if you're lucky at work. Yeah. But I mean, but even just talking about our houses in our rooms. Um, and I mean I have to admit, like right now, I am in a small closet, I'm in a confined

space that, for the most part, feels pretty comfortable. I'm pretty I'm pretty happy in this this little confined space. I've have my my computer here, I have my mike. Uh, there's a bookshelf here that has some some books, some games, there's some miniatures on it. All the coats in the house are helping to pad out the sound. So, um, you know, I I definitely feel a certain attraction to

to a cozy, confined space like this. I it's probably for me conditioning because I'm used to recording in the studio that sort of a dark, padded area when we were recording in the office, but even recording from home, I'm also in a box. I am in the corner of a room sort of walled off by an acoustic partition. All that essentially creates a sort of shadowy corner where I can explore all the depraved thoughts that that will

eventually become part of this podcast. Now. We we recently discussed Theogenis in our episode on Beans, the fifth century BC cynic philosopher who is said to have lived in a tub or a large jar in the streets. Uh And and after we mentioned I had to look up some interpretations of what this might have looked like. You know, sometimes it is like it looks like a big stone barrel that he's living in. Yeah. I think it was said to be maybe in the marketplace of Athens. Yeah,

so right right on the middle of everything. Um. Well, and ultimately, you know, even a tub large jar not that different from a box. And I should point out that there is a disorder that is known as Diogenes syndrome, though it's not tied to the idea of living in confined spaces. It's actually something of a misnomer as it's characterized. The syndrome is characterized by self neglect, squalor hoarding, and

social withdrawal. Diogenes, however, was a minimalist and uh, and you don't see stories about him hoarding anything that would run against the whole idea. Nor was he socially withdrawn. No, no, I mean you could consider Diogenes with drawn in the sense that he made a point out of rejecting social convention. So he was sort of withdrawn from the social contract in a way of withdrawn from a buy in with

the rest of society and from expectations and norms. But he was not withdrawn in terms of his interactions with other people. He was very public and confrontational about being not a part of your system. Man. Now you might well wonder, well, if there is a psychological disorder associated with a desire to live inside a tub or a jar, a box, you know what, what would we call it?

Perhaps not claustrophobia, but claustrophilia. And yes, there there is such a classification abnormal pleasure derived from being in a confined space. I was looking this up and at least I found. I don't know if you came across the same thing that most of the sources using this term, we're using it with a kind of sexual connotation, that it was like a particular sexual obsession or fetish for being in confined spaces. Um. I ran across a little of that. I mean for the most party, I just

you don't see it discussed near as much as claustrophobia. Um. And And I guess the thing is, claustrophobia is something that can kick in and and be a detriment to you know, your your ability to uh to live your life. You know, it could prevent you from, say, boarding a crowded train that you need to need to board, that sort of thing, whereas claustrophilia, Um, I mean, I guess it could get you into some slainness and trouble. But but but yeah, you just don't see as much literature

about it. Um you you, Yeah, you do see some stuff that that seems to be going in a more erotic direction. But even some of that, I feel like it's getting into an area where you're not necessarily talking about like pure titillation. You're ultimately getting at this sort of this idea of enclosure and the comforting aspect of enclosure, even if it is discussed in an area that is like um, you know, closer to um more, you know,

erotic considerations. But for instance, there was one paper that I found, a Romanian paper recently published titled what If I Didn't Go Out Anymore, which which I think is a great, great title by Rosella Valdre. And uh, I wasn't able to get access to the full paper, so I'll just read that the abstract here, which I think gets to the the heart of what the author is discussing. Quote. One of the psychological reactions to the COVID nineteen lockdowns

is psychic withdrawal claustrophilia. The author asks why this paradoxical reaction occurs, naming the death drive and fear of freedom. Now you can probably hear from some of the keywords at the end of this that this paper I looked at, this is actually published in a journal for psychoanalysis, which

means we're in Freudian or Freudian adjacent territory. So I guess we don't know what the I don't know empirical or modern scientific validity of the explanation given in this paper would be but I think the phenomenon it identifies as something I've seen expressed a good bid actually, that there is a certain personality type and a certain way that some people have adapted to, uh to the COVID nineteen lockdowns that says, I don't know, I don't know

if I really need to leave my house anymore. I there there there are certain aspects of ongoing quarantine that are kind of appealing. Now, obviously that's not going to be true of everybody. I you know, I personally, Ever since the two week mark after my second vaccination, I have been thrilled at the prospect of of getting out of the house more often, and especially being able to

be around other other people more often. That that's been really exciting to me, even though I think I'm overall a pretty introverted person, like I like being by myself, elf, I like being at home. Uh. You know, it's just they're sort of pent up demand that has built in my brain over the past year. But that's not there for everybody. Some people. Some people are like, yeah, I

kind of like how things are for me. Yeah, And I guess you also have to realize you can divide it up in different ways, like there are people that are that are that I'm sure all about, like getting out back out there socially seeing friends and family, but might be more of this school when it comes to work and say, actually, why should I ever leave my house to work? Like can't I why why do I

need to be in an office? Like it's gonna be it's I mean, it probably already is interesting in a lot of places where they're having to to re examine the purpose of the physical shared workspace and then potentially have to make a case for it to uh to their employees or you know whoever. Um. Whereas before it was just kind of a given well of course we all come and we share a single space to work, um.

But now they're potentially having to put to go out there and say, hey, everybody, why don't we come back together and work in one big space again and share a coffee maker? Ding? Ding ding? You have got my number here. Yeah, I've been really excited ever since getting vaccinated to see friends more often. I have no desire to to go back to a shared workspace except I mean except that, I mean, it's not that I don't like seeing my coworkers. I very much do. I would

like to see all of our co workers again. Socially, I just don't want to have to work around other people. I'm so much more productive at home by myself, where I can focus and not be distracted by a workplace. Yeah, and so yeah, I think it's going to break down

differently for different people. But of course, as sort of an introvert myself, I also I can also get a sense of this too, where there's a lot of movement to open back up and you know, being to get back out there, and after you know, over a year of of doing the opposite, you know, it can it can feel a little much, you can feel a little threatening,

