Author Topic: EP166: The Something-Dreaming Game  (Read 46991 times)

Russell Nash

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Reply #25 on: July 14, 2008, 11:08:52 AM
Full disclosure:  This went through my school when I was in fourth grade or so.  I tried it once.  I didn't get any big euphoric experience or anything. 



wintermute

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Reply #26 on: July 14, 2008, 11:38:36 AM
Because, to the best of my knowledge, most if not all kids do do it.
I think this is overstating the case. There don't seem to be any solid numbers about this that I can find, but I'd be surprised if it's above 50%.

Edit: Wikipedia

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Creeperz

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Reply #27 on: July 14, 2008, 11:48:37 AM
Oh Steve Big Thank you for the no kids Warning. I sometimes let my 9 year Listen and Really Glad that warning was there



Listener

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Reply #28 on: July 14, 2008, 12:52:44 PM
Because, to the best of my knowledge, most if not all kids do do it.
I think this is overstating the case. There don't seem to be any solid numbers about this that I can find, but I'd be surprised if it's above 50%.

Edit: Wikipedia

Perhaps I should've said "have tried it at least once."

Stories we did on this last year (during sweeps, naturally):
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=92487
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=92567

Full disclosure: I did try it once or twice, but it was more painful than anything. No euphoria. I'll stick to drugs, thank you.  ;D

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Reply #29 on: July 14, 2008, 01:16:38 PM
I remember kids talking about playing "light as a feather, stiff as a board" or something like that.  I think it was this same thing. 

I never did that, but as a kid, to make my friends laugh, I did used to tense up really hard and push all the blood to my head to make my face turn deep red.  Once I did this for too long or something and felt tingly and kind of out of it, but I didn't actually pass out.

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stePH

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Reply #30 on: July 14, 2008, 01:20:02 PM
Because, to the best of my knowledge, most if not all kids do do it

I very much doubt that.  Like cuddlebug, I never did it and never knew anybody who did.  wintermute's estimated 50% seems quite high; I'd be surprised if it's over half that.

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wintermute

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Reply #31 on: July 14, 2008, 02:08:13 PM
Because, to the best of my knowledge, most if not all kids do do it

I very much doubt that.  Like cuddlebug, I never did it and never knew anybody who did.  wintermute's estimated 50% seems quite high; I'd be surprised if it's over half that.
Yeah, that 50% was more based on the use of the "most" than my own guesstimate (does that deserve to be a word?), which would be significantly lower.

Perhaps I should've said "have tried it at least once."

Stories we did on this last year (during sweeps, naturally):
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=92487
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=92567
OK, so we have two fatalities in a city of 5 million. Neither story gives any indication of how widesoread the game is; no "we interviewed 50 students in this school and 40 of them said they'd tried it at least once", for example. Given that this is an incredibly dangerous thing to do, the fact that single deaths are so newsworthy (in the way that fatal car crashes aren't) leads me to suspect that it's really not that common. True, a fair number of cases are probably misidentified as less sensational forms of choking, but it just seems unlikely that tens of millions of kids do this, and even "safety advocates" are unwilling to suggest that there might be more than a thousand deaths from it every year.

If you're right, then the choking game is safer than riding a horse, and I find that hard to believe.

Full disclosure: I never even heard of this until I was 10 years out of school. I went to school in Britain, which is a possible explanation, but it was a public school with a catchment area covering several very bad neighbourhoods; if it was known at all in Britain, that's exactly where I'd expect it to be seen.

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Listener

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Reply #32 on: July 14, 2008, 02:11:26 PM
I remember kids talking about playing "light as a feather, stiff as a board" or something like that.  I think it was this same thing. 


No, I actually did that in Physics class in 8th grade... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_as_a_feather_stiff_as_a_board

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Listener

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Reply #33 on: July 14, 2008, 02:11:57 PM
Because, to the best of my knowledge, most if not all kids do do it

I very much doubt that.  Like cuddlebug, I never did it and never knew anybody who did.  wintermute's estimated 50% seems quite high; I'd be surprised if it's over half that.
Yeah, that 50% was more based on the use of the "most" than my own guesstimate (does that deserve to be a word?), which would be significantly lower.

