If what you're saying is true, then I

mean, this is a revelation. Yeah. And I

I couldn't speak about it until now that

it's possible to communicate with

someone that's passed away.

And I'm saying it from the point of view

of being a neuroscientist and a

psychiatrist. And it's taboo because we

are afraid that people think we're going

insane. I mean, I've been part of teams

that have locked people up and had them

injected with stuff against their will

because of things they were saying

that's not that dissimilar to things

I've experienced. So, I wanted to find

out as much science as I could to try to

back it up. And do you think you found

the answer?

>> Yeah. How sure are you?

>> 100%. And the things I found out are

going to shock you.

The floor is yours.

Okay. So, I'm Dr. Tara Swart. I'm a

neuroscientist and a medical doctor who

specialized in psychiatry. And I lost my

beloved husband to leukemia almost 4

years ago.

2 days before our fourth wedding

anniversary. And everything I believed

in

had gone wrong.

I was just totally lost and broken. But

then, I started getting signs from my

husband. And in my desperation, I did

consult a couple of mediums. But not

being impressed by them, I ended up

thinking, "If it's possible to

communicate with someone that's passed

away, and I am all about optimizing my

brain, then I should be able to do it

myself." So, I went down a rabbit hole.

And what I've uncovered in this research

is going to have a really beneficial

effect on a lot of people. Why? Because

it means that we are capable of so much

more than what we think the human mind

is capable of.

>> So, listen, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to try and ask the questions

and challenge you in ways that I think

the viewer might challenge you. I want

you to ask me those questions.

I see messages all the time in the

comment section that some of you didn't

realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you

could do me a favor and double-check if

you're a subscriber to this channel,

that would be tremendously appreciated.

It's the simple It's the free thing that

anybody that watches this show

frequently can do to help us here to

keep everything going in this show in

the trajectory it's on. So, please do

double-check if you subscribed and uh

thank you so much because in a strange

way you are you're part of our history

and you're on this journey with us and I

appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank

you.

Dr. Tara Swart,

good to see you again. You, too. Thank

you for coming back. You were our most

viewed guest on the show of all time.

Our last conversation did just over 20

million views and downloads, which is

pretty staggering, but you're back to

talk about something entirely different

this time.

>> Mhm.

Which is this idea of science, which

kind of intertwines with all of your

work on neuroscience that you've done

throughout your career.

My first question to you is what is it

that you think you know that the vast

majority of people don't quite

understand, comprehend, or have accepted

yet. And take me right back to the sort

of first principles of

that thinking.

I believe that we are capable of so much

more than what we think the human mind

is capable of now. And I believe that

the brain actually filters down the

capability of the mind so that we can

exist on this material plane. And

things that I found out during research

for The Science is going to shock you.

The abilities that we have that we're

not aware of are way beyond what you

might even imagine right now. In what

departments and facets of my life?

Let's just start with something really

simple. How many senses do you think we

have? Five. I can I can smell, I can

touch, um I can hear, I can see.

Um

is it five though? I think Yeah, five.

Is it five? Have you heard of a sixth

sense?

Being able to see ghosts and stuff?

Okay. So, I think most people would

agree that we have five senses. And some

people would say, "Isn't there something

like a sixth sense?" And I don't think

it's agreed what that might be. So, I

actually did a literature review of

several pieces of research about how

many senses humans have.

And we actually have 34 as we currently

understand it. 34?

And so, what does this mean? Like, what

is the cuz you're making an assertion

here?

What is the assertion that you're

making, and what does that mean for the

material sort of uh consequences of my

life?

I'm making hypothesis based on both the

analogy of the observable universe and

the fact that we have this expanded

suite of senses to challenge you to

understand that you are capable of much

more than you think you are. And you

know, you're a really good case in point

for me because you love rationality and

data and science, and you don't really

love intuition and

the you know, the unknown, the unseen.

So, you know, I think if I can convince

you of anything by the end of this

podcast, then

the impact that that could have on

society, I think, is huge. I mean, the

things I found out are going to shock

you. What do you mean by that?

I, as you know, was a was a psychiatrist

in the past. So, I'm able to diagnose

people and say whether they have a

mental illness or not.

In the past 4 years,

I've been keeping a secret,

and

there were times in that 4 years that I

had to ask myself if I was in clinical

depression,

if I was psychotic, if I was manic,

if

the way that my consciousness was

expanding,

I mean, Steve, I've I've been part of

teams that have locked people up and

put,

you know, had them injected with stuff

against their will because of things

they were saying. That's not that

dissimilar to things I've experienced in

the last 4 years.

So,

I guess we better get into the secret

because I sat here with you almost 2

years ago now, and we had a fantastic

conversation,

but there was something you didn't tell

my audience when we had that

conversation that reached more than 20

million people. There was something at

that moment in time that you didn't tell

me,

which was this secret you've been

keeping.

What is the secret, Tara?

Um

I lost my beloved husband to leukemia

almost 4 years ago.

And I've written this book which

mentions my personal story, so

and I trust you. So, I really wanted to

come back on

the podcast and just explain a little

bit to people about what's been going on

for me for the last 4 years.

So, your husband

Robin.

You met him 2016.

And he passed he passed away from

leukemia in

2021.

>> 2021. Now, from 2021 when he passed

away, what what happened in your life?

What was going on in your world? If I

was a fly on the wall in your contacts,

what would I have seen?

He'd been given 2 weeks to live, but he

actually lived for 3 and 1/2 weeks.

And he died 2 days before our fourth

wedding anniversary, so I was literally

reading condolence cards on my fourth

wedding anniversary.

If it wasn't for the people that I have

around me who became like a fortress,

I don't think I would be here today.

You know, never having had that

experience before, it was just so so

devastating. Um

and even though I'm a neuroscientist and

a psychiatrist, I just

I just was like like totally lost and

broken.

And then

I started seeing robins in the garden

every single time I went to the window,

both in Hampshire and London.

I've never ever seen so many robins in

my life, like not before or since. I

still see them sometimes, but

I noticed it. I thought

of course, that's what I want to see. I

have no idea what it means if anything.

Um

and then about 6 weeks after he passed

away,

I was asleep

and I heard a noise in the distance and

we had been burgled once, so I went to

check it wasn't the alarm in the

garages.

Couldn't work out what it was, thought

maybe it was birds in the distance, went

back to sleep, it was about 4:00 a.m.

And then I got woken up

by a massive thump to my shoulder.

I wouldn't demonstrate it on you because

it would be too much for me to hit you

that hard. It wasn't like a tap. So,

opened my eyes

and I could see next to my bed

a very vague, hazy version of Robin as

if he was pushing himself through

treacle to be seen.

