The Podcast that Turns People Inside Out

did you have any like strange childhood fears? Um? I don't know that I've had really any terribly odd childhood fears. Um. Fear of clowns, of course, Uh, fear of my neighbors, right, windows, latches, things like that. What about you? Just okay, so you just had like clowns other people and things that open. But otherwise, yeah, stepping on vertical cracks on the left hand side, okay when when going in the direction of the north. Yeah, okay, Yeah, Well I don't see how

that could have gotten in the way at all. No, No, honestly I didn't. I was a fairly uh normal child when it came to that. Well, I had this fear for a while um of turning inside out, which I suspect that a lot of people had this on some level, um for reasons I'm gonna get to in a moment, but I it all goes back to when when I was a kid, my family would go to the local video store and we you know, you know, me and my sisters, we were all kids, you know, in my family.

They weren't really into getting horror movies. But the horror movie aisle was there, and they had all these just crazy um covers in the vhs, uh, you know, cases and um, and you just walked by them and you'd see these things and you you know, you're my mind would just sort of run wild with what they could

possibly contain. And there was this one box for this film called Screamers, which was a nineteen nine film, and you can look the cover art up online by doing like the Google search, and because it's like really crazy, because it's like this dude that's like turned inside out

and he, you know, he just looks horrific. And then the like the tag at the bottom of the boxes they turned men inside out and worse yet, they were still alive, you know, And so it just it it got into my head that turning inside out was something that could happen to you, or happen your body would do, or that's something that would be done to your body and that you'd still be alive, and it'd be horrendous.

And then you know, I imagine you'd go to the doctor and you know, your parents are taking is like what can you do for him? He's turned inside out? And they would be like, wait, I can't do anything for him. I'm sorry, your son is just inside out. From now on, you'v sitting in in what your third grade class, just sitting there using your workings, just using all over the place and like pulsating and stuff. That's

really horrible. I mean, were you sitting there in the middle of the night saying to myself, you know, saying to yourself, oh my god, this could happen at any moment um. Well, it wasn't that paralyzing, but it was just kind of it was just this feeling of like, you know, I guess when youre a kid, you don't think as much about mortality, but certainly it was kind of a a lesson in Oh my goodness, it's like

we're really fragile. We could just we could turn inside out and then we're you know, so it was like the moment where you just lost your innocence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much every time we all went to the via the video store would see something like that that would you know, it would beat down your your your innocence

a little. But I suspect that that other people have this problem as well, because I don't know if you've ever seen, um, people turning inside out in cartoons, like kids cartoons, but it happens like more than you think it would, like you can dial up horror movies. Besides, the other interesting thing about Screamers is that it actually I found out years and years later, it doesn't have anybody turning inside out in it. It's actually like an

Italian uh film about fishmen. It stars Joseph Cotton, of all people. Yeah he was his seminal Italian film actor. Yeah and um and so yeah, they just like decided that they were going to distribute it in the US with this crazy cover with the guy turned inside out, and they think they shot something for a trailer that I've never seen that has like a dude supposedly turning inside out. So it was like a bait and switch

of turning inside out. But you know, as a kid, I never really really thought about it or a question why in the cover art the guy is inside out but wearing jeans, like yeah, I think I think I'm familiar with this, and he's got a belt and is it is it possible that the top is that button is undone as well, so it's like he's in partial undressed or yeah, like I don't know if he's like, oh my goodness, I've turned inside out, I'd better throw in some jeans or if you like, ingested jeans and

then turned inside out and that's how con he happens to be wearing the jeans correctly. But I didn't think about those things right, right. But but no, like you look at like children's cartoons like Invader Zim, Are you familiar with that one? That was the Nickelodeon show kind of Dark because there is a scene where a kid gets sucked through a portal and he comes out like inside out and then he kind of like you know, shakes it off and he like flaps it back to normal.

