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hi, I'm Imbialik.
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And I'm Jonathan Cohen.
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And welcome to part two of our conversation with neuroscientist Dr. Marjorie Wolicott. She's a professor and member of the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. Her specialty is not only neurophysiology, but the awakening of the scientific mind. In part one of our conversation with Dr. Wolicott, we talked about the mechanisms of spiritual transformation. We talked about how near death experiences are one of the best ways for us to understand psy abilities and the nature of consciousness itself. In part two, we're going to get deeper into near death experiences as well as touching on telekinesis, telepathy, synchronicity and energy work.
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We're also going to talk about communicating with people remotely and dark energy and how to protect yourself.
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Here is part two of our conversation with Dr. Marjorie Wolacott. Break it down. You also talk about this kind of spectrum of consciousness where we kind of think about the consciousness that we operate in to do all the things that we do. I think that there are obviously many levels, but there's kind of two levels that I'd like you to speak to and one is that of dreams. You know, the consciousness level we have, you know, when we're in a state that is not a typical awake conscious state. And then there's a level above that. Can you talk a little bit about sort of how consciousness can exist differently?
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I think Jung even talked about these various levels of consciousness that included like our unconscious realms or subconscious, our normal waking conscious. And then maybe, in fact, I think it might have been even James talking about super consciousness as well. And I guess what I would say is that when we are in the dream state, obviously the intellect clearly is somewhat out of the way, my ego is somewhat out of the way. And it's almost as if now I can access my more superconscious realms. And I'll give you examples that we know again that are well documented of people actually having that moment when they're in the dream state. They've fallen asleep where their loved one contacts them who is dying and says, I'm dying. That happened to my husband. He was falling asleep at night. And his father, who had had Alzheimer's and was across the country in Tennessee in a memory facility, said, my time on this earth is over. That's all he heard, was this strong male voice. And he said, well, I don't think my time on this earth is over. He didn't know what that voice was from. And then he sort of went back to sleep. And the next morning at 5am his sister calls him to say that his father had fallen, hit his head on table, had hemorrhaged and was dying when that happened. And so there's that dreamlike state where somehow we can communicate with people, especially when it's emotionally charged. And I think people find that 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 and we want to repeat it 20 times. And so you don't get the same effect. But so, yes, dreams are a different level. We have become more porous, as Bernardo Castro might say, to our connections with other people and across the time space
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divide as well, what happens in that next level of consciousness. So we have this sort of dream state where, as I reported when we had Julia Mossbridge on for the first time, I started trying to keep track of dreams, trying to be more aware of dreams. And what I noticed as I started learning to meditate and kind of drop into that space is, is throughout the day, if I meditated, if I sat in quiet, I would start remembering dreams. Again, that I had had that last night when I would sit in meditation. So let's say I'd wake up in the morning and I'd remember a dream. I'd, you know, I'd think about it, sometimes I'd write it down, but, you know, then it kind of like leaves your brain. But then hours later, I would sit down to meditate, and all of a sudden I was in a state where that dream kept coming back to me. I realized that's a place that I'm able to go. What is another state of consciousness that we would get to beyond that?
C
Well, and I'm even gonna take a step back for you in terms of these various levels, because what you may also know from whether it's Bruce Grayson or other people doing near death experience research, is that only like maybe 10 to 20% of people who have cardiac arrest remember their near death experience. But Sam Parnia, another person doing this research, said, wait a minute. I believe there's an iceberg of memories that are unavailable for these people. And if you get them into the right state again, like your dreamlike state in meditation, you can find those memories. And people have now shown that's the case. I have a beautiful paper by, with a woman named Stephanie Arnold. Her case of having an nde. She, in fact, had a precognition that she was going to die during childbirth. She warned the doctors about it. Most of the doctors ignored her. One doctor listened and got an extra crash cart. So there were two crash carts. She did have anaphylactic shock, bled out. They had a terrible time reviving her. They did revive her, and she didn't remember any of it. She went to a hypnotherapist afterwards and luckily did it on recording because it was, I think, in that time where the hypnotherapist was away. So it was on zoom. She recorded it all. She remembered everything that happened during that cardiac arrest and her NDE during her hypnotic regression, including going to the plane where her husband was rushing off the plane to get back to her at the hospital, and seeing all of that only through regression therapy, because she was then, now back in that state like she was in her nde, which is where you were when you went back into meditation. So it's that intriguing thing. So how do we get back to that quiet state and then maybe recapture these insights that may come in our dreams? I rarely remember my dreams, and it's frustrating. I want to know them.
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You know, we know a bit from electroencephalography. You know, Research studies. We know a bit about what are the different brain states, right? We know about alpha waves and theta waves. Right? We know about these things. We, we know some of the neurophysiological correlates that again, we're just trying to understand it. This is not from a place of, let me disprove it. There are legitimate scientists and researchers and professors who are saying, what is it about electrical brain activity that might be leading to different states and different access of consciousness. I want you to talk a little bit about the neural correlates, you know, from an imaging perspective. What are some of the neural correlates of spiritual experiences? You mentioned a little bit about the default mode network which we've talked about here. That's something that's also shut way down in psychedelic experiences and other transcendental experiences. But can you talk a little bit more about what's actually going on in the brain when you are having an experience that is allowing you to access another plane of consciousness?
