JAD ABUMRAD: I'm Jad Abumrad. Today on Radiolab, Robert Krulwich and I are tackling a question which is very big in neuroscience at the moment. What makes you, you? Sounds actually like a childlike question—and it is, except no one really knows the answer. Before the station ID, we heard one scientist's theory that the self or the mind or even the soul is nothing but a story the brain tells itself.

ROBERT KRULWICH: Listening to—what was the name of that guy? Paul ...

JAD: Paul Broks.

ROBERT: Paul Broks. The notion that what you are, what a self is, is just a story you tell, has some scientific authority behind it.

JAD: Does it? Because I actually didn't exactly know what he's talking about.

ROBERT: Well, V.S. Ramachandran, who's a world famous neurologist, also believes that what is peculiarly human about us is our ability to construct stories. And he says this ability is new—or relatively new. It happened at a particular moment in time. And he thinks he knows about when.

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: Maybe 200,000 years ago, half a million years ago, something absolutely astonishing happened.

ROBERT: What?

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: The evolution of introspective consciousness, and the evolution of the self.

JAD: The evolution of introspective consciousness. What does that mean?

ROBERT: Well, let's do this simply and back up for a minute.

JAD: Uh-huh?

ROBERT: There are different sets of creatures in the world. There are dumb ones. There are smarter ones. And then there's us.

JAD: Okay.

ROBERT: So let's just choose, say, a worm for our dumb candidate. Imagine you're a worm. You're crawling through the ground like worms like to do, and you bump into a pebble. Now, here's what a worm doesn't do. A worm doesn't think, "Dang! I can't seem to move this pebble!"

JAD: Uh-huh.

ROBERT: Because a worm doesn't have a brain big enough or a nervous system strong enough to support the idea of, "Dang," "Me," "Pebble."

JAD: Certainly not "Dang."

ROBERT: There's no—I'm not a worm, but as far as V.S. Ramachandran is concerned, inside the worm's head there is no picture at all. There is just a set of inherited instincts. No pictures in that worm's head. No story there.

JAD: Okay.

ROBERT: So let's step up to another level of creature. You give me a creature, but it has to be a more complex one.

JAD: Okay. How about going back to the monkey?

ROBERT: Okay, monkey. Monkey's swinging through trees. Monkey sees a lady monkey. The lady monkey, if it has a red—how should I put this?—bottom, then the lady monkey is interested in sex. So if you notice, says Dr. Ramachandran, if that rump is ...

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: Red. Red rumps of female primates.

ROBERT: I like the way you said "Red rumps!"

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: I claim a monkey, after seeing red, can react to it. Maybe he can even remember the red and do the appropriate reaction.

ROBERT: And the appropriate reaction in this case would be to grab that lady monkey and, you know, make a baby with her. This monkey pulls an image of another monkey in, makes an association. And so there's images in the monkey's head. But now here's something the monkey can't do.

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: It can't juggle the symbol "red" in its head.

ROBERT: So if I said to a monkey, "See that Volvo over there, that white Volvo? Let's make it a red Volvo." Any human being can take a white car and make it in their imagination ...

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: He can paste red on it in his imagination.

ROBERT: But a monkey you don't think can do.

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: It cannot do.

ROBERT: And this is so simple for a human being to do. And just—let's run through a quick exercise.

JAD: Okay.

ROBERT: Imagine for me a bird in your head. Got a bird in there?

JAD: Yeah. What kind of bird?

ROBERT: I don't—a canary.

JAD: Yes, now it's there.

ROBERT: Is it there? Okay.

JAD: It's there.

ROBERT: Make it into a brilliantly red canary, even though ...

JAD: Okay. Like, kind of a cardinal but canary's body. It's there.

ROBERT: That's right. Now make it into a striped canary.

JAD: Striped. What color stripes?

ROBERT: Purple.

JAD: Purple.

ROBERT: Purple stripes.

JAD: Purple stripes on a red canary. Wait, hold up. Purple stripes on a red canary. Got it.

ROBERT: Is it in there now?

JAD: It's there. In all its vivid glory.

ROBERT: Ornithological stripedness is not one of your favorite—all right. So at this moment, I'm going to point out something to you. There is no such thing as a purple-striped red canary in the world. You could search the world and never find one.

JAD: That does not surprise me.

ROBERT: But you've got one now in your head, however lamely, it's in there somewhere. Only a human being could do this, because only humans can take images from the real world, pull them into their heads, divide them into parts, and then start turning those parts into abstractions. Monkeys, says Ramachandran, can't do that.