you know. Uh, the the idea of of going you know from you know, from zero to fifty and too short of a time, and I think there is I have seen some some authors online talking about the idea of, you know, the importance even of finding like middle ground things you can do to sort of work back up to things like this, so you know, and instead of like your first thing back out in the world shouldn't shouldn't be uh, you know, going to seventy miles per hour,

it should maybe you know, do go to twenty five miles per hours. See what that feels like. Maybe start with a small get together with other vaccinated friends instead of the monster truck show. Yeah yeah, don't and and immediately go to the monster truck show or the or the Mega concert or whatever it happens to be. But but back just to the idea of of small, tied and closed spaces, comfy places being appealing. Um uh you know, even though there are you know, negative aspects again to

such spaces. Uh I, I have to admit to having felt this kind of draw to such space is throughout my life. And sometimes it is an actual space that I'm inhabiting, like you know, the closet here for the for the podcasting. Other times I do think it gets more into not the reality of the enclosed space, but just the idea of the enclosed space, the vision, the mental image of the enclosed space, or a or a physical representation of something that looks like a a comfy

enclosed environment. Yeah, I mean, I wonder about the extent to which some of the appeal of tight enclosed spaces is um at the conceptual level. It's not even necessarily like a physical sensory thing, but something about the idea of being in a small space. Yeah. So when I was a kid, I remember I would have um, I had this dream and either I don't know if it was a recurring dream or just a very vivid dream that I had once that I just always remembered, but

it was. It was in my house at the time, and I found a sort of tunnel underneath the stairs and it was painted, uh and carpeted with wall to ark hall carpeting the same as the rest of the home, and the tunnel extended maybe eight feet back. They made a sharp turn left, and it was a well lit environment in the dream, despite their you know, they're they're

not being any presence of lights that I remember. But if you if you follow this this little tunnel back then you took that turn, uh, it would go for a little bit and then it would have another turn and it would so there would be like a kind of a spiraling around and then it would terminate in a cubical space that was just large enough for me to ball up comfortably. But either in this dream or in subsequent dreams, my body grew to where I can

no longer comfortably venture into the heart of this this place. Uh, and then I ultimately couldn't reach the heart of it

at all. Wow. So, you know, without going crazy with dream interpretation, because I don't know, I'm I'm kind of increasingly of the the night Blender school of dreams, where none of it means anything, but there are are obvious pair of else to make between this idea and anxieties of say, leaving childhood, of growing up, even a desire to return to the womb um if you want to get real Freudian about it, because of course, this is central to the Freudian dual concepts of Aarros and Thanatos

Thanatos the god of death personification of the death drive, and Arrows, the god of love, and this is linked to a desire to return to the safety of the womb. You know, without buying into the explanatory validity of Freudian concepts, I do think that there's something interesting about the idea of of the death drive as it relates to I don't know, a sort of a sort of desire for the mortification of the flesh that that I want to link up to to a historical example I have in

just a minute. Yeah, and of course, often, of course, Freudian thought takes a decidedly sexual tone uh in its explorations. But but even in a like a non sexual way. I feel like this, this idea of returning the womb, I feel like it. It holds a certain amount of truthiness to it. It. It actually reminds me of a wonderful short bit in a recent episode of The John Oliver Show where he talked about his desire to be

an egg. Um. I think the basic setup was like, this is the kind of thing you don't actually share with your partner, your your desire to be an egg. And he goes on this extended a little monologue about the desire to be an egg, and like the comforting, how comfortable it would be to not only like to be inside the egg, but to be the egg, to be the goo within the the the protective outer shell

of the egg. Yeah, beautifully expressed. Actually to be in there alone with the goop, just to you, in the goup, and knowing that whoever is around you outside you has

to handle you very carefully. Yeah. And so I feel like it got to the heart of this sort of often kind of abstract or subconscious thing I feel when I'm especially if I'm looking at pictures of something or or encountering a setting in a motion picture or TV show, so especially tidy and cozy ship or train cabins um for instance, I really enjoyed the first two seasons of the snow Piercer TV show, and I think part of it is the way they depict some of the tight

living spaces. I'm like, oh, I can I can imagine being in there. I can imagine curling up in that bed that's set into the wall. I haven't seen the show. I did see the movie snow Piercer, and I liked the movie, but there was absolutely nothing about it that was appealing whatsoever to me. Well, it may be a difference in how the show is. The sets are done well, I think, but I think the main difference is, of

course the movie, which is also really good. The movie only has so much time and they've got to get to that bloody revolution, whereas the TV show just has more time to deal with, more space to lay out the world of the show, in the world of the train, and therefore you get those moments where you're like, oh, I can imagine being in there. Nobody's dying in here

right now, it seems fine. Now, apart from the post apocalyptic setting, in general, I just do really love the idea of old train compartment, little private compartment and a train.

It's it's just lovely. Yeah, absolutely. Uh. Now another area and then this again goes to sci fi, is when you encounter a good suspended animation chamber in science fiction, like the like the Stasis pods, an alien even I find for me anyway, even when they give those pods kind of a darker tone, you know, like you're throwing up when you get out of it, or you're weak when you get out of it, or you're you know, they're really leaning into the sort of glass casket uh

Grimm's fairy tale, uh, you know version of it. I often find them kind of relaxing to think about. Maybe not at a you know, an actual conscious level where I'm like, oh, man, I wish I was in there and Michael Fastbender was threatening me with experiments in my dreams, but more like there's just something in me where I'm like, that looks comfy and safe and nice. I just want to be the mummy of Vladimir Linen. Yeah, it's that

sort of thing. And again It's like if I, if I stopped and I apply rational thought to it, it maybe doesn't sound so great, you know, or even just apply it to the plot of the thing that it is embedded within. But on some level it seems nice. And I feel like this this even applies to uh

two really nice coffins and caskets. I don't know if you've had this experience as well, But if I'm like, if I'm like checking out or it's it's not like if I'm at an actual funeral, but if I'm just thinking about caskets or caskets show up in a film, um, I'll sometimes look at them and be like, yeah, that that looks that looks pretty comfy. There's something attractive about that. And I realized part of it is that, yeah, that's kind of the whole game of casket making and casket

salesmanship because it don't yeah there for the living. The living have to look at that and think I would I think I'd be comfortable in there. So the my you know, deceased, love when they will be comfortable in there, even though of course they're they're dead. It doesn't matter to them where they are. It makes me think of the scene in Edwood where Bella Lego see is coffin shopping and he's trying out laying in all the coffins and I can't even fold my arms. Yeah, um, I

think it is. Also it is also compounded by the fact that even though I have never actually tried out a coffin, Um, you see this in films all the time, where someone is like that, you know, trying out a coffin, or they're hiding in a coffin to get away from bad guys, or maybe they've even been buried alive but live.