And then there was another Nickelodeon show, Nickelodeon, There's Somebody in Nickelodeon was really into turning inside out. Apparently there was a show called inside Out Boy about a kid who's on the swing. Yeah, have you seen this? I'm familiar with it, Okay, I've heard descriptions of it before. And he like went over he like swung so high that he did a complete like three sixty. But it turned him inside out. So he's just just like grotesque

little gut boy walking around, you know. And it's and he just I don't know, he has powers or something, and it's it's totally fine for for kids. Well yeah, maybe because it's uh, it's it's sort of a lesson, right, like don't go too high in your swing, yeah, or inside out, and um, it's a neat way maybe to work out our fears. But what I want to know is, could you actually turn yourself inside out and live to tell it? Um? I think I figured out pretty early,

and I think most of our listeners will't. We'll realize that you can't really because the human body is just a little too complicated and a little too rugged, you know, like like basically like for it to happen, you have to be like a sock puppet, you know, where you know, you could just like when you pull a sock puppet off or when you pull a sock off your foot

and it just goes completely inside out. Like we're just you know, the human anatomy isn't geared to that to living with our organs on the other side, right, and any like any you know force that would it would even like apply that kind of pressure on the human body. I mean it would it would you know, you would have like total body fragmentation before you had anything of that nature happened. We're both too fragile and not rugged

enough to undergo that kind of transformation. Interesting paradox. Yeah, okay, But just because the human body can't turn completely inside out, as we all should know, that doesn't mean that this process, which is called aversion, uh doesn't exist all over the place in the natural world. UM. So you know that's what we're gonna talk about today. Just run through some of the examples of aversion in animals, um and and to eliminated extent with humans and uh, and just how

amazing and gross it can be. And it's it's it's some good grotesque stuff. What's the so what do you what one stands out to you? Just right off the bat in terms of a very simple process of aversion. Well, in human anatomy, you can have, um, the examples of like like, there's bladder aversion that can happen. And we're not gonna got a whole lot of detail on this

because it's you know, it's kind of gross. It sounds convenient, though I have to say, yeah, it's It's different from bladder evacuation, um, which is rather generally a rather pleasant experience as long as you know it's not in your pants on a roller coaster or something. But but no, this is a situation where the bladder, being an internal organ, ends up on the outside through a you know, generally

a naturally occurring orifice. But you can you can also have a version occur with injuries where something will get kind of glooped out to the outside, right um and um. And so yeah, it tends to be like an injury or internal trauma type situation. Uh, you know, it becomes prolapsed to where it's it's on the outside now and it needs to be pushed back in or you know,

in some way repaired. But but you have a lot of animals where a version is just part of like their daily routine, just how they go about eating or digesting things or defending themselves. So um of those like the the c Star is a classic example of that. And if anybody out there watched the Discovery UH and Slash BBC documentary series Life this year, Uh, they had a whole segment where it's c Stars feeding on this corpse underwater. Their cadaver were not cadaver, just a dead

seal um. But they spit their stomachs out. They avert their stomachs under the outside of their bodies to work at the digesting. So it just kind of sucks up everything and pulls it back in. Yeah, exactly, which again that's convenient. You see yourself at a buffet doing that.

Maybe not you, but yeah, I would. You're not going to go to a buffet and then this this same it's just you don't you don't get your your money's worth out of it, and like you just really pick out You're completely right unless you just completely avert your

your your your stomach you know. Oh and the documentary series Life also shows these nimmertine worms feeding and they actually use they actually have what's called any versible probiscus and this is just their they're feeding mechanism is completely averted, and then they just kind of like pump it out with these muscles and it's like a snout sort of going Yeah, it's like a long snout, but it's basically it's about the length of their body, but it's adverted,

so it's kind of like completely cool. Yeah, it's just like completely pulled inside and then they just it's they're kind of like a party favor, you know, where you like blow on it, rhythm kind of like extends, it's like that, and then it snaps back, yeah, and then they pull it back in. And so that's I think that's our good examples of getting your food from inversion. I think uh sharks and raised they are sort of

doing the opposite, right, like dumping. Yeah, they have this thing called gastric aversion, and it's kind of like if you're you know you weren't like if you're wearing blue jeans and you turn the pocket out to get rid of lent and find some loose change. They do the same thing with their stomachs out of their mouth, um, and you can find videos of it online. It's like a real it's like a really quick function, you know, because you know your shark, you're you live in a

dangerous situation. You don't just want to, you know, be swimming around owned all day with your stomach hanging out your mouth. So they just go it's kind of like this quick coolaw and then then it's you know, it's out shakes, free some you know, debris, and then it's right back in. So it's like ancient Rome for the animal kingdom and that there, it's like the vomitorium, except that there's no loot playing in the background to cover

