#988 - Dr Rahul Jandial - Brain Surgeon: Inside The Dreaming Brain

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2025

⏱️ 125 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr Rahul Jandial is a brain surgeon, neuroscientist, and an author. Why do we dream? For centuries, people have debated their meaning. Are they hidden messages, random brain activity, or something else entirely? Today, modern neuroscience is uncovering how the brain creates, processes, and remembers dreams, and what they may reveal about the inner workings of the mind. Expect to learn why we dream and the evolutionary importance of dreaming, what predicts a good or bad dream, and if there are any types of universal dreams we al have, what fuels erotic dreams and what effects does porn have on our dreaming abilities and content, if there is any practical science behind lucid dreaming, the biggest myths about the brain and the best diets and exercises to keep your brain healthy, what role lifestyle really plays in cognitive decline and how much is genetic, and much more… Sponsors: See me on tour in America: ⁠https://chriswilliamson.live⁠ See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D, and more from AG1 at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Get $100 off the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Timestamps: (0:00) The Importance of Comfort in Your Working Environment (5:09) Things You Believe are True But Can’t Prove (10:13) Did Freud Get Anything Right About Dreams? (13:41) Why Do We Dream? (20:50) Why are We Conscious of Our Dreams? (28:22) Why Do We Have Nightmares? (35:51) Should We Remember Our Dreams? (39:21) Do Our Dreams Correlate to Our Overall Health? (41:20) How Real is Dream Interpretation? (44:54) What Do We Know About Erotic Dreams? (57:54) How Does Porn Effect Our Dreams? (01:01:40) Where Does Inspiration for Dream Material Come From? (01:05:47) How Can We Activate Our Imagination? (01:09:07) Transcranial Electric Treatments (01:14:39) The Benefits of Awake Brain Surgery (01:20:29) How Dreams Differ in Brain Injuries (01:22:42) Can Thoughts in Dreams Be More Real Than Waking Thoughts? (01:26:12) Brain Myth-Busting (01:30:53) Is the Neuroscience Industry Overselling Tech? (01:34:07) The Contributing Elements of Cognitive Decline (01:45:22) The Impact of Stress on Brain Aging (01:57:29) Mind-Blowing Scientific Scenarios (02:00:51) Lessons Learnt from Terminal Patients (02:04:36) Find Out More About Rahul Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You just taught me there are left-handed surgical instruments.
0:04.5	What's that mean?
0:06.3	For left-handed surgeons, the way some of the graspers click,
0:12.3	it's released with a maneuver where your thumb pushes something outward.
0:17.1	For left-handed surgeons, that can be sort of clunky,
0:20.1	so they make instruments where it's outward. For the left-handed surgeons that can be sort of clunky, so they make instruments where it's outward.
0:22.6	For the left-handed surgeon is actually inward towards the midline, and for the right-handed surgeon, it's this way.
0:28.3	So there are left-and-right-handed instruments for different surgeons.
0:33.2	Needle drivers, really, where you click onto a needle and it clasps so you don't have to keep pressure
0:37.6	on it, and then you can do your maneuver.
0:39.3	Steak knives also have serrations that lean one way or the other. I just learned that. I didn't know. I was just looking at it because I've got a buddy who's left-handed and he's like pointing all this left-handed stuff out in the world. Don't use that one. It's going to cut completely incorrectly. What I did learn was
0:53.4	when you
0:55.3	have a stake, I mean, I have
0:57.5	to imagine this is slap bang in the middle of your area of expertise, but you want to never cut with the grain of the meat. You want to be cutting cross grain.
1:06.3	Yeah. So that takes me to what's beautiful about surgery is like it's not like legos.
1:12.8	It's not like, you know, hammers and chisels.
1:15.0	It can be with, you know, orthopedic surgeons and spine surgery.
1:17.4	But when you have somebody who can lightly with a tweezer, a pickup, we call it, lift something up and you see some membranes that are holding two planes together.
1:27.9	All right. Let's say you have two planes of tissue and they're held together with this fine
1:32.0	web of membranes.
1:32.9	You lift it up and you take a scissor upside down and you just spread lightly and the membranes
1:37.4	fall apart and the tissue comes apart.
	...

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