People find themselves in in coffins all the time in cinema. Now, as much as the appeal of a small, tight, cozy space like a box or a coffin might be rooted in some kind of conceptual abstraction, you know, pictures you're putting together in your head about what would be conceptually

comforting as a as a space to occupy. I think there could also be some raw physical biological reality to this because in the last episode we talked about research by Dodman and uh and Grandon about the stress relieving

potential of flank pressure on the bodies of mammals. The research we were looking at was from the nineteen eighties and it specifically was focused on pigs, but it seems there is probably a broader mammalian response to having a gentle squeezing pressure on the side of the body that triggers a sort of stress relief response within the neuroendocrine system. Yeah. I think that the one most famous example of this, and I think she we briefly mentioned her in the

last one. I think she heard she was an author in one of the papers. You say, yeah, that's what I was just talking about. H um was this would of course be the hug machine invented by Temple Grandon, has a therapeutic stress relieving device to resolve anxiety and sensory issues. And Temple Grandon, if you're not familiar, she's an animal behaviorist, but has also written a lot and done stuff about the autism spectrum. She herself phys autistic. Yeah.

I think they made a movie several years back, and I think Claire Danes later, if I'm not mistaken, I didn't in the film. I remember being a fun film. I usually don't watch a lot of biopics, but I thought it was pretty good. Um so uh so so Yeah, She invented it while attending college and was inspired by

the by the squeeze shoots used for cattle inoculations. So cattle walks in the walls these kind of like you know, these walls move in kind of apply pressure from either side, and then you're able to inject the cattle uh at the cow within the inoculation um. And so she she found it very useful at least for you know, long

stretch in her life. And then subsequent studies have found that that deep pressure may have a calming effect, especially on persons with autism, especially if those persons have high anxiety levels. This is actually described in a paper that Temple grand And published in nine in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. And the paper was called Calming Effects of Deep Touch Pressure in Patients with Autistic disorder,

college students and Animals. Uh And so, just to read from Grandon's abstract here quote many people with autistic disorder have problems with oversensity to both touch and sound. The author and autistic person developed a device that delivers deep touch pressure to help her learn to tolerate touching and

to reduce anxiety and nervousness. The squeeze machine applies lateral, inwardly directed pressure to both lateral aspects of a person's entire body by compressing the user between two foam padded panels. Clinical observations and several studies suggest that deep touch pressure is therapeutically beneficial for both children with autistic disorder and probably children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Only minor and

occasional adverse effects have been noted. But then also Granded notes that that there are data to show that this is not only effective at calming people who have autism, but also at what it's called non referred college students, I think, just the general population, and also points to studies I think similar to and probably including the one

we mentioned last time in animal welfare. And so that there could be some significant clinical value to some kind of squeeze machine that provides this this deep sort of hug like pressure with these foam pads almost swaddling the body. Yeah. Yeah. And to come back to what I said earlier about like some of the sort of the erotic treatments of claustrophilia,

I think some of that. My my sort of gout intuition here is that like some of that is ultimately getting back to this idea, you know, like, um, the idea that if I somehow closely can find my body if I like you know, you know, vacuum seal myself between two pieces of vinyl or latex or something that like, ultimately you're getting at the comforting reality of the uh similar to something that you might find in the Hugman sheen as as opposed to something that's just pure titillation.

But I could be wrong on that, And of course obviously it's going to vary from from person to person. Uh. Nobody's gonna have exactly the same reaction to the sort of stimuli we're describing here. Well, I guess one thing this highlights is that it's not always totally easy to make a clear dividing line between what is erotic pleasure

and what is other types of pleasure. Yeah, now, um, another thing that you see marketed in similar ways to the hug machine is of course a weighted blanket UM, which and I believe they even use these for dogs sometimes, but but humans, especially weighted blanket UH can be comforting, even like a nice sleeping bag. I don't know, these sort of sarcophagus style sleeping bags. Um. I've always found

certainly the idea of him comforting. But even yeah, on a camping trip, like being all zipped up and kind of mummified in one of those can feel feel pretty nice. Um. We'd also would be remiss if we didn't mention isolation tanks or you know, flotation tanks in all of this, because that is I mean, that's just close to what John Oliver was talking about with the the dream of being an egg as possible, Like you really do become

the goop, you become the salty goop in there. The salty goop is you know, generally at the the same temperature as your body, and you're cut off from the rest of of of reality and you're you're you're left with the inner reality of of you, of yourself. If only you could take a nice tasty yolke in there with you and then just hang out for weeks yea.

I think that's one of the appeals of some of the sort of stasis chamber sci fi that you get, is that sometimes you are in a goop in there, right, You're like, oh man, look at the coup just looks so nice and warm and comforting, like when Neo wakes up in the Matrix. I remember so that scenes supposed to be liberating, but I remember, you know, when he's pulling all the plugs out and he's got the goop

all over him and everything. I always remember thinking in that scene like, oh, look, that looks like the worst like wake up early in the morning scene. Ever, just don't you want to get back in that cozy goop bed? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I mean it, yeah, I mean, ultimately, I guess the character cipher Um, you know, he had it figured out. He's like, get me back in that goop? What do I have to do? Can you get me back in that group today? I'll betray any friends. I don't care.

I just kind of get back in the egg. Anyway. This subject of desiring to be squeezed into a small space or or or in a box of some kind, it got me thinking about a subject that I've actually long found fascinating and thought about, especially over the last year, and that is the subject of people who were known

as anchor rights. These were people who, in the medieval period would willingly enclose themselves permanently inside a tiny cell, where they would usually spend the rest of their lives confined, devoting their days to prayer and meditation, sometimes interacting with visitors, and passing food and waste only through small holes in the walls. There's actually a great article fromen from the

British Library about the Anchoritic tradition. It's by a scholar named Dr Mary Wellesley who's a British Library affiliate, and it's called the Life of an anchor s. An anchores is a term used for a female anchorite. And also, I just want to give a shout out in general to the British Library and their various blogs and stuff, because they consistently put out a lot of fantastic content that features primary source materials front and center and quotes

extensively from the primary sources. I love that they do that. That that's a great site. But anyway, so so back to Wellesley's article here. Uh So, the word anchorite and the word anchors these are from the Greek anachorio, which means to withdraw. So the cell in which an anchorite lived was known as their anchor hold. And so if you want to picture one of these places, you have to imagine a sort of tiny, maybe closet sized stone house that's attached to the outside wall of a church.

