The Nightmare Engine Podcast
Welcome to The Nightmare Engine — a weekly show that churns with dread and drips with dark insight. Hosted by David Viergutz, the Master of Malice, this show tears back the curtain on all things horror. From the art of scaring readers to chilling interviews with guests of the macabre—authors, occultists, scholars of the strange—you'll explore the gears that keep the genre grinding.
And nestled in the static… notes from The Curator of The Dead Letters, whispering deeper truths from the shadows.
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The Nightmare Engine Podcast
Facing Fears and Superstitions: Christine Daigle on Dark Thrillers and the Psychology of Fear
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What uncanny fears keep you up at night? Join us as we unravel the intricacies of fear and superstition on the latest episode of the Nightmare Engine podcast. We're thrilled to have Christine Daigle, a versatile writer shifting from steampunk to dark thrillers, join us for an exploration into the eerie and unsettling. Together, we navigate through an array of chilling superstitions, from the haunting Latin of exorcism prayers to the disquieting tales of mirrors in shadowy rooms, all while sharing personal stories from my past as a police officer facing the unknown.
As we journey further, the discussion takes exhilarating twists into the realm of irrational fears and dangerous thrills. From the heights of skydiving to the ominous fear of trains, we dissect why some dangers entice us while others paralyze us with fear. Alongside Christine, we ponder the neuroscience behind sociopathic behavior, featuring insights from neuropsychologist James Fallon, and examine the role of environmental influences in shaping one's moral compass through gripping anecdotes of investigating violent crimes.
The episode culminates in a heartfelt discussion on the power of empathy and human connection. We reflect on the importance of acknowledging emotions and fostering genuine interactions, much like those learned from FBI interrogator training. Our conversation also touches on the fascinating intersection of technology and mental health, diving into the potential, and potential pitfalls, of brain-computer interfaces. With a lighter touch, we end with a humorous story about an airline system playfully named Skynet. Tune in for a rollercoaster of emotions and insights that promise to leave you both pensive and entertained.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of excuse me, another episode of the Nightmare Engine podcast. It's about five o'clock on the last day of January and it does not even feel like the last day of the month. This month seems like it'd keep going, especially with the weather here in Texas. This is episode eight or something of season three, maybe I don't know. It doesn't matter, it just matters that you were here and you were listening. So just a real quick recap on what's been going on.
Speaker 1:I just got the sound bites back from the first audio edition, I guess you could say, of Scare Mail 2, which is called, titled the Drift. It's going to be taking place in space. This is Silence of the lambs, um, uh, meets a space horror. So, uh, for my friends of fans of event horizon astrophobia, um, alien, um, if you're looking to listen to a lady who sounds just like sigourney weaver narrate these letters, it is going to be awesome. Um, besides that, I got some more requests to focus on um, another horror book we got coming out this year. It would be my. I think it would be the third one this year Roanoke.
Speaker 1:So we had some discussions last week with another author in the previous episode about weird occurrences that have no explanation, how that makes great basis for writing horror stories. So that's what I got, guys. Nothing too crazy, just maintaining things. I'm back on Facebook, finally. I never thought I'd say that, but I'm unbanned from Facebook, but there's some blessings there, and so I'm just really happy to go back to what I know, go back to what I'm creating and bring you all along with me. So I'm very lucky to be in the presence of Good Company tonight. I'm not alone on this show, even though our guest is not said anything. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to Miss Christine Daigle.
Speaker 2:Christine how are you? I'm great. How are you?
Speaker 1:Pretty good considering all things. I know we were chatting a little bit before the show, but a little bit different side of the country, the world, than me, so where are you calling in from again?
Speaker 2:than me. So where you calling from again? Oh, I'm in ontario, southern ontario. I am actually, uh, about 10 minutes outside of detroit. For you folks in the us, I'm south of detroit, so the journey song is in fact about me, born and raised in south detroit and and so you have snow. Then oh yeah, it's snowing right now as we speak.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we had snow in texas, and by snow in Texas I mean it coated the ground and people panic and lost their minds. Um, I grew up in on the East coast and so I'm I'm very well aware of what snow does. Um, and and for whatever reason, it just makes people lose their minds. It's, it's, it's kind of unbelievable. I'm not trying to talk about the weather so much as I am about just the human condition of like. There is change and now bad things are happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're not used to that down there in Texas, you're not used to that stuff falling from the sky. No, no, if it's 105,.
Speaker 1:We got this Like let's go to work, but as soon as there's a little bit of snow or even water, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, anyways, so cool. Well, anyways, so cool. Christine, I know a bit about you, but I don't think the listeners do. And that's okay, because a lot of times we recognize people based on the book covers or maybe who we've co-written with and that sort of thing. Versus face-to-face, like this, writing's a lonely business. We don't get to meet people very often. So, christine, give us a little bit who you are and what do you do.