C
So we will take the extreme case of the near death experience where nothing is going on in the brain. And again, I will say, the skeptics will say, oh, but they've done some experiments with the rats and they cause cardiac arrest and there's a little bit of brain activity for a number of minutes afterwards. And that proves that NDEs must have brain activity. Well, again, most of the people like Bruce Grayson say, excuse me, rats are very different from humans. And even if there's a little bit of brain activity, it doesn't say that was a near death experience. So there's a certain amount of hand waving by the skeptics in that case. But so the question is, so if we take the extreme, it's saying that you do not need a brain to have the experience, being active to have the experience, you need the brain to come back and express it to other people. So something happened that allowed that experience to come back into a brain. Now one of the things that I remember in a documentary with Sam Parnia is that an MD said in an nde, your reticular activating system, which goes up to your brain, your memory area basically is shut down as well. So you shouldn't be able to get sensory input coming up to the brain to go into your hippocampus and your memory system. So what I say here as a neuroscientist is that this is a question that I cannot answer, meaning that if I believe the brain is the source of all of my activities, and we know there's a great correlation between what My brain's doing and what I'm talking with you right now, if I were in an MRI machine, but it doesn't seem to be necessary. And the neuroscience in me feels a crunch in my stomach when I say that. But maybe can I take just one step sideways? And that is to go with terminal lucidity for a moment, because I've done a lot of work with terminal acidity just for listeners that might not know it. That's when you have Alzheimer's disease, you have big holes in your brain. It's been shown in the scanner that that's the case in the last minutes to hours of life. You come back from being totally disoriented, confused, not knowing your relatives, your family, and you come back to lucidity. Your eyes are bright again you say, oh my goodness, you know, it's so wonderful what you've done for me during this time and talk to your grandchildren. And then a few minutes later, you close your eyes and you die within 24 hours. And I'm going, as a neuroscientist, excuse me, I can understand that people have found that again and again and again, but. But we have documented evidence that their brain is really not functioning. And it's the same with people with stroke. So there. I don't know what to do. And when the neuroscientists around me say, excuse me, it must be an illusion by every medical doctor that saw that, because it cannot happen according to my understanding of the brain. I have to be still. I don't know what to say. And so it's the same thing with NDEs, and it's the same thing with the deep states of meditation. Well, so here I am, a neuroscientist, I've studied the brain and I say, hey, it's when the brain quiets down that we have the experiences and we're going, well, okay, the filters are now not filtering anymore. That makes sense. But I still have to get away that the experience somehow comes into my current awareness. And maybe I'll also just share with you some a particular presentation that was given at the IONS meeting, International association of Near Death Studies, which I like theoretically, what they said is Julia Mossbridge and others have shown that one can have telekinesis where you can basically move something inside of a glass jar with your mind and you can make, for example, something turn around in the glass jar. So my mentality can, it's been proven very carefully in the laboratory, move things. They said, then could you not say that our consciousness, because then we would be saying, we're all that are connected with other people. What my consciousness could do is actually change the activity of the, basically the channels in the receptors of various neurons in my brain to open them up. All that takes is just moving a little bit of my membrane aside one of the channels and making that happen. And so consciousness could have a way, way of actually through telekinesis, since we know that's possible, make things happen in the brain without the neurons being normally active. And so there's just one little idea.
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Dr. Woollacott. I would say no. Like, that would be my response. No, just like, that's two letters. No, I mean, I'm, I'm like, I'm with you. I'm on the doctor will train. Like, I'm a passenger. Everything's cool. I got my head out the window. Like I'm in it until I'm trying to move molecules with my brain.
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Do you not believe Julia Mossbridge's research?
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Can we talk a little bit more about that research?
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Yeah, there's a lot of research on telekinesis.
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Moving objects.
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Moving objects.
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This episode is sponsored by Wandering Jews, an open door media brand.
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If you've ever found yourself feeling like you have more questions than answers, you're in good company. The Jewish people have been like that for thousands of years. Wandering Jews with Michal and Noam is a podcast where two of today's most dynamic Jewish voices, Michal Bittone and Noam Weissman, dig into the biggest questions about life through a Jewish lens. It's the kind of conversation where you'll laugh, learn something new, and probably shout in disagreement at least once. Michal and Noam tackle the tough topics like anti Semitism in America, what happens after we die, and the future of religion with guests like Bret Stephens, Michael Rapoport and Sarah Hurwitz. And this past month, in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, they've been celebrating some of the Jewish lives and institutions that have shaped American life, from food to music and comedy. Thoughtful, joyful, and always honest. That's Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam, a production of Unpacked. Find it on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube and make sure to hit subscribe. Check out Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam podcast and subscribe unpacked bio, NMX
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mind bialix breakdown is supported by Bioptimizers.
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Okay, I'm gonna. So I'll even give you a more fascinating one and you can read about it because it's been documented. Stefan Ozovieki, he was living in Poland during World War II and he was able to do these things, many, many sort of telekinetic things. But one of the things he did as a teenager in Russia, this was before. This was like before the Russian Revolution. He was part of the royalty in Russia. And in the parlor game, one evening he was straight jacketed on the floor as people were around him watching. And he moved pillars, columns, little by little. Kabam, kabam, kabam across the room. And again you can. Stefan Schwartz has a book where he describes a lot of this. And there's another book about Stefan Osaviecki. So that was just one example of what he began to do when he was a teen teenager. He came into the world with this. And then he of course trained with a particular master from India for a while in eastern Russia. That's just part of the story. But the amazing thing is that there is one Example of somebody that did it, Julia Mossbridge. And I imagine if I'd be happy to do this. Now you're making me intrigued by all the experiments that have been done on this type of research where people can move objects. All I'm saying is that this is a relatively well established fact. And you know, Julia's book with Iman Sparus talks about this and it's an American Psychological association book on consciousness. So saying that your neuroscience brain can say N o, no. And I can say it too, because it doesn't feel like I don't do that. I don't have that ability. But since I know it can be done, I'm just. This is where that little crack of curiosity comes in. Well, if that is possible, what could that mean? And could there be an experiment where you could actually test this? I don't know.