And I was just transfixed and I saw him

become more and more clear.

I could see the outline of his hair and

his face and then suddenly he just

dissolved from the top down and my eyes

went like this and I remember seeing his

shins and his feet. And I was like up on

my elbow watching and I I just gasped

out loud.

In my desperation, I did consult a

couple of mediums.

And again, I had that dual conversation.

I said to myself, this is the kind of

thing that crazy, desperate people do.

And within the same breath, it's okay

for me to be crazy and desperate right

now. I've lost my best friend, my life

partner, like my everything I thought

about how the world worked has crashed

around me.

And I ended up think, you know, being

not being impressed by the mediums and

just at some point, I can't even

remember when now, thinking, if it's

possible to communicate with someone

that's

passed away.

And he was my husband and my best

friend.

And I am all about optimizing my brain

and expanding my consciousness, then I

should be able to do it myself. That's

that's the start of my journey that I've

written about in signs.

And do you think you found the answer?

>> Yeah.

How sure are you? 100%.

I mean if if if what you're saying is

true then

that's a pretty I mean that's a

revelation, right? So many people have

lost lost people or

um

have gone through different types of

loss in their life and it you're telling

me that through

the work you've done over the last

couple of years and the research you've

done

you understand how to communicate with

them in some capacity? Mhm.

And you're 100% sure? 100%. So listen,

here's what I'm going to do. I'm going

to I'm going to

I'm going to I'm going to challenge you

in ways that I think um

the viewer might

challenge you sat at home. So I'm going

to try and ask the questions that the

viewer might ask because there's you

know people

the I this idea is quite a significant

perspective shifting one. So my job in

this conversation, although these are

sensitive matters matters of course is

just to try and play devil's advocate

where I can.

I just I want to say that you know you

know me Yeah, I know you.

>> know that you've asked me to come back

on the podcast several times and I've

come when I'm ready. Yeah. So I want you

to ask me those questions.

>> Yeah. So when does this journey begin

then? So this you suffer this tragic

loss in your life. You go to the

mediums.

You're let down by them. Where does this

begin? Where does your research your

your journey of discovery begin?

It starts with this decision to um

you know, try to

communicate with him myself.

There's a realization at some point that

it's not a one-way thing that when

people pass away, they also have to

learn. So it's it's it's like two people

having to learn a language to speak to

each other. Like two people who speak a

different language having to learn a

language that they can both speak.

That's that's how it felt.

Obviously as a scientist, I then wanted

to find out as much science as I could

to to try to back it up which really

comes down to the science of whether

the mind or the psyche or the soul can

exist separately from the body. Mhm.

And I will say that way before I even

started thinking about this stuff, just

the the moment that he died, which he

died in front of me,

once he'd actually passed away, I

remember a really strong feeling of

looking at his body and just knowing

that wasn't him.

And that the essence of who he was, I

didn't know where it was, but it was not

there lying in that bed.

And when did you

realize that you were going to start to

collect research and do research on this

idea of being able to communicate in

ways that most people don't realize we

can communicate through signs? And also,

when you talk about being able to

communicate through

these 30-plus senses, is that just with

the dead or is that with each other?

Like, can I communicate through you

know, is there other ways that I can tap

into these senses that you discovered

through your research

that will help me be more effective with

the living, too? Mhm.

I mean, I think it starts with yourself.

So, I think that the fact that if you're

not even aware that you've got 34

senses, then you're obviously not

consciously tapping into

something that you're not aware of.

And and some of them are non-conscious

senses anyway. Um things like the pH of

your blood or like the balance of oxygen

and carbon dioxide in your blood. You're

you know, you're not going to be

conscious of those. You can't

necessarily exert much control over

them, although obviously if you slow

down your breathing or you do a certain

type of breath work, it it could have an

impact on those things. The conclusion

that I came to,

so like I said, I went to the brink a

few times. I went to the brink

Let me give you the first example. I

realized that the first anniversary was

coming up on October 26th.

And around, you know, a couple of months

before that, I was doing the best that I

had been doing so far, but I was very

aware this anniversary was coming, and I

wanted to prepare myself mentally.

But from the 4th of October,

I suddenly like was in aches and pains

all over my body, which actually lasted

for 6 or 7 weeks and it was accompanied

by me feeling so depressed

that I actually had to look in the

mirror and like go through the criteria

for clinical depression and work out if

I was actually depressed or not.

Um

and I didn't meet all the criteria, but

I was in this physical pain. I could not

understand why.

I went for a massage. It was so painful

I didn't go again for a year.

So eventually I looked through my um

diary or calendar on my phone

and I looked back to October 4th, which

was the day that it started,

and that was the day that I'd taken him

home to die.

That was the day I took him home from

hospital. I didn't remember that date,

but clearly my body had and the trauma

was just re-emerging as like physical

pain.

Um

and I only realized quite a lot later

that I had to to do some somatic work to

actually get rid of

the last bits of trauma that

um talking therapy can't actually get

to. Somatic work. So body body work,

whether that's massage or dance or art

or craniosacral therapy or

tai chi, you know, like anything

physical.

Because basically there's an area in the

brain. It's actually inside, so I can't

really show it to you on this, but it's

kind of inside there.

And that part of the brain is to do with

articulating speech

and it basically gets shut down by

trauma.

So those sort of phrases like I'm

speechless or I'm dumbfounded or I have

no words

indicates the fact that there may be

residual trauma that's held in your body

that you can't actually articulate and

get out and solve through talking

therapy.

So it requires some kind of physical

therapy. So that was obviously to do

with my um sense of pain.

And it took me a little while to kind of

put together what that might mean by

really like tapping into why it was my

body

um manifesting pain to to sort of remind

me of something or show me something.

But also, in the first couple of weeks

after

um, Robin's body

Robin's body was taken away the morning

after he died. And it was uh

just under 2 weeks till the cremation.

In that time, I would wake up in the

morning and I would be absolutely

freezing cold, like shaking and

shivering. And it was October, it wasn't

like midwinter.

And I would blast up the heating. When

someone else was in the house, I would

realize it it was like a sauna, it was

actually a bit embarrassing and had to

like, you know, turn it down and like

open some windows. And Robin actually

hated being cold. And he would have been

in the morgue in a refrigerated drawer

that whole time. And again, I think it

was my sense of temperature that was

kind of on the same wavelength as where

I didn't consciously think of where he

was, but I was feeling freezing cold.

So, it was

looking back, it was things like that

were coincidences, absolutely. But then,

over time, and I'm talking a couple of

years, I could ask for specific signs

and get them.

