Yale, USC Studies Find Modern Adults Age Slower Than Past Generations

Vsauce

Past generations look older both because improved healthcare and lifestyle habits genuinely slowed biological aging rates and because modern viewers associate bygone youth fashions with the elderly cohorts who continued wearing them.

AI-assisted summary of Did People Used To Look Older? — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2022-07-11

Key ideas

Past generations truly aged faster biologically: biomarker research from Yale and USC reveals that between the 1990s and 2000s, systemic improvements shifted biological age so that age 60 today functions like 56, 40 like 37.5, and 20 like 19. (1:44)
Much of 'retrospective aging' is a fashion illusion; digital edits updating the hairstyles and clothing of historical figures like George Wendt or the Golden Girls instantly lower their perceived ages by decades. (4:10)
The face-name matching effect demonstrates that cultural stereotypes and expectations subtly shape our physical appearance over time, functioning as a reverse Dorian Gray effect where names influence adult facial presentation. (13:07)
The 20th-century 'black-and-white dream epidemic' reveals how external media reshapes cognitive recall: monochrome dreams surged alongside black-and-white film and TV, despite pre-1900 thinkers consistently reporting dreams in color. (18:47)

Detailed notes

## Background "Did People Used To Look Older?" was published on YouTube by Michael Stevens on his channel Vsauce on July 11, 2022. The video's show notes provide source links to historical yearbooks, scientific papers on biological aging and facial measurements, viral tweets, and an endorsement for the Curiosity Box.

## TL;DR Michael Stevens examines the phenomenon of "retrospective aging," demonstrating that while modern humans biologically age more slowly due to advancements in healthcare, nutrition, and skincare, the perception that historical figures looked older is heavily warped by fashion drift. Outfits and hairstyles chosen in youth remain linked to wearers into retirement, retroactively rebranding young historical styles as "elderly." Stevens branches into related cognitive oddities, including the face-name matching effect, where social feedback loops subtly reshape facial appearance to fit personal names. He concludes by analyzing how cultural media alters perception, showing how the rise of monochrome television triggered a 20th-century epidemic of black-and-white dreams.

## Atmosphere & style The presentation carries Vsauce's signature blend of playful curiosity, sharp editing, and existential contemplation set against Jake Chudnow's ambient, questioning score. Michael begins with engaging pop-culture memes and comedic yearbook photos before spiraling into sophisticated cognitive psychology and epistemological dilemmas. It feels like an exhilarating intellectual sleight of hand, guiding the viewer from lighthearted internet trivia into profound reflections on how society and media subtly construct internal reality.

## Bulletin - [01:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=104s) Past generations truly aged faster biologically: biomarker research from Yale and USC reveals that between the 1990s and 2000s, systemic improvements shifted biological age so that age 60 today functions like 56, 40 like 37.5, and 20 like 19. - [04:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=250s) Much of 'retrospective aging' is a fashion illusion; digital edits updating the hairstyles and clothing of historical figures like George Wendt or the Golden Girls instantly lower their perceived ages by decades. - [13:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=787s) The face-name matching effect demonstrates that cultural stereotypes and expectations subtly shape our physical appearance over time, functioning as a reverse Dorian Gray effect where names influence adult facial presentation. - [18:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1127s) The 20th-century 'black-and-white dream epidemic' reveals how external media reshapes cognitive recall: monochrome dreams surged alongside black-and-white film and TV, despite pre-1900 thinkers consistently reporting dreams in color.

## Key takeaways - [00:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1s) 'Retrospective aging' refers to the common impression that individuals in vintage photographs and media appeared far older at younger chronological ages than people do today. - [01:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=104s) Biological aging rates have genuinely decelerated over time due to enhanced nutrition, improved childhood conditions, reduced smoking, advanced healthcare, and widespread sunscreen adoption. - [01:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=104s) Analysis of magazine portraits since the 1930s shows facial bone proportions have stayed largely unchanged across ethnicities, with the only notable shift being a cultural preference for fuller lips. - [04:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=250s) Fashion drift warps generational perception: clothing styles adopted in youth are retained into old age, transforming formerly cool adolescent styles into perceptual signifiers of senior citizens. - [08:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=500s) The viral 1941 'Time Traveling Hipster' was simply an ordinary bridge attendee wearing unusually casual, period-accurate sports gear that happened to match early 21st-century aesthetics. - [11:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=688s) Human intuition reliably matches facial geometry to phonetic sounds, mirroring the Bouba/Kiki effect where spiky shapes pair with sharp names like 'Tim' and round shapes pair with 'Bob'. - [13:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=787s) Experiments show people correctly guess strangers' names at rates well above chance, demonstrating that adult facial features gradually harmonize with the labels society assigns them. - [13:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=787s) In a reverse Dorian Gray effect, societal stereotypes, expressive habits, and self-fulfilling adaptations cause our physical appearance to mold into the expectations of our names. - [17:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1042s) The societal threshold for when someone becomes 'old' averages 73.7 years, but this boundary expands outward as the respondent's own age and personal health increase. - [17:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1042s) Age satisfaction peaks at 21; younger Americans want to be older, older Americans want to be younger, and the consensus ideal age to remain forever is 36. - [18:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1127s) Prior to 20th-century monochrome media, historical figures universally described dreams in full color, proving black-and-white dreaming was a temporary media-induced phenomenon. - [19:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1198s) Dreams may be inherently indeterminate rather than explicitly chromatic, with dreamers confabulating sensory details during waking recall based on prevailing media technologies.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1s) The Mystery of Retrospective Aging

Michael Stevens introduces a curious paradox found in historic photography. While an eighteen-year-old Carl Sagan in his high school yearbook looks like a typical modern teenager, flipping through old yearbooks often reveals young people who appear startlingly weathered and mature. Photos of individuals in their twenties, Elizabeth Taylor photographed at merely 17 years old, and archival footage of 1970s high schoolers display an air of advanced maturity. The observation caught fire on Twitter when former professional baseball player Brandon McCarthy asked whether people in the past actually looked older. Responses flooded in, showing parents looking deeply middle-aged in their early twenties, an eighteen-year-old mother who looks fully grown, and dramatic contrasts, such as a contemporary 27-year-old husband compared alongside his father at age 23.