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I'm wondering how far we can take, you know, our, our belief system. Right. How far can we take our belief that people can do and experience exceptional things. And I think, you know, the work that Julia Mossbridge is doing, even our understanding of the fact that those who are non verbal can communicate. Right. And I'm, I always have to, you know, put a disclaimer. I'm setting aside facilitated communication. There's still too much controversy around that method. But there are many other methods that are not facilitated communication. Where, I mean, I have a friend, Perry Finkelstein, who I actually recorded a, a TEDx talk for her. She is nonverbal and remembers listening to people talking about her and saying to herself, I can hear you. I understand what you're saying. And it wasn't until she got older and learned to communicate the way that she can that she said, I'm in here. I'm a per. She got a master's degree like that notion that there are people who are non verbal who have a complicated, intricate intellectual capability. Even that. Right. Was a leap for us. And we come from generations of people being institutionalized because we did not know what to do with them. We didn't have the ability to see into their mind. Right. So I think what you're bringing up is like, this is the next level. What, what Dr. Mossbridge is doing. This is the next level. Is there something that we can say? We don't understand why, but what if. Right. And a lot of people would say, like, oh, what kind of God would place this ability? And this guy, Like, I don't know. That's actually not the question to ask. Or it's not the question to ask
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first Tell us a little bit about non local consciousness from these NDE experiences. And then I'm going to ask about remote viewing because it ties into the moving objects with your mind.
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With Bettina Paten, she was lying there on the table and hemorrhaging because various blood vessels now were just leaking blood everywhere. And she leaves her body, she in fact goes to another realm. And in that other realm, I should mention that she looks back and sees this tiny flame and she says, oh, that was my life. And she realizes it's going to be extinguished. That's what she assumes happens. But then in this realm of total union, ecstasy, light, contentment, she's. Here's the voice, in effect, a thunder. She says, more than a voice, you must live. Something is decided at some level of reality. She funnels down into the operating room and now she sees everything that's happening. And interestingly, talking about telekinesis, it's not exactly telekinesis, but it's like it. She starts telling the hospital doctors what to do to get her body going again. How is she communicating, obviously with her consciousness, but she. They're trying to get into her wrist and they can't get the needle into her collapsed blood vessel because it has no blood pressure. And she keeps saying, go to the elbow, go to the elbow. And finally the person who's doing that the third time, he hears and he rushes and he goes to the elbow and he gets it in. So she was also directing as she's outside the body and the body is flat, she says it looks white, it looks dead. And then of course, after it's over, she tells everybody what's happened. But. So there is that example that. And in fact, I should mention in this case that she went on with the doctors to a TV show in Boston after this happened and they corroborated everything she said. So it's not again, like, it's just anecdotal evidence in that sense. She was. It was definitely corroborated. So there you have one example of an NDEr. And of course, there are these other cases where the nd, the person with the ND goes into a different room or a different place as if they're teletransporting themselves and they hear interactions of their loved ones down the hall. So that's been corroborated too, by Bruce Grayson and others.
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So one important thing about the Peyton case, she was a physician.
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Yes, she was a physician and an atheist, a materialist.
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And I'm mentioning that because there seems to be a Real dismissal of a lot of these cases. As you know, this is not a verifiable person. This is an unreliable person. This is a mentally ill person. They're having delusions, they're having hallucinations. That's not to say, I mean, I've met many physicians who I think are delusional. But the notion that this was a woman whose career was predicated on veracity, on truth, you know, she's a physician. For her to experience this is astounding because she is also putting her career, her livelihood at risk. And I hate to say that we need more people who are physicians who are putting their lives at risk to share these things. But one of the things that so much NDE research has discovered is that people have been having these experiences, probably for all of the human experience, right when this could happen. People just didn't know what to do with the information. Like if you, if you bring this up and Jonathan and I had this with, with the death doula that we spoke to. Martha Jo Atkins, when you say to someone, oh, I've always known that dead people come to you when you're dying. Because my grandmother was like, everybody's got a story like this, right? It, it happens all the time. No one knows how to be trusted. Once they reveal this information which you encountered as well as a neuroscientist having these kind of experiences.
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Absolutely. So, I mean, so getting back to the first point, that really helped. And also after that happened, she said she knew that she was not this body, that she was conscious. Now she said that when she came to the recovery room. So right then she knew instantly. But then she went back, of course. And after she got well and also realized I have to get back to that state and I don't know how to do it, but maybe meditation will help me. And interestingly again, she then in fact said, wow, how do I find a meditation teacher that can do that? She imagine a white haired Buddhist priest somewhere. And she tried that with this particular person in Boston. That didn't work. She then said, I felt like I was actually going crazy, but I had to go to this meditation retreat in the Catskill Mountains because something inside of me told me that was the way to find it. And her long story short, that I think maybe in the paper I wrote with her, she comes to this retreat, she sees this meditation teacher in the hall as she's beginning to meditate, and the whole experience comes back to her. She floods into the sense of total union and she's quite crying because she's finally back in that state and of course goes home and she continues like me, to meditate the rest of her life and is totally changed. And one more interesting point, her husband, who also has been an MD to this day, does not believe what happened because he's remained a materialist and he cannot change.
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That's a mixed marriage of the worst variety.
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And you know what's interesting is that they, she says they love each other dearly and he has built a meditation room on the house for her. He supports her in every way. But they have agreed.