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: A monkey can be trained to think of a bird. Ring a bell and show it a bird. And the fifth time, you just ring a bell. Presumably it's conjuring up an image of a bird. Now, you can not only train a human to think of a bird, you can train a human to think of babies. But now, the human can think of a bird's wings on a human baby. Conjure an angel, which he has never seen. This is because he now has what are called tokens. He has created disembodied tokens.

ROBERT: So color is a token, big is a token. Adjectives are tokens.

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN: Adjectives are tokens. And then he can manipulate these tokens, juxtapose them in counter-intuitive ways. He can create even outlandish scenarios, what we call imagination.

JAD: Let me see if I can get this straight.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: You've got the worm, who can sense the world—sort of. And then you've got the monkey who can pull the world in to some degree and make an association.

ROBERT: Right.

JAD: Then you got us, and we can play with those associations.

ROBERT: Right.

JAD: How did—how did that happen?

ROBERT: Well, because of evolution. It's like, we're not different from other creatures, we're just more than other creatures. And when we have these brains that have this extra, like—it's like a layer on layer cake, we can manipulate any idea at all. And we're constantly doing that. We're constantly abstracting, we are imagining so often, so thoroughly and so well that we eventually can imagine ourselves. I can sit here looking right at you, and I can see you right now as Jad the little boy if I want, or Jad the old, dying man if I want. Or Jad with purple stripes and an elegant set of taffeta wings.

ROBERT: The idea of self—if you think about it this way, is you take all the things that have ever happened to you, plucked from your life. If you're sad, you might pluck the sad things. If you're happy on one particular day, you might pluck the happy things. And you stitch them together into a general, abstract idea. And 'me' then, an idea of self is really a story that we tell ourselves. It can change from day to day, and it allows the human being to exercise that peculiarly human muscle: to experience stuff and then to abstract it into a story. That's self.

JAD: This is Radiolab. Jad here with Robert Krulwich. So this makes more sense to me now, I think. This idea that the brain spins a story moment to moment as you're walking about, and that story is you. If it's so automatic, does it even happen when we sleep?

ROBERT: Why do you ask that?

JAD: Well, I asked Paul Broks this question.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm?

JAD: And he told me something really strange. Something that made me think that maybe when we're asleep the brain loosens its grip on the self.

ROBERT: Hmm.

JAD: And that the self tumbles into a thousand parts. Or creatures. I don't know. What he told me basically, is that when he was young he would have these dreams where he'd see these things, these parts of himself, presumably. The dream would be going along fine, everything would be normal. And then all of a sudden along would come these little people.

PAUL BROKS: Yes, literally little people. There were—there are hordes of these little creatures over—I'd see great pageants of them sweeping by. And occasionally they would come up, and I'd sense they're kind of looking at me, but—but then they'd go away again, and I—I'd just sort of watch them.

JAD: So they were—they were aware of you?

PAUL BROKS: That's a very eerie thought. Because it's my brain that was producing them, as well as producing me.

ROBERT: That's such a strange thing. He really means little people.

JAD: Yeah. And oddly enough, he discovered he wasn't alone.

PAUL BROKS: Which is why I was very fascinated by Robert Louis Stevenson, because his descriptions were very similar to the sort of things I experienced.

JAD: Robert Louis Stevenson, you know? The author?

ROBERT: Mm-hmm.

JAD: One of the most important writers of the 19th century. Apparently, he saw them too.

JOSHUA KING: The little people who manage man's internal theater.

JAD: That's how he describes them in one particular essay read for us here by an actor, Joshua King. For anyone who's ever wondered where do dreams come from, where does an idea come from, this essay's an interesting read. And confusing. First of all, Stevenson always refers to himself in the third person, as he ...

JOSHUA KING: This honest fellow ...

JAD: Or the dreamer.

JOSHUA KING: The dreamer.

JAD: Not sure why, but maybe it's not so strange considering the rest of the essay is about little people in his mind. In any case, what he writes is that at first, the stories they acted out for him were—well they didn't make any sense.

JOSHUA KING: The little people played upon their stage like children, rather than like drilled actors performing a set piece to a huge hall of faces.

JAD: But over time, an interesting thing happens. Stevenson decides to become a writer.

JOSHUA KING: To write and sell his tales.

JAD: And things change.

JOSHUA KING: Here was he, and here were the little people who did that part of his business in quite new conditions.

JAD: Now the little people weren't just the things he saw in his dreams, they were a business opportunity. See, he was broke always and had to crank out the stories. So very much in the spirit of the Industrial Revolution, he decides to exploit his little people turn them into a storytelling factory. Which meant, he writes ...

JOSHUA KING: The stories must now be trimmed and paired and set upon all fours. They must run from a beginning to an end and fit with the laws of life. The pleasure in one word had become a business. And that, not only for the dreamer, but for the little people of his theater. They understood the change as well as he.