Perhaps I should've said "have tried it at least once."

Stories we did on this last year (during sweeps, naturally):
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=92487
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=92567
OK, so we have two fatalities in a city of 5 million. Neither story gives any indication of how widesoread the game is; no "we interviewed 50 students in this school and 40 of them said they'd tried it at least once", for example. Given that this is an incredibly dangerous thing to do, the fact that single deaths are so newsworthy (in the way that fatal car crashes aren't) leads me to suspect that it's really not that common. True, a fair number of cases are probably misidentified as less sensational forms of choking, but it just seems unlikely that tens of millions of kids do this, and even "safety advocates" are unwilling to suggest that there might be more than a thousand deaths from it every year.

I don't know; I'm not the reporter.  But apparently when she was pitching the story she was under the impression a LOT of kids do it.

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stePH

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Reply #34 on: July 14, 2008, 02:59:10 PM
I don't know; I'm not the reporter.  But apparently when she was pitching the story she was under the impression a LOT of kids do it.

Or it's just more of the sensationalistic journalism that seems to be prevalent these days, particularly during "sweeps" periods.

Quote
The Choking Game appeals to some kids because they get a drug-free high or buzz by choking themselves to the brink of unconsciousness so oxygen rushes back to the brain.
Marijuana is a lot safer, trust me  ;D
« Last Edit: July 14, 2008, 03:01:55 PM by stePH »

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Reply #35 on: July 14, 2008, 05:14:32 PM
I still say there's no reason to call it autoerotic asphyxiation.  Autoerotic is not a synonym for "pleasurable" or "stimulating."  I mean, no one calls smoking pot "autoerotic foliage combustion" and no one calls listening to Escape Pod "autoerotic aural stimulation."

(Although, knowing this crowd, I half expect to be told that y'all really do call Escape Pod "autoerotic aural stimulation.")



stePH

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Reply #36 on: July 14, 2008, 05:36:27 PM
I still say there's no reason to call it autoerotic asphyxiation.  Autoerotic is not a synonym for "pleasurable" or "stimulating."  I mean, no one calls

Agreed.  I thought actual masturbation had to be involved in order to qualify it as "autoerotic" asphyxiation.

There's also the non-auto type which involves strangling/being strangled by one's sex partner, as I've seen in the films Rising Sun and In the Realm of the Senses.

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deflective

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Reply #37 on: July 14, 2008, 07:10:46 PM
OK, so we have two fatalities in a city of 5 million. Neither story gives any indication of how widesoread the game is; no "we interviewed 50 students in this school and 40 of them said they'd tried it at least once", for example. Given that this is an incredibly dangerous thing to do, the fact that single deaths are so newsworthy (in the way that fatal car crashes aren't) leads me to suspect that it's really not that common.

If you're right, then the choking game is safer than riding a horse, and I find that hard to believe.

i suspect that if it gets popular somewhere then most of the kids at a school try it. this clustering of occurrences creates the impression that either everyone/no one tries it.

it went through my school when i was in grade eight. it was never something you did by yourself tho, you were always with friends so there wasn't the safety problems you'd think.

there wasn't much erotic about my one experience, just flashbacks and an odd resetting of perspective as i woke up. it took a little time to remember who & where i was so i would look at things so familiar i normally wouldn't notice them (my best friend must have hit a growth spurt, he looks like the oldest now. the girl i was crushing on? actually quite bossy. that sort of thing).



wintermute

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Reply #38 on: July 14, 2008, 07:19:08 PM
i suspect that if it gets popular somewhere then most of the kids at a school try it. this clustering of occurrences creates the impression that either everyone/no one tries it.

This sounds entirely right to me. It's very popular amongst a small subset of the population.

it went through my school when i was in grade eight. it was never something you did by yourself tho, you were always with friends so there wasn't the safety problems you'd think.

It reduces the risks, but doesn't remove them entirely. But if you're determined to do something like this, having people around would be a good thing.

Science means that not all dreams can come true


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Reply #39 on: July 14, 2008, 10:58:55 PM
About two weeks ago someone clued me in on Escape pod and Pod Castle. I have been listening to past episodes at work to help my day pass.