Speaker 2:Oh sure so I'm a writer. Surprise, you know who you are and what do you do. Oh sure, so, uh, I'm a writer. Surprise, shocker. Uh, I'm a bit of a multi-genre writer. So, oh, I've been writing about 10 years now. I guess my first book that came out I co-wrote, uh, was steampunk. And then steampunk yeah, it was my. It was vampires and zombies. We don't call zombies and you know, adventure, that kind of thing. Uh, I wrote serials for a while. Pen named did a sci-fi series, did a horror series, uh, for several years. And now I am writing dark thrillers with jd barker just had one come out. That is kind of a seven meets silence of the lambs vibe old school killer meets high-tech killer and bad stuff ensues tell me it's got like a oh my god, what's in the box?
Speaker 1:moment. No, there's no what's in the box, and I don't know.
Speaker 2:There's no such an opportunity yeah, so cool, so dark thrillers um, is there a difference between a dark and a light thriller? Read through them and one of them was just like. I had to put this down because it was so visceral and I couldn't keep going and I'm like yes, that's how you know you're reading a dark thriller but doesn't visceral mean like relatable, yeah well, I think that there was also something about violence and gore in there, but we're gonna go with visceral. So what?
Speaker 1:so you ask like how, how is this reader relating to this, if it's so visceral? And you got like what kind of life are you living Like lady?
Speaker 2:let's talk, yeah, I know, and I was like great, because that's your job as a writer. Right is to create an experience. So if I can make someone so squicked out that they put down the book, I have done my job. I was just delighted with that review.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, very cool, and that's um, so is that? What makes Darth Vader a little bit different thing is just kind of the relatability to it.
Speaker 2:I think maybe the level of, like, uh, violence and murder, so this one might be a little. There's a lot of people die in this book in some pretty horrific ways. Well and hopefully creative ways right yeah, and then you know, I think just uh, really creating some monsters. I, I know, in horror you have all kinds of monsters, I think in thrillers people are the monsters and I've got some, some pretty significant monsters in that book yeah, so that's kind of where the lines blur a little bit too because, I I wrote a story um as part of my thesis, and the entire point was to just have people be the monsters and show like, yeah, there was a monster there, but it really isn't the bad thing.
Speaker 1:I mean, think about what happens in every single zombie movie yeah zombies just keep people in a close knit right. They're just standing at the door, you can't leave, and then it's just what people do to each other.
Speaker 2:That's awful exactly those are like my favorite horrors, usually like there are always exceptions to everything, but when you don't see the monster, or like all that tension up until you see the monster. And then when peoples are, when people are the monsters and there are other monsters. That's my favorite. Like I was just reading adam neville uh, his new book it's all the fiends of hell and it was just horrific monsters, but the people were the worst monsters. And that's my favorite kind of horror.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unless you're like M Night Shyamalan and do it like terribly in the village.
Speaker 2:We won't talk about that.
Speaker 2:Because like kudos to the guy for putting on a cool twist, but like also not kudos for ruining it and doing it the worst way possible yeah, I don't envy him because he had such success early on and you know people are like, oh my gosh, the twist with the sixth sense and everything, yeah, and now I feel like he has to keep trying to top himself with twists, but more for the sake of twists and serving the story and I don't know. I feel like he's uh needs to break out of what he's doing, maybe a little bit right now. Maybe do something with less twist yeah, yeah, well, and so it's.
Speaker 1:It's taken me a long time to be like really impressed with like mainstream media and a movie or TV show that was had that kind of hit you know like really had that like right in the middle, mind bender.
Speaker 1:You know, I wrote a book like that and it was like, and it's called not okay, and it's got the biggest like kick I could possibly come up with and like I was really proud of how well it was executed or how well it was received. Um, but it doesn't seem to come naturally. You know, we really got to kind of push it a little bit and really build a story around it. Yeah, you know, I look for twists like that as more like an opportunistic thing. You know, it's like if it suits what I'm doing, right? Yeah, there was a movie I saw lately. It was called Speak no Evil. It was played by and I think, based on what you write, I think you would you would absolutely adore this movie. Um, it was played by the character who plays like professor x in uh, the young in x-men, but the younger version you know, kind of got long hair before.
Speaker 1:They were all x-men and charles xavier and all that. I can't remember the actor's name. I gotta find it um I'm sure somebody's like.
Speaker 1:I know that, of course, yeah um, but anyways, in this though he's like ginormous, like jacked, he's huge, right, and he plays this character, um, in a french countryside um, that is basically um, not who he says he is right, and everybody kind of watches from the exterior, watches this family just kind of fall into it over and over and over again and watch this character manipulate this guy, um, this family, to the point that they're making all the wrong decisions in horror, right, yeah, and and like hey, we should split up or hey, we can just wait another day and leave in the morning.
