Are You Ignoring Your Higher Self? NEUROSCIENTIST on Intuition, Synchronicities & Soul Messages | Dr. Marjorie Woollacott

Summary

Mayim Bialik's Breakdown

Episode: Are You Ignoring Your Higher Self? NEUROSCIENTIST on Intuition, Synchronicities & Soul Messages | Dr. Marjorie Woollacott
Guest: Dr. Marjorie Woollacott (Neuroscientist, Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon)
Date: February 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the experiential and scientific intersections of spirituality, consciousness, and neuroscience. Dr. Marjorie Woollacott, a once-skeptical neuroscientist and former atheist, recounts her personal “awakening” and the subsequent journey that changed her understanding of consciousness. The discussion delves into phenomena such as meditation, kundalini energy, psi abilities, near-death experiences, intuition, mediumship, and the power of belief. Mayim, Jonathan, and Dr. Woollacott examine whether it is possible—and practical—for science to make room for spiritual experience, and how listeners might open up their own “inner senses” to greater awareness.

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Main Themes & Purpose

• Bridging Science and Spirituality:
  Dr. Woollacott shares her journey from materialist neuroscience toward embracing and investigating spiritual experiences.
• Awakenings and Transformation:
  Personal narrative and examples of sudden, transformative experiences that defy materialist explanations.
• Exploring Psi Phenomena:
  Near-death experiences, remote viewing, telepathy, synchronicity, and mediumship—how they relate to brain filters, belief, and consciousness.
• Practical Application:
  Guidance for listeners aiming to integrate deeper awareness, intuition, and altered states while remaining grounded.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dr. Woollacott’s Spiritual Awakening

[09:00–15:08]

• Felt unfulfilled and “subtle dis-ease” despite career success.
• Describes being invited to a meditation retreat: initially skeptical, eventually attended.
• During a “Swami’s touch” initiation, experienced a profound energetic rush:
  • “It felt like a mini lightning bolt… I feel this energy begin radiating outward from my heart, filling my whole being. This is love and my heart is my home.” (Woollacott, 00:00/14:05)
  • Not on any substances, never used psychedelics.
  • Aftermath: a spontaneous and persistent desire to meditate, leading to lasting personal transformation.
  • “I began leading two lives: an academic neuroscientist and a secret meditation practitioner.” (Woollacott, 22:33)
• Science brain was “confounded” but “didn’t care” because the felt experience was so powerful.

The Science–Skeptic Split: Can We Study This?

[27:49–34:39]

• Physical mechanism for these experiences is unknown—do we need a mechanism to accept transformative events?
• Quotes from world philosophy: Kundalini (India), Chi (China), Holy Spirit (Christianity), Kia (Africa).
• Subtle energy fields and their possible universality.
• Dr. Woollacott: “Something happened that is transformational... Even without a mechanism, we must acknowledge it happens.” (Woollacott, 27:49)
• Brain “filters” inhibit expanded awareness; deep meditation or near-death can turn them “way down” resulting in wider perception.

Psi Phenomena and the Limits of Materialism

[47:41–52:45]

• Near-death experiences often unlock lasting psi abilities (e.g., Elizabeth Crone and precognition).
• Some non-verbal autistic children display intuitive or telepathic abilities.
• Mediumship, historically dismissed, now included in Dr. Woollacott’s research: “I had to go underneath my disbelief and see what the data actually shows.” (Woollacott, 47:41)
• Strong evidence across cultures for communication with deceased and “information transfer” that cannot be explained materially.

The Role of Belief and Co-created Reality

[54:00–61:37]

• Discussion of Bernardo Kastrup’s analytic idealism:
  • All beings have belief systems that “anchor” them in this physical reality (e.g., gravity, time, the five senses).
  • To change a limiting belief, “You have to go under the belief and literally dig it out like a thorn.” (Woollacott, 54:00)
• Mayim: “If we think of it like a simulation, we’re all running different code, trying to relate from our respective software and inherited patterns.” (Bialik, 56:05)
• Placebo and belief effects demonstrate “belief changes your physiology.”
• “Yes, our beliefs create reality, but this is nuanced—we co-create with all points of consciousness, not just individually.” (Woollacott, 60:43)

Practical Spirituality and Application

[38:18–46:59, 62:54–65:56]

• Many paths to awakening: meditation, yoga, spiritual community, even dissatisfaction can open a “crack” in the self.
• Small, consistent practice (e.g., mantra repetition, focused breathing) helps quiet the “egoic narrative” in the brain (Default Mode Network).
• Surrounding oneself with others who have “awakened” is powerful (“get new friends”—humorous but true).
  • “In a group that meditates, it’s easier to induce a quiet state of mind.” (Woollacott, 39:12)
• Beware of abandoning practicality for “spiritual bypassing”—one must balance heart and intellect:
  • “Is this fulfilling? If not, maybe I need to get back into a job.” (Woollacott, 63:03)
• Apply “honest introspection” to daily habits and social connections to support awareness.

Consciousness—Where Is It?

[65:56–67:20]

• Consciousness is not solely in the brain: “There is an element of consciousness in everything… My brain is not producing my awareness.”
• Each element of existence “cooperates” in the shared dance of consciousness.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Lightning Bolt Experience:
  “First of all, literally, it felt like a mini lightning bolt, like electricity, a tiny electric current … and it landed in the heart. … The heart felt very good. That’s why the words came—‘I’m home. My heart that I’d never experienced before.’”
  — Dr. Woollacott, [14:05]

• On Scientific Skepticism:
  “Do we have to have a mechanism in order to accept something? Or can we accept the veracity of the experience and the transformation that occurs?”
  — Dr. Woollacott, [27:49]

• On the Power of Community:
  “Make new friends… When you’re in a group that meditates, it’s easier to induce yourself into that quiet state of mind.”
  — Dr. Woollacott, [39:12]

• On Belief Systems:
  “Beliefs are anchors … You have to go under the belief and literally dig it out like a thorn … and then you have the chance of actually letting go of that belief.”
  — Dr. Woollacott, [54:00]