A dedicated online subculture celebrates this phenomenon through vintage athletic rosters, marveling at professional footballers from the 1970s and 1980s who looked decades older than their official ages of 24, 27, 29, 31, or 33. Michael terms this phenomenon “retrospective aging”—the widespread feeling that past generations matured faster and seemed far more grown-up at younger ages than people do today. Though counterbalanced by the cliché that contemporary kids "grow up too fast," the meme highlights a genuine mystery: is this retrospective aging a physiological reality, or merely an illusion born of selective memory and cultural bias? As Michael poses the central dilemma: “Is it real? Or is it an illusion fueled by cherrypicked examples that feeds rosy nostalgia for a time when people were tough and didn't have it as easy as you kids have it now?”

- Carl Sagan at 18 possessed recognizable youth, contrasting sharply with many of his peers in vintage yearbooks. - Brandon McCarthy's viral Twitter inquiry sparked a flood of comparisons, from teenagers in the 1970s to 1980s soccer players looking middle-aged in their early twenties. - Michael defines "retrospective aging" as the backward-looking perception that historical figures appeared older at younger chronological ages.

---

[01:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=104s) The Biological Reality: Why Past Generations Actually Aged Faster

The inquiry reveals that retrospective aging is not just a trick of memory; biological humans today truly are aging at a slower pace than their historical counterparts. A convergence of improved lifestyle habits, higher nutritional standards, reduced smoking rates, accessible healthcare, healthier early childhood conditions, and superior skincare—particularly the widespread adoption of daily sunscreen—has dramatically altered physical aging rates. Researchers from Yale University and the University of Southern California (USC) quantified this by examining biological markers across metabolic, cardiovascular, inflammatory, kidney, liver, and lung functions. Their findings confirm that populations are genuinely staying physically younger for longer periods.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Biological Factors in Slower Aging accDescr: Diagram illustrating how healthcare and lifestyle improvements decrease biological age over chronological time.

subgraph Inputs["Historical Lifestyle & Medical Improvements"] A["Better Nutrition & Healthcare"] B["Decreased Smoking Rates"] C["Skincare & Sunscreen Use"] D["Modern Dentistry & Orthodontics"] end

subgraph Biomarkers["Yale & USC Biomarker Analysis"] E["Cardiovascular & Lung Health"] F["Metabolic & Inflammatory Indicators"] G["Kidney & Liver Function"] end

subgraph Outcome["Systemic Age Shift (1990s to 2000s)"] H["Biological Deceleration: 60 is the new 56"] end

Inputs --> Biomarkers Biomarkers --> Outcome ```

Addressing the common adage that "60 is the new 50," the data reveals that between the early 1990s and late 2000s, 60 effectively became the biological equivalent of 56, 40 became 37.5, and 20 became 19. Beyond internal organs, cosmetic facial structures have shifted due to the widespread advent of twentieth-century dentistry and orthodontics. Yet, when studies tracked portraiture and faces in magazines from the 1930s through to the present day, facial measurements proved remarkably stable. Across all ethnicities, the only statistically significant shift detected in modern magazine imagery was an aesthetic preference for larger lips.

Michael also notes that retrospective aging occurs on a psychological, personal timeline. High school freshmen inevitably view seniors as towering, mature adults. However, once those freshmen become seniors themselves, looking in the mirror reveals normal teenagers, yet their mental image of the previous senior class remains permanently frozen as older adults.

- USC and Yale researchers proved systemic biological age has decreased across multiple organ biomarkers. - Chronological age shifting metrics (early 1990s to late 2000s): - Age 60 operates like age 56. - Age 40 operates like age 37.5. - Age 20 operates like age 19. - Analysis of magazine faces since 1930 shows that, aside from the modern prominence of fuller lips, overall facial dimensions have not shifted fundamentally.

---

[04:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=250s) The Norm Peterson Paradox and the Fashion Drift

Shifting from biology to psychology, Michael examines a viral comparison featuring George Wendt playing Norm Peterson on the sitcom *Cheers*. Social media posts frequently assert that Wendt was 34 years old in early episodes, making him look shocking next to modern 34-year-olds. Michael points out an error in the comparison: the viral image actually comes from Season 5, Episode 24, when Wendt was 38. Even taking authentic photos of Wendt at 34, an edit by Ashley Fairbanks demonstrates that applying a trendy modern haircut and modern clothing instantly erases years from his appearance.

This effect appears just as dramatically when modern hairstyles and contemporary makeup techniques are digitally applied to the cast of *The Golden Girls*, causing their apparent ages to plummet. Michael explains the underlying cognitive mechanism: “These alterations don't make Wendt look more like a 34-year-old; they make him look more like a 34-year-old today.” People select their hairstyles, garments, and mannerisms from whatever cultural stream is active in their youth. As people grow comfortable with their chosen self-expression—or run out of time and energy to follow fast-moving trends—they leave the stream and carry their aesthetic forward. Over the decades, those fashions do not remain "youth styles"; instead, because the cohort wearing them has grown elderly, the clothes themselves acquire an indelible association with old age.

Michael summarizes the semantic shift: “We think people looked older in the past because they look the way old people do today.” To illustrate this, he highlights Dale Irby, an elementary school physical education teacher from Dallas, Texas. In 1973, Irby wore a specific polyester shirt and sweater-vest for his school picture; when he accidentally repeated the identical outfit in 1974, his wife challenged him to keep the bit going. He wore that exact disco-era ensemble for forty consecutive yearbooks until his retirement. Irby’s yearbook montage provides an exaggerated study in cultural semiotics: a wardrobe that originally broadcast 1970s young-adult cool gradually became the uniform of an elderly man purely because its owner aged inside it.

- Retrospective aging is two-fold: biological improvements are real, but our perceptual judgment is warped by anachronistic fashion associations. - The belief that people in the past were styled like old people ignores that they were actually dressed like the old people they would eventually become.

---

[08:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=500s) The South Fork Bridge "Time Traveler" & The Curiosity Box

Michael turns the perspective on its head: if people in the past look like old people from the future, has anyone ever been caught dressing like a *young* person from the future? He points to a famous 1941 photograph taken at the reopening of the South Fork Bridge in British Columbia, Canada. When digitized and uploaded online in 2010, viewers fixated on a single man dubbed the "Time Traveling Hipster." Surrounded by fedoras, formal suits, and overcoats, this individual sports wrap-around sunglasses, an unkempt haircut, a hooded knit sweater, and a printed casual top, looking like an indie rocker from the 2010s.