Speaker 1:You know, like all the things you're not supposed to do, and the entire time you're just like screaming at the characters like please do the opposite. Yeah, exactly, um, and so, like watching this, I'm like how and we talked about this last week and it's just a reoccurring thought in my head is like how do we? How do we keep that going, that momentum going, like why do we? Why do characters always seem to fall into the same traps? And I think it's probably this, like we said earlier, like the human condition, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I've thought about that a lot and I think about with horror movies, cause you're screaming at them, cause you know the trope, right, right, you know if you go into the basement or you're opening the door to let the cat outside, or you know, because you're primed see a horror movie, that something really bad is going to happen and they should not go in that basement. But I'm like, if I was home by myself and I heard a noise in the basement, I would probably go in the basement because I wouldn't be thinking like there's a psychopathic killer down there who's going to come to get me or whatever. Right, right, yeah. So I think it really is a human thing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you kind of convince yourself like there wouldn't be a scary thing, because this is the real world, right. Or in the book it's like ah, this is a regular world, there's not this kind of stuff waiting for me? And it inevitably is.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then you hesitate and no, we're not. Then you hesitate and no, we're not gonna. Okay, we're not going down that dark path like this can't be happening.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is a movie, while back called nope. And I wonder if, like the entire movie was basically just a whole bunch of bad decisions like that they could have made and they're like you know what, nope, nope, um, that'd be interesting last week we talked a bit, um, talked a little bit about like cryptids and stuff like up in the mountains, like and and there was a book I think it was called never whistle at night.
Speaker 1:I don't remember who was written by, but it was. I think it was based off like an old belief, and so like I kind of want to talk a little bit about that, about about old beliefs. You know things that you know almost like traditions or things that you kind of avoid to doing because of superstition and that sort of thing, and I always find like, if there's a little bit of truth to that somewhere right, because that's always what happens with these dark stories there's always a little bit of truth.
Speaker 1:Um, I believe hannibal lecter was based off a real person. I just can't remember who he was. Um, so that makes it even more scary. Right is because there is some level of truth to these things.
Speaker 1:So think about the mothman like yeah level of truth to the mothman, somewhere at least a little bit, you know. Is there a truth to roanoke? Is there a truth to any of this? So like you know that that whole theory of like never whistle at night, you know like where did that come from? So I want to talk a little bit about if there's any of those types of weird things that you know of that you're like you know, I'm just not gonna do that thing, I'm not gonna cross this bridge at night, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm saying you know I'm not a real superstitious person, but you sometimes get those hairs on the back of your neck. That's like I better listen to that and and not do that. Yeah, that kind of thing like, uh, I'm gonna go a different way than I usually would, or so. I get those kind of things sometimes where I'm like something's just like don't do this thing the way you normally would, so I'll avoid things. I don't know what that is. I'm a person who's unapologetically, I'm like I don't believe in the thing, but I also don't not believe in the thing sure so when people like, oh, do you believe in this?
Speaker 2:I'm like I don't believe in it, but I also don't not believe in it and I don't want to believe in it, because then I'll be freaked out right, like I know I write horror. But I am such a baby, like with horror, like I will have nightmares after watching horror movies and after reading books. I cannot sleep for like ages. Um, in terms of superstitions, I don't know. Mirrors freak me out. I don't know that mirrors do freak me out I don't know why.
Speaker 2:That is especially mirrors in the dark, like looking in a mirror in the dark so I got fine I don't like that so I'll share.
Speaker 1:It's a little on the funny end, but it is still kind of it, is it? It it's for sharing. So, um, my wife and I, we were both police officers. Um we were cops when we met Um. I'm still a cop, I'm just a reserve now I'm full-time writing Um.
Speaker 1:But at one point my wife was uh, clearing a building her partner she told me the story and I'm like I could totally see this because it could totally be a thing. And you know, when you clear a building you go through every room, you know, and your tension's high and you know your nerves are going and you got your weapon out and you're trying to protect yourself and watch everything and see everything and every little movement sticking out. And you're going through a building. There could be somebody in there and you don't know what he's got you don't know if he's even in there gosh, you know and don't even realize what you're getting into yeah you know, and couldn't even think about it anyways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was yeah, that's what it is, I think, like in the dark and any kind of like movement in your periphery or like behind you. That really freaks me out.
Speaker 1:It's like you said, like do you believe in the thing, do you really believe in it, or is it, you know, are you will, a willingness to have an open mind, to believe in something and and be like you know what?
Speaker 1:as long as I don't keep the door open for it, I think I'm okay, you know yeah I won't put latin into my books you won't put latin in your books no, I don't, because I believe that latin, you know, words have yeah, and I don't want to be saying something that could potentially have power of any kind, good or bad, like it's just not, you know, like I listen to. I listen like you've watched the exorcist movies and the prayer, the exorcism prayers that they do Like listening to that. That makes the hairs on my, you know, stand up a little bit Cause.
Speaker 2:I'm like.
Speaker 1:I guess to anybody else, when you say that stuff it, it it's just words, right, but when you believe in it, you know the power, even if it just has power over you. Like it's pretty, it's pretty creepy. Do you believe in like exorcisms and demons?
