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00:00:00.660 Speaker 1 Hey everyone. So the format of this first episode is a little bit different because
00:00:04.360 Speaker 1 it's actually the first episode that my friend and I, Joshua Swenson, who co-hosts
00:00:10.280 Speaker 1 this limited series, we ever did, and it worked so well that we decided to follow up
00:00:16.300 Speaker 1 with this show. So Joshua was kind enough to allow me to cross-post this first
00:00:21.880 Speaker 1 interview, which has all the important context that you're gonna need to understand
00:00:25.720 Speaker 1 the rest of Reality 101. If you'd like to listen to the rest of Ruptures and Roots,
00:00:31.280 Speaker 1 you can use the link in the show notes. So from here, everything after this episode
00:00:36.080 Speaker 1 is slightly different format. Enjoy.
00:00:38.620 Speaker 1 [gentle music]
00:00:43.780 Speaker 2 Welcome to the circle. This is Ruptures and Roots, and I'm your fellow traveler,
00:00:48.480 Speaker 2 Joshua Swenson. This is a space for deep listening and the sharing of stories of
00:00:53.560 Speaker 2 rupture and transformation in unprecedented times, and a life that roots into the
00:00:58.320 Speaker 2 cracks. Sitting in the circle with me today is Steven Schrembeck. I first met
00:01:03.980 Speaker 2 Steven through a class I joined last fall called Techniques of Transcendence. I was
00:01:08.780 Speaker 2 immediately struck by his curiosity and tenacity in exploring the edges of
00:01:12.900 Speaker 2 consciousness. I've loved hearing Steven reflect on his encounters with anomalous
00:01:17.740 Speaker 2 phenomena and the ways he's learned to listen to and work with psychic and intuitive
00:01:22.700 Speaker 2 capacities. Steven is a lifelong tinkerer with interests ranging from sensory
00:01:28.100 Speaker 2 substitution to societal incentives. By trade, he's a software engineer, and by
00:01:33.300 Speaker 2 avocation, a writer and explorer of meaning. He's the author of horror short stories
00:01:38.380 Speaker 2 and fantasy novels, and he also writes nonfiction on intuition, consciousness,
00:01:43.520 Speaker 2 extrasensory abilities, and how we make sense of the unknown at
00:01:47.360 Speaker 2 differentcompass.ink. In this conversation, we sit together in curiosity, exploring
00:01:52.820 Speaker 2 rupture, perception, and what happens when our understanding of reality begins to
00:01:57.180 Speaker 2 stretch beyond its familiar bounds. Welcome to the circle today, Steven. I'm honored
00:02:02.760 Speaker 2 to be holding space for your story. Is there anything more you'd like to say or
00:02:06.300 Speaker 2 share by way of introduction?
00:02:08.440 Speaker 1 You said it way better than I would say it myself, so I better not.
00:02:12.920 Speaker 2 All right. Well, before we open the space for your story, um, I always like to check
00:02:17.780 Speaker 2 in if you'd like to share, uh, what's alive for you today, what's on your heart and
00:02:22.120 Speaker 2 mind, how you're arriving in the space.
00:02:25.400 Speaker 1 Uh, I arrived poring through some old journals about what's happened to me over the
00:02:29.920 Speaker 1 past few years, and I knew that it was time to record with you 'cause I heard a
00:02:34.180 Speaker 1 really high-pitched sound and felt that sort of pressure in my head and went, "Oh,
00:02:37.700 Speaker 1 cool. Guess it's time to go record." Sure enough, I look up like, "All right. Who
00:02:43.140 Speaker 1 needs an alarm?" Uh, so that's how I'm arriving. [chuckles] How are you?
00:02:48.840 Speaker 2 I've similarly been noticing high-pitched noises. It's not quite the same, like,
00:02:54.940 Speaker 2 intensity as tinnitus, right? But it's like it comes and goes at, like, unique
00:02:59.520 Speaker 2 moments. I think we were... I was, like, reading a text you sent once about it
00:03:04.960 Speaker 2 coming up for you at one point, and as I was reading the text, that ringing came in
00:03:09.220 Speaker 2 my own ears. Um-
00:03:11.120 Speaker 1 Sorry.
00:03:12.600 Speaker 2 No, it's interesting. It's like a... It feels to me like a signal of synchronicity.
00:03:16.900 Speaker 2 So thank you for sharing, and thank you for arriving today.
00:03:18.280 Speaker 1 Let's see how many listeners get it at th-
00:03:20.020 Speaker 2 Yeah
00:03:20.060 Speaker 1 ... at that exact same time right now.
00:03:21.700 Speaker 2 [chuckles] I'm arriving today with, um, a feeling of accomplishment. Um,
00:03:27.720 Speaker 2 I've been working on a trailer for the television series I've been working on called
00:03:32.880 Speaker 2 The Lost Years, which is about the forgotten years of Jesus' journey, uh, as
00:03:38.860 Speaker 2 he travels through mys-mystery school initiations. And, um, so I've been kind of
00:03:43.220 Speaker 2 deep diving on AI filmmaking and, um, put together a pretty badass trailer I'm
00:03:49.160 Speaker 2 really excited about with some cool music and images and, um, yeah,
00:03:55.100 Speaker 2 feeling really accomplished and also just really excited about this conversation
00:03:58.320 Speaker 2 and, yeah, hearing more about your story. So that's what I'm arriving with today.
00:04:04.140 Speaker 2 I'd like to invite us both to take a breath before we begin.
00:04:10.340 Speaker 2 And whenever you're ready, what was life like before the rupture or wherever it
00:04:15.400 Speaker 2 feels right to begin?
00:04:18.899 Speaker 1 I think I would like to preface this with how hilarious and
00:04:24.560 Speaker 1 ironic it is that I would be describing, uh, my life before and after a rupture.
00:04:31.560 Speaker 1 As we'll get into any sort of supernatural occurrence or [chuckles] mystical
00:04:35.740 Speaker 1 experience, you, you'd have to know me that, you know, like every child, I had
00:04:41.280 Speaker 1 magical thinking, but at a pretty young age, I don't know, nine, 10, start to figure
00:04:47.120 Speaker 1 out, "Oh, that's not cool." And from that, more likely, you know, others will judge
00:04:52.960 Speaker 1 me or, "Oh, this isn't real. I, I gotta shut that down." And I think I did that very
00:04:56.960 Speaker 1 successfully. But I never stopped liking stories and fantastical worlds. Uh, that's
00:05:02.640 Speaker 1 not unique among humans, but, you know, I would-- In high school, I started writing
00:05:08.000 Speaker 1 creative fiction. Uh, I loved humor, absurdist humor, fantasy, uh, and then
00:05:13.020 Speaker 1 eventually I would get into horror. That was an escape, and so was reading, and, uh,
00:05:18.660 Speaker 1 I never stopped, like, loving fictional magical worlds, but I think I needed a world
00:05:23.460 Speaker 1 that made sense to me. I became logical. Uh, I liked
00:05:29.380 Speaker 1 things that made sense. A lot of this would end up being coping mechanisms for, uh,
00:05:34.660 Speaker 1 ADHD, uh, various other acronyms that are useful blueprints, and I wouldn't
00:05:40.600 Speaker 1 find that out until much later in life. But nonetheless, it affected my social life,
00:05:45.780 Speaker 1 and it helped me to see the world in terms of systems and functions and things that
00:05:50.860 Speaker 1 happen because of reasons, uh, in ways that can be predicted and modeled. You know,
00:05:55.780 Speaker 1 12-year-old Steven wasn't using those words, but, you know, at the same time, you
00:05:59.320 Speaker 1 know, we're clever. We find ways around our problems. Why am I hyperactive? Why do I
00:06:04.000 Speaker 1 just blurt things out without saying things? Why can't I sit here? Why am I so slow
00:06:08.420 Speaker 1 on these tests? We find ways around all those things, whether we realize it or not.
00:06:13.200 Speaker 1 And so I had evolved into a person that was fascinated with the natural world,
00:06:19.340 Speaker 1 was also fascinated with very separate [chuckles] fictional worlds, some of which I
00:06:23.760 Speaker 1 was creating. I loved science. Uh, I went to, uh, college to become
00:06:29.700 Speaker 1 a software developer. I never thought I would get into that college. I never thought
00:06:33.320 Speaker 1 I would be a software developer. Uh, I didn't think I was smart enough. Uh, most of
00:06:37.720 Speaker 1 my life, I didn't think I was smart enough, which was counter to what I was told,
00:06:41.940 Speaker 1 which was very difficult for me. Um, what I hadn't realized until much later on is
00:06:46.900 Speaker 1 that I had some basic learning disabilities and that I was actually very slow at
00:06:50.420 Speaker 1 thinking. Had my thought process measured, and I'm well below average in terms of
00:06:55.600 Speaker 1 how slow I think. But I've got a pretty good verbal intelligence, so I can just
00:07:00.220 Speaker 1 kinda make stuff up until eventually my brain catches up. But it explained why I
00:07:05.460 Speaker 1 felt like I understood things, but I struggled so much. And in a school setting that
00:07:11.040 Speaker 1 was very rigorous and had timed things, um, I was just slow, and I, I
00:07:16.760 Speaker 1 mistook being slow for being dumb. Uh, but that wouldn't hit me until later. All
00:07:21.940 Speaker 1 that to say is that, you know, I'm a person who is very orderly and logical,
00:07:28.060 Speaker 1 and, um, I've just straight up made fun of anything I didn't understand that I felt
00:07:33.020 Speaker 1 was well outside the realm of materialism, even when I didn't use those words. Uh,
00:07:39.080 Speaker 1 reason. I felt that everything could be explained. If you could put the whole
00:07:43.300 Speaker 1 physical universe, uh, you can know the state of everything, and you had just enough
00:07:48.120 Speaker 1 understanding of how it all worked, you could predict everything forever, right? I,
00:07:53.280 Speaker 1 I had that belief, uh, as recent as six years ago, maybe five years ago.
