HBM150: Cold Water

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Image by Jeff Emtman

 

The origins of Julia Susara’s chronic fatigue are hard to pin down.  She still doesn’t know exactly how it started but suspects that a deeply broken heart had something to do with it.  

Content Note: Discussions of suicidal ideation.

Juila spent about three years going through some excruciating physical sensations: immense chills, brain fogs, pregnancy nightmares and the feeling that her blood was about to boil through her skin. 

Doctors weren’t able to figure out what was wrong, nor were the array of alternative healers she visited. Feeling that no one was able to help, she was at the edge of giving up. 

But, at her brother’s suggestion, she reluctantly visited a hypnotherapist who gave Julia instructions to swim daily in cold water.  So she started jumping in the ocean each day and felt a strange and near immediate change in her symptoms.  

If you’re feeling suicidal, here are some numbers you can call to speak with someone who will listen:

USA Suicide Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
UK Samaritans: 116 123
Canada Crisis Services: 1.833.456.4566
Japan Tell JP:  03-5774-0992
Australia Lifeline: 13 11 14
Denmark Livslinien: 70 201 201
Other countries: check the list available at suicide.org

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: Julia’s choir group and The Black Spot

This episode marks the end of Season 9.  Season 10 is coming, but the date is currently unknown.  Stay subscribed!  And keep an eye on the HBM Patreon page for an upcoming message with a season debrief and some musings about the show’s future.  That post will be public, so no need to be a member to read it.  Also, please note that due to some summer busy-ness, Jeff will not be able to run an HBM summer art exchange this year.  Thank you for all your support through Season 9.  It is such a pleasure to make this show. 

 
 
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Sponsor: Animasus

Emilius Martinez is an illustrator and designer who runs Animasus.  Animasus can help you design email campaigns, websites and improve the overall branding for your business.  

Speaking of which, Emilius designed the new HBM t-shirt, which is wonderful. Thank you Animasus for sponsoring Here Be Monsters!

Look! It’s the new HBM shirt. Designed by Emilius Martinez from Animasus. Order yours today!

Look! It’s the new HBM shirt. Designed by Emilius Martinez from Animasus. Order yours today!

HBM149: The Daily Blast [Neutrinowatch]

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Neutrinowatch logo. Designed by Jeff Emtman

 

Please note: This is a dynamically generated podcast episode. It changes every day.

This is a short episode from the new show Neutrinowatch: A Daily Generative Podcast.  Each episode of Neutrinowatch changes a lil’ bit every day.  

This episode, The Daily Blast, features two computerized voices (Wendy and Ivan), who share the day’s news. 

To get new versions of this episode, you’ll need to either stream the audio in your podcast app/web browser, or just delete and re-download the episode.  It’s updated every 24 hours.  Note: Due to Spotify’s policy of downloading and rehosting podcast audio, this episode won’t work very well on Spotify.  Most other podcast apps should handle it well though. 

Neutrinowatch is a project of Jeff Emtman (Here Be Monsters’ host), and Martin Zaltz Austick (Answer Me This, Song By Song, Pale Bird and others). 

If you’d like to know more about generative podcasting and the story of Neutrinowatch, listen to So What Exactly is Episode 149? and Jeff’s blog post called The Start of Generative Podcasting?

Neutrinowatch is available on most podcast apps, and as of publish date, there’s currently 6.5 episodes available.  Each updates daily. 

Producers: Jeff Emtman and Martin Zaltz Austwick

Music:The Black Spot

 

So What Exactly is Episode 149?

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Image by Jeff Emtman.

 

Episode 149 is an odd duck for sure.  It changes every day due to some magical coding trickery that is happening behind the scenes. 

That episode is a part of a bigger project, a new podcast project that’s potentially the first of its kind.  It’s called Neutrinowatch, and every day, each episode is regenerated with new content. 

This is a conversation between Jeff Emtman (Here Be Monsters’ host), and Martin Zaltz Austick (Answer Me This, Song By Song, Pale Bird and others) about the hows and whys of Neutrinowatch: A Daily Generative Podcast (available now on most podcast apps 😉)

 

HBM148: Early Attempts at Summoning Dream Beings

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Image by Jeff Emtman.

 

As a teenager, HBM host Jeff Emtman fell asleep most nights listening to Coast To Coast AM, a long running talk show about the world’s weirdnesses.   One of the guests stuck out though; one who spoke on his experiences with lucid dreaming.  He’d learned how to conjure supernatural entities and converse with his subconscious.  

Lucid dreams are dreams where the dreamer knows they’re asleep.  Some sleepers become lucid completely at random, but lucid dream training can drastically increase the frequency of their occurrence.

Months ago, Jeff put out a call for dream prompts on social media.  He asked if anyone had questions for an all-knowing being to be conjured in a forthcoming lucid dream.  Some of the questions are heard in this episode.  

While training for this episode, Jeff used two approaches to trigger lucid dreams.  The first was an audio recorder by the bedside.  Each morning, Jeff recorded his dreams (lucid or not).  The second method was a series of “wakefulness checks” throughout each day, stopping at random times to test reality, and to make a determination on whether he’s currently awake or asleep.  This tactic is useful as it may eventually trigger the same behaviour in a dream.  

In this episode, Jeff attempts to lucid dream to answer listener questions, but finds the progress slower than he hoped.  

Here Be Monsters is an independent podcast that is funded entirely by individual sponsors and donors.  You can become a donor at patreon.com/HBMpodcast

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot, Phantom Fauna, and Serocell.

 
 
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Sponsor: Sleep With Me Podcast

Sleep With Me is a podcast that helps you fall asleep.

Host Drew Ackerman tells tangential stories, reads old catalogues, recaps old Charlie Brown specials and does other calming things all in pursuit of slowing your mind down and letting you drift off to sleep more peacefully.

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Jeff wearing his favorite Sleep With Me shirt. This shirt elicits compliments whenever its worn 🐏💖

HBM147: Chasing Tardigrades

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Image by Jeff Emtman. Kaleidoscope collage of moss microscopy photos.

 

With much of the world shut down over the last year, HBM host Jeff Emtman started wondering if there were smaller venues where the world still felt open. 

In this episode, Jeff interviews Chloé Savard of the Instagram microscopy page @tardibabe about the joy of looking at small things, and whether it’s possible to find beauty in things you don’t understand.  

Chloé also gives Jeff instructions for finding tardigrades by soaking moss in water and squeezing out the resulting juice onto slides.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot

 

Jeff’s Microscopy Pics

Student microscope and smartphone. Click to enlarge and read descriptions.

 
 
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Sponsor: Pod People

Pod People is an audio production and staffing agency with a community of 1,000+ producers, editors, engineers, sound designers and more.  Pod People is free to join. After a short onboarding process, Pod People will send you clients and work opportunities that are a good match for your specific skills and interests.

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Theodora is @hypo_inspo

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Image by Jeff Emtman

 

A brief follow-up to last episode: you can now follow our AI-powered friend Theodora on Twitter! She tweets several times a day, giving bad advice, good advice, and some strange poetry. Her account’s called Hypothetical Inspiration. Give her a follow.