Essential Medicine 9: Death, Dying & Dead People

In this episode of Essential Medicine, we (neurologist Adam Rizvi and neuroscientist Julia Mossbridge) discuss how connecting with people who have died -- and the dying process itself -- can be healing for those who are dying as well as their living loved ones. We discuss our own experiences of connecting with whatever lives beyond the body, and we describe the processes of healing that we have witnessed in ourselves and others around death.

Transcript

Well,

It's so good to see you.

Yeah.

Great to see you.

Yeah.

It's been a while.

It has been a while.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're going to talk about talking to dead people and what that has to do with healing,

Right?

Exactly.

On this episode,

Talking to dead people.

No,

Seriously,

Like what is,

Um,

What is the survival of consciousness if it's,

If it's real have to do with healing?

That's one question on my mind.

And another question is sort of in a,

In a sort of more practical sense,

Can having the experience of talking to someone after they've died or having this relationship or like the continuing bonds hypothesis where people are better off feeling like that person is still there to have a relationship with,

Can that help not only in the sort of standard psychological sense of feeling like they're still connected or that we are still connected,

But could it also help in the sense of,

Um,

Actually changing things sort of on some kind of consciousness plane actually,

Actually causing,

Causing action to occur in the world as many,

Many religions in many religions,

People talk to their ancestors and pray for help,

Et cetera.

So anyway,

These are the thoughts that occurred to me just now.

What are you interested in terms of this question?

You know,

When we talked about it first,

Um,

The first thing that came to mind were all the experiences I had while in the ICU,

All the,

All the people who die regularly and the immense healing that happens around that time.

Um,

The preparatory work that the nurses and doctors do to help the family get as close to them.

Acceptance as possible,

Psychologically speaking,

Emotionally speaking.

Um,

And then,

And then the actual moment of the transition and then being with them afterwards,

I just very strongly correlate,

Uh,

Death with healing,

But it is interesting.

We may have to address this question of,

Um,

Do we acknowledge that there is a non-physical reality that continues,

Uh,

The death.

And for me,

That's important because then if we can say,

Yes,

There is in fact something that does continue,

Then we can ask this question of,

Well,

Can healing continue for that entity for that person as well.

And then we can talk about healing for all parties involved.

Right.

Right.

Both sides of the coin,

Right?

So the healing continues beyond death and death is part of the process is that that's the model.

We're not saying neither of us is saying like,

This is true.

We're just saying,

Is this true?

Like that sort of the idea that,

That sounds like we're putting forward is for both parties,

The loved ones who stay alive and for the person who has died,

That here's a question.

Is it true that the healing continues through death and after death and has impacts for both parties?

And that's a really profound,

Cool question.

I hope we get there.

Yeah.

Well,

Before we,

Okay.

That's like where we're going before we get there.

Like I haven't talked with you in a couple months,

Like six months.

Yeah.

It's been a while.

Yeah.

And so do you think that,

So you have sort of left the,

For the most part,

You've left your sort of everyday emergency room world and gone into a sort of a private practice related to rehabilitation,

I think.

Right.

Yeah.

I would say neurocognitive health and performance for cognition.

Right.

So do you think that part of your decision to do that was the COVID pandemic?

I mean,

Do you think that you got burnt out from all the death or were you really capable of seeing all that death as healing?

In other words,

Was it always healing or was it sometimes the opposite of healing or.

Yeah.

You know,

What's interesting,

The death per se in the ICU was actually one of the most rewarding aspects of the job.

And I would,

As morbid as it sounds,

I often got energized and enlivened by being able to help families go through that or the actual person who died,

Just my various meditative practices and connecting with that with the person and helping them actually make the transition.

That was extremely energizing and gratifying.

I think the burnout that occurred was just the sheer physical demand of a very,

Very long hours.

The traditional model was seven days on and then seven days off.

But it got so bad that we just needed providers to be there all the time.

And so it was more like three and a half weeks out of the month straight.

Like I remember I did a 24 day stint in the 30 day month.

There's no breaks there.

It's just work,

Work,

Work,

Work,

Go back home,

Sleep,

Get up,

Go back to work.

And I think that's what did it.

My health suffered.

I just felt drained.

At the same time,

The transition to the private practice was not a running away from,

But very much a movement towards a new way of practicing medicine.

I feel like I'm talking a lot right now,

But if I could just another couple of minutes share that as much as I love critical care,

And I still do,

And I may continue to do it indefinitely just in a part-time role,

I love it because of being there when a transition happens from,

You know,

In the,

In the dying process.

But what I don't like about it is a lot of it is reactionary.

We have longstanding chronic diseases that,

You know,

The body can't tolerate the things that we put it through and then something breaks.