Wellesley estimates that the average anchor hold was probably no bigger than about twelve feet square. Some of them might have had two small rooms, but it seems most were

just one tiny cell, one little room. And again this cell would have had no door, so an anchorite or anchor s would have to have a support system in order to survive, and for this reason, it seems this was a pathway that was mostly reserved for wealthy people who could afford to pay one or two servants to spend basically the rest of their lives looking after them. So they would have to have a servant to bring

them meals, to take away waste and garbage, etcetera. And so this exchange of materials would usually happen through one of three openings in the walls of the anchor hold. The most common design for an anchor hold seems to have been it would be a cell built into the side of a church building, and it would have one window that opens into a kind of parlor, a tiny adjoining room where material could be passed back and forth to the servants. So you could take away waste, you

could bring them meals. And then there would be a second small window, known as a squint, which would open into the church itself, and this would be so that the anchorite or anchors could watch Mass and receive communion from inside the church. And then there would be a third small window that would open to the outside world, and it was through this window that the occupant could

receive visitors. Now you might think that being walled up permanently inside a tiny cell for the rest of your life sounds pretty awful, and it certainly would be if it were against your will. But it seems that the anchoritic life was actually quite desirable to lots of people in the late Middle Ages, at least to people who

could afford it. Wellesley notes some some figures that there were at least a hundred known anchorites and anchoresses in England in the twelfth century, and then two hundred more

from the thirteen to the fifteen centuries. She also notes an interesting gender divide that women outnumbered men consistently among the anchoritic lifestyle, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth century there were twice as many anchoresses as there were male anchor rights, and in the thirteenth century there were about

three times as many. And we'll come back to some possible reasons offered for the popularity of anchoritic life and the special popularity among women in a bit, But first I wanted to bring up how there's another thing that's interesting to me about the way that medieval sources talk about anchor rights and anchor us is that they are sometimes spoken of as if they were already dead, even while they're alive. So I wanted to set the scene

by reading a passage from Wellesley's article quote. At the moment of an anchoress's enclosure, a priest would recite the Office of the Dead, which was the set of prayers said at a person's funeral. This symbolized that the recluse was dead to the world. In fact, it seems that some cluses did not leave their cells even after they died. Archaeological excavations of some anchor holds have revealed the remains

of people who presumably once lived there. In St Anne's Church in Lewis, Sussex, the anchors is grave has been positioned in exactly the place where she would have knelt daily to view the mass through the squint. So you live, you live in the anchor hold, you do mass through this tiny slot in the wall, and then you get buried peering through the slot. Wow, it's um this is one that is You run into plenty of things in the historical record that are that are challenging for the

modern for for many modern humans to to understand. But this one, yeah, this one's This one's tough because on one hand, it sounds like it's easier to just say, oh, well, these were clearly zombies. There were zombies, and you cared about them, so you just kind of locked them in a hole next to the church and Dan and any but you. But then you you realize, of course that's that's that's fantasy. So you try and sort of try to find parallels in the modern world, and like, it's

it's crazy to imagine this. Like at a at I was like a modern Christian church that somebody could be you know, like a wealthy church member could just say, hey, can I just live in the wall over here and then and then watch you know, church all the time, and I'm just here and I'll just never leave, and then you can just bury me in there. Like, I guess the closest thing I can imagine is if you had like a really big sports fan and they had what do they call those, like the special rooms that

you watch from the sky box. Yeah, Like what if you had your own SkyWings and it was just for you, just large enough for you to sit and eat wings and watch your football game. Um, but you're just like, I'm never gonna leave. I'm just gonna stay there all the time. I'll watch all the football games, and when I die, you can just steal me up in there. I love church that much. Yeah. But of course even that is that does not feel like an accurate description

of what's happening here. No, I think there's something So I think there's some stuff will get to in a minute that might help explain the psychology of this little more. I mean also like you can't, uh though, it's kind of hard to understand, even from a modern religious perspective. Even if you're a religious person today, usually your religious devotion wouldn't seem to take this form, right, you know that this level of like a total body sacrifice to

to your religious practice. Well, like, I think a lot of us can understand say that the desire or sort of the the ideal of say a monastic life. You know, I find myself and maybe this is from you know, just being a fan of like the name of the Rose and all where like occasionally I'll be like man with like you know, background thought that's not really tied to a lot of practical thinking, where it's kind of like what if I was just a monk instead, Like this is sort of idea and roughly in your head

that would be easier. I would just live in a little space and I would have my duties and you know, again it's just like this this sort of empty fantasy in the back of your head that doesn't actually match up with the reality of monastic life or what you actually want out of life. But it's kind of it's kind of in the background there enough to where I can I can be like, well, I understand the desire for some of that, but but not the living inside

of a tomb. It's not a it's not a desire you have fully formed, but you can kind of feel pulses of it every now and then. Yeah, exactly, I know that feeling. Um anyway, So to go on with Wellesley's article here more about about the life of anchors is. In particular, she cites at century how to guide for people who wish to become anchors is and this is called the and again I'm not quite sure how to pronounce this, but is I think it is the oncrane we uh, which is spelled a n c r e

n e uh. And then the second word is w I s s e the oncrene wee. I'll say so the on crene wes says, admiring their own white hands is bad for many anchors is who keep them too beautiful, such as those who have too little to do. They should scrape up the earth every day from the grave in which they will rot. Yeikes. Wow. So like, if your hands are too clean, that's clear you're you're being idle too much. So you need to supplement your prayer and contemplation with scraping up the dirt. And and I

guess that further shows your devotion to God. But it reflects one of the major characteristics of the life of an anchorus, which is asceticism, the denial of worldly pleasures in favor of the pure life of contemplating and praying to God. And this was a common way of viewing holiness in medieval Europe, that the body is corrupt and sinful, and that the fleshly desires of the body must be denied in favor of the pure edification of the spirit.

