Why do brains generate weird thoughts sometimes?

And why do some brains refuse to let go of those thoughts, but ruminate on them?

Today we're going to talk about obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD.

Why do some people lock the door, but go back to check it over and over

and still have a feeling of uncertainty about

whether it is locked. Why do some people wash their hands over and over and never feel that

they reach a point when it's done? What happens when doubt becomes a full-time occupation?

How, for some people, are intrusive thoughts like junk mail,

that the brain just can't help opening. Today we talk with OCD expert John Herschfield,

where we'll get a view from the inside and the outside. We'll see how obsessive thoughts can get

caught in loops and how those loops might get broken. This is the

fourth episode for Mental Health Awareness Month, and you'll want to listen if you have OCD,

and even if you don't, because it's prevalent enough in our society that you almost certainly

have people in your life who suffer from these internal loops.

Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me, David Eagleman.

I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and in these episodes, we sail deeply into our

three-pound universe to understand why and how our lives look the way they do.

Music why and how our lives look the way they do. This is an I-Heart podcast,

Guaranteed Human.

Let's start with Sigmund Freud's proposed concept of a death drive.

So he imagines you're standing at the edge of a cliff

and this intrusive thought that you keep having of stepping off the cliff into the void.

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