And then we pull out all of our resources to bring that body back from the brink.

And as soon as it's back from the brink,

We say,

Great,

Our job is done.

Now go back to living your life exactly the way you were before.

And obviously I'm being a little hyperbolic because we do help them with smoking cessation and healthy living,

But there's so much more that we could do that I felt the drive to with what I have been learning as a healer and provider,

The,

I felt the drive to help people learn to live life in a way where they thrive and they're super healthy and energetic on multiple levels instead of just waiting till things fall apart and trying to fix them.

Yeah.

So that makes a lot of sense to me,

Of course.

And but something that really struck me was when you said you really did feel that the death part of this was,

Was energizing.

And it sounds like even in,

So a couple of things about that.

So that'll,

That'll bring up.

So that'll get us to where we're going.

But in this context,

A couple of things about that.

One is,

Even in this,

Is that,

Was that true for you,

Even in a situation where someone,

For instance,

Their family members,

Weren't there for them,

They,

They were very depressed or sad or miserable and you,

Your heart hurt for them.

Sorry.

I want to say like,

Yeah,

I guess I'm emotional about that,

But I know that there are people who,

There was no one for them.

And so the dying process was really about helping them let go of life and move to some place that,

That you,

That you would think would be better.

But so,

So for those people,

Was that also energizing?

And how do you conceive of that for someone who already thinks it sounds strange that it's energizing when people die?

And then two,

Would it be energizing if,

I mean,

It just seems to me that there's no way you would feel as energized or as fulfilled with this process of being essentially a deaf midwife in certain situations,

That you wouldn't be fulfilled if you didn't think,

Let me put this in a positive way,

That the fulfillment has to rely on this belief that you have.

And I have that the,

That the death of the body is not the death of the person.

Because if you thought like,

This is,

This person is just gone.

I don't think that you would feel that.

Am I,

Am I correct in saying,

I don't think you would feel that energy?

So I'm just trying to get to that,

That the sort of subtlety of that.

Yeah,

That's a,

That's a good point.

Well,

I think the,

The energizing aspect of it is what I,

What I feel in the process of being with someone and not just dying,

But in the process of loving someone.

And if you can imagine you,

You have someone that you're healing that you're working with,

And by healing,

I mean it in a loose term,

Like literally Julia,

You could be sitting next to someone who's having a bad day and not saying anything,

Just listening to them.

But knowing you you'd be listening to them from a very loving space.

In my experience,

When I am loving,

Just the act of,

Of feeling and expressing love puts me in,

In a flow.

I feel something moving through me.

I feel an expansiveness.

I feel a lightness of being and a radiance.

Even if they don't receive it,

Me being in that state is what is,

Is energizing.

And you know,

If I'm next to someone who's actively dying and I'm at their,

And there's no one,

There's no family member,

And it's me and the nurse,

I will often just put my hand in their hand,

Or I'll place a hand on,

On their shoulder,

And I'll just close my eyes and love them and just feel this,

This radiating love,

Unconditional love.

So at some level of their being,

Even if we don't acknowledge an afterlife,

We,

There's plenty of data to suggest that in a semi comatose state,

Some sensory input does go through.

And so presumably they're feeling my touch,

They're,

They're my warmth and they're picking up on something.

And me being in a state of loving them,

That's what energizes me.

I leave that room feeling much better and happier because I spent two minutes loving someone.

So wow,

That is such a perfect description of when I talk to people about unconditional love and I say,

It's not,

It doesn't distinguish between you and the other person.

So when you feel unconditionally love,

It's like you're accessing this energy.

And when you access it for yourself,

You're also accessing it for the person you're with,

Like it's not distinguishing.

And so you feel enlivened because you're,

You're in the space of love and everyone who's in your space can,

Has the capacity to feel that it doesn't mean they are,

Some people have a hard time feeling it,

Even if it's there,

But they have the capacity,

Like it's a human capacity that can happen and,

And,

And having it be so clearly present and showing that you are accessing it,

I think can help.

So I think that's,

I mean,

That's a great definition of healing.

So that's,

That's beautiful.

That makes me feel very happy that people who didn't have people,

You know,

People who didn't have loved ones there,

Even if they didn't have an zoom or they weren't conscious or anything,

A lot of people,

Especially during COVID who died,

Weren't conscious at the point that they died to our knowledge.

And so,

So that makes me feel like,

I don't know,

It just makes me feel better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's,

It is true.

I feel like this idea of loneliness and dying alone,

It came up so,

So frequently in COVID.

I think one of the most,

One of the painful,

One of the most painful moments were when there,

In fact,

Was a family that wanted to be at bedside and hold their loved one and,

And be with them in the moment of their transition.