Historical investigators debunked the time-travel myth by analyzing his wardrobe: the screen-printed shirt bore the athletic logo of the Montreal Maroons hockey team, his sunglasses were protective outdoor lenses available in the era, and his portable camera was a period-accurate Kodak folding model. Nothing he wore was impossible for 1941; he was simply exceptionally casual compared to everyone else standing on the bridge. Michael jokes that anyone today wearing strange, ultra-casual garments might accidentally nail future fashion and find themselves revered as an accidental time traveler decades later.

This leads into an endorsement for the *Vsauce Curiosity Box*. Michael showcases items from the summer collection, including Moiré illusion cards and a ceramic Pythagorean cup—a trick chalice attributed to Pythagoras designed to punish greed. The cup functions normally when filled to a modest level, but if an overindulgent drinker fills it past a hidden internal siphon threshold, hydrostatic pressure pulls the entire contents through the stem and drains it onto the drinker's lap. He notes that a portion of all Curiosity Box proceeds supports Alzheimer's research.

- The 1941 South Fork Bridge "Time Traveler" was an ordinary attendee wearing a Montreal Maroons hockey shirt and contemporary protective glasses. - The Pythagorean cup operates as the world's earliest known practical joke, using a siphon loop that drains completely once liquid exceeds the critical lip level.

---

[11:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=688s) The Face-Name Matching Effect and Bouba/Kiki

Transitioning to how visual perception intersects with identity, Michael displays an artificially generated portrait of an average-looking man and asks viewers to guess whether he is named Bill, Mark, Justin, or Josh. Citing cognitive research conducted by Millsaps College and Miami University, Michael reveals that test subjects identify this composite face as a "Mark." In these psychological experiments, participants generated and rated digitally rendered faces to construct visual archetypes for common male names, discovering reliable consensus for what an "Andy," "Brian," "Dan," "Justin," "Josh," or "Bill" looks like.

Michael compares this face-name matching effect to Wolfgang Köhler’s landmark psycholinguistic finding known as the Bouba/Kiki effect. When subjects across diverse cultures, age brackets, and unrelated language families are presented with two shapes—one composed of sharp, jagged angles and the other consisting of rounded, bulbous curves—an overwhelming majority label the spiky shape "Kiki" and the soft, rounded shape "Bouba."

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: The Bouba and Kiki Sound-Shape Mapping accDescr: Flowchart demonstrating how visual sharpness and softness map directly to phonetic name qualities.

subgraph VisualForm["Visual Geometry"] Sharp["Spiky, Angular Contours"] Round["Curved, Soft Contours"] end

subgraph SoundProfiles["Phonetic Properties"] KikiSound["Sharp, harsh phonemes: 'Kiki' / 'Tim'"] BoubaSound["Soft, rounded phonemes: 'Bouba' / 'Bob'"] end

Sharp <--> KikiSound Round <--> BoubaSound ```

This cross-modal correspondence extends naturally into social perception and human names. Presenting two men—one with angular, narrow features and another with broad, rounded facial architecture—subjects unanimously pair the angular face with the sharp, quick-sounding name "Tim" and the softer face with the name "Bob." Michael concludes this segment by raising the pivotal question of social psychology: do our arbitrary visual associations reflect an inherent biological link, or do people gradually mold themselves over time to fit the social expectations of the names they carry?

- Wolfgang Köhler's Bouba/Kiki experiment demonstrated universal phonetic-to-visual shape associations across worldwide cultural lines. - Research from Millsaps College and Miami University proved people share systematic cognitive prototypes for personal names like Mark, Bill, Dan, and Josh. - The "Tim vs. Bob" experiment mirrors the Bouba/Kiki effect, with angular facial geometry universally eliciting names that have sharper phonetics.

[13:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=787s) The Face-Name Matching Effect and the Reverse Dorian Gray Effect

Even if human intuition effortlessly links sharp or rounded sounds with specific visual shapes, there is no biological basis for a name. A baby is named long before anyone can know what their adult face will look like, which makes any apparent resemblance between a person's name and their physical features seem impossible. Yet empirical research proves otherwise. In controlled multiple-choice experiments, participants accurately identify a stranger’s name purely from their photograph far above statistical chance—a phenomenon known as the face-name matching effect. In landmark research conducted by Yonat Zwebner and colleagues, subjects were shown a portrait of an unfamiliar man alongside four possible options: Jacob, Dan, Joseph, or Nathaniel. Pure random guessing would produce a success rate of 25%, but participants selected the correct name, Dan, nearly 40% of the time.

Michael Stevens explains that this feedback loop between label and appearance functions as a psychological counterpart to Oscar Wilde's *The Picture of Dorian Gray*. In Wilde's novel, the protagonist retains his youthful innocence while his painted portrait grotesquely reflects his inner decay and sins. With the face-name matching effect, however, Michael argues that the direction is reversed: “An inanimate sign, a name, influences our actual physical appearance.” Cultural expectations attached to specific names generate self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, studies demonstrate that multiracial faces paired with European names are perceived and rated as looking significantly more European than identical faces presented with non-European names. As people mature, social expectations encourage them to carry themselves, style themselves, and even exercise facial muscles in patterns deemed fitting for their name. This harmony carries tangible stakes: senatorial candidates whose names closely match their facial appearance capture roughly 10% more votes than candidates whose names fit poorly.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: The Face-Name Feedback Mechanism accDescr: How cultural expectations, parental choices, and behavioral adaptations align facial appearance with personal names.

subgraph External["Cultural & Parental Inputs"] A["Parental Facial Resemblance (Subconscious Name Preference)"] B["Societal Stereotypes & Expectations Attached to Name"] end

subgraph Internal["Personal Adaptation"] C["Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Facial Expressions & Styling)"] D["Identity Adjustment (Nicknames or Name Changes)"] end

subgraph Outcome["Social Perception"] E["Face-Name Congruence (Above-Chance Identification & Social Approval)"] end

A --> B B --> C C --> E D --> E E -->|"Feedback Reinforcement"| C ```

Part of this visual correlation stems from the parents themselves: while parents cannot foresee their infant's adult appearance, they unconsciously favor baby names that mirror their own facial features, which the child often inherits. Furthermore, individuals retain the agency to pivot toward a nickname if their legal name feels dissonant; Michael quips that if his disposition had been slightly different, he might simply have gone by "Mike." By selectively obscuring portions of faces in experimental tests, researchers generated heat maps pinpointing the facial zones most predictive of particular names:

- **Anne**: The visual identification centers largely on the tip of the nose. - **Arthur**: The identifier is most strongly concentrated around the bridge of the nose. - **Benjamin**: Recognition correlates heavily with the philtrum (the snot trough). - **Aurelle**: Distinguishable primarily by expressive wrinkles around the eyes and brow.

