Joe Rogan Experience #1527 - David Blaine

1. 0:00 – 2:42

   Green room sleight-of-hand and Blaine’s early obsession with cards

   1. DBDavid Blaine0:00

      (laughs) This is a great collection.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      Yeah, this is, these are all from Plastisel. Look, even the sunglasses come off on Biggie.

   3. DBDavid Blaine0:07

      Wow.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:08

      Yeah. It's pretty dope.

   5. DBDavid Blaine0:10

      Yeah, it's awesome.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      We got John Wick. (laughs)

   7. DBDavid Blaine0:13

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      John Wick and his pit bull. Richard Pryor.

   9. DBDavid Blaine0:15

      This is awesome.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:17

       Yeah, I got Kanye, Bruce Lee.

   11. DBDavid Blaine0:19

       (laughs) But the glasses on Biggie is amazing.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:21

       I know. Well, this guy's amazing.

   13. DBDavid Blaine0:23

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       Shout-out to Fong from Plastisel. He makes some dope shit.

   15. DBDavid Blaine0:27

       (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       Yeah, he's amazing. (clears throat) But not as amazing as that shit you did in the green room, man.

   17. DBDavid Blaine0:32

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       David just did, uh, some card wizardry that, uh-

   19. DBDavid Blaine0:37

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       ... it's one thing that you see... when you see that shit on TV. You're like, "Eh, if I was there, I'd see some shit."

   21. DBDavid Blaine0:42

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       "I'd know what's going on." But when you see it in real life, you're like, "Wha- what is happening here?"

   23. DBDavid Blaine0:47

       Yeah, it's way better, like, uh, in person than

   24. NANarrator0:49

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:50

       ... well.

   26. DBDavid Blaine0:50

       Oh, yeah. Well, at the end, I don't wanna give anything away, but at the end, literally, a man is holding one of his wristss, and another guy's holding the other wrist, and he still does the card trick. And we still can't figure out what happened. (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       When did you get started? How old were you?

   28. DBDavid Blaine1:05

       Um, si- uh, I was about five years old when I started playing with cards, but I didn't know what, what they w- were for, really, so I just had a deck of cards that I carried everywhere. But I liked the way it felt, you know? Just like it felt like something cool.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:20

       Mm.

   30. DBDavid Blaine1:20

       So eventually, a librarian was like, "Oh, we got this, like, magic self-working card trick book, and do you wanna learn something?" And I was like, "Yeah," (laughs) "Of course." And she shows me the mo- this, th- that silly self-working mathematical trick that's a long process to do, but it's still a cool outcome. Like, "Oh, I found your card," right?
2. 2:42 – 4:00

   Houdini as the bridge between magic and real-world endurance

   1. DBDavid Blaine2:42

      Y- k- yeah, that changes your whole life. By the way, and also, so then the librarian, when I would come, she would give me books, and I would start looking at that little magic section that was between, like, games and puzzles. So I thought... I, I always wished magic would be, like, not there. Like, it should be, like, in art or so- you know? Just-

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:01

      Mm.

   3. DBDavid Blaine3:01

      ... 'cause it was always like when you want a magic book, it's always, like, that silly, like, kids jokey thing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:06

      Yeah.

   5. DBDavid Blaine3:06

      But there's like... So in that section, I pulled out a book, and I was like six years old, and I see a guy chained to the side of a building, staring out, looking like death is upon him. (laughs) And that was Houdini. And I didn't know anything about what that all meant. I looked through the pictures, and he was hanging upside down and stuff like that. But when I went to sleep, I would have these dreams of this guy chained to the side of a building, and that began my curiosity and love of, of Houdini. And then that began my curiosity of, like, not just, like, the magic trick stuff, but, like, this stuff, that's, to me, it's more, like, real.

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:46

      Yeah, how do those two worlds collide? Because some of the things you're doing, they're, they're just insane endurance and mental exercises, and then other things you're doing are what we, you would consider magic.

3. 4:00 – 8:25

   Breath-holding origins: swimming, CO2 tolerance, SEAL training, and blackouts

   1. DBDavid Blaine4:00

      Right, so, so I love both separately. Like, independently, like, I always loved... Like, I had a karate teacher at the YMCA that used to make us all run barefoot in the snow in the winter in Brooklyn, and, uh, all the kids were like... Uh, you know, we're young. We're like six, seven, and all the kids are like, "Ah," you know, and afraid they were gonna cut their feet on glass or whatever. And I would run in it, and I felt like I could do this because I wasn't good at other things physically. Like, I was born with my feet turned in and stuff like that. So I felt like this... I could do these things, so then I learned how to hold my breath. And the reason I learned how to hold my breath was simply because I was on the swim team at the Y also, and the other kids would swim back and forth, and they'd destroy me 'cause my feet didn't function perfectly well. And what I learned is that if I didn't breathe, if I just swam, it would save me time 'cause I didn't have to move my head, dip it out, and, you know-

   2. JRJoe Rogan4:49

      Mm.

   3. DBDavid Blaine4:50

      Right? So I would just swim, and the coach would yell at me, but suddenly, I was no longer in last place. I was, like, now second and sometimes first. And that began my, like, "Oh God, you, you can actually do what the coach doesn't think is possible. You can swim there and back without breathing." And then the older kids would come to see me do that, and I would, like, challenge them. I'd be like, um, "Let's see who can stay under the longest, and you can go up and down five times." I didn't understand the physiology of it, that, like, going up and down doesn't help. It's more effective to just sit through the pain and just kinda chill, but I would just sit there, and they'd go up and d- (gasps) and come back down, at which makes it worse, (laughs) that they'd be out, and I'd still be-

   4. JRJoe Rogan5:27

      Why does it make it worse?

   5. DBDavid Blaine5:28

      Because, uh, the breath holding thing is all about, like, a CO2 buildup in your bloodstream, and it's about a tolerance level to it. So if you relax and efficiently keep your oxygen and not make this CO2 buildup more extreme, you can actually hold more efficiently.