But because of administrative regulations,

We could not have them even enter the hospital and their loved one,

You know,

Died without anyone in the room.

I think that that the peak at the pinnacle of it,

It was not even the nurses or the physicians could come in unless they were completely gowned up in multiple layers and a hazmat suit and whatnot.

And of course,

It's hard to really feel human touch,

But not letting a family who would otherwise be there come in,

That was very tough for me to abide by.

And I will say I broke the rules a couple times,

And then that led to some challenging consequences,

But I don't regret it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes for the healing to happen that,

You know,

Needs to happen,

You have to break the rules like that.

Love has to,

Love has to have its way.

Yeah.

And so I'm curious for you.

There was a moment there that you had,

You felt emotion.

What was that for you when you brought that up?

Oh,

My aunt,

Sharon.

I was her power of attorney for health and she died during the COVID pandemic and she died alone in the middle of the night on her toilet.

And you know,

She spent a lot of her life alone because she was mentally ill and she was in institutions a lot of her life.

And so I was just feeling like,

I don't think she,

I mean,

I think she loved her own company.

I think she had a very active mind and it wasn't so sad for her,

But from the outside,

There's just a feeling of like,

I guess,

Wistfulness of,

Did she know,

Like,

I can't be sure she knew that I loved her.

I can't be sure she knew that,

But I'm not in an intellectual level.

I'm saying that on a,

On a sort of a feeling or intuitive,

A felt level for sure she knew that.

Right.

And I'm not sure we could,

We could feel each other.

I could feel her.

And after she died,

I could feel her.

And this bird came around my window and just would not let up after she died.

And she loved Robbins and it was a Robin.

I just thought that was cool.

And whether that was her or not,

Who knows,

But it kind of doesn't matter.

I mean,

Like I had the association,

You know?

And so that,

So that sort of reminds me of the continuing bonds thing is that it does feel good every once in a while I'll talk to her or I'll just conjure up her energy or the energy of other friends who have died,

Other people who have died,

Whoever they like.

It feels like they're imminently accessible.

And that feels really good to me.

And does it have an impact in the world?

In my world?

I think it does in the sense that it feels good.

And I could say things like,

Ah,

I'm annoyed at this.

And then it feels like that problem gets solved after that.

You know,

Whether that's them solving the problem from beyond or whether that's me having the experience that they did,

Because that allows me to sort of move through my own intention.

I don't kind of care.

I'm not a scientist around those particular issues.

I'm just an observer like everyone else.

Right.

But there is science that is done in this area.

And I want to acknowledge that,

But we're not really talking about the science that's done in this area.

I mean,

If you,

For people who are really interested in the science in this area about continuing bonds and about the actual validity of consciousness surviving death,

It's really worth your time to go to the Wind Bridge Research Center,

Wind Bridge Research Center,

And check out what Julie Beichl and Mark Bocazzi have done there.

Really beautiful work.

Probably the best.

I think it's the best research on this topic in the world.

We're talking about the sort of the emotional impact,

The psychological impact,

The healing impact.

Do you have a sense that,

Do you have particular dead people that you like to talk to?

That's a good question.

You know,

Right before we had the start of this conversation,

I was thinking,

What are the ways that one talks to dead people and how do they show up?

And I've had a chance to talk to several people who speak to loved ones who've passed on.

There's all sorts of,

There's different ways that it shows up.

I think traditionally you might think of a Ouija board in a seance room or something like that,

Right?

Or I don't know,

Like you're in a particular place that was haunted maybe and you're reaching out and you look for signs in the physical world,

Like wrapping on a door or something falling off a bookcase,

Right?

And for me,

That has started to shift.

Initially when,

For example,

My father passed away,

There were specific symbols that occurred like for you and your aunt,

The Robin symbols in the world that would occur in my day-to-day life that would trigger me thinking of my father.

And then I would use that as a moment to just send him some love.

And as I've played with interacting with my dad more and more,

I realized I don't really need,

I don't need symbols in the world to be able to know he's okay.

I'm starting to recognize the familiarity of his feeling.

Like when you,

Just someone's smell,

Right?

Or someone's voice,

There's a uniqueness to it.

I think there's on an intuitive level,

There's a uniqueness to the feeling of someone that for me and my dad,

I'm learning to recognize.

The other thing I wanted to share too is when I think about him every so often,

And this might be,

I don't know,

A particular aspect to him,

But I see his eyes flash in my mind's eye very briefly.

And when that happens,

That's usually for me,

That sense that he's very,

Very close as opposed to sensing him,

But getting the impression that he's kind of busy doing something.

It's like,

I'm calling him from across the hall and he turns over and looks at me.