00:07:58.760 Speaker 1 [chuckles] So out of the important context, that's who I was. Later in my adult
00:08:04.320 Speaker 1 life, I would, uh, come to call myself an atheist, uh, and it felt right. I never
00:08:08.820 Speaker 1 liked religion. Uh, I still don't. I don't dislike people who are religious, but it
00:08:13.460 Speaker 1 does not feel right for me. Uh, I didn't like dogma. I never liked being told what
00:08:18.140 Speaker 1 to do or what to think or what I couldn't ask. Um, that bothered me a lot. I always
00:08:23.780 Speaker 1 liked questions, um, and I've always had an accountability to truth, which, you
00:08:28.140 Speaker 1 know, led me to questioning religion and a l- a lot of things. I became vegan.
00:08:33.620 Speaker 1 I've-- We parent our children in pretty unusual ways. Uh, we've, you know, we don't
00:08:39.580 Speaker 1 go to a traditional schooling system. [chuckles] We do a lot of things that are not
00:08:42.400 Speaker 1 normal and weren't easy to make those choices, but it felt right. Uh, so
00:08:48.320 Speaker 1 that's what life was like before a rupture for me. I had systems, I had rules, I
00:08:52.340 Speaker 1 thought in structure. I had a spreadsheet that I reviewed every morning of here's
00:08:57.920 Speaker 1 who I wanna be, here's how I work. I had a whole life that was architected to keep
00:09:03.140 Speaker 1 me together and keep everything working. I got pretty good at it. [chuckles] I got
00:09:07.520 Speaker 1 pretty good at it, but it was still so much work, um, just to be happy. Um,
00:09:13.520 Speaker 1 I mean, I can pause there, uh, but that, you know, that leads me into, I guess, um,
00:09:19.160 Speaker 1 the beginning of change.
00:09:21.100 Speaker 2 I resonate a lot with what you've shared and, um, I really relate to that escape
00:09:26.480 Speaker 2 into fantasy. I remember I didn't feel in my skin or
00:09:32.140 Speaker 2 comfortable with my relatives, and anytime we would go to visit them, I would just
00:09:37.860 Speaker 2 like read "Animorphs" and fantasy novels and things like that, and I would always
00:09:42.720 Speaker 2 get in trouble for just like wanting to stay in the room and read, you know? But it
00:09:47.700 Speaker 2 felt safer for me. A- and I guess I also, you know, the way you framed it was like
00:09:53.480 Speaker 2 this imaginal realm that children are more in touch with. Imaginary friends, you
00:09:59.520 Speaker 2 know, we think of them as not real. For children inhabiting that space, it is real.
00:10:04.820 Speaker 2 Like their imagination is so much more active. They're just like constantly
00:10:08.760 Speaker 2 role-playing and playing and pretending. But we think of it as pretending, right?
00:10:13.040 Speaker 2 But they are really in that world, and at some point, that begins to be shut down by
00:10:18.620 Speaker 2 all the voices around us and, you know, society telling us, "You need to grow up.
00:10:22.900 Speaker 2 You need to be serious."
00:10:25.600 Speaker 2 Kids are just like in this realm that are more in touch with this, um, maybe
00:10:31.520 Speaker 2 like the ground of reality, like consciousness, um.
00:10:35.740 Speaker 1 Sure. Um, well, I think we'll come back to the, the kid thing, uh, later
00:10:41.760 Speaker 1 'cause, um, I think this is a common belief that especially in like spiritual
00:10:47.580 Speaker 1 circles or a lot of these like extrasensory perception circles, there's a
00:10:53.480 Speaker 1 belief that like children are, are better. There's this weird diminishment of adults
00:10:58.540 Speaker 1 and older people, which I'm happy to say is not true. Uh, it's not fundamental,
00:11:04.620 Speaker 1 right? It's-
00:11:05.160 Speaker 2 Yeah
00:11:05.420 Speaker 1 ... correlated, uh, but not causative. I didn't get rid of statistics and logical
00:11:09.780 Speaker 1 thinking. I've just, uh, incorporated it now into a bigger worldview. Um, so-
00:11:15.600 Speaker 2 We could take a, we could take a minute on that if you wanna go deeper on that. You
00:11:18.320 Speaker 2 know, that's a really good point.
00:11:20.220 Speaker 1 Um, sure. Uh, one of the ways I know this is true
00:11:26.300 Speaker 1 is that children just take the world as it is. They're extremely malleable, but
00:11:29.860 Speaker 1 they're also sponges, right? We, we need our world models to function in the world.
00:11:34.160 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
00:11:34.400 Speaker 1 The ch- the world could not be run by children. It would fall apart. It wouldn't
00:11:37.600 Speaker 1 work. We need adult selves, and I think the real goal is to have the capacity to
00:11:41.860 Speaker 1 shift in and out of being childlike when it's appropriate, and that should be the
00:11:46.900 Speaker 1 real goal, is to adult and wear pants and do taxes when you have to, but then also
00:11:51.380 Speaker 1 be able to dance and not care and have fun and see the world as it is. And, um,
00:11:58.120 Speaker 1 this can be shown. Um, there are a number of psi abilities, so extrasensory
00:12:03.120 Speaker 1 abilities that we'll get into, that people thought only kids could do. And in fact,
00:12:07.680 Speaker 1 the only instructors, which there weren't very many, would only teach children
00:12:11.040 Speaker 1 because they just straight up thought adults couldn't do it. And I'm happy to report
00:12:14.804 Speaker 1 that is absolutely not the case. And there is no real difference between the
00:12:18.304 Speaker 1 performance in, between children and adults, especially when you don't tell the
00:12:23.084 Speaker 1 adults that kids are better at it and that adults are bad at it.
00:12:27.144 Speaker 2 Hmm.
00:12:27.224 Speaker 1 If you leave all that out and just tell them they can do it, they get basically the
00:12:30.864 Speaker 1 same performance, which I thought is very inspiring. It has nothing to do with being
00:12:35.164 Speaker 1 a child or not. It's just that, yeah, they don't have as much baggage. [chuckles]
00:12:39.484 Speaker 1 That's for sure.
00:12:41.024 Speaker 2 There's a phrase that came to mind, uh, I think this is from Ken Wilber, the post
00:12:45.104 Speaker 2 trans fallacy. It's a jargony phrase, but it's essentially saying that, like,
00:12:51.184 Speaker 2 children are in this flow state, you know, everything really expression-
00:12:56.004 Speaker 2 expressional, [chuckles] very expressive. There we go.
00:13:00.404 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.
00:13:00.964 Speaker 2 But they are not enlightened. You know, you have to go through that journey of
00:13:05.844 Speaker 2 losing touch with that state, going through this process of, um, self-identification
00:13:11.484 Speaker 2 in order to transcend the ego, right?
00:13:15.364 Speaker 1 Um, I mean, they also hit people who take their toys and pee themselves.
00:13:18.424 Speaker 2 Yeah, I know. Yeah. I have two young ones also. [chuckles]
00:13:20.664 Speaker 1 There's, there's downsides to being a child, you know? [both laughing]
00:13:24.604 Speaker 2 I think just in this context of, like, being in touch with the imaginal that, you
00:13:29.144 Speaker 2 know, I was witnessing in your story, you know, and that I resonate with. In our
00:13:33.904 Speaker 2 culture, there's this, like, idea that that is not as valid as, like, the logical
00:13:39.284 Speaker 2 way of being. That's kind of like, oh, you forget that and, like, you grow up and
00:13:45.064 Speaker 2 you become a serious, focused, rational adult. In a lot of circles, that's kind of
00:13:49.964 Speaker 2 like what, what it means to grow up and mature in our society.
00:13:53.924 Speaker 1 Well, I think the maturation extends from there. I do think it's mostly
00:13:59.924 Speaker 1 true. Gotta learn how to do that.
00:14:01.684 Speaker 2 Yeah.
00:14:01.804 Speaker 1 And that parallels this arc perfectly.
00:14:05.824 Speaker 1 Okay, so towards rupture, there isn't a single break. I've broken a bunch of times
00:14:11.784 Speaker 1 over and over again, and there's a few that stand out and we'll get to those. A lot
00:14:17.004 Speaker 1 of things happened to me that I can't explain. They, they happen with increasing
00:14:21.164 Speaker 1 frequency and magnitude, and we'll get into some of those. But it all started, uh,
00:14:26.784 Speaker 1 I'd say two thousand twenty-two, maybe '21, is when I started getting very
00:14:32.524 Speaker 1 serious about meditation and being happy. Right? I wrote down here that I was
00:14:39.404 Speaker 1 very reactive, hurried. I felt like I was n- never doing enough. I was very
00:14:44.624 Speaker 1 controlling. Um, and I, I control-- The way I maintained stability was
00:14:50.484 Speaker 1 through systems and control, and it was very...
00:14:56.664 Speaker 1 It was oppressive, right? It was a system that had to be maintained of self,
00:15:00.144 Speaker 1 emotional control, relations, everything, right? And if I fail, like it falls apart.
00:15:06.664 Speaker 1 I- [chuckles] So it's difficult. I got very good at understanding the mind and
00:15:10.424 Speaker 1 motivation, emotions and humans, but you can only understand something so much by
00:15:15.684 Speaker 1 taking it apart into pieces and building tools and systems. At some point, you reach
00:15:19.984 Speaker 1 a limit. Was-- I was effective, but I was unhappy, or it was
00:15:25.864 Speaker 1 difficult to maintain it, and I hated it, and I wanted a way to be happy. Like,
00:15:32.024 Speaker 1 just by default, I wanted to not have to try so hard all the time. And that led me
00:15:37.124 Speaker 1 to, as with many people, uh, to schools of Eastern thought, um, and I started to get
00:15:42.504 Speaker 1 very serious about meditation. And that is when I started setting a daily habit of
00:15:47.744 Speaker 1 twice a day for thirty minutes, which would eventually turn into, uh, an hour, and
00:15:52.024 Speaker 1 then now it's closer to two hours, uh, a day of meditation. But I've kept it up
00:15:57.064 Speaker 1 since then. I don't-- In terms of recorded meditations, I'm near six hundred, but
00:16:01.204 Speaker 1 many of them never got written down. And that is when things started to change. Uh,
00:16:06.864 Speaker 1 so I started doing those meditations, and I had tried with like many people to do it
00:16:12.684 Speaker 1 as a prescriptive thing. "Oh, it's de-stress. Let's, uh..." [chuckles] Uh, this is
00:16:17.424 Speaker 1 like a thing I have to do, like exercise. And now it was beginning to be about
00:16:22.364 Speaker 1 self-exploration. And I think what really kicked it off was the book, "The
00:16:27.064 Speaker 1 Untethered Soul." Just, just an incredible piece of work. If you could only read one
00:16:31.584 Speaker 1 book, oh, that's a good one. I realized, oh, wait a minute, you can use meditation
00:16:36.804 Speaker 1 for more than just feeling better. Like, and it's more than just meditation, right?
