Second Annual Heavy MeNtal Variety Show

00:00:00 Thanks for coming. Uh got a good crowd tonight and we'd like to welcome you to the second annual heavy metal variety show. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight and uh we're especially glad to be here at the Helix Center and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Um the uh before we start, I want to thank um Ed who runs the the Helix Center for putting this together and all the people involved, Sharon Weller and others who helped um uh make all this happen. There was a lot of logistical

00:00:31 details and Miguel and and the sound crew because this is not obviously a sound room. So, we're very pleased with what they've been able to put together and we hope you'll enjoy the uh the show. Uh we're going to we're going to be doing uh some songs about mind and brain and mental disorders and talking a little bit about it. We want to start with a kind of big question. Who are you? Uh or what are you? Are you a body, a mind, a soul, all of the above? None of the above? Everybody has a different opinion about this. Um but it's a it's a

00:01:04 pretty ancient question. The oracle at Deli told Socrates, "Know thyself." And you know this was a kind of deep thing because he told he also told Socrates he was the wisest man on earth. So some two millennia later a fellow named Renee had a different idea. He said well dude I already know this stuff right I'm um not only do I know myself that's the only thing I can know. All I know is what's in my head.

00:01:35 So with his famous Kajito erggo, he became the godfather of consciousness. This of course is Renee Decart and he's the the grand pupa of consciousness. And tonight we're going to celebrate Renee by starting out with a song in his honor. Uh the first two songs will be about mind and brain and uh and consciousness in particular. And the first song is called Inside of Me and it's a direct tribute to Renee Decart. That's too loud. Hang on.

00:02:05 [Music] Okay, let's try it now. I think so. I am. I feel so I must be sometimes I don't

00:02:39 know what it is to be me. I see your eyes. They're staring at me. They're sharp as knives. What do they see? You can't see. You can't see inside of me. Inside of me. That's a

00:03:10 place only I can be. My soul has passion. It's trying to feel. Searching for

00:03:42 desire. Nothing is real. My will is weak. Not very free. Nothing to get hung about. Well, that's just the deal. You can't see. You can't see inside of me. Inside of me. That's a

00:04:13 place. Only I can be. You can see. You can see inside of me. Inside of me. That's a place only. I can be [Music]

00:05:05 think so I am but feel so I must be sometimes I don't know it is to be me. I think so. I am. I feel so I must be sometimes I don't know it is to be

00:05:36 me. You can't see. You can't see inside of me. inside of me. There's a place only I can be. Only I can be. Only I can be. I can. Only I can be. Only. Only I can be.

00:06:15 All right. Thank [Applause] you. So, now we're going to move to another mind song, consciousness song. This one's um about that eternal struggle between mind and matter. Specifically about that, and it's called Mind Over Matter.

00:07:00 Mind over matter. Something I'm trying to do. I guess it's only physics. It keeps me apart from you. Mind over matter. That's something I'm trying to do. Break down space and time. Be together with

00:07:34 you. I'm trying to will you here? Find you wherever you are. Locate your body or soul. Pull you in from afar. Are you still in my town? Have you slipped away? Have you gone forward back living in another day?

00:08:10 [Music] Where where might you be? Different continent on the sea. In the air, flying free in a place heavenly wherever you are

00:08:43 now. Use my mind to find. No amount of space or time can keep you from being mine. Heat. Heat.

00:09:29 [Music] mind over something I'm trying to do. Guess it's only physics that keeps me apart from you. Mind of a matter something I'm trying to

00:10:05 do. Break down space and time. Be together with you. be together with you. Be together with you. We'll be together with you. All right. Thank you. Well, okay. So, we've talked about

00:10:35 consciousness. We know it's important, but um don't you think it's a little overrated sometimes? I mean, you know, how many times have you sort of been in a fight with, you know, like your spouse and, you know, your conscious mind is in there and says to you, "Well, damn, why did I say that?" You know, I got to I got to stick to it now. It's too late to backtrack. I got to kind of stick to that thing. So, you know, the thoughts are coming out and then you're kind of consciously watching it and saying, "Uhoh, now I'm in trouble." My uh my old mentor Mike

