In Search Of... (2018) s01e02 Episode Script
Superhumans
Mankind has always been fascinated by stories of incredible superhuman strength of those who harness powers beyond the normal human realm.
These legends and myths date back thousands of years.
But do these superhumans exist today? What about the man who summoned incredible strength and bent the steel door of a car with his bare hands? I was able to save a man from a burning car.
I could see the interior was completely filled with smoke.
I discovered that the driver was actually trapped inside.
You could see the soles of his shoes hitting the glass.
I knew I didn't have much time.
I bent the car door with my bare hands until the glass shattered.
How is it possible for an ordinary person to become superhuman? Does that mean superpowers are within us all? My search begins now.
My Name is Zachary Quinto.
As an actor, I've played many supernatural characters that blurred the line between science and fiction.
I'm drawn to the unknown, the otherworldly, and those experiences so beyond belief, they call everything into question.
I'm exploring some of the most enduring mysteries that continue to haunt mankind in search of the truth wherever it leads me.
Throughout history there have been countless stories and myths describing people with superhuman abilities.
From the ancient biblical tales of Moses, who parted the Red Sea with his staff, to the heroic Roman god Hercules, who killed a lion with his bare hands, legendary people who have transcended what was ever thought physically or mentally possible.
But can anyone become superhuman? And how does one attain these unexplainable powers? Are you born with them? Are these abilities developed through intense training? Or do extreme circumstances allow human beings to tap into exceptional strength or skill? My quest is to uncover the truth behind real-life superhumans.
Do they exist? Where do their powers come from? And can we all become superhuman? Today I'm meeting with 56-year-old Air Force veteran Bob Renning, a man who was able to bend a metal car frame with nothing but his bare hands.
Why don't you talk me through what happened that day? My wife and I were coming back from visiting some friends up at the lake.
And I happened to notice a car.
And you could see the flames actually rolling under the vehicle in the rearview mirror.
So we just kind of coasted over to the side of the road.
And it was at that point in time I realized that the driver hadn't gotten out yet.
The flames were starting to come up above the roofline at that point, and I just took off running to the vehicle.
As I got up to it, the interior was completely filled with smoke.
Is it hard for you to see this? Yeah.
Did your heart start beating a little bit? A little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
'Cause I hadn't seen the vehicle after the fire.
Uh-huh.
Was it this badly damaged? In the end, was it a complete burnout? It was a complete burnout.
So he was here, kicking at the window.
Yeah.
Kind of wedged himself in here, in the passenger seat, and was kicking against the glass on this side.
And it was when I got to this point, I could see the soles of his shoes Right.
Righthitting the glass itself.
Did the car explode in the end? No.
No.
No.
I don't think cars explode all that often.
I think that's more a Hollywood thing.
So that's why I think they explode.
Doesn't every car explode? But they do burn extremely fast.
You could hear, under the hood, you know, some of the canisters some of the sealed canisters popping off.
Uh-huh.
Popping And then did the flames spread as you were getting Yes.
more into the Yeah.
Yeah.
We didn't have a lot of time.
On the charred frame of the SUV, you can see the doorframe that Renning bent with his bare hands.
You managed to get your fingers into the top of the doorframe.
And behind here somehow.
So what was it like after? After the experience? I did end up with some nightmares.
That was tough.
Actually had one last night.
Oh, really? It was a little tough this morning, coming up on the car setting here beside the road.
Sure.
It just was a little tough.
Looking back on it, did you feel any kind of a wave of adrenaline? Did you feel suddenly stronger than you think you are? Yes.
You do? Yeah.
Yeah? I find it really interesting to think about how much physical force would be required to do what you did.
Do you think you'd be able to do this again? I don't know.
Uh-huh.
I don't know.
I think it would be intriguing to find out.
Bob was able to bend metal with his bare hands, summoning incredible strength in a crisis.
But there's a group of people who are able to call on superhuman powers whenever they choose.
Shaolin monks of the Shaolin Temple, which originated in Hunan, China, in 1464 AD, are capable of incredible feats of strength.
These monks practice one of the oldest and most unique forms of kung fu, combining Zen Buddhism and martial arts.
The most skilled of these monks are known as warriors.
In the case of a warrior monk, who's able to tap into some of these abilities and to push themselves past what are normal human limits that person's controlling everything.
It just takes a long time and lots of training to get there.
I want to know more about their incredible strength, so I'm meeting with a 34th generation ordained Shaolin warrior monk to uncover the truth behind their ancient secrets.
If we're talking about superhuman strength Yesdo you feel like the things that you've been able to attain in your life are attainable by anybody? Yes.
Mm-hmm.
One of the defining characteristics of the Shaolin line is the physicality of it, right? Yes.
Tests of pain endurance? Yes.
Yeah.
So, in addition to strength, it's also about enduring pain.
Talk about your threshold for pain.
You see the scar here? Yeah.
Which is, to be specific, to endure Endure, yes.
Yesthe burning of is it nine incense? Yes.
Uh-huh.
How long do they hold each one? Yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, sure.
That's how you became a full-fledged Shaolin monk, yeah.
Yeah.
Full, yes.
Yes.
So it's not an easy path.
No easily I'm also really interested in how your body can endure pain, and how different your body and your brain actually are.
The abbot is clearly able to endure an incredible amount of pain.
But how does he do it? We've seen that some people become more powerful in a crisis situation.
But has the abbot actually trained himself to summon strength whenever he chooses? To understand more, I've asked the abbot to show me one of the most dangerous and painful the Shaolin Hard Qigong.
This is Abbot.
Steve.
Nice to meet you.
So, Abbot's going to demonstrate some pretty intense physical feats.
I'm excited.
It'll be interesting to see what data we actually get from this.
Under the medical supervision of Dr.
Steve Young, the abbot will be enduring a blow to the head that would give most people a concussion, or cause serious injury by tearing the skin or breaking the bone.
So, basically, we're gonna measure what's happening inside the body.
As you get into a certain meditative state, your nervous system is it heightened, is it suppressed, is it hyperactive, or is it being subdued so we can handle the pain involved in this process? We're using this device that NASA uses.
One of the world's best devices.
Just goes on the wrist? Just goes right on a wrist.
And, as it's on, we'll be able to record, on the computer, what's happening to the nervous system.
When you've done tests along these lines before, have you done them on people who are sustaining some kind of physical impact? We used to do a lot of MMA fighters.
Uh-huh.
And so, punching things and lifting things and training.
Okay.
And so what we'd typically see is a very heightened fight-or-flight response.
So you've never done something like this in terms of measuring impact? We don't know what to expect when it's applied to a physical task.
All right.
Shall we, uh So how this will work is, it's gonna go on the left wrist.
So this is the solid That is a solid piece of wood um, just in case anybody was wondering.
