Dande: It is distinct from escapism. TV and video games are not always inherently dissociative. Being actively engaged in something you’re interested in is not a dissociative state. Flipping through channels and not absorbing anything—that’s when it becomes a dissociative state. Same with if you’re on your phone and actively messaging someone or doing something engaging. But it becomes dissociative when you’re just scrolling and feel like you can’t stop.

Katy: So why do people think that’s rest? Why does it get confused?

Dande: Because we’ve been trained to believe it is. All of the things we’ve been given over the past 30 years have been dissociative habits. Everything on our phone is built to get us into dissociative habits because it keeps us there. Real rest requires community and contentment, and contentment is antithetical to buying things—planned unhappiness fuels consumerism. Dissociative states work better for a consumerist culture than contented rest states where you don’t feel like you need anything.

Also, we’re in a place where we don’t have many third spaces outside of bars. There are still parks and recreational activities, but they’re not used in the same way. So the spaces we rest in are more condensed. For a lot of people, their rest space is their house—they might work from home, which disrupts that rest space, or they get home and crash because they’re so tired. And that’s still not restful.

Katy: Let’s talk about this whole self-care movement, how it’s different from real rest, and how sometimes it also feels like productivity. Where does that come from, and why has it become so linked to dissociation in our culture?

Dande: Yes, exactly. Self-care is different for everyone. When you bring influencing into it, and you’re told “this is how you should self-care,” it becomes steps. It becomes, “here are the steps I have to do.” A big metric to know if something is truly restful is if there’s any shame attached to it. If you feel embarrassed or ashamed for not doing it “perfectly,” it’s probably not a true rest state.

Katy: That’s great—if there’s any shame attached to it.

Dande: The self-care culture we’ve built is based on products, habits, what you should or shouldn’t eat, how much you should sleep. Real rest states allow you to flow through habits without thinking about them.

Katy: The flow concept—there’s dissociation, rest, activity. What about flow states?

Dande: For many people who don’t know how to enter restful states, the closest they get is flow states. Flow states are adjacent to dissociative states but involve activity. Flow captures your entire mind, kind of like a form of meditation, putting you into a hyper-focused state. Whether you’re making art, dancing, or working out, a flow state means your brain is entirely focused on this activity. It’s dopamine-based and also exhausting. Flow states feel amazing but use a lot of energy.

Katy: What do you mean by dopamine-based or exhaustive?

Dande: Neurodivergent people, for example, often slip into flow states easier and for longer. But for anyone, you might have times when you’re painting or drawing and suddenly realize you haven’t had water or gone to the restroom in four hours. Flow states create hyper-focus, where you lose track of bodily needs.

That hyper-focus uses a lot of energy in the brain. There’s an increase in ATP, though we don’t have a ton of flow state research yet since it’s hard to MRI someone in a flow state. But we do know from similar states like play that flow uses elevated energy in both the brain and body.

-Katy: Flow states crowd out some of the stressful feelings that are unrestful. When your body’s signaling fight-or-flight—like anxiety or stress—you can go into a flow state and crowd that out. Flow feels peaceful, not exactly restful, but peaceful.

Dande: Yeah, but the big thing is, after a flow state, there’s often a “crash.” Depending on the intensity, you’re more tired afterward. It feels good, there’s dopamine, but it’s exhaustive. For people unfamiliar with true rest, flow can feel like dissociation, except it’s positive and productive.

What’s important is that we’re not being chased by tigers anymore, yet our brains are still wired to stress about things that don’t endanger us physically. For example, I was in a car accident with a red truck, so every time I see a red truck, I tense up. These are trauma responses, signals our brains collect and treat as stressors, even if they’re not life-threatening.

Katy: Right, so our modern brains are overloaded with signals and media that trigger that stress response constantly. If you took someone from centuries ago and put them in our environment, they’d be overwhelmed.

Dande: Exactly. It’s called sensitization. Our dopamine receptors, for instance, lose sensitivity the more they’re used, just like with drug tolerance. So we have this culture of convenience, and while it seems positive, our bodies aren’t designed for constant convenience. For example, we live in stable temperatures, but circadian rhythms are naturally influenced by temperature shifts. Now we’re seeing more sensitivity to hot and cold affecting mood and productivity. The more we narrow our comfort range, the more we expand what we perceive as dangerous.