This one really made me think. About kids in general and why they do the things they do. Why I did the things I did as a kid. I thought it was really great. By the end I could even see all the colors in my head as she painted her "poem".

Really great stuff. I am glad that I came across this and look forward to listening to all the other stories.

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Reply #40 on: July 14, 2008, 11:42:03 PM
This story was alright.  The "Quantum Computer" thing hit me as a bit of an annoyance - I'm really tired of this getting thrown around as a magic tech.  Quantum is the new "radioactive" - it can do whatever you need it to do for the story.  But getting lost in those details really isn't the point, so I tried to get past it.

The kid did behave pretty realistically.  I really liked that she wouldn't lie to her mother about her intentions.  I was a lot like that as a kid - if I said it, you could trust it.  If I thought I might not be able to hold to a promise, I didn't make one.

And for the record, when I was a kid, one of my best friend's sisters liked knocking people out after they had hyperventilated.  I let her do it to me a couple of times.  Nothing particularly erotic about it, and I certainly recognized at the time how dangerous it was.  But, being a kid, I did it anyway.



wakela

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Reply #41 on: July 15, 2008, 12:03:38 AM
Overall I liked the story. 

But I felt I was promised a story about a rash of children who were mysteriously strangling themselves to death, and that this was somehow sexual in nature.  I found this very original and disturbing.  But then I was delivered a story about no-the-aliens-are-real, which is pretty well worn ground.

Pet peeve:  Instead of saying, "you know I think it might be sexual,"  people who say "obviously it's sexual, and if you are skeptical then you are a Victorian prude."   I think this is a minor quibble, but Bear does spend some of the most valuable real estate in the story making this point.

And to satisfy the informal poll:  I did the thing where you hyperventilate, stand up quickly, then faint.  It was going around a summer camp when I was about 10.  Got a cool buzz, weird images that were dreams but not dreams, but nothing sexual.



williamjamesw

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Reply #42 on: July 15, 2008, 12:57:02 AM
Back in high-school I did something similar,(unintentionally).  Attempting to see how long I could hold my breath, and timing myself with a stopwatch; somewhere around three and a half minutes, I must have passed out.  No memory of the actual loss of consciousness,  but coming back was definitely one of the most interesting experiences.  Strangely enough; I am physically unable to get myself to hold the breath anywhere near that long anymore.  Not that I ever plan to try again.   Also, not a good idea to attempt standing up in a school hallway with a cement floor (broke my glasses, a front tooth, and needed about five stitches in the bottom lip). 

I'll just go back to being silent again now.


stePH

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Reply #43 on: July 15, 2008, 02:06:25 AM
About two weeks ago someone clued me in on Escape pod and Pod Castle. I have been listening to past episodes at work to help my day pass.
Welcome to the party!  :)

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Chivalrybean

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Reply #44 on: July 15, 2008, 03:43:12 AM
Other than making my throat hurt while listening, it was a very interesting story.

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deflective

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Reply #45 on: July 15, 2008, 06:24:40 AM
Other than making my throat hurt while listening, it was a very interesting story.

you're doing it wrong



Russell Nash

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Reply #46 on: July 15, 2008, 10:51:04 AM
Other than making my throat hurt while listening, it was a very interesting story.

you're doing it wrong

That's definitely not how you listen.  Try not wrapping the wire around your neck.



Chivalrybean

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Reply #47 on: July 15, 2008, 04:09:46 PM
Other than making my throat hurt while listening, it was a very interesting story.

you're doing it wrong

That's definitely not how you listen.  Try not wrapping the wire around your neck.

Oh.




 ;D

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wintermute

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Reply #48 on: July 15, 2008, 05:53:41 PM
No memory of the actual loss of consciousness
Yeah, that's how being unconscious works.

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DandHRoberts

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Reply #49 on: July 15, 2008, 08:52:00 PM
About two weeks ago someone clued me in on Escape pod and Pod Castle. I have been listening to past episodes at work to help my day pass.
Welcome to the party!  :)

Thanks! Great to be here!

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