He's like,

Hey,

What's up?

And then goes back to doing what he's doing.

That's what it feels like sometimes.

And I wanted to ask you if you,

And I assume you do talk to dead people,

Do you also get a sense of proximity with them where maybe they feel a lot closer one day and another day they seem quite distant,

But you can still connect as if they're busy or doing something in some other room?

Yeah.

So,

So I guess I did,

I'm not,

I'm not,

I would not call myself a skilled medium,

But dead people like to talk to me.

I'm not sure I say much to them.

So that's what I've noticed.

And at least that's my experience for what it's worth.

And I don't relate to the space thing because it feels like they're not in a space like space time.

They're not,

They're living in a not space,

Not time place.

And so it doesn't feel like a different space.

Everything already always feels like it just shows up in my mind.

So it's all as proximal as my mind is,

Which is pretty proximal to my body most of the time these days.

So it's more like I relate to the different energies when they're busy,

Like I've got something to do,

Which is always a little thrilling.

Like what really?

I'm just like,

Hang out and hang out,

Talk to me when I want you versus the other thrilling experience,

Which is when they show up and they don't have anything to do.

And they're just there to be with you.

And then there's the other thrilling experience of calling to them out of need.

Like they come to you.

It's like,

Oh,

You know,

Who would be great for this?

I have,

I had an energy healer friend die.

Garrett Walters,

Just wonderful clairvoyant energy healer.

He'd work over the phone and he would just tell you stuff about what's going on with you as he's healing you.

And you're like,

Okay,

Yeah,

But I'm,

You know,

Whatever,

Like it's amazing.

And it felt great.

And he was the best energy healer I ever,

Ever had a relationship with.

And after he died,

I got wind from him that he's up for continuing to do it.

So I started doing a thing where I would like,

When I realized I I'm using the term energy here,

Always a little subconsciously because as a scientist,

Of course,

Energy has a whole different meaning.

So I'm calling that thing that we don't understand very well.

That has like,

When you call it the feeling of a person,

I'll just say when the feeling of myself is off,

I will just sort of say to my version of him in my mind,

Hey,

Garrett,

Could you do healing on me tonight?

I'll go to bed and I'll wake up invariably,

Just like amazingly refreshed.

And so that's a whole different experience.

This is like,

And then the other night he said to me,

I had the experience.

And again,

This is all in my head,

Right?

I had the experience of him saying,

Hey,

So I will do it,

But I'm going to teach you how to do it.

So like,

I've got other things to do.

It was totally that I've got other things to do thing,

You know,

Like he may not believe me,

But we've got an agenda over here.

And so then I woke up like still feeling refreshed,

But like,

All right,

I had to do some felt like I had to do a little work,

You know?

So so all of those things seem to happen.

And this,

Oh,

My another friend of mine who died,

Who had a brain tumor,

Who,

Who I was beautifully connected to his name was Bill.

He his wife,

I had an experience of him wanting me to warn his wife about something.

So I did,

Even though I felt silly,

Because I haven't talked to her in a while,

Like a year.

And she said that made sense to her the warning.

But she told me something,

Which is that he had come to her a little bit after he died,

She had the experience of him coming to her and saying,

You asked me to come to you,

You know,

If I could,

And I'm just coming to tell you,

Here I am.

And you know,

So there is life after death,

But it's not like how you think.

And as soon as she told me that,

I was like,

Oh,

My God,

What came into my head as an understanding in that moment,

It felt like it was directly from Bill,

When she told me that the understanding was all of their times are simultaneous with ours.

And so he can,

He could now because he's in this,

Or whatever we want to call him,

I hate to call it him,

Because it's not him anymore,

Right?

But his consciousness or something about him is in this all through time place.

So he can go now interact with any of us and himself at any times in our lives,

Which means,

Of course,

That our own dead people like my own dead,

Julia,

And your own dead Adam,

Can currently cook can cook can co currently can come concurrently,

I get excited,

Can concurrently collaborate throughout our lives.

So we can collaborate with the so anyway,

That was the understanding I got from that,

Which is that we can concurrently collaborate with our dead versions of ourselves throughout our lives,

For the for the best outcome for ourselves and for the world.

That is super cool.

That is fascinating.

It does remind me of a conversation we had years ago about working with your future self,

Who's gone past a particular challenge,

Or even in my case,

The far future self,

Right,

The version of me who,

Let's say,

Is at the cusp of enlightenment,

Or whatever term we want to use for some great awareness or understanding and touching in with that wisdom.

But knowing that it's a me that totally understands me.

It's not some,

Some strange,

Ephemeral symbol that,

You know,

Is removed from my day to day life,

It actually is me.