   6. JRJoe Rogan5:42

      So when you have that feeling, everybody has that feeling where you need to breathe, like, "Huh," and that's, uh-

   7. DBDavid Blaine5:47

      Yeah, it's, it's not an O2 deprivation.

   8. JRJoe Rogan5:48

      Right.

   9. DBDavid Blaine5:48

      It's a trigger from a CO2 buildup, which is giving you an alert that, for example, in 20 minutes from now, you will not recover. And I didn't believe that either, so a magician friend of mine, who's amazing, um, and, and one of my, like, heroes in life, uh...... he, e- he told me a story as I was doing, like, Buried Alive, and I was saying, he said, "You know, you know the Navy SEALs, you know they black them out underwater so they're not afraid of drowning?" And I'm like, "That can't ... no way." Like, 'cause it seems so abstract to me, you know? So ... but it stuck in my brain, and then when I wanted to do the water tank stunt and I started learning about free diving and stuff like that, I suddenly realized blacking out is pretty straightforward. Like, you black out and then you get your head above the water and if you're supervised, you're fine. So when I went to San Diego with the SEALs, I watched what they do and I actually did it, but I didn't black out. I went back and forth a few times in the pool, but they have that viewing pool and they rope the SEALs up to some 45-pound weights and they have to walk across the bottom of the pool and the instructors are swimming above them, and when the S- when the SEALs black out, they cut the rope, bring them up to the top r- and they're fine. But what that teaches you is that you do not need to worry about being underwater because if you're with a team and you ... B- by the way, uh, nobody should try this. Uh, you know, the, uh, there is extreme dangers to shallow water blackouts which lead to death, uh, but if you are in somebody that's training and you have a team and you wanna push it, as soon as you black out, it's like getting knocked out. It's, it's ... but it feels better. It's not like getting knocked out with a punch. It's like y- you're getting knocked-

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:26

       Getting choked out.

   11. DBDavid Blaine7:26

       ... it's euphoric. No, but, no, yeah, but it, but-

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:29

       Choked out is euphoric.

   13. DBDavid Blaine7:30

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       Yeah.

   15. DBDavid Blaine7:31

       Exactly, except this one's even better and then you have all these dreams.

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:35

       (laughs)

   17. DBDavid Blaine7:35

       No, it ... no. (laughs) You're gonna-

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:36

       You make it sound exciting. (laughs)

   19. DBDavid Blaine7:38

       That part of it, when- whenever I wake up from a blackout, I'm like, "Whoa." (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:42

       Yeah, that's how people wake up when they get choked out.

   21. DBDavid Blaine7:44

       Really? The same?

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:45

       Yeah. Yeah. When people get choked out, they wake up almost like they were dreaming, like sometimes they think they're at a disco, s-

   23. DBDavid Blaine7:50

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan7:50

       Yeah, yeah.

   25. DBDavid Blaine7:51

       It's amazing.

   26. JRJoe Rogan7:52

       Yeah, they're like, "What?"

   27. DBDavid Blaine7:53

       Yeah. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan7:53

       "Oh, wow."

   29. DBDavid Blaine7:55

       Yeah. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan7:55

       And, uh, i- i- it's not the best thing in the world for you, but it's way better for you than getting knocked unconscious.
4. 8:25 – 14:58

   Extreme numbers: 20-minute breath holds, pure O2 prep, and hypoxia experiments

   1. DBDavid Blaine8:25

      I don't know, like between 20 to 30. I mean, I have like t-

   2. JRJoe Rogan8:29

      Oh, wow.

   3. DBDavid Blaine8:29

      By the way, I ... y- you guys were talking about me on the thing, about the breath hold thing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:32

      Yeah, so-

   5. DBDavid Blaine8:33

      So, one time I went 20 minutes and two seconds, so I almost did what you were talking about, the length of a show. But I did 20 minutes and two seconds and I had telemetry there and I had pulmonary experts and everything like that, and my heart rate dropped to eight beats per minute.

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:47

      Holy shit.

   7. DBDavid Blaine8:48

      Eight, eig- and they pulled me up 'cause they were freaked out, like-

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:50

      They thought you were dying.

   9. DBDavid Blaine8:51

      Yeah, but back to what I was saying is the reason, besides the Navy SEAL story, that I knew that it was ... it made sense was because you hear about the kids in the news, like in 1984 or whatever it was, a kid was under an icy river for 45 minutes-

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:05

       Yeah.

   11. DBDavid Blaine9:06

       ... with nothing, blacked out, unconscious, underwater for 45 minutes. They rescue him out, pull him back, recover him, and full recovery. So there's something that the body does that we don't understand and- but if you actualize ... so because he blacked out and because it was so cold, the blood shunting occurred where all ... like, the same as when you get cold, the blood rushes away from the extremities and protects the vital organs, and h- because he didn't inhale the water 'cause he was completely out of it, when they recovered him, they didn't even have to get water out of his lungs and he was perfectly fine.

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:41

       Wow.

   13. DBDavid Blaine9:42

       So ... but, but that just shows you that there's like a certain levels of, of what the body can tolerate that we have no idea.

   14. JRJoe Rogan9:51

       So you, in, in learning how to swim and learning how to go all the way back and forth and holding your breath, this started this idea of holding your breath for an extreme long period of time. Like, what had been the record ... before you had ... like 20 minutes and how many seconds? Two seconds?

   15. DBDavid Blaine10:07

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:07

       That's what you did?

   17. DBDavid Blaine10:07

       Yeah, but that's not the record. Somebody's done-

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:09

       What have you done? So what have you done before that? What had been your record?

   19. DBDavid Blaine10:11

       Okay. So when I was a kid, I heard, as I start reading about Houdini, his like proud record of his lifetime, and he's the underwater escape king for 100 years ago, and he had ... he was around the best swimmers and he had-

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:23

       Mm-hmm.