00:16:40.364 Speaker 1 You carry these practices throughout your life. It's a way of seeing the world. And,
00:16:44.544 Speaker 1 um, so I start doing it like, "Oh, you can do inner exploration." [chuckles] What
00:16:49.104 Speaker 1 does that even mean? And so I- I'm like, "I want that experience." I thought you
00:16:52.624 Speaker 1 could only get this with drugs. Um, and so I start doing it, and I start to have
00:16:58.364 Speaker 1 fascinating experiences, which are mostly like, you know, a sense of floating or
00:17:03.344 Speaker 1 zooming or conscious-- shifts in consciousness. Nothing extraordinary, something
00:17:07.684 Speaker 1 that anyone could get with thirty minutes of serious meditation. But now I've
00:17:11.524 Speaker 1 brought a sense of intention to this, and that has changed everything. And I want
00:17:15.804 Speaker 1 more of it. [chuckles] Right? Like, I don't just, like, feel de-stressed. Like, I
00:17:20.964 Speaker 1 feel like a different person. Like, my second half of my day now is like, I'm less
00:17:25.944 Speaker 1 reactive. Like, I feel more free. I don't feel like I have to do things in the same
00:17:30.824 Speaker 1 way. I feel like stuff is just coming to me easier. And this becomes pretty good
00:17:36.664 Speaker 1 motivation [chuckles] to keep exploring. I'll pause there if you have any questions,
00:17:40.684 Speaker 1 but that's really what kicks it off.
00:17:43.104 Speaker 2 Hmm. I relate to that. A shift in meditation, um, I've been meditating for
00:17:49.004 Speaker 2 about twenty years now, but for the first like thirteen, fourteen years of that
00:17:54.324 Speaker 2 time, you know, it was really like this focus training when you're breathing. If you
00:17:59.184 Speaker 2 had noticed a thought, come back to your breath, like don't, don't think, just be
00:18:02.984 Speaker 2 present, like pushing away emotion, pushing away thought. And for me, there was a
00:18:07.184 Speaker 2 big shift when I began to kind of become more present with my body and my emotions
00:18:13.244 Speaker 2 and grief especially. And then meditation became- I'm just gonna be present and sit
00:18:18.872 Speaker 2 with what's here and feel deeply into my body, and there's just, like, so much that
00:18:23.612 Speaker 2 opens up. Um, but yeah, really interesting to hear the difference. I've never heard
00:18:28.652 Speaker 2 of "Untethered Soul," so I'm, I'm always, like, interested in new book
00:18:31.212 Speaker 2 recommendations too.
00:18:33.192 Speaker 1 Yeah, it's very practical.
00:18:34.612 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:18:35.872 Speaker 1 Um, so I, I begin to come at meditation from I wanna understand how I
00:18:41.912 Speaker 1 work, how consciousness works. Uh, this begins to become a clear mystery of, like, I
00:18:45.932 Speaker 1 learn about the hard problem of consciousness. It can't be explained easily by
00:18:49.392 Speaker 1 material things. There's just a few sticking points that just don't make sense. And
00:18:54.312 Speaker 1 the question of why the hell is anything here? Why does this exist at all? That
00:18:58.852 Speaker 1 never left me since childhood. I will say I held onto a few big questions, and I
00:19:02.512 Speaker 1 never, I never bought [chuckles] any popular lines for these things like, "I don't
00:19:07.892 Speaker 1 know, man. Time is weird." [chuckles] Existence is weird. Why am I here? Why am I
00:19:13.952 Speaker 1 feeling anything? This doesn't make any sense. And so I start to try to answer
00:19:18.272 Speaker 1 those. Where are thoughts coming from? Like, why-- how does my body work? How does
00:19:23.372 Speaker 1 it move? Where do my emotions come from? What is my sense of self? Why does it seem
00:19:28.452 Speaker 1 to stop at my skin, or does it? And you begin to poke all these things, and you go,
00:19:33.232 Speaker 1 "Holy crap, it does not."
00:19:35.332 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:19:35.512 Speaker 1 And I can see where all these things are coming from, and they're coming from not
00:19:39.552 Speaker 1 me. [chuckles] What is this? And you can peel these pieces back, and I begin to have
00:19:44.372 Speaker 1 insights that, oh, there is something here. And so I dive even deeper, and I start
00:19:49.932 Speaker 1 taking it apart, right? I'm trying to... This is still very left-brained, which is
00:19:53.552 Speaker 1 hilarious, but this is what draws me in. And then I begin to realize, I read the
00:19:57.932 Speaker 1 Yoga Sutras. I'm like, "I'll just go to the source of this." Like, here we go.
00:20:00.972 Speaker 1 [chuckles] Let's see what these guys had to say. And it's great. And I begin to
00:20:05.672 Speaker 1 start to change the way I set goals. Now, all of this does eventually turn into, uh,
00:20:10.932 Speaker 1 ghosts, aliens, and psychic powers, but-
00:20:13.072 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm
00:20:13.072 Speaker 1 ... it starts with self-improvement, and actually, that never stops. Um, this whole
00:20:18.472 Speaker 1 path is self-improvement. I've-- I think I've mentioned to you that the most uncanny
00:20:24.212 Speaker 1 thing is that spiritual improvement and self-improvement, the ability to do things
00:20:28.652 Speaker 1 that do not make sense or comport with standard material physics, is directly in
00:20:34.652 Speaker 1 line with and really the same thing as personal development. Working through your
00:20:38.632 Speaker 1 problems is [chuckles] what gives you psychic powers. It's, it's the most hilarious
00:20:44.612 Speaker 1 thing in the world. Um, I could never have predicted that.
00:20:48.852 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:20:49.252 Speaker 1 Uh, but we'll touch on that. I start becoming interested in unconditional states.
00:20:54.092 Speaker 1 How can I be unconditionally okay or happy? Or what is unconditional love? Can I
00:20:58.892 Speaker 1 extend that to other people? And I start thinking more in terms of non-duality of,
00:21:03.592 Speaker 1 of self. Um, I am not just me, um, but I'm also sort of connected to other things. I
00:21:09.192 Speaker 1 can feel it in meditation. I feel these things start to happen. I start to think
00:21:13.192 Speaker 1 about non-polarities, like good versus evil is not really a real thing. Like, I
00:21:17.932 Speaker 1 start to see the world differently. Like, they are real, but they're like, uh,
00:21:23.652 Speaker 1 forces, or they're just like characters on a stage. Like, it's, it feels like not
00:21:28.972 Speaker 1 ultimately true. Or it's... Th- I see everything in shades of gray now. It's more
00:21:32.452 Speaker 1 nuanced. Um, and then weird things start to happen to me.
00:21:37.932 Speaker 1 [chuckles] You wouldn't think that, oh, you know, meditating a lot and
00:21:44.032 Speaker 1 going, uh, trying to learn these things, being nice to people, realizing that you
00:21:48.372 Speaker 1 are connected to, to other people. Uh, at this time, like, I still consider myself
00:21:52.872 Speaker 1 an atheist, a materialist. Like, nothing has really changed, but everything has
00:21:56.652 Speaker 1 started to change, right? Um, at the same time, and I'm living these things, not
00:22:01.812 Speaker 1 just in meditation, but I'm-- 'cause it's making my life better. I'm happier. It's
00:22:05.732 Speaker 1 easy to be happy. And I start to change how I set goals, more from, like, how do I
00:22:10.852 Speaker 1 get a thing in five years to, like, it being more important how I feel right now
00:22:16.392 Speaker 1 and, like, how am I carrying myself? What-- Am I living my values right now? And
00:22:20.412 Speaker 1 more present-focused. It seems so token to say those sort of things. It's very token
00:22:26.292 Speaker 1 advice. But I really leaned into it because it [chuckles] obsessively, because it
00:22:30.592 Speaker 1 made my life better. And the more I did, the more things I did not expect to
00:22:36.612 Speaker 1 start happening to me started happening. So I guess that would be the moment of
00:22:40.392 Speaker 1 rupture if I had to, to pick it.
00:22:43.012 Speaker 2 Hmm.
00:22:43.592 Speaker 1 Long lead-up, [chuckles] but I felt it was important 'cause it wasn't a magical
00:22:47.752 Speaker 1 thing. Didn't light a bunch of candles. Uh, I didn't, you know, read any spells. I
00:22:52.952 Speaker 1 didn't get into any of that stuff. Like, I didn't-
00:22:54.712 Speaker 2 Mm
00:22:54.932 Speaker 1 ... see any of this coming. I was just trying to be happier and understand myself
00:22:59.252 Speaker 1 and the world. That was it.