And so of course you could see this in all kinds of ways that medieval monks might sort of punish themselves or deny their own bodily desires. But the Oncrene Wete makes it clear that you shouldn't go overboard with asceticism, and Wells pulls a great quote here. Uh so this is from the source. It says no one should gird herself with any kind of belt except for her confessor's permission, or wear any iron or hair or hedgehog skins, or beat herself with these or with a lead whip, or

make herself bloody with holly or brambles. So the idea of being denied the flash but don't punish the flesh, right, that seems maybe if you're punishing the flesh of that much, I wonder if there was a kind of a suspicion that like you're maybe you're getting pleasure from going overboard to that extent, like you're going too far, and perhaps there's like a horseshoe theory of pleasure and pain here, like you go too far into pain and you're actually

maybe getting a kick out of it. Well, it reminds me of again that the idea of the isolation tank in in the modern setting, Like the idea is that you don't pay as much attention to your body, uh, in order to contemplate other things. And I feel like it's something similar is going on in these cells here. But uh, but but again, yeah, if you're if the whole idea is to focus on God and not the body,

then yeah you shouldn't. I can see the argument for not finally manicuring your hands, but also not spending too much time punishing your hands either. Now, another interesting thing that Wellesley gets into in this article is she quotes from a primary text from the Middle Ages, uh called I think it's called just book, but it is by

an author named Marjorie Kemp and uh. Welsley mentions that this is one of the earliest known, or maybe the earliest known autobiographical book written in English, and Kemp visits a famous anchoress in this book known as Julian of Norwich, and the meeting is described as follows in Kemp's book quote, Then she was charged by our Lord to go to an anchoress in the same city, who was called Dame Julian.

And so she did, and she showed her the grace that God had put in her ole, and many full speeches and conversations that Our Lord spoke to her soul, and many wonderful revelations which she revealed to the anchoress in order to establish if there was any deception in them, For the anchoress was an expert in such things and could give good counsel on the matter. And Wellesley notes that this account by Kemp is interesting for several reasons.

First of all, it's a picture of female friendship written by a woman, something that is not very common in the texts that survived to us today from the Middle Ages. But also she notes that it shows a woman in

a position of spiritual authority. She Julian of Norwich here is being sought for religious counsel at a time when the church itself was controlled entirely by men, and Wellesley claims that the reason Julian could be sought out so readily for spiritual advice even though she was not part of the male authority structure of the church was that she was an anchoress, and this raises an interesting tradiction.

Despite the fact that anchorses were walled up and unable to leave their cell for the rest of their lives, they were nevertheless very much an important part of the civic and ecclesiastical community, maybe more so than they would be if they were free to walk the streets. This is interesting and it makes me wonder. Uh this might be a stretch, but maybe not so much, given um many of the things that are referenced by the author.

But in Uh Red Dragon and in the Silence of the Lambs, we have two characters go to visit Hannibal Lecter Uh not in a interview room, as seems to be typical of InCAR with incarcerated individuals, both in reality and in other fictional treatments, but they go visit him at his cell, at his enclosure, and he's presented. Of course, on one hit level, this is a monster uh the in in his layer. But on the other hand, he is a wise individual who is segmented apart from society

and is sought out for their wisdom and insight. That's really good comparison. I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, I wonder if the anchoritic tradition was somewhat in Thomas Harris's head here might have been. I mean, Harris made allusions to a lot of to a number of historical elements, and I think even, um, you know elements from from

Christian history. So perhaps, well, I want to think more about this role of the anchorite or the anchoress in the community and their their role as a source of spiritual authority. Uh So the guide books for anchorus is at at the time advised them to be careful not to spend too much time socializing through the window to the outside world. For example. Uh this is again from the Acreane Wee. It says that you shouldn't take meals

with visitors. Quote this is showing too much friendliness because it goes against the nature of any form of religious life. And most of all that an anchoress who is utterly dead to the world. One has often heard of the dead speaking with the living, but I have never found yet that they ate with the living. So this is really interesting. It's like it contains this contradiction. On one hand, the anchorite or the anchoress. The anchorus is dead to the world. She is of no value to the world.

She's basically not a living human being anymore. And yet she is a source of spiritual authority and insight, much in the same way that a message from beyond the grave, maybe to a person who's already gone to heaven, would be yeah, yeah, like they're almost like they're like they're half dead, that they already have a foot in the world beyond yeah. And so despite these warnings of like, you know, you shouldn't eat if you're an anchorss you

shouldn't eat with visitors. That's just too friendly, it's clear that a good amount of interaction did take place through that window to the outside world. And in a way, the anchors could become a sort of hub for the communities, both spiritually and socially. And so I want to read another section from the on Creane West that is cited by Wellesley. Quote, the anchors is called an anchor and anchored under the church like an anchor under the side of a ship, to hold the ship so that waves

and storms do not capsize it. Just so all Holy Church, which is described as a ship, should anchor. On the anchor us for her to hold it so that the devil's blasts, which are temptations, do not blow it over. It's interesting. So it's the the idea that the anchoress is is providing like a stabilizing element to the church or to the local faithful, to the physical being, the

spiritual being of the church itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so I think given some of these considerations, maybe it is less surprising how popular the anchoritic way of life was, right that that it, despite being sort of dead to the world, you would also in a weird way be held up as a special source of wisdom or insight, and you might have an important symbolic role in as a kind of like protector of the church and the church community and and somebody that people would seek out

for advice. And it also seems that, like according to what Wellesley says here, that this was a way for for women to have spiritual authority within the church that they wouldn't be able to have because by say, entering the clergy, which they couldn't do. Now, I was wondering what we have in the way of anchors as describing their own feelings about their lifestyle in their own words,

and there's actually very little of that. So to read a section from Wellesley on that quote, the only text written by an anchor is to Survive the period is Julian of Norwich's Revelations. All of the other texts about anchoritism were written by people advising those who had chosen or wish to choose the Anchoritic way of life. In Julian's text, she gives away very little about her experience of being enclosed. At one point, she writes, quote, this

place is prison, this life is penance. But we cannot be sure whether Julian was referring to her earthly life more broadly or the specific circumstances of her cell. Uh And I found that passage really interesting too, because I wonder if the the physical enclosure of the Anchoritic way of life takes on a special appeal if you already in a way view fleshly earthly life as itself a

kind of prison or enclosure. Yeah, yeah, He's sort of like an immediate physical recreation of what you believe reality to be. So anyway that that's all bouncing around in my head about the possible psychology that would lead someone to want to become an anchoress. But also I just had to mention a couple of other details that that