Is there anything that you need, Abbot, before you get started? We need to turn on the Oh, right.
I have to turn on the Yeah.
So it went red, and now it's on.
It's good? Okay.
Wow.
As you were doing the movements, I could feel the power.
It started as something that was meditative, but it became, very quickly, something that was palpable from even the distance that was between us.
Yes.
And this is, like, very solid wood.
When you're meditating in that manner, is it just about focusing your energy? Right.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
When you made contact, it wasn't that the stick was breaking over you, it was that you were breaking the stick, really.
That there was this explosion, almost, in that moment.
Uh-huh.
Does it hurt? Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
There was a real power to it.
The physical expression of it that's the thing that's shocking to me.
You could feel the, kind of, intensity of his power as he was getting into that Qigong movement.
And then when he broke this I mean, this is a really serious stick.
I mean, if you broke this over my arm, you would break my arm.
Or if you did that over my head, I would be absolutely rushed to the hospital.
What do we have, Steve? What were you able to discern? Yeah, so we've picked up some very interesting data.
From the time that the abbot started to prep, we saw a calming of the nervous system.
So he lowered his body temperature significantly.
Wow.
In the beginning.
Yeah.
That's a What kind of difference is that? Uh, 1.
2 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's pretty amazing.
For most people, it would be the reverse.
Uh-huh.
If I was aut to hit you, your nervous system would spike up.
But, as you can see, it can be consciously controlled.
The abbot was able to, sort of, train his nervous system to be in much more of a calm state during the head break Uh-huh.
uh, state.
Do you know where, on that line, the head break is? Right about here.
Yeah.
Oh.
So, again, you can see he was decreasing his heart rate right before the break, and then it went up.
There's kind of a spike right after it, huh? Wow.
That's amazing.
Based on this data, we can see that there's this response, through practice, if you're able to control the energy of your body to get into this much calmer state.
I'm shocked that the abbot was able to control his nervous system in order to withstand the intense impact of the wood staff.
So what makes a superhuman? Is it mind or body? Or, in the case of the abbot, is it both? Could he have trained his mind and have bones with superhuman strength? The only way to find out is to compare the abbot's body to a normal person like me in a lab.
If I could have you take off your shoes, if that's okay? So you're gonna Facing up.
Correct.
You're gonna lie down.
You're gonna lie down.
Exactly.
Are you ready? So you're just gonna lie down.
And what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna make sure that you don't hit your head.
And you can fall asleep if you'd like, okay? - Zach, you're on the left.
- Abbot, you're on the right.
Yes.
This is what's called your bone mineral density.
And that is the densest of your bones.
How strong they are, okay? So, Zach, you're 40 years old, right? Yeah.
I'm older than you, so so we're good.
I'm still adjusting to my I'm relatively newly 40 years old.
Your bone density total it's 1.
451 grams per centimeter squared.
And then, Abbot, for you, you're a little bit older, right? So you're 51.
And so, where you stand, yes, you are lower.
You're at 1.
264.
That's a big difference when you talk about bone density.
Now, are there any bones in the abbot that are particularly strong? If we look at the density of our heads, mine's pretty high, right? It is.
2.
7.
2.
73 grams per centimeter squared.
Okay, so, I have a dense skull.
You do.
But, again, so the abbot is at 1.
6.
Yes.
So, if I did the exercise that the abbot did this afternoon breaking that stick on my head I feel like I would just be in the hospital.
So is there a way to explain the capacity for him to be able to do that? That's a great question, because I think that goes to specificity of the way you train allows him to do that.
Yes.
We don't work out to allow ourselves to do that.
That is the biggest difference of why, for example, Yes.
you and I would hurt ourselves.
Mm-hmm.
You've trained so much.
That's certainly a lot of your mind over matter, isn't it, Abbot? Yes.
I'm definitely surprised by this.
I thought the abbot would have an increased bone density.
He doesn't at all.
I'm 2.
73, and he's 1.
60.
Uh, yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
I think that's where it really comes down to the meditative focus and the technique that the Qigong allows him to harness.
But if it really is mind over matter, then why can't we all be superhuman? Or can we? I'm trying to understand how people become superhuman.
Some, like Shaolin monks, can develop these powers through years of conditioning their minds.
We didn't have a lot of time.
But what about a seemingly average guy like Bob Renning, who used superhuman strength to pry open a burning car door? Could he do it again? And is that something anyone could learn how to do? Bob, this is Steve Young.
Nice to meet you.
How much force did he exert when he bent the metal on that car door? We've taken a car to an auto body shop, and we have used a machine to do the same thing that Bob did to the side of the car door.
And we measured the amount of force that it would take for that to happen.
So the actual number, when we did this in an auto body shop with a machine and measured it, was 509.
That's intriguing.
That's a lot.
So what accounts for Bob's sudden ability to pull that much weight? Our experiment today may help us find out.
A 1961 study showed firing a starter pistol behind subjects increased their strength by ten percent.
Having participants shout or grunt unlocked 15 percent more strength.
And hypnosis produced a 30 percent increase above the norm.
If we apply these same types of jolts in a controlled setting, can anyone harness the power of superhuman strength? And in Bob's case, can he approach the strength he found when he saved a man from a burning car? I've enlisted Dr.
Steve Young to find out.
So this is a force gauge.
A pretty accurate way for us to measure how much force exertion is happening.
Okay.
Okay.
Other than being able to measure the force output, we also want to directly measure how hard, or how intense, the muscles specific to this task is contracting.
And so, we have a research-level device by Delsys.
We'll be able to stick this on the skin.
And we're gonna measure the electrical activity of the muscles as he's pulling on the device so we can see how hard the muscles are working.
All right.
You feel ready, Bob? I'm ready.
Let's try it.
Let's flatten your back a little bit so we can protect your back.
Okay.
And then when I say "go," pull as hard as you can.
Ready? Go.
Ready.
Very nice.
Good.
Rest.
All right.
What'd we get to, Steve? 280 pounds of pressure.
280 pounds of pressure.
All right.
That's impressive.
So you have some baseline readings now, right? Mm-hmm.
So should we start to implement some stimuli to potentially help motivate Bob? Yeah.
I will verbally encourage you.
Okay.
Because there's some studies and research showing that with verbal encouragement, we can change your physiology and heighten your ability Okay.
to be more like Superman.
All right.
Fair enough.
This is a maximum-effort pull.
And I want to make sure that you can get it all the way up as fast as possible, as hard as possible.
All right.
So when you're ready, go.
Come on, Bob.
Pull, pull, pull.
There it is.
Go, go, go, go.
Pull, pull.
Go, go, go, go, go.
Go, go, go, go, go.
Go, go, pull! All right.
Well, that's interesting.
Yep.
380.
380.
So that was 380 pounds of pressure.