• On Co-Creating Reality:
  “Yes, I do have a contribution to creating my reality… But all the human beings, all the points of consciousness… are also contributing to our joint reality. This is a co-created universe.”
  — Dr. Woollacott, [60:43]

• On Balancing Spirituality and Practical Life:
  “We need a healthy combination: the yin and the yang, the heart and the mind… Is this fulfilling me? Just keep asking.”
  — Dr. Woollacott, [63:37]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Woollacott’s Awakening Story: [09:00–15:08]
• Explaining the Energy Experience: [13:22–14:44]
• Integrating Spiritual Practice with Scientific Career: [22:33–24:12]
• Community and Transmission in Meditation: [38:18–39:49]
• How to Cultivate Awareness and Overcome Distractions: [39:49–46:59]
• Psi, Mediumship, and Skepticism: [47:41–52:45]
• Consciousness Beyond the Brain: [65:56–67:20]
• Closing Reflections on Co-created Reality: [60:43–63:37]

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Tone and Style

The conversation is open-minded, sometimes playful, candidly skeptical, and deeply curious. Mayim and Jonathan ground the dialogue by questioning, paraphrasing, and bringing in relatable anecdotes, while Dr. Woollacott remains compassionate yet direct, persistently inviting listeners to embrace personal experience and not shy away from the mysteries of consciousness.

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Recommended Next Steps

• For Listeners:
  Explore different contemplative practices, cultivate community with open-minded seekers, and maintain an honest dialogue between intellect and heartfelt experience.
• Readings Mentioned:
  • Infinite Awareness: The Awakening of a Scientific Mind — Marjorie Woollacott
  • Spiritual Awakenings (edited by Woollacott)
  • More Than Allegory — Bernardo Kastrup
  • Additional studies on near-death experiences and psi phenomena

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Closing

This episode provokes listeners to reconsider the boundaries of perception and reality. It offers a bridge for skeptics and believers alike, inviting everyone to explore awareness beyond the five senses—without abandoning healthy skepticism or life’s practical necessities.
To be continued in Part Two, which will delve further into terminal lucidity, synchronicity, telepathy, and the nature of consciousness.

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Transcript

[A]

It felt like a mini lightning bolt. This energy that goes from his fingers to the point between my eyes down to the very center of my chest. And I feel this energy begin radiating outward from my heart, filling my whole being. This is love and my heart is my home.

[B]

You were not on any psychedelic drug?

[A]

I've never taken any psychedelics. I was an atheist and I was a neuroscientist that was totally skeptical. But just beneath the surface of my awareness there simmered the, this heartfelt ecstasy.

[B]

Dr. Marjorie Wolicott. She's a professor and a member of the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. She's going to talk today about psy phenomenon, remote viewing. The ability of the mind to access a realm that allows us the ability to transcend anxiety, depression, fear.

[A]

When a person has a near death experience, they often come back with these psi abilities. It's amazing what people can do, including the interactions with their loved ones on the other side.

[B]

Dr. Woollacott, I would say no. That would be my response.

[A]

No. What my consciousness could do is actually change the channels in the receptors of various neurons in my brain to open them up. That's when telepathy often occurs. Why can't we do it in the laboratory? Because we don't have emotionally charged events in the laboratory.

[B]

I'm an open minded skeptic, but I want the mechanism.

[A]

When I was the materialist neuroscientist that only believed in objectivity, I had this experience that said, wait a minute. There is an element of consciousness in everything. Our beliefs create our reality. All of the human beings, all the points of consciousness in this world are also contributing to our joint reality. This is a co created universe.

[C]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[A]

These may apply.

[B]

Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

[C]

And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

[B]

And welcome to our breakdown. Today feels like a special day.

[C]

Why is that, Mayim?

[B]

Because we're about to have a very big conversation that kind of takes us from the concept of spirituality and it grounds it in a neurophysiological space, which I love. I love when we literally have an intersection of science and spirituality.

[C]

One of the most powerful aspects of this conversation for me is how we are all boxing ourselves into a world that is keeping us constrained.

[B]

The notion that understanding consciousness can have such a practical application to your life, I don't think has ever been more clear than it is in our conversation. Today we're speaking to a neuroscientist and ascribed neuroscience hardwired skeptical atheist who had an experience that was inexplicable. The only way to describe it was that she was stepping outside of the five senses that her entire career was based on. Dr. Marjorie Wolicott. She's a professor and a member of the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. She trained at usc, got her doctorate there, but she also holds a degree in something that many of us don't know how to get at. And she's going to talk today about psi phenomenon she's going to talk about remote viewing. She's going to talk about telekinesis. What? She's going to talk about the ability of the mind to step outside of the world that we think exists in order to access not only a spiritual realm, but a realm that allows us the ability to transcend anxiety, depression, fear, even a sense of helplessness. It's a wonderful conversation and one that intersects with so many specialists we've spoken to in the field of near death experiences, psi phenomenon and other extrasensory perception.

[C]

The episode also talks on telepathy, synchronicity, remote viewing, and many of the unbelievable phenomenon that we have explored here recently. You are not going to want to miss this.

[B]

I read Infinite the Awakening of a Scientific Mind to prepare for our conversation today. But I also want to mention an incredible, incredible book that Dr. Wollacott has compiled, Spiritual Awakenings. Scientists and academics describe their experiences about people who are used to operating in a materialistic framework, who then shift over to a larger spiritual understanding. Also the playful universe, Synchronicity and the Nature of Consciousness. And we'll actually touch on synchronicity today. Is it a real thing that we can describe in the scientific world or is it just something that you feel? Also on the banks of the river Sticks New Perspectives on Terminal Lucidity and Other Near Death Phenomenon. Also something we'll touch on today. What is terminal lucidity and what can it tell us about the nature of consciousness? We also have a lot of practical tips that Jonathan and I have used in our personal life, which we're going to speak about a little bit with Dr. Willicott. But you're going to want to head over to Substack for the conversation about the practical application of everything going to talk about today. So make sure to go over to bialic breakdown.substack.com if you've never checked out Substack, now's the time. Download the app. You can choose whatever you want in terms of notifications, membership. We'd love to see you over there. To continue this conversation and so many others, let's welcome Dr. Marjorie Wolicott to the Breakdown. Break it down before we ask you anything about the incredible fields that you have touched, what is your mission? What do you see your purpose is as a neuroscientist, you know, as a healer, as a practitioner, what's your mission?