00:23:01.512 Speaker 2 Hmm. The question about, like, where do thoughts begin, I resonate with, um, and I'm
00:23:07.452 Speaker 2 curious about, you know, your experience being a fiction writer for such a long
00:23:11.472 Speaker 2 time. I read this book called "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert, and that was a
00:23:17.312 Speaker 2 paradigm-shifting book for me because she talks about, like,
00:23:21.492 Speaker 2 stories as these beings that exist outside your own mind. And I think when I
00:23:27.532 Speaker 2 first began writing, I thought all my ideas came from my own head and
00:23:33.352 Speaker 2 maybe my life history and, you know, my interests. But the more I sat with it,
00:23:39.332 Speaker 2 the more, like, I became comfortable sitting in the uncertainty and opening
00:23:45.192 Speaker 2 to what wanted to come through me. My idea of, like, where the stories come from
00:23:50.652 Speaker 2 totally shifted, where now I think, yeah, I, I think that the story is a being that
00:23:55.092 Speaker 2 exists outside space-time or in another realm, another frequency of consciousness, I
00:24:00.872 Speaker 2 guess, and that I'm kind of this conduit, and it is expressing itself into the world
00:24:06.052 Speaker 2 through me. I'll have no idea what I'm gonna write, um, or I'll just have, like, an
00:24:10.772 Speaker 2 inkling of it, and I'll just sit down with my notebook, pen in hand, and I'll just
00:24:15.092 Speaker 2 sit there in a kind of receptive state And then an idea strikes me and an image
00:24:20.316 Speaker 2 comes to me. And it's not like I thought of an image. I thought of the... It comes
00:24:25.356 Speaker 2 to me. And yeah, and then the more I thought about that and practicing meditation,
00:24:30.536 Speaker 2 you're really, like, exploring your thoughts, exploring your consciousness. Um,
00:24:36.296 Speaker 2 I'm also like, I don't know where, where are these words coming from right now? How
00:24:39.336 Speaker 2 am I forming words? How am I talking to you? How are we holding the thread of this
00:24:44.096 Speaker 2 conversation? Like, all of that is just a mystery. It's pretty weird. [chuckles]
00:24:49.196 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, nothing but mysteries. Uh, I-- even though I accepted the
00:24:55.176 Speaker 1 value, you know, I had those models for materialism and the, the belief in reason
00:25:00.656 Speaker 1 and logic and scientific method, and all of these tools and models for understanding
00:25:06.156 Speaker 1 the world, they were very foundational, but they were not the most foundational
00:25:09.116 Speaker 1 beliefs I had. Those were really an accountability to truth and curiosity, and
00:25:15.036 Speaker 1 ultimately, those won out. [chuckles] It was, was not easy, um,
00:25:21.476 Speaker 1 but I pursued a first-hand exploration, right? That is another way of truth.
00:25:27.456 Speaker 1 You can prove something through mathematics, through, uh... Or you can come near to
00:25:31.836 Speaker 1 proving a theory w-with science, right? To a degree of sufficiency anyway, right?
00:25:36.876 Speaker 1 Those are excellent tools. They're still awesome. They're still great. However,
00:25:41.236 Speaker 1 first-hand exploration is also just as valid, right? If you hear a crazy idea, and
00:25:46.616 Speaker 1 I've heard many-
00:25:47.916 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm
00:25:48.096 Speaker 1 ... I just started following up on them. Like-
00:25:49.876 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:25:49.976 Speaker 1 "I'll try it."
00:25:50.836 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
00:25:50.836 Speaker 1 "We'll see what happens." I kept doing that, and it kept surprising me, and it kept
00:25:56.236 Speaker 1 working, and [chuckles] I haven't stopped. Not everything worked, but enough of them
00:26:00.956 Speaker 1 did that I began to realize, uh, well, I guess we'll go with the moment of rupture
00:26:05.036 Speaker 1 here. Uh, that would probably be the first UFO experience that I have, a sighting.
00:26:11.296 Speaker 1 Um, I think at that point in time, I h- the, like, congressional hearings with David
00:26:17.196 Speaker 1 Grusch had happened recently, and I'm like, "What? All right, what is this?"
00:26:20.756 Speaker 1 [chuckles] I looked into this, and I'm like, "Did he just say what I thought he
00:26:24.556 Speaker 1 said?" And so I start looking into this, and, and then, of course, then I see one.
00:26:30.596 Speaker 1 Um, I mean, I can describe the experience, but this one is not spectacular. Um, I'm
00:26:36.396 Speaker 1 just looking out the back window, and I see just, like, almost like a swarm of,
00:26:40.956 Speaker 1 like, jellyfish. There's just these flashing white lights in the distance on the
00:26:44.356 Speaker 1 horizon, and they're firing like a neural network. It's like do, do, do, do, do.
00:26:47.976 Speaker 2 Hmm.
00:26:47.996 Speaker 1 Like in a series. And it's just like a cloud. Um, they weren't drones. Uh, the
00:26:53.816 Speaker 1 light was weird. It was different. It was so bright, it was almost, like, angry. It
00:26:57.856 Speaker 1 was, like, piercing. Like, it was kinda like the sunlight is much brighter than a
00:27:02.436 Speaker 1 flashlight, but you can't tell because our eyes have, like, a, a log-logarithmic,
00:27:07.156 Speaker 1 um, like, curve to them in terms of sensitivity. So a sunlight and flashlight might
00:27:12.876 Speaker 1 look similar, but the sun is way, way brighter [chuckles] than you think it is. This
00:27:18.316 Speaker 1 was like that. It was exceedingly bright, but only for a second. And I'm like, "Am I
00:27:23.176 Speaker 1 really seeing this?" Like, that's crazy. And that's it. They just float by, and that
00:27:29.256 Speaker 1 started, of course, this, like, UFOs are a gateway drug, as many people know.
00:27:33.956 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
00:27:34.756 Speaker 1 Uh, not by accident, as I later find out, uh, of course. And, you know, become
00:27:40.476 Speaker 1 obsessed about this. I needed to know because this doesn't fit my world model. And,
00:27:45.876 Speaker 1 um, I continue to meditate, I continue to explore, but now I'm starting to look into
00:27:50.616 Speaker 1 other things as well. Uh, and they start to come across my path. Um, so those are
00:27:55.416 Speaker 1 extrasensory abilities. Even, like, traditional stuff. Dean Radin's books, get into
00:27:59.976 Speaker 1 those. Great stuff. These are modern takes on, on magic. The Yoga Sutras even
00:28:05.176 Speaker 1 describe siddhis. I start looking into that. I'm like, "What is this?" Like, all
00:28:08.916 Speaker 1 these people are talking about this. Maybe there's something... I was wrong about
00:28:11.596 Speaker 1 this. What else am I wrong about, right? That is the one crack that shatters
00:28:15.836 Speaker 1 everything else, is, "Okay, well, I was really wrong. Like, why would I not
00:28:21.876 Speaker 1 be really wrong about all this other stuff?" So now I have to go do another, on my
00:28:25.876 Speaker 1 own. Fine. All right. Let's go look into [chuckles] cryptozoology. Look into all of
00:28:30.876 Speaker 1 these things because I don't know what else is wrong. And to my great surprise, um,
00:28:35.675 Speaker 1 many of them end up being true, so I start testing them firsthand. Um, and I
00:28:41.276 Speaker 1 have another UFO experience. Uh, I'm in a pretty deep non-dual meditative state
00:28:46.976 Speaker 1 after a child's birthday party. Only somebody with y- very young children could
00:28:50.736 Speaker 1 possibly understand why that would be necessary.
00:28:52.896 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
00:28:53.396 Speaker 1 It's like a four-hour party, and by the end, it's at an arcade. I'm just like, "I'm
00:28:58.916 Speaker 1 either gonna die or I'm gonna have to enter some sort of trance state here to
00:29:02.136 Speaker 1 survive." [chuckles] So I do, and I'm pretty deep in it. I don't have,
00:29:08.056 Speaker 1 like, complete ego dissolution, but I'm, I'm a field of awareness. And I decide-- We
00:29:12.636 Speaker 1 get home. I decide to go for a run, and I'm running, and I'm just, like, watching a
00:29:17.736 Speaker 1 person run. [chuckles] So, like, cool. Uh, I'm pretty out there. And then
00:29:23.816 Speaker 1 I look up. I have a feeling I'm going to see something on the way home. I'm in the
00:29:27.176 Speaker 1 passenger seat. My wife is driving. I get home, and I go for a run, and I look up
00:29:31.736 Speaker 1 over my house, and I see a four-foot-ish tall,
00:29:37.776 Speaker 1 uh, matte black kidney bean-shaped object floating in a straight line about a
00:29:42.836 Speaker 1 quarter of a mile behind my house, and it goes behind a tree line. It's just flight-
00:29:47.236 Speaker 1 floating in a straight line. Um, and of course, I see it. I'm pretty deep in. And I
00:29:52.976 Speaker 1 go, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." That's literally the thought that comes to my mind
00:29:56.476 Speaker 1 after having almost no thoughts for a while. I'm like, "Yeah, that makes sense." And
00:30:00.476 Speaker 1 then I start to get pulled out of that real quick, and I go, "Wait a minute. What
00:30:04.756 Speaker 1 the hell? No, no, no. [chuckles] What, what am I looking at?" Uh, that actually
00:30:10.596 Speaker 1 shouldn't exist, and I snap back to association pretty quickly, and then I start to
00:30:15.716 Speaker 1 panic. Like, I wanna go, like- Jump some fences and go, like, run at this thing
00:30:21.456 Speaker 1 'cause it's, like, in a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood behind us. I'm like, "I wanna
00:30:24.996 Speaker 1 go look at this." Um, it's got this, like, mother-of-pearl sheen on it, and it's
00:30:29.396 Speaker 1 floating in a, in a line. Like, this thing is not moving. Um, and then
00:30:35.476 Speaker 1 I start to get very scared. I'm like, "Oh, I can't do that." Like, if I go run and
00:30:40.156 Speaker 1 try to find this thing, like, nobody's gonna know if I, [chuckles] if I disappear.
00:30:45.016 Speaker 1 Literally nobody on this planet could help me if this goes wrong. Um, and but so
00:30:50.956 Speaker 1 that one really rocks my world because I know what I've seen, right? This isn't just
00:30:54.596 Speaker 1 some lights in the distance. Like, this is a physical appearing thing, right? Uh, I,
00:31:01.076 Speaker 1 and I know what I saw. I drew pictures immediately afterward. I tried to describe
00:31:04.916 Speaker 1 everything I could in my own journals, and that rocked my world, and I took a lot of
00:31:10.396 Speaker 1 these things much more seriously. And then, of course, after that, I do end up
00:31:16.056 Speaker 1 having two more UFO experiences, but that is when I start to have more personal and
00:31:21.556 Speaker 1 profound experiences that are not, like, in the sky or not happening outside of me,
00:31:27.276 Speaker 1 uh, but are definitely happening to me. It feels much more personal and directed, so
00:31:32.296 Speaker 1 I mean, we can get into that, but-
00:31:33.716 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm
00:31:33.796 Speaker 1 ... whatever you wanna get into.
