This week we're diving into the unsettling world of parasomnias — sleep paralysis, night terrors, sleepwalking, sexsomnia, sleep eating, and sleep talking — using Inception and the 2015 documentary The Nightmare as our jumping-off point. We break down what's actually happening in the brain during these episodes, why sleep paralysis so often comes paired with terrifying hallucinations (hello, incubus and succubus folklore), and how conditions like exploding head syndrome, hypnic jerks, and nightmare disorder differ from garden-variety bad dreams. Pour yourself a Hypnagogic Highball and settle in — just maybe don't listen to this one right before bed.

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This week on Medical Media Mixer, we sit down with Paula Crichton De Alba, director of the 2024 short horror film The English Rose, to explore one of history’s most disturbing intersections: the toxic beauty rituals of Victorian women. From arsenic complexion wafers sold in the Sears & Roebuck catalogue, to lead face paint that cracked if you smiled, to mercury eyelash treatments recommended in Harper’s Bazaar, to belladonna eye drops that caused blindness — Victorian women were literally dying for beauty. PA-C Tara Prisco breaks down the clinical toxicology of arsenic, lead, and mercury poisoning: epidemiology, symptoms, testing, and treatment. Dr. Nicole Peniston brings the psychological lens, exploring the harm loops, impossible beauty standards, and the question that anchors the whole episode: has anything really changed? Cocktail recipes drop every weekend on our socials. New episodes every Monday.

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▶  Historical & Cultural Sources

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▶  Clinical & Medical Sources

This week we're unpacking Voyeur, the 2017 Netflix documentary in which journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades — a bombshell story that becomes a scandal of its own. We use the film as our jumping-off point for a deeper dive into voyeuristic disorder: what separates ordinary curiosity from a diagnosable condition. As the Merck Manual lays out, voyeurism means becoming sexually aroused by watching an unsuspecting person who is disrobing, naked, or engaged in sexual activity, while voyeuristic disorder involves acting on those urges or fantasies, or being distressed or impaired by them — and critically, most people with voyeuristic tendencies never meet criteria for the disorder itself. We also touch on how the law has caught up (or hasn't) with covert filming, and take a quick detour into two related paraphilias, exhibitionism and frotteurism. Sources below. netflix + 2

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In this episode, we're shaking up The Tilt Table-Rita — a salty, passion-fruit margarita that doubles as a nod to one of the first-line treatments for our medical topic tonight — and diving into Netflix's buzzy new true crime documentary The Crash (2026). The film revisits the 2022 Strongsville, Ohio case in which 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla was convicted of murdering her boyfriend Dominic Russo and his friend Davion Flanagan after driving 100 mph into a brick building, with no evidence of braking. What made this case medically significant — and controversial — was the defense's claim that Shirilla blacked out due to POTS: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. We break down the real science of POTS — who gets it, how it's diagnosed, the three pathophysiological subtypes, treatment options, and why so many patients are told for years that it's all in their heads. As always, we keep it clinical, honest, and just a little bit fun.

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This week we're chasing sunlight and shadow. We start with the Sunshine Daydream, a bright, citrus-forward vodka cocktail built for imagining yourself somewhere better even when you're stuck inside. From there we head somewhere much darker: Lars von Trier's Palme d'Or-winning musical tragedy Dancer in the Dark, where Björk's Selma escapes a life of poverty, failing eyesight, and looming disaster by slipping into elaborate musical daydreams. We use Selma as our jumping-off point to dig into the actual neuroscience of daydreaming, what's happening in the brain's default mode network, why daydreaming can boost creativity and problem-solving, and where the line sits between healthy mental escape and maladaptive daydreaming, a proposed clinical syndrome tied to compulsive, hours-long immersive fantasy that can disrupt work and relationships.

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This week on Medical Media Mixer, we're diving into Grady Hendrix's beloved horror novel My Best Friend's Exorcism (2016) and its Amazon Prime Video film adaptation (2022) — a love story about female friendship set against the backdrop of 1988 South Carolina, demonic possession, and a tapeworm that crawls out of someone's mouth in the middle of school. (Yes, really.) The medical pivot point is impossible to ignore: the demon uses body image insecurity as a weapon, delivering a 'diet shake' laced with parasites. This week, we take that moment and run with it — covering the real science of GI parasitic infections including tapeworms, hookworm, pinworm, and amebiasis. We talk transmission, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and the very real (very horrifying) Victorian history of the tapeworm diet. Equal parts camp, friendship, and parasitology. This one crawls under your skin — in the best way.