Sometimes at first it would take a

while, and then it became like it would

happen that day.

I could ask a question in my head and

get an answer. I mentioned having, you

know, sort of again being at the brink

of my sanity, having to question things.

I was experiencing something called

thought insertion, which um, in

psychiatry is one of the symptoms of

schizophrenia. It's when you have a

thought in your head that you know isn't

yours.

So, I was experiencing that really

vividly.

But can you imagine experiencing that

and at the same time being a

psychiatrist that is is saying, "Right,

Tara, you do realize you are having like

a psychotic symptom."

And

so, in my research, one of the things I

realized that maybe, you know, if you're

going through grief and you don't know

the things that I know,

you can't

articulate to yourself that grief in

many ways is like psychosis.

It's changing the levels of

neurotransmitters in your head. It's

changing the electric electric and

chemical like signaling in your head. I

just have so much empathy for people

that

that have to go through that and don't

have the wherewithal or the resources

that

that I did.

Do you think one needs to cultivate

their ability to see signs? Do you think

it's like going to the gym? Totally.

Totally. I've It took me years. Um and

like I said, I believe it took him years

as well. Um

So yeah, I I say it's like learning a

language, but you're right. It's like

going to the gym. And what does one need

to do in that gym to grow their

sign muscle?

Well, it always starts with believing,

right?

>> Yeah. Um Do you think that's what one of

the big issues in terms of being able to

access these other dimensions or

dynamics is most people just don't

believe in it?

So I wouldn't I'm not even sure if I'd

say most people. I'd say a lot of people

don't believe in it. Or they secretly

do, but they're scared to talk about it

cuz they think people ridicule them.

Yeah. Cuz cuz I don't know. My my brain

my brain feels like I need to have the

scientific evidence of things for me to

accept them because I think sometimes I

worry that if I don't have

scientific rigor around my beliefs, then

I would I'm susceptible to believe

anything. And I'll believe it in a

spaghetti monster at the bottom of the

garden and I'll believe, you know, every

religion in the world and every and

everything and then I'm unanchored and

then I blow around like a plastic bag in

the wind and then I have no orientation.

Yeah.

>> Yeah. So I think rigor is

the basis of my beliefs. I have to have

some sort of scientific evidence.

I know you do. Yeah.

Um It's not to say I'm not open-minded

because I've had my mind changed so many

times in my life that one would be

dumb now to not be open-minded and to

not listen. I agree with you about

rigor. I completely agree with. My

entire career has been based on that,

but

I just you know, I was pushed up against

a wall, so I had to

think differently. And I think the

question that I posed to myself is is

what if? You had to think differently.

So, um the psychologist Carl Jung talks

about um when he talks about the

collective unconscious, he talks about

those basically three main things that

all humans experience, which is birth,

life, and death. And so, we have this

common experience, which is actually

part of our inherited gene and brain

structure. Um so, everyone who's ever

lived will experience those things.

But if we look at ancient wisdom,

for a start,

we are made of the carbon and hydrogen

and oxygen and nitrogen that came from

the Big Bang. So, we're all made of the

same thing. Our ancestors lived in the

cycle with nature. I think us actually

having broken our connection to nature

is a huge part of why we're so

disconnected and unhappy.

So, if you think of the life cycle of a

salmon, for example,

it, you know, it goes through its life

cycle, and eventually its bones

contribute to the phosphorus on the um

floor of the forest. So, it never really

goes away.

Um

in many other ways, our ancestors

repeatedly saw the cycles of nature, and

therefore

always kind of knew that everything gets

renewed and nothing ever completely goes

away. And

I think that's a really important thing

to return to. I think,

you know, when we question things, which

you're absolutely right to do,

I think we have to look at things that

we didn't think were true that we now

know are true as just ways of being open

to the fact that things in the future

might become obvious or known that

aren't known now. I think that is an

important place of being open-minded to

to sit at.

And so, for example,

um

want to hear about slime mold?

You tell me if that's something I want

to hear about.

So, slime mold are single-celled

organisms like amoeba

who go about their daily life on their

own very happily as long as their basic

needs are met.

But if for example, they're facing

potential starvation, they will come

together and form a slug because the

slug can move towards your vegetable

patch, you know, a new food source, and

they can survive.

Equally, if they are

if they are facing potential um

extinction,

they will come together and form a a

sporing body like a mushroom.

So, that's got a stalk

and a fruiting body that can release

spores that will go into the atmosphere

to all different places where these new

baby organisms can can grow and thrive.

But if you think about it,

the single cells in the stalk

are sacrificing themselves for the

greater good cuz there's no chance that

they're

they're going to get released into the

atmosphere as a spore cuz they're in the

stalk.

So, some of them actually cheat and

climb up the stalk to get into the

fruiting body and displace other cells

from the fruiting body.

So, things like that and for example,

the mycorrhizal network, which is how

mushrooms and mycelium feed the roots of

trees, even trees that have been felled

can be kept alive for centuries because

the my- mycorrhizal network, which is

the connection between mycelium and tree

roots, can bring water and sugar to that

tree stump to keep it alive.

And trees and mycelium don't even only

do it for the same species, they do it

because they're part of the entire

forest and it's symbiotic relationship.

And they care about each other.

Things like this would have been like

thought to be fantastical 10 years ago.

Um you know, we're in in LA at the

moment and I saw the driverless car for

the first time. Now, when I was growing

up watching sci-fi,

I never thought I'd see that in my life.

So, that's all I'm saying that

and and I'm saying it from the point of

view of being a cognitive scientist and

I'm talking about the nature of

consciousness. I'm not talking about

other not asking you to believe, you

know, other parts of science, but based

on the fact that

we don't know everything. We've learned

loads of things that we thought weren't

true before.

I strongly believe there's a benefit to

humanity of raising this kind of

question and having this conversation

which

I ask you why it's a taboo conversation.

What, you know, why shouldn't we be

enlightened? Why shouldn't we feel

better? Why shouldn't we be more

connected?

Whatever we've been doing up until now

certainly hasn't been working.

When when was it that you made the

decision that you were going to write a

book about

this called The Signs? Was there a

particular moment in this process where

you realized that you were going to to

dig deeper and that then you were

ultimately going to share this with the

world?

I wasn't intending to write a book at

all, but I'd got to the point where I

had something that I could share with

people that I actually thought would be

useful. And at this point you're

communicating with Robin

on a daily basis.

>> On a daily basis.

>> Yeah.