And so who better than me to gain wisdom from who's who's gone through it.

This is this is where the time aspect kind of comes in.

Yep.

Well,

So and the other so the other piece of it is not only is this person actually you,

It's like the idea is that even without your knowledge,

You could be collaborating with this person right now who is perfectly suited to your needs.

So it's like,

Whoa,

And then the other Okay,

So then when you said that the other thing that popped into my head,

Again,

Let's just reiterate,

All of these are crazy hypotheses that are not at all proven,

But they're popping into our heads.

Okay.

Whatever.

But the other thing that popped into my head was that,

You know,

People talk about the life review at the end of your life,

Or when people have near death experiences,

Like with they feel like that they,

They literally experience every moment of their lives,

Like without missing any of them.

And they're there for that.

It's possible that during that life review at the end of death,

That is when you go into this timeless,

Spaceless place.

And that is the moment where you're collaborating at every moment of your life.

In other words,

You're doing it all in that moment,

Boom,

Then it's done.

So when he said to her,

His wife,

You know,

It's not how you think.

It's like,

There's life after death,

But the term after is a misnomer,

Because we're not in time.

Wow,

Yeah.

Like now,

Kind of,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Exactly.

Exactly.

Oh,

This gets this gets into the weeds and very into fascinating territory.

There's like three different branch points I want to take right now in the conversation.

But let me,

I'm going to go away from the craziest thing I was going to say to,

To something that I wanted to bring up as an intention for this call,

Which was that in my,

In my,

I would say evolution,

I often find I need to break through my own concepts of what's possible.

And talking to dead people absolutely was filled with concepts that were quite limiting for me.

I kind of hinted at one,

Which was that talking to dead people necessitated some symbol in the world of form around me in my life that I had to engage with,

Right.

And I've since sort of broken out of that conceptual framework and understood,

You know,

Something as simple as a mental image could be a form of communication or a feeling could be a form of communication.

But you also brought up another form of communication,

Which was the dream world.

And I kind of wanted to touch a little bit on that because I found that to be an absolutely consistent form of communication with people who have passed on.

And there's something about what happens when we sleep.

And I'd love at some point to really dive into the physiology,

But you know,

Who we are,

What happens when the body is in Delta or in deep sleep allows for more,

I don't know what it is exactly,

It seems to me that the more information is available,

A depth of communication,

There's full on conversations can happen.

And when time breaks down,

Really like entire lives,

Lifetimes can be lived with a loved one in this other realm.

And then we come back and we have like 20 years worth of information that we've gotten from one night.

Yeah,

20 years precisely.

Because it seems like exactly that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think we're,

We are what I do.

I do think there's going to be sort of a dark ages slash enlightenment division between the era in which Western science thought that dreams were just like ways that we learn things and integrated knowledge and sort of through the process things.

And when Western science came to the conclusion that dreams are our way of interacting with and sleeping is a really powerful purpose of sleep is to interact with the non-physical,

To interact with the non-local.

And that without that we don't function well.

And that's not just because we're not learning.

That's not just because we need to rest.

It's because we are spiritual beings primarily.

We are consciousness beings primarily.

So yeah,

I think that's really important.

And I have this experience of the dream world sort of being when I do most of my work in the world.

Like I feel like,

I go to bed with an intention,

Right?

I was just about to ask you that I was going to wait until you finished your thought to ask you about intention.

Yeah.

So please,

Please go into that.

Well,

I go to bed with an intention and sometimes it's to solve a problem in science or sometimes it's to put,

I call it putting love into the matrix.

So just putting more love into the matrix or whatever is the substrate of the world or the universe or an intention to reach out to someone I haven't seen in a while.

And oftentimes when I wake up,

I feel either my dreams or the way that I feel corresponds to the intention.

Well,

That could be confirmation bias and I sort of don't care because I'm not testing a theory here.

I'm playing with ways to feel good and to feel like I have purpose and to feel like I'm connected to the universe.

So to me,

It solves that problem,

Whether it's me making it up or not.

Yeah.

What do you do?

Do you do that kind of a ritual?

Absolutely.

I feel like so.

I feel like starting with an intention as you fall asleep is like if you had an autopilot feature or some sort of navigation feature,

It's you putting in the destination,

Pressing start and then you fall asleep and you let things carry forward.

That's what I feel like it does for me.

And I can set that intention.

And it's not just where I go,

But what I do.

For example,

There are nights where I want to practice lucid dreaming.

And the point of that evening is let me waken up in a world that is imaginary,

Right?

A world that I thought was real,

But I practice the ability of developing awareness,

Self-awareness that I can wake up and not be carried away by the drama of the dream and recognize it as a dream.