Speaker 2:and stuff. I don't not believe in them, you know. And, um, I don't not believe in them. You know, I grew up in a very religious household, so we can start here um, my, my father's actually a reverend, uh, so I'm a preacher's kid what denomination uh, so united church of canada, which is like protestant right, okay yeah.
Speaker 2:so you know, I grew up with a lot of that and with a lot of people who have a lot of faith in that. So like doing anything against that, yeah, that, like I would, that would freak me out. So using that in any kind of weird way wrote had a lot kind of explorations of religion and the different way people interpret religion to kind of go with their own beliefs, because I saw a lot of that growing up, like people would interpret things different ways to justify different things, some of them good, some of them not so good and I'm like, oh, it can be good and it cannot be good. But like, yeah, using anything like ancient texts like my dad um had texted in like aramaic and sanskrit and ancient greek and he read all that kind of stuff because he was more interested in the scholarly aspect of it, that was kind of his passion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that stuff's. I don't like. I don't know what that is. I'm not saying that out loud, I'm not reading from the book of the dead or the necronomicon, like that's not, that's not happening, right yeah, I have no logical reason to do it yeah, no, thank you yeah as soon as well, because how does the horror story go?
Speaker 1:it goes like this it's like I don't. I don't believe in this stuff yeah so let me just go read from it I'm like what? No, like. This is the whole premise is you don't do it right, and then cthulhu's there, and then cosmic horror, and yeah okay, so speaking of cthulhu and yes, and cosmic horror, um, so one of the craziest things for me is the, the feeling and realizing how small we really, really are yeah like the sheer scale of our worlds is is nothing.
Speaker 1:It's a blimp, you know right it's, it's a blip, it's nothing, and and I get that feeling whenever I watch a movie that has like a black hole in it, right yeah and so I've got this unnatural fear of black holes, um, and kind of watching what it looks like when and when you sit there. If you spend any amount of time thinking about how black holes work, it's the end of all matter, but it does go somewhere somewhere that's what's scary about it yeah, it's like light can't even escape, like think about that yeah light can't escape that.
Speaker 2:That whole concept to me is just yeah, it's mind-blowing Matter, can't be destroyed, right, so it can only be changed, and so In a closed system. But, I mean, I guess we would argue, the universe is a closed system. We would hope it's not an open system.
Speaker 1:Our brain just explodes as we think about this stuff.
Speaker 1:But yeah yeah, I mean just realizing how small you are Right and realizing that like that thing is so big and powerful that it destroys light. I mean that creates like a sense in you that you're like kind of grounds you a little bit, you know, like when I think when I go swimming in the ocean. I've got Hawaiian roots, so I have a respect for the ocean and my mom has always taught me to respect the ocean. I'm a confident swimmer but at the same time I know that at any point that if I'm not respecting the ocean, the ocean will take me. There's a lot of things in that ocean that I have faith, that are not going to kill me just by me swimming around and going surfing on the beach in Hawaii.
Speaker 1:You just kind of hope and pray. You're going and doing the dangerous activities like jumping out of an airplane, and you're like, yeah, I've got a parachute but I could just not jump out of the airplane. Parachute, but I could just not jump out of the airplane. You know, I could go swim in the ocean or I could just not do that, you know, because there's a high risk of death and that thing is, you know, there is no control over that thing no um and so yeah, just it's a weird feeling when you take a few seconds and you're just like you think about things that we do it is a weird feeling.
Speaker 2:Have you ever jumped out of an airplane?
Speaker 1:no, no, it's on my list of things to do.
Speaker 2:I have, I have um yeah, skydiving I was younger, I was in my twenties, right. So now I'm like, no, I think I'm good, I think I like survival. But when I was in my twenties I'm like, yeah, I'll go jump out of an airplane, and um had done one. That is not tandem, so most places will make you strapped to your first jump out. And of course, I'm 20 and, like, I have found a place where you don't have to do that. They won't strap you, they'll let you pilot your own shoot down.
Speaker 2:Um, so that was wild. They they have, uh, two guys go out with you and each one holds an arm and a leg until they tell you to rip your chute and then you're on your own, you pilot down, and I really wanted to do that. So that's what I did for my first jump. Yeah, I was on a very small plane, like I was the first jump of the day, so they put me up with these two guys and a pilot and I was the only one jumping, and the plane was smaller than the other ones where they open the door and you jump out. I had to stand on the wheel and hold on to the strut on the wing with these two other guys. So it was wild.
Speaker 2:But, like I don't know, I think when you're younger you don't really understand your mortality quite as much because they make you train. So you have a simulation of your chute and you have to train to untangle your chute in case your chute fails. So you have to go through all these situations of your chute failing or tangling where you might die, before they'll let you jump out of the plane. So that for me. And then I did it anyway. So I'm like I don't know what's wrong with me that I did that, but it was fun, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:So like the holding on to you, like my holding onto your leg or whatever. Yeah, you know, it reminds me of it. Reminds me of like hey, um, you're drunk, son, I'll just follow you home. Yeah, like that false sense of like, yeah, I'm protecting you, like everything's fine, like yeah. As long as I follow you, you crash your car because you're drunk exactly, exactly it's like that whole idea, like yeah, your shoe will be fine as long as you pull it the right time, because I'm holding your leg yes, I'm holding it.