Give me some color to that. What does

that mean? Give me some examples if you

can. Well, either will be that like I'll

ask a question in my mind and the answer

will come in my mind, but I know it's

not my own thought. Or

I'll just get a direct like message from

him in my mind that I know isn't me, but

mostly it's the signs. So, I've talked

talked to you about the first

anniversary and how hard that was. By

the time of the second anniversary,

I was actually in America

and I'd been filming in studio for a

week and then I was on the road on the

Navajo Nation

and that was due to I was due to fly out

of the Navajo Nation on the second

anniversary of Robin's passing.

And

on by that point, I was feeling a bit

like I'd completely burnt out.

And I had a choice about how to

re-emerge. Um, you know, whether that

was going to be in a good way or I

wasn't going to be able to make it. Um,

and I had this analogy of a phoenix

rising from the flames in my mind.

So, on that trip, I said,

"Darling,

send me the sign of a phoenix." You said

that to who? To Robin, in my head.

And I I chose the phoenix cuz it's

really unusual. So, it's not like if I

said, you know, a dog, I'm probably

going to see a dog on the pavement every

day. But I chose something that is not

an easy thing to see.

And I was actually in Oklahoma City

where,

you know, you wouldn't expect

necessarily to see like something

unusual. Every single day between my

hotel and the studio, I went through

Chinatown and I passed a restaurant

called the Phoenix Garden with a big

emblazoned

like, you know, sign.

And

on the way there, I had had an indirect

flight from Boston and the flight

leaving Boston was late, so I missed my

connection in Chicago and I had to spend

a night in Chicago.

And then I was, you know, late for

filming and stuff. And so, when I was

leaving

to go to LA,

I was leaving on a on a

Sunday.

And from the Monday onwards, I had a

podcast every single weekday in LA.

And so, the team said to me, "We know

that you cannot miss that flight. We are

not going to put you on an on an

indirect flight. We absolutely promise

you direct flight to LA, so you're fine

from Monday onwards."

We were in the middle of nowhere for

like a week and basically, my flight

wasn't booked cuz we didn't know which

airport we were going to be at. We

arrived on the eve of the anniversary of

Robin passing and my flight was booked

that day and it was from Flagstaff in

the Navajo Nation to LA,

Flying on the day of his anniversary, no

direct flights. I had to fly through

Phoenix, Arizona on the day of his

anniversary.

You probably heard of that old analogy

of when you buy a car, you end up seeing

the car everywhere on the road. Like I

buy buy a new car and then I go

everywhere and it seems like everybody's

got my car because of Do they call it

confirmation bias in science, in

psychology? Where once you've got

something in your head, you're more

likely to see that thing. Mhm. I think

they've done studies on this where if

you are exposed to something or you're

told to think about something, you'll

see it more in the world. How do you

separate what you're saying from that

proven psychological phenomenon?

I don't. I say use it to your advantage.

But how do you know that wasn't what was

happening in your life? Because if you

thought about the word Phoenix and then

over the course of a couple of days,

you're looking at everything, but you're

only going to register the things that

are emotionally reg- resonant.

You know, I might have seen Phoenix a

lot of time over the last 7 days. And it

means nothing to you. Yeah, so I didn't

I didn't register it. Again, I would say

the number of times this has happened.

There is this the sort of like

how narrow I make the criteria. So, you

know, sometimes I say I need to see a

button or a symbol of a button or the

word button, but it's got to have

happened three times by 11:00 p.m.

tomorrow.

Um and one of my friends says that, you

know, we share something which is if you

see a pair of lions.

Um and we send each other pictures of

it, but she says it has to be if you

went out of your way and you walked a

different way and then you saw them. If

it's like you know, the normal way that

you go or somewhere that you know that

they exist, that doesn't count. It has

to be if you went out of your way. So, I

had a previous um thing with Robin which

is about the figure of eight or in the

infinity symbol. Um and there's a story

in the book of how that was cropping up

for me when I actually met him.

But there was a day recently where I had

some space that I had three spaced out

meetings in the day. So, I thought I'll

take the opportunity to walk for an hour

between them all.

>> Mhm.

And for the last meeting of the day,

I ended up walking past um

UCH, which is the University College

Hospital, where he was having treatment.

And that had been a really traumatic

time for me when he was in hospital

there.

And I have I will have to say I kind of

avoided that area since then. I'll tell

you about a particular story that was

like really traumatizing for me.

Um so on this walk to um where I was

going for the evening for a book launch

event, I ended up walking past the

hospital.

And I and I actually said in my head

like "Why would you make that happen to

me? Like why why do I have to walk past

that building? I never want to see that

building again in my life."

And again, I said you have to send me a

sign.

And um by the time I got to Euston

Station, so you know, you can people who

don't know can Google this, it's not

very far,

there was an elastic band in the figure

of eight sign on the pavement, and that

means something to me.

Um

So the thing about this this

confirmation bias thing is it it's

dependent on the reticular activating

system,

which is the system of your brain that

filters out what's not crucial to your

survival and then filters in what it

wants you to notice.

And so

actually, one of the things I've written

about in the book is the art of

noticing.

Because really, we live in this world

where the li- you know, life is passing

you by at 100 mph. You're not noticing

things that could actually be crucial to

you thriving rather than you just

surviving.

And in this model called shared trait

vulnerability, which falls under the

field of um research called

neuroaesthetics,

so basically, creativity is a positive

personality trait, right?

>> Mhm. But there is a a high correlation

between creativity and psychopathology,

which is mental illness, particularly

depression, schizophrenia, and

alcoholism.

And there are quite a few high-profile

examples of um creative people who had

mental illnesses, like Alexander

McQueen,

Kurt Cobain, Van Gogh. So, what that

shows is that there's an area of overlap

of three particular ways of thinking

that are underpinned by neurology

that are the reasons that people with

mental illness are so creative. And they

are basically

um

hyperconnectivity.

So, that's that's two things. That's

joining the dots in the material world

of things that aren't obvious to other

people,

but it's also hyperconnectivity inside

the brain. So, if you think about all

these lobes,

So happy. If you think about all these

lobes,

the more lobes that are firing at the

same time, and there's also a cortex

that's known as the association cortex.

So, that one, you know, these lobes can

be firing, but they're not necessarily

connecting up with each other. The more

interconnected all this firing is in the

brain, the more the brain opens up to

new ideas, and so that underpins

creativity. And also, this usually

really involves the visual cortex, which

is in the occipital lobes, and that's

why sometimes people, whether it's

through psychedelics or, you know, sort

of sort of altered states of

consciousness through creativity, can

can see things that they didn't see

before. Mhm. There's also something

called novelty salience, which is

noticing new things, um or just noticing

things of importance that you would

otherwise have filtered out. And there's

something called um

attenuated latent inhibition or low

latent inhibition, which is to do with

that filter,

and it means that the filter allows more

things in than it normally does.