   21. DBDavid Blaine10:23

       ... access to everything, and he got up to three and a half minutes. So by the time I was like, uh, a t- teenager, earl- early teenager, I got to three and a half minutes, but-

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:33

       And did you think that that was a barrier-

   23. DBDavid Blaine10:35

       But-

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:35

       ... that couldn't be crossed? Did-

   25. DBDavid Blaine10:36

       Well, I came ... I blacked out as I came out, but I didn't know what that all meant, right? So I blacked out and was at ... so I was like, okay, that 3:30 seems like the edge. F- but then when I started working on the actual concept of like how long can you hold your breath for, then I started looking into it and I'm like, "Oh, wow, there's like people that can do five minutes, six minutes, seven minutes." And then there was a hypothetical record of, um, of ... uh, a hypothetical 13-minute record, but no evidence of it, and that was on pure O2, so it was a hypothetical pure O2 record of 13 ... so-

   26. JRJoe Rogan11:12

       When you say on pure O2, what's the process?

   27. DBDavid Blaine11:14

       Pure O- that flushes everything out and oxygenates your body.

   28. JRJoe Rogan11:15

       So you start pure O2?

   29. DBDavid Blaine11:18

       Yeah, that-

   30. JRJoe Rogan11:18

       You hold onto pure O2?
5. 14:58 – 19:46

   Body-as-art performers: regurgitators, cigarette eaters, and the obsession with “real” magic

   1. DBDavid Blaine14:58

      And then I like guys that are like... As I go, I go to the Museum of Broadcasting 'cause there was no-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. DBDavid Blaine15:03

      ... YouTube or whatever. So I'd look at like, these magic, you search magic, and I'd find like guys that would like, drink a gallon of water, drink a liter of kerosene. He would float all the kerosene on top of the water, and then he would spit out kerosene out of his mouth, look like a human dragon, and then put the fire out with a gallon of water. So it's that... It is magic, but it's am- it's art. It's-

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:26

      Yes.

   5. DBDavid Blaine15:26

      ... mind-blowing.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:27

      Yes.

   7. DBDavid Blaine15:27

      It's an ar- it's a performance pie- it's not like... It's incredible. Now look, there's guys that are card guys that are like that also. Like lots, lots of people I love and respect, they do the cards in a way that's like, w- but, but that act to me was what pressed a button. It was like, whoa. Like, how is he converting his body to do a trick? And there's a guy today performing called Stevie Starr who's called The Human Regurgitator, but he swallows crazy things, like... So he, he combines magic with his abilities. So he... Like, he went on Jay Leno one- yeah, I think it was Leno or Carson, one of the... He takes a, you know the little film canisters that you use to drink?

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:06

      Mm-hmm.

   9. DBDavid Blaine16:06

      Uh, so he puts, uh, a film canister, empty, right? Closes it for the... You know, you get the 35mm. And then he goes and then he swallows it. So it's in, it's... Yeah, it's gone. Uh, uh, he goes like that, it's gone. Then he would take a bunch of water, drink that, and then there'd be a cup with a goldfish in it. Drinks the cup and the goldfish. And then he'd have Jay Leno sign the cap, the, the lid thing to the thing with a piece of tape and sign it. Right? Then he'd take that and go, now everything is gone. Then he does these weird sounds and movements, which is part of his show, right? And then he brings it up, spits it out, and (laughs) the film canister is sealed and in it is the water and the fish, and it's sealed with the signature. So to me that's like the coolest magic 'cause you're take... Because when you see a trick, you know like, oh, that's cool, but it's a trick. So it's like you're being removed from being able to like, absorb. But when you see something where somebody's doing something crazy and it seems like a trick, but it's also like, wait, this is real because he's really doing this. It- it's just way more exciting, you know?

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:14

       I understand.

   11. DBDavid Blaine17:15

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:15

       I, I understand. It's just, do you know how he did that one? Obviously you don't tell-

   13. DBDavid Blaine17:20

       Yeah, yeah. I talk to-

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:21

       Okay.

   15. DBDavid Blaine17:21

       Yeah, I talk to him all the time. Yeah. I love Stevie, Stevie Starr.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:24

       You know how it, it was done, but you can't reveal that, right?

   17. DBDavid Blaine17:27

       Yeah, he... And, and, okay, there's another guy, Tom Mollica, who h- he passed away and he was this guy. He's the first magician I ever saw, he did a simple card trick and I was crying. I was like, in tears. I was like, "Oh my God." But he, and he passed away and I filmed that. And, and he's, uh, I'm gonna do a really amazing piece about him 'cause he is incredible. But he also was on like, uh, Johnny Carson shows. What he would do-... is he would take a pack of cigarettes, throw them into his mouth one at a time, light them on fire-

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:58

       (laughs) .

   19. DBDavid Blaine17:58

       ... bring them back out, and then throw them into his mouth one at a time, eat all the cigare-

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:04

       There he is.

   21. DBDavid Blaine18:05

       Yes. (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:05

       There he is.

   23. DBDavid Blaine18:05

       (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:05

       So, he lights the cigarettes-

   25. DBDavid Blaine18:06

       And watch, he eats the cigarettes. Wow, that's great, how fast they pulled that up.

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:11

       It's not they, it's young Jamie.

   27. DBDavid Blaine18:12

       Oh, it was you?

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:12

       He's a wizard.

   29. DBDavid Blaine18:13

       Yeah. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:14

       He's a wizard of his-
6. 19:46 – 28:08

   Relentless practice, elite technique, and the world of card cheats and dice control

   1. DBDavid Blaine19:46

      And, but the... So another... The guy I was telling you about that's, like, my favorite card magici- the guy that taught, that showed me the Navy Seal, but just an amazing magician, has a library, he, um, he's, like, this genius that if he came here, which he never would 'cause he would never show anybody anything, but if he did, and he showed you a couple of moves... Like, the first move he showed me was actually a card move called Ascension, where he makes the card float right through the deck. And, like, the greatest magician of all time, like, card magician said it was one of the greatest tricks ever done. You won't be able to find it anywhere 'cause it's not on video, but he, um, he only does it to a couple of magicians. So he performs for, like, you know, a handful of his friends. He shows the move and it's mind-blowing. And luckily, he showed me stuff when I was young, but he'll never, ever perform. He's like... Does a painter paint so he can show people, or does a painter paint to paint? But whenever you're on the phone with him, you just hear cards. Like, he's like, "Krr, krr."

