Beakmans World | Blood & Circulation

In this episode of Beakman’s World, Beakman tours two engines that run every single day without you noticing: the blood that feeds and defends every cell in your body, and the unconscious mind that keeps working once you fall asleep. Josie answers the mail, Lester survives a salt powered plunger stunt, and by the end Beakman has acted out his own bad dream live on set.

In this episode you will discover:

• How much blood the average body holds, and how far your veins and arteries would stretch if laid end to end
• Blood’s three full time jobs: delivering food and oxygen, removing waste, and defending the body
• Why a plunger cannot tear a tissue stretched over a tube of salt
• The difference between your conscious mind and your unconscious mind
• How the unconscious mind builds a dream out of memory, fear and imagination
• A trick for choosing what you dream about before you fall asleep

Two engines that never switch off

Beakman treats the human body as a set of engines that keep running whether you notice them or not. By day, blood is the engine of delivery and defence, ferrying oxygen and nutrients out to billions of cells, hauling their waste back to the kidneys and lungs, and chasing off germs the way a police officer chases a troublemaker. By night, once the conscious mind clocks off, the unconscious mind becomes the engine of imagination, pulling together memories, fears and desires into the finished production of a dream. Same body, two systems, both working whether you are watching or not.

Beakman’s demonstrations

On screen, Beakman turns blood’s three jobs into a restaurant sketch, with a waiter called Blood serving hemoglobin and a side of oxygen to a diner called Cell, before Officer Leukocyte arrests a germ for harassing the customers. For the salt trick, he loads a paper towel tube with salt, stretches a tissue over one end with a rubber band, and drives a plunger handle straight through without tearing the paper. To explain the mind, Josie names objects while Lester says whatever they make him picture, standing in for the conscious and unconscious mind, before Beakman falls asleep on camera and acts out his own dream, riding a horse into a damp cave, escaping to a beach, and waking himself the moment a giant lobster grabs him.

Try this at home

The salt and tissue test. Stretch a tissue over the end of a paper towel tube and hold it with a rubber band, pour in at least six inches of salt, then push a plunger handle straight through, with an adult. The tiny air gaps between the salt grains soak up the force of the blow, so the tissue never tears.

The dream steering test. Right before bed, think hard about a person or thing you would like to dream about, running through everything it means to you. It will not work every night, but keep trying and it usually pays off.