>> Mhm. So, you can see we've got

hyperconnection, we've got noticing more

things, and we've got the filter like

loosening and allowing more things in.

Now, if you've got a high IQ,

high working memory,

and you've got cognitive flexibility,

which is you can think, you know, out of

the box, that's a really good thing.

If you've got a low IQ, you've got

deficits in your working memory,

and you've got what's called

perseveration, which is you just go over

the same thought process process over

and over again,

that can lead to you having a

psychological crisis.

So, I took that model and thought, "If

grief is like psychosis, and I'm

currently in a very vulnerable state,

is creativity a conduit for me to get

not only back to the state that I was in

before, but into a state of expanded

awareness where I can loosen the filter

as I choose as I choose fit. I can

notice things that I would have passed

by before,

and I can think differently about how my

mind works, how the world works,

possibly what happens after someone

passes away."

And then I went and, you know, looked

into near-death experiences and terminal

lucidity and dark retreats. Like I said,

I went down a rabbit hole. And what did

you find in that rabbit hole?

At the border of life and death, usually

within 1 to 24 hours of death,

someone who has

whose brain hasn't been functioning, who

can't remember the names of their own

children,

suddenly becomes completely lucid and

says, "Steven, darling, come over here.

Let me, you know, let's have a nice like

mother-son chat."

And then that gives a lot of people

hope, but usually that means it's an

hour or 23 hours till the person's going

to die. We can't explain that. How can a

brain that's irreversibly damaged

suddenly function completely normally?

There is no explanation for that.

With the near-death experiences,

I was particularly compelled by three

stories.

Dr. Mary Neal, an orthopedic surgeon,

she's in that Netflix documentary

Surviving Death.

She was submerged underwater for 15 or

20 minutes. She should never have been

able to be resuscitated.

She describes her whole journey of going

to another realm, seeing, you know, a

being of light, being told that her life

isn't over, she has to turn back and

return to

the physical world, even though she

could see her bloated body and her

friends trying to reach her to

resuscitate her and they couldn't.

Dr. Eben Alexander, who wrote Proof of

Heaven.

He is a doctor. He was an atheist.

He was in a coma with bacterial

meningitis and was pronounced clinically

dead. And then basically came back and

said that he saw heaven.

And he now believes in a God that is

benign, that cares about the future of

humanity.

So, for me as a doctor,

hearing these stories from other doctors

was really, really convincing.

And then there's one story that um Dr.

Grayson told me, he's a professor of

psychiatry at University of Virginia,

who has done 50 years of research into

near-death experiences.

And he told me the story of a patient in

ICU

who kept going into cardiac arrest.

And he had a primary nurse, who was a

young um 20-year-old nurse and they had

a really close bond.

And one weekend, she was she had time

off for the weekend and he had a

different nurse looking after him.

And he went into cardiac arrest and he

had a near-death experience.

And in that near-death experience,

he saw his primary nurse. She said to

him, "Your life isn't over, you have to

go back and get better.

And please tell my parents I'm sorry

about the red MG."

So, he wakes up in ICU, he's got this

replacement nurse looking after him.

And he says, "The strangest thing just

happened.

I um

had this experience of being in this

other world. I saw um my primary nurse,

and she said I had to come back. And she

also said tell my parents sorry about

the red MG.

So, the temporary nurse starts bursting

into tears, runs out of the room. He has

no idea why.

Someone comes in and says what's just

happened. He explains,

and they tell him

that his primary nurse was given a red

MG for her 21st birthday,

took it out for a test run, crashed it

into a tree, and died.

Now, he didn't know she was dead.

But he saw her on the other side, and

she told him to come back.

And the guy that told you this story was

who relevant to the patient who said

that? Dr. Bruce Greyson. He um has done

50 years of research on near-death

experiences. He's got over 5,000

recorded cases of patients of his own

that he's looked after that had

near-death experiences. And he also

shared with me with me the numbers of of

uh

cases that other people have on

databases. So, you know, we're looking

at over 10,000 cases globally recorded

at the moment.

What is it that you believe based on

those near-death experiences like the

red MG story?

>> Mhm.

And based on this phenomenon of terminal

lucidity?

So, Professor Alexander Batthyany who

wrote Threshold about terminal lucidity

put it really nicely when he said,

"Maybe at the border of life and death,

we see something that is true all along,

but we don't,

for whatever reason, see it or

acknowledge it whilst we're alive and

well, which is that the mind and body

can operate independently of each

other."

It is quite It is quite shocking.

There's this case from 2009.

An 82-year-old woman with Alzheimer's

disease who was nonverbal and

non-responsive and had no apparent

recognition of her surroundings or

families for years.

And then one day before her death, she

suddenly sat up in hospital, looked

around, and recognized her daughter by

name, spoke clearly, reminisced about

the past, thanked her family for caring

for her. Her speech was coherent, her

memory was intact,

and her personality recognizable as

though she had never been ill. She fell

asleep that evening and died peacefully

during the night.

And what do you think's happening there?

What do you think's happening there?

It's possibly, you know, partially

explained by a a surge in

neurochemicals, but it's not explained

by how can those neurochemicals act if

the physical neurons and synapses are

damaged? So, there is no explanation.

The only explanation

is that the mind is not emergent from

material matter. It's not

The The mind, the thoughts, the

emotions, the psyche cannot be solely

emerging from physical matter. That's

the only explanation from what we

understand so far.

And so, what is it that you now believe?

You believe that our souls and our

bodies are two separate things. And

where does our soul live if it's not

living inside of me?

So, like where is Robin? Mhm.

So, I believe that, you know, whether

whether you want to call it the

universe,

consciousness,

um collective consciousness, Godhead,

cosmic soup, I don't The word for it

isn't important. There's There's

somewhere

that that energy goes and it still

exists in some form. And if you believe

in reincarnation, then you may believe

that it then enters another body as a

vessel and, you know, has a different

life. Um

But

it doesn't go away.

How do you know?

I'm going to say something that you're I

know you're not going to like, but

I know because I feel it personally. I

feel it from I feel it like with the

person I've been closest to in my entire

life.

Who I know would never leave me if they

didn't absolutely have to.

But I can back that up.

To the extent of I can I can say you

can't prove that this isn't true.

I can back that up with everything that

I put in the book. And I'm not the only

one. Dr. David Eagleman at Stanford

says, you know, this idea of the brain

being like a radio

and receiving signals from outside. We

can't prove it, but we categorically

cannot say it's not true.