00:11:07 Gazanaga used to talk about this as saying you know consciousness is the story we tell ourselves about what's really going on in our brain and you know the oracle knew this um but he he sort of needed to school Socrates because Socrates didn't realize he was the wisest man on earth and so you know he said you know if you want the the oracle said if you want to know the truth you just got to look inside but Socrates was stubborn he said hey man you I know. I know. Bupus. I don't I

00:11:37 just don't know this stuff. What do you mean I'm the wisest man on earth? I just have to look inside. And the article said, "Hey, I didn't say it was going to be easy. You got to get in there and dig deep to find out what's going on in there." So, you know, this takes us to two songs about digging deep into the unconscious. Uh but before we do that, Tyler's going to do a a short reading on something that is relevant. Yes. Uh so I told Joe I'd find something from this is from the

00:12:07 cathaanad and I just want to say a few words after I read it. Uh thus develop this is advice to everybody. Thus develop a superconscious way of knowing. Uh meditation enables you to go deeper and deeper into consciousness from the world of words to the world of thoughts. then beyond thoughts to wisdom in the self. So what I take from that is that uh when you go beyond the stream sort of typical

00:12:38 stream of consciousness um there can become a superconsciousness because the stream of consciousness itself is a certain unconscious aspect to it. We think it's conscious but in many ways when you start meditating you see that there's a lot of automaticity to the mind. So that brings us to the song the automatic mind. This is a song by Tyler.

00:13:19 [Music] [Music] Welcome to the automatic mind. Door is open to remember [Music] time. Images are conjured like a

00:13:55 dream. Guiding actions on the waking screen. [Music] Even though I realize it, still I feel so blind as I [Music] contemplate the automatic mind.

00:14:25 [Music] We live in the automatic mind. Introspection opens inner eyes. We seem advanced yet hardly

00:14:56 in control. Illusion of the will is comfort [Music] cold. Even though I realize it, still I feel so blind as I think about and can't live without the automatic mind.

00:15:28 [Music] Walk. Walk. Talk. Blink. Drink. Think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think. You think you think you think you think you [Music]

00:16:36 I love vote. Even though I realize it, still I feel so blind as I think about and can't live without. Okay. The automatic mind. All right. Tyler Bo on guitar. Daniela Schiller on backup vocals. Thank you. Amanda Thorp on bass. Jonathan Kanan on Sax and flute. And Tomas Meras on cello.

00:17:08 Okay. Well, we can't talk about the unconscious without, of course, mentioning Sigman, especially here in the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. You know, when when many of you probably know this, but when Freud visited the US, one of the main people that he visited with was Abraham Bril, who was one of Freud's American devotees and disciples and one of the founders of the New York Psychoan League Institute. So when here being in this room and thinking about u the unconscious mind

00:17:38 you know as a neuroscientist I think of the unconscious in terms of how the brain works and uh especially in terms of of memory. So you know you've probably heard that there are different kinds of memory. For example there's explicit memory which is memory you can consciously retrieve at will. It's in your in your brain. It's stored in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. You want to remember what you had for breakfast. You can reach down in there and out comes the memory or maybe u you remember a birthday. Hi

00:18:09 Christina all the way in the back. So you can remember these conscious things and Christina Alberini who's about to come in as an expert on on these kinds of memories. Uh but you can dig in and pull this stuff out. What you do is you retrieve those memories from explicit memory and explicit long-term memory. Put them into something called working memory which involves the prefrontal cortex. And I think that's really what uh Freud had in mind when he talked about the preconcious memories that were you know that are available to be retrieved but aren't being retrieved right now. But

00:18:40 more interesting is the you know the the true unconscious the dynamic unconscious. How can we understand that in terms of the brain? Well that's a more complicated thing but you know a lot of what um um may be thought of as repressed memories may not quite be like that. So we know that for example certain kinds of very stressful situations will release certain hormones like gluccocorticoids and these will be released from the adrenal gland go into the brain go to our friend the

00:19:12 hippocampus and shut it down. Now that takes about an hour to do the full thing. So during that hour you might have some memories that will be kind of fragmentally or incompletely formed and could still be in there but you won't have the full-blown memory. So in a situation like that under severe trauma you might have an amnesia for the event not because you necessarily repressed it which may happen but that I'm not going to talk about that um but because of the effects of purely the mechanical effects of the stress hormones on the