And then that ability,

Like any other Billy,

When you go to the gym is something that can be exercised.

So then I don't get carried away in the drama of my waking life,

But it can hold the presence and awareness.

So I set the intention for lucidity.

If I want to do that,

Alternatively,

If I want to practice my out of body experiences and you and I I've shared that with you in the past,

Although I'm not sure if I have in these series of poems.

Maybe once obliquely,

But we might as well,

Some people might not have listened to everything.

That's true.

That's true.

So I've had many,

Many experiences of traveling out of the body.

And when I want to do that,

I will set that intention.

And in addition,

I will set the intention of what I want to do in my early days of astral projection or out of body.

See,

I don't like the word astral projection because it assumes that you're just projecting with the astral.

You can project on any number of levels.

You can project after having projected.

That's something that I did.

I would project in my astral and then in my astral would project the other aspect of me.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I want to continue on this road,

But I want you to define because I hear people say astral and I'm always like,

Yeah,

That just sounds like so lame to me.

I don't know what that is.

So,

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what are you talking about?

You could project.

I mean,

Like forgetting projecting from the astral,

Let's just get to the astral and then let's talk about what that heck.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Thanks for helping me reel back in.

Okay.

So one,

I mean,

I'm going to be pretty open.

I think it's very clear where both of us lies,

But I'll just speak for myself that I acknowledge a non-physical reality.

In fact,

An extremely complex,

Multifaceted,

Multilayered non-physical reality.

And I've had experiences as a child and into being a teacher where a teenager,

Where I would feel like I,

A version of me that had arms and legs and a head coming out of my physical body and then turning around and seeing my physical body lying in bed.

I,

It was hard to make sense of that,

But it was a repeated experience of mine.

And eventually when I researched it,

I found out that people called this ethereal form an astral form.

And I guess Hastra means star,

Right?

So they thought some aspects of people might call it a spirit.

Yeah.

Spirit body.

Yeah.

Like a ghost form or a spirit body.

Yeah,

Exactly.

But something that had the appearance of the physical body.

And so I found that with training and with certain practices,

I could fairly reliably come out of my physical body with this other body that seemed somewhat see-through.

And why would you,

I mean,

Just to understand better.

Why would you want to do this?

That's a great question.

I actually didn't want to,

It was happening without my control initially.

So I,

Part of me was,

Okay,

This is going to happen.

I don't know why it's happening.

Let me figure out why and what I can do about it.

But since then I have found it to be a ton of fun.

And at this point I would say that's the primary reason why I continue to do that kind of work is because it's quite fun and exciting to explore.

I mean,

Why does anyone go out and discover a new country or travel and go to a new place?

Right?

Because it's fun.

Wait,

So wait,

But wait,

Wait.

Why is it fun?

Because do you get to explore the physical world or the non-physical world or both?

Okay.

So this is,

This is great.

Great question.

The first couple of years that I did this at the university of Rochester,

Where I,

If anyone that I went to college with happens to hear this,

Now,

You know what I was doing in my dorms.

I used to think that I was basically limited to this physical world.

And for example,

I would leave my body and I would basically explore the campus.

I would fly above the campus.

I realized because of mental fears,

I was just limited to the area around my dorm room.

But once I dropped those mental fears and realized,

Oh,

I'm not going to die if I go further away from my physical body.

So I remember traveling to see my mom and dad in Virginia,

Like hundreds of miles away.

And I would like fly there.

I mean,

I don't know what I was doing,

But there was movement and I found myself watching them go about their business and like that kind of stuff.

And then did you ever calculate how long it took?

Like,

Were you flying?

Like,

Did it take you five minutes to get there or like in real time,

Like an airplane speed?

Oh,

It felt like two seconds.

Okay.

So it was definitely like faster than the speed of light kind of thing.

Yeah,

Exactly.

I mean,

I felt movement and there was a definite beginning and end to the travel,

If you will,

But it was all travel felt within seconds.

And I'll tell you,

It even got to the point where I had read an article and this I'm pretty sure I shared with you.

I had read an article about,

I want to say it was Ingo Swann,

But I forget exactly who it was who traveled to Jupiter with remote viewing and saw the Shoemaker Comet hit the planet.

Was that Ingo Swann?

I think he was one of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so when I,

When I heard when I read that article,

This was while I was in college,

I said,

I'm playing a small game here.

I'm like stuck on the same planet.

I could totally go to Jupiter.

And that like,

Expanded me.

I was like,

Let me let me just go and incidentally,

My first travel with the intention to go out of the planet.

I I'm pretty sure I actually left the solar system because I ended up somewhere that was not not a recognizable planet,

Shall we say.