Professor Donald Hoffman suggests that

space-time is not the basis of how the

universe works. Suggests that

consciousness is the basis of how the

universe works. We can't prove that's

not true. And I find that really

exciting. I mean, as a scientist

you're supposed to challenge the status

quo. You're supposed to be curious. You

can't as a scientist believe that

everything we know now is all there is.

There's no point to being a scientist if

that's what you believe.

I asked you this question about the gym

earlier on about is it kind of like

training in the gym? Are there things

you think people could do to heighten

their ability

to speak to

loved ones that might have passed or to

heighten their ability to tap into

signs?

So, I go through this in the book and

and I chose the order quite carefully.

So,

I talk about neuroaesthetics, which is

you know, noticing beauty basically, if

not like

actually engaging in the arts. There's a

lot of evidence for engaging in the arts

in terms of like um increasing your

novelty salience, which is noticing new

things, which is part of the journey of

opening up that filter. Mhm. Um

and then there's a whole chapter on

nature because I think a lot of signs

come from nature, like

butterflies, robins, um

sort of, you know, spiral formations,

cloud formations. So, noticing nature

more can help you, you know, also to

receive these signs. And then community

is a huge part of it because, you know,

if I had this conversation with you and

you totally shut me down and said, "It's

not provable. This is ridiculous. I'm

not airing this episode." That would

have a very different like effect on me

to you even being open to like asking me

challenging questions that I welcome,

but also

engaging in this conversation and and

sort of, you know, maybe

feels a little bit like maybe

questioning, you know, some things that

you might do differently. Um

So, those are three very important parts

of like sort of part two of the book.

Part one is more about what are signs,

what are you missing, you know, have you

been receiving signs already? One of the

things that I when I was going through

my sort of um transition from like being

religious to being agnostic, I'd say,

cuz I wouldn't call myself an atheist,

is

I was watching all these um

atheist minds debate and talk and stuff.

And one of the things one of them said

is that if coincidence didn't happen in

our lives, then that would be a miracle.

Like statistically, mathematically, if

it's sometimes you don't think of Dave

and then the phone

that would actually be more

mathematically improbable

than it happening sometimes. Mhm. If you

think about, you know, the if if you had

this on a like a distribution curve or

something,

it is likely

mathematically that really unlikely

things will happen sometimes.

>> Okay. Right? So, I I've always had that

in my head as a way to sort of

rationalize coincidence. So, when

coincidence happens, I think, well,

probabilistically,

really unlikely things have to happen

and if they never happen,

then that's a miracle. Okay. Does that

make sense?

>> Yeah, it makes sense.

>> Like mathematically, you'd say like

likely things happen often,

unlikely things happen less often,

>> Yeah. extremely unlikely things happen

way less often.

>> Yeah. That's like the nature of like

maths, right? So, when extremely

unlikely things happen, I say,

"Actually, that makes sense because

probabilistically those things happen

infrequently. They're not happening

every single day." Like right now, I'm

thinking of I can name 10 people. I

guarantee when I go to my phone, none of

those 10 people have text me.

But if I do that every day, one day I'm

going to say, "Hey Steve, checking in."

Which makes sense because of the the

laws of probability.

>> want you to do that. I want you to just

like

be open to naturally thinking of someone

and seeing if that does happen or, you

know, kind of or asking for a sign and

seeing if it comes into your life.

That that's

That's all I'm asking. Like what, you

know,

just try it. It's not going to hurt you.

And I'm not just saying that to you. I'm

saying it to everyone.

And how do you think that would benefit

me?

I think it makes you believe in

something bigger than yourself.

Yeah. Um

>> And why is that so important?

Because I think a life where all you're

trying to do is get through and meet

your needs is

life can be better than that. Um

I think a life where you feel more

connected to yourself, to others, to

something greater gives you purpose.

Um

There's a lot of research that shows

that having a purpose that transcends

just yourself is actually really healthy

and important. And what is that for you

now, that transcendent layer in your

life? How do you define it? Is it a

religion? Is it something else? It's

definitely not religion. Um

I guess it's spirituality and, you know,

a form which will mean different things

to different people.

It's definitely about caring for

humanity. Is it a god?

A creator?

For me, no.

Um but 85% of people globally believe in

religion and a god, so it's important.

Um

I think for me it's

about

giving like a voice of relevance and

helping people to feel seen and heard

cuz I think that's very lacking. And,

you know, I'm in the enormously

privileged position that you have given

me of being able to do that, and I want

to use that in a really like positive

way.

How does this overlap with or sit

alongside what people call intuition?

Cuz you talk about that as well in the

book. Yeah. Um

I know there's so much like there's

still like so much else I want to say.

Just keep going.

>> So intuition is I mean intuition is what

it is. It's accessing inner wisdom,

right? But I've I've included it as a

really important part of the book

because I believe that it's a way to

receive and interpret your signs.

But um

I just want to go back to something I

said earlier which is about how

trauma can be stored in your body and

you know to some extent

it can't be retrieved through talking

therapy cuz there aren't words for it

because it's actually embedded into the

tissues of your body.

There's a really exciting new hypothesis

for how that might work called the

serotonin hypothesis.

So previously

I think it would make sense that if you

know for example when when Robin was in

hospital

I would like

sit in a very hunched over position and

my fists would be clenched cuz I felt

like I was fighting for his life all the

time and if I relaxed for a millisecond

he could die.

Um

so it makes sense to me that that

those postural issues would show up for

me later and you know in terms of like

aches and pains and you know perhaps

sort of well not perhaps my as my

Pilates and yoga teachers keep telling

me like issues with you know certain

parts of my spine and stuff.

But um the serotonin hypothesis is very

exciting as a neuroscientist because

a lot of people have heard of Bessel van

der Kolk's work and the book The Body

Keeps the Score.

And it makes sense kind of intuitively

that the body does keep the score and

and like I've said there's no amount of

trauma that you can't you can't

articulate verbally. So we believe we

understand there are imprints of that in

the body. Mhm.

But we have we've never really

understood how that works. Um and

we, you know, I've talked before, I

think with you, about intuition

through a process called Hebbian

learning, which is neurons that fire

together, wire together, gets pushed

deeper and deeper into neurons from the

outer cortex, the limbic system, the

brainstem, into gut neurons, and that's

why intuition is called gut instinct.

And we understand that through stress

postures,

you could have bracing patterns in your

muscles for like the trauma that you've

experienced.

Fascia is the connective tissue that

holds your entire body together, all

your organs, all your muscles.

And until fairly recently,

fascia was thought of as a vestigial

organ. It was cut away in surgery

without thinking of any that it would

have any effect on the rest of your

body.