00:19:43 hippocampus preventing it from forming a fully blown memory. Now the patient may then go to therapy and try to retrieve those memories and uh in the process may be able to dig out those features and fragments and put together some kind of memory uh and that may be enough. But on the other hand that opens up the possibility of a lot of false memories. So we just have to be aware that there are situations where memories can be unavailable. things that were conscious at the time but become unavailable because of these

00:20:14 mechanical effects of uh stress hormones and um that that can maybe account for some biologically for some of what has been called repression. That's not to say repression does not exist. I would not say that but it's not something we understand from the point of view of the brain. So now we're going to do a little tune about another aspect of the unconscious. Um you know you can't always trust what you think you know. You think you have something in your mind and you understand it. you're so sure about it, but then your mind uh deceives you. Uh things that are in our

00:20:45 mind's eye aren't necessarily uh accurate. They're just in our mind's eye, which is the name of the next song. Take it away, Tyler. And [Music]

00:21:22 If you look into my mind's eye, you would see the way that I cry. Deep inside, in my mind's eye, we had love. It was good. You were

00:21:53 there. You understood everything. Yes. Everything. Here we go. You can't always trust what you think. You know, you can't trust what you believe. Sometimes your mind just puts on a show. It's simply deceased. In my mind's eye, you are

00:22:25 mine. My mind's eye. If you look into my mind's eye, you would see the way that I cry. Deep [Music] inside my mind's eye. You can't always trust what you

00:22:56 think. You know, you can't trust what you believe. Sometimes your mind just puts on a show. It's simply [Music] deceased.

00:23:28 [Music] Here we [Music] go. My mind's eye. You are mine. My mind's eye is blind. My mind I was

00:23:59 blind. My mind I was blind. Will you help? My mind I was [Applause] [Music] blind. Okay. Thank [Applause] you. You know the Greeks had a dramatic device known as the deusex machina. This was a a thing where the just when the the drama got at its worst where it seemed, you know, that the the mortals couldn't figure a way out, a god would

00:24:31 descend from above and solve the problem. So, a long time later, a philosopher named Gilbert Riyle sort of rifted on this idea and talked about consciousness as the ghost in the machine. Um a bit later though cognitive science comes along and tries to understand the way the ghost the machine underlying the ghost is working. Um and especially in the field of cognitive neuroscience we're trying to you know work out the the way that machine does its thing. All right. Now we're going to

00:25:02 we're going to do one uh another one about the mind and going deep inside. Uh and this one is called map of your mind. It's about how you know two people get together and you're trying to figure the other one out and look inside. what's in the other's mind and try to find the way to work it all out and to be together. So, this one's from my wife Nancy. All right. [Music]

00:25:33 [Applause] [Music] Made a map of your mind. I've charted my course, sailing deep inside. Got the winds of force. Got the heat of your heart. Keep me from the

00:26:07 cold. Got the currents of will. Take me to your soul. I'm on a journey that I knew I'd make. It's a trip that I had to

00:26:38 take and excursion of need and desire. It's a [Music] vo fueled by fire. [Music] made a map of your mind.

00:27:09 [Music] I charted my course. I'm sailing deep inside. I've got the winds of force. Got the heat of your [Music] heart to keep me from the cold. Got the currents of [Music] will to take me to your soul.

00:27:42 [Music] I'm just hoping my sails will be true, that they'll take me straight to you. Let the wind blow strong.

00:28:12 Oh, when I land on my mind. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

00:28:48 Got the heat of your heart to keep me from the cold. Got the currents of will to take me to your [Music] soul. made a map of your mind. Take me to your soul. Made a map of your

00:29:20 mind. Take me to your soul. To your [Music] soul. To your soul. To your soul. [Music] Okay, thank you very [Applause] much. Okay, now we're going to do another one about memory. And this is about how hormones help sort of glue

00:29:51 your memories together. It's called, in fact, glue. We still have some crackling sounds there. Okay, Tyler. Yeah. All right. So, here we go with [Music]

00:30:30 glue. I saw you leaving. You saw me, too. You smiled at [Music] me. That's what you do. Tried to follow, but you were gone. Now you're waiting. Sitting home alone.