   2. JRJoe Rogan20:39

      (laughs)

   3. DBDavid Blaine20:40

      And he's doi- No, and he's doing it, he's doing, I'm telling you, like, 13-

   4. JRJoe Rogan20:43

      All day long.

   5. DBDavid Blaine20:44

      13 hours a day, he's doing card moves, alone.

   6. JRJoe Rogan20:47

      Wow.

   7. DBDavid Blaine20:47

      And I said b- I was like, "Bill, what do you do? Do you, like, do the trick to yourself and be like, 'Ah!'?"

   8. JRJoe Rogan20:52

      (laughs)

   9. DBDavid Blaine20:52

      "And then do that?" You know what I mean? (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan20:55

       Well, that's like-

   11. DBDavid Blaine20:55

       But he's, he doesn't believe it. It's not... To him, it's not a performance. To him, it's, it's just about the technical love and feel of, of that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan21:02

       Well, that's that... Th- there's a Japanese phrase for that, about doing something over and over and over and over, the, the exact same thing over and over again till you achieve a level of perfection that is, uh, almost physically unattainable to mere mortals.

   13. DBDavid Blaine21:17

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan21:17

       You, you bypass what a person thinks the, the body would be capable of doing.

   15. DBDavid Blaine21:22

       Yep.

   16. JRJoe Rogan21:23

       Yeah.

   17. DBDavid Blaine21:24

       That, that's, that's-

   18. JRJoe Rogan21:25

       That's it.

   19. DBDavid Blaine21:25

       ... that's it.

   20. JRJoe Rogan21:25

       Yeah.

   21. DBDavid Blaine21:25

       That's what he's doing.

   22. JRJoe Rogan21:26

       That is the thing, like, if you can... There were... You know who James Nestor is?

   23. DBDavid Blaine21:30

       Yeah, of course.

   24. JRJoe Rogan21:31

       He wrote the book Deep?

   25. DBDavid Blaine21:32

       He wrote the book Deep. Yes.

   26. JRJoe Rogan21:32

       Yes.

   27. DBDavid Blaine21:32

       Yeah, Deep is amazing.

   28. JRJoe Rogan21:34

       Uh, I don't know Deep, but I've read Breath.

   29. DBDavid Blaine21:35

       That's a book he wrote, Theep. Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan21:37

       Breath is the one that I've read, and I had him on the podcast to talk about it.
7. 28:08 – 33:37

   Craps ‘luck’ and a live dice demonstration on Joe

   1. DBDavid Blaine28:08

      Okay, so do you wanna hear a dice story?

   2. JRJoe Rogan28:09

      Yes, please.

   3. DBDavid Blaine28:09

      But this isn't me doing magic. This is luck.

   4. JRJoe Rogan28:11

      Okay.

   5. DBDavid Blaine28:12

      Okay. So-

   6. JRJoe Rogan28:13

      I don't believe you.

   7. DBDavid Blaine28:14

      It is.

   8. JRJoe Rogan28:14

      I don't like the way you paused. (laughs) .

   9. DBDavid Blaine28:17

      (laughs) But it i- but I'm serious.

   10. JRJoe Rogan28:18

       It's luck.

   11. DBDavid Blaine28:18

       I know, but I-

   12. JRJoe Rogan28:19

       Okay, okay.

   13. DBDavid Blaine28:19

       ... I'm saying that 'cause I'm trying to be convincing.

   14. JRJoe Rogan28:21

       Yeah, I believe you. Okay.

   15. DBDavid Blaine28:21

       Okay, okay. So... Because I'm telling the truth. But anyway, I go to the Palms, you know, the-

   16. JRJoe Rogan28:27

       Yeah.

   17. DBDavid Blaine28:27

       Okay. And, um, they had a bet on the craps table called the fire bet, and, uh, it was, like, uh, a- a game where you have to hit all of the numbers, open and closed, without butt crapping out. So, when I walk up to the table, right away, the- the pit boss and everybody, they make a big deal, like, "You can't touch the dice," and- and they're li- I said, "You can call up. I can touch the dice," I mean, 'cause, th- you know, they invited me. So I was like, "I can touch the dice." And, uh... 'Cause I- I wanted to throw, right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan28:58

       Right.

   19. DBDavid Blaine28:58

       S- I didn't wanna just gamble on a ri- so anyway, I, um... 'Cause even though I- I'm not cheating, I still feel like, you know, maybe I'll get a- I have a little bit of an ability that's giving... You know what I mean?

   20. JRJoe Rogan29:09

       Right.

   21. DBDavid Blaine29:10

       Not a cheating ability, but maybe I'm a little better than a random person. I don't know. Right?

   22. JRJoe Rogan29:14

       Got it.

   23. DBDavid Blaine29:15

       So, th- the pit b- they make a joke, and then the woman pit boss comes out. She says, "Well, if you take your shirt off, we'll let you throw the dice." Joking, right? So anyway, what I do is I bet for everybody at the ta- and this- I go to the low-stakes table always. So the high-stakes table is that Super Bowl team right over there, and they're like, "Ah!" They're all crazy, right?

   24. JRJoe Rogan29:33

       Right.

   25. DBDavid Blaine29:33

       Like, all excited with these big bets. And I'm here with this table. We all have (laughs) little bets, right? But I say, "Let's put a fire bet down for everybody." So I put the fire bet down for every single person at the table, including the dealers, the pit- I mean, the pit b- you know, the- you know, with the dice thing. And, uh, I'm throwing the dice, throwing the dice, and this goes on for two and a half hours. I keep throwing the dice.... I didn't hit a s- I didn't crap out. Y- I hit sevens in between each number, which you can.

   26. JRJoe Rogan30:02

       I don't know how craps work.