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This is like me and Jonathan. I give him his, his Reiki room for him to have experiences. And then we come back and we
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talk about math, understanding that people can have these unbelievable experiences with non local consciousness having the ability to see outside of the room that they're in through their five senses where their consciousness, I don't know, we don't know how exactly, but is able to travel that takes us to remote viewing or the ability to, you know, even if you're not an actual trained remote viewer, to know things outside of time and space that you would otherwise know know them. Can you talk a little bit about the power of developing intuition or the ability to move around time and space without your physical body?
C
Obviously what's interesting is Stefan Schwartz, Dean Radin and others have obviously looked into this a lot. And of course some people come by it naturally and those are some of the people that they used with the remote viewing when they were looking at it with the Stanford Research Institute, CIA money and things like that. And other people now we are learning, are being trained and they're doing it very well. And I'll just give you an interesting example for me. So I was in New Zealand at a workshop with Dean Radin. We were both speakers at the workshop two or three days on consciousness. And he did like a mini workshop inside of it where he said, well, let's just see what you can do about remote viewing. And so I'm sitting there and what he says he's going to have us try is imagine for ourselves what is the next slide he's going to show on the screen.
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This stuff makes me nuts, but I can't wait to hear what you say.
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So, so I, I, you know, I'm just one of 25 people in the audience and I say sure, you know, and so I try to think about what it might be and I get totally wrong. And then after like three or four slides that I haven't been able to do it, I just say hey, I'm just going to let my hand draw whatever it wants to draw. And of course, right then the hand drew, I think it was windmills. And there the hand drove the windmills and the. And I'm going to. Well, that was interesting. When I let go of my intellect, when I let go of my rational thinking and my effort, my hand. How did my hand do it? But it had the antennae out to go into the future or whatever you want to say inside of that projector and do it. And that happened two or three times. And so that showed me that it can be done, but my intellect is so in control that it won't let me out of my normal time, space, reality.
B
I'm hung up on that. Your hand knew to go inside the projector. That's hard.
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Well, I mean, I think my hand knew how to go beyond time and space, whether it's time, because it was about to come up. And it was also. It was hidden.
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Right. If we're talking about an ability to remote view, you don't need to go into the projector. It's in the universe.
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Yeah. And so of course, and the universe was talking to that part of my system that then could direct the information to the hand. But clearly the conscious part of me was not necessary. I didn't have to be aware of it consciously.
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Right.
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So if you're able to do that. Is time at all what we think it is?
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No, absolutely not. And you know, I say that I don't know what that means. I mean, I believe with most of, again, the Federico Fargines, the Bernardo Castros, the Donald Hoffmans, that in fact, that that is like the, the barrier, in fact, that we have to go through to get into a body that there's a lot of a kaboom. In fact, Bettina Payton said after she left her body, she was like in this darkness for a while and then suddenly there was a big kaboom and she went, then went to this other space. And that. I like that. It's like there's this almost impermeable barrier of my belief in time and space that keeps me from actually interacting beyond time and space normally. But some people, for some people, it's permeable and they're able to do remote viewing spatially and also precognitively.
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My ambialix breakdown is supported by bioptimizers.
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I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just thought, like, ugh, it's stress. But I learned during perimenopause and menopause, your hormones shift and it affects your magnesium levels. Low magnesium makes everything harder. Not just sleep, but focus, mood, stress tolerance. That's why we added Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers to our nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it. See if you wake up more rested and refreshed. You've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. BIOptimizers offers a 365 day, no questions asked money back guarantee. Magnesium Breakthrough is a fantastic way to improve that hormonal imbalance that especially happens with magnesium. And then you have better focus, you have better sleep hygiene in general. Bioptimizers makes it so easy. Here's what you get when you go to bioptimizers.com breaker and use the code breaker. 15 off your entire order and a free bottle of Mass Signs. That's bioptimizer's best selling digestive enzyme added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code. That's a $20 product, free on top of your discount. This is a limited time offer. While supplies last. You cannot get this on Amazon. You can't get it in stores. The offer exists in one place. Our link, our code. That's it. So if you were already thinking about trying it, this is the sign. Go to buyoptimizers.com breaker. Use the code breaker. Grab it before it's gone.
A
Make 2026 the year you finally start sleeping again. It also makes sense to me that if this is possible, which I believe it is, then it's kind of helpful to like go explore beyond time and space every now and again just to see what the options might be like if I have to make a decision, shouldn't I go navigate like it's just another set of data? I asked ChatGPT if I should, you know, the pros and cons of this decision. Shouldn't I quiet my filters? It's like we learn all about what how to try to take care of ourselves, to eat healthy, to exercise, to move our bodies. No one really tells us, oh, by the way, you have these filters that are guiding your reality. And there could be an enormous amount of information available, available to you if you just learn how to tamp those down and go exploring every now and again.
B
That is what the Akashic records, which many religious traditions have talked about over the past thousands of years. This is what people refer to when they refer to the Akashic records that there is a place. A place. I'm putting it in quotes. There's A place where this information was, is and will be and it exists. And you do a little dance and you spin around three times and you, you know, say bibbidi boop and you are in that space and you're able to access it. And Elizabeth Crone talked about when she was in her near death experience, essentially she dropped into that place, she said, you can cut through time. You just like you're just cutting through it, like you see it all. And you know, I said was, is and will be. Because in, in the Jewish tradition, one of God's names is an acronym for was, is and will be. It's this notion that there is something that holds all of space and time at the same time.
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We don't think of our consciousness as having been placed anywhere. But if we realize that non, our consciousness can be non local, not attached to us, then at any given moment we're actually shining it in a direction that is going to guide what we perceive as real. So if all the information is available in the universe and of course some things have not happened, I'm not saying that everything is laid out and that there is no free will, but if there are a series of decisions available with cause and effect, and we are then able to take our attention and place it in a way to get more information all of a sudden, that may open up people's possibility of what they may learn, the insight they may get as well. If we follow that same logic, we can ask, where is our attention being placed at any given moment? If you tie it back to am I only focused on murder documentaries and cases, what am I filling my body with? It may be fascinating and it may be great, but it may also be limiting.
