Slow

Summary

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Radiolab – "Slow"

Date: October 18, 2011
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich
Produced by: Andy Mills

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Episode Overview

This episode of Radiolab, titled "Slow," explores the nature of perception and self-awareness through the deeply personal story of Andy Mills’ friendship with Con Ashmore. Con survived a major brain injury as a child and moves and speaks at a markedly slower pace than others. The episode delves into the strange and revealing disconnect between Con’s perception of his own voice and the reality as experienced by people around him, opening up broader questions about the nature of self-perception, adaptation, and empathy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing Con Ashmore: Friendship and First Impressions

• Andy Mills recounts meeting Con as a college sophomore, describing a “strange noise” coming from the next room, which turned out to be Con's slow, droning speech (03:45).
• Con is described as witty, smart, and observant, despite moving and speaking at a much slower pace than others—externally, but not in his own mind (05:36).

2. Origins of Con’s Slowness

• At eight years old, Con was struck by a car while chasing his dog, resulting in a five-month coma (04:53), after which he physically and verbally slowed down, except for his mental faculties (05:28).
• Andy and Con bond over music and late-night talks, despite the challenges of communication.

3. The Mixtape Revelation: Hearing His Own Voice

• The central moment: as a teenager, Con tried to record a love song for a crush and, upon playback, was horrified by how slow and different his voice sounded (07:51).
• Memorable quote, Con (08:17):
  “I remember being horrified just to … even if I screamed.”
• It was the first time Con realized his voice sounded different to others—“he actually didn’t know that his voice was slow” (08:58).

4. Self-Perception vs. Reality

• Con hears both himself and others at a “normal” speed in his mind (09:02).
• Hosts debate whether Con’s brain speeds up his own speech internally or if it simply feels normal to him (09:35).

5. Expert Opinion: Neurological Explanation

• The hosts interview neurologist Dr. Oren Davinsky (09:54), who compares Con’s experience to patients with Parkinsonism described by Oliver Sacks—they, too, didn’t recognize their own slowed voices when played back (11:07).
• Quote, Dr. Oren Davinsky (11:07):
  “So Oliver Sacks, when he took care of his ‘Awakenings’ patients ... would sometimes record their voices … and they’d say, ‘That’s not me. You’re fiddling with the tape machine. That’s not my voice.’”

6. The Power of Familiarity

• Andy posits that familiarity changes perception: initially, Con's voice was difficult to understand, but over time, Andy became accustomed to it (12:34).
• Quote, Andy (12:38):
  “I think that it has something to do with familiarity ... I've grown so familiar to his voice.”
• Robert compares this to understanding Shakespeare after some exposure (12:59).

7. Family Context: Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Con?

• Con’s parents are both deaf (13:41), so they never noticed or commented on his speech.
• Most of Con’s friends were unaware of his lack of self-awareness about his voice (14:03).
• Notable moment, Friend (14:20):
  “That’s so sad.”

8. Con’s Reaction and Emotional Fallout

• After realizing his difference, Con initially vowed never to talk again (14:33), but gradually returned to speaking out of necessity.
• He also eventually became comfortable singing and recording his voice once more (15:34).

9. Musical Tribute – Experiencing Con’s World

• Andy collaborates with the band Hudson Branch to create a musical piece that overlays Con singing “Grey Room” by Damien Rice, aiming to give listeners a sense of how Con experiences his own voice (16:30).
• Con’s reaction to hearing the band’s interpretation:
  Andy (18:53):
  “Yeah, I mean, when he heard it, he said, ‘hell yes.’ … He loves it.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jad Abumrad (02:18):
  “This is a friendship with a big fat ‘what’ in it.”
• Con Ashmore (08:58):
  “He actually didn't know that his voice was slow.”
• Andy Mills (12:38):
  “I’ve grown so familiar to his voice.”
• Dr. Oren Davinsky (11:07):
  “They’d say, ‘That’s not me. You’re fiddling with the tape machine. That’s not my voice.’”
• Con Ashmore, on singing again (15:58):
  “This is ‘Grey Room’ by Damien Rice. Well, I’ve been here before / Sat on the poor / In a gray, gray room.”