So a whole full 100 pounds more just by some verbal encouragement.
Yes.
'Cause you guys yelled at me.
We're now gonna introduce the element of hypnosis.
Go ahead and close your eyes.
And take a deep breath in and deep breath out.
I'd like you to imagine there are numbers appearing right in front of you, from 200 backwards, all the way down.
Going deeper, relax.
198.
All sounds fade away.
Completely fade away.
198, 197, relaxed.
63, down Every fiber and cell.
One, two, and three, and four, and five Open your eyes.
And welcome back.
All right? Yeah.
You know what to do? Mm-hmm.
That got us to 390.
That was a full hundred pounds more Yeah.
that you exerted on that day.
How you feeling? You good? Okay.
Yeah.
Okay, so we have one last test that we're gonna do.
Again, when I say "go," you're gonna pull as fast and as hard as you can.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Are you ready? Yep.
Go! Go! I'm on a quest to determine whether anyone can evoke mysterious superhuman strength.
With the help of Dr.
Steve Young, we're doing an experiment to see if an average guy like Bob can recreate the strength he found when he bent a burning car door with his bare hands.
400 pounds of pressure.
All right.
So we're getting there.
Yeah.
So the first was 280.
Then verbal encouragement was 380.
And then adrenaline spike was four? A little bit more than a 30 percent increase from baseline.
That's a lot.
That's cool.
Do you wanna take a look at the electromagnetic data as well? Yeah.
The muscles were forced to work much harder through the adrenaline, the verbal encouragement, as well as the hypnosis.
This gives us a clear indication that each of those variables played a part in changing the dynamic of your exertion and your strength levels.
It was the adrenaline stimulus Go! Go! that generated the greatest response in you and got you the closest what you did on that day at 509 pounds.
I guess I should give this a pull, right? Just to see see where I fall on the spectrum.
320.
That's lame.
It wasn't on fire, so what can I tell you? Go! With the help of shock stimuli, this test confirmed that Bob was able to draw upon superhuman strength, just like he did the day he saved the man from the burning car in response to a crisis.
But does that mean that Bob, or anyone for that matter, can become superhuman whenever we want? Some experts believe the answer is yes.
People can be trained to learn how to harness these kinds of abilities.
Lots of examples we can come up with are the extreme ones that are due to huge dumps of adrenalin into our blood that allow us to not feel some of the pain, and allow us to have stronger muscle contractions.
Being able to achieve, sort of, superhuman abilities comes down to people's ability to will themselves through pain and push beyond what would normally be thought humanly possible.
We can do more than we think we can.
We just have to push ourselves and have the determination to do it.
I've seen how certain people become superhuman through years of training while others harness their power in a moment of crisis.
But what about people who exhibit superhuman traits from the day they were born? Like 38-year-old Steve Pete, who has an incredibly rare condition seen in a tiny fraction of the world's population.
I was born without the ability to feel pain.
So I've no sense of physical pain.
Wow.
Being shielded from pain allows him to do things that would be impossible for the rest of us.
So what's it like? Can you describe the experience of not having the sensation of physical pain? A lot of endurance and stuff, 'cause you can just run for hours and hours Is that true? Yeah.
Do you run out of breath? Oh, yeah, I run out of breath.
Okay.
But my body doesn't hurt.
A lot of people would probably look at that and think that's, like, a superpower, right? Yeah.
I've lived with it my entire life, so it's just normal.
How old were you when you realized that this was something that you Oh, very young.
Very young? Yeah.
I was an infant, so So your parents must've noticed it before you did.
Yeah.
And do you know how they first I chewed off a good portion of my tongue.
Oh, wow.
And didn't have any kind of Obviously had no reaction to it.
No negative response to it, yeah.
So is there a name for this condition? It's called congenital insensitivity to pain.
Okay.
And it's caused by this one gene called SCN9A.
Okay.
This gene encodes an important protein on the neuron that seems to be really important in sending the signal that says pain.
Okay.
And, in your case, Mom has one defective gene, one good gene.
One good gene.
And so does Dad.
Dad same thing.
So the randomness of this, like, is crazy.
It really is.
There are maybe 100 people in thrld Less.
Less than a hundred? Probably about 40.
Wow! That's insane.
I was shocked by the rarity of the condition.
He doesn't know when he's in pain, so he pushes himself past what would be a conventional threshold.
When I twist my ankle, I don't feel the pain, but I can feel, um, like, certain bones rubbing on both.
Wow.
Breaking a bone is something that happens quite frequently when you're born with this condition.
Probably throughout my entire life, I've had probably about 70 or 80 broken bones.
Wow.
And I fractured three vertebrae.
I didn't exactly know what was going on with my body.
All I knew was I was having some discomfort in my lower back, so I went and saw a doctor, and my doctor said, "Have you been in a car wreck recently?" I said, "Not that I'm aware of.
" They're like, "Well, you got three fractured vertebrae.
" It wasn't until a couple months later that I remembered we were out sledding, and I went and jumped on the inner tube, and I scorpioned.
And that's the only thing I could think of that would've caused that injury.
Sounds like that could've been Yeah.
Wow.
So So, your body has evolved differently because you have no sensation.
I mean, see, it is it's like a rabbit hole.
Steve's body and brain seem to communicate in an entirely different way than most people.
And we already know the abbot was able to control his body through years of training his mind.
So does being superhuman all come down to the power of our minds? The only way to know for sure is to look deeper within the brain itself, so I'm putting the abbot, Steve Pete, and myself to the test at Jefferson Hospital.
We're very excited to have you here.
We're going to be looking at your brains.
This is an unusual group of three people that I don't think have ever been studied altogether in this kind of way.
Right.
We're gonna get each one of you into the scanner separately.
We're going to do something called a cold pressor test, where we're basically gonna put your hand into a bath of ice water, designed to elicit a lot of discomfort and pain.
And then, with the abbot, we're also going to have you meditate in a way of helping to control your response to the pain.
I was thinking maybe it would be an interesting experiment to see if I tried to regulate it.
I understand that you have a little bit of a meditation practice.
Comparatively a little, but, yeah.
Yeah, right.
It's an experiment, so, you know, it's kind of like walking on the moon, you know? We don't know what we're gonna see.
It's a mystery.
It is a mystery.
Exactly.
Mystery.
And we start to unravel it little pieces at a time.
Zach, come with me.
Whoa.
Okay.
We're good? Okay.
The best way that this scan works is that you wanna get repetitive sampling, and you wanna be able to see what's happening multiple different times.
And what we're looking at are changes in blood flow.
Every time he takes his hand out and in, it's registering the difference between those two states.
It gives us a chance to see what his brain looks like when he's experiencing pain versus when he's not.
Yeah.
Great.
He doesn't describe himself as being an expert meditator.