[A]

I think my mission is to share with other people that I used to be only tied to my five senses and the belief in only objective reality. And then something happened where my senses seemed to open up into a wider range. And now I saw things totally differently. And I want others to know, if they haven't already had that happen, that it is possible and that we're a lot happier and we get along a lot better with other people after we begin to feel that interconnection with other people. So it's like a heartfelt desire to let other people know how they will suffer less and how the world will suffer less if we can just begin to open ourselves up to that wider understanding.

[B]

Can you talk a little bit about the journey that you went on from being someone very tied to a materialistic view of the world, someone who was engaged in also quite, quite a successful career grounded in the five senses. What happened that changed your perception of reality and consciousness for lack of a better expression?

[A]

Well, I think I'll even start like a little bit beforehand because, yes, I was in a successful career. I was doing really well. I knew, like, perhaps you did too. Being a neuroscientist, I knew how to really do well in the world, how to focus my attention and really be able to study for tests and do well. So I had all that down. I had a wonderful postdoc at that particular time and then a new job, and yet I was very. Unhappy isn't exactly the right word, but it was like I couldn't figure out why I wasn't feeling the fulfillment of all of those things. I had a beautiful, you know, a boyfriend that had a Porsche. I mean, all of those things that we thought, think we're going to like. And then what happened is that I was noticing that I would be sometimes, like, paranoid when I was be in a tall hotel going to a conference and I was on the 13th floor and then worried about fires. And I'm thinking, come on, what's going on? So that was sort of like this subtle dis ease that was going on amidst the very successful life, whatever that means. And so then when my sister, who my boyfriend used to call a bubblehead because she was more of a hippie and loved to. She was living in Hawaii, doing all of that wonderful exploration of spirituality, when she invited me to go to a meditation retreat for my birthday when I was starting a new position at a university in Virginia, I was intrigued and I was. I was curious. I was open enough to say yes. She did remind me that my boyfriend then said, no, no, no, your sister doesn't know what she's talking about. I backed out. And then finally I said yes again. And she had to get me one of the last seats for this meditation retreat. So then what happens is that in the first morning of that retreat, I am sitting in the meditation session, and we're the meditation master. The swami that is going to be coming around is going to initiate each one of us, and it's going to happen through the swami's touch. Now, clearly, I'm a materialistic scientist, and I'm thinking, what? But I also realized I was there for the weekend, and why not put my skepticism aside for those two days and just be curious about what might happen?

[B]

So you were told that this man is going to come around and physically touch everyone there, and something magical is supposed to happen.

[A]

It didn't say anything about the magical thing, but simply an initiation so that I was supposed to decide what that would be. So here I hear him coming around the room, and he has peacock feathers, and he's touching people on the head, and I can hear the whoosh, whoosh of the peacock feathers. And he's getting closer. And my eyes are closed now at this point, but I'm totally engaged. Like, well, what's going to happen? And when he comes to me, what I feel is his hand, first of all on my head and then between my eyes. And I feel this energy that goes from his fingers to the point between my eyes on the bridge of the nose, down to the very center of my chest. And at that point, it feels like my heart, but not the physical heart, much more like a heart full of energy. And I feel this energy stop and then begin radiating outward from my heart, filling my whole being with a whole new feeling I've never filled before. And I remember the sense I had was, this is love and I'm home. It's like my heart is my home. It's like, I didn't know that. And there was this feeling of incredible contentment. And I'm thinking, what on earth happened to me? So that was, like, the start of it. And I should mention that at the end of the intensive, in fact, my sister reminds me I left a little early because my boyfriend wanted me back home. But I'm now getting on the plane, going home, back to Virginia, and I have bought the book that the swami has written. It was called Play of Consciousness. And I'm looking at his photo and saying, who are you and what have you given me? I was just, like, not knowing what had happened to me. And I should say, that night I also had an interesting experience. I usually don't share, but I'll share today. And that is that at about 2am in the morning I woke up and I could see in the corner of the room a photo of his own teacher. And because I'd seen that photo in the meditation ashram and he was simply looking down on me with this beneficent smile that was all total silence. And those things don't happen to me. It's never happened to me since. And there was just this feeling of, oh, you know, something has awakened inside of me that's allowing me to feel and experience things I haven't felt before.

[B]

I'm going to pretend like I just landed from another planet, which, as Jonathan will attest to it often seems like I have. So when you say that you felt energy, what does that mean practically? What does it mean somatically? Because a lot of people might say, oh, you believe that when this swami touches you, something is going to happen. And whatever you think is what you sort of like pretend, right? This is the, the, the cynical view. You pretend like, oh, something amazing is going to happen. But when you describe someone placing their hand on your face and that you feel it resonate all the way down your spinal cord and then all of a sudden you feel love. What, what is happening?

[A]

So first of all, literally, it felt like a mini lightning bolt, like electricity, a tiny electric current. And it didn't even, in fact go down my spinal cord. It went from here, just like, in effect through my internal space to my heart. That was just the feeding of just this electricity, this mini lightning bolt just going like that. And it wasn't like a giant bolt of lightning. It was just this very sweet electric current and it landed in the heart. And then the heart felt, oh my God. I mean, the heart felt very good. And that's why the words came. I'm home. I'm home. It's my heart that I'd never experienced before.

[B]

You were not on any psychedelic drug?

[A]

I've never taken any psychedelics, not even yet. And I was an atheist and I was a neuroscientist that was totally skeptical. So this happened. It's like, well, what on earth was that? I mean, that's why when I got on the plane, it's like, who are you? It's like this thing doesn't happen. So there was that incredible question mark in my head about that because I didn't understand what happened.

[C]

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[C]

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[B]

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[B]

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[C]

I am curious what you believe happened both spiritually and physically. And then the second part is that when people have these experiences, often in retreats or some form of long extended meditation, the question is, does it stick? Do we just go back to our old lives and forget that we have had this transformation? Or how does that realization integrate into your new life?