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Important Timestamps

• 04:53 – Con describes the accident and waking from the coma
• 07:51 – The mixtape story and first realization of his slow voice
• 09:54 – Introduction of Dr. Oren Davinsky, neurologist
• 11:07 – Parkinson’s patients’ similar experiences described
• 13:41 – Reveal that Con’s parents are both deaf
• 15:58 – Con sings “Grey Room” for Andy
• 16:30-18:47 – Musical recreation of Con’s experience

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Tone and Takeaway

Radiolab weaves the story with warmth, curiosity, and empathy, using personal narrative, clinical insight, and musical experimentation to explore the disconnect between self-perception and external reality. The episode leaves listeners reflecting on the hidden worlds we each inhabit and how friendship and understanding can help bridge those gaps.

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Transcript

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[Chad Abumrad]

Wait, you're listening. Okay.

[Con Ashmore]

All right.

[Chad Abumrad]

Okay. All right.

[Radiolab Listener/Caller]

You're listening to Radiolab Radio Lab shorts.

[Andy Mills]

From wny, see and npr.

[Chad Abumrad]

Three, two, one. Let me now propose that I'll never count backwards again. No, I'm serious. Hey, I'm Chad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I am Robert Krulwitz.

[Chad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast. And today on the podcast, story about a friendship. Really? Because in almost any friendship, there'll be.

[Robert Krulwich]

A moment where you're looking across at this person you think you know very, very well, and he or she will suddenly say something or do something or.

[Chad Abumrad]

Think something that just throws everything into.

[Robert Krulwich]

Question, everything up in the air. You think, what? What? This is a friendship with a big fat what in it.

[Chad Abumrad]

And the guy that's gonna tell us.

[Andy Mills]

The story is Andy Mills, an IMA freelance radio producer.

[Chad Abumrad]

And the other guy, you'll meet him in a minute.

[Robert Krulwich]

So maybe we should start. Like, how did you meet? Like, what was the. Where did you lay eyes on each other?

[Andy Mills]

Well, it was my sophomore year of college and it was the time that the freshmen are all moving into the dorms and I was meeting new people welcoming the freshmen.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh you're an RA or you're some sort of.

[Andy Mills]

No, no, just one of those chatty people in the dorm.

[Chad Abumrad]

You're like, what's your name?

[Andy Mills]

Exactly. And as I was talking actually to a group of freshmen in my room, I hear this like, strange noise from the room next door. It was this kind of low drone. So I kind of peeked over and saw, you know, an 18 to 19 year old kid in a wheelchair, dark curly hair. And this noise I'd been hearing was his voice. Not even a week later, I run into him in the hallway and I introduce myself. I say, hi, I'm Andy. What's your name?

[Con Ashmore]

And he said, my name is Con Ashmore. K. O h.

[Andy Mills]

Ashmore.

[Chad Abumrad]

Con Ashmore.

[Andy Mills]

Yeah. I was on the way to eat lunch and I invited him to join me. We sit down in the corner and I notice like, he brings the fork to his mouth, like really slowly. Everything about him is slowed down. But also notice, like, he's witty, observant, and so at a certain point in the conversation, I asked him, what's wrong? Like, why do you move and talk so slowly?

[Chad Abumrad]

You just asked him flat out? Yeah. Was he offended?

[Con Ashmore]

Um.

[Andy Mills]

No, I think he was. He was relieved to find somebody who was willing to admit that it's a little bit weird.

[Chad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Con Ashmore]

Well.

[Andy Mills]

And then he tells me the story the day, twice.

[Con Ashmore]

He started at the beginning, November 15th.

[Andy Mills]

He said, I was eight years old.

[Con Ashmore]

I was. Was out in the backyard.

[Andy Mills]

I had this dog.

[Con Ashmore]

The dog had run off, broke loose off his chain.

[Andy Mills]

I ran out into the street and the next thing I knew, I was waking up from a coma.

[Con Ashmore]

Yeah. Five months.

[Andy Mills]

Five months later, he got hit by a car. Yeah. And when you woke up, what had happened to you?

[Chad Abumrad]

What.

[Andy Mills]

What were the injuries you suffered?

[Con Ashmore]

Well, I couldn't talk, couldn't move.