Speaker 2:It was, that was wild, yeah, so, um, I'm not sure that I would do that now, but I'm glad that I did it yeah, yeah, there's certain things I'm like okay, like, but it's so irrational of me too, I'll be like yeah, I'll go skydiving.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, I have no problem, um, but like I won't get on a train you can't convince me to, I won't do it is that because you have no control?
Speaker 2:is that a control thing?
Speaker 1:no, it's a. It's a. It's an irrational fear thing an irrational thing well, I think it came from a book, uh, from stephen king. Um, what about his flying train? I can't remember the name of it, fuck thanks, stephen king. Scaring people from the dark tower series oh yeah it wasn't eddie the train, but it was the glass bottom train that flies okay like, like for whatever. I read that book extremely young and I can't just the whole idea of the old steam locomotive anyways, anyway yeah irrational fear.
Speaker 1:I'll jump out of an airplane, I'll go into a building with a guy with a gun. I'll do all that stuff, but you know no trains. I have another rational one Tornadoes Don't like them and what's worse is like a roaring tornado, like going by. Sounds like a train going by. So that's even worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I'm actually at the end of what they call tornado alley, so I'm familiar. We'll get them here every couple years and they do a little bit of damage.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and you just like build a house in it, like, yeah, build a house in tornado alley, this is fine yeah what are the odds? It hits my house right, you know yeah, let's just, let's just take this gamble, it'll be fine yeah you know, um, but yeah, so like, like, uh, tornadoes that's a control thing, because like this, so it's such, so just you know, so destructive yeah, and you can't prepare for them.
Speaker 2:There's no warning right, not like hurricanes, not like um. You know, they just show up and then touch down, right yeah and, and then they leave and it's like like thanks thank you for destroying my house yeah, and it's, it's, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's a weird sense with it. It's a weird sense with uh, with the tornadoes I used to have to chase them as part of my job, um, so we'd go and spot them and I'd oh, wow my patrol car and I'd get far enough away.
Speaker 1:I kind of knew where it was at in the county and I would have to watch it during the storm. Now, anything about tornadoes is that, like, even the outlier around the tornado is very vicious because of that wind that's coming in. So like, even near the tornado anywhere in that clouded area is pretty much just tossing your car around. So you know, we were doing that up in West Texas where it's all cap rock, so it's, it's this hilly, weird area that's very volatile for natural disaster and for mudslides and that sort of thing, just because it's all this weird stony rock that can kind of crumble really easily.
Speaker 2:No, thank you. Pass Zero to 10. Do not recommend, I do not want to do that. We said let's go build on it, right?
Speaker 1:Let's go chase the storm. So when I got up there, they were like, hey, you're going to have to we do storm chasing. I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, yeah, person, I go away from the tornadoes, and no, you go towards it. Oh no. And I'm like I've seen twister. I'm not going towards it and they said you are and you know it's your part of your job.
Speaker 1:So so you faced your fears yeah, I faced my fears and I'm still terrified yeah, do not like tornadoes, no um, you know and and I don't know, like I said it's, it's irrational, like I'll jump out of an airplane, I'll go in the ocean, um, but I weird stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know, like I said, it's, it's irrational, like I'll jump out of an airplane, I'll go in the ocean, um, but I weird stuff like that yeah, I don't think a fear of tornadoes is irrational, actually yeah, I guess that's the point. I mean it's a good point, it's, it is trains.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know about trains, but the tornado ones, no, I'll be running the other way too.
Speaker 1:Thanks, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah and some anyways. So yeah, I just I think about these situations, right yeah we that we write about, we, we write about these situations and we try to make them as realistic for folks as possible, like what we think they would encounter right. And so for a lot of people that is where the fear starts. And you know, we we relate to people with that because, like, anybody is kind of can be afraid of jumping off an airplane right if you can make that scary yeah you know, anybody, can you know if you think about um, the langoliers by king?
Speaker 1:you know those are mini black holes, these little black thing, these little fur balls with teeth at eight time, like that's pretty much a black hole yeah, I mean it's the same thing, and he just made it really small and made a whole bunch of them and I'm like, oh man, like he related to me on that level, because that's what I thought of these things. I couldn't relate to what a langolier was, but I could relate to what I thought a langolier was related to.
Speaker 2:Right. You know, I think that's a key right is making it concrete and experiential, so something that you can get your hands on in the real world and you can experience, or at least imagine experiencing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Like, if it's so unreal, then the monster is not even scary anymore. Whatever that monster thing is, you know, like, after a certain point, like and I wonder this you've written some kind of serial killer thriller ish. You know, in the, you know, do you try to humanize the killer.