He's going to do the best he can.
So, presumably, he may not really be able to suppress the pain as much.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
That's interesting.
Actually, his heart rate was much higher during the pain stimulus.
Wow.
Very low.
Wow.
That's interesting.
All right.
Yeah.
We're good.
You can take him out.
I'm looking deep inside the mind to see if a brain scan can reveal the secrets to becoming superhuman.
What differences will we see when we compare an average person like me against those with superhuman abilities like the abbot and Steve, a man who was born without the ability to feel pain.
Does being superhuman all come down to mind over matter? You actually did very well.
You, uh You may really be Mr.
Spock.
Oh, maybe.
So this is my brain.
This is your brain.
You have a very nice brain.
It's all in good shape? It's all in good shape.
All right.
There's a top view.
As if we're slicing through You know, going slice by slice, all the way down.
Those are my eyes.
What? There's your eyes.
These are the lenses that are inside of your eyes.
Oh, my teeth.
And your teeth.
So let's take a look at the impact of the ice water test.
So here now, you put your hand into a bath of ice water, designed to elicit a lot of discomfort and pain.
And the colors represent activity.
When you see areas of activity, that means that an area got turned on.
So this is the first time, when I wasn't meditating.
This is the first one.
Without meditation.
As you can see here, you have a fair amount of activity in the sensory area.
I mean, all of this area in here lit up.
Uh-huh.
Now, what's interesting is that, in contrast, you tried meditating, and you actually wound up doing a very good job at reducingInteresting.
the amount of inflow into these sensory areas of the brain.
All right.
I mean, there's a few little scattered areas here, but there really isn't very much.
Wow.
All right.
So I should keep meditating.
Meditating.
Absolutely.
All right.
So let's see what we get from the abbot and from Steve.
From the expert Yep.
Steve, welcome.
We're gonna get you into the scanner.
We're going to do a couple of initial scans to just see where your brain is.
Steve's genetic condition doesn't allow the message of pain to travel all the way to his brain and fire off receptors in his spinal column.
So we're gonna be able to see it? Yeah, the colors start to form.
So there's no color, then there's no sensation? Exactly.
I want to know what the abbot feels and how his brain processes, um, or doesn't process the pain sensations.
If you are as good a meditator as the abbot, how much of a difference is there between his baseline state and then the meditation state? That's very interesting.
Oh.
Wow.
It's hard to tell yet what that means.
We're gonna take everything, we'll put it all together, and we'll present everything to all of you.
Some people develop their superhuman abilities, some people are born with them, and others exhibit powers in a crisis situation.
But the scary thing is, someday scientists may be able to engineer superhumans, and that day may be soon.
One thing human beings have learned over time is that their best intentions often go awry.
We're not always that good of knowing what the downside is of our technologies.
Over 1,000 Russian athletes can be identified as being involved in manipulation to conceal positive doping tests.
Whatever technology we develop in order to help people can potentially also be used to harm people.
We can increase people's physical strength.
We can increase people's attention with psychotropic drugs.
We can change our physiology so that someone can do things they couldn't do before.
For example, there's a Japanese mechanism that you can put on the side of the head that completely disrupts the ability to walk or move.
These technologies are extremely powerful, and therefore really susceptible to being misused.
So the question of human enhancement is: what are the limits? We're just at the beginning.
Right now, we can't go into developing embryos to fix a broken gene.
We can't create clone armies of soldiers in laboratories.
We don't know how to hack the brain yet, but I do think that someday that will come.
It's amazing to think that we may be looking at a future where we can actually engineer superhumans.
But what about the people we've already met? And what could the results of our pain response test reveal about the power of their superhuman minds? It's very exciting to be able to compare all three of you, because you all have different ways of experiencing pain.
These are each of your brains.
Now, this was the first pain scan.
This was the first time that you guys were all putting your hands into the ice water bath.
The area that we're really looking at, which is demonstrated best on Zach's brain, is right here in the sensory region of the brain.
You have the brightest and the largest red area, because you probably perceive the pain the most.
But, to me, what's very interesting is, you tried a simple meditation practice, and you actually, you know, did a very impressive job at starting to suppress the pain response.
I find that so fascinating.
Absolutely.
Now, Steve, you don't feel pain, but you do feel, so there's a little bit of activity.
There's, like, a very tiny little ditzel.
I think that that's reflecting, basically, that you felt that you were putting your hand into the ice, and maybe you felt a little cold.
But it wasn't really eliciting a lot of response, which is kind of what we know of your condition.
Now, this is the abbot.
In some senses, you were the most interesting.
Abbot, you have nothing going on in there.
Look at that.
This is Abbot's brain.
You're on the right.
This is you.
Yep.
And one of the things that I thought was kind of fascinating about this was that the brain didn't even change that much from, you know, the first scan to the second scan.
Wow.
I don't really think Abbot can help it.
I think his mind is so evolved and developedYeah.
that it's just where it is, right? Right.
I mean, maybe his brain is kind of in a different state, you know, all the time.
It really reinforces the power of mind over matter.
Yes.
Our brain is able to find a way to allow our body to get to a different level.
You know, to be superhuman.
I've seen extraordinary examples of superhuman abilities and now I've harnessed these powers within my own mind.
You, uh You may really be Mr.
Spock.
One, Throughout this journey, But can I I've seen how different people can become superhuman, whether through training, genetics, or a crisis situation.
It all comes down to the delicate connection between our minds and our bodies.
I can teach you how to be a warrior.
Now it's my turn.
I wanna know if the abbot can teach me to become superhuman.
Okay.
All right.
Let's try.
So All right.
So, now breathe up.
Mm-hmm.
Hold breathing.
And release.
All the way down to the belly.
Through your nose.
You breathe in.
All the way down.
Wave up.
And scoop.
And breathe now.
Raise up to the sky.
Breathe in.
All the way down.
Breathe.
So like a gentle So, one here.
One, two, and then After two, you can, uh Okay.
Huh? Okay.
So practice by yourself a few seconds now.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
More up.
Yeah.
Okay.
Correct.
Okay.
Okay.
Confident.
Okay, now breathe.
Uh-huh.
Stay here.
Mm-hmm.
Now stay, wait for me.
Now, grab it here.
One two Okay.
Ready? Three.
Go! Okay.
Okay, so So you learn how to break stick.
Yeah.
All right.
We Wow.
Yeah.
I have no pain.
That's amazing.
I mean, that's crazy.
I really did feel connected to him when I broke the stick over his arm.
I didn't know if I would feel capable of doing it, but then, in the act of it, I felt a kind of trust.
Obviously I've never done this before, so That's incredible.
There was a real power to it that allowed me to do it.
While the supernatural powers within our minds and our bodies remain a mystery, there is something more to human potential than we ever thought possible.