[Andy Mills]

And then he comes out of it slowly and slowly. But thing is, he. He stays slow. Slow.

[Con Ashmore]

Very slow.

[Chad Abumrad]

So this is a man who has slowed down globally.

[Andy Mills]

Right. Except for, of course, his mind.

[Chad Abumrad]

Really? Oh, yeah.

[Andy Mills]

He does well in school. He's smart, he has a great sense of humor. And we connected, you know, I was his neighbor in the dorm and we had a lot in common. Liked a lot of the same music. Used to stay up late. I'd play my acoustic guitar and he would sing Matchbox 20 songs from the 90s. You know, he would.

[Chad Abumrad]

You do you. You must slow down your playing. Is that what it is?

[Andy Mills]

My playing is not exactly rock star material or anything. I love that song. I know it by you. It wasn't long before, we ended up having these really deep conversations into the middle of the night.

[Chad Abumrad]

About what?

[Andy Mills]

Well, the fact that both of our parents are divorced and how we both grew up in households that were fighting all the time and having to sleep at grandma's is, like, a regular part of both of our lives. Khan's parents started fighting a lot after he came out of the coma. The mom blamed the dad for not watching Khan. And, yeah, we talked a lot about how, like, that impacted our life growing up. And we just became really close. The level situation. Tell me what you had for breakfast today. You know, I've known Khan for almost a decade, but it wasn't until last summer that I decided to interview Khan on tape. And it was in the middle of this interview that Khan tells me this story that completely changed the way that I think about Khan and his slowness.

[Con Ashmore]

So I really.

[Andy Mills]

The story starts off with him in junior high. First big crush. Her name was Julie. And he's trying to think of something romantic to do to catch her attention. And he really loves music. He was listening to his Walkman one night, and he realized that that's what he wants to do.

[Con Ashmore]

He would make her mix type a.

[Andy Mills]

Romantic mixtape, and that would be the thing. So he makes this tape, and then.

[Con Ashmore]

He decided that I should try singing.

[Andy Mills]

To actually sing a love song. A love song to Julie. So he writes a song, records it, puts the tape back in the stereo.

[Con Ashmore]

And when I played it back, Woman is praying. Then I might. I remember being horrified just to. Even if I screamed.

[Andy Mills]

He felt embarrassed. He felt confused.

[Con Ashmore]

Screaming, crying.

[Chad Abumrad]

Wait, why?

[Andy Mills]

Well, it turns out that was the first time that he had ever heard his voice the way that you and I hear his voice. And so.

[Chad Abumrad]

Wait, the. Wait, first time? What does that even mean?

[Robert Krulwich]

He never heard a recording of himself or.

[Andy Mills]

Well, no. Not only had he never heard a.

[Con Ashmore]

Recording of himself, but when he talks, I hear myself. Like I hear you.

[Andy Mills]

What do you mean by that?

[Con Ashmore]

Like, I mean, he tells me that.

[Andy Mills]

He actually didn't know that his voice was slow.

[Chad Abumrad]

How's that even possible? I mean, does that mean his brain is speeding up his voice but not yours?

[Andy Mills]

Yeah, he hears me talk normal, and then he hears himself talk normal as well.

[Robert Krulwich]

Do you think he's slow and speeding up, or do you think he just thinks he's regular?

[Andy Mills]

It's not like he speeds both of us.

[Chad Abumrad]

Does he mean, like, your voice just. Or his voice just feels normal, or does he mean it actually sounds normal?

[Andy Mills]

It sounds exactly the same is what I'm Saying, like, he thinks he's sitting here right now. He would hear you talk. He'd hear me talk, and then he would say something. And in his head, it's all the same speed.

[Chad Abumrad]

But that doesn't make sense because it's like variable speed, you know, I don't think he's.

[Robert Krulwich]

No, I think he thinks he's just normal. I'm normal inside.

[Chad Abumrad]

So we went back and forth and back and forth on this until finally.

[Robert Krulwich]

We need a specialist at this point.

[Andy Mills]

Guess we'll all take our positions.

[Chad Abumrad]

We ended up calling this guy who we've had on the show before.

[Robert Krulwich]

All right, so, Andy, Oren's here.