ROBERT: So then what happens?

JAD: Well, he needs stories he can sell.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm.

JAD: So he trains his little people. This is what he writes in his essay. He trains them.

ROBERT: What—what do you mean?

JAD: Well, he had this elaborate pre-bedtime ritual. He would lie on the bed, feet off, raise one arm, close his eyes.

ROBERT: Raises his arm?

JAD: Yeah, it was a signal for the little people of his mind to tell him a story. And man, it better be a good one.

JOSHUA KING: And behold, at once the little people begin to bestir themselves in the same quest and labor all night long.

JAD: What he did not realize was just how good they could be.

JOSHUA KING: Here is one exactly as it came. It seemed this time that the dreamer was the son of a very rich and wicked man. The owner of broad acres and the most damnedable temper. The son had been living abroad on purpose to avoid his father. When he returned, he was to find his father married again to a young wife. Because of this marriage, as the dreamer indistinctly understood, it was desirable for the father and son to have a meeting. Yet both being proud and both angry, neither would condescend on a visit. But meet they did accordingly in a desolate sandy country by the sea.

SON: To the shore please, driver.

DRIVER: Yes, sir. Watch your step.

JOSHUA KING: And there they quarreled.

SON: How dare you?

FATHER: You selfish bastard!

JOSHUA KING: And the son, stung by some intolerable insult, struck the father dead. No suspicion was aroused. The dead man was found and buried. The dreamer succeeded to the broad estates, and found himself installed under the same roof with his father's widow.

WIDOW: Good evening.

SON: Madam.

WIDOW: Will you join me for supper?

SON: Oh. Thank you.

JOSHUA KING: These two lived very much alone, as people may after a bereavement. Sat down to the table together. Shared long evenings.

WIDOW: Brandy?

SON: Yes, please.

JOSHUA KING: And grew daily better friends.

WIDOW: Oh, the west garden is so lovely this time of year.

SON: Has that old plum tree gone to flower already?

WIDOW: Oh, yes! Do you recall it?

SON: Yes, yes. I used to climb it as a boy.

WIDOW: [laughs] Oh, really? Did your father teach you how to climb trees?

SON: No. No, he didn't.

JOSHUA KING: Until it seemed to him suddenly that she was prying about dangerous matters. That she had conceived a notion of his guilt. That she watched him and tried him with questions. So they lived at cross purposes. A life full of broken dialogue, challenging glances and suppressed passion. Until one day, he saw the woman slipping from the house in a veil.

WIDOW: To the station, please.

DRIVER: Yes, ma'am.

JOSHUA KING: He followed her by train to the seaside country, and out over the sand hills to the very place where the murder was done. There, she began to grope among the bents.

WIDOW: There's got to be something here.

JOSHUA KING: He watching her, flat upon his face and presently ...

WIDOW: Where is it?

JOSHUA KING: ... she had something in her hand.

WIDOW: This is it!

JOSHUA KING: He could not remember what it was, but it was deadly evidence against the dreamer. And as she held it up to look at it, perhaps in the shock of the discovery, her foot slipped and she hung in some peril on the brink of the tall sand wreaths.

WIDOW: Somebody, please help me!

JOSHUA KING: He had no thought but to spring up and rescue her.

SON: Take my hand.

JOSHUA KING: And there they stood face-to-face. She, with that deadly matter openly in her hand. His very presence on the spot, another link of proof.

WIDOW: But ...

JOSHUA KING: It was plain she was about to speak.

WIDOW: ... how?

JOSHUA KING: This was more than he could bear.

SON: Come.

JOSHUA KING: And he cut her short of the conversation.

SON: Let's be going.

JOSHUA KING: They passed the evening in the drawing room, as in the past.

SERVANT: Tea, madam?

WIDOW: Yes, please.

SERVANT: Sir?

SON: Thank you.

JOSHUA KING: But suspense and fear drummed in the dreamer's bosom.

SON: Why has she not denounced me yet? When will she? Will it be tomorrow?

JOSHUA KING: So his thoughts ran. Once indeed, he seized an occasion when she was abroad. He ransacked her room.

SON: She's hidden it!

JOSHUA KING: And at last, hidden away among her jewels, found the damning evidence.

SON: Oh, my God!

JOSHUA KING: There he stood, holding this thing which was his life, in the hollow of his hand and marveling at her behavior. That she should seek and keep, and yet not use it. And then the door opened, and behold herself.

WIDOW: Uh, um. What's my line?

SON: What are you doing?

WIDOW: What are you doing?

JOSHUA KING: Once more they stood eye to eye with the evidence between them. But before he left the room, he laid back down his death warrant where he had found it, and at that her face lit up. The next he heard, she was lying to her maid.