00:31:34.956 Speaker 2 [chuckles] Uh, thank you for sharing that. I love the impulse that you
00:31:40.936 Speaker 2 had to run at the being, but then you're like, "Maybe I shouldn't." [chuckles]
00:31:44.576 Speaker 1 I... Actually, that's a bad idea. [chuckles]
00:31:47.096 Speaker 2 I don't know where this thing could take me or what this thing is. Yeah. [chuckles]
00:31:50.976 Speaker 1 Yeah. Who's gonna save me? [chuckles]
00:31:53.476 Speaker 2 I feel like I'm a similar kind of thing. Like, if I saw something, I'd be like,
00:31:56.456 Speaker 2 "Yes!" Like, "Finally." [chuckles]
00:31:59.476 Speaker 1 You think you'd be excited, but-
00:32:01.056 Speaker 2 Yeah
00:32:01.056 Speaker 1 ... when you're actually there-
00:32:02.596 Speaker 2 Mm
00:32:02.636 Speaker 1 ... and it's actually in front of you, you're like, "Holy shit."
00:32:07.196 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, ontological shock-
00:32:08.476 Speaker 1 I am-
00:32:08.516 Speaker 2 ... terror, yeah.
00:32:09.896 Speaker 1 I'm legitimately horrified.
00:32:12.096 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:32:12.336 Speaker 1 But I was also fascinated at the same time. I was really being-
00:32:15.116 Speaker 2 Yeah
00:32:15.116 Speaker 1 ... ripped apart there. [chuckles]
00:32:17.676 Speaker 2 Mm. Being ripped apart. [chuckles]
00:32:20.796 Speaker 1 [chuckles]
00:32:21.116 Speaker 2 Um, I, I like the phrase you used, UFOs were a gateway drug. I mean, you had an
00:32:26.796 Speaker 2 experience that shattered your reality. You know, you could've just been like, "Oh,
00:32:31.336 Speaker 2 that didn't really happen," or maybe it was not... I was seeing something or I
00:32:34.936 Speaker 2 wasn't in my right mind, which is maybe how a lot of people would write that off.
00:32:38.316 Speaker 2 But I think it happened because you were, you know, already doing all this inner
00:32:41.436 Speaker 2 work and meditation, and you're already on this process of experiencing paradigm
00:32:45.796 Speaker 2 shift. Um, and it kind of was like a, the experience that could, like, invite you
00:32:51.776 Speaker 2 into something deeper maybe. My own experience, um, encountering my, like, the
00:32:57.716 Speaker 2 chakras in my body, um, I had, like, a, what I understand to be a kundalini
00:33:02.576 Speaker 2 awakening, um, and energy experiences, big, really big energy
00:33:09.096 Speaker 2 state, energy body experiences-
00:33:11.596 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm
00:33:12.836 Speaker 2 ... um, in many psychedelic journeys, and outside of them too, that, uh, shatter-
00:33:17.696 Speaker 2 like, that were... I mean, like, similar to you, there were all these ruptures along
00:33:21.396 Speaker 2 the way, but that was a really big paradigm shift where I was like... I mean, I knew
00:33:25.556 Speaker 2 about them. I'd studied, like, meditation. I was fascinated with the siddhis when I
00:33:29.996 Speaker 2 was, uh, an undergrad and beginning to study Buddhism, you know, loving fantasy
00:33:35.796 Speaker 2 novels. I was like, "Oh, yogic superpowers." Like, "I'd love to have-"
00:33:39.116 Speaker 1 Yeah
00:33:39.216 Speaker 2 "... some of those." [chuckles] Um, but yeah, you know, it was like, it was
00:33:45.736 Speaker 2 finally an experience that happened to me that was, like, outside of the, you know,
00:33:49.556 Speaker 2 the, the paradigm I had been inhabiting, and it was just, like, really personal and
00:33:54.076 Speaker 2 intimate and real. And I don't know what I thought about. Like, these things exist
00:33:59.656 Speaker 2 on our peripheries. Like, everybody knows that people tell stories about UFOs or
00:34:05.596 Speaker 2 that there are people out there who claim to have had experiences with UFOs. Like,
00:34:09.816 Speaker 2 I, when we were growing up, you know, or, you know, in the m- mainstream culture,
00:34:14.236 Speaker 2 all of these traditions that talk about body energy, chakra, chi, prana, like
00:34:18.876 Speaker 2 kundalini, like all over the world. But somehow you're just kind of like, I don't
00:34:24.876 Speaker 2 know where, what I thought of it. I can't even relate to myself back then. Like,
00:34:28.896 Speaker 2 what did I think that was?
00:34:30.716 Speaker 1 Yeah.
00:34:31.216 Speaker 2 Until I had an experience and I was like, "Oh my God, the chakras are real."
00:34:34.976 Speaker 1 You have to. You have to experience it firsthand.
00:34:37.735 Speaker 2 Yeah.
00:34:37.776 Speaker 1 There's no replacement.
00:34:39.175 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:34:39.276 Speaker 1 You can't be told, and that is also a running theme here, is that you have to be
00:34:42.916 Speaker 1 shown. Being told is enough to get you to go, but you have to seek it out. This is
00:34:47.936 Speaker 1 so clear over and over again. You have to seek this out with your own curiosity,
00:34:51.716 Speaker 1 your own desire to do it firsthand. You have to struggle through it. You have to get
00:34:55.376 Speaker 1 shattered over and over again, and put your world back together, and you have to
00:34:59.036 Speaker 1 keep coming back for more, and then this whole world opens up to you.
00:35:03.716 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:35:03.936 Speaker 1 Um, and yeah, you don't have to start with UFOs. A- any... It's really a curiosity
00:35:09.516 Speaker 1 and a drive and openness, uh, to eventually accept what you have
00:35:15.036 Speaker 1 experienced and to make meaning of it, and then it will keep happening. That's what
00:35:19.996 Speaker 1 happened to me. So you described a sort of chakra experience. I'm, wasn't steeped
00:35:26.036 Speaker 1 in this world. Like, I didn't know what that was. Uh, I started to have
00:35:31.556 Speaker 1 experiences like that late 2024. I was doing a
00:35:37.416 Speaker 1 meditation. It was a long one. It went about two hours, and I was seeing, like,
00:35:43.536 Speaker 1 visuals. Like, it looked like music visuals, like, uh, uh, visualizations you might
00:35:49.436 Speaker 1 expect, looking through, like, tunnels of various geometric colored shapes. I was
00:35:54.016 Speaker 1 seeing it in my visual field with my eyes closed. Like, it was there. It wasn't
00:35:57.616 Speaker 1 super bright, but I could see it. There was all sorts of symbols. And then I felt a
00:36:03.076 Speaker 1 burning sensation in my chest, like it was a bonfire in there. And when I was done,
00:36:08.216 Speaker 1 and it was still going, and then I was starting to get worried. Like, after I was
00:36:12.696 Speaker 1 feeling better than I'd ever felt before. Uh, but at the same time, um, I was
00:36:18.696 Speaker 1 like, "Why is there, like, literal fire and heat in my chest? Like, what is
00:36:22.936 Speaker 1 happening?" And so I had to go learn about these things afterward. But for me, that
00:36:27.624 Speaker 1 was also very validating because it's not like I imagined it. I didn't know what
00:36:31.544 Speaker 1 this was. I had no idea what I was experiencing. It was just happening to me. Like,
00:36:36.644 Speaker 1 I just stumbled into it. And so I had to make sense of events like that. Like, "Oh,
00:36:41.004 Speaker 1 okay. I guess inner... this energy stuff is a thing. I always thought it was made up
00:36:46.024 Speaker 1 and stupid."
00:36:46.844 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
00:36:46.964 Speaker 1 Uh, but, uh, I am absolutely feeling this and various other things. Like, this is
00:36:52.704 Speaker 1 definitely happening. Like somatically, I can feel it. This isn't just imagination.
00:36:57.244 Speaker 1 Like, this is bordering on pain, it's so strong.
00:37:01.224 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:37:01.244 Speaker 1 Like, I... [chuckles] Okay, something's going on. I gotta go figure this out, which
00:37:05.784 Speaker 1 of course leads to the next domino, right? The... And these events just keep
00:37:10.224 Speaker 1 happening. I'm waking up in the middle of the night. I'm having profoundly vivid and
00:37:16.244 Speaker 1 strange dreams. I'm waking up in the middle of conversations. I didn't get the first
00:37:20.644 Speaker 1 part of the conversation, but I see myself talking. Or I'm waking up, like, in a
00:37:24.664 Speaker 1 liminal state, and my thoughts are going. I'm well aware of, like, my thoughts are
00:37:29.344 Speaker 1 not always my own. Some are more mine, less mine. It's like a spectrum. And I'm
00:37:33.884 Speaker 1 talking. I'm watching myself talk, and I'm slowly waking up. I'm like, "Who the hell
00:37:38.264 Speaker 1 am I talking to? What is happening? [chuckles] Who am I talking to?"