[Oren Davinski]

Oren Davinski, neurologist, NYU Medical Center.

[Robert Krulwich]

He's the doctor.

[Oren Davinski]

Hi, Andy.

[Andy Mills]

Hi, Oren. Does Oren. Does Oren know anything?

[Oren Davinski]

I know. Yeah. I listened. I'm college educated.

[Andy Mills]

I mean, that does.

[Chad Abumrad]

Anyhow, Andy ran him through the whole story.

[Andy Mills]

Yeah. Well, he was 8 years old, and he was.

[Chad Abumrad]

I believe everything you've just heard. And here was Oren's reaction.

[Oren Davinski]

Yeah. So I guess, you know, just. It's a fascinating case. And my first clinical question would be, did he know he moved slowly?

[Andy Mills]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Oren Davinski]

But it was only for his own voice that he was unaware that he was different than everybody else.

[Andy Mills]

Right.

[Oren Davinski]

So he does have feedback on himself. The one area he's not getting feedback on is his voice production, which interestingly happens in post encephalitic Parkinson's patients. They're slow in all their movements. They're slow getting up out of a chair. They're slow walking. But as with Kahn, there are some cases where they just get little focal areas that they don't see, their slowness. So Oliver Sacks, when he took care of his awakenings, patients at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx would sometimes record their voices and play it back, and they'd say, that's not me. You're fiddling with a tape machine. That's not my voice.

[Chad Abumrad]

Because the voice to them would sound too slow. Too slow, Too slow.

[Andy Mills]

Yeah, that's exactly conversation.

[Oren Davinski]

Do you think his inner voice, his inner mental speed is truly as fast, or is that also slow?

[Andy Mills]

Oh, it's absolutely normal.

[Oren Davinski]

Okay.

[Andy Mills]

Khan and I both went to a Christian college. We both made an exodus from that kind of fundamentalist Christian world at around the same time, which involved, you know, long talks about what we believe and what we think we might believe next. And there was never a point where I was having to, like, wait for Khan to make some, you know, mental exercise before he'd respond and those are some pretty complex things dealing with faith and belief.

[Oren Davinski]

What I don't understand fully is why he hears you, Andy, speaking at three times his pace and feel you're normal. But something about his own voice feeding back to his own brain. He never perceived that at a different speed than your voice and everyone else's.

[Chad Abumrad]

Do you then trust?

[Robert Krulwich]

Do you then wonder it?

[Chad Abumrad]

Do you wonder about that?

[Robert Krulwich]

Maybe. Would you suspect that if you met him, you'd learn something different than you?

[Oren Davinski]

Yeah. No. In medicine, you should always trust the patient's report, but keep in the back of your head a drop of skepticism. But my gut as a clinician is more than 95%. It's real.

[Chad Abumrad]

Now, keep in mind that was not a true clinical diagnosis. That was just Oren Davinsky giving us his gut opinion.

[Andy Mills]

Well, I have a theory. I have a theory, unscientific though it may be.

[Chad Abumrad]

Well, that's definitely specialize in welcome to the club.

[Andy Mills]

I think that it has something to do with familiarity. Like when I first met Khan and I heard his voice, it was so foreign and so strange, and I could hardly make out what he was saying. But now I'm surprised when people say, what did he just say? And I think, well, he just said. He was horrified, you know, interesting. I've grown so familiar to his voice.

[Robert Krulwich]

That it is it sort of like going into a Shakespeare play. In an Act 1, Scene 1, Act 1, Scene 2, you don't know what's going on, but somehow in the second act, begins to click.

[Andy Mills]

Exactly. It's that familiarity. And if I have it, I mean, imagine what he must have.

[Con Ashmore]

Yeah. I've grown accustomed to hearing something different.

[Chad Abumrad]

But what I don't get is like, this went on for years. So how. How could. No, how come no one told him?

[Robert Krulwich]

His parents and his siblings and his friends have never turned to him and said, hey, what's. You know, come on, speed it up. They've never, ever said that.

[Andy Mills]

Well, no, his parents being deaf, you know, crossed them out. They couldn't have told him his parents are deaf. Both of them?

[Chad Abumrad]

Both of them.

