Deeply Human

Why aren’t you naked?

Unless you’re reading this in the shower, sunbathing on a progressive beach, or as a fresh born babe, you’re probably wearing clothing - even if it’s hot out. Some people would rather risk death than stand totally naked in front of their peers.

Dessa tracks the topic from fig leaves to fur coats, colonialism to app user agreements, to find out why our sense of modesty is so pervasive.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do our bodies react to rhythm?

From rain dances to raves, dance has been a social tool for sexual selection and community cohesion. Dessa explores the neuroscience of music and movement, learns how dance therapy is used to treat motor disorders, and takes a lesson in butoh - the Japanese form sometimes called the Dance of Darkness.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Heyo, why do you talk like that?

Do French babies cry in French? Our accents may start to take shape well before we learn our first words. Dessa investigates why we speak the way we do - how our accents and dialects serve us; hamper us; and might even, in rare cases, lead to life-or-death consequences.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Monogamy, sleep deprivation, high fashion, and avant-garde Japanese dance—that’s right Deeply Human is coming back with a bang. In season 2, Dessa, speaks to psychologists, animal behaviorists, mathematicians, historians, and one legendary DJ to ask the evergreen question: why do you do what you do? Why does music animate our bodies? Why are we so keen to form social hierarchies? Why do humans use intoxicants? We’re talking about everyone’s favorite topic—you.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s time to talk. It is never too late for a rigorous conversation about death activism, the guillotine and the ferocity of human love — unless, of course, you are dead already.

It is time to meet the death doulas who can help you through this, and learn why a “good death” might not be a good thing, and why it might be time to sit down with a pen and a pad and do a little thinking about your own exit.

Deeply Human is a BBC World Service and American Public Media coproduction with iHeartMedia.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if everything you experienced felt like you had already lived it before? Meet the people for whom déjà vu is every day. 

It’s that moment when you mix up past and present, the real and the imagined, and you can no longer trust your senses. How is it that the world is the same but the experience is completely weird? It’s like tasting your own tongue. What is going on in the mechanics of your mind?

Welcome to Déjà Ville, a virtual world designed to induce déjà vu in order to understand what happens when memory and our senses, our past and our present, all get scrambled up together. 

Deeply Human is a BBC World Service and American Public Media coproduction with iHeartMedia.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The experiences of being a teenager are deep and lasting — first break-ups, fierce arguments with parents, that time a friend tried to skateboard off the roof. Why is that time of life experienced so intensely and remembered so vividly?

Dessa finds that many answers lie in neuroanatomy and the way our brain wires itself as we grow. She meets teens and a brain scientist to find out why the rollercoaster highs and lows of teenage life might be good for us in ways adults just don’t get.

Deeply Human is a BBC World Service and American Public Media coproduction with iHeartMedia.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listening to sad songs is a weird, counterintuitive thing to do. Why listen to something that moves you to tears?

As someone who’s sensitivity to sad songs sometimes means pulling over until the tears clear, Dessa mulls major versus minor, explores what melody has in common with the sound of human crying, and quizzes a fellow songwriter about the power of screaming. Do sad songs reveal some secrets about empathy?

Deeply Human is a BBC World Service and American Public Media coproduction with iHeartMedia.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you think you’re too young to learn about menopause, you’re wrong. Prepare to be both surprised and entertained — and maybe even become a kinder son or daughter.

Our understanding of menopause has changed dramatically, and it’s our distant relatives the whales that may help explain what it’s for. And Dessa has a heart-to-heart with her dad about her grandmother, exploring the parts of our lives we should share more, generation to generation. 

Deeply Human is a BBC World Service and American Public Media coproduction with iHeartMedia.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why, when we’re alone, do we sometimes feel like we’re not? Why are we eager to find signs of life in our surroundings — to see faces in clouds, or to get creeped out when the house creaks at night? 

Dessa investigates some of the most mystical, disorienting and disturbing experiences a person can have. She discovers that neuroscience, the study of our brains, might just help explain this big, important chunk of being human.

Deeply Human is a BBC World Service and American Public Media coproduction with iHeartMedia.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.