00:31:03 I keep thinking about your smile and eyes. I can't believe your words were lies. You made me happy, so very glad. I can't forget those times we had. There must be something in my

00:31:38 [Music] brain. There must be something in my [Music] veins. There must be some primal clue. I keep my memory stuck on you. When I saw you [Music] go, I didn't

00:32:12 know. I thought you'd be back in a week or so. It's so hard realizing that I wasn't really where you're at. I dream about you most every

00:32:42 night. I dream you're back. Everything's all right. I keep hoping my dreams will come true. And I'll wake up right next to you. There must be something in my brain.

00:33:14 There must be something in my veins. There must be some pry or blue that keeps my memories stuck on [Music] you. Heat. Heat.

00:33:45 [Music] [Applause] [Music] When I saw you go, I didn't know. I thought you'd be

00:34:18 back in a we must be something in my brain. There must be something in my veins. There must be some of our memories on

00:34:53 you. That is my memories on you. that keeps my memories stuck on you. [Applause] Okay. And now we get to the part of the evening that Mark was talking about, the fear part. Now fear is something that uh

00:35:24 some of us up here work on. Yella and I, John, boss. No, I just live until works on the environment. That's a kind of fearful topic. Um, so we're going to do the first song we're going to do on fear is called When the Night is Dark. And um, when I was a kid, I used to really like vampire movies. And this song was sort of written about vampires. This is before vampires are really like cool and stuff. So, I'm not like riding the bandwagon. I started the bandwagon here.

00:35:54 So, here we go with When the Night is Dark. [Music] When the night is dark, I lose my [Music] fear. When the night is

00:36:25 dark, never shed a cheer. When the daylight comes, daylight comes. Scares me away. scares me away. When the daylight comes, I come. When I have to fake When the night is dark, night is dark. I feel so free. Feel so free. When the night is dark, night is dark. I feel

00:36:58 at peace. When the daylight comes, daylight comes, it scares me away. Scares me away. When the daylight comes, comes. And I [Music]

00:37:34 have heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] When the night is dark, night is

00:38:08 I come alive. Come alive. When the night is dark, night is dark. I begin to thrive. When the daylight comes, daylight scares me away. Scares me away. When the daylight comes, daylight comes when I have to face. When the daylight comes, the daylight

00:38:39 comes. Scares me awake. scares me away. When the daylight comes, daylight comes when I have to [Music] face. All right. Thank you. [Applause] interest.

00:39:12 Okay. So, uh it's getting late, so we don't want to keep you too long. So, we're dropping one song at least and uh go on to a song that uh I wrote called Memory Pill. And this is moving into the topic uh the the sort of the last area general topic for the night, which is is there a pill for that? And so I wrote this song called Memory Pill, which is about some work that uh some of us up here, especially Daniela's worked on, John's worked on it, too, called Reconolidation of Memory. I think Daniellea is going to tell us a little

00:39:43 bit about how that works. No, no, no. All right. So, um, Israeli accent. No, no. Yeah. So, um, you remember how in 2004 there was this movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? So, that was such a great idea. You know, you want to get rid of a memory, you go to the doctor, zap it, gone. So, it turns out it was actually based on a true study that happened in Joe's lab in 2000. Uh, Joe's student Karimator um what he found

00:40:14 is that uh actually you don't have um to target the memory just as it's as it formed. You can actually target old memory. So whenever you reactivate a memory, it's unstable in your brain and this is a window of opportunity to block it. Um, so he did this experiment in rats and the rats kind of remember the fear and he gave them a drug, a pill, not a pill actually, an injection and the memory was gone. So now the question is, can you do it in humans? Can you remember something, get a pill and your memory will be gone? Well, we don't know

00:40:46 yet. But that's what we think how memory works. Um, there's a twist though. Um, we can use pills to erase memories when we want to get rid of them, especially when they are traumatic and bad. But what we discovered in the last few years is that you can actually use this mechanism of reconsolidation to update memories. So whenever you retrieve a memory, it's actually changing and you incorporate new information available at the time of retrieval. So really, you don't remember the original event, you just remember your last retrieval of it.