Wherever their powers come from, superhumans are out there, and maybe within us all.
But how far we will take those powers remains unknown.
These legends and myths date back thousands of years.
But do these superhumans exist today? What about the man who summoned incredible strength and bent the steel door of a car with his bare hands? I was able to save a man from a burning car.
I could see the interior was completely filled with smoke.
I discovered that the driver was actually trapped inside.
You could see the soles of his shoes hitting the glass.
I knew I didn't have much time.
I bent the car door with my bare hands until the glass shattered.
How is it possible for an ordinary person to become superhuman? Does that mean superpowers are within us all? My search begins now.
My Name is Zachary Quinto.
As an actor, I've played many supernatural characters that blurred the line between science and fiction.
I'm drawn to the unknown, the otherworldly, and those experiences so beyond belief, they call everything into question.
I'm exploring some of the most enduring mysteries that continue to haunt mankind in search of the truth wherever it leads me.
Throughout history there have been countless stories and myths describing people with superhuman abilities.
From the ancient biblical tales of Moses, who parted the Red Sea with his staff, to the heroic Roman god Hercules, who killed a lion with his bare hands, legendary people who have transcended what was ever thought physically or mentally possible.
But can anyone become superhuman? And how does one attain these unexplainable powers? Are you born with them? Are these abilities developed through intense training? Or do extreme circumstances allow human beings to tap into exceptional strength or skill? My quest is to uncover the truth behind real-life superhumans.
Do they exist? Where do their powers come from? And can we all become superhuman? Today I'm meeting with 56-year-old Air Force veteran Bob Renning, a man who was able to bend a metal car frame with nothing but his bare hands.
Why don't you talk me through what happened that day? My wife and I were coming back from visiting some friends up at the lake.
And I happened to notice a car.
And you could see the flames actually rolling under the vehicle in the rearview mirror.
So we just kind of coasted over to the side of the road.
And it was at that point in time I realized that the driver hadn't gotten out yet.
The flames were starting to come up above the roofline at that point, and I just took off running to the vehicle.
As I got up to it, the interior was completely filled with smoke.
Is it hard for you to see this? Yeah.
Did your heart start beating a little bit? A little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
'Cause I hadn't seen the vehicle after the fire.
Uh-huh.
Was it this badly damaged? In the end, was it a complete burnout? It was a complete burnout.
So he was here, kicking at the window.
Yeah.
Kind of wedged himself in here, in the passenger seat, and was kicking against the glass on this side.
And it was when I got to this point, I could see the soles of his shoes Right.
Righthitting the glass itself.
Did the car explode in the end? No.
No.
No.
I don't think cars explode all that often.
I think that's more a Hollywood thing.
So that's why I think they explode.
Doesn't every car explode? But they do burn extremely fast.
You could hear, under the hood, you know, some of the canisters some of the sealed canisters popping off.
Uh-huh.
Popping And then did the flames spread as you were getting Yes.
more into the Yeah.
Yeah.
We didn't have a lot of time.
On the charred frame of the SUV, you can see the doorframe that Renning bent with his bare hands.
You managed to get your fingers into the top of the doorframe.
And behind here somehow.
So what was it like after? After the experience? I did end up with some nightmares.
That was tough.
Actually had one last night.
Oh, really? It was a little tough this morning, coming up on the car setting here beside the road.
Sure.
It just was a little tough.
Looking back on it, did you feel any kind of a wave of adrenaline? Did you feel suddenly stronger than you think you are? Yes.
You do? Yeah.
Yeah? I find it really interesting to think about how much physical force would be required to do what you did.
Do you think you'd be able to do this again? I don't know.
Uh-huh.
I don't know.
I think it would be intriguing to find out.
Bob was able to bend metal with his bare hands, summoning incredible strength in a crisis.
But there's a group of people who are able to call on superhuman powers whenever they choose.
Shaolin monks of the Shaolin Temple, which originated in Hunan, China, in 1464 AD, are capable of incredible feats of strength.
These monks practice one of the oldest and most unique forms of kung fu, combining Zen Buddhism and martial arts.
The most skilled of these monks are known as warriors.
In the case of a warrior monk, who's able to tap into some of these abilities and to push themselves past what are normal human limits that person's controlling everything.
It just takes a long time and lots of training to get there.
I want to know more about their incredible strength, so I'm meeting with a 34th generation ordained Shaolin warrior monk to uncover the truth behind their ancient secrets.
If we're talking about superhuman strength Yesdo you feel like the things that you've been able to attain in your life are attainable by anybody? Yes.
Mm-hmm.
One of the defining characteristics of the Shaolin line is the physicality of it, right? Yes.
Tests of pain endurance? Yes.
Yeah.
So, in addition to strength, it's also about enduring pain.
Talk about your threshold for pain.
You see the scar here? Yeah.
Which is, to be specific, to endure Endure, yes.
Yesthe burning of is it nine incense? Yes.
Uh-huh.
How long do they hold each one? Yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, sure.
That's how you became a full-fledged Shaolin monk, yeah.
Yeah.
Full, yes.
Yes.
So it's not an easy path.
No easily I'm also really interested in how your body can endure pain, and how different your body and your brain actually are.
The abbot is clearly able to endure an incredible amount of pain.
But how does he do it? We've seen that some people become more powerful in a crisis situation.
But has the abbot actually trained himself to summon strength whenever he chooses? To understand more, I've asked the abbot to show me one of the most dangerous and painful the Shaolin Hard Qigong.
This is Abbot.
Steve.
Nice to meet you.
So, Abbot's going to demonstrate some pretty intense physical feats.
I'm excited.
It'll be interesting to see what data we actually get from this.
Under the medical supervision of Dr.
Steve Young, the abbot will be enduring a blow to the head that would give most people a concussion, or cause serious injury by tearing the skin or breaking the bone.
So, basically, we're gonna measure what's happening inside the body.
As you get into a certain meditative state, your nervous system is it heightened, is it suppressed, is it hyperactive, or is it being subdued so we can handle the pain involved in this process? We're using this device that NASA uses.
One of the world's best devices.
Just goes on the wrist? Just goes right on a wrist.
And, as it's on, we'll be able to record, on the computer, what's happening to the nervous system.
When you've done tests along these lines before, have you done them on people who are sustaining some kind of physical impact? We used to do a lot of MMA fighters.
Uh-huh.
And so, punching things and lifting things and training.
Okay.
And so what we'd typically see is a very heightened fight-or-flight response.
So you've never done something like this in terms of measuring impact? We don't know what to expect when it's applied to a physical task.
All right.
Shall we, uh So how this will work is, it's gonna go on the left wrist.
So this is the solid That is a solid piece of wood um, just in case anybody was wondering.
Is there anything that you need, Abbot, before you get started? We need to turn on the Oh, right.
