Pain: Stories about unpleasant physical sensations
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pain is really weird, scientifically speaking. It’s not just a message from injured tissues to be accepted at face value, but a complex experience that can be influenced by your brain. In this week’s episode, both our storytellers explore the aches, pains, and discomfort that come with life.
Part 1: While Renee Joshua-Porter is in labor, she starts feeling a horrible stabbing pain in her back.
Part 2: Despite being in excruciating pain, Gretchen Douma worries getting a knee replacement will ruin her blossoming acting career.
Renee Joshua-Porter is a multi faceted performing artist, Counselor and Chaplain. She is the Founder of The Burning Bush Family Foundation Inc., whose mission is to provide educational and recreational programs through the arts. A first generation American born to Panamanian parents, she grew up listening to and sharing stories. Renee is grateful for meeting Tracey Segarra who first showcased her storytelling on New York stages. Renee is married with three adult children and a dog named Beau.
Gretchen Douma is a stage, screen, and voice actor who has been working in theater for more years than she’ll usually admit to. She has performed in Seattle, the Twin Cities, NYC, England, and, on Zoom (thank you, COVID). Also a playwright, Gretchen has several short works and two full-length plays under her belt. The most recent, Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, is a dark comedy about the ghosts and memories that just won’t leave us alone. Her most terrifying out-of-body experience was doing stand-up at Seattle's Comedy Underground. For years a huge fan of storytelling, Gretchen has only recently jumped into this world as a storyteller herself. It has been thrilling so far. She loves dark chocolate, murder mysteries, and escaping to her backyard garden in North Seattle (where she lives with her wife, Nina, and their two miniature Australian Labradoodles).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:04.0 | Is NYU a scientist? |
| 0:06.0 | I felt it right. |
| 0:08.0 | And I just thought, well. |
| 0:10.0 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:12.0 | Because science was on my side. |
| 0:15.0 | Hey, everyone. Hey everyone, welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true personal stories about science. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm your host, Misha Gaioski, and this week, both our stories deal with that unpleasant physical sensation known as pain. |
| 0:36.3 | Pain is actually really, really strange. Sure, it's an |
| 0:40.5 | indispensable tool for survival. Like, if you touch a hot stove and it hurts, you're obviously |
| 0:46.7 | more likely to remove your hand and keep it from turning into a charred mess. And in an ideal |
| 0:52.1 | world, we'd only experience pain if it was related to actual physical |
| 0:56.0 | damage to our body. But what's wild is that science has found that people can still feel pain, |
| 1:02.0 | even if there aren't any pain receptors. People who have had their limbs amputated will report |
| 1:07.5 | feeling pain in their missing arm or leg. It's called phantom pain. |
| 1:11.7 | But all that is to say, pain is notoriously subjective, |
| 1:16.1 | and research has found that biological and psychological factors |
| 1:19.3 | influence how we experience pain |
| 1:21.3 | and how our nervous system reacts to harmful stimuli. |
| 1:24.8 | In other words, what hurts for me might not hurt for you. Although, |
| 1:30.0 | I'm pretty sure if what happened with our storytellers happened to me or you, we'd also be in a lot |
| 1:35.8 | of pain. Our first story is from Renee Joshua Porter. It was recorded in the before times in |
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