B
That feels hostile, bro. That feels hostile.
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But what else? Right, what else? Where are we placing it in mime? And I have actually been doing this exercise of looking at another side of any interaction. And that's just a small assumption. That's just like saying, wait, wait a second, the sponge may be used for something else. But I'm trying to sort of build a ladder from a high level understanding of consciousness to our sort of very mundane interactions of assuming the worst of someone, of getting annoyed at people. How do we train ourselves to be more fluid in terms of where our attentions and assumptions lie?
C
I would ask your listeners if they're intrigued by all that we've talked about, to really ask themselves what do they want out of their life and what is their true way that they think they could be fulfilled? Because I think it's because we're not looking there. That we get distracted by the things that are in front of us and the people that are around us. And we don't take that step back and say, oh, if I want that, then maybe I have to step back and say, do I need to dedicate more time to quieting my mind? For example, a friend, when he was like 10 or 11 years of age in elementary school, they barely, like, passed him from grade to grade for a while. But then what happened is his family gave him a Rolex, no, a Timex watch for Christmas. And he would put it in front of himself on the desk, and he would time how long he could hold his breath, because that was intriguing more than the teacher. And he found he could hold it longer if he stopped thinking, which is where we're going now. So now he's able to hold his breath for maybe a minute or more without thinking. And suddenly as he does that, he realizes, I can hear the thoughts of that boy that's two rows over and in front of me, and, wow, that's not my thought. That's interesting. And then he could begin to realize he could hear somebody else's thought, and he could hear a lot of thoughts around him. And he said, but they're pretty boring. And then he thought, I wonder if I can put a thought into that boy's mind. And so he actually tries it. He says, you're going to want to scratch your ear. Scratch your ear. And the guy didn't do anything. And he did it for two or three minutes. And suddenly the guy reached up and scratched his ear. And at that moment, my friend heard a voice. And the voice said, do not do that. That is not good. And he said, no, no, no, this is fun. This is great. And the voice said, said, no, do not do that. And he said, even at the age of 10 or 11, he understood that it's not good to try to control other people. And the reason I bring this up is because when people talk about remote viewing and all these other things, precognition, they often ask that question, could people use it for nefarious means? And I'm hoping that once one gets the sense of expanded reality and interconnection, you wouldn't want to use it for nefarious means, that you would only do it for the right things because you understand your interconnection with everyone in the world.
B
I don't know. I think I'd. I'd want lottery numbers. And we talked about this, and we talked about Julia Mossbridge because she talks about it with finances that a lot of people use these kinds of skills in, in different ways to make predictions and decisions about horse races, about games, about financial decisions. And the notion is, and if you ask, you know, a strict materialist, if this is a thing, everyone would be doing it and everyone would be winning the lottery. But the idea is not that everyone can learn to do this. And I mean, you know, I think that's also. It's a little bit like, you know, what. What you decide is nefarious might for me seem like the smartest thing to do. Right. If my family's suffering and we need the money, it doesn't feel nefarious to me. So I think that sort of is, you know, some of the questions we have around this. Is there a force in the universe that's also deciding, you know, kind of right from wrong on. On levels that usually we leave to religious conversations and not spiritual ones, along the lines of sort of like, you know, precognition. What is synchronicity? You know, when people start seeing a number a lot, is it selective attention or is there some other language that we can operate in? And how, how do you view synchronicity, what's happening in the universe when there are synchronous events?
C
Yes. And so again, for people that might not know the word completely, again, it's just that when there are two events that happen synchronistically and times at the same time, but have no clue causal reason for them happening, that's what they call something that's synchronistic. So they call it acausal without cause. And therefore it implies that something from the universe is bringing these things together in a interconnected way, maybe due to the sincere desire of one person or another or something else. And so just to let people know that, as the head of the Academy for the Advancement of Post Materialist Sciences, we've published a book on essays related to synchronicity from different scientists and academics with their own synchronicities and how they believe this gives them an understanding of how the universe operates. And so basically, I do believe that in fact they happen more often when you are actually perhaps I would say, like letting go a little bit and allowing yourself to move sort of spontaneously in the world, rather than having open, you're open, you're open, and you're not trying to control every moment of your life to make this happen or that happen. So it takes that opening. And I would also say often it seems like there's a sincere wish from the person in some way or another, when I look at some of the examples. So obviously it was Jung that coined the term because he believed it was very real, that there was this interconnection at the universe that allows the people or events to come together, to help something move forward in your life or a new understanding happen in your life. And I think that an example of one of my own synchronicities was when my meditation teacher, again, when I was spending my sabbatical year with her, and we were sitting in an office together, and I was about ready to go home to University of Oregon, where I was teaching. She said, so, Marjorie, are you getting married? And I said, well, no, I. I have no desire to get married because I couldn't do the things I'm doing right now with you going off for a year on sabbatical doing research. And she didn't say anything more. And then I get home to Eugene, Oregon, a week or so later, and this man calls me on the phone that says, well, I'm interested in meditation, and I hear that you have a meditation center in your house. And I got your number, and I'm thinking that I would like to, you know, try this. And I said, well. And he said, but I'm a little bit skeptical. You know, I'm not sure. And I said, look, I'm an ordinary neurophysiology professor at the university. There's nothing unusual about me. Come on and try it. He walks in the front door a few days later at night for the program, and I sense that I am going to marry him. Now, I didn't say a thing because I am an appropriate meditation center leader. So I didn't say anything. But then seven weeks later, he stays after everyone has left, and he says, marjorie, I have something to confess to you. And I said, well, what? He said, I'm incredibly attracted to you.