I have to turn on the Yeah.
So it went red, and now it's on.
It's good? Okay.
Wow.
As you were doing the movements, I could feel the power.
It started as something that was meditative, but it became, very quickly, something that was palpable from even the distance that was between us.
Yes.
And this is, like, very solid wood.
When you're meditating in that manner, is it just about focusing your energy? Right.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
When you made contact, it wasn't that the stick was breaking over you, it was that you were breaking the stick, really.
That there was this explosion, almost, in that moment.
Uh-huh.
Does it hurt? Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
There was a real power to it.
The physical expression of it that's the thing that's shocking to me.
You could feel the, kind of, intensity of his power as he was getting into that Qigong movement.
And then when he broke this I mean, this is a really serious stick.
I mean, if you broke this over my arm, you would break my arm.
Or if you did that over my head, I would be absolutely rushed to the hospital.
What do we have, Steve? What were you able to discern? Yeah, so we've picked up some very interesting data.
From the time that the abbot started to prep, we saw a calming of the nervous system.
So he lowered his body temperature significantly.
Wow.
In the beginning.
Yeah.
That's a What kind of difference is that? Uh, 1.
2 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's pretty amazing.
For most people, it would be the reverse.
Uh-huh.
If I was aut to hit you, your nervous system would spike up.
But, as you can see, it can be consciously controlled.
The abbot was able to, sort of, train his nervous system to be in much more of a calm state during the head break Uh-huh.
uh, state.
Do you know where, on that line, the head break is? Right about here.
Yeah.
Oh.
So, again, you can see he was decreasing his heart rate right before the break, and then it went up.
There's kind of a spike right after it, huh? Wow.
That's amazing.
Based on this data, we can see that there's this response, through practice, if you're able to control the energy of your body to get into this much calmer state.
I'm shocked that the abbot was able to control his nervous system in order to withstand the intense impact of the wood staff.
So what makes a superhuman? Is it mind or body? Or, in the case of the abbot, is it both? Could he have trained his mind and have bones with superhuman strength? The only way to find out is to compare the abbot's body to a normal person like me in a lab.
If I could have you take off your shoes, if that's okay? So you're gonna Facing up.
Correct.
You're gonna lie down.
You're gonna lie down.
Exactly.
Are you ready? So you're just gonna lie down.
And what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna make sure that you don't hit your head.
And you can fall asleep if you'd like, okay? - Zach, you're on the left.
- Abbot, you're on the right.
Yes.
This is what's called your bone mineral density.
And that is the densest of your bones.
How strong they are, okay? So, Zach, you're 40 years old, right? Yeah.
I'm older than you, so so we're good.
I'm still adjusting to my I'm relatively newly 40 years old.
Your bone density total it's 1.
451 grams per centimeter squared.
And then, Abbot, for you, you're a little bit older, right? So you're 51.
And so, where you stand, yes, you are lower.
You're at 1.
264.
That's a big difference when you talk about bone density.
Now, are there any bones in the abbot that are particularly strong? If we look at the density of our heads, mine's pretty high, right? It is.
2.
7.
2.
73 grams per centimeter squared.
Okay, so, I have a dense skull.
You do.
But, again, so the abbot is at 1.
6.
Yes.
So, if I did the exercise that the abbot did this afternoon breaking that stick on my head I feel like I would just be in the hospital.
So is there a way to explain the capacity for him to be able to do that? That's a great question, because I think that goes to specificity of the way you train allows him to do that.
Yes.
We don't work out to allow ourselves to do that.
That is the biggest difference of why, for example, Yes.
you and I would hurt ourselves.
Mm-hmm.
You've trained so much.
That's certainly a lot of your mind over matter, isn't it, Abbot? Yes.
I'm definitely surprised by this.
I thought the abbot would have an increased bone density.
He doesn't at all.
I'm 2.
73, and he's 1.
60.
Uh, yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
I think that's where it really comes down to the meditative focus and the technique that the Qigong allows him to harness.
But if it really is mind over matter, then why can't we all be superhuman? Or can we? I'm trying to understand how people become superhuman.
Some, like Shaolin monks, can develop these powers through years of conditioning their minds.
We didn't have a lot of time.
But what about a seemingly average guy like Bob Renning, who used superhuman strength to pry open a burning car door? Could he do it again? And is that something anyone could learn how to do? Bob, this is Steve Young.
Nice to meet you.
How much force did he exert when he bent the metal on that car door? We've taken a car to an auto body shop, and we have used a machine to do the same thing that Bob did to the side of the car door.
And we measured the amount of force that it would take for that to happen.
So the actual number, when we did this in an auto body shop with a machine and measured it, was 509.
That's intriguing.
That's a lot.
So what accounts for Bob's sudden ability to pull that much weight? Our experiment today may help us find out.
A 1961 study showed firing a starter pistol behind subjects increased their strength by ten percent.
Having participants shout or grunt unlocked 15 percent more strength.
And hypnosis produced a 30 percent increase above the norm.
If we apply these same types of jolts in a controlled setting, can anyone harness the power of superhuman strength? And in Bob's case, can he approach the strength he found when he saved a man from a burning car? I've enlisted Dr.
Steve Young to find out.
So this is a force gauge.
A pretty accurate way for us to measure how much force exertion is happening.
Okay.
Okay.
Other than being able to measure the force output, we also want to directly measure how hard, or how intense, the muscles specific to this task is contracting.
And so, we have a research-level device by Delsys.
We'll be able to stick this on the skin.
And we're gonna measure the electrical activity of the muscles as he's pulling on the device so we can see how hard the muscles are working.
All right.
You feel ready, Bob? I'm ready.
Let's try it.
Let's flatten your back a little bit so we can protect your back.
Okay.
And then when I say "go," pull as hard as you can.
Ready? Go.
Ready.
Very nice.
Good.
Rest.
All right.
What'd we get to, Steve? 280 pounds of pressure.
280 pounds of pressure.
All right.
That's impressive.
So you have some baseline readings now, right? Mm-hmm.
So should we start to implement some stimuli to potentially help motivate Bob? Yeah.
I will verbally encourage you.
Okay.
Because there's some studies and research showing that with verbal encouragement, we can change your physiology and heighten your ability Okay.
to be more like Superman.
All right.
Fair enough.
This is a maximum-effort pull.
And I want to make sure that you can get it all the way up as fast as possible, as hard as possible.
All right.
So when you're ready, go.
Come on, Bob.
Pull, pull, pull.
There it is.
Go, go, go, go.
Pull, pull.
Go, go, go, go, go.
Go, go, go, go, go.
Go, go, pull! All right.
Well, that's interesting.
Yep.
380.
380.
So that was 380 pounds of pressure.
So a whole full 100 pounds more just by some verbal encouragement.
Yes.