up the noise. Yeah, but it's exactly like like I think the way I was thinking of it's like with cats. Like we both know that cats love to puke, you know, it's where I don't know if they love it, but they do it without it's no big deal. It's just a part of their lives. Sometimes you got a puke and they do it. So with sharks and rays, puking

isn't isn't the option, it's gastric aversion. So it's just it's no big deal for them, right, and so that way they can scoop up even more food rights that right, Okay, And another really cool animal is the vampire squid. Oh yes, yeah, tell us about that, because that little creature for large creature, not quite sure how large it is, it's pretty fascinating. Yeah, I'm I'm gonna attempt to make a shot at its Latin name because it's pretty awesome. Um Vampora toothist infernales.

It's like the the infernal vampire or something uma the dark seas. It lives about a half mile deep in the ocean, and it has these um, this like webbed array of eight inch arms, so you know, it has like the the squid arms like your you know, cephalopod arms like you typically see, except they're all webb together, and it looks like a cape like a vampire's cloak. Perhaps it's very like steam punky looking, I think, yeah, you can. I can easily imagine like wearing a little

like top hat and having a you know. But but he will do this thing where he goes into a threat response stance that is sometimes called pumpkin or pineapple posture, which kind of I mean that doesn't sound you know, these cools vampire and in infernal you know. But but he'll basically take this um, you know, his array of arms these web this web array of arms and and like pull it back over the rest of his body.

So it's kind of like if you were to take your lower lip and your upper lip and you were able to like stretch your lips back all the way over your body until you were just like, you know, pink glistening meat. That's kind of what they do. And so that's so a predator might go, WHOA, that wasn't what I thought it was, right, And also also they have these little they're not really spikes, but they have these lines of things on the inside. It looked like spikes.

So then when they go into pineapple stands, they look a little spiky. So again, lad the impale are there? Yeah, yeah, I think that that's fascinating that you can turn yourself, you can essentially shape shift as an animal to say to a predator, you know, hey, watch out, or I am not what you thought I was. And and one of the things that I'm thinking about is the c cucumber.

Oh this is a good one, yeah, which is much exalted in Japanese culture, and the c cucumber to me, cuc where I can see where they got the name, but it really looks more like a sea sausage. Yeah, it's it's like you look at it and you can't really tell that it's a little I don't know, it's it's not the most vibrant of living things, you know, it's just kind of looks kind of gross and still. Yeah, And and it comes into a ton of varieties like that.

Some of them look like they've been oxidized, and some of them, um look like very psychedelic with warts on them, not warts. And they're anywhere from like under one inch to six and a half feet in length. So in terms of um how they're represented out there, there's a huge variety. And not all of them do what I'm about to talk about, but some of them have a really interesting defense mechanism. And if you don't mind me being so bold, I'll just get right to the point.

They can take their internal organs and jettison them from their anus. That's and this is of course a trick best performed when you can read inter rate said organs right, exactly right. You don't want to lose organs unless you can get them back in about a week to four weeks or something like that. But the reason why I think that is so fascinating. Is that to me? Like, that's the ultimate bow up movement that you might have

like in a bar fight. You know, if you if you were able to expel your internal organs for your anus and just splat them on your opponent. I mean to me, that's pretty intimidating. Yeah, I would think. So. I've run across other, you know, situations where an animal have some for response like that, Like there's um they're like there are different animals that like to go into

a defensive posture. They either like vomit blood or they I think there's a frog that actually um like fractures some of its bones and like it creates compound fractures. Yeah you know, um yeah, but any of those techniques if you were to pull that on Marta on the local transit system, if you were threatened, I mean, I don't think anybody would message oh no, yeah, everybody would move out of the car for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Have maybe like the one person that was still asleep, Yeah,