   27. DBDavid Blaine30:03

       So you have to roll, like, a five, let's say. And then I'm like, "Oh, no. I need to roll another five," which i- i- is statistically much more difficult than a seven, 'cause seven's the most common number to come up. So if you roll a five, you're like, "Uh-oh, that's hard," 'cause you can only get a two-three or three-two on both dice, or a one-four or a four-one. So you have a four out of 36, so it's a one and nine. So you're probably gonna crap out before you get the number. That's why the game is to their favor. So I'm throwing the dice, and it's two and a half hours later, and they stop everything. And they're like, "Your fire bet just hit." Right? (laughs) And the table goes, "What does that mean?" They go, "Well, you all just won, like, 10 grand each." And they all go, "Ha!" Like, everybody's going... They gave me the taste for it. Everybody's going nuts, and we hit the fire bet, which they've now removed from the pals, by the way. But it was, it was a pretty unheard of... Like, the odds of hitting that bet is pretty rare.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:05

       But it's just luck?

   29. DBDavid Blaine31:07

       Nobody should hit that bet. I mean, statistically, it's unlikely, and I wasn't cheating. So yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       So do they... But d- d- the question is-
8. 33:37 – 42:14

   Breaking into TV with street magic and mastering human psychology

   1. JRJoe Rogan33:37

      How did you first get on television? How'd you convince someone to let you try this on television?

   2. DBDavid Blaine33:43

      Well, it was... So back in those days, the only magic that you could see, and like I said, it was pre-... You couldn't go watch it or get it or any- So there's no way to see magic.

   3. JRJoe Rogan33:52

      Right.

   4. DBDavid Blaine33:52

      And if you were me with a single mother in Brooklyn or whatever, how are you gonna go?

   5. JRJoe Rogan33:56

      Yeah.

   6. DBDavid Blaine33:56

      There's no magic show. I never went to a magic show. So what happened was all those world's greatest TV specials were playing, and they were called World's Greatest Magic. And I would watch them, and they were, like, the opposite of that. They were, like, not... They were, like, hard to watch, you know? It was, like, glossy, big, like, dynamic, and the illusionist is so far away from the whole thing. So I'm like, "There's nothing magical about all this." And then, um, so, okay, I, I, I, I, I think about it, and I'm like... I go through... So... But I'm doing magic everywhere all the time, so I'm... One of the ways I'm making money is I'm going into those fancy restaurants in New York City, like those Upper Park Avenue, and, and I do magic to the, you know, to the manager, to this. And I'm like, "If, uh, if... C- can I do magic to the table?" And it's like what I did to you there. Like, "Do the magic." They're like, "Oh, that's great." I was like, "Could I do magic to the people eating?" And I won't ask them for anything. I bought, like, a nice suit at Century 21, like, a $100 jacket with tat, you know? But the... Anyways, so I go up to these tables, and that's a hard situation because it's very difficult to approach people that do not want you near them-

   7. JRJoe Rogan35:09

      Right.

   8. DBDavid Blaine35:09

      ... and try to figure out how to win with magic. It's a com- And it's like even on the street, wherever you do it, it's like a complicated scenario. Once the camera comes up, it changes it because now they're like, "Oh, he has a camera. It's fine." Right? But you'd have to walk up to a table of a pe- a bunch like us, we're sitting there, and some, like, you know, sketchy magician kid, right, comes up to us, like, "Hey, can I show you a card trick?" And you and I are gonna be, like, nice to him probably, but not really want him around.

   9. JRJoe Rogan35:35

      Right.

   10. DBDavid Blaine35:35

       So what I had to learn quickly was, like, little things that are so important, like distance. Like, how close should you be to the table or how far? And then you start to really understand the psychology of the magic is way more important than the tricks, right? So if you're too close, you're like over p- You're... They don't want you near them, so you-

   11. JRJoe Rogan35:55

       Right.

   12. DBDavid Blaine35:55

       ... get... You're like... They're like, "No, thank you." If you're too far away, it's easy for them to say, "No, thank you." Right? So there's like a balancing point just on where you stand and then who you do the first trick to and then what the first trick is. And so by doing all of this, I started to really figure out how to get reactions from anybody really fast. So I could walk up to anybody-... anywhere and just do magic. Like, one time I was in, um, central booking 'cause I jumped the subway thing and they were s- sweeping everybody up, and there was four guys sitting in the middle playing spades. The only other, like, kid that looked like me that was in there got the shit kicked out of him, right? And I'm like, "I'm gonna get my ass kicked," right? 'Cause I was with a button-up shirt, like, you know-

   13. JRJoe Rogan36:37

       (laughs)

   14. DBDavid Blaine36:37

       ... anyway. So the guys that are sitting in the middle, uh, that were playing spades, I grabbed the... I go, "Let me show you guys something." I take the... "Come on." I grab the deck of cards and I start doing magic to the four toughest-looking guys in the cell, right? Within two minutes, they're erupting. And once they're erupting, the whole, everybody... 'cause it was... central book was moved here. Everybody's standing around going nuts, and then all of a sudden, the guards are there, and now everybody's watching together. And I'm like, "This is what the magic show (laughs) needs to be."

   15. JRJoe Rogan37:05

       (laughs)

   16. DBDavid Blaine37:05

       Like, what... whether you're, like, here or this, whether you're this, that-

   17. JRJoe Rogan37:09

       Yes.

   18. DBDavid Blaine37:09

       ... whether you're young, old, rich, poor, Black, white, whatever, they're all-

   19. JRJoe Rogan37:12

       Everybody wants to see it.

   20. DBDavid Blaine37:13

       No. No. Everybody's got a good side. Like, there's... I wanna show the, that people are all the same, you know? Like, sure, there are some that are horrific and do horrible... But at the core of everybody, there's, like, an innocent kid somewhere, maybe he got really far lost, and magic just pulls that out of people.

   21. JRJoe Rogan37:30

       Mm.

   22. DBDavid Blaine37:31

       You know?

   23. JRJoe Rogan37:31

       Yeah.