[A]

Right? And I think that is the key issue that in this case it stuck so well that the next morning I got up to meditate spontaneously and I never have stopped so literally it was like that with this. And what it was is that I'd had that experience that weekend and now I wanted it back. And I knew that like just beneath the surface of my awareness there simmered this heartfelt ecstasy. I'd done it once, so why not try meditating? So I got up, I sat on my bed, and I meditated. And again, I did it the next morning and the next morning. And I gradually, as we all know, begin to, like, get a little bit more of a feel of it and then begin to read about it. And it really transformed my life. But I should say it transformed my life in a way, which means that I was meditating at home and on weekends and at the university. Nobody knew a thing about it because I had to be credible as a neuroscientist. And so I had this very difficult experience of leading two lives. I began exploring the meditation, going to meditation retreats when I could, and my colleagues didn't know anything about it, because if I were to dare mention the word meditation or something like that, I'd see this veil go over their eyes. And you could see, I'm not interested. And it's like, okay, fine.

[B]

You were a secret seeker.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

As a neuroscientist, I mean, I have many, you know, kind of theories of the way that I might explain that physiological reaction. What did you understand at the time was happening both on a neurophysiological level and then on a spiritual level?

[A]

I would say that I had no idea what was happening on a neurophysiological level because it was unexplainable to me. Somebody cannot touch you. I mean, so, yes, you'd have the sensation of touch, but you cannot then inside of your body, feel an electric current, go from here to the heart, and then have that sensation of not your heart organ, but something else. Open up with this exquisite love that you've never felt before. My neuroscientist inside of me was totally confused and confounded, and in a certain sense, it didn't care. And I will say something else that happened from that point on in my life. Most of the time, my heart, whatever we mean by my heart. It's like this incredible desire to know more was leading me. And the mind was behind it, sort of running behind to try to catch up, to understand intellectually what was going on. And I would laugh about that sort of thing, that there was this incredible desire to know more, to begin to practice, because it felt good. And the intellect was going, oh, my God, this makes no sense. In fact, I remember one time I was then going off a few years later to a conference in Sweden. I was giving a talk on my rehabilitation neuroscience on posture control and development in children. And all of my colleagues were atheists and skeptics. And I could feel my own belief in what had happened beginning to contract in that atmosphere. And I was like, oh my goodness, it's fascinating how the mind contracts quickly, go back to its old resonance of belief systems and really cover up its own experience. And that's always an interesting thing to ask because I know the skeptics would say, well maybe that was just an illusion that you had wishful thinking. And of course you're going back to your old way because that's reality, objective reality. But it's not that way because these inner senses have been opened up and you begin to see that and feel it. And you say, this doesn't go with my old way of the five senses being my only senses thinking.

[C]

Now let's tap into the yogi side or the mystical side of you to try to explain that experience. I'll posit what I think may have happened. And you sort of adjust, correct. Add to this explanation. Could it be that this man who has cultivated a very deep and long practice of internal connection is mime doesn't like when I use the next phrase, vibrating at a different frequency. And the neuroscientists can explain and try to translate that, that he is just vibrating in a way that when your heart and gets into connection with that some sort of magical Star wars esque energy is passed into your body and ignite something that has been with you all along and is now given you enough that your body says, oh wait a second, there is something more beyond the veil that I have been living in and that's enough to spark it. And that's what happens when people have these small moments of awakening and that people go to retreats and other things. The difference here that I want to get to after you help us adjust how you see it is, is that for you it stuck really well. And a lot of people have these small moments of awakening, have these little reminders here and there, more so than ever before, but sometimes then struggle to maintain the connection to it, whether it be they aren't able to practice, they're not motivated, or whether it's that they go back and face a materialist world and the mind begins to contract around it.

[A]

I would say yes, you gave a good approximation of what one might say is happening from the yogic point of view. And I think my frustration is that, okay, from the materialist point of view, we don't know how that could happen. But here's the issue that I keep coming up to again and again. Do we have to have a mechanism in order to accept something? Or can we accept the veracity of the experience and the transformation that occurs in, for example, people's physiological senses, their intuitions, their shift in their understanding of reality and accept that we don't know what the mechanism is. But something happened that is transformational. So there is where I go. And because I have looked at a number of philosophical traditions throughout history, you find that this sort of awakening is expressed in many, many traditions. And I'll just take a step back. So of course this energy is called the kundalini in India. And they talk about the awakening of this energy and how it can move through the whole spinal column and it may take your awareness out through the top of the head. And I've had friends that talk about that happening spontaneously. They were meditating or doing Tai Chi on their own, but doing it religiously every day. And this sort of thing began to happen. So it doesn't need transmission from a meditator who really seems to have that awake. It can happen in a number of ways. But again, in China it's called the Chi. In Japan it's called the key. In Christianity, the Holy Spirit. I think African tribesmen have a name for it as well. So I think it's called maybe the Kia in some African tribes. So all these cultures have experienced this and given it a different name. And they all say this is an energetic phenomenon. And I'm going as a neuroscientist, when that happened, I don't understand because we only know about the nervous system and my spinal cord and we don't have energy going up my spinal cord to the top of my head. And so the way they describe it in these systems is they say it is a subtle energy in the subtle system. And interestingly, transmission is described in many of these systems. And it can be person to person. It can be a transmission that happens during your sleep through what they might call grace. Whatever. Grace means that somehow something happens to you and you're ready to shift into a different mode of expression. Some people seem to walk into this world with it and we know with their senses wide open. As you know, I have been working with Julia Mossbridge and we're working on children with non speaking autism who seem when they start being able to actually communicate, to have their senses wide open and they have intuitive abilities, telepathic abilities. I've been studying and doing research with Diane Hennessy Powell, Marina Wyler, looking at those things. So what happened at that moment, getting back to that moment of awakening, is that something opened up in terms of a curiosity. Due to my experience, which has continued to expand, that now makes me curious about seeing what I can find in other people and how I can connect the neuroscience with the experience.