I'm fortunate for them. But this, this uh, what's also called the sea slug the c cucumber, is just pretty fascinating in the sense that really does embody all those shape shifting elements to it. It also can collapse itself, which is really cool, the collagen fibers of it and pretty much the liquefy itself and go through cracks. And I mean again, that's an incredible shape shifting talent. I love to have that. Yeah. So it's not just a sea sausage. They're just sitting on the ocean floor. Actin

like a bottom dweller has a rich life. Yeah. And if you think it's gross before you start messing with it, just wait until it has to like run away. It's gonna possibly shoot out its organs and and then turn into a liquid. That's yeah, that's right, de materialized. Yeah, and I was actually not I wasn't aware of before today, just how how much of a role it apparently plays

in Japanese culture, Like I didn't know. I guess I knew on some level that you could eat it because I think I've seen it on menus Like, have you ever had it anywhere? I have not. I think I have as well seen it on menus um and I'm thinking of Sushia. It could be completely wrong, but that's what I'm thinking about. And I guess it's a huge delicacy in Japan. Yeah, I think, uh, I think, you know, I I now, I do remember where I saw it. There's like a they're these little hot pot restaurants. It's

like a Chinese thing where you have this. It's kind of like fon do, except you have a little pot to cook your pile of vegetables and and one of the meats that is available, I believe is cea cucumber. Wow. I did not have it. A friend of mine had it, and he I don't think he said he liked it, but he I think he said it was interesting. And it's uh also again referred to as sea slug. So you've you've got sea slug fon do. Yeah, it just doesn't it doesn't, you know, roll off the tongue is

sounding quite delicious. But that and I think it's called sea slug because cucumber is not really translatable. Um from Japanese East English, which I think is in the book. What is it it called? Again, it's very it's just oh it's called namacomo. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Because we are in researching this, we both ran across the same book. Um, there's a it's called Risey Sea Slugs by Robin D. Gil and h it is a book about sea slug haiku.

There are one thousand hi q about sea slugs. See that's just I mean, I really had to look at it against them, like this is a joke. This is some joke entry on Amazon, like back in the day when people would put fake movies on IMDb, Like this is just somebody's making this up. But it's it's legit. It's like they're that important in uh, you know, in

in understanding like Japanese culture. Yeah, they're that celebrated. And what I like about is that the sections are defined by its various traits I guess as as we humans see it. And a couple of sections are um in the order of scatological, uh, melancholy. Um. There are a couple other ones in there, but you have to understand that um. The book is not only just celebrating the humble c cucumber, but it's also sort of talking about of the culture itself and how it is expressing itself

through its love of the sea slug. Yeah, like there was and this makes perfect sense now that I you know,

once I've I've read it. But there's a point in the book where they're talking about comparisons between this act of aversion that the c that the c cucumber performs with its guts, comparing that to the like the traditional um, you know, samurai act of sefuku um and maybe saying that wrong and then the westernized version of that is what Harry carry um and you know, so there are obvious similarities between you know, this this creature expelling its

organs to escape of you know, danger, comparing that to say, a shame you know samurai if somebody you know, basically visrating themselves with a knife in order to save face. Yeah, yeah, so yes, that's the honor thing is a very interesting to bring up and to relate that back. Do you have one of the hiku a translation of the hiku? Yes, idea, I hope, Well you have to read that so people will get Well, this one is from seventy one, and

I feel like it's still very relatable now. And it is from a writer whose name was Joe and I'm pronouncing that right. And it is a few drinks and I am a cea slug out of water. Oh that's that's that's actually really pretty yeah. And also I feel like, uh, in terms of of our predilection for maybe over extending ourselves with libations. It's it's still rings true today. There are times when after a few drinks, I feel that I am out of water as well. Well, some of

the ones I found we're a little more grotesque. Um like this is one here, life's hard, no doubt. Sea slugs end up inside out. I love it. Oh and then there's this one sea slugs their guts are made to swim one days. It's a reminder. Yeah, and of course these are translations, so we can't really experience the true beauty of of you know, C cucumber aversion poetry. No, no, but I would say that. I mean, the holidays are coming up, so got a herrine biologist in your family?

I think that you just found their present. Yeah, I think Amazon has one copy left, so jumped to it. Yea, get on it. Yeah. So, I mean the thing about the c cucumbers is that we see this as a phenomenon. This inside out is something in nature. What about in terms of injuries, something self inflicted or even in pop culture? Um, well, yeah, it's one of those things where like the first thing that incident comes to mind for me when I think

of something that could actually turn you inside out. Oh, which, by the way, another instance of a child's children's story featuring inside out things. How to Train Your Dragon, there's mention of a dragon that turns people inside out, so which it's a great movie, but it's like these like that was just the other day, like after I had researched the podcast some and then I saw that movie and I'm like, whoa, this is all over the place. People can't get enough of inside out things for children.