[17:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1042s) Perceptions of Old Age and the Ideal Forever Age

Turning back to the perception of aging, Michael examines what society actually means when categorizing someone as "old." Citing findings published in the *Journal of the American Geriatrics Society*, he reveals that the public consensus sets the threshold of old age at an average of 73.7 years old. However, this benchmark shifts depending on the demographic and vitality of the person answering. Individuals younger than 65 pegged the onset of old age at an average of 71, whereas those older than 65 delayed it to an average of 77. Women situated the threshold three years later than men, white respondents set it eight years later than non-white respondents, and individuals reporting higher personal health consistently pushed the definition of old age further down the horizon than those grappling with poorer health.

When asked what age people actually desire to be, satisfaction is extraordinarily rare. Michael observes that across the lifespan, contentment with one's current age exists almost solely in a fleeting window: “In America, the only people who are the age they would like to be are 21 year olds.” Those younger than 21 yearn to be older, while everyone past 21 wishes they were younger. A forty-year-old typically wants to return to age 30, a sixty-year-old desires to be 40, and a ninety-year-old longs to be 60. When Americans are surveyed on what single age they would choose to remain forever, the nationwide average settles firmly at 36 years old—a number Michael notes with amusement because it happens to be his exact age at the time of filming.

- **Threshold of Old Age (Overall Average)**: 73.7 years old - **Threshold Chosen by Adults Under 65**: 71 years old - **Threshold Chosen by Adults Over 65**: 77 years old - **Gender Disparity**: Women define old age as starting 3 years later than men do. - **Racial Disparity**: White respondents set the threshold 8 years later than non-white respondents. - **Ideal Forever Age**: 36 years old

[18:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1127s) The 20th-Century Black-and-White Dream Epidemic

Older generations display an unusual cognitive quirk: they are far more likely than younger generations to report dreaming entirely in black and white. Michael points out that this is not an intrinsic biological consequence of neural aging, but rather evidence that these individuals are survivors of what psychologists call the 20th-century black-and-white dream epidemic. Historical records show that prior to the 1900s, natural philosophers and psychologists across centuries—including Aristotle, René Descartes, and Sigmund Freud—unanimously documented that human dreams featured vivid colors. Michael stresses the universality of these historic accounts: “Prior to the 1900s, Aristotle, Descartes, Freud, everyone who wrote about the topic reported that dreams contained color.”

That consensus abruptly evaporated alongside the advent and rapid rise of monochrome mass media. As black-and-white motion pictures and television broadcasting permeated everyday life during the first half of the 20th century, reports of chromatic dreams plummeted in near-perfect synchronization. By the 1960s, the introduction of color television and color cinematography reversed the trend, and reported dreams steadily regained their colors. Decades later, elderly adults who grew up immersed in grayscale television still report experiencing monochrome dreams at much higher rates than those who grew up in the color era. Subsequent cross-regional studies across China corroborated this media effect, demonstrating that the incidence of black-and-white dreams closely mirrored the availability and adoption of monochrome television within local regions.

[19:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1198s) Indeterminate Dreams, Confabulation, and Moving Phantoms

The television correlation raises a deeper epistemological dilemma: did monochrome media fundamentally alter the visual architecture of dreams, or did it merely alter the vocabulary and mental models people rely on to recall them? Direct observation of another person's dream imagery remains technologically out of reach. Drawing on the work of philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, Michael notes that dreaming states may lack color altogether, existing without chromatic hue, sepia tones, or grayscale. During the waking moment, when the brain attempts to reconstruct an ephemeral narrative, it confabulates visual details to match familiar media templates. Schwitzgebel analogizes dreams to reading a novel: when engrossed in prose, a reader constructs impressions of characters and landscapes, yet nobody stops to debate whether the printed words or mental thoughts were rendered in color or black and white.

Michael summarizes Schwitzgebel's perspective on our fragile inner narratives: “It might be the case that dreams, vaporous as they are, are something we simply have a terrible grip on, and that movies and TV shows have given us the illusion of understanding them.” This suggests that sensory modalities reported in dreams may simply track modern technology. Dreamers rarely report olfactory or tactile sensations today, but future generations raised on immersive, multisensory virtual reality featuring haptic feedback and simulated scents might routinely experience dreams packed with textures and odors—perhaps looking back at 21st-century dreams as strangely sensory-deprived.

The instinct to equate dreaming with cinema rather than waking reality reveals a unique symmetry between the two mediums. Unlike still tapestries, paintings, or photographs, motion pictures and dreams both simulate movement, unfolding narratives, and dynamic causality. Yet unlike live stage theater or concrete physical reality, neither cinema nor dreams consist of the physical matter they portray. Both are ethereal constructs—phantoms projected into darkness. Closing the exploration of aging faces, self-perception, and mental images, Michael poses a final philosophical riddle to the viewer: “Do you get the picture or does the picture get you?”