00:37:42.244 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
00:37:42.464 Speaker 1 These things keep happening. I have nightmares that feel extremely vivid, and
00:37:48.524 Speaker 1 there's, like, something there. I feel this instinctive, like, terror, sense that,
00:37:53.684 Speaker 1 "Oh, no, that... This is, like, happening." Like, I'm in a dream, but I'm not alone
00:37:58.224 Speaker 1 in my dream. There's some- somebody or something else in my dream. Or I would wake
00:38:03.104 Speaker 1 up, and I would feel the sense of a presence. Or deep in meditation, I started to
00:38:07.944 Speaker 1 get thoughts that did not feel like my own. And I can say that because when
00:38:13.984 Speaker 1 you've been meditating for 45 minutes and you haven't had a thought in 20 minutes,
00:38:17.424 Speaker 1 and it is just still as the ocean, you're just like, "Yeah." [chuckles]
00:38:22.524 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:38:22.624 Speaker 1 And then you get a thought like, "Why do you come in here?" That was one of the ones
00:38:28.044 Speaker 1 I wrote down. It's from one of the first verbal thoughts I got. I was like, "Why do
00:38:31.104 Speaker 1 you come in here?" Like, 'cause I meditate in a closet. [chuckles] And like, it was
00:38:34.844 Speaker 1 loud. That is jarring. When you're just... You're not trying to make anything
00:38:38.924 Speaker 1 happen. There's nothing on your mind. You're just still as the ocean, but just like,
00:38:42.364 Speaker 1 "Hey, why do you come in here?" What, what's going on? [chuckles] Where did that
00:38:45.844 Speaker 1 come from? Um-
00:38:47.684 Speaker 2 Are you hearing this, like, audibly?
00:38:50.364 Speaker 1 That one was a verbal thought. I do get clear audience
00:38:56.144 Speaker 1 sometimes, which is a sense of sound.
00:38:59.064 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:38:59.164 Speaker 1 It doesn't usually have a source, but it is heard in the same way that you hear
00:39:02.604 Speaker 1 sounds. It just sounds like it's coming from everywhere. If you were to play a sound
00:39:06.584 Speaker 1 through headphones, and it's the same in both speakers, it's kinda like that. I do
00:39:10.524 Speaker 1 get those sometimes. They're not as common. It's mostly verbal thoughts. But it was
00:39:15.224 Speaker 1 the out of context nature of the thought that was like, I absolutely did not make
00:39:21.144 Speaker 1 that happen. Wherever it comes from, however you wanna claim the, the cognitive
00:39:25.764 Speaker 1 science of it, this was directed. It was inserted into my head, [chuckles] and I
00:39:31.564 Speaker 1 start to get those. At first, during meditation, um, and usually it's, like,
00:39:37.904 Speaker 1 helpful. [chuckles] Um, I went through my old journals, and, like, I start to go
00:39:41.724 Speaker 1 through these. Like, what are they saying? It's like advice. You cannot give to
00:39:45.424 Speaker 1 others what you deny yourself, right? Just hear that thought. I'm staring at a fire.
00:39:50.324 Speaker 1 I'm, like, super, like, uh, dissociated. Then I hear, "You are the fire. You're the
00:39:55.484 Speaker 1 same thing." [chuckles] Like, just comes out of nowhere. So that starts to happen.
00:40:00.344 Speaker 1 And then I start to get out of context emotions. As in, I'm feeling an emotion that
00:40:06.364 Speaker 1 is completely dissimilar to what I'm doing. I'm just chilling, just, like, walking
00:40:10.224 Speaker 1 around, doing chores, and I feel, like, a profound, like, sadness or longing or,
00:40:15.764 Speaker 1 like, curiosity, and the impression of, like, a smile or that somebody's watching
00:40:20.524 Speaker 1 me. It's like, "What the hell is happening to me?" [chuckles] Where-
00:40:24.884 Speaker 2 Mm
00:40:24.884 Speaker 1 ... is this coming from? Like, there's somebody there. There's nobody physically
00:40:29.964 Speaker 1 present, right? And so that starts to happen more, uh, and more. And,
00:40:35.864 Speaker 1 um, I have to start taking it seriously because, I mean, it's scary.
00:40:40.963 Speaker 1 [chuckles] I don't know what else to put that. Like, it's, um, it's frightening, uh,
00:40:46.464 Speaker 1 because I have no model for this. I don't come from any sort of background. None of
00:40:50.964 Speaker 1 my friends talk about this, none of my family. This is not normal. I've got some
00:40:55.424 Speaker 1 pretty, like, watered down, uh, modern Christian, like, parents. But for the most
00:41:01.264 Speaker 1 part, [chuckles] they don't even go to church. Like, uh, I have no grounding. I have
00:41:05.064 Speaker 1 no idea what's happening to me. Uh, and that's the, the sort of stage I'm in. I
00:41:10.064 Speaker 1 don't know, starting a year or so ago, I guess, is when this starts to happen. But
00:41:13.784 Speaker 1 I, I'm pushing it away, right? I'm not... This is not good. Like, [chuckles] you
00:41:18.344 Speaker 1 can't... Everyone talks to themselves. This is not how talking to myself feels. And
00:41:23.904 Speaker 1 I already have a pretty fractured and chaotic mind on a regular basis, but this is
00:41:27.984 Speaker 1 new. Right? This is not how I normally experience things.
00:41:33.224 Speaker 2 Yeah. That's... I mean, what comes to mind is, like, how our culture would make
00:41:37.824 Speaker 2 sense of those experiences would probably say schizophrenia,
00:41:43.884 Speaker 2 right? Hearing voices in your head, seeing things that aren't there, things like
00:41:48.824 Speaker 2 that, versus there's another way of understanding it as spiritual emergence,
00:41:54.904 Speaker 2 the shattering of a paradigm emerging into a greater reality, a broader
00:42:01.064 Speaker 2 universe where weird shit happens. Like, it's like the weirdness, the strangeness-
00:42:05.944 Speaker 1 Yeah
00:42:06.004 Speaker 2 ... you know? And, um, I'm curious, like, how do you remain grounded as all of
00:42:11.124 Speaker 2 these, uh, anomalous things begin happening to you? How do you not lose yourself in
00:42:15.944 Speaker 2 them?
00:42:17.584 Speaker 1 I'd struggled profoundly with a chaotic mind and lack of self-control, uh, emotional
00:42:23.204 Speaker 1 instability my entire life. Like, I'd, I had learned how to Frankly, to not trust
00:42:29.096 Speaker 1 myself but still rely on myself. I'd learned that I couldn't, right? I already had
00:42:33.916 Speaker 1 that humility. Like, I already knew what it was like to fall apart over and over
00:42:38.596 Speaker 1 again and put yourself back together because you gotta go to work next week, right?
00:42:41.676 Speaker 1 It doesn't matter that you have literally zero motivation for no reason. It doesn't
00:42:45.556 Speaker 1 matter that you're incredibly depressed with no apparent cause. Uh, you gotta get it
00:42:49.736 Speaker 1 together, right? You [chuckles] just gotta get it together. I had already learned,
00:42:53.016 Speaker 1 like, how to, like, control myself and a level of humility,
00:42:58.776 Speaker 1 [chuckles] put it that way. And those tools really came in- and I'd been meditating
00:43:03.096 Speaker 1 at this point for years, so I knew how to sort of take an observer perspective. I
00:43:07.756 Speaker 1 knew how to step back and to be okay. So I had these things to fall back on,
00:43:13.676 Speaker 1 and I really needed every single one of those tools. And ultimately, I wanted to
00:43:19.276 Speaker 1 know what was true. And although I've mentioned some scary things, most of the
00:43:23.816 Speaker 1 experiences, even now and especially now, more so, were very loving and, like,
00:43:30.076 Speaker 1 strange, but not bad, right? [chuckles] And so it's not like
00:43:36.676 Speaker 1 it was getting worse, like it was a, like a haunting movie or like, [chuckles] you
00:43:40.996 Speaker 1 know? Where things just continue to get worse. Um, it was getting magnified, but it
00:43:46.136 Speaker 1 wasn't bad. And, and so that, that helped a lot as well. And I wanted to know.
00:43:52.076 Speaker 1 Ultimately, I couldn't rest because I, I needed to know. And of course, I ruled
00:43:57.396 Speaker 1 everything out. You know, I, I seek psychiatric help. I, I obsessively research on
00:44:02.716 Speaker 1 my own. It doesn't fit any of these models. Like, I go through it. I'm reading
00:44:06.856 Speaker 1 books. Like, [chuckles] I'm doing everything.
00:44:08.776 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:44:08.916 Speaker 1 And I'm being honest because I want it... At this point, I'm like, "I would love for
00:44:12.996 Speaker 1 this to be insanity. That would be great." [chuckles] That would be way easier. Give
00:44:16.836 Speaker 1 me the label, so I'm all for it.
00:44:18.396 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:44:18.556 Speaker 1 But none of them fit, and no one would diagnose me with that because it didn't fit.
00:44:22.716 Speaker 1 It's like, "You're good." Like, "Dude, just don't worry about it." Like, "Pursue
00:44:26.436 Speaker 1 this." Uh, a very enlightened psychiatrist is like, "The worst thing you could do is
00:44:30.636 Speaker 1 suppress this. You need to go-
00:44:32.996 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:44:32.996 Speaker 1 "You need to go see this through and check it out. And as long as you're not hurting
00:44:35.436 Speaker 1 anyone or you don't feel like you're in any danger or, like, you can function,
00:44:39.396 Speaker 1 you're... And it feels good and not bad, go. Like, go explore this. You need to find
00:44:45.016 Speaker 1 out who you are and what's happening to you. I'm not here to tell you what's not
00:44:48.476 Speaker 1 true. I'm here to tell you that you're not crazy in the ways that we have learned to
00:44:52.936 Speaker 1 call, like, DSM-5 labels. You don't have any of these, or to the degree you do,
00:44:57.316 Speaker 1 you're not dysfunctional. It's not that. I'm not here to tell you what's true. You
00:45:01.296 Speaker 1 go figure that out on your own." [chuckles] Like, oh, cool. Pretty good
00:45:04.756 Speaker 1 psychiatrist. Um, so I do. And I start learning other
00:45:10.576 Speaker 1 skills, um, like telekinesis. Uh, you can move things around, and
00:45:16.536 Speaker 1 that profoundly changes [chuckles] your whole world when you learn how to do that.
00:45:20.396 Speaker 1 It took me a long time. I stared at a piece of tinfoil sitting on a needle, commonly
00:45:24.696 Speaker 1 called a psi wheel, and it has very little friction, so it spins very easily. It's
00:45:29.376 Speaker 1 just a piece of little tent of aluminum foil over a needle stuck into, like, a
00:45:32.676 Speaker 1 sponge or eraser.
00:45:34.036 Speaker 2 Hmm.