Katy: So that’s another contributor to fight-or-flight, keeping us out of rest. Let’s shift to productivity—why do we tie productivity so closely to identity?

Dande: Good point. Hyperproductivity, or even toxic productivity, often ties into our self-worth. When I was younger, I experienced “hustle culture” through entrepreneurs, which often centered on “outworking everyone else.” I had chronic symptoms that forced me to balance productivity with rest, but the pressure was always to do more. I’d go through cycles of intense productivity, then burnout, and repeat. Eventually, I realized the need to separate my identity from my output.

Katy: Yeah, I remember noticing your cycles. We had to learn how to not do the hyper-productivity thing. What’s been your experience, especially with rest?

Dande: I’ve had bursts of hyperproductivity, but I’ve often been barred from it because I have narcolepsy, which impacts my neurochemistry and requires me to conserve energy. I learned to function optimally at a middle ground—being productive within my limits without burning out.

As for the origins of hyperproductivity, it’s tied to how community plays a role in health. In Blue Zones, where people regularly live past 100, identity is tied to community, not productivity. Their sense of purpose comes from how they show up for others. They’re not trying to “get ahead” but to live well together, which correlates with some of the highest happiness scores globally. Happiness in these communities is a serotonin-driven process, not the dopamine-driven reward cycle we often mistake for happiness.

Katy: That’s insightful. So, in America, we have this sense of a “productive day” equating to happiness. Why do we feel so accomplished when we’re productive? Is it a cultural training?

Dande: Definitely. America’s culture is based on this ideal of “rising to the top.” Productivity has been moralized—being productive is seen as being “good” or “successful.” But it’s also a competitive mindset, which undermines community. You can’t be focused on outpacing others and be present in your community at the same time.

I’ve struggled with this, like comparing my income to friends’ while also trying to be present. I’ve shifted my focus toward community—thinking more about who I am to my friends and how we support each other, rather than how I measure up. That social connection and shared happiness is what generates real rest for me.

Katy: I spent some time in Europe in May and I did get to be around a bunch of expats who had their own businesses, which is amazing. And one of the things that they said was that there, and, especially some, there were a couple of British people that I talked to recently that were really complaining about this, if you rise, if you start to achieve more, if you start to really shine in your gifts, the culture is more to pull you down.

The point, like we’re not just gonna go become a baker and forget about all of our dreams so that we can live a blue zone life. The point is we want to be able to pursue and express and build and contribute in really big ways while staying in a rest state.

Dande: Yes.

Katy: That’s what’s possible.

Dande: Let’s start there with the inability to rest. We talked before about that shrinking margin of comfortability. The more and more that you’re steeped in hyper-productivity culture, the more and more your brain is built around if I am not doing an activity, I’m not good, which creates danger signaling. Danger signaling can trigger fight or flight responses regularly. That danger signaling is what stops you from being able to enter rest state. They’re in a productivity space. They’re in that space where their brain is mapping out everything instead of just being able to exist in a space.

Katy: Yeah.

Dande: We’ve all been on vacation with someone who’s planned every moment of it because the idea of chilling is foreign. They just don’t, they have trouble doing it.

Katy: Say you finish work, you have like a dead hour and you could sit there and do something you really enjoy or do nothing. But what comes into the mind is this stack of other things that would be productive to do. Or, how dare you sit and rest, you haven’t done all of these things. Or, if that’s too uncomfortable, then the brain goes to Okay, well at least I need to distract or disassociate so that I’m not thinking about my to do list. Scrolling, right? So, that’s, it’s like an inability to rest, there’s some avoidance there.

Dande: Well, and so that’s the other piece to rest is that rest is a present state. Rest is the ability to sit with whatever’s happening in your brain and not feel like you want to run away from it. And I think that’s what a lot of people experience is they start getting into a rest state and then their brain starts being like, hey, you need to pay attention to all these brain things. And they either run back into productivity, which is a form of distraction or into dissociation, which is a form of distraction. And actually being able to rest and what it does to the brain that’s so good is involved in this. Being able to sit there and be like, oh, here are the things I’m feeling. And just sitting and being present with it. Without feeling the need to reach for or purchase or—it’s not a state of wanting, it’s a state of being.

Katy: Observing, yeah.

Dande: And it’s passive. You can practice dipping a toe in it, and for people who aren’t used to it, it’s very, very uncomfortable. But even, think about the old people sitting on a porch, watching people walk by.