## Notable quotes > [04:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=250s) We think people looked older in the past because they look the way old people do today. — Michael Stevens

> [13:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=787s) An inanimate sign, a name, influences our actual physical appearance. — Michael Stevens

> [19:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1198s) It might be the case that dreams, vaporous as they are, are something we simply have a terrible grip on, and that movies and TV shows have given us the illusion of understanding them. — Michael Stevens

> [17:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE&t=1042s) In America, the only people who are the age they would like to be are 21 year olds. — Michael Stevens

## Mentioned Carl Sagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Brandon McCarthy, George Wendt, Ashley Fairbanks, Dale Irby, Pythagoras, Wolfgang Köhler, Yonat Zwebner, Oscar Wilde, Aristotle, René Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Eric Schwitzgebel, Jake Chudnow, Cheers, The Golden Girls, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Yale University, University of Southern California, Millsaps College, Miami University, Curiosity Box, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Montreal Maroons

## Video description Join the Curiosity Box NOW and I'll send you a bunch of free stuff! https://www.curiositybox.com/pages/vsauce

Follow me:

https://twitter.com/tweetsauce https://www.instagram.com/electricpants

Carl Sagan High School yearbook: https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss85590.041/?sp=2&r=-0.241,0,1.481,1.244,0

2001 Tiger Beat: https://allisontanenhaus.com/tiger-beat

Slade on Fabulous: https://i.pinimg.com/474x/23/b3/49/23b34988cc3958fb59cf66f0a15f9850.jpg

Elizabeth Taylor at 17: https://www.vintag.es/2018/04/elizabeth-taylor-by-philippe-halsman-1948.html

70s high school students: https://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675046349_students-and-navy_high-school-students_waste-of-money_interested-to-join

Brandon McCarthy tweet: https://twitter.com/bmccarthy32/status/1210350854571585537?lang=en

80s footballers: https://twitter.com/80sAging

80s high school IG: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZcKEeJhUSy/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=4589a200-7096-44e8-b5e5-0324e5da78c9

Sunscreen commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krGctNSuSMI

Historical orthodontics: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Historical_orthodontics

Is 60 the new 50? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5897168/

Dua Lipa’s dad: https://twitter.com/lgbtdlipa/status/1377740115020283907

Face changes in magazines:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Changes-in-esthetic-standards-since-1940.-Berneburg-Dietz/d9f38e081f1dce3bde1dc758cf3e808a03cf7a73 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9714286/#:~:text=The%20results%20showed%20that%20%281,lip%20curl%2C%20and%20vermilion%20display https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10337246/

Norm 34 comparison tweet: https://twitter.com/Y2K_mindset/status/1412131747475509250

Norm edits: https://twitter.com/ziibiing/status/1412762456254992393

Golden Girls with modern style: https://www.tiktok.com/@sugacane22/video/7050305381406575919

Dale Irby: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2013/06/30/richardson-teacher-s-retirement-ends-one-last-echo-of-disco-fashion/

Time traveling hipster:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/time-traveling-hipster/ https://www.communitystories.ca/v1/pm_v2.php?id=record_detail&fl=0&lg=English&ex=00000470&rd=117666# https://timetravelnexus.com/time-travel-nexus-investigates-the-time-travelling-hipster/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_b83_RpJ0

Face-name matching effect:

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspa0000076.pdf

Bouba/kiki effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

Multiracial faces: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19065862/

Social bouba/kiki effect:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28597194/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03194119

Dori Gray image: https://society6.com/product/dorian-gray-revisited_stretched-canvas

How old is old? https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jgs.17379

What age would you like to be?

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00067/full https://theconversation.com/at-what-age-are-people-usually-happiest-new-research-offers-surprising-clues-156906

Black & white dreams:

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/DreamB&W.pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.893.2832&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810008001323

Mind Field episode about mind reading and recording dreams: https://youtu.be/AgbeGFYluEA

Mr. Stevens' wardrobe: https://designerbrand.co/products/mcdonals-food?_pos=1&_sid=ae2ea94b3&_ss=r

music by Jake Chudnow https://www.youtube.com/jakechudnow

[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE)

中文简报

耶鲁与南加大研究发现：现代成年人衰老速度慢于往代过去世代看起来更显老，既是因为医疗和生活习惯的改善切实减缓了生物学衰老速率，也是因为现代观众往往将当年的青年时尚与坚持这套穿搭的老年群体联系在一起。迈克尔·史蒂文斯（Michael Stevens）探讨了“追溯性衰老”现象，表明尽管得益于医疗、营养和护肤的进步，现代人的生物学衰老速度确实更慢，但认为历史人物更显老的认知很大程度上受到了时尚变迁的扭曲。人们年轻时选择的服饰和发型往往伴随其直至退休，从而在回顾时让当年的青年风格被贴上了“老派”的标签。史蒂文斯还延伸讨论了相关的认知奇特现象，包括“人脸-姓名匹配效应”——即社会反馈回路会潜移默化地重塑面部外观，使其契合个人名字。最后，他分析了文化传媒如何改变人类感知，指出黑白电视的普及曾引发20世纪黑白梦境的大流行。以往世代在生物学上的衰老速度确实更快：耶鲁大学和南加州大学基于生物标志物的研究显示，在1990年代至2000年代之间，整体条件的改善改变了生物学年龄，使得如今的60岁在生理机能上相当于过去的56岁，40岁相当于37.5岁，20岁相当于19岁。 (1:44) “追溯性衰老”很大程度上是一种时尚错觉；通过数字修图更新乔治·温迪特（George Wendt）或《黄金女郎》等历史人物的发型与服装，能立刻使其外观年龄看起来年轻几十岁。 (4:10) “人脸-姓名匹配效应”表明，文化刻板印象和预期会随着时间推移微妙地塑造我们的外貌，其作用机制如同一种反向的多利安·格雷效应，名字会影响成年人的面部外观特征。 (13:07) 20世纪的“黑白梦境流行”揭示了外部媒介如何重塑认知记忆：尽管1900年之前的思想家一贯报告梦境是彩色的，但随着黑白电影和电视的兴起，黑白梦境的发生率显著激增。 (18:47)

Source quotes

[4:10] Michael Stevens: We think people looked older in the past because they look the way old people do today. [13:07] Michael Stevens: An inanimate sign, a name, influences our actual physical appearance. [19:58] Michael Stevens: It might be the case that dreams, vaporous as they are, are something we simply have a terrible grip on, and that movies and TV shows have given us the illusion of understanding them. [17:22] Michael Stevens: In America, the only people who are the age they would like to be are 21 year olds.

