- Today, we probe our thoughts with a series of inkblots.
- Let's talk about that.
(mellow music)
Good mythical morning.
- When you look at this image,
what is the first thing you see?
- Well, if you said a Rorschach test, then you're right.
- And if you said it out loud,
what do you think this is, "Blue's Clues"?
But yeah, this is an official inkblot image
from the Rorschach test invented by Swiss psychiatrist
Hermann Rorschach.
- Rorschach.
- In 1921 to study emotional functioning.
- And today we're gonna be submitting ourselves
to the test and seeing what deep emotional secrets
sneak to the surface.
- How does that make you feel?
- A little uneasy.
- Yeah, it's time for
hey, is that a pigeon or the freaking Dalai Lama?
Let's take the Rorschach and unearth
some deep-rooted trauma!
(Link beeping)
- Research Rorschach-related.
The Rorschach test is used by psychologists
or psychiatrists to analyze a patient's thought processes.
And it can explain not only what a patient sees,
but how they perceive things.
To put it simply, it helps show how someone's mind works
and it can spot issues they may not want to talk about.
- And while it may be a useful tool
to examine personality traits which might not show up
on, like an IQ test,
the Rorschach test is actually pretty controversial
because it's very subjective,
both on the side of the person taking the test
but also the person grading the test.
- Yeah, but controversial or not,
we wanted to take this personality test ourselves.
And mind you, it was not administered
by a licensed psychologist.
- Yes, yes. - Licensed.
But it was administered by a licensed North Carolinian.
- Yeah. - Stevie.
Do you have your license?
- [Stevie] Well, yes. Uh, no.
- Driver's license, anything will work.
- [Stevie] Okay, yeah. I'll look later.
- Okay, and while there is a very extensive scoring system
for the official Rorschach test,
we opted for the less extensive scoring system of Stevie.
- Yes, that's right.
You administered the test of both of us separately
by showing us all 10 of the inkblots using the test.
- So much fun.
- I have no idea what you said
and I do not remember what I said,
but we're about to find out because
we're gonna watch our reactions and then
Stevie's gonna compare our answers
to some of the most common responses
to the test to determine what that reveals about us.
- Okay. Let's take a look at our test footage.
- Rhett. - Stevie.
- Welcome. - Thank you.
- Charles.
- Oh, it's like that, huh? (laughing) Okay.
- I'm going to show you these cards
and you're gonna tell me what you see.
- Oh, okay.
- First of all, are there right answers?
Because I like to win.
- Let's begin, shall we?
What do you see in this image?
- Um, an angry pelvis.
I know what a pelvis looks like because I've seen mine.
I have a happy pelvis.
Happy pelvises make people happy.
- I see two birds going.
- Happy birds?
- I think it's birds that are showing off.
It's birds that are like, look at our breasts.
- Breasts?
- Yeah. But not breasts in like a sexual way.
Like a bird breast.
When I think of chicken breasts
I don't think of sex most of the time.
- Do you see boobies?
- I could see some little boobies.
- Let me see the boobies.
Show me the boobies. - Right there.
Little boobies, headless woman boobies.
- If this were a game of spot the boobies.
- There's boobies right there.
A booby there, a booby there.
And that might be like a nipple while it's cold.
- I usually only see boobies when I close my eyes,
but every time I close my eyes.
- Hmm. That's nice.
(Rhett laughing)
- I mean, we weren't talking about boobies, Stevie,
until you started talking about boobies.
- Yeah, so, is that the official psychology sort of like.
- Do you see any boobies?
- Like, they ask "Do you see any boobies?"
Is that what they do?
- [Stevie] (laughing) Yes.
I studied the North Carolina handbook on Rorschach tests.
- North Carolina's psychological handbook says,
ask the subject, do they see boobies?
- [Stevie] So the common responses to card number one,
which this is card number one,
there's 10 cards and they're all labeled,
are bat, butterfly, and moth, which you did not say.
- No pelvis.
- [Stevie] It's the first card in the test.