'Cause you guys yelled at me.
We're now gonna introduce the element of hypnosis.
Go ahead and close your eyes.
And take a deep breath in and deep breath out.
I'd like you to imagine there are numbers appearing right in front of you, from 200 backwards, all the way down.
Going deeper, relax.
198.
All sounds fade away.
Completely fade away.
198, 197, relaxed.
63, down Every fiber and cell.
One, two, and three, and four, and five Open your eyes.
And welcome back.
All right? Yeah.
You know what to do? Mm-hmm.
That got us to 390.
That was a full hundred pounds more Yeah.
that you exerted on that day.
How you feeling? You good? Okay.
Yeah.
Okay, so we have one last test that we're gonna do.
Again, when I say "go," you're gonna pull as fast and as hard as you can.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Are you ready? Yep.
Go! Go! I'm on a quest to determine whether anyone can evoke mysterious superhuman strength.
With the help of Dr.
Steve Young, we're doing an experiment to see if an average guy like Bob can recreate the strength he found when he bent a burning car door with his bare hands.
400 pounds of pressure.
All right.
So we're getting there.
Yeah.
So the first was 280.
Then verbal encouragement was 380.
And then adrenaline spike was four? A little bit more than a 30 percent increase from baseline.
That's a lot.
That's cool.
Do you wanna take a look at the electromagnetic data as well? Yeah.
The muscles were forced to work much harder through the adrenaline, the verbal encouragement, as well as the hypnosis.
This gives us a clear indication that each of those variables played a part in changing the dynamic of your exertion and your strength levels.
It was the adrenaline stimulus Go! Go! that generated the greatest response in you and got you the closest what you did on that day at 509 pounds.
I guess I should give this a pull, right? Just to see see where I fall on the spectrum.
320.
That's lame.
It wasn't on fire, so what can I tell you? Go! With the help of shock stimuli, this test confirmed that Bob was able to draw upon superhuman strength, just like he did the day he saved the man from the burning car in response to a crisis.
But does that mean that Bob, or anyone for that matter, can become superhuman whenever we want? Some experts believe the answer is yes.
People can be trained to learn how to harness these kinds of abilities.
Lots of examples we can come up with are the extreme ones that are due to huge dumps of adrenalin into our blood that allow us to not feel some of the pain, and allow us to have stronger muscle contractions.
Being able to achieve, sort of, superhuman abilities comes down to people's ability to will themselves through pain and push beyond what would normally be thought humanly possible.
We can do more than we think we can.
We just have to push ourselves and have the determination to do it.
I've seen how certain people become superhuman through years of training while others harness their power in a moment of crisis.
But what about people who exhibit superhuman traits from the day they were born? Like 38-year-old Steve Pete, who has an incredibly rare condition seen in a tiny fraction of the world's population.
I was born without the ability to feel pain.
So I've no sense of physical pain.
Wow.
Being shielded from pain allows him to do things that would be impossible for the rest of us.
So what's it like? Can you describe the experience of not having the sensation of physical pain? A lot of endurance and stuff, 'cause you can just run for hours and hours Is that true? Yeah.
Do you run out of breath? Oh, yeah, I run out of breath.
Okay.
But my body doesn't hurt.
A lot of people would probably look at that and think that's, like, a superpower, right? Yeah.
I've lived with it my entire life, so it's just normal.
How old were you when you realized that this was something that you Oh, very young.
Very young? Yeah.
I was an infant, so So your parents must've noticed it before you did.
Yeah.
And do you know how they first I chewed off a good portion of my tongue.
Oh, wow.
And didn't have any kind of Obviously had no reaction to it.
No negative response to it, yeah.
So is there a name for this condition? It's called congenital insensitivity to pain.
Okay.
And it's caused by this one gene called SCN9A.
Okay.
This gene encodes an important protein on the neuron that seems to be really important in sending the signal that says pain.
Okay.
And, in your case, Mom has one defective gene, one good gene.
One good gene.
And so does Dad.
Dad same thing.
So the randomness of this, like, is crazy.
It really is.
There are maybe 100 people in thrld Less.
Less than a hundred? Probably about 40.
Wow! That's insane.
I was shocked by the rarity of the condition.
He doesn't know when he's in pain, so he pushes himself past what would be a conventional threshold.
When I twist my ankle, I don't feel the pain, but I can feel, um, like, certain bones rubbing on both.
Wow.
Breaking a bone is something that happens quite frequently when you're born with this condition.
Probably throughout my entire life, I've had probably about 70 or 80 broken bones.
Wow.
And I fractured three vertebrae.
I didn't exactly know what was going on with my body.
All I knew was I was having some discomfort in my lower back, so I went and saw a doctor, and my doctor said, "Have you been in a car wreck recently?" I said, "Not that I'm aware of.
" They're like, "Well, you got three fractured vertebrae.
" It wasn't until a couple months later that I remembered we were out sledding, and I went and jumped on the inner tube, and I scorpioned.
And that's the only thing I could think of that would've caused that injury.
Sounds like that could've been Yeah.
Wow.
So So, your body has evolved differently because you have no sensation.
I mean, see, it is it's like a rabbit hole.
Steve's body and brain seem to communicate in an entirely different way than most people.
And we already know the abbot was able to control his body through years of training his mind.
So does being superhuman all come down to the power of our minds? The only way to know for sure is to look deeper within the brain itself, so I'm putting the abbot, Steve Pete, and myself to the test at Jefferson Hospital.
We're very excited to have you here.
We're going to be looking at your brains.
This is an unusual group of three people that I don't think have ever been studied altogether in this kind of way.
Right.
We're gonna get each one of you into the scanner separately.
We're going to do something called a cold pressor test, where we're basically gonna put your hand into a bath of ice water, designed to elicit a lot of discomfort and pain.
And then, with the abbot, we're also going to have you meditate in a way of helping to control your response to the pain.
I was thinking maybe it would be an interesting experiment to see if I tried to regulate it.
I understand that you have a little bit of a meditation practice.
Comparatively a little, but, yeah.
Yeah, right.
It's an experiment, so, you know, it's kind of like walking on the moon, you know? We don't know what we're gonna see.
It's a mystery.
It is a mystery.
Exactly.
Mystery.
And we start to unravel it little pieces at a time.
Zach, come with me.
Whoa.
Okay.
We're good? Okay.
The best way that this scan works is that you wanna get repetitive sampling, and you wanna be able to see what's happening multiple different times.
And what we're looking at are changes in blood flow.
Every time he takes his hand out and in, it's registering the difference between those two states.
It gives us a chance to see what his brain looks like when he's experiencing pain versus when he's not.
Yeah.
Great.
He doesn't describe himself as being an expert meditator.
He's going to do the best he can.
So, presumably, he may not really be able to suppress the pain as much.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
That's interesting.