Original transcript

[0:01] Hey, Vsauce, Michael here. At the age of [0:05] 18, Carl Sean looked like a teenager, [0:09] but it doesn't take long in an old high [0:11] school yearbook to find teenagers who [0:15] look surprisingly old. These people are [0:19] all in their 20s, but so are these [0:22] people. This is Elizabeth Taylor when [0:25] she was just 17. And here are some high [0:28] school students from the 70s. [0:31] Did people used to look older? Brandon [0:34] McCarthy asked on Twitter and evidence [0:36] poured in. People shared photos of their [0:40] parents in their early 20s, their dad at [0:44] 21, their mom at 18 or 19, their dad at [0:48] 45. One user shared their husband at 27, [0:53] and what his father looked like at 23. [0:57] And there's pretty much an entire [0:58] subculture around how old footballers [1:01] looked decades ago. 24, 31, 33, 29, [1:08] 27. [1:10] It's not uncommon to think that there's [1:13] something more grown up about the way [1:15] people used to be. To look back and [1:18] think that people seemed older at a [1:21] younger age than they do now. Let's call [1:24] it retrospective aging. It doesn't [1:27] happen to everyone. People do not and [1:30] never have aged similarly. And there's [1:33] even the opposite observation that kids [1:35] these days grow up too fast. But it's a [1:38] popular question and subject of numerous [1:41] memes. [1:43] So, [1:44] is it real? Or is it an illusion fueled [1:48] by cherrypicked examples that feeds rosy [1:51] nostalgia for a time when people were [1:54] tough and didn't have it as easy as you [1:56] kids have it now? Well, as it turns out, [2:01] both humans today really are aging more [2:05] slowly than their historic counterparts. [2:08] Changes in lifestyle, nutrition, smoking [2:11] habits, health care, early life [2:13] conditions, and skin care, particularly [2:15] the use of sunscreen are a huge part of [2:18] it. By comparing measures of metabolic, [2:21] cardiovascular, inflammatory, kidney, [2:23] liver, and lung function across time, [2:26] researchers at Yale and USC have found [2:28] that we are in fact staying younger for [2:32] longer than we used to. So, does that [2:35] mean that 60 is the new 50? [2:38] Almost. Their results suggest that [2:41] between the early 90s and the late [2:44] 2000s, 60 became the new 56, 40 became [2:50] the new 37 12 and 20 became the new 19. [2:54] Oh, also during the last century, [2:57] dentistry and orthodontics have played a [3:00] huge cosmetic role in the kinds of faces [3:02] we see in parts of the world. But [3:06] interestingly, when faces in magazines [3:09] are measured from the 1930s to today, [3:13] the only significant change has been [3:15] that across all ethnicities, the media [3:18] is now exposing us to larger lips. Also, [3:22] retroactive aging can occur over short [3:24] time spans. When I was a freshman, the [3:27] seniors in my high school seemed so old [3:30] to me. But by the time I was a senior [3:33] myself, I looked in the mirror and at my [3:35] peers and I was like, we're them now, [3:38] but we don't seem as old as they did. [3:41] What's going on isn't just about bodies. [3:44] First of all, the seniors I looked at [3:47] when I was a freshman truly were older [3:49] than me at that time. They graduated and [3:52] went away. And later when I was a [3:55] senior, I saw myself as I was. But in my [3:59] mind's eye, I saw the earlier seniors as [4:02] they appeared to me when I was younger. [4:05] Retrospective aging seems to also be [4:08] about perspective. [4:10] Let's go back to this tweet. This is [4:13] George Wint playing Norm on the TV show [4:16] Cheers. Now, when Cheers premiered, went [4:20] was indeed 34, but I looked it up and [4:24] this image is actually from episode 24 [4:26] of season 5 when Wint was 38. So, we're [4:30] not comparing apples to apples here. [4:32] However, this is an image of George Went [4:35] at 34. And Ashley Fairbanks made some [4:39] alterations and a good point. [4:42] However, here's the rub. These [4:45] alterations don't make W look more like [4:48] a 34 year old. They make him look more [4:51] like a 34y old today. [4:55] Similarly, giving the Golden Girls [4:57] modern-day hairstyles and makeup drops [5:00] their apparent age a lot. Superficial [5:03] styles and mannerisms can often make not [5:05] just a big difference, but all the [5:08] difference. which supports the [5:11] hypothesis that retrospective aging is [5:13] often an illusion. Modes of [5:17] self-expression are always changing. [5:20] Clothing, hairstyles, [5:23] accessories, makeup, mannerisms, [5:27] language, body language. Now, modes can [5:30] come back, but never exactly. The [5:32] context is always a little bit [5:34] different. And from what's available or [5:37] acceptable at any one time, we each draw [5:40] ways of appearing or being in the world. [5:44] And even if you don't care about how you [5:46] look or think about how you act, what [5:49] options you even have are dictated by [5:52] what's currently popular or normal or [5:55] being pushed on people like you. Few of [5:58] us stay at the stream drawing what's new [6:02] all our lives for various reasons. We [6:04] often wander away with our catch. [6:07] Perhaps it's because we settle into an [6:09] identity we're comfortable with or fear [6:12] the taboo of not dressing our age or [6:15] simply run out of time to care. But when [6:18] we're gone, the stream keeps changing. [6:22] And we get older and continue to use the [6:24] mannerisms and styles we grabbed a while [6:27] back. Eventually, to whatever those [6:30] styles initially evoked, a new [6:33] connotation is added, [6:36] old person. [6:38] Not because the look or behavior is [6:40] intrinsically for the elderly, but [6:43] because those who use it, us, became old [6:48] ourselves. [6:50] If you want to look older, what do you [6:51] do? Well, you can dress the way older [6:54] people dress. And the thing is that's [6:57] often how they used to dress too. We [7:00] think people looked older in the past [7:03] because they look the way old people do [7:06] today. [7:08] Dale Herby, a gym teacher at Preston [7:10] Wood Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, [7:13] posed for his first yearbook photo in [7:15] 1973. [7:17] The following year, he accidentally wore [7:20] the same outfit again. He says he was [7:23] embarrassed at first, but his wife Kathy [7:25] challenged him to do it again. So he did [7:29] and he never stopped. [7:32] What he gave us is a great exaggerated [7:34] example of how what once conoted youth [7:36] comes to be associated with old age. The [7:40] people we keep seeing a style on get [7:43] older and older themselves until we [7:45] think of the style itself as being for [7:48] old people. Retrospective aging then is [7:51] double-pronged, both real and elucory. [7:55] People in the past really did age