I came across that I thought were really great. This first one is another tidbit from Wellesley's article, and it's just a story about a saint named St. Dunstan who was an anchorite, and he was written out in a work by an eleventh century monk named Osburne. Apparently St. Dunstan would occupy himself with metal work, especially so he would do like work with gold while he was secluded

in his cell. And at one point it is told in this in This Life of St. Dunstan, that the devil appeared to him and he's like, I'm the devil. I'm gonna get you, And Dunstan defended himself by tweaking the devil's nose with a pair of hot metal tongs that he had been using to do his metal working with.

So very good job, Dunstan. Well you know that this um this also makes me wonder about like the getting into sort of the isolation tank area, and also um sensory deprivation in general, Like if you're pursuing this spiritual life within the cell of of the anchored. You know, perhaps it ultimately aids that because you you've you've set yourself off from so much into reinformation, you know, you're perhaps putting yourself in a position to have one on

ones with the devil. You know, also if you're engaging in metal work in there, because I mean, hopefully he wasn't using any you know, there's anything they produced a lot of smoke or fumes or anything, because that would surely these things were well ventilated. Surely that's a good point. I didn't think about that. Well. I think it's something we don't often think about when we are engaging in

sort of half thought out desires for enclosed spaces. We don't think about the fact, oh yeah, I need I need to be able to breathe in there, you know, I want to have at least some fresh oxygen finding me within this chamber. Yeah, or to allow the mercury fumes to escape. One last detail just that I thought was too good not to mention, because this was not

from Wellesley's article. I just came across this in the British Libraries collection summary for the en Creane Weee and it was a note uh describing the text and summarizing it, and it's listing many of the rules that are prescribed for the life of an anchorus. So to quote from the summary here, we learned that anchoresses were prohibited from eating meat, and that they were not allowed any accessories or items of clothing that were decorative rather than practical. Rings, brooches,

patterned belts, and gloves were not allowed. They were also forbidden from keeping pets except cats. Cat is all about that box life. So yeah, tying back into the to the original episode here, I'm not sure what the religious significance of of allowing a cat into the cell is, but I thought that was interesting, especially compared to the sometime medieval associations between cats and witchcraft. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, uh yeah, there, there's there's probably more that could be

said about that. I should also point out though Hannibal Elector was not permitted to have a cat, I do not remember him having cat. That would have gone poorly than now. Certainly, living out the rest of your life in a box that is the ultimate that. Certainly we can't top that, but why don't I thought we might come back to the idea of what about just living part of your life inside of a box. What if you only slept inside of a box. And of course, again, if we think about the fact that we do tend

to sleep in um, you know, cubicle or rectangular rooms. Yeah, we all kind of sleep in boxes. But how come we don't see much in the way of like actual sleeping boxes. How come I don't actually crawl into a box to sleep at night? Good question, I'd try it. Uh. Well, First of all, I'd like to remind everyone that if you listen to our our episode or perhaps it was episodes on the invention of the bed, box like beds

actually go back quite a way as in history. Uh. In fact, the some of the earliest examples of furniture within a domestic environment as opposed to a tomb, uh, certainly includes a box like bed. There's one from the Orkney Islands off this coast of Scotland from around and

it's essentially a stone It's a stone bed box. It's like this, uh you know, it's it's not unlike the box that might be placed on the floor that your cat would climb into, except this was a stone box that you would you know, filled them with some hides and whatnot to make it comfy, but you're still sleeping

in a box. Yeah. So I think if I remember correctly, this would be sort of like imagining a stone bathtub that you would line with a soft material like straw or hides or things like that, and you can get in the bathtub and then and have the padding on the bottom. Yeah, exactly, So to a certain extent that the idea of sleeping in a box is I mean,

that's just part of human history. And while you know a lot of our modern beds get away from a kind of boxing environment, and they're often they're more of an elevated situation, there are some times during which different humans certainly slept in boxes, and box sleeping was was the fat um because certainly Victorian curtain beds, to a certain extent, create a box that you sleep in. And a part of part of this reality comes down to just, you know, the desire to have a warm place to sleep.

You you want to contain your body heat in the same way that you and you know you would if you were just covered up with a bunch of blankets. But what if you also just use curtains to shut off the rest of the room. But then there's there's the next step, and that is the idea of the box bed. Uh. So these were a kind of wooden wardrobe that you slept inside of. UM. They were often ornate, uh, with an opening on one side. UM often and this was a door. So there's like a wooden door that

swung open or slid open. Uh. Though there are other versions of it. They were more like they just had like a curtain. And then there are also versions of it that were like part of the wall, that were more more in line with the sort of sleeping environments you might see in a you know, in a in a confined you know, like ship cabin sort of situation. So you look in the cabinet where you keep the nice silver, and then you get jealous of the silver and say, I want to be the nice silver. I

want to be in there while I rest. Yeah, exactly. If you look look these up, you can find a number of different examples of this. UM. One website I was looking at this is a website called the Vintage News, and there is an author by the name of Louise flat Lee who wrote about them. In included a number of pictures, and this author say that they probably started out in Brittany six years ago and subsequently spread throughout Europe.