So it basically is how you approach this image
may signify how you approach a new and stressful task.
So that's one thing that they're looking for.
- I definitely went back to a moment of stress.
- You did, yeah.
- My pelvis was broken.
- And I'm not particularly scared of birds,
especially like confident birds.
- [Stevie] I guess the whole boobies thing,
it can be an erotic response,
but it can also symbolize a yearning for care.
So you're talking about you now.
- I, yeah. I'm talking about me.
How about this one?
- This is a surprised bearded man
with blood coming out of his mouth
and blood coming out of his eyes.
- This is bloody. - Mm-hm, mm-hm.
- These are the bloody eyes.
This is the mouth.
And this is the beard, he's surprised.
And there's blood just coming out.
I could say that's a tongue.
And then there's blood here in the beard.
- I tend to see two different things
coming together to do something.
And here I see two beings kneeling at each other
and going like this, but then they're bleeding
because their knees hit.
This blood is actually behind them because
they did it before back there.
It's a perspective.
And they were like, let's try this again
and see if we don't get bloody knees and like, dang it.
We did it again and our knees are bleeding.
- What if I said this was like two garden gnomes
and they're going like this with their hands like this?
Yes. - What?
- Do you see that?
- My hand's sticky. - It is a little sticky.
- It's hair product.
- Okay. - I promise.
- All right, good good.
- (laughing) Sorry.
- I promise.
- What is wrong With that guy?
First of all, he needs to clean up a little bit.
- Now look, can I just point out the fact
that you took the test before me and Stevie asked you
if you saw two gnomes touching like this,
and then without prompting,
I saw two beings touching like this.
So that's gotta be something, right?
That's gotta be something significant, right?
- You're both equally dysfunctional.
- [Stevie] Yes, exactly.
- I want to make a observation here.
Seeing a Rorschach test and taking it
as two things that are interacting with each other
versus like a face, like you saw a face, I saw two things.
- And in the previous one I saw a pelvis
and you saw two birds.
- And now in this one, I see two beings doing something.
So there's nothing in there about like,
people's tendency to see two things doing something together
versus one thing?
- [Stevie] I don't have that, but I do have that
the popular responses to this card include dog,
elephant, bear, or two humans.
So the last one is two humans.
And the red marks are commonly seen as blood,
which applied to both of you.
And the reaction to the red may indicate how the subject
reacts to the feeling of anger or physical harm.
So Link, you mentioned the shape first
and then the color red,
which could mean that you have a clear picture of reality
and you add emotion when appropriate.
Rhett, you mentioned the color before noting the shape.
Mentioning color first may be a sign
that your emotions dominate rational thinking.
Then again, if you were not to mention the color at all
that could mean you're suppressing emotion.
- Oh, so you know what?
I've been in therapy for several years.
So maybe things are getting better.
I'm seeing blood everywhere!
- How about this one?
- Okay. This one, I do see boobies.
- This is two ladies that had the head of a bird
and they have very pointy breasts,
like in the '60s when they started wearing the pointy bras.
- Okay. This is an insect alien creature in a bikini top.
So like right here, I've got the bikini top
and then these are insect arms and then a bowtie.
- And they're like, do you remember a second ago when
we were standing up straight and our pointy boobies
hit each other and we started bleeding?
Well, actually what happened was, is that they did this,
they hit the boobs together and there was blood,
and they recoiled and turned around and then
they threw blood up against the wall behind them.
- When they hit the boobies together,
it was like a, like they.
- Do you wanna try?
- Yeah.
Well.
We did the hands.
- I will say, that doesn't feel professional.
- Yeah.
- I guess the alien insect doesn't have a head.
It's not that it's headless.
It's that it doesn't have a head.
- And the boobies are?
- Here and here.
- That's good.
I think we're making progress.
All right.
- All right, so I don't see what you see.
- Just focus on this right here.
This is a black bikini top on an insect abdomen.
- Okay, I can see that, yeah.