faster [7:57] than us because of differences in [7:59] nutrition and lifestyle and medicine. [8:02] But much, if not most, can be chocked up [8:05] to the fact that we think people like [8:07] this are dressed like old people. But [8:10] that's an anacronism. They're dressed [8:12] like old people from the future, the old [8:16] people they would become. Has anyone [8:20] ever dressed like a young person from [8:22] the future? Well, it happened in 1941 at [8:25] the reopening of the South Fork Bridge [8:27] in Canada. A crowd came out to celebrate [8:31] and photos were taken. In 2010, the [8:34] photos were digitized and placed online. [8:37] That's when this guy was noticed. A [8:40] timetraveling [8:42] hipster. [8:44] Why a time traveler wouldn't bother to [8:46] blend in. and why, with all of history [8:49] to visit, he chose the reopening of a [8:52] bridge in the ' 40s, no one knew. The [8:56] photo was confirmed to be undoceded, and [8:58] researchers put forward the idea that [9:01] this man [9:03] was not in fact a time traveler, that [9:05] his shirt wasn't an ironic screen print, [9:08] but simply bore the logo of the Montreal [9:10] Maroons, a nearby hockey team at the [9:13] time. They said his sunglasses and knit [9:16] sweater were not unusual for the 40s, [9:18] nor was his portable camera. The only [9:20] thing that was unusual about him was how [9:24] casual his attire was. [9:27] And they're probably right. But this all [9:29] raises the exciting possibility that [9:31] someone out there right now, possibly [9:34] even you, is unknowingly dressed like [9:37] people in the future will. And your [9:39] appearance in photos will someday freak [9:42] them out. You know, it might be fun to [9:44] start dressing even more casually or in [9:47] some other odd way on the off chance [9:49] that you happen to nail it and years [9:51] from now you are woripped as a time [9:53] traveler. [9:54] Oh, that reminds me of today's sponsor. [9:58] Hi, I'm Michael Stevens. Would you like [10:01] to look like you're from the future? [10:03] Well, every season, those who subscribe [10:06] to Vsauce's Curiosity Box receive a box [10:08] full of delicious brain food that we [10:10] have made that very few people have yet. [10:14] This year, our summer box contains our [10:17] Muare illusion cards, a bunch of other [10:20] things I won't spoil, and this a [10:23] Pythagorean cup. Supposedly invented by [10:26] Pythagoras himself. It is widely [10:28] considered the earliest known practical [10:31] joke. It works just like a normal cup. [10:34] Fill it up, carry it around, take a [10:37] drink, [10:40] refreshing. But it punishes greed. If [10:44] you pour yourself too much, the internal [10:46] siphon will drain the entire contents. [10:51] Greed is good. More like greed is wet. [10:56] A portion of all proceeds from the [10:57] Vsauce Curiosity Box go directly to [11:00] Alzheimer's research. So, this box isn't [11:02] just good for your brain, it's good for [11:04] everyone's brain. And we've got a [11:07] special treat for you. While supplies [11:09] last, if you subscribe to the Curiosity [11:12] Box, you can choose a bundle of some of [11:13] our favorite items from past boxes that [11:15] we will throw in for free. Just pay [11:18] shipping. If you're not subscribed yet, [11:21] I'm ready for you with open arms and [11:24] open neurons. [11:26] Wow. [11:28] Whoa. Who? Who's that guy? Does he look [11:32] like a Bill, a Mark, a Justin, or a [11:37] Josh? Pause right now if you'd like to [11:39] think about it. [11:43] According to research from Milsap's [11:45] College in Miami University, this is [11:49] Mark. [11:50] Or at least this is what we think people [11:54] named Mark look like. By asking people [11:57] to make and rate digitally created [11:59] faces, researchers were able to put [12:02] together prototypical faces for a number [12:04] of different names. This is apparently [12:07] what we think a Josh looks like. A Bill, [12:12] a Justin, a Dan, a Brian, a Tom, an [12:16] Andy. The idea that names might conjure [12:20] certain face shapes in our minds isn't [12:23] that strange. For example, there's Wolf [12:25] Gang Kohler's famous finding that when [12:28] asked which of these shapes is named [12:31] Boua and which is named Kiki, people of [12:34] all different ages and cultures and [12:36] languages overwhelmingly assign Kiki to [12:40] the spiky one and Ba to the blobby one. [12:44] And sure enough, it certainly seems to [12:46] work with names, too. Which one of these [12:48] men is Tim and which is Bob? Well, [12:52] almost unanimously people feel like this [12:54] is Tim and this is Bob. [12:58] But are these men actually named Tim and [13:02] Bob? Well, there's the rub. Just because [13:05] we associate certain names, certain [13:07] sounds with certain shapes doesn't mean [13:10] we're right. There's no such thing as a [13:13] biological name. If a person still goes [13:16] by the same name they were given as a [13:18] baby long before anyone knew what they [13:20] would look like as an adult, well, [13:22] surely there won't be a connection. [13:25] But as it turns out, there is. Believe [13:29] it or not, in a multiplechoice setting, [13:32] people can guess a stranger's name just [13:35] by looking at their face. More often [13:37] than we would expect from luck alone, [13:39] it's called the face name matching [13:42] effect. Here's a stimulus from Zwbner's [13:44] research. Do you think this man is named [13:48] Jacob, Dan, Joseph, or Nathaniel? [13:53] By just randomly picking a name, people [13:56] should get this right 25% of the time. [13:59] But Zwner found that people picked the [14:02] correct answer, Dan, nearly 40% of the [14:06] time. [14:08] What's going on? Can names actually [14:11] cause us to grow to look a certain way? [14:15] Well, apparently they can. It has been [14:17] called a Dorian Grey effect. In Oscar [14:21] Wild's The Picture of Dorian Gay, a [14:23] portrait of the protagonist ages and [14:26] grotesqually reflects his evil deeds [14:28] while he himself remains young and [14:31] pure-looking. In a similar way, it seems [14:34] that in some cases, our own appearance [14:37] can come to reflect the name we were [14:40] given. [14:41] But I kind of think it's really more of [14:43] a reverse Dorian gay effect. I mean, in [14:45] the book, Dorian's reality affects the [14:48] appearance of his portrait, but the face [14:51] name matching effect goes the other way. [14:54] A inanimate sign, a name, influences our [14:58] actual physical appearance. Well, [15:00] anyway, it's not news that a person's [15:03] name can lead others to have certain [15:04] expectations of them and treat them [15:06] accordingly. It's been found, for [15:08] example, that multi-racial faces given [15:11] European names are rated as looking more [15:14] European than the same faces are when [15:17] presented with