   24. DBDavid Blaine37:32

       And, and that's why... And the people say, "Oh, well, how could you do magic?" I do magic to anybody because whether it's, like, visiting underage kids in prison that, like, you don't know what happened to them, and you see them come walking up with their eyes down, they don't wanna look at you 'cause they don't like anybody there that's authority, right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan37:48

       Yeah.

   26. DBDavid Blaine37:48

       That's what ruined their lives. And then as soon as you do these tricks, suddenly they're like little happy, sweet kids.

   27. JRJoe Rogan37:55

       Ah. You get the-

   28. DBDavid Blaine37:57

       You know?

   29. JRJoe Rogan37:57

       You get the "oh" out of them.

   30. DBDavid Blaine37:58

       That's, and that's what, and that's what magic did originally-
9. 42:14 – 46:50

   Public endurance stunts: Buried Alive logistics and the reality of performing under scrutiny

   1. JRJoe Rogan42:14

      Um, the, the ice thing-... why, what made you decide to stand-

   2. DBDavid Blaine42:18

      Oh.

   3. JRJoe Rogan42:18

      ... in a block of ice for 60-plus hours?

   4. DBDavid Blaine42:20

      Okay. Well, well, so I'll tell you the, the ... So you, you were saying how do you go from the magic tricks-

   5. JRJoe Rogan42:24

      Yes.

   6. DBDavid Blaine42:24

      ... like the, to the-

   7. JRJoe Rogan42:24

      To these f- extreme physical endurance and mind things.

   8. DBDavid Blaine42:27

      S- so studying Houdini and all that stuff.

   9. JRJoe Rogan42:28

      Yeah.

   10. DBDavid Blaine42:28

       And then there's a poster of Houdini that I loved where he was, it was, he was buried alive, but he never did the stunt. He died before he got to do it, but he was gonna get buried alive underground in a coffin. So I, I stare at ... I love that poster since I was a kid. It's like in the magic books, you see that poster.

   11. JRJoe Rogan42:44

       Yeah.

   12. DBDavid Blaine42:44

       And anyway, so Bill, again, the guy I told you about, Bill Kalush, comes up to me and he's like, "What about this?" And he shows me an image of a Indian fakir that was buried alive for a month. He's like, "What if you pretend to be buried alive in Central Park? We'll sneak you out and you'll come back a month later." And I was like ... I always wanted to do, like, Houdini-like things, th- but I never wanted to copy. But that one, he never did, so I was kind of like, "Well, that's interesting, but what if instead of doing it the way he did it, what if I did it and everybody could see that I was buried alive? So what if I was really just buried alive? Like, it can't be that hard." He's like, "Yeah, you can't do that." And I was staying at his place, so we got a coffin from Queens where actually Houdini was buried. I bought a coffin. We brought it back to his house, and then I would just practice sleeping in the coffin. Then suddenly I-

   13. JRJoe Rogan43:31

       (laughs)

   14. DBDavid Blaine43:31

       Yeah, but I know, but then suddenly I realized you don't eat food, and then if you have a little thing to go to the bathroom. I did four days like nothing, so I'm like, "Okay, I can do a week." And that was it. And then, then I pushed the idea of doing the buried alive and, and convinced people to let me do it publicly. And what's funny is, like, firemen and stuff, like, would come to the stunt in the middle of the night, and they would shine, like, holograms at me and their lights and stuff. And they ... Oh, that's the ice. But, and then they would assume that I wasn't actually in there. Okay, so here, so back to this one. Well-

   15. JRJoe Rogan44:02

       Well, let's go, but, but let's, let's not jump around.

   16. DBDavid Blaine44:04

       (laughs) Okay.

   17. JRJoe Rogan44:05

       The, so the buried alive thing.

   18. DBDavid Blaine44:06

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan44:06

       Wh- where did you do it physically? Where?

   20. DBDavid Blaine44:08

       Um, that was in New York City on the West Side. Uh, Trump had, like, this, uh, bunch of properties that he was developing, and I was like, "Uh, I wanna be buried alive on one of your properties. Is that possible?" He's like, "Sure."

   21. JRJoe Rogan44:20

       (laughs)

   22. DBDavid Blaine44:20

       And he just sent me his driver and I went around and that's where I did my first stunt. And it was-

   23. JRJoe Rogan44:25

       And how could they see you though?

   24. DBDavid Blaine44:26

       And then Jimmy Nederlander-

   25. JRJoe Rogan44:27

       I'm not aware of this one.

   26. DBDavid Blaine44:28

       ... who I do, who like w-

   27. JRJoe Rogan44:29

       Oh, there it is, like that.

   28. DBDavid Blaine44:30

       Yeah, there it w- Yeah, so it was see-through, but right n- And then we put six tons of water on top of it, so that's basically it. And then, so I was there.

   29. JRJoe Rogan44:37

       And how are you getting oxygen?

   30. DBDavid Blaine44:38

       Yeah, that, if you're ... Well, there was hole, see those two big holes? So the oxygen was being ... See the holes above my head right there?
10. 46:50 – 50:32

    Starvation stunt aftermath: 44 days on water, refeeding syndrome, and lasting kidney issues

    1. DBDavid Blaine46:50

       And then by the way, I did 44 days with nothing but water, and I did nothing but pure H2O, so it's not even like it had minerals in it. And body was full recovery. And my starvation expert, who's like one of the top guys in the world in London, my doctor at the end thought that I was cheating-

    2. JRJoe Rogan47:05

       So you're using distilled water?

    3. DBDavid Blaine47:05

       So they put me on an IV. It, it was this company called-

    4. JRJoe Rogan47:10

       So it's distilled-

    5. DBDavid Blaine47:10

       ... H2O, and their thing-

    6. JRJoe Rogan47:11

       Okay.

    7. DBDavid Blaine47:11

       ... is it's just pure ... Yeah, dis- exactly.

    8. JRJoe Rogan47:13

       Distilled.

    9. DBDavid Blaine47:14

       Right, so it had-

    10. JRJoe Rogan47:15

        No minerals.

    11. DBDavid Blaine47:15

        Right.

    12. JRJoe Rogan47:16

        Yeah.