Now when I said the two women thing,
did you immediately see the two women?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But we both see boobies,
and I think that's what's important.
- [Stevie] So people usually see two human figures
involved in some interaction on this card.
The reaction to this card may provide information
on how the subject relates with other people.
Rhett, you got very specific
about the two human figures you saw
and what they were doing.
Seeing movement in the cards can be a sign
of intelligence and creativity.
So that's good.
And Link, you saw an alien.
While most people see humans,
not seeing humans in this card
could mean an unusual reaction to social interaction.
- Well, we already know that about him.
- An usual reaction to social interaction?
- Just an unusual reaction, period.
- I hear these aliens talking to me.
- No, but I think, you know,
I think we can get somewhere here
because for three images in a row,
I've seen two people doing something together
and you've seen one person doing something.
- Yeah. - Do you want to go solo?
Is that what you're saying?
- I think I tend to see symmetry
within the context of the whole.
- [Rhett] That sounds smart.
- I don't know what it means, man.
Please tell me I'm not dysfunctional.
- Speaking of us working through our issues,
we have a podcast where we do that pretty much every week.
- That's true.
- We just talk to each other about life.
It is the most personal thing that we do on the internet.
And if that kind of personal thing interests you,
you should listen to our "Ear Biscuits" podcast
wherever podcasts are available.
We also have a YouTube channel, youtube.com/earbiscuits.
- Ooh, please do.
- So this is just one big individual.
It's actually a, it's a badger.
- This is an aerial view of like a bat creature flying.
This is the bat's head.
This is the bat's wings.
And that is the bat's upturned tail.
- That looks like a chicken tail to me.
I can buy that.
Do you eat chicken tail?
- Oh, I know what you're talking about.
- Juicy, that little nubbin.
- I'll eat that on a rotisserie.
- I was thinking it's like
the point of view of a pedicurist.
These are feet.
- And what is this in between the legs?
- It's a stool or a chair of some sort.
- This is an incredibly large penis.
And he is throwing out his legs and he's also
taken his little arms and he's just going like,
"Here, look at my penis."
- I was seeing, at I was seeing you
'cause you're a very large man.
And if you were to come get a pedicure,
this is, I feel like,
what the person doing your toes would see.
- I gotta be honest with you.
My penis is not so long it goes past my feet.
- Pedicure.
- [Stevie] But in my version.
- [Link] My head looks like a vagina.
- You don't get to eat that in my version.
Well, I guess now.
- Stevie, this is.
- I don't know what happened there.
- I think this is all just a study.
- I'm uncomfortable.
- In Stevie planting subconscious thoughts in our brain.
She's making us dirty. - I did not say that!
I was talking about boobies, okay?
- You make us dirty.
- No, no. I saw a big penis.
I own that. I saw a big penis, the first thing.
- She saw a stool.
- And do you not see a badger's head?
I mean, that is a badger's head if I've ever seen one.
- [Stevie] Popular responses are animal hide, skin, or rug.
Which honestly that is not,
that does not sound very like innovative or thoughtful.
- Animal hide?
We're gonna see this as literally a two-dimensional thing?
- Well, actually, you know,
we don't have time to show all 10 cards
and our reaction to them.
But in another one I described it as an animal hide,
which reminds me that we had so much fun
being administered this test that like, we're gonna release,
I will call it uncut.
Even though it's still gonna be cut at some points.
- [Rhett] The rest of the responses.
- [Link] We're gonna release the rest of the responses.
- [Rhett] Five other responses.
- [Link] Over at the Mythical Society.
So if you want to see all of our responses
to all of our cards and all the other nasty things
that Stevie got us to think.
- [Stevie] There's booby talk over there.
- That's our other podcast.
- And you know what?
Over on the Mythical Society, we're gonna make it free
for anybody to watch the uncut Rorschach cards.
All you gotta do is sign up to be an initiate,
which is the free tier,
to see little bits and tids of everything Mythical Society.
- Tids? Come on, no.
Tids? I mean, you can't get it out of your mind.