00:41:18 And with that, Tyler, take us away on memory pill. [Music] We're in C, right? Okay. [Music] Took a stroll through my brain. Oh, what

00:41:51 a cluttered place. My old neurons low on synaptic space. Stuff in there that I need that I need to erase. Just give me a pill. Oh, yes. So please just give me a

00:42:21 pill. Wash away my [Music] memories. Birth trauma and childhood stress. Chicken pox. What a mess. Babysitters and nuns and priests to whom

00:42:52 I confess. Oh, girlfriends and algebra playground bullies and achievement tests. Yeah, I want to get rid of them. Yeah. Each time I remember, I'll take a pill. Block that storage. Make my memory nil. Just give me a

00:43:22 pill. Oh yes. Oh, please just give me a pill. Wash away my [Music] memories. Heat. Heat. [Music]

00:44:14 took a stroll through my brain. Oh, what a cluttered place. My old neurons low on synaptic space. stuff in there that I need that I need to [Music] erase. Just give me a pill. Oh yes. Oh,

00:44:45 please. Just give me a pill. Wash away my memories. Just give me a pill. Oh yes. Oh, please just give me a pill wash away my [Music] [Music] memories. All right. Memory

00:45:20 pillow song. Okay. Okay. So, we're going to do two more songs. Uh, one is, uh, called Brainstorm, and it's about, uh, something really bad happened to me somebody. [Music]

00:46:10 [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] It's raining in my brain. I'm feeling no pain. Everybody thinks I'm

00:46:41 insane, but I'm just on my game. I don't see the harm. Just have a brainstorm. Lots of racing cars fly in the air. Memories are flashing, legs are dashing. Don't have a care. Don't have a care. [Music]

00:47:27 Rain keeps coming down and thoughts are more profound. Everybody's staying clear. They hope I'll disappear. I'm not alone. It's just a brain. Hearts are beating. No more to spare. Muscles and heads are down. I'm

00:47:59 on a tail. I'm on a tail. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]

00:48:32 [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

00:49:20 Storms picking up steam. My mind's in a dream. Times are standing still. I've got a chill. Maybe that's just the norm. When you're in a brain scone, callers are flying. Magic in the air.

00:49:52 I'm on a 10. Feelings of hearts of me. No more to spare. Muscles. I'm on a dare. I'm on a jar. [Music]

00:50:35 [Applause] [Music] me down. Down.

00:51:06 [Music] [Music]

00:51:38 [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music]

00:52:37 One 2 3 4 colors of magic in the [Music] leg don't have a care to be no more to spend muscles and friends. I'm on a

00:53:08 damn on [Music] [Applause] [Music] All right, brainstorm. All right, we're going to close it out with one last song. This is called fittingly the mind body problem.

00:53:39 [Music] I got a mind body

00:54:10 problem. I don't know what to do. I've got a problem. I don't know what to do. My body wants you [Music] so you always love me. To me, you'd be

00:54:42 true. You said you'd love me. To me, you'd be true. Well, now you're gone. I'm down in blue. Well, now you're back. You want me again, but now you're

00:55:13 black. You love me again. If I relent, I lose it in the end. I got a mind body problem. He's got a problem. I don't know what to do. He don't know what to do. I've got a problem. He's got a problem. I don't know what to do. He don't know what to

00:55:45 do. My body wants you so my mind no. [Music]

00:56:22 I even tried religion to get over you. I even tried religion to get over you. Well, holy dualism. Couldn't solve my schism. Now you got me trembling and shaking. He's got a problem. I'm

00:56:55 craving. You don't know what to do. I'm craving you. He's got a problem. Oh, I don't know what to do. He don't know what to do. more than feeling in pain. I'm the same [Music]

00:57:44 Oh, I've got a problem. I don't know what to do. I've got a problem. I don't know what to do. My body wants you. My mind says no. Good [Music] night. Amanda Thorp on base. Daniela

00:58:16 Schiller, Tomas Mas, John Kanan, Tyler Mo. Thank you very much. Joe Leoo. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] Thank you. Thank you very much. [Music]