B
Oh, my gosh.
C
And we were married, you know, a year later. So there's an example of these events that came together that I couldn't explain. And I just thought it was very funny that I knew I was going to marry him. It's like, huh, okay. So I think that if you look at the numbers of essays in that book, it's wonderful because they really do give you a sense of. Of all the different ways that people have found them happen again. A beautiful one by Joan Walton, who is a professor in the uk, is that she was going camping with her family in their camper, and they had an extra tent because there were two families, one that would be in the trailer and one in the camper. When they were at one particular place where they stopped to have lunch, they had laid out the tent on the ground because they had to get into their camper. And while they were having lunch in the camper, some guys stole their tent. They didn't realize it till they looked and it was gone. And the girl saw some guys out the back window, and they thought, what are we going to do? We have these two families. We have no way now to actually continue camping. But they went on anyway to the next campsite, and they got there in the evening. And she just happens to ask, almost foolishly, by any chance, do you have another tent around that maybe we could buy or we could borrow or something like that? And the owner of the campsite says, you won't believe this, but somebody left us a tent today, earlier on. And they said, you know, if you have somebody that you'd like to give it to, go ahead, Whatever. We don't need it anymore. And when they saw the tent, it looked almost identical, not completely identical, but it was the same mate. It was old, it had different tears in it, but there it was from the universe. Universe. There's a synchronicity, aclausal. How can we explain it? And they make my hair stand on end. But I hear those things. I think, again, it's just part of this connection beyond time and space that is available to us. And somehow we fall into those. I think that they do happen more often after those awakenings. Of course. I think we're probably also more attentive. I think it's probably a both.
A
And I want to circle back to what you said about placing a thought in someone's mind and make it really practical in a positive way. I had a teacher once who also described this capability. And we used to sit on the. In the quad of a school that my office was next to. And she said, if you place your attention and on anyone walking, if you quiet yourself, you'll hear what's in their head. And I used to think, well, that's really hard because I have a very active imagination. How do you know what's real and how do you know what you're making up? But your example of placing a thought and having them scratch is interesting. And you will also notice that when you place your mind on someone else's consciousness and you're in the vicinity, they'll start to move a little bit. If you watch their physical movement or reaction, they can. They can feel heard or watched the same way as if you're staring at someone, eventually they'll pick up on the fact that you're staring at them across the restaurant and they'll like kind of look over at you. So first I think it's important, can we communicate with people remotely to either offer condolences or connect with them. You know, some people call it remote healing where you can send energy. But maybe talk a little bit about this idea of communicating either on a soul level or a non conscious level with people remotely to maybe offer ideas not in a nefarious way or in, in a like, hey, I know I may have done something to you. Before we deal with it in the physical realm, let's deal with it in the energetic realm.
C
Beautiful question and the answer is yes. And I want to give you again a beautiful example of that that I heard at one of these near death studies meetings. And that was a woman that said that she had been in an auto accident and it had been a very severe auto accident and she actually had a near death experience. And she said as she was like out of her body and unconscious, unresponsive anyway, a woman drove by and another car and sent her a prayer asking for her whatever, well being. And she heard that and she said, you don't understand how important those things are to those people that are in trouble when you hear that somebody really cared. So there is an example, and I, I would say that we know that happens of course, when our loved ones are in danger or are sick, that, that, that does come to us, that somehow we. Especially for people that are emotionally connected. Absolutely, yes. And, and I think people have that feeling that when others are praying for your well being that it does seem to actually help. There's something about that interconnection and that positivity and that sense of they're wanting the best for you, that does help. And maybe it's partly that it like helps nourish our own belief system of wanting to stay around and be here and get better. This whole issue of does living longer mean living better? And the people that so much want more longevity do all these funny things and they may not live longer. But part of me wants to say I believe it's about living better, but also about contributing in some positive way to the world and contributing to our own goals of uplifting ourselves and others in the world. And to me that's probably what allows us to live longer and decide to stay in the world. And if somebody's loved one dies, like you know, a husband that you've been with for 50 years, maybe it's okay to let go and go to the other side. I don't make judgments about people when they, when their loved one's gone. And it's like, I always want to be with them. It's like, okay, if that's what you want, it's okay.
A
We know that people who receive prayer or are part of prayer groups heal faster from medical conditions. So is it that they just know that they're being cared for or is there actually some sort of non physical energy exchange that is helping them expedite the healing process? I'll just button this part up with asking people to try. If you are in a conflict with someone, if you need to introduce an idea to someone, just sit quietly and think about them. Think about putting the idea, not implanting it into their head, but putting it in the space in between you, in your mind and saying, are they receptive to this? I think it is important to not have aggressive, energetic influence on people. And maybe the way to do that is to put it in the space between you and recognize that you're not trying to control someone. The other thing to be aware of is that when you may feel someone very strongly, and I think people may be able to relate to this, you may feel like, oh my gosh, like all of a sudden I'm thinking about this person and it's kind of like intrusive. It may be that they are sending some sort of emotion thoughts your way that may not be all that positive. So I wanted to, I was curious your thoughts when you talked about mediumship and the idea of negative energy. Do you feel like we can be influenced and part of healthy spiritual practice is kind of sitting and being aware of what may be in our space and creating some sort of boundary around that?