[B]

One of the things that, you know, as scientists, we want to know is, is, is it verifiable? Is it repeatable? What is the formula for which we can try and understand it? So I want to make clear the man who touched you on the bridge of your nose and caused your insides to have a fireworks party, it's not to say that every single person he touches will have that experience. And I want to be clear about that, that just as you indicated that some people seem to be born with something, right? That's important for people to understand, because a lot of people would say, well, he touched me and it didn't happen. So that person, Marjorie, is crazy and, you know, she's experiencing something that is a distortion. It's a perception problem. It's a delusion. Right? But the idea is not that. The idea is that we are talking about a subtle energy system that does not necessarily obey the same laws that Newtonian physics does. Right? This is a difference that it has to have a different category, which means that. And we've talked about this, even with, you know, with Kai Dickens, when we talk about the telepathy tapes, it's not going to obey the same rules. So if you start applying the same paradigm of scientific veracity to this, it will lead to a split, it will lead to a divisiveness in this field, which is exactly what we see. And it's people like you, it's people like Dr. Long and Dr. Grayson and Dr. Tucker, right, who are trying to use experiences to show this is a thing that does not obey the same rules by which you would use the scientific method, right?

[A]

That's right. And I just want to add the nuances to that. And that is that what we have looked at. And we can talk about the neural filters in the brain that keep us from having wider awareness that those people that have been deep in meditation or deep inside on psilocybin have their brain filters turned way down and they have wider awareness. The person with the NDE has basically, things turn pretty much off and they have a wider awareness. So that's where the neuroscientist in me says, it's not so simple as that. And we have to think about those nuances and whether when the person with an NDE has now left their body or the person with meditation, because often the person with meditation experience leaves their body, they're no longer connected in that same way to their beautiful nervous system. Somatosensory enteric, et cetera. And yet there they are in fact, with their awareness, moving to different rooms in a hospital, for example, and knowing everything around them. So there is, as you say, that frustration, that paradoxical nature of this phenomenon, that it doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens more than just here and there. Then materialists want to say it's anecdotal, but when you have so much quote, unquote, single person evidence, that is across cultures, I tend to think you have to begin to believe in the phenomenon if not understanding the mechanism.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it reminds me of Jill Balte Taylor also when she had the experience of her rational brain going offline and she was able to be mobile and conscious to some extent. She was having this kind of experience, like it's one of the best collaborative elements of near death experiences and psychedelic, transcendental experiences.

[C]

I think what people want to understand is how do I wake up? And sometimes people are waking up through hearing the fact that it's possible. So maybe we can start with some of the amazing stories that you share and that you, you've written about and researched about people who have experiences that we cannot explain through the materialist world that make us begin to explore something else.

[A]

I'm not sure where to begin, but the person that came to mind was again, Federico Fagin, who you both know well and maybe some of your listeners know well. Who I got to know, I think, when a first documentary came out about him, and now I've met him a number of times personally, where again, he was in a situation a little bit like me, though he didn't have a meditation teacher touching him in a retreat. He was simply feeling frustrated because he had all the money he could want, the best family in the world, invented the microprocessor, all of these things. He should be satisfied. And he was not satisfied. And then in the middle of the night at Christmas time at Lake Tahoe, he wakes up in the middle of the night, he's thirsty, gets a drink of water and he's sitting back down. Suddenly this explosion in his heart again. It's the heart, interestingly for him and me, comes and he feels, as you know, like this feeling of amazing light and love. And he doesn't know whether he's everything like the waveform of the universe, or whether he's a particle and a separate individual being with this happening. But it's like the point is, yes, it's possible and for many of us it seems to happen when we decide we're dissatisfied with our objective five senses reality that they aren't fulfilling us enough. Career, family, everything else. And something inside said, I want more. And this is the way I look at it a bit. It. It's almost like that feeling like your egoic, like, center is beginning to collapse a little. It's like you thought you had everything in line and you didn't. And it opens up a little bit of a crack in that collapse to allow some other phenomenon to happen, whether we call it another energy to come in to help wake you up. But it allows you, I would say, maybe the way I would describe it is it allows you to begin to feel an energetic connection with the rest of the world instead of feeling so separate in that little egoic shel that we have around us to protect us and make sure that we look good to everybody else and we feel good, et cetera. It's like that cracks and then we find something. Made me much better.

[B]

I think one of the things that, you know, many people might be wondering, especially if they're struggling, especially if they're in a place where they're feeling discontented, like, they don't feel like things are coming together in their life. They're scared about world events, they're scared about what's happening in the country. Can I achieve some sense of peace, security, comfort, safety in my nervous system if I don't have this electrical lightning bolt experience in my body? Because for many of us, when we hear these experiences, it's like, oh, that's great for you. I'm really happy for you. What would you say to the rest of us who are meditating and sitting and we're not feeling a lightning bolt, we're not feeling fireworks going off. We're doing the Kundalini yoga, and they're like, oh, it's like a serpent coiling. And I'm like, it just feels like my ass on a yoga mat. What do you say to those people? Do we keep trying? Are we genetically not programmed to have that? What can we get close to short of taking a lot of mushrooms and going into nature?

[A]

That's a really good question. And I would say that. That when I did these studies now that are published on people that have had meditative awakenings, and again, there are two of them. One was, on average people, I think it was like maybe 300 and some odd people that were in one study. The other one was on scientists and academics. And we looked at what triggered their opening that we might call a heart opening. And there were a number of things which are what you're talking about people normally doing, but for whatever the reasons for them that happened to like move beyond some sort of a threshold that allowed something more to go. And so of course they are doing those practices like meditation, yoga, et cetera, but also hanging out with other people that have had this awakening because there is a certain feeling of transmission when you're around people like that.

[B]

I need to get new friends. That's what you're telling me, right?

[A]

Make new friends, I mean. And so it's an interesting phenomenon, but I have certainly noticed, in fact, they often say that when you're in a group that meditates, it's easier to induce yourself into that quiet state of mind. And here, give an example. I think that we think about the fact that, well, I'm having trouble meditating. And then you find out, well, I've been watching TV until late at night. I love going shopping on the web and buying all these clothes and I love going out to all the malls and I do this and I do that. And yes, I like going out with my friends and drinking and partying all night. And then I get up next morning and I can't meditate. What's wrong with me? I fall asleep.