non-European names. The [15:20] expectations a name carries with it may [15:22] create a self-fulfilling prophecy [15:26] whereby as a person grows up, they're [15:29] motivated to fulfill those expectations. [15:32] Carry themselves in ways people think [15:33] someone with their name should and even [15:36] like, dislike, accentuate, hide, use, [15:39] and avoid different parts of their face [15:41] and body depending on whether or not [15:43] those parts match their name. It's been [15:47] found that faces and names that match [15:50] are emotionally liked more than faces [15:53] and names that don't. Analysis of voting [15:56] data has shown that senatorial [15:58] candidates earn 10% more votes when [16:02] their names fit their faces very well [16:05] than when they fit very poorly. Now, [16:07] with that in mind, part of the effect [16:09] could literally come from the fact that [16:11] although parents don't know what their [16:13] kid will look like as an adult, the [16:16] parents do know what they look like and [16:19] without knowing it tend to prefer names [16:21] that match their faces, which are likely [16:24] to resemble their child's face as well, [16:27] but not always. If the dissonance is too [16:30] great, a person can always change their [16:33] name either completely or by simply [16:36] choosing a nickname. If if I had been [16:38] just a little bit different, I Michael [16:41] could have always gone by Mike. The fact [16:44] that people can adjust their names to [16:46] fit them of course merely strengthens [16:48] the face name matching effect. By [16:50] studying whether the correct name could [16:52] be guessed when different parts of a [16:54] face were oluded, researchers were able [16:57] to develop heat maps showing which parts [17:00] of the face different names are most [17:03] characteristically associated with. [17:05] Apparently looking like an an is all [17:08] about the tip of the nose. It's the [17:11] bridge of the nose for Arthur's and the [17:14] filtrum or snot trough for Benjamin's. [17:17] Orelles are recognized by their face [17:21] spiders. [17:22] Let's go back to old people. How old is [17:27] an old person? [17:29] 73.7. [17:31] That's according to results published in [17:33] the Journal of American Geriatrics last [17:35] year. It's the average age people gave [17:38] when asked when does old age begin? [17:42] People under 65 on average said 71. And [17:46] people over 65 on average said 77. Women [17:51] said old age began 3 years later than [17:54] men did. White people said it began 8 [17:56] years later than non-whites did. And [17:59] people who felt healthy placed old age [18:01] later in life than those who felt less [18:04] healthy. [18:06] But how old do people want to be? Well, [18:11] that depends on how old they already [18:13] are. In America, the only people who are [18:17] the age they would like to be are 21 [18:20] year olds. People younger than 21 wish [18:23] they were older, and people older than [18:25] 21 wish they were younger. People who [18:28] are 40 wish they were 30. People who are [18:30] 60 wish they were 40, and people who are [18:33] 90 wish they were 60. When people are [18:36] asked if they could be one age forever, [18:39] the average American picks 36, which is [18:43] actually how old I am right now, funny [18:44] enough. Here's something else that's [18:47] funny. Old people are more likely to [18:50] think they dream in black and white. Not [18:53] because it's part of the aging process, [18:55] but because they are veterans of the [18:58] great black and white dream epidemic of [19:00] the 20th century. Prior to the 1900s, [19:04] Aristotle, Decart, Freud, everyone who [19:07] wrote about the topic reported that [19:09] dreams contained color. But as humanity [19:12] moved into the 20th century, the number [19:15] of people reporting color in their [19:17] dreams dropped just as quickly as the [19:20] popularity of new black and white movies [19:22] and TV rose. By the 60s, as color TV and [19:27] movies became more and more common, [19:28] reports of colored dreams started going [19:30] back up. And today, people who grew up [19:33] with black and white TV continue to [19:36] report more black and white dreams than [19:38] those who didn't. And later studies [19:40] across China found the same thing. The [19:43] frequency of black and white dreaming [19:45] correlated strongly with how common [19:47] black and white TV was in a person's [19:49] area. So, did black and white movies and [19:53] TV literally change our dreams? [19:58] Well, first of all, it's not clear [20:00] whether dreams themselves actually [20:02] changed or if people just started [20:05] thinking differently about their dreams. [20:08] We're trying, but we still haven't found [20:10] a way to get direct access to dream [20:13] content. Eric Switchable has pointed out [20:16] that as far as we know, dreams may not [20:19] be in color or black and white or sepia [20:22] or anything. They may be primarily [20:25] indeterminant in color as they happen. [20:28] And only later during recall do we [20:31] confabulate details about color. He [20:33] compares dreaming to reading. Is a novel [20:37] in color or black and white? As you read [20:40] a story, what do you see in your mind? [20:44] It might be the case that dreams, [20:46] vaporous as they are, are something we [20:48] simply have a terrible grip on, and that [20:51] movies and TV shows have given us the [20:54] illusion of understanding them. In fact, [20:57] Switchable has speculated that smells [20:59] and touch sensations are rare in dreams [21:03] today. But future people with smelly, [21:07] touchyfey VR shows might think that they [21:10] dream with lots of textures and odors [21:13] and find it strange, maybe even [21:15] frightening that few of us seem to. But [21:19] why would we think that dreams were like [21:21] moving pictures and not normal waking [21:24] life? Well, no one knows. It might be [21:28] that motion pictures are just simply the [21:31] closest thing we have to dreaming that [21:34] isn't dreaming. Unlike still images, [21:38] paintings, photographs, tapestries, [21:41] motion pictures and dreams can contain [21:44] movement and narrative and cause and [21:45] effect. And unlike stage plays or real [21:49] life, motion pictures and dreams are not [21:53] made of anything that is even remotely [21:56] similar to what they depict. They're [21:58] both made of phantoms. [22:03] Images are uncanny things. A person in [22:06] an image is frozen in time, but yet can [22:10] seem to grow old. Our own image can [22:13] depend on what we are called. And [22:16] they're the closest thing we have to [22:18] what our mind does when we're away. [22:22] Do you get the picture [22:25] or does the picture get you? [22:28] And as always, thanks for watching [22:36] where [22:38] I live. [22:43] [Music] [22:52] Yeah.