C
Definitely. And of course we know. I mean, I've taken Reiki workshops and done practicums and they often talk about, even with Reiki doing that, that this way of symbolically creating a safety barrier around you as you're doing this. And this raises another interesting point that I think is important to just be aware of that when we do heal other people, there's that possibility that we could take on that energy that might not be good for us. And in fact, people that do Reiki often do some sort of purification process afterwards so that they keep their body uplifted and pure. And so it's not that you shouldn't do energy healing, but it's just that you should be aware that these energies in the universe don't necessarily stay only with one person if you're interacting. I think sometimes we have that feeling when we're in the room with a very negative person. We just don't like that energy and we want to leave. So I get that, and I think it's more to be aware of it. Often people have said that people that are actually spiritual leaders can take off, take on the energy of those people that they are trying to help and awaken. And again, it's not that you don't do it, but you try to be sure that you clear yourself, whatever that means.
B
Where can people find out more about the work that you do? You've written so many books and papers. You know, I focus mainly on infinite awareness, the awakening of a scientific mind. But where can people find out more about you?
C
So if they go on Amazon, they can certainly find out more of those books that we have published through Galileo Commission and the AAPS as well. So that's one place. And of course, I have a website that's marjoriebullicott.com and I try to have my various podcasts up there if people want to know a little bit more about what I've been doing and a little bit more about my background. Because, in fact, it's probably clear that I still wear two hats. I wear the neuroscientist hat as the rehabilitation neuroscientist. And I do work on stroke and Parkinson's disease and kids with cerebral palsy. And I have a textbook in its sixth edition. But my main emphasis right now is on what we're talking about today. It's like really understanding consciousness. And I'm hoping that if I understand it better as a neuroscientist, maybe I can help other people through that sharing, see that we can have both the objective part of our world and our reality, along with that experiential part, working together to really help us feel that interconnection between each other.
B
Thank you so much, Dr. Walcott. Really a pleasure to speak to you.
C
Thank you. It's been wonderful to be with you today, both of you.
B
There's two things that came to mind that I wanted to share. The first thing is, and this is not me, like patting myself on the back whenever I pass an accident.
A
You send a good thought.
B
I do. And I do this out loud because I wanted my children to hear it. And of course they think I'm a hippie. And they're like, she's nuts. When asked, why do I do that? Or why have I done that? It's not for any of these funky, dunky reasons. But I guess it is. And I think that's what struck me from talking to Dr. Woollacott. This perspective with which she views the world means that anything is possible. Anything and everything is possible. And so that notion of taking a minute when you drive past an accident, this is what I say. I hope everyone's okay. That's all I say. Do I believe that that has power and it's moving the molecules and the.
C
No. No.
B
But according to Dr. Willicott, maybe, yes, right? Anything is possible, and everything is possible. So that allows you to be open. It allows you to be forgiving. It allows you to seek a solution. It allows you to even do something so crazy as to believe in peace. When it looks like there can only be war, it does.
A
It starts to change what we believe is possible. And what I love is the sponge example because it's so tangible. You and I literally were recording this that it will be released in a couple weeks. But we recorded yesterday a conversation about how we are all building limits for ourselves that we live inside. And then we wonder why we're cramped, cramped, and what does it mean to start to expand those limits. I again, like her explanation that we do so in a balance where we're not simply blown open. And I'm now connected to everything that always is and that everything will work out. The people who I actually see go too far in that direction really struggle in everyday life. They often have very hard time with finances. They often aren't really able to navigate the physical world. And there's something about balancing our spiritual exploration with a very practical groundedness in having to navigate and make choices. Now, how do we use some of the love, compassion, insight, and even intuitive abilities that we can get from that spiritual expansion to help us navigate the real world without simply neglecting our responsibilities and stop making the decisions and doing the hard work that is required.
B
You can talk about people who have special abilities and, oh, they may have, you know, different abilities in this way, but it turns into a special ability or a psi phenomenon or a extrasensory perception. But is it also possible that there are people who have access to things that inherently make them not able to manage other aspects of their lives? This is very interesting to me because the idea would be these are people who are often institutionalized. They're often dismissed. They are often called crazy. You know, think about how many people. I mean, we talked about this with the Premonitions Bureau. Think of how many people are in. In psychiatric facilities who are saying, Many things that don't happen, but many things that actually don't do to a level, you know, of specificity that's unbelievable. So I think that that's sort of also the, the, the pain point. Are there people? And you'll hear this from healers who say I am not supposed to be functioning in this world. I was not designed to, to be here and to manage the things I'm managing.
A
I totally agree with what you're saying in terms of people believing that they're not meant for this time. But I also hear that as a bit of a cop out because life is challenging. It requires a lot of paperwork and there's digital overwhelm. And you know, sometimes just being here is difficult. I. If you say that you're not meant for this timeline, then you're also fighting the universe, right? Like you were. You came here to experience something. And if you believe in a divine, synchronized, you know, knowledgeable, intelligent cosmology that you are a part of, then you have to believe that you came here for a specific reason and that you have a role to play. So to say that you're there was a mistake. Then you're basically saying the universe has miscalculated and sent me versus that saying is actually, wait a second, it's actually hard to be in this physical body. There are a couple things that I would say that are super practical that we can do to use our spirituality to help us navigate the world. And you have described the science of. We will cover them more in depth on the Substack page. Mind Balax Breakdown on Substack. Come join us there. It's an amazing growing community where we dive into practical ways that you can do things as well as release content that is not available anywhere else. But one is that if you are in a difficult situation, how do you hold the possibility of something more and see it from other directions? You talk about how from a neuroscientist perspective, we're actually not falling back and we're trying to avoid falling back into those neural grooves which can have catastrophic thinking or very binary black and white thinking and we can leave ourselves open to more possibilities and ways to solve problems. Number two is a bit more spiritual and hippie thinking about how to approach people in your life who you may have unresolved conflicts with or not, not even an issue, but something that needs to be discussed. Can you approach them in the non physical world and start to rehearse, open up the possibility of communicating and we can talk about what that means practically and how to do it. And in conjunction with that, if someone keeps coming into your mind, what does that mean? What might that be calling you to do? And I think similarly, starting to look for synchronicities as a guidepost to help you see that you're on the right track when you're trying to navigate the world.