00:45:34.296 Speaker 1 It's got very little friction. That thing will turn easily. Basically a pinwheel.
00:45:38.176 Speaker 1 And, um, you can use that to train, right? The goal is to move. [chuckles] Just
00:45:43.416 Speaker 1 however you do it. I stared at that thing for 30 hours. Like, I read a book on
00:45:47.296 Speaker 1 telekinesis. I'm like, I was on board for an idealistic universe at this point.
00:45:51.376 Speaker 1 Like, I mean, what else could explain all this crazy stuff? And, um-
00:45:55.916 Speaker 2 Could you pause just for a second and explain what idealistic universe means?
00:45:59.076 Speaker 1 [chuckles] Sure. Uh, that, um, matter is not fundamental.
00:46:05.176 Speaker 1 It is ideas and non-physical concepts, energy, consciousness is fundamental.
00:46:11.316 Speaker 1 It is consciousness and the things in its contents. Doesn't mean there's not rules,
00:46:16.716 Speaker 1 uh, but that nothing is off-limits, basically. It's imagination, right? There is no
00:46:21.956 Speaker 1 real line between imagination and material reality. It's mostly a matter of patience
00:46:27.036 Speaker 1 and preference. But eventually, those two always converge.
00:46:30.296 Speaker 2 Hmm.
00:46:30.676 Speaker 1 Uh, it's more like a spectrum. Uh, so you have to take my word for it for now, but
00:46:35.936 Speaker 1 that's my view of reality. But yeah, once you've... After about 30 hours, I got that
00:46:41.516 Speaker 1 thing to move without touching it, and, um, I recorded it, and I cried because I...
00:46:47.296 Speaker 1 You know, it was so validating, right? You can have these crazy experiences, but it
00:46:51.876 Speaker 1 wasn't you doing it, right? It felt like things that were happening to me. This was,
00:46:55.616 Speaker 1 like, the first time that, like, "Oh, I can use this." Like, this is not only real,
00:46:59.476 Speaker 1 but, like, I can do something. I'm not just a helpless victim. Like, I can
00:47:03.796 Speaker 1 participate. Uh, this is, I can do stuff. So I got better at that, and I start to
00:47:09.176 Speaker 1 get into remote viewing, and I start to use that as a way of exploring reality as
00:47:13.236 Speaker 1 well. And I've been practicing that almost daily for more than a year now. And then
00:47:18.356 Speaker 1 I, as you well know, I learned other skills. I go, I start learning about these
00:47:22.616 Speaker 1 things like, "Well, that's probably true, so let's go find out." Sure enough, it is.
00:47:25.976 Speaker 1 Cool. So I go learn mindsight, the ability to see without eyes. I can do that. The
00:47:31.236 Speaker 1 viewers will have to take my word for it. I don't mind demoing it if you want me to,
00:47:34.356 Speaker 1 but, um, that's not really the point. You can do this stuff. And I began to take
00:47:39.116 Speaker 1 very seriously its intention. It's all just intention and energy and consciousness.
00:47:44.656 Speaker 1 Yes, there are rules, and there's a lot of us on this rock, and of course, there are
00:47:48.056 Speaker 1 structures and patterns and friction. There are sort of metaphysical rules, but all
00:47:52.636 Speaker 1 of them are soft rules. Nothing is fundamental. It's all just like, um, has inertia
00:47:57.876 Speaker 1 to it. But ultimately, if you will hard enough, like, you can change the rules. Um,
00:48:03.916 Speaker 1 otherwise, senses like mindsight don't make sense. You can't see without eyeballs.
00:48:07.536 Speaker 1 It doesn't make sense. I can close my eyes, put on a blindfold, and see like I have
00:48:11.516 Speaker 1 eyes. And that, once you can do that, your whole world changes. As I do these
00:48:16.876 Speaker 1 things, it's like stairsteps. The experiences that are coming back to me, it's like
00:48:21.156 Speaker 1 I have a doorbell and a mailbox now and a front door, and I have a c- a cell phone
00:48:25.696 Speaker 1 for the first time into the spiritual world, and they're like, "Hey, what's up? Hey,
00:48:29.836 Speaker 1 you can talk now. You can see things. You can touch things. You can interact. What's
00:48:33.736 Speaker 1 up, man? You wanna, you wanna talk?" And that starts to scare the hell out of me as,
00:48:38.564 Speaker 1 uh, I guess that's really sort of the next leg of the journey is not only can I do
00:48:42.424 Speaker 1 things, and I kind of understand some of how reality works, now it's reaching back
00:48:48.204 Speaker 1 to me.
00:48:49.024 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:48:49.264 Speaker 1 "Hey, [chuckles] what's up? Looks like you kinda see what's going on now. You wanna
00:48:54.264 Speaker 1 talk?" And, um, that's more or less the stage I'm in now.
00:49:00.564 Speaker 2 I met you in this class last fall, and, uh, during the class, you went
00:49:06.504 Speaker 2 on this Mindsight training, and you were giving updates in the class feed about,
00:49:13.044 Speaker 2 uh, the training and then afterwards. Um, I just, I just, like, love
00:49:19.724 Speaker 2 hearing about your willingness and your capacity to explore and,
00:49:25.704 Speaker 2 like, the focus you bring into all of these ways that you've learned to train your
00:49:31.204 Speaker 2 mind, your consciousness, um, and just your, yeah, your openness to, like, try it,
00:49:36.864 Speaker 2 you know? Like, uh, [chuckles] to... You like feel like, "Well, let's see if
00:49:39.763 Speaker 2 telekinesis is real. I'm gonna invest 30 hours in trying," you know? [chuckles] And
00:49:44.824 Speaker 2 how amazing that finally you got that little piece of aluminum foil to move.
00:49:49.544 Speaker 1 Yeah. [chuckles]
00:49:50.564 Speaker 2 And I've s- I, I, I don't have a... I'm, I'm not gonna share a video, but I've seen
00:49:55.984 Speaker 2 Steven do a, um, demo of his Mindsight's, uh, abilities,
00:50:02.004 Speaker 2 and pretty, pretty incredible to see it firsthand. Like, I've heard about people
00:50:06.544 Speaker 2 having these skills, and Steven's told me himself about that, but... Or you've told
00:50:10.444 Speaker 2 me yourself about that. But when I saw it firsthand, it did something to me.
00:50:16.644 Speaker 1 It's real, man.
00:50:17.664 Speaker 2 Yeah.
00:50:17.884 Speaker 1 Just imagine how it feels doing it. You don't have to. Like, you can do it. Anyone
00:50:21.284 Speaker 1 can do it. Like, that's... This story is not really my story so much it is, it's a
00:50:25.964 Speaker 1 template. You know? It's a blueprint for one way to do all this yourself. Like, it's
00:50:30.824 Speaker 1 not unique to me. Anyone can do it. I just was obsessively curious, and I had to
00:50:36.024 Speaker 1 make sense of my world, and it kept not making sense. And [chuckles] I kept having
00:50:40.264 Speaker 1 to figuring it out, and I was... More things kept being true, and I didn't like it.
00:50:45.524 Speaker 2 Yeah.
00:50:45.604 Speaker 1 A lot of this, it sounds very happy, this journey, but this was really an obsessive-
00:50:51.204 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:50:51.284 Speaker 1 I had the sort of meditation, yoga practices to fall back on. Like, I'm
00:50:57.024 Speaker 1 unconditionally okay, but sometimes only barely. Like, my whole world doesn't make
00:51:01.844 Speaker 1 sense anymore. Like, I don't-
00:51:03.364 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm
00:51:03.604 Speaker 1 ... know what to do with this. I keep... [chuckles] I go, "How do I walk around
00:51:07.444 Speaker 1 after realizing
00:51:09.804 Speaker 1 stuff's all made up, man?" Like, this is... I mean, it's real, but this is just a
00:51:14.324 Speaker 1 projection. Like, this is... I'm not this body. I'm not this person. Just sort of a
00:51:19.724 Speaker 1 field of consciousness. We all are. It's, we're kinda making a lot of this stuff up,
00:51:24.284 Speaker 1 stuff up as we go. None of these things are fundamentally real, but I know. I can
00:51:28.924 Speaker 1 just close my eyes and, and know. [chuckles]
00:51:32.164 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:51:32.204 Speaker 1 Okay. [chuckles] Yeah, that's still a thing. Uh, cool. I can still... I was able to
00:51:37.504 Speaker 1 see out both the back of my head for a little while. I stopped training that one
00:51:41.044 Speaker 1 because it's very distracting.
00:51:42.284 Speaker 2 I like when you were telling me, telling our group about, um, zooming in on the sun.
00:51:46.284 Speaker 2 You wanna share that story?
00:51:46.964 Speaker 1 Yeah.
00:51:47.584 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
00:51:48.484 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, so that one gets weirder, but, uh, I'll leave that part out. But I was
00:51:53.564 Speaker 1 just sitting there. Uh, I wanted to see... Just having fun. Like, a lot of this is
00:51:58.384 Speaker 1 play for me now because, yeah, it's cool. Uh, I'm like, "I wonder what water looks
00:52:02.244 Speaker 1 like, [chuckles] now if I just close my eyes." Um, 'cause the cameras sort of come
00:52:07.184 Speaker 1 out from where my eyes are. Um, but I s- see through my eyelids as if they're not
00:52:11.764 Speaker 1 there. And, um, I like, "Oh, I'll just pour water on my face." And I was laughing
00:52:17.824 Speaker 1 'cause it was so cool. Normally, water isn't in focus 'cause it's on your eyes. And
00:52:22.284 Speaker 1 I could see it. It's like you're pouring water on the other side of a piece of
00:52:24.804 Speaker 1 glass. That's what it looks like.
00:52:25.864 Speaker 2 Huh.
00:52:25.904 Speaker 1 And I was laughing. I thought it was hilarious.
00:52:27.844 Speaker 2 Wow.