[B]

So change my life and get new friends. Got it?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So. So I'm often in a meditation retreat. People will ask that, why can't I get there? And then it's like, well, look at your life. So just talk to yourself about what you're doing and are you spending the amount of time on quieting your mind compared to how you're seeking for distractions throughout the day or giving yourself totally to your work because you think if I put 110% effort into my work work, I'm going to be a better person. Well, maybe you could cut it back to 80% for your work and have a little more time for quieting your mind and maybe that would do it. So I think sometimes it's a little bit of honest introspection if you really want it.

[C]

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[B]

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[C]

breakdown that's shopify.com breakdown mind bialix breakdown is supported by Rabbit Air.

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[C]

If I drink four cups of coffee in a day, it's much harder to feel still and connected to everything else because my whole system is like, what do I do next? What do I do next? And that's great if I have to sit down and write a lot or research a lot. But it is not very good at feeling connected to the entire universe.

[A]

I think that's the point. It's like each one of these traditions has many tools that we can use to quiet our mind. And everybody will find a different tool that works for them. And that's the key issue. When a person asks, for example, in a meditation retreat, well, what do I need to do to get into that state? And it's like, look, you need to listen inside and try different, different things and say, oh, for example, a lot of traditions say repeat a mantra. You know, the Catholic tradition has their own rosary that they repeat. In Indian traditions, there will be a particular set of mantras, including one for the breath. It's like, so ham or ham saw this, this quieting mantra. And if you keep focusing your mind on that, the thoughts go away and you can drop into that thought free state. And of course, again bringing in the research when I Look at the research on deep meditators. You find that their default mode network, which is as part of the cerebral cortex that loves to create a beautiful egoic narrative about who I am and what's going on in my life. It quiets down. You can see that in the scans from the fmri. It's like, oh, yeah. And that's when I begin to feel expansion in my chest. So I think we almost have sort of quote unquote biofeedback ways of knowing if we're getting there. And then, oh, that's why it feels so good. Because now all these different filters in my brain are beginning to quiet down and I'm now beginning to feel more interconnected. Bernardo Kastrup talks about this whole idea of dissociation and the fact that we're this almost like a. What? His example is a person that has multiple personality disorder. And they have multiple personalities, and when they're healed, they become one again. It's like we are dissociated from everybody else. And when our barriers become more porous, we then begin to feel more interconnected with people. And it's like, oh, that's who I am. I'm connected with everybody else. And then we feel better in spite of the world events that are going on around us.

[B]

I wonder if you can talk a little bit about some of the populations that you believe have access to this in a way that is more fluid. What is it about certain people, and in particular, you know, certain people who may also exhibit psi phenomenon, extrasensory abilities? What is the Venn diagram here? Is it that having special abilities makes you more open? Is it that being gifted at being more open allows you to access extrasensory things? What is the overlap here? What comes first?

[A]

Well, yeah, it's the chicken egg thing. And I'll just give you a few examples because I think there's a lot of variation, as we know from Bruce Grayson, Jeffrey Long, et cetera, that when a person has a near death experience, they often come back whether they want it or not with these psi abilities. And I know Jeff Kripal talks about that with the woman Elizabeth Crone, and she did not want those precognitions about plane crashes and knowing what other people. But that's what happened. So something energetically had shifted inside of her. So these portals, whatever we mean by portals that go beyond time and space, are open for her. And I know she. She probably prayed to let go of them because they caused a lot of problems. So there's one example that you can see Something about the near death experience, the heart stopping shifted something inside of her and now everything's wide open. For other people, it is going into deep meditation. And then in fact, they have this moment in deep meditation, for example, maybe when this energetic awakening happens, they leave their body and they come back again with this intuitive awareness that they didn't have before. Then there are the kids that are non speaking autistic and they don't have normal communication abilities. Their nervous system is clearly divergent from the average person. But in the process of development or as they came in, something about their genetics and their nervous system allows them to now communicate with other people, hear their thoughts and receive thoughts from other people, and give thoughts in ways that the rest of us can't do. So when we say what do we think is going on? I think that it clearly can be accessed in different ways. Near death experiences, deep meditation, spontaneous awakenings. And also there are certain people that come into the world this way, and those are the ones also that we may call mediums. I mean, I think at some point I'd love to talk about mediumship because as a neuroscientist, I said, you know this to mediumship. I said, look, this is my reason for saying that it's like, because if there are other entities in the world, there might be bad entities as well as good entities. And I don't want any bad entities. So I'm just going to say mediumship can't happen happen. And so when I was writing that book and I went to the University of Virginia to talk to Ed Kelly, who does a lot of this research, and I showed him my book before it was published, he said, well, it's a great book, but you left out one chapter. And I said, well, what's that? And he said, mediumship. And I said, oh, well, that's because I'm afraid for these reasons of contacting entities that are not in front of me. And he laughed. And of course it allowed me to open up to looking at the research and finding out. It's amazing what people can do, including, as you know, the interactions with their loved ones on the other side. And having now written a paper with Chris Rowe and others on about almost a thousand people that had had mediumship experiences with their loved ones who had died, I see how it seems very compelling to me that those people have this portal open and they somehow can receive that information from someone who has died. Again, a skeptic like I was before would say, excuse me, but the fact that in these studies they find that that person on the other side gives the person on this side key information that nobody knows. And I think one example was a. In fact, the person on the other side contacted the friend of the family because the family couldn't connect, couldn't really feel this. And they said, your father wants you to know the key. And when they heard the key, they thought it was going to be the key to love. But so the key to the gun cabinet is in this particular place. And I know you want to get rid of the guns that I had before I died. So it's like here we have examples of again that opening.