MAID: Oh my goodness, what happened to your room? A robbery!

WIDOW: Oh, no, no, no. It's nothing. It's—I'm embarrassed, really. I thought I'd lost something, you see, and I was looking everywhere ...

JOSHUA KING: Flesh and blood could bear the strain no longer. And I think it was the next morning, though chronology is always hazy in the theater of the mind, that he burst from his reserve.

SERVANT: Bacon, sir?

SON: No, thank you.

SERVANT: Your tea, madam.

WIDOW: Please.

SERVANT: Sugar?

SON: Please. That will be all.

JOSHUA KING: And no sooner were the servants gone, and these two protagonists alone together, that he leapt to his feet. She too sprang up with a pale face.

SON: Why have you not denounced me? You know everything. Why do you torture me?

JOSHUA KING: She fell upon her knees. And with outstretched hands ...

WIDOW: Do you not understand? I love you!

[audience gasps]

JOSHUA KING: Hereupon, with a pang of wonder and mercantile delight, the dreamer awoke. But his mercantile delight was not of long endurance, as it became plain that in this spirited tale, there were unmarketable elements.

JAD: Ultimately, Robert Louis Stevenson found this story unusable, and he couldn't sell it. But there's a deeper question here. A question of authorship. Let's think about it in more modern terms. When you see a movie and the lights go down, you settle in. From one moment to the next you, the viewer, have no idea what's gonna happen. You scream at the scary parts, laugh at the jokes, cry during the sad scenes. You're taken on a ride. But in order for you to have that experience, someone needed to write the movie, someone needed to direct it. Someone other than you. How is it when we dream, that we do all three at the same time? We write, direct, and watch the film as if we've never seen it before.

JOSHUA KING: The little people are substantive inventors and performers. To the end, they had kept their secret. The dreamer had no guess whatever at the motive of the woman, the hinge of the whole well-invented plot, until the instant of the dramatic revelation. It was not his tale, it was the little people's. I am awake now, and I know this trade. And yet I cannot better it. The more I think of it, the more I am moved to press upon the world my question: who are the little people?

PAUL BROKS: It was almost like watching a video. You could sort of go up and inspect their activities, scrutinize their activities very closely.

JAD: That's how neurologist Paul Broks describes his little people dreams.

PAUL BROKS: And it kind of fascinated me that this was part of me, part of my brain activity, but not me. So which—which part of my brain activity is me?

JAD: And if it seems there's a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde quality to the mystery of the little people, that is no coincidence. On another night our dreamer Robert Louis Stevenson, once again captivated by the little people, screamed so loudly his wife wakes him.

WIFE: Robert! Robert darling, wake up! What's wrong!

JAD: He was not pleased.

JOSHUA KING: Damn it, woman. I'd been dreaming a fine bogey tale!

JAD: But he did manage to remember a few things from the dream. One, a scene at the window. Then, a man pursued for a crime. And that man takes a potion and undergoes a transformation. That man's name, of course, would become Mr. Hyde. And our dreamer Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of that classic tale of a divided self.

JAD: The story of Robert Louis Stevenson's little people came from an essay from Paul Broks from his excellent book Into The Silent Land, and it was adapted for radio by Ellen Horne. Joshua King was the voice of Robert Louis Stevenson from his essay, A Chapter on Dreams, and he had a supporting cast of Lorraine Maddox, John Henry Boudreaux, Frank Boudreaux, Nick Cappadice, Sally Herships and Keith Scott. And if anyone was listening closely, they would have also recognized you, Robert Krulwich, on that seaside cliff.

ROBERT: Dying.

JAD: Dying.

ROBERT: Yes. Here's the thing: what is hard to recognize if you take a look into somebody's brain and you ask the question which we've been asking this whole hour, like, you know, who's there, or where is the author? Or where is the—where am I? The story points out that if you look scientifically into a brain, what you encounter is hundreds of thousands of players. Not just little people, but teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny brain cells which do all this flashing back and forth. If you were to go to any one of those cells and say, "So are you the author of Jekyll and Hyde?" The cell wouldn't—would just go pfft, pfft, pfft.

JAD: Right, the vocabulary of a neuron is just on or off.

ROBERT: It is only in the group that you can see the electrical outline of a thought, or ultimately of a self. While you think of yourself as a one, even the thought "I am a one," springs from a hundred million cells connecting through a trillion synapses. And that all of this multiple activity paradoxically creates the you of this moment. You are always plural.

JAD: Mmm. And that's especially true in the story we have coming up for you in 60 seconds. This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad. Robert Krulwich and I will continue in a moment.

 

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