Now, it's understood more to actually be

an an organ of its own and an important

one.

And the serotonin hypothesis

goes some way to explain how the level

of constriction of capillaries and the

amount of nutrients that's released to

skin, fascia, and muscle

is a mechanism for how trauma is held in

the body.

And with that in mind,

what do we do to get rid of that trauma

held in the body?

Physical activities. Um, so dancing,

singing, drumming, humming, chanting,

massage, yoga, craniosacral therapy. And

you'll notice that the ones I started

with are, you know, very related to

ancient wisdom. So, our ancestors knew

this. Um, for example, in ancient Greek

um

uh ancient Greek burials, they would

wail and beat their chests. So, they

were getting rid of grief by

like screaming, but also by beating

their muscles and letting like trauma

exit their body.

I'm very well aware that

there's probably a lot of people who

have sent this conversation to a friend

who is struggling right now. Mhm. And

that that friend who has lost a loved

one, potentially a husband, potentially

a wife, potentially, you know, God

forbid a child or a grandparent or

something, is listening to this because

they are in search of answers for their

own healing. Mhm.

You've been there. Mhm. You may still be

there in some

degree.

If you were to advise them on

their own healing journey, what advice

would you give them?

The first thing would be

to not repress or deny how they're

feeling and, you know, really

feel the emotions that that have to come

along with grief. Um

I've, you know, I had amazing talking

therapy, which definitely helped me a

lot. So, if people have access to that,

um professionally, then great. If not,

then, you know, if you've got close

friends that you can talk to, then

talking it out does help.

But, I've really learned that there's a

limit to how much that helps and that

some sort of

physical therapy, um is really helpful

as part of it. Those would be the

basics, I would say.

Time in nature has been so healing for

me. Um

some form of creative outlet, whether

it's making or beholding. So, you don't

have to be good at art if if you

draw, you know, a picture of how you're

feeling emotionally or a sketch of your

loved one, it doesn't have to be good.

You get benefits from doing that. It's

an out creative for your grief. That's

probably the second level and, you know,

the third level to me is if you've got

any inclination to receive signs, um or

just be open to

you know, white feather landing at your

doorstep.

Um

or a bird coming to visit you or

something that means something to you,

then

that can bring a lot of comfort and

guidance and joy.

And you also assert that things like

being in nature creativity

honing into our intuition increase the

probability of us receiving these signs.

Mhm.

Well, receiving and being able to

interpret in a way that's meaningful for

you.

Gut instinct.

Um in the book you talk about how

strengthening one's gut health can have

a an impact on gut in instinct.

>> Mhm. Explain that to me.

So, the the body is basically the

physical foundation for um you know, all

of your senses to be able to to flourish

to your higher mental faculties to be

able to flourish and ultimately for you

know, whatever spiritual experience you

have of life to to be able to be at its

fullest and best as well. So, taking

care of the physical foundations is

really important. And um you know, we

could talk about all the usual things

like sleep and diet and exercise,

mindfulness, stress management. But, I

want to really focus strongly on the the

gut brain access because a lot of new

research has come up since I wrote the

source.

So, it's actually you know, we know a

lot about this bi-directional

communication between the brain and the

gut. It's actually a three-way system

which is the brain, the gut itself, the

gut neurons, and the gut microbiome

which is trillions of bacteria and fungi

and you know, organisms that

um

are basically determining the health of

our entire system cuz they're connected

to our immune system, to our skin,

to our oral microbiome, and

and the brain.

So,

the way that you

the most direct access you have to your

brain is through your gut. The gut is

the most direct way that you can

influence your brain and you can do that

through exercise, obviously diet, um

supplementation,

even like um meditation and art and

music therapy have a beneficial effect

on your gut microbiome as well, which

has a knock-on effect on the neurons and

the the brain. And they communicate with

each other many ways, mostly through the

vagus nerve.

What's the vagus nerve? The vagus nerve

is a cranial nerve, so it comes from

your skull. It's Latin for wandering

because it's the longest nerve that goes

through your body. So, it goes There's

two, the right and the left, and they go

all the way from your cranium

What's my cranium? Your cranium is the

bone around your brain. Yeah. Um so,

inside that, um down your neck, they go

through your diaphragm and to your

intestine. I'll put a photo up on the

screen for everybody who wants to see

where their vagus nerve is. Also other

nerves, so the nerves that innervate the

gut organs, um they're called afferent

intestinal nerves. They're also involved

in this communication. Then there's

hormones,

and there's cytokine um messages, which

are chemical messages that aren't

hormonal. Your immune system actually

also produces neurotransmitters, and

there are immune cells in your brain as

well. So, those are all the ways that we

know currently that the brain and the

gut communicate with each other.

And so, what does this mean in terms of

my gut health and ways to influence my

my brain? Does it mean that I I need to

be really big on my prebiotics and my

probiotics to make sure my my gut's

intact? And if I do that, then my

intuition will be sharper. Mhm. So,

that's true, but I always like people to

understand what's behind that, not just

mindlessly take prebiotics and

probiotics. So, what we're trying to do

is reduce inflammation throughout the

system.

And so, basically, because

the brain is a small organ in in our

entire system, but it uses up at least

20% of our energy, so it's very

vulnerable

to um

what what we call oxidative stress or

free radicals. So, every time like

there's any turnover of cells in our

brain or our body, basically as we live,

the wear and tear of daily life, we

release free radicals, which are

molecules that can damage cells,

particularly nerve cells. And because

the brain is has such high turnover of

energy, it's particularly vulnerable to

free radical attack. So, reducing

inflammation and putting things that are

neuro protective around it, like certain

vitamins and minerals, is really

important. And the hippocampus part of

the brain, which um it has high cell

turnover cuz it's to do with memory,

laying down memories, and obviously well

into adulthood we're still doing that,

that's also very vulnerable to free

radical damage. And that's why we can

get memory and cognitive impairments and

dementias as we get older.

So, the the modern Western diet causes

something called dysbiosis, which is

that your gut isn't in a good state, and

that creates a cascade of inflammation,

and releases molecules, some of which

can cross the blood-brain barrier, and

therefore cause inflammation in the

brain. So, we want to minimize that as

much as possible.

And put in as many protective and

beneficial factors as possible.

If we're doing that, the system's in

what we call homeostasis, which is good

balance. It's kind of starting to take

care of itself. It's got all the

nutrients that it needs. It's hydrated.

It's oxygenated.

That's when you've got extra resources

to do the higher mental functions.

And up until today, pretty much, I've

described those as being able to solve

complex problems, being able to think

flexibly, creatively, override your

biases.