Tids, what are tids?
- This is on you, Stevie.
My tids are on you.
- [Stevie] Okay, okay, boobies aside,
let's talk about card number four here.
So this shape is seen as big
and threatening from an inferior position.
Often subjects feel like they're looking up at it,
giving the shape of sense of authority.
And it's known as the father card.
This is the first card we've encountered
that has it a name like that, according to my notes.
- The father card?
- [Stevie] How the subject reads this card may indicate
their attitude toward men and authority.
You both mentioned genitals yet again.
So it's safe to say that you're not sexually frustrated?
Who wrote this? (laughing)
- I'm not sexually frustrated.
- But I do sexually frustrate.
- [Stevie] Oh, it says if there were no mention
of sexual organs that'd be unusual for this test.
- Oh, good. Okay, good, all right.
You're off the hook on this.
- We talked quite a bit about them.
- Okay, this is a colorful interpretation
of the female anatomy.
- Wanted to give you a little treat.
For being such a good boy.
- [Rhett] Good Lord.
- Tell me about it.
- Again, I think that's a pelvis.
This up here is a spleen.
This person has two spleens.
This is a child's art project.
They were like, "What we want you to do is
we want you to pick your favorite country."
And this child chose Italy.
This is Italy.
- I could be wrong, but I think this is the eggs,
a couple of fried eggs, but these are the actual ovaries.
- These are the birds that are native to Italy.
This is the blue crab.
It's actually native to Maryland,
but the Italians have, they love it.
Each of the crabs is holding a traditional
Italian leaf symbol of freedom.
- Okay, all right.
- And then you've got the fallopian tubes
and then you've got the baby chute.
- This is two very small wolves fighting over a totem pole.
And I don't know what this is.
This is the only thing I can't figure out.
What if I were to do this?
- Now I see Satan.
(Rhett laughing)
- You see Satan in the fallopian tubes?
- I did.
See, I saw Satan here because this is like
a weird sort of like Satan beak and eyes and horns.
But when I was looking at it the opposite way,
I just saw the art project.
- But you forgot the most important thing about Italy
and that's the Eiffel Tower.
- Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, you know, sometimes I get my facts confused.
- [Stevie] Okay, so people often see things like crabs,
lobsters, spiders, caterpillars,
worms, and snakes in this card.
You both broke the image down into sub-regions,
which indicates common sense.
- (laughing) Oh, really? - Yeah!
We got something.
- [Stevie] As the last card of the test,
subjects are presented with an opportunity to
express their state of being or how they feel
about their present situation.
Rhett, you saw Satan in the final moments of the test.
- Sorry.
- I saw a baby chute.
- This was fun.
- I don't know how I feel.
I don't feel worse about myself.
- I mean, I think that they're, out there somewhere,
there is a class, like a Psych 101 class,
and the teacher has decided to be kind of hip
and show this video today.
- And now we're speaking directly to you.
- So, class, listen.
First of all, kudos or your teacher
for making this decision.
I mean, they could've just decided to speak themselves
and you know, nobody likes that.
So, you know, kudos to them for showing this video.
And now you tell us through your different ways
that you do that on the internet, Twitter, whatever,
what you think about us.
Give us a psych eval in the comments,
because I don't think we've achieved that today.
- Yeah, and even if you're not in the class,
let us know what you what you've learned about us today.
And thanks for subscribing and clicking that.
(beeping) Class is over.
- You know what time it is.
- Hi, I'm Nathaniel from Trinidad.
Just chilling. It's time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality.
- Just chilling and Trinidad.
Remember we did that? In middle school we did that.
- We did go to Trinidad.
- Did a mission trip in Trinidad.
All right, clock the top link to watch us
play a game of Daddy, Buddy, Enemy
with the founding fathers of science
in "Good Mythical More".
- And to find out where
the Wheel of Mythicality's gonna land.
- [Rhett] Add some scientific magic to
your mythical mug collection
with the GMM heat-activated mug
available now at mythical.com.