Actually, his heart rate was much higher during the pain stimulus.
Wow.
Very low.
Wow.
That's interesting.
All right.
Yeah.
We're good.
You can take him out.
I'm looking deep inside the mind to see if a brain scan can reveal the secrets to becoming superhuman.
What differences will we see when we compare an average person like me against those with superhuman abilities like the abbot and Steve, a man who was born without the ability to feel pain.
Does being superhuman all come down to mind over matter? You actually did very well.
You, uh You may really be Mr.
Spock.
Oh, maybe.
So this is my brain.
This is your brain.
You have a very nice brain.
It's all in good shape? It's all in good shape.
All right.
There's a top view.
As if we're slicing through You know, going slice by slice, all the way down.
Those are my eyes.
What? There's your eyes.
These are the lenses that are inside of your eyes.
Oh, my teeth.
And your teeth.
So let's take a look at the impact of the ice water test.
So here now, you put your hand into a bath of ice water, designed to elicit a lot of discomfort and pain.
And the colors represent activity.
When you see areas of activity, that means that an area got turned on.
So this is the first time, when I wasn't meditating.
This is the first one.
Without meditation.
As you can see here, you have a fair amount of activity in the sensory area.
I mean, all of this area in here lit up.
Uh-huh.
Now, what's interesting is that, in contrast, you tried meditating, and you actually wound up doing a very good job at reducingInteresting.
the amount of inflow into these sensory areas of the brain.
All right.
I mean, there's a few little scattered areas here, but there really isn't very much.
Wow.
All right.
So I should keep meditating.
Meditating.
Absolutely.
All right.
So let's see what we get from the abbot and from Steve.
From the expert Yep.
Steve, welcome.
We're gonna get you into the scanner.
We're going to do a couple of initial scans to just see where your brain is.
Steve's genetic condition doesn't allow the message of pain to travel all the way to his brain and fire off receptors in his spinal column.
So we're gonna be able to see it? Yeah, the colors start to form.
So there's no color, then there's no sensation? Exactly.
I want to know what the abbot feels and how his brain processes, um, or doesn't process the pain sensations.
If you are as good a meditator as the abbot, how much of a difference is there between his baseline state and then the meditation state? That's very interesting.
Oh.
Wow.
It's hard to tell yet what that means.
We're gonna take everything, we'll put it all together, and we'll present everything to all of you.
Some people develop their superhuman abilities, some people are born with them, and others exhibit powers in a crisis situation.
But the scary thing is, someday scientists may be able to engineer superhumans, and that day may be soon.
One thing human beings have learned over time is that their best intentions often go awry.
We're not always that good of knowing what the downside is of our technologies.
Over 1,000 Russian athletes can be identified as being involved in manipulation to conceal positive doping tests.
Whatever technology we develop in order to help people can potentially also be used to harm people.
We can increase people's physical strength.
We can increase people's attention with psychotropic drugs.
We can change our physiology so that someone can do things they couldn't do before.
For example, there's a Japanese mechanism that you can put on the side of the head that completely disrupts the ability to walk or move.
These technologies are extremely powerful, and therefore really susceptible to being misused.
So the question of human enhancement is: what are the limits? We're just at the beginning.
Right now, we can't go into developing embryos to fix a broken gene.
We can't create clone armies of soldiers in laboratories.
We don't know how to hack the brain yet, but I do think that someday that will come.
It's amazing to think that we may be looking at a future where we can actually engineer superhumans.
But what about the people we've already met? And what could the results of our pain response test reveal about the power of their superhuman minds? It's very exciting to be able to compare all three of you, because you all have different ways of experiencing pain.
These are each of your brains.
Now, this was the first pain scan.
This was the first time that you guys were all putting your hands into the ice water bath.
The area that we're really looking at, which is demonstrated best on Zach's brain, is right here in the sensory region of the brain.
You have the brightest and the largest red area, because you probably perceive the pain the most.
But, to me, what's very interesting is, you tried a simple meditation practice, and you actually, you know, did a very impressive job at starting to suppress the pain response.
I find that so fascinating.
Absolutely.
Now, Steve, you don't feel pain, but you do feel, so there's a little bit of activity.
There's, like, a very tiny little ditzel.
I think that that's reflecting, basically, that you felt that you were putting your hand into the ice, and maybe you felt a little cold.
But it wasn't really eliciting a lot of response, which is kind of what we know of your condition.
Now, this is the abbot.
In some senses, you were the most interesting.
Abbot, you have nothing going on in there.
Look at that.
This is Abbot's brain.
You're on the right.
This is you.
Yep.
And one of the things that I thought was kind of fascinating about this was that the brain didn't even change that much from, you know, the first scan to the second scan.
Wow.
I don't really think Abbot can help it.
I think his mind is so evolved and developedYeah.
that it's just where it is, right? Right.
I mean, maybe his brain is kind of in a different state, you know, all the time.
It really reinforces the power of mind over matter.
Yes.
Our brain is able to find a way to allow our body to get to a different level.
You know, to be superhuman.
I've seen extraordinary examples of superhuman abilities and now I've harnessed these powers within my own mind.
You, uh You may really be Mr.
Spock.
One, Throughout this journey, But can I I've seen how different people can become superhuman, whether through training, genetics, or a crisis situation.
It all comes down to the delicate connection between our minds and our bodies.
I can teach you how to be a warrior.
Now it's my turn.
I wanna know if the abbot can teach me to become superhuman.
Okay.
All right.
Let's try.
So All right.
So, now breathe up.
Mm-hmm.
Hold breathing.
And release.
All the way down to the belly.
Through your nose.
You breathe in.
All the way down.
Wave up.
And scoop.
And breathe now.
Raise up to the sky.
Breathe in.
All the way down.
Breathe.
So like a gentle So, one here.
One, two, and then After two, you can, uh Okay.
Huh? Okay.
So practice by yourself a few seconds now.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
More up.
Yeah.
Okay.
Correct.
Okay.
Okay.
Confident.
Okay, now breathe.
Uh-huh.
Stay here.
Mm-hmm.
Now stay, wait for me.
Now, grab it here.
One two Okay.
Ready? Three.
Go! Okay.
Okay, so So you learn how to break stick.
Yeah.
All right.
We Wow.
Yeah.
I have no pain.
That's amazing.
I mean, that's crazy.
I really did feel connected to him when I broke the stick over his arm.
I didn't know if I would feel capable of doing it, but then, in the act of it, I felt a kind of trust.
Obviously I've never done this before, so That's incredible.
There was a real power to it that allowed me to do it.
While the supernatural powers within our minds and our bodies remain a mystery, there is something more to human potential than we ever thought possible.
Wherever their powers come from, superhumans are out there, and maybe within us all.
But how far we will take those powers remains unknown.