[B]

I want you to kind of take us into this opening, especially from, you know, and I am, I'm an open minded skeptic, but I do, I want the mechanism. I want a potential mechanism. My science brain can wrap itself around a lack of reproducibility. My science brain can, can get around a lot of things. But this is where I'm curious and I don't have an answer to this. That's why we're having you here. You know, what is your kind of larger theory of consciousness? You know, we can say that consciousness is fundamental. A lot of people don't understand what that is. But, but explain what, what you're proposing because the notion that I'm accessing information and communication with people who are dead is a little bit hard to wrap my head around. Right? What is the theory of the experience of information in the universe? Is it based in the Akashic records? Is it based in a, you know, in a, in a kind of a theoretical quantum field? What is your theory of what's actually happening in the consciousness plane?

[A]

I will actually tell people that one way to get a better understanding of this. And for me it was from a academic, scientific perspective, but it was a book that was wonderful that you have probably read. It's more than Allegory by Bernardo Castro. So let me just say something that Bernardo said in that book that really helped me. So from this perspective, this theory that there is a consciousness that is infinite and unbound and it's like a probabilistic field that then is what actually creates what we might call points of consciousness. All of us that then come into a time space realm. That's how I'm at least envisioning it. He said that anything that comes into this time space realm has to take on a belief of gravity, of time, of space around them. And that means that every mountain, every insect, every bird, every human, every plant has taken on that belief system. Or they wouldn't be here. So the plants don't go flying off into the air, the mountains don't go flying away. They have taken on those beliefs at some level of their consciousness or their proto consciousness in the case of a mountain.

[B]

Beautiful.

[A]

And so then we, then as you become an insect, you take on another set of beliefs that allows you to function in an insect body. And we humans take on another set of belief that says we have five senses and that's all that we can use and we can go on and on, cultural beliefs, et cetera, beliefs in the way we act in our family. I mean, just a brief aside, I mean, when I would go to couples counseling with my husband in the past, what the counselor would say, you have taken on beliefs from your parents that this sponge can only be used for a countertop and this sponge only for dishes. And you're making that other person go to your beliefs. It's like, no, this is not a reality, this is not a truth. And so I love Bernardo Kastrup's way of looking at this. And so you have. And so. But here's the key point. He said, how do you get rid of a belief? You can't just say, I'm going to get rid of it intellectually. I can't just say, oh, I'm getting rid of that one. You have to go under the belief and literally dig it out like a thorn that's inside of you and, and pull it out from underneath and then you have the chance of actually letting go of that belief. I think that's profound because then I can say, okay, so I didn't have a belief in mediumship. I absolutely didn't. Well, now I have to think about what that belief is and is there a way for me to go underneath it? And in my case it's by doing research and really being very, very curious and then having my own experiences. Because in fact, once your inner senses, I will call them, become open to this interconnection, then you begin to have them. And so again, think about it. If time and space are a belief system, certain people can go beyond time and space. And I think that's what those with precognition are able to do. And those that have had a near death experience, like Elizabeth Crone, are able to do. Somehow that dissociation that we have has become porous for them and they're able to move into this realm that is actually beyond time and space and have those understandings.

[B]

It's pretty good. You're pretty good at this sponges can

[C]

be used for anything you want.

[B]

I mean, that's blowing my mind because I hate what sponges he chooses and the way he uses them. It's funny you mentioned sponges. This is something, though, that I think Jonathan and I talk about a lot. And something that on Jonathan substack page, practical spirituality, he talks about really, as it weaves its way through our whole lives. And what you're talking about, it's kind of a neurological understanding of the stories that we construct about ourselves. So we come into this world whether it's by the nature of the way the universe was constructed, right. For whatever consciousness I have and whatever incarnation I'm in, right. In this lifetime, right. For me as I am now, I come in with a set of. Of, you know, kind of hardware. But then the software is something that is given to me by my parents, my ancestry, like whatever that load is, that emotional load, that genetic load, that epigenetic load that is then what gets put into this system. And if we think about it as, you know, kind of a simulation of sorts, right? That's what the. That's the program that is running for me right now. And then I'm interacting with everyone else's program and what's running for them. So when we try and be in relation with other people, we're coming with all of the stories that we come with. They're coming with all the stories that they're coming with. Where is that intersection? And what a beautiful place to also open up to. What if your relationship had a spiritual consciousness?

[A]

Right?

[B]

What if your relationship was able to progress? Not just romantic relationships, but. But the interactions you have with other people is your molecules and their molecules all mixing together. And there is this other plane that we're not having access to on a five senses level that's existing all the time. You know, when people say to me like, I don't know if I believe in God, it's like, well, God is right there. It's just like, do you want to turn towards it or don't you? That's kind of my perspective. I feel the same way about this level of. Of access. It's there. Do we know how to turn towards it?

[A]

And I want to add that thing because we talk about, well, what do the neuroscientists. Do neuroscientists here say about these things? Well, when I have looked at that research on, for example, placebo effects or energetic healing or whatever, here's the interesting thing, what you find is that when you believe. And again, here we get back to belief. When you believe the placebo will work, that you think you could be getting the medication, you then change different physiological parameters of your body. So if you think you're getting a pain medication, what happens is that the pain areas in your brain actually begin to turn down because your mind, your belief has allowed your physiology to shift. And we think about genetics, and then we find that, oh, yes, that I can shift my genetics through meditation. I think in my book we talk about the Mr. Wright who had lymphoma, and he believed that this particular drug, krobiosin, was going to heal him. He was healed within a day or two and then got out of the hospital in 10 days. But then he heard that it didn't work from the news, and then he got sick again. And you're thinking that mind, that belief system is really powerful, and if we could take advantage of that in the right way, I mean, things could really change in our lives. And I want to add one more thing too, because it relates to energy healing. Sometimes somebody will have an energy healer, heal them, and they will be totally fine. And then they move into a skeptical group of people, and they lose their faith in what happened and their problems come back. And so I just say, hey, the mind is a lot more powerful than we think.