Speaker 2:It's probably of course, you have to like your serial killers. They're people too. They're the heroes of their own story, that's, they think they're doing the right thing for the right reasons that's exactly right, you know yeah it's like reminds me of dexter yeah, of course you have to, otherwise they're cartoonish, right, they're two-dimensional. If they're, I always like I know we're not talking writing process, but I'm going to talk writing process anyways, but I'll spreadsheet, uh, when I'm doing a revision, and then be what is my killer doing now?
Speaker 2:right right, because that that has to be driving. And what are they thinking and what is their perspective on this scene? Cause they're not just someone that come in to like, twirl a mustache and then walk off Evil for evil's sake, yeah. They're the other half of that story, right, and it's their story too. It's not just the protagonist story, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's kind of the crazier things. Like I went to Zach baggins's haunted house um in las vegas and whether or not it was the real one or not, it could just be television, but like they had I think it was gacy's um basically giant punch bowl that he used to boil people in. Oh, like, whether or not it was the real one, yeah, you know that still would give you like gazey was a monster, right?
Speaker 1:yeah but in his mind it wasn't. He still have a day job as a clown yeah, he was a clown, yeah, yeah he still had a normal job, yeah right, or normal to a degree, right, and then at home he had that big pot of boiling like, and that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's what's scary, right that's what's scary is that, like I think that's probably where we get that sense from too, and you're just like you walk past somebody and you get a weird, a weird sense from them. Like that felt weird. Like do I really want to be close to this person, kind of like, get out of this room right now with this person like this does not? You know? There's probably a sense there that we're just picking up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's really interesting, like when you look, we can get into serial killers if you want, but, um, you know how many people were like, oh, they're a quiet guy, they're the guy next door, they're a nice, they'd help you out, you know, yeah, and then they're so dark and I mean I find them fascinating, right, because it's like, and some of them have wives and families not very many, uh, female serial killers, but some, some of them have husbands and, um, it's just like, how do you justify this? Because you have to, like, you have to be able to justify it, otherwise you wouldn't be able to live with yourself, right?
Speaker 1:I think a part of them doesn't justify it. They just kind of ignore the justification. They just kind of do. Yeah so they lack justification. You know, we, as the normal, regular people, want justification. We want them to have any reason to do this other than because they can.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's probably where the illness comes from. You know, that's probably where the lack of empathy towards human life comes from is the fact that they can't Right. So if you talk about sociopaths, I think it's the sociopaths that can't feel anything.
Speaker 2:Well, that's interesting. So my day job I'm a neuropsychologist, so we can talk about this a little bit.
Speaker 1:We should absolutely.
Speaker 2:There was a really, really interesting neuropsychologist and his name was James Fallon, not Jimmy Fallon James Fallon who was studying sociopaths and their brains. What we know is that when we see something that should make us emotional, like a baby crying or an animal hurt, the emotion area of our brain lights up like the amygdala that area, whereas someone who is a quote sociopath looks at it, they think about it with their intellectual areas, their more frontal areas. But he was doing this study and he was also studying dementia patients and I think. And then he had scanned his family just to look at their brains and he's like, oh, one of these scans from the sociopaths got mixed in with my family.
Speaker 1:And it was his own brain.
Speaker 2:It was his own brain, yeah, and so it started this whole thing about yeah, and so it started this whole thing about pro-social and anti-social sociopaths. So some people who have good influences are doing things. Maybe they don't feel them the same way as some other people, but they know that they're intellectually the right thing to do and and they are what they call pro-social sociopaths. But when you have people maybe who have missed that and what research shows like is when they have nobody who is their cheerleader or supporting them or showing them pro-social ways, they can go down really dark paths. Um, I get, I get kind of very interested. Yeah, I was watching the Dahmer one and it was like they just left him on his own, like his watching the Dahmer one, and it was like they just left him on his own, like his parents abandoned him for months and it was like with someone looking out for him would it have been different?
Speaker 1:I don't know they lack so they lack inherently like a moral compass, right, but they can watch others and see reason in their moral compass and adopt it and so they become a functional sociopath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so their morals are more intellectual than emotional. If that makes sense, they think about it cognitively. This is the right thing to do, then be feeling like, oh man, this would make me feel sad right.
Speaker 1:so they think of it like, hey, I shouldn't murder this person because I could go to jail and bad things could happen to me.
Speaker 2:versus yeah, or like you know, my my wife wouldn't like that. That, or my my my mom says that that's not the thing you do, but maybe they don't actually feel something about it the way that other people would. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. Yeah, and so the brain scans showed a difference in these. Yeah, he was doing functional MRIs.