    13. DBDavid Blaine47:16

        Which, which is irrelevant, by the way. But, so I had nothing but pure H2O for 44 days, lost 60 pounds, BMI, bone mass index dropped sig- 33%.

    14. JRJoe Rogan47:29

        Yeah, people were getting-

    15. DBDavid Blaine47:30

        Or even tr-

    16. JRJoe Rogan47:30

        That's what I was gonna ask.

    17. DBDavid Blaine47:31

        Yeah, no, no, it was bad.

    18. JRJoe Rogan47:31

        Bring that up. Yeah.

    19. DBDavid Blaine47:32

        No, it wasn't go- yeah, it wasn't good. But doctor thought I was cheating 'cause he's a magician. By the way, my friends that were with me that are, you know, magicians and the guy building it, they were like, "You need to take these vitamins." And they hand me a handful of sugary vitamins. And I'm like, "No," just because I d- if I'm gonna do it, I want to, like, actually do it, right?

    20. JRJoe Rogan47:52

        Right.

    21. DBDavid Blaine47:52

        And, um, if I would have taken those vitamins, I feel like my metabolism wouldn't have gone into starvation mode and I, I might have had irreversible damage from it.

    22. JRJoe Rogan48:00

        Mm.

    23. DBDavid Blaine48:00

        So the fact that I actually did it, I went into starvation mode and the body protects itself.

    24. JRJoe Rogan48:05

        That's interesting.

    25. DBDavid Blaine48:06

        But what I was saying is this starvation expert that now I have a paper published in, in the New England Journal of Medicine with him, which I'm pretty proud about, but, um, he, he didn't believe me, so he put me on an IV. And right away the phosphate levels reacted and I almost went into shock, so I almost actually did die when they refit- fed me. So his paper is called The Refeeding Syndrome.... they, they say, like, after World War II, when they rescued the ... from the, from the camps, the, the Jews and everybody was starving in the camps, and they ... a lot of soldiers gave them, like, candy bars and stuff. And all of a sudden, their systems went into shock and they died from not being refed the right way. So-

    26. JRJoe Rogan48:41

        So what is the correct way to refeed someone if they haven't eaten in th- all those days?

    27. DBDavid Blaine48:44

        You have to slowly bring them back so that you don't have what happened to me, which is phosphate levels go all crazy and you can go into shock.

    28. JRJoe Rogan48:50

        So very small amounts of food.

    29. DBDavid Blaine48:52

        Yeah, but then two days later, I ... somebody sent me a trunk from Harrods full of food in London, like a friend, and, uh (laughs) , and I was giving it to all the nurses and doctors 'cause I knew I shouldn't eat it, and I was trying to do it right. Then, like, in the middle of the night, I woke up and had, like, a bag of potato chips, right? (laughs) And then, um, a bagel with cream cheese, and I was wrecked. It was like the most pain- ... So I also didn't go to the bathroom for a month and a half.

    30. JRJoe Rogan49:18

        What?
11. 50:32 – 1:00:52

    Frozen in ice and the power—and danger—of sleep deprivation hallucinations

    1. DBDavid Blaine50:32

       So the most difficult one was the ice by far. The, the ice was a monster, and the reason why was because ... and now there's also something great about it. So it wa- it was a warm November, so the air coming through was like ... you know, i- it happened to be a 68-degree three-day spread, which led to the ice keep dripping the cold on me and it's radiating this way, but I'm also standing up in one spot completely still. And you can't sleep 'cause if you fall asleep and you press into the ice, you get frostbite, you have to cut your skin off, right? So I'm staying completely awake the entire time, and it's a difficult situation. On hour 55 exactly, or f- ... I look back at all of it and my friends knew, my eyes just go out and I'm now hallucinating like you could never, ever ... I- it ... there ... no hallucinogenic drug will ever give you those kind of hallucinations.

    2. JRJoe Rogan51:26

       Like, what was it?

    3. DBDavid Blaine51:28

       A- first of all, it's amazing, but it's also, when it goes into that nightmare part, it's scary. But there's also that amazing part of it, and if you have people ... after that stunt, now whenever I hallucinate on stunts, I have friends there that I say, "I'm gonna start hallucinating. Just talk me through it." But so here's when I started realizing that I was hallucinating, 'cause you don't know when you are, right? Um, and by the way, the one stunt I never did was sleep deprivation. If you remind me, I'll explain that whole thing, but I wo- ... I'll forget. But, so, um, so what happens is, when I started realizing it, is I need to know w- uh, like, what time it is 'cause I'm done at 10:00 PM 'cause it was live on ABC. So I'm like, "I need to know how much longer I gotta go through this," (laughs) right? 'Cause it's getting tough. So, and then it's there, the gl- ... by the way, and my doorman would come and, like, news or whatever, FOX News, said, "David Blaine, um, is not really in the ice." They did a special on it, uh, uh, an hour-long special on FOX saying that I was never in the ice and I had a double of me that was in the ice and I'm switching up and down with them while (laughs) eating burgers and reading the news.

    4. JRJoe Rogan52:32

       FOX News did that?

    5. DBDavid Blaine52:33

       Yeah. No, FOX. FOX the TV station.

    6. JRJoe Rogan52:35

       Oh, FOX. Oh.

    7. DBDavid Blaine52:35

       Yeah, yeah. So they di- ... but they did a one-hour special that I was never in there. So my doorman-

    8. JRJoe Rogan52:40

       How did they get away with doing that?

    9. DBDavid Blaine52:41

       I don't know, I don't care. But listen, so my doorman, my doorman who comes to s- ... (laughs) this is the funny part though. So my doorman that comes to see me, he, he's, um, he, he knows me so well. He was at Buried Alive and he's so nice, right? So he comes to visit me in New York, and, um, he, he walks up to the ice, and he sees me and he's looking at me all weird. L- I wasn't hallucinating it. He's looking at me all weird, then he leaves. And then when I go back, I was like, "What's up?" He's like, "W- uh, that ... are you sure that that was you in the ice? Could that have been you?" And I was like, "What do you mean, Eddie?" He's like, "Okay, well, it- it's ..." You know? So he ... we go on. That special airs. Now he's convinced that it wasn't me and I have to-

    10. JRJoe Rogan53:24

        The special airs while you're still in the ice?