Well,

But do you think it was a planet or do you think it was the non-physical?

No,

I think it was a planet because I as I was approaching,

As I saw a planet,

But as I was approaching,

I actually could see continents and city constructs.

But to to your point,

There was there was a moment in my journey that I realized I don't need to stay in the physical realm.

There are so many other houses of God,

If you will.

There are so many other domains.

And that's when this idea of,

OK,

What if you have multiple radio frequencies simultaneously in the air around you,

Really,

What is it that allows you to listen to those frequencies?

You have the receiver,

The tuner.

And that's when I started to practice and play with tuning my consciousness,

Allowing me to see different realms and not actually having to travel anywhere,

But staying in my dorm room and adjusting myself and then seeing other things come in and out of my field of perception.

Oh,

That's exactly what how a remote viewer would describe what they do.

It's interesting.

Yeah.

Allowing those things to come into your field of perception.

So you stay in one place and and you're tuning yourself to receive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It could be that.

Yeah.

That we're all doing the same thing.

So.

Really cool.

So.

So.

So.

So what have you learned about the nonphysical?

Have you learned anything about after death?

Have you set your intention to go like hang out with some dead people?

Yeah,

I have met people who have.

It's interesting.

In my experience in that world,

Intuition and knowing plays a far greater role than other senses.

Right.

At my analogy would be if you've ever had a dream where there was some other person with you in the room and you didn't quite remember what they looked like,

But you just knew it was your dead aunt or whatever.

Right.

Like it's a knowing.

And I think that that is that's also a primary sense modality,

If not the primary sense modality in these higher realms or alternate realms.

Some people call that the sixth sense,

The sense of knowing the inner inner knowledge or in the kabbalistic system,

It would be called dots,

The inner inner knowing almost every tradition has a name for it is that just they're just knowing I did have a dream of my aunt.

She was a rabbit.

I had a dream that I see this rabbit and I'm like,

Oh,

There's Sharon.

And you knew it was Sharon,

Right?

It was a hundred percent share.

Like that was like,

No doubt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Of course it was my dream.

It could be whoever,

Whomever I wanted it to be.

But you know,

That there's that,

That inner knowing is,

Is consistent with this sort of immediate timeless,

Spaceless wisdom that comes to us.

But those are the receptive features of that space of that non-physical space.

And I agree that those are,

Those are really dominant intuition knowing the,

The active features of that space.

It feels to me,

Our intention that that is the way that you could move from Rochester to Virginia.

So quickly is intention.

There was a beginning and an end because there was the intention to get there and that's what drove your action.

And so I'm curious if,

If you know,

People who are dead,

If they have intention in real time with us,

You know,

If they're like moving along just on some other simultaneous plane in real time,

Or if their intention is like kind of one of these big bang explosions,

Like at the end of their life or at the beginning of their life,

If the intention just unfolds,

Like the intention is all at once.

And then it unfolds through time because they're not in time,

But we are.

So we experience it unfolding through time.

And then you also had this,

Like you put your finger up in the air,

Which made me think,

Okay,

You wanted to say something about that.

Oh gosh.

There's so many things that I want to say right now.

Well,

The primary thing that I want to say is for those of you who are listening,

If you do happen to see a Robin or a penny on the ground or a dime or a song that your,

You know,

Loved one used to listen to,

And you just have a knowing that he or she is right there with you.

In my experience,

In these other realms,

That knowing is equivalent to 100% proof that they are there.

And so to trust that we so often need some sort of corollary or some sort of an additional symbol to prove to us that,

Yes,

My loved one did in fact visit me,

But that's not needed.

You can just trust yourself.

I think that's a really good point.

We don't have to be scientists about this.

I mean,

The thing is ask yourself,

Or like I often ask myself with this kind of stuff is what's the downside of believing this thing that might not be true.

Right.

What's the downside.

And in those situations,

There's no downside.

Like I just feel closer to this person.

What's the problem.

There's no problem there.

You know,

The downside comes when you say,

Oh,

I just have this knowing that this person is up to get me and I'm going to cower in my house and not go outside the doors because I believe that this person is up to get me.

And it turns into paranoia or rage or something like this that changes your behavior to make your life worse.

That's a downside.

So if that ever happens,

Then you know,

You go get,

You get support,

You get help,

You get mental health help.

But the downside of believing something that's not true in your own personal life about someone who died and having conversation with them and feeling connected to them in my experience is it's,

It's positive.

There is no downside.

Yeah,

Exactly.

There's a great book written by a Portuguese man.

Many years ago,

Chico Xavier,

The book is called no solar and it was turned into a movie adapted into a movie.

But it basically talks,

It's,

It talks about what life might be like,

At least for that Portuguese man after he dies.