Speaker 2:I think they were functional MRIs, if I recall this correctly. Like you can look him up, his name's James Fallon. Just type in pro social sociopaths. You'll find it Like. The whole thing was just so cool to me that these differences in brain functioning and the theory that, just like having a cheerleader and someone to show you the right path, can put you down a good road, but whereas if you're neglected or rejected or abandoned or abused, you might be going down a different path. It's that whole nature nurture thing. I always think everything is epigenetic, which means you have a set of genes that gives you a range of something, and where you fall on that range for good or bad is kind of environmentally based. But yeah, I could go on. This is like a whole other podcast and we can just like minds of serial killers. It's totally fine.
Speaker 1:So I am. I'm actually one kill away from the serial killer Perfect. I've investigated double homicide and the technical serial killer is three um and so I got to investigate double homicide my one of my last cases before I left yeah um and the I went to the autopsy, and so this is a little bit gruesome here for a second. But, um, autopsies, um, when the cops go, you can make requests. Hey, can you put a little extra attention to this thing?
Speaker 1:And it's really interesting what the coroner does to, or the medical examiner does to the killer, because he's being autopsied next to the. You know they bring the bodies at the same time.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:How much attention is spent on him versus how much attention is spent on the other person, and that's, um, on the victim, um, and so I said, right as they were about to conclude her autopsy, um, because of murder, suicide. Um, I said did, can we see if she was pregnant? And they said, yes, I can check. And they, the look on their faces was like, oh my gosh, like we didn't even consider that because she never talked about it, we didn't know she was.
Speaker 1:But this is one of the this, this particular crime, was a. If I can't have you, nobody will right um, and so, as she was leaving, you know that's when he committed the act, um, and they were able to pull out those parts and actually examine them to find out if she was and see it well and showed me and said no, she's not.
Speaker 1:And I was, like I remember, there for like 30 seconds I was like how depraved could this really go? Like how much deeper could this go? And like just thinking to myself like this could have been, like this could have been even worse, like it was bad now. Like, don't get me wrong, like it was it was bad, but like it could have been even worse. Yeah, like it was bad now. Like don't get me wrong, like it was bad, but like it could have been even worse. Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2:The things people do are shocking. Like I started my career as a, I did some rotations and I worked in downtown detroit hospital and I used to do um base all kinds of stuff there, yeah psychology, psychiatry rotation, so they just give you a pager to go fix stuff and like some of the stuff that I saw, I'm just like how can a person do that? You know, mostly to themselves is what I was seeing, and it was just like human thoughts and I don't know the way that you're just your brains are fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you see the other side of that. There's a bit of compassion I have for mental illness. Um so I was a mental health officer um a health investigator, where every call I had for about eight to 10 calls a day was someone who was either homicidal or suicidal. We were specifically trained to deal with these people and the amount of people that I saw in the midst of mental health crisis that were they were not themselves.
Speaker 2:No, they're not, they were not.
Speaker 1:And seeing that I'm like that's as close and the things that they do to themselves and the things that they do to others and the things that they don't do to themselves and and don't do to others, really kind of puts in my mind like if there was demons in the world. This is it right here? Yeah, because that is not this normal person. Like, I know this person.
Speaker 1:I know them when they're on their medication, I know them when they're in in a good position and when they're not and I've dealt with them before and this is different- you know and the things that they do in those moments.
Speaker 1:It really is like it is fascinating the brain chemistry and how all that works and how we're just you know, I know we're getting kind of deep into this and I kind of come from a superficial perspective. You've probably got the expertise on it, but it's like we're just bundles of liquid and electrical impulses and a little bit of luck and stardust basically, and that's what makes us tick and at any point that could go off the rails.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, and so yeah. So I mean, I worked like I don't know how many people I've talked off the ledge. It just became an everyday thing, right, and and it was a matter of, like you said, like intervention. It's amazing what that would that just be something like my first. My favorite line for somebody who's like in the throes of of mental health is hey man, what's your name? Nobody bothered to ask them their name yeah what's your name?
Speaker 1:yeah and just ask, and it's amazing, like how many people will very quickly snap and they're just yeah, snap out of what they're in yeah kind of come back towards reality yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That's all what we do. Number one is always ask a name. Do you know where you are? What's your name? Do you know where you are?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know what day it is. You know, like you know what day is it, who's the president?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and then, yeah, some emotion naming you, look, are you frustrated or like what's going on, and then people will talk like when you're just interested in them.
Speaker 1:Yes, I went to an FBI interrogator school and one of the one of the one of the tactics that they taught us was basically during negotiations and interrogations is how to you know like hey man, like. And instead of asking, like hey man, what are you doing today? You know, what are you doing Like, why are you doing this? Instead of that, you say rough day, yeah, yeah. Rough day, yeah. Just that Cause it shows empathy and it shows that you care about that person, and it's not a bad thing to care about the person that you're trying to help.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And and that's the thing I think people kind of mistake and and I know we're we're a little bit off from where we normally stand, but that's totally fine, because I think this stuff is so interesting and it's human psychology.