But now I'm proposing that there's more

than that that we can do. There's

accessing levels of intuition that we

didn't know we had. Very much through

through the same mechanism of how I

described trauma being stored in the

body,

hidden wisdom is also stored in the

body. It's not just in your brain.

And therefore, the same therapies like

beholding and making art,

humming, drumming, storytelling,

dancing, yoga,

just movement can help us to access that

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Use the word dark retreats. I've never

heard that phrase before.

So, dark retreats come from um a Tibetan

religion or philosophy, but it's um it's

seen throughout the ancient

civilizations. So, the ancient Greeks

and Romans used to bury people actually

for days, and then they would come out

and be like the seers and the mystics of

that um community.

But, there's most research um available

in dark retreats cuz it's still

happening today. What is a dark retreat?

A dark retreat is um have you heard of

silent retreats, silent meditation?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah, my girlfriend went on one.

Yeah, so that's the kind of thing she

would do. So, basically, you can go away

for a few days to a few weeks, and

you're just in silence, and you're

meditating and doing breathwork most of

the time.

In a dark retreat, you are in

like pitch black for I mean, you can go

and do it for a few hours or a weekend,

but it's meant to be in sevens. So, 7 to

49 days. The monks do 49 days. If as a

you know, a person who's interested

spiritually, you wanted to do it quite

seriously, you would go for 7 days.

And you would be in a room or a cave

that's got double walls, so it's

completely dark.

And um

the reason for doing this is that not

all of us can have a near-death

experience, right? So, this is a way of

emulate It's the closest way of

emulating that for anyone like you or I

to get access to the benefits of a

near-death experience.

Um which I've outlined them all in the

book. So, in a dark retreat, at first,

you sleep a lot because it's dark,

you're releasing a lot lot of melatonin

from your pineal gland. So, you fall

asleep in darkness, you awake in

darkness, and basically, that kind of

makes you feel more sleepy, so you sleep

a lot.

After a couple of days,

you start to see

like

pulsations of light. It might be like

little shooting stars or kind of just

like little sparks here and there.

And then eventually, it feels like the

walls

are dimly alight.

So, in complete darkness, you start to

see light.

Obviously, there's an element of like

hallucinating at this point. And so,

after 3 4 5 days, you will actually

start to see animals, real or sort of

fantastical.

And eventually, people see like deities

or beings like people do in near-death

experiences.

Um and when people come out of these

retreats, they experience many of the

same benefits like, you know, a real

sort of

like joy for life, less fear of death,

more compassion for other people, less

fear of failing, so, you know, taking

more healthy risks. So, it it's a way

it's basically of emulating a near-death

experience. And it therefore convinces

you that there's more than you can see

in your day-to-day life and

therefore, that expands your mind in a

way that's beneficial. Yeah, it's

another

example of an altered state of

consciousness. You can also get altered

states of consciousness through

conscious connected or holotropic breath

work and through the use of psychedelic

um

plants as well. How do we know that it's

it's not just a

changing of our neurological state or

the the chemicals in our brain that are

causing us to interpret things

differently with our senses because, you

know, we've all

I said we all many of us have

experienced having some kind of

stimulant or psychedelic or some

compound in a rave or a festival that's

made us see the world differently for a

moment. And science would say that's

just the neurochemicals in our brain

doing different things which are

changing our perception. They wouldn't

say necessarily that it's a different

realm or a different dimension.

Yeah, and I I think you're right. I

think it is that. So, as a

neuropharmacologist, I, you know,

understand as much as the research says

about the It's mostly, like I said, in

in the body in the brain with

psychedelics, it's mostly 5-HT or

serotonin 2A receptors. And there's a

level of hyperconnectivity within the

brain, particularly, as I said, in the

visual cortex here, which allows people

to see things that they don't normally

see. Um and I think the way to

apply that in your life is

that it's a glimpse into what's

possible.

Mhm. Um once you've experienced that, it

could either be that you find other

natural ways of experiencing that. So,

there's there's a paper I can forward to

you that shows that certain forms of

conscious connected breathwork produce

the same effect as a moderate dose of

psilocybin. Which is magic mushrooms.

>> Yes. And this um research came out after

psilocybin was banned, and practitioners

thought, "Well, what are other ways that

we can help people to achieve these

altered states of consciousness?" Um

and personally, I believe that, you

know,

having like com- a completely like

awe-inspiring experience in nature, or

for me, like the ballet, particularly

when I've been so lucky sometimes to sit

in the wings, and you just completely

feel like you're part of it. I mean,

I've literally had

a spiritual experience sitting in the

wings watching, actually, it was one of

my friends, the principal dancer,

dancing.

Just so overwhelming. It's completely an

altered state of consciousness. Um

So, there are other There are other ways

of accessing that. Um

but I think it depends like why you want

to and what it means to you.

But at minimum, these sorts of things

that I'm talking about are ways of

understanding that

there's more to life than what we know.

And how does that meaningfully change

like the concept of what happiness is

and contentment is, and like living a

good life is.

So, what I think is really interesting

is that we don't actually have to

experience certain things ourselves. So,

there's a lot of research that shows

that students from various different

areas of expertise who simply learn

about near-death experiences actually

get some of the same benefits, and that

these can last for over a year later.

So, understanding that when someone sees

that there's something greater than us,

when someone sees the interconnectedness

of of everything, when someone

understands how

small some of their problems are in the

greater, you know, picture of things,

helps people to be more compassionate,

more grateful, kinder to others, um less

materialistic.

Is is really interesting, and I think

anything that we can do to help us,

you know, free us from some of those

chains that I think hold us down in the

material world, particularly in the

Western world,

is

it's healthy for us physically,

mentally, emotionally,

but it also brings in this element of

spirituality that I think is just so

lacking in the world at the moment, and

and could be so helpful, because if we

look back

at the way that our ancestors used their

senses and their intuition to interpret

the land, like

a cloud formation could mean that rain's

coming, but it could also mean that your

ancestors were talking to you.

Just seems like such a beautiful way to

live, and

when we lived in, you know, in

Paleolithic times, we didn't have spare

resources for having fun,

but we adorned ourselves, we danced, we

told stories, we made, you know, cave

art.

So, I think that just really

reminds us that those things that are

often seen as luxuries or frivolous,

they're not at all, they're

fundamentally important. Believing in in

these things itself is good for us. Is

that what you believe? You believe that

believing in something transcendent,

whether it's spiritual or religious, is

actually just good for us. So, that's

reason enough to believe it. It's reason

enough to believe it, but I think it

will naturally change what you do once

you believe it. You're not going to live

in the same way if you if you you know,