There's a scene in the book that I thought was particularly powerful that has actually influenced how I relate to my father.

In the book,

It introduces this idea that what you think and your intention,

As you said,

Julia,

Plays a far greater role in creating your reality than in the physical.

And so if there's a strong fear or resentment or anger,

You will see that that fear will absolutely manifest near instantaneously in front of you.

And then you will be faced with that fear and you'll have to deal with it.

And if you've spent a life running away from it,

That will be absolutely terrifying.

And so the takeaway was,

You don't need to wait till you die to face these things.

You can close your eyes,

Go within,

Face them because that the gap between thought and intention and manifestation is very,

Very little in the afterlife,

So to speak.

The other scene that was particularly influential was a scene where this man had died and was in a deep sense of regret over a life not well lived and was wallowing in his regret with all of his fears manifesting before his eyes and seemed like he was in a spiral,

A downward spiral.

And someone who was a former patient of his,

Because he was a doctor in that life,

Was praying for him.

And he heard her prayer and felt a wave of love come over him.

And that broke this mental spiral he was in of fear and he was able to come out of it.

And that to me was like,

Holy crap,

Prayer is powerful.

Even just thinking lovingly of someone can have an influence.

Which is what prayer is really,

Right?

Thinking lovingly of someone,

Whether that someone is God or someone is the person or yeah,

Or just the universe,

Not just.

There's a similar story I heard about a person who had a near-death experience and as they were being rushed to the hospital and going through their near-death experience,

They went above their,

Their experience was of going above the ambulance and looking down and they heard the prayer of someone four,

Four cars back.

And they were like,

Wow,

That person is like praying for me.

And that made a difference and made them feel like,

You know,

Maybe there was a reason why they could stay stick around.

So this kind of things are pretty,

I mean,

Of course anyone can make up a story like that,

But it,

Um,

There's,

There's a sense of connection between this world and that world that feels important and feels like a helpful connection in,

In,

In many cases.

And I think that's important to focus on.

And the other pieces,

What they are,

One of our original questions was this,

Does it help both sides?

And it sounds like those are examples of helping both sides,

You know,

Of going both ways.

I want to,

As I know,

We're winding up.

I just want to,

I just came into my mind to,

To dedicate this conversation to Brenda Dunn,

Who just died a few days ago.

She was one of the heads of the Pear Lab,

The Princeton engineering anomaly.

And just before she died,

A friend said that she knew that she had multiple things she needed to,

To fix basically problems she needed to solve.

And some of them she could do something about,

And she did,

But the others,

They just was waiting for other people to just do things.

And that they just sort of miraculously happened before she died and that she could go be with her husband,

Robert.

Well,

We'll dedicate this to Brenda Dunn then.

Yeah.

I think she would like the conversation.

She was quite an amazing mentor,

Especially to younger investigators.

And I was the one when I met her and I just am grateful to her.

So.

Wonderful.

Thanks for sharing.

Yeah.

And thank you for the idea with this episode.

This is,

This was a great,

It's very rich,

Rich.

And I do hope that those who listen to this get some ideas of the good that can come out of just simply communicating and the healing that can happen both for them and,

And the other.

Yeah.

And us.

And check out the Woodbridge Research Center.

Yes.

Mark and Julia are amazing people.

I'm glad you mentioned that.

Yeah.

Really important.

So lots of love,

Adam.

You too,

Julia.

Reviews

Oh my heart. ❤️ what a beautiful conversation. My sister transitioned yesterday. This dialogue bright me such comfort and “intention” to connect with her knowing; feeling that this talk was the kind of thing we might have conversed about were she still here. I look forward to sharing a new kind of spaciousness unbounded by the constructs of linear time ✨Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 🙏🏾💜🥹

As we used to say, Wow! What a trip! My curiosity is around healing relationships that were/are painful, traumatic even. Does that play out if the intention is consciously expressed? I hope there’s more of these talks to come!

Wow. Opened my mind and being so beautifully. Thank you.

Thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻That was a fascinating episode. It had been a while, so I was looking forward to listening.
My intention is to die at home, yet if that is not a possibility, then I would love to get care from conscious doctors like you. Not something I associate with Western minded medicine.
And a question came to mind that I would love to ask my beloved who transitioned. Very excited about that. Can’t wait to ask him.
Thank you. I hope you will continue your conversations, and post them on Insight Timer🙏🏻🦋🙏🏻🌟🙏🏻🦋🙏🏻

fascinating talk. so much to consider. thank you 🙏🏼✨
my mom always said a prayer when an ambulance passed and i have continued. it’s sweet to hear there might be an impact. 🙏🏼