It's embedded in our subconscious. There's also Slim Good Buddy, who I'm kind of on the fence, whether that's inside out this or just a dude in a suit we've gouts on the front of it. You remember Slim Good No, no, I can't tell me about something. Oh god, he's um.

I believe he's Canadian. Could be wrong on that, but he's a Slim Good Bodies like a TV personality, and he was like generally you think of like the classic Slim Good body where he's got like kind of like he's got kind of like curly hair, and he was this like spandex body suit with all of the organs painted on the outside and he like talks to kids about like the importance of like eating healthy and you know,

like the guy still travels around the day. Yeah, yes, I know, yes, yeah yeah, And so that's basically his whole stick is, you know, educating children about you know the importance of health and you know that taking care of your insides. Wow, there's gonna be one kid that just freaked out, you know, and he's saw him come

to a school. It was like your organs running outside. Yeah, And I think I've I've seen parodies before where like people have done costumes where it's like Slim Bad Body, where they like show like you know, organs that have been like like the lungs are all blackened from smoking and things like like a huge momentum. Yeah, but outside of Slo good like Slim Good Body, again, I don't I don't necessarily think he was actually inside out. I think you just had a suit with cuts on it.

But but the the thing and instantly comes to mind is like, you know, like rapid depressurization like in a like in an airplane or you know, it's like it's always happening in space movies, but it's it's rarely. Um all that accurate. So I mean, are you talking more like suction or for something sally force and then also just like you know pressures, you know, the outside pressure

changing and then destabilizing pressures inside the body. Um. Like there's a film called Outland that came back out in the seventies. I believe it's like a Sean Connery western in space, and it was one of these where people would like float out into you know, into the void without their helmet on and their head would explode, you know, like a balloon. Uh. And I think I think that happened in total recall as well, but you know, it's

like it's things wouldn't really happen like that. I believe the Air Force conducted some some tests, um and you can find them results of it online where they took some salmon and uh and expose them to you know, rapid depressurreization, and they they did not turn inside out, because that's just silly, but but they did there was like some stomach aversion like through like holes. So so yeah, it's it's the depression ization can cause some aversion, but

it's not the kind of thing would turn the inside out. Okay, I'm also thinking to you about some of the horrible urban myths that I've heard about before, and I'm thinking about like, oh good, I'm not gonna say this. Yeah, like airplane toilets section. I mean I think that you can probably figure out yeah, that kind of stuff, um, you know, without like going into an actual like you know, case by case, you know, Snopes esque, and you know,

analysis of the stories. It's like even even that at the most, you know, any kind of like um, you know, pressure based injury, um is going to just I think result in in like a pro lapse or a version of organs. But right, if they're not gonna get sucked out, I mean, if you're gonna sit on a toilet, see, I mean, the odds are that the section that you would create wouldn't be nearly strong enough to even lend itself to creating yeah, in evacuation of your bells, right,

so to speak. Again, Yeah, this is and this is also a topic where we could we could go into more detail about all this. But well, if you're really that interested, there's some you know, you can do some more research on line. But we're good in trouble if we get into it too. Yeah, I think I feel like we're we've entered into the zone. Yeah, yeah, but one more, it's like again, going all the way around on the swing set will not turn you inside out, No, it will not. It may make you vomit, but you

will not turn inside out. It will scare any adults viewing, and children could be more of it. Yeah, we're not abdicating. Well, I think you do. You do get a certain so, I mean I never I was never the type of child to even attempt that. But like the kids who would go really high in the swing set, like, that's instant cred right, I mean that's oh yeah, yeah again. I mean I guess that is the kid equivalent of just ejecting your your internal organs and spotting them on

someone else's. That the metaphorical like, don't mess with me on this playground, kid. Well, well, on that note, we did you I do? Yeah, we did you? I do. If if you have any interesting tidbits about things turning inside out, either in your life or in fiction or in the realm of science, we may have missed something really awesome example from the biological world, let us know. Oh and if you have your own high qu to

share with us, please we want to hear it. Yes, but only if it's about thanks turning inside out, and that could be anything. Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. The How stuff Works dot Com I phone app is coming soon. Get access to our content in a new way, articles, videos, and more all on the go. Check out the latest podcasts and blog posts, and see what we're saying on Facebook and Twitter. Coming soon to iTunes,