And yeah, it was it seems to have largely been something like the curtain bed, and that it was a good way to stay warm during cold nights, and it might have added security either real sure, your sort of psychological security for the protection of children during the night. You know, so you want the children to be safe, Well, let's have them sleep in this box. Uh, let's actually have a door on the box and we can just

shut them up in there. It's interesting how the thermal value of the box bed mirrors what we were talking about with cats, that you know, you surround yourself with a at least partially insulated material to trap in your body heat. Yeah. Now, apparently a Scottish variant was popular in the six through nineteen centuries. So if you look around you can find examples of the Scottish box bed. And I have to say these look quite quite comfy. These These are not nearly as wardrobe like as some

of the other examples you'll find. These are more uh, just bed spaces set into the wall with a curtain that may be drawn, and some of them look quite stylish, quite modern. Um. And then you'll you tend to have, you know, more traditional cabinets underneath them, and sometimes I think there's like a bench that folds out. Yeah, they're kind of set into an alcove. It looks like incredibly cozy to me. I want to get in one right now. Yeah. Yeah, they look cool and I would love to hear from

anyone out there who sleeps in one of these. Uh. I mean maybe there are some problems. I don't know. Like, I guess if you're sleeping two to a bed, somebody's gonna be stuck up against the wall there and can't get out. But if that person really likes to be cozy, that's probably the prime place to be, right. You're all the way in the back, as long as you don't

have to go to the bathroom during the night. But then also I guess you you have firm walls in place, so if you're too tall, uh, you know, you're just gonna be bunched up in there. I don't know. That is the thing is. Looking at this picture you've attached,

it looks very cozy, but it also looks relatively short. Yeah. Now, this style apparently largely went out of style with the advent of twentieth century heating, but they that I've also read that they may be making a comeback, that Carve Scandinavian bed boxes seem to have made made a return in recent years. I wasn't really able to find much

in the way of evidence of this. I'm not doubting it, but I'm I'm mostly just finding some interesting designs on Pinterest boards and whatnot, and you know, and antique photos. So I'd love to hear from listeners on this as well as you know, if you've been checking out you know, bed and Breakfast throughout Europe or checking out real estate, are our box beds making a comeback? Are you finding people sleeping in wardrobes? What are the Airbnb keywords for this?

Because to on another level, it seems like you can get in trouble for sleeping in a box. Because here in the United States, there was the story of cartoonist Peter Berkowitz who, in order to survive San Francisco's housing market, which you know has has been insane for a while, moved into a wooden box and a friends apartment, uh, paying just four hundred dollars a month. And I've seen pictures of this, This box. So it's I guess it's more in line with kind of like an anchor Right's cell,

in that it's like this elongated wooden box. It has a bed in there and just you know, there's some room for some space. It's like this tiny compartment, except instead of being attached to a church, it's in your friends living room. Uh and um. And so he ended up writing a piece about it for The Guardian and getting some pressed out of it, you know, because I think a lot of it too is just like, hey, uh, San Francisco housing market is insane. Look what I'm having

to do to deal with it. And he ended he ended up getting busted for it because the idea was that these pods and boxes were said to violate local laws and create a fire hazard. Well maybe, but but that kind of thing. I'd always kind of wonder Also if it's just like the neighbors just don't like it. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to tell how much of that is, you know, how much of it is his neighbors,

how much of it is politics, etcetera. Um, you know he's making a stink about um about the housing market in the city, um, etcetera. But but I don't know there there you can also see that there could be some legitimate concerns about say ventilation or you know, if you especially if you make your own uh box to sleep and live in. Um, you know, are are you providing enough ventilation for this? Is you know, is there

is air getting in there? Um? Like I think back to when we were recording together in a studio, we were in a box within a room. But then they had a separate like air conditioning fan system set up to keep the air circulated through that little box that we were in. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it word yeah, And sometimes there have been like five people in there ahead of us and it clearly was not working that hard. Oh yeah, the days of humidity inside the podcast studio,

that was a time. Now now getting a little bit into this idea of box bed, but also coming back to the anchor rights. UM. I found a book by one Carrie Howie from two thousand seven titled Claustrophilia, The Erotics of Enclosure in Medieval Literature. And if for anyone who wants a really deep contemplative dive on this topic, I think this would probably be the the book to check out because the author points to a kind of duel horror fascination with confined spaces, not only during the

Middle Ages, but also in say, modern cinema. So they specifically bring up the two thousand to David Finch Fincher film Panic Room as an example of this. I never saw that one. I was pretty goods where Jodie Foster plays the this woman and her and then she has a daughter, I think. And when the bandits come, led by Dwight Yoakum as the as the lead villainous bandit, and he's quite good in it. It's weird. He's kind of a creeper um, so he plays the role well.

Uh so it becomes their place of of shelter but also kind of a prison. So it does get into this dual idea of like the panic room is being the place of safety but also the place that you're trapped. Sorry, I'm still not getting over Dwight Yoakum. Yeah, I mean he's good in it. I don't know that I've seen Dwight Yoakum in many dramatic roles, but he's good in Panic Room anyway. Carrie, how he writes the following, Indeed, not only do fear and fascination go hand in hand.

When enclosures are at stake, fear is often alloyed with desire. Claustrophobia is at bottom, in part, a denied love of confinement. That is to say, it is always alloyed with claustrophilia. The Middle Ages had a particularly sensitive and sensory understanding of this, and the devotional text discussed below will become clear that enclosure was unavoidable for High Medieval religious culture. It was not only secretly desired through repression, but openly courted, constructed,

lived in. So I haven't read it, but I would imagine how his book probably touches on some of the themes of the anchoritic life as well. Yes, yes, I believe so. Now outside of the Western world and getting more into the modern world, I feel like we have to at least mention capsule or pod hotels in Japan. I've never stayed in one of these, but I think a lot of us have seen photos and photo galleries of such hells. Um maybe you've seen them pop up

in a documentary. Uh, And they do fall into that category that I've mentioned earlier, where it's like it's kind of like a sci fi pod, a stasis pod, and you can't help it look at it and think, oh, on some level, that's that's a desirable place to be. Yeah, totally.

So these started in the late seventies, I believe, and they're they're notable for their low price, small space, and they're apparently ideal for business travelers as well as people who've say've been out on the town and they've become intoxicated and they can't return home, uh, you know across a you know, like you know, the Tokyo sprawl, and therefore this is like a quick place you can go in bed down. But but yeah, there's something undeniably attractive

about them. I was looking at various photo galleries off them, and I'm seeing like mountainous regions as being popular. I guess if you have you don't have a lot of real estate, and you potentially need like a high sleep density environment, it makes sense to have capsules or pods for people to sleep in. You know, I've often wondered why they don't make airplanes where you can buy a

horizontal sleeping pod instead of a seat. I would have to guess that it's just the geometry doesn't work out like they can't fit as many into the plane that way, um as they can vertical seats. But I don't know if you work in designing airplanes, well why is that? Why are there not planes like that? I want to know. Well, you do see things like this, I think in in first class accommodations for certain airlines with with long flights. I've never experienced it myself, but I know they have

things like that. You see occasionally see photographs of it, uh and then maybe we have listeners out there who can attest to it. But speaking of of flights, I've also seen the capsule pod model at least argued as a solution for airports uh where, especially if you have

solo travelers who have like a long layover. You know, it may not make sense to actually leave the airport check into a hotel, But you have that long layover, and what are your choices just to sleep awkwardly you in one of the chairs out there want while waiting, or to curl up in the corner and hope nobody messes with you. What if you could pour yourself into a nice comfy pod and just um you know, be the goog for six hours? Oh totally I would be the goo. I I have slept on an airport floor.