    11. DBDavid Blaine53:25

        No, no, no. That's after.

    12. JRJoe Rogan53:27

        Okay.

    13. DBDavid Blaine53:27

        But he already thinks because he, he doesn't believe it. My friends, my best friends when I was Buried Alive, they didn't think I was really doing it. They thought it was a trick.

    14. JRJoe Rogan53:37

        Right.

    15. DBDavid Blaine53:38

        So, so he, he asks me, he's like, "There's n- ... was that really you? Because they said that you were a double of yourself and you were switching." And I was like, "Eddie, but you looked at me. Like, how could ... if I have a twin brother, like, where is that identical twin brother? And why (laughs) would I switch up?" So anyway, but, uh, so back to the, um, back to the when I get to 55 hours. So I'm looking around and I need the time, so I go like this. Like, "What time is it?" And the guy goes ...

    16. JRJoe Rogan54:12

        4:02?

    17. DBDavid Blaine54:13

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan54:13

        Okay.

    19. DBDavid Blaine54:13

        So he shows me 4:02. So I'm like, "Okay, that means we have, like, another six hours," or whatever it is, right? Uh, by the way, my time estimations are so z- ... I'm like, "Okay, I wait." Or it might have been 2:02. I wait, I wait, I wait, and I wait, and I'm indo- ... it's hard. I'm like, things are moving, everything's weird. Spiders are walking up. People are, like, sitting in the ice. But I'm waiting, waiting. Voices are talking to me that I'm talking back to, right? But I'm waiting and I'm waiting, and I wait for like a few hours.... before I ask anybody the time again. And I see somebody and I'm like ... And the guy, (laughs) and the guy goes-

    20. JRJoe Rogan54:55

        04:03.

    21. DBDavid Blaine54:57

        Oh, no.

    22. JRJoe Rogan54:58

        (laughs)

    23. DBDavid Blaine54:58

        (laughs) And that's when it all crashed out. It was like when that, when I, that connection and then the hallucinations were just rampant and my eyes were all crazy when the drill was, when the chainsaw was coming through, I tried to grab it.

    24. JRJoe Rogan55:11

        (gasps) .

    25. DBDavid Blaine55:11

        Yeah.

    26. JRJoe Rogan55:12

        So-

    27. DBDavid Blaine55:12

        Yeah, see? Look at that.

    28. JRJoe Rogan55:13

        Oh, you're gone.

    29. DBDavid Blaine55:15

        Yeah. (laughs) But, okay, but so n- but now that I've learned that sleep deprivation is one of the most amazing ways, if it's controlled, to go to another place. It's like the, the native-

    30. JRJoe Rogan55:28

        I've heard that, but I wanna get-
12. 1:00:52 – 1:26:56

    The YouTube balloon project ‘Ascension’: training, licensing, skydiving volume, and risk planning

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       This is the balloon one?

    2. DBDavid Blaine1:00:53

       Yes.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

       Okay, explain this.

    4. DBDavid Blaine1:00:55

       Okay, so I went to YouTube with a crazy idea. Who, by the way, this is YouTube and they've been a blessing beyond, beyond. So I'm like, "Okay, here's what I wanna do." Like, "I wanna f- grab a bunch of balloons and go floating up into the sky and disappear." Like, "Okay, great. (laughs) Okay, sure." Right? But, so now I needed to ascen- This is all hypothetical. I'm not, like, a skydiver, like, that has 1,000 or 10,000 or 20,000 jumps. I'm not a balloon pilot. I have no experience in any of this stuff. I just know that I wanna do this and I've wanted to do it forever. But I, I had drawings of it made 15 years ago. But-... now you have to get for real. So there is a guy that flies balloons and there's a guy like Lawnchair Larry that went up on balloons with, like, a lawn chair and a bunch of beer. That was his ballast. And he, like, popped balloons with a gun. Y- so y- there are examples. So it's not, like, a complete hypothetical. This one has, like, okay, so what if I could take the balloons, that idea, and just have the innocent image of a kid, like we all dream of, just holding the balloons and drifting up and into the sky? Here, I'll show you a picture of it. (laughs) What's that- what's that one from?

    5. Uh, from their website.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:02:04

       From whose website is that, Jamie?

    7. DBDavid Blaine1:02:06

       Balloon... the balloon company. Balloon Company.

    8. Right. So that's- that's my balloons.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:02:11

       Is that you up there?

    10. DBDavid Blaine1:02:13

        Yeah. We... Yeah. We did, um, we did short flights, not big in public. We kept it small.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:02:18

        Can I show these to Jamie?

    12. DBDavid Blaine1:02:20

        Uh... (sighs) .

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:02:21

        No?

    14. DBDavid Blaine1:02:22

        I don't know. I... Well, it's... Yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:02:25

        To him and then-

    16. DBDavid Blaine1:02:25

        I can show one.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:02:26

        ... he'll show... Can you show other people?

    18. DBDavid Blaine1:02:28

        Uh, well, I feel like... I'm not sure.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:02:28

        No? All right, then don't.

    20. DBDavid Blaine1:02:29

        Wait, that's my balloons.

    21. Yeah.

    22. Oh, well, that's odd.

    23. They're on his account.

    24. But that's-

    25. Yeah.

    26. That's the end of it.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:34

        It's not him doing it. Yeah. It's just a picture of balloons.

    28. DBDavid Blaine1:02:35

        Right. So this is... But I- I- I- I- I think maybe, maybe not, so... 'Cause it-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:02:40

        And-

    30. DBDavid Blaine1:02:40

        'Cause it... But anyway, so- so, okay, so it starts with just the idea of that. But now I have to go get a hot air balloon pilot license. So I go meet with the best hot air balloon pilot instructor and also flyer.

Episode duration: 2:21:51