Speaker 2:It's in our yeah, you know, there was a huge shift, like when I first started. I don't do a ton of therapy, I mostly do diagnosis and then set people up with services. But when I used to start, the kind of guidelines on therapy was like you have to be stoic. Where that's really shifted Now it's like no, you need, you need to connect with people and people need to see that you are also human and if they make you cry, it's okay to cry in therapy, right. So there's been kind of a 180 on like looking at how do you help people and I don't think you know being stoic is necessarily, else is trying to be stoic, then what? Why should they waste the energy talking to you when?
Speaker 1:they can talk to anybody else, Right? I mean, that's like I had a pretty good success rate of talking people off the ledge and it was only because I like I walked up there like, not like a cop in uniform, I walked up and they're like a person like.
Speaker 1:Hey man what are we doing today, you know, and, but hey, that, hey, that's um, oh man, the, the, the mental health side of things, just in from from entertainment perspective, from, uh, our movies, from our books, like it really is like the final frontier of anything is possible, right? I mean, I mean, so do you? Do you try to like dive into that? I mean it's your day job, right, so do you write about other things? Or do you try to like dive into that? I mean, it's your day job, right, so do you write about other things, or do you kind of like?
Speaker 2:I don't. I write a lot about weird brain stuff, like I love to do weird brains, like this thing can go on but I don't do a ton of like mental health because, I don't know, I don't feel real comfortable using that for entertainment. Serial killers are one thing, anything else I'm like, eh, I don't. I don't really want to fictionalize that, um, you know, but I do love doing brains. Um, I, I do some work with brain computer interface, so that that's a whole other podcast. Uh, most people know Mr Musk's Neuralink, which is the implantable. The one that I work with is a headset. It's just like a EEG you wear on your head and it listens to brain signals and so I use it with kids with neuromotor disorders who don't have mobility, so they can access things in their environment, like turning on their YouTube or turning on their fan when they're hot and those types of things.
Speaker 2:Right, Without having to implant it into your spine, correct, I you know I like something about wearable tech that can be upgraded without opening your skull. I'm just going to say that, you know, I I think it's better. I mean, there are pros and cons. You get a little more background noise in your brain when you're wearing the wearable and with an implant, but still pretty darn effective, you know, and you don't have to risk terminator style, end of the world type stuff, correct? It doesn't emit anything. It's just literally like listening to the electrical activity in your brain through saline soaked felt pads and like that's it. That's all that's on there and um, I, I am working on fictionalizing some of that because I'm like this could also go very wrong. Yeah, so, with the neural link, more version of it.
Speaker 1:So I would love to write more about that, for sure yeah yeah yeah, the text out of things does, especially as of late has kind of brought up some new ideas for things that can be created and yeah new kind of horror yeah, especially when it's like right in your face, right, yeah, it's like top of mind everybody's worried about, like ai, yeah, right, and it's like well, gotta write about it now like everybody's talking about it yeah, for sure well it is kind of scary some of the predictions about what could happen with ai so well you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, all we have to do is say, you know, well, funny story my mom's a flight attendant. Okay, the name of their system that they use is called skynet oh, oh, no, no yeah exactly I'm like come on, like airplanes, skynet, okay, whatever you know. So I give her hell about Skynet taking over the world. Well, cool Christine, it has been awesome Like, so much fun Like.
Speaker 1:I don't even care that, like, this is all within the wheelhouse of things that I think the people listening are interested in. Cool the people listening are interested in, and it's so much fun to bring other minds in and just to talk about the stuff that we find interesting which is, you know, hopefully relatable to the people who listen to, because it's, you know, we're the people that go to sleep listening to forensic files. You know like that's.
Speaker 2:That was a fun conversation, so like I really appreciate you inviting me on to chat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate it too, so real quick. This is the shameless time. Everybody appreciate it too, so real quick. This is the shameless time. Everybody knows it comes.
Speaker 2:So real quick shameless plug.
Speaker 1:Let people know where to find you and let them know if there's a book you think they should start with. They really liked what you had to say today and, hey, jump into a book or jump into a short story. Where should they start?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can find me at christinedegelbookscom. Degel is D-A-I-G-L-E. I know that's a weird one, but it's christinedegglebookscom. My latest book, heavy Are the Stones with JD Barker, which, if you like Seven Silence of the Lambs with a high-tech twist, you're going to like that book. Other than that, I'm working on the Flatliner sequel right now with JD, so that's the next thing I've got coming out. Liner sequel right now with JD, so that's the next thing I've got coming out so you can keep an eye out for that.
Speaker 1:When it's finished, perfect Well, thank you, christine. Thank you for your insight and for the awesome conversation and for following me down whatever rabbit hole we just happen to go on on the show. So it's always so much fun when it's like this, when it's just raw and it's unscripted. So this is unscripted. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I know, but yeah, so anyways, thank you Christine, thank you listeners, thank you for your time and thank you for your love from all the way around the world. We appreciate you. This has been another episode of the Nightmare Ninja podcast. I'm your host, dave Vergoots, and we're joined today by the lovely Christine Daigle. Thank you, everybody.
Speaker 2:Thanks.