My Best Friend's Exorcism — Wikipedia

My Best Friend's Exorcism (film) — Wikipedia

Tapeworms: Causes, Types, Symptoms, and Treatments — Medical News Today

Tapeworm Infection — Cleveland Clinic

Tapeworms in Humans — WebMD

Tapeworm — StatPearls / NCBI

Tapeworm Infection (Intestinal Cestodes) — Merck Manual

The Horrifying Legacy of the Victorian Tapeworm Diet — Atlas Obscura

Tapeworm Diet: Weight Loss, Risks and Side Effects — Healthline

Fad Diets and Weight Loss: From the 1800s to the 1930s — ZOE

Common Intestinal Parasites — American Family Physician (2023)

Soil-Transmitted Helminth Infections — Lancet

Entamoeba Histolytica Infection — IDSA Guidelines

The Diagnosis and Treatment of Pinworm Infection — Deutsches Ärzteblatt

This week, Tara and Nicole pour a Hypnosis (vodka, Hpnotiq, and Squirt) while diving into one of the strangest true-crime-meets-medicine stories out there: Florida high school principal Dr. George Kenney, who wasn't a licensed hypnotherapist but ran one-on-one hypnosis sessions with more than 70 students over five years — three of whom (Marcus Freeman, Wesley McKinley, and Brittany Palumbo) died within weeks of each other in 2011. The hosts break down what actually happened, what the SundanceTV docuseries Look Into My Eyes revealed, and then pivot to the clinical side: what legitimate, licensed clinical hypnosis actually looks like, what it can and can't do, and why "who's holding the reins" matters so much when it comes to a technique that alters consciousness.

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What does Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster Jaws have in common with the real-life story of teenage surfing champion Bethany Hamilton? More than you'd think — and the medicine in between is worth every minute. In this episode, Tara and Nicole pair two very different shark stories to explore what actually happens to the human body during a shark attack, how trauma surgery has evolved over the past 50 years, and why the antibiotic you reach for in the ED could make or break a marine wound. We cover the epidemiology of shark attacks worldwide (yes, Florida leads the U.S. — surprise), the injury patterns surgeons see most often, the critical rule against closing marine wounds right away, the marine microbiome that makes these infections unlike any other bite wound, and the often-overlooked psychological toll on survivors and witnesses. Plus: how a surfboard leash tourniquet saved Bethany Hamilton's life, why Quint never stood a chance, and what 'You're gonna need a bigger antibiotic regimen' actually means in clinical practice.

Pop Culture & Cocktail

Jaws (1975) — Wikipedia

Soul Surfer (2011) — Wikipedia

Shark Attack Cocktail Recipe — Play Party Plan

Peer-Reviewed Literature

Cyclosporiasis cases have surged past 3,000 across at least 31 states this summer, with Michigan alone reporting more than 1,500 cases since late June — roughly 25 times its typical annual total. In this episode of The Shot, Tara breaks down what's driving the surge, why cases are concentrated in southeast Michigan, and what's still unconfirmed about the source. She also covers the clinical picture clinicians need to recognize, the testing pitfall that causes cases to be missed and the current treatment protocol.

Links

What do Kanye West, Mariah Carey, Carrie Fisher, Demi Lovato, and Brian Wilson all have in common? They’ve all lived — and created — with bipolar disorder. In this episode of Medical Media Mixer, Tara and Nicole pour the Bipolar Christy (a tart, jewel-toned vodka and pomegranate cocktail as mood-shifting as the condition itself) and dive deep into one of the most misunderstood mental health diagnoses of our time. They break down the clinical realities of bipolar I and II — mania, hypomania, depressive episodes, and everything in between — while exploring the complicated, often controversial relationship between bipolar disorder and creative genius. From Kanye’s documented four-month manic episode to Mariah Carey’s years of living in denial, to Carrie Fisher’s lifelong advocacy for mental health awareness, the stories of these artists humanize a condition that still carries enormous stigma. Tara and Nicole discuss what “mood episodes” actually look like clinically, how misdiagnosis remains a widespread problem, and what effective, evidence-based treatment looks like today — because recovery is possible, and productivity doesn’t require suffering.

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