[Andy Mills]

And Khan thinks that everyone else just assumed that he knew what his own voice sounded like.

[Chad Abumrad]

Really? Like when you talk to his friends.

[Oren Davinski]

Hello?

[Andy Mills]

Hey, Hayley.

[Chad Abumrad]

Hey. Hello.

[Andy Mills]

Hey, Dave. What's up?

[Con Ashmore]

Oh, not much.

[FidelityGo Announcer]

What's up, Andy?

[Chad Abumrad]

I mean. And you told him the whole thing? What was their reaction?

[Andy Mills]

Honestly, most of them didn't believe me.

[Radiolab Listener/Caller]

You're kidding.

[Andy Mills]

Did you know this at all?

[Radiolab Listener/Caller]

No, I had no idea. I didn't know that. And so his when he speaks, he just thinks that it sounds just like anyone else.

[Andy Mills]

Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.

[Radiolab Listener/Caller]

That's so sad.

[Andy Mills]

Yeah.

[Chad Abumrad]

So after he found out about his voice, which I guess was the one thing he thought was normal, what did he do?

[Con Ashmore]

Well, he said, I'm never gonna talk again.

[Chad Abumrad]

Um, did he. Did he talk again? Obviously he did. Right.

[Andy Mills]

Well, that's the same question I asked him. After you heard that you were different, how long did you go before talking again? And he told me.

[Con Ashmore]

I do remember going back to school.

[Andy Mills]

And he. He doesn't recall, like, the first conversation exactly that he had, but he thinks.

[Con Ashmore]

It went something like, charlie Pan, leave me the hell alone.

[Andy Mills]

He didn't want to talk, but gradually he realized that he kind of had to.

[Chad Abumrad]

And what about singing? You said he liked to sing.

[Andy Mills]

Well, eventually he got comfortable again with the idea of having his voice recorded. His singing voice recorded. And so after the interview was over, he mentioned this song that he actually had been singing a lot. And so I turned the recorder back on and asked if he would sing it for me. So tell me the name of the song and then just sing away.

[Con Ashmore]

This is Grey Room by Damien Ice. Well, I've been here before Sat on the poor In a gray, gray room.

[Andy Mills]

It was actually pretty emotional for us both. And as I'm sitting there hearing him sing this song, I'm just wondering, like, what does this sound like in his head? So after I got the tape recorded, I brought it back to my friends and Chicago in a band called Hudson Branch. And all of them know Khan. And I asked them, like, do you think that we could maybe play some music to this? So the music could kind of give us a peek into the way that Khan hears it and the way that Khan feels it. And maybe we could feel it too.

[Con Ashmore]

Stuck by the poor well, I've been here before. Sat on the floor in a gray guy room. I'm never gonna talk again I always thought of myself I always thought of.

[Andy Mills]

Myself as I hurt my.

[Con Ashmore]

Nigel Good to you. Great room.

[Chad Abumrad]

Huh?

[Robert Krulwich]

What did Khan say when he heard it, by the way? Did it remind him of anything, like what he feels?

[Andy Mills]

Yeah, I mean, when he heard it, he said, hell, yes. There's a quote from him. Yeah. No, he loves it. He loves it.

[Chad Abumrad]

Thanks to pretty producer Andy Mills, who just received an award at the Third Coast Festival for a shorter version of that piece. And thanks also, of course, to Con.

[Robert Krulwich]

Ashmore and the band. Andy Ann, Matt Bol, Jacob Bol, Corey Beinert, Kobe Beinert. Becky Bailey, Enoch Kim. They call themselves Hudson Branch. Becky joined them Lotta Bees, Bol Bowl, Beanert, Beinert and Bailey.

[Chad Abumrad]

Right. You know, Hudson Branch could be the name of a rock band that's also a law firm. Anyhow, you can find out more about them at Radiolab.org [e-mail] I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Chad Abumrad, and thanks so much for listening.

[Radiolab Listener/Caller]

Message hi, I'm Isaac. I'm from California and my dad listened to Radiolab. Radio Radiolab is supported in part by the what is that? Alfred Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Enhancing Public Understanding of Science and Technology in the Modern World. More information about [e-mail] Yes.