[B]

Okay? So the message is, change your life, get new friends. And anytime you're around people who remind you of your old friends, punch him in the face and run away. Well, this is the notion of when people, you know, get sober and Alcoholics Anonymous, you'll often hear this. Yeah, they're told, don't go to the places you went. Don't talk to the people you talk to. Because in what we know, there are accessory environments, specifically around addiction. If you're around people who are lighting up and you're trying not to smoke. Right. The desire, of course, everyone knows that this, the desire to smoke is more. You're saying that you can apply that to your energetic and emotional and psychological state. This is why people like to be around people who have high vibrations, good vibrations. Jonathan's like, this is why when you're depressed, the whole house is depressed. I get it, Jonathan.

[A]

Yes. I mean, that is so true. And I. I think I want to also mention, though, because I have a good friend an that when we talk about these things and beliefs, she gets. And that's because she says so often somebody has cancer and somebody says, well, you caused it because of your beliefs. And what I try to say in that case is that when we say Our beliefs create our reality. That is a nuanced phrase. And what it means is that yes, I do have a contribution to creating my reality. We just talked about that. But all of the human beings, all the points of consciousness in this world are also contributing to our joint reality. And we have to understand that. I can't change our political situation, just me with my beliefs. But if the whole world were able to actually shift our belief system toward interconnection and support, maybe we could begin to move things. That's asking a lot. But it's interesting that we just have to accept that this is a co

[C]

created universe where the rationalists get hung up is on what is the slippery slope. How far can I take this? And I come from a long line of rationalists and skeptics and I experience my spiritual exploration as a voracious explorer with a very healthy dose of skepticism. Along the entire way I can talk about profound experiences and intuition and precognitive dreams. And then I'll fall back and question everything and did any of that happen? And then I'll believe again. And I fluctuate between these states, more belief and embodied belief now than ever before. But I think what, where people, you know, start to, to question and want to have an understanding is like we see people who have gone off the deep end who are living in their car believing that, you know, everything is going to work out and they're not taking any action in the, the real world. So where can you help us paint a picture of like, how do I do this and stretch my beliefs and look at questioning the limits that I've created, reevaluating what the sponges are for in all areas of my life, what's possible.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Like help us paint a picture of what's possible without going off the deep end to say I don't have to take any responsibility and money is just going to show up in the mail.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There might be people who are like, I'm gonna leave it up to the universe and they end up not able to support themselves or they end up, you know, and there's nothing wrong, like if people live in their car and they want to. Right. But what Jonathan is saying is a lot of people feel like I don't like my job, it doesn't fulfill me, so I'm gonna quit it because I need the universe to provide for me or I need to pursue a life of spiritual connection. I can't do that in a corporate job. So I'm going to leave my life. And then they find that there's not something God doesn't always provide the way. Right. We want God to.

[A]

Yeah. And I think, of course, there are a number of beautiful nuances about that. The first for me is that when I was the materialist neuroscientist that only believed in objectivity and the material realm, I left out my experience. And then I had this experience that said, wait a minute, there's more than the objectivity, it's more than the five senses. And so, so what? I. In fact, when I occasionally talk with Bernardo Castro, I feel that his analytic idealism, because he's talking to materialists, is very analytical. And he calls it analytic philosophy. That has to be rational. But I say, why can't we add in what he now calls continental philosophy, which is phenomenology, which is experience? Why can't we have both? And then you can watch your experience. You can say, my experience will never betray me in the sense that it will tell me what I'm feeling now. But then I bring in the intellect and say, ah, is this a healthy thing for me to think about and do? Is this going to fulfill my objectives in the universe? And so I have a nice healthy combination of what I call the yin and the yang of the universe. And I'm always trying to find that balance between the heart and the mind, mind and the ways to actually fulfill me. In fact, one person that I talk to a lot, friend named Jeb Barton, said that he believes that what we really need to do is always look at what will fulfill us. And then in each moment, as we're doing different things or we're going to different parts of our career, we just ask, is this fulfilling? So if you think that God's going to provide for you and you can just be out there in your car, we'll say, has this worked out for me? Is this fulfilling? Well, it hasn't. Maybe I should change. So I think it's having those constant, like just talking to yourself and saying, giving yourself feedback. Well, you know, maybe I need to get back into a job and get a house again and I will be fulfilled. And what my friend Jeb even says is that a materialist is fine for them to go into looking at objective reality, but then they have to ask, is this fulfilling me? And I, as a materialist, found it wasn't fulfilling me. And I needed to begin to try to quiet my mind down and pay attention to my inner senses, my heart, my connection with other people. And then I found a lot more fulfillment.

[C]

Is consciousness in the brain People are curious. I've heard it described and I really like that. We are like a cell phone receiving information across a larger consciousness system. Let's start there and then go into collective consciousness, depending on your answer.

[A]

Consciousness is in the brain. It's in every cell of our body, it's in the plants around us, et cetera. In other words, there is an element of consciousness in everything. Because I have a non dual philosophy that says each one of us has that as our essence. And that means that my cells in my heart, all are cooperating together to make the heart function. That there is a certain perception and action going on in every cell that's helping it make this body survive. So saying that yes, consciousness is in my brain, but not in the way we think, my brain is not producing my awareness. That's the difference. So, yes, so I'm coming from that place of I as consciousness decided I wanted to play in this material time, space realm. And so I came down here and got myself a body. But every part of my body is also conscious and aware. So yes, I can feel separate from other people, but there's a connection that is also there that usually I'm not aware of.

[B]

I hate to do it, but. We're going to hit pause on our conversation with Dr. Marjorie Wolicott because there is so much more that we want to cover in part two of our conversation with Dr. Wolicott. We're going to talk about terminal lucidity, different states of consciousness in terms of levels of consciousness. What do NDEs tell us us about the fundamental nature of consciousness as well as what is synchronicity? Is it a thing?

[C]

We also talk about telepathy and energy as well as the dangers of dark energy and how to protect yourself.

[B]

There's so much more in part two of our conversation. We can't wait for you to hear it. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we will see you next time.

[C]

It's Maya Bialik's breakdown.

[A]

She's gonna break it down for you.

[B]

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two now.

[A]

She's going to break down.

[B]

So break down.

[A]

She's going to break it down.

[B]

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[C]

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[B]

Last Chance Happening right [e-mail], terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat Start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk free [e-mail] Spotify greenlight.com Spotify.