B
Absolutely. I have some practical things that I'd like to add to that as well. So we will we'll see people over at Substack for that. Thanks for being here. Please join us on Substack for for more of this conversation and lots of other conversations from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.
A
It's Maya Bialix, breakdown.
C
She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two, and now she's gonna break down. So break down. She's gonna break it down.
Podcast Summary: Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
Episode Title: Part Two: Are You Ignoring Your Higher Self? NEUROSCIENTIST on Intuition, Synchronicities & Soul Messages | Dr. Marjorie Woollacott
Host(s): Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen
Guest: Dr. Marjorie Woollacott
Date: February 21, 2026
This episode (Part Two) continues the conversation with neuroscientist Dr. Marjorie Woollacott about the mysteries of consciousness and the intersection of science and spirituality. The discussion explores altered states, near-death experiences (NDEs), telekinesis, remote viewing, intuition, synchronicity, non-local consciousness, psychic phenomena, the ethics and mechanics of energy work, and practical approaches to accessing one’s higher self. Throughout, Dr. Woollacott offers both personal anecdotes and scientific reflections, while Mayim and Jonathan bring skepticism, curiosity, and humor.
[02:19 - 05:57]
Dr. Woollacott discusses the spectrum of consciousness, citing Jung and William James, and describes how dreams can be portals to “superconscious realms.”
Laboratory experiments rarely reproduce these phenomena due to the absence of emotional charge.
[05:57 - 07:58]
Only 10-20% of cardiac arrest survivors recall their NDEs spontaneously.
Hypnotherapy/meditation can recover submerged memories, as in the case of Stephanie Arnold, who recalled her NDE only under hypnosis.
Quote:
“How do we get back to that quiet state and then maybe recapture these insights that may come in our dreams?” – Dr. Woollacott [07:38]
[07:58 - 13:40]
Mayim frames the question of how brain states (like alpha/theta waves, default mode network) align with spiritual or near-death experiences.
Dr. Woollacott notes that NDEs sometimes occur when measurable brain activity is minimal or absent.
Quote:
“As a neuroscientist, excuse me, it must be an illusion by every medical doctor that saw that, because it cannot happen according to my understanding of the brain. I have to be still. I don’t know what to say.” – Dr. Woollacott [11:53]
[14:07 - 18:50]
[18:50 - 20:33]
[20:47 - 26:13]
Dr. Woollacott shares case studies (like Dr. Bettina Peyton, a materialist physician) where people report verifiable perceptions during NDEs from outside their bodies.
These experiences lead to permanent personality changes, especially a persistent sense of non-identification with the body.
Quote:
“After that happened, she said she knew that she was not this body, that she was conscious.” – Dr. Woollacott [24:27]
[26:19 - 29:23]
The panel discusses “remote viewing” (per CIA and SRI research), and Dr. Woollacott shares her own experience with Dean Radin where her hand accurately drew the image on an upcoming slide, but only when she let go of intellectual control.
Quote:
“When I let go of my intellect...my hand...had the antennae out to go into the future...So that showed me it can be done, but my intellect is so in control that it won’t let me out of my normal time, space, reality.” – Dr. Woollacott [27:54]
[29:24 - 33:34]
[34:44 - 37:47]
Discussion on where we place our attention (e.g., media consumption, assumptions in daily life) and how it affects lived reality.
Dr. Woollacott tells a story of a child learning to access others' thoughts and learning not to interfere—emphasizing the importance of spiritual ethics.
Quote:
“Once one gets the sense of expanded reality and interconnection, you wouldn’t want to use it for nefarious means.” – Dr. Woollacott [37:26]
[37:47 - 44:18]
[44:18 - 49:47]
[49:47 - 51:03]
[53:48 - 56:20]
Mayim and Jonathan reflect on the balance between “expanding limits” through spiritual practices and the need to stay grounded, functional, and responsible. Radical openness, if not balanced, can destabilize everyday life.
Quote:
“There’s something about balancing our spiritual exploration with a very practical groundedness in having to navigate and make choices.” – Mayim Bialik [54:12]
[56:20 - 59:02]
[59:02 - End]
“There’s that dreamlike state where somehow we can communicate with people, especially when it’s emotionally charged. And I think people find that's when telepathy often occurs.”
— Dr. Marjorie Woollacott [03:40]
“As a neuroscientist...I have to be still. I don’t know what to say.”
— Dr. Marjorie Woollacott [11:53], on terminal lucidity and NDEs
“No, just like, that’s two letters. No...I’m with you...until I’m trying to move molecules with my brain.”
— Mayim Bialik [13:40], on telekinesis
“When I let go of my intellect...my hand...had the antennae out to go into the future...but my intellect is so in control that it won’t let me out of my normal time, space, reality.”
— Dr. Marjorie Woollacott [27:54], describing remote viewing
“Once one gets the sense of expanded reality and interconnection, you wouldn’t want to use it for nefarious means.”
— Dr. Marjorie Woollacott [37:26]
“There’s something about balancing our spiritual exploration with a very practical groundedness in having to navigate and make choices.”
— Mayim Bialik [54:12]
This episode delves into the intersections—sometimes contentious—between spirituality and science, advocating for open-minded exploration, personal curiosity, and practical spiritual hygiene while remaining grounded in reality.