I didn't like it. Yeah, yeah, it's not particularly desirable. Um Oh. I should also mention there's there, at least there is or was a capsule hotel in Pinghang, China, the ping Haang Space Capsule Hotel, and this one is also run by robots. So it's very sci fi based on the photographs I've seen where you have these, um these capsule like environments that you sleep in, but also their zones where robots are bringing around. I think they're bringing around drinks. So, uh, smell the set up of

a sci fi horror movie and nice bottle budget. Uh looks good. Yeah, capsule budget even Yeah. I guess one more thing we should discuss here. And there's there's not a lot of hard information and about this because these are mostly just designs. I don't think anyone actually has one of these. But at least back as far as various videos and animations depicting earthquake proof beds were making the round, do you remember these, Joe, maybe vaguely. They were,

they were popular. You saw like Gizmodo articles about it. Uh, and so I saw an article on the Verge about it, and you you even saw like Stephen Colbert and various like late late night talk show hosts covering it because it's just so weirdly comforting but also horrific to look at.

Um I want to quote James Vincent's right up from the verge he that he nicely summarizes, quote earthquakes humanity's oldest foe, right up there with snakes, fire, and other humans when it comes to things that will definitely probably kill you someday, which is why you need one of these terrifying earthquake proof beds. In the event of a quake, You're conspicuously massive four poster will simply swallow you up whole, letting you get back to sleeping while the world itself

shatters around you. Oh man, I love that, especially because it's like blatantly false that earthquakes or one of humanity's oldest foe is. Like, an earthquake is really not very dangerous at all until you are in a built city right right prior to the construction of of of cities

and larger buildings. That's where the true danger in the scenario. Um. Now, this is the one that that Vincent is specifically referring to here, I think is one that had a really neat um need animation to guide it, where you had essentially a bed that has a trap door in it. So earthquake occurs, sets off the sensor, that bed does a trap door effect, and you and whoever is sleeping on the bed just fall into like a pit and

then it seals up behind you. And supposedly there's like water and supplies in there, and and imply remember ever wake up that you're just like you just wake up the next morning. Oh, I guess there was an earthquake in the night, because now I'm in the comfortable darkness of my bed's belly. Now I'm an anchor right for the next seventeen days or until we run out of water. Yeah. Now, there have been various versions of this, I think some of them are are have been kind of attributed to

the to the same inventor. There's a Chinese inventor by the name of Wing wind z Uh called the metro farm bed that in its earlier stages just seems like a bed with high protective arms that doesn't look that weird at all. It looks actually kind of nice. Um. But then there are versions of of of their design

that also involved moving doors, wings, etcetera. I've seen some variations of the of a so called earthquake proof bed that essentially looks like like sleeping on top of a box and then that box swallows you to protect you. I've also seen some where the bed itself doesn't drop you, but like big metal finger has come out from under the bed and cover you to protect you from earthquake debris. I'm surprised that so many of these have these moving parts.

It would seem to me, I mean, I'm no expert, but I would guess the best kind of earthquake proofing you could have on a bed would just be to give the bed a reinforced roof. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't seem like you need the added complexity and potential danger of having doors that close and catch limbs that you know, the or or the requirements that you would need to maintain a particular sleeping uh posture in order to avoid

being decapitated by your bad that sort of thing. Uh. But I want to be fair, Maybe maybe there's stuff I'm not getting about this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, these are concepts you know, um clearly inventors are still feeling out the possibilities because again I come back to my my own um inner world. And on one level, yes, this looks terrifying. It looks reminiscent of the scene where Freddie Krueger reaches up through the bed and pull somebody

down into the bead. Know that that was that was, wasn't it? And then the bed just like vomits eighty three thousand gallons of blood onto the ceiling. Yeah, for like fifteen minutes it felt like um. So on one level, yes, it feels like that. But on the other level, it's like, what if my bed could hug me? What if my bed could could become my egg? And in that idea, especially in the wake of a potential threat like an earthquake, it does sound kind of nice. All right, well, we're

gonna go ahead and close it out here. We're gonna go ahead and press the panic button on our our our swallowing bed and uh and steal ourselves off for this episode. But we'd love to hear from everyone out there. What are your feelings and thoughts on enclosed spaces for sleeping or living or otherwise. Have you stayed in a Japanese uh pod hotel or some of these examples and say it'll lear Switzerland. Report back. What was it like? Was it great? Was it not so great? Was it

a mix of the two. Did you feel comfortable? Did you feel like the goop? We'd love to know all about that. Um. You know these various beds, box beds. Have you slept in one? Are they making a comeback? All of its fair game? Are you an anchor? Right? If so, let us know. If so, what are you

doing listening to podcasts? I feel like that should not be allowed unless you were a podcast anchor, right where your sole responsibility is to listen to as many podcasts as possible with your podcat who's also there, um, in order to attain spiritual enlightenment. Oh also, I want to hear about people's experiments with their cats. I don't know if we mentioned this at the end of the last episode.

Maybe we did, but but yeah, yeah, yeah, if you if you've put out a square to see if your cattle sit on it, that kind of thing, yeah, I feel free to write us about it. Yeah. I think there's already some action on that. We either received a listener mail or somebody shared it on the discussion module, which is the Facebook page where people who dig the show, uh,

you know, hang out and share links and whatnot. I think so far we got one yea in one day on Facebook, one person saying yeah, put down the tape square cat got right in, another person saying the cat doesn't even go anywhere near it. Yeah. I keep it coming. We need more data in the meantime, and if you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find us wherever you get your

podcasts and wherever that happens to be. We just asked the rate review and subscribe huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 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, just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

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