00:52:27.924 Speaker 1 And I'm like, "What else can I do?" So I go to sit down and read a book, and I'm
00:52:30.884 Speaker 1 like, "Oh, I'll read this book without my eyeballs." Um, so I start doing it, and
00:52:34.804 Speaker 1 I'm like, the sun is in my eyes. My fake eyes. [chuckles] Like, it's still bright by
00:52:40.664 Speaker 1 contrast. Like, it's funny how much carries over. Like, you're still using parts of
00:52:44.324 Speaker 1 your brain's visual system, of course. I don't know how it gets there. I don't know.
00:52:48.424 Speaker 1 Don't ask me. It just does. Um, it's too bright by contrast. It's really hard to
00:52:53.583 Speaker 1 read the book. I'm like, "What is this?" Like, coming in through the window on my
00:52:57.044 Speaker 1 couch. And I'm like, "But you know what? I can just look at the sun. [chuckles] Why
00:53:02.824 Speaker 1 have I never thought of this?" So I do. I, I stare at the sun, and I can start to
00:53:07.064 Speaker 1 see sunspots.
00:53:07.364 Speaker 2 With your eyes closed. You stare at the sun with your eyes-
00:53:08.744 Speaker 1 Eyes cl- yeah. Don't ever-
00:53:09.704 Speaker 2 Yes
00:53:10.024 Speaker 1 ... uh, don't do it with your eyes open.
00:53:11.284 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
00:53:11.324 Speaker 1 You'll fry your eyeballs. Um, like-
00:53:13.044 Speaker 2 Don't stare at the sun unless you have Mindsight, guys. [chuckles]
00:53:16.004 Speaker 1 Or, or those special glasses or whatever, right?
00:53:17.764 Speaker 2 Oh, okay. Yeah.
00:53:19.064 Speaker 1 But I'm like, "Holy crap, I'm looking at the sun. Like, look, I can see the little
00:53:22.744 Speaker 1 tiny sunspots on it."
00:53:23.804 Speaker 2 Mm.
00:53:23.824 Speaker 1 Like, this is so cool. And like, I wonder if I can zoom in on the sun. So I do this,
00:53:28.524 Speaker 1 and as I'm doing it, I get, like, this parallax, like second image, like kind of
00:53:33.384 Speaker 1 like a lens flare over the first image. I'm like, "Ah, what is this thing?" I start
00:53:38.064 Speaker 1 panning around, and I can see, like, little black spots, and I can move to the edge,
00:53:42.084 Speaker 1 and it looks like it's a ball with, like, fire at the edge of it. And I'm like,
00:53:46.784 Speaker 1 "Holy crap. Am I, like, [chuckles] staring at the sun, man? What's going on?"
00:53:53.104 Speaker 1 And like, it's just intention. Um, was I? I, I don't know. I
00:53:59.064 Speaker 1 don't... I couldn't tell you, but it's, I have an openness to exploring it. Um, it
00:54:04.124 Speaker 1 correlates, uh, [chuckles] with the sun. I mean, how much crazier is it to say you
00:54:08.944 Speaker 1 can't zoom in? It's already not real photons. Well, it- it's already not hitting
00:54:12.464 Speaker 1 your eyes and turning into electrical-
00:54:14.324 Speaker 2 Right
00:54:14.464 Speaker 1 ... chemical signals. Why not? How is it crazier to say you can't zoom in? Like,
00:54:18.284 Speaker 1 that's-
00:54:18.524 Speaker 2 Yeah.
00:54:18.784 Speaker 1 [chuckles] We're already categorically insane. You may as well explore.
00:54:21.004 Speaker 2 The other crazy thing I thought when you told me that story was that then you pulled
00:54:24.244 Speaker 2 up the image of the sun 'cause you had made a drawing.
00:54:27.564 Speaker 1 Yeah, I did. I, I tried to draw where the sunspots were, and it correlated-
00:54:30.724 Speaker 2 Right
00:54:30.724 Speaker 1 ... with the solar activity, uh, on that day at that time from my location in the
00:54:34.724 Speaker 1 world. Uh, I will say that since then, um, I, I think I'm also
00:54:40.484 Speaker 1 looking at artifacts in my cornea. It's very con- this... There's no
00:54:46.348 Speaker 1 instruction manual for this. Like [chuckles] the, the number of people that can do
00:54:49.688 Speaker 1 real-time mindsight is still only in the hundreds for the world. Uh, maybe a little
00:54:53.608 Speaker 1 above a thousand now. It's growing. Uh, but we need people to explore this. Nobody
00:54:58.248 Speaker 1 knows how it works or what it means. Um, so was I? I don't know. Was I looking at my
00:55:02.668 Speaker 1 own, like, parts of my eye? I can see my own eyelashes. I learned that two days ago.
00:55:08.028 Speaker 1 I'm like, "What are these, like, bright lines coming out of everything when I look
00:55:10.628 Speaker 1 at them?" And it took me forever. I'd never been able to figure it out. And I
00:55:14.188 Speaker 1 touched my eyelashes, and then I saw them move, and I just started laughing.
00:55:17.648 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
00:55:17.868 Speaker 1 Like, I'm staring at my own eyelashes. Like, you don't normally get to do that. So
00:55:22.348 Speaker 1 was it something more mundane? How's that mundane? I don't know. [chuckles]
00:55:26.528 Speaker 2 What happens when you go to sleep? Can you turn it off?
00:55:30.568 Speaker 1 I can just turn it on by intention, so I can, I can already see. Or I'll tap the
00:55:33.968 Speaker 1 side of my head to signal that I want to turn it on. It's just a trained thing. Um,
00:55:38.388 Speaker 1 and then when I wanna turn it off, I just do like this. But yeah, sometimes it, it
00:55:43.508 Speaker 1 will turn on with my eyes closed.
00:55:46.288 Speaker 2 Yeah.
00:55:46.608 Speaker 1 Most people train with an eye- with a blindfold because they don't want the, the cue
00:55:51.548 Speaker 1 to close their eyes and see through their eyelids-
00:55:53.208 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm
00:55:53.248 Speaker 1 ... 'cause that freaks them out. But I'm lazy and adventurous, so [chuckles] this
00:55:58.408 Speaker 1 is, this is how I choose to do it. But yeah, sometimes it does turn on at night, or
00:56:01.988 Speaker 1 I'll wake up in the middle of the night.
00:56:02.308 Speaker 2 God, I feel like we're living in a sci-fi novel right now. [chuckles]
00:56:05.488 Speaker 1 You're telling me, buddy. We didn't even get to the craziest parts. [chuckles]
00:56:09.128 Speaker 2 Oh, man. Well, you've talked, shared about, like, this relationship you've
00:56:12.748 Speaker 2 cultivated with your double. You wanna say something about that?
00:56:19.148 Speaker 2 Or where, where do you feel like the next, the next place you wanna go on your
00:56:22.428 Speaker 2 story?
00:56:24.428 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll go to the next events, which are probably starting
00:56:28.108 Speaker 1 November, December last year. Uh, maybe a little before that. When we're in the
00:56:32.228 Speaker 1 Techniques of Transcendence course, um, Darren King, you and I are in that course,
00:56:36.348 Speaker 1 things really start to pick up, especially the telepathy, and it feels very
00:56:40.128 Speaker 1 intrusive. Like, I am getting thoughts and feelings that are not mine. They are,
00:56:44.908 Speaker 1 [chuckles] they are... They don't make any sense. They're completely out of step,
00:56:49.408 Speaker 1 and it's a person. Uh, and later I'll discover it's more than one. You know,
00:56:55.548 Speaker 1 just take me at my word. This is what I experienced. I'm not telling anyone what,
00:56:58.328 Speaker 1 what is true, but this is what's happening to me, right? Uh, so it doesn't stop. I
00:57:02.248 Speaker 1 can't rule it out. I can't make it stop. Like, normally you can make your thoughts
00:57:06.128 Speaker 1 stop. I know how to meditate. Nothing stops it. Like, it's just... [chuckles] And
00:57:10.988 Speaker 1 the more, uh, this goes, it starts to pick up, especially as I start to do, uh, a
00:57:15.488 Speaker 1 lot of the stuff in that course. Uh, which is again, mostly personal development,
00:57:20.028 Speaker 1 removing distortions, trying to see the world as it is, letting go of judgment. It
00:57:24.048 Speaker 1 doesn't seem like those things should give you more extrasensory perception, uh, but
00:57:29.568 Speaker 1 it does. Uh, that is what gives you [chuckles] extrasensory perception. Um, they're
00:57:34.528 Speaker 1 the same thing somehow. They're tied together. And the desire to know, right? You
00:57:39.248 Speaker 1 have to be curious and want to know on some level, which I did. So these things
00:57:43.088 Speaker 1 start reaching into my life or people, right? Um, and I don't know what to do with
00:57:47.588 Speaker 1 it. It's waking state, or I'll wake up, uh, in the middle of the night, um, in the
00:57:52.748 Speaker 1 middle of a conversation, or I'm having a dream, and it starts... I realize I'm, I
00:57:56.728 Speaker 1 become lucid, and it's like a quiz. Somebody's grilling me with questions. "What
00:58:00.368 Speaker 1 does that mean to you?" Like, they're training my discernment. "Why did that scare
00:58:03.968 Speaker 1 you? What did you think about that? How do you know?" And then I go, "Wait, what the
00:58:07.468 Speaker 1 hell? Who are you?" Like, I had been... Like, I was being puppeted, like, through
00:58:11.548 Speaker 1 conversa- or it's just like sort of, like, in a malleable state until I became
00:58:16.528 Speaker 1 lucid, and then I start to panic. And then it's like I can feel the emotion, like an
00:58:20.408 Speaker 1 eye roll, like, "Ah, guess he's awake. All right. Ugh. Party's over. All right,
00:58:23.808 Speaker 1 everyone go home." That happens. It keeps happening. And I'm like, [chuckles] "Wait,
00:58:28.108 Speaker 1 where, who are you? What's going on?" And then it's in waking state, not just
00:58:31.948 Speaker 1 meditative state. Traditionally, it's like when my mind is wandering. I'm going for
00:58:35.988 Speaker 1 a run. I'm doing chores. Sitting in the hammock. "Hey, what's up?"
00:58:41.468 Speaker 1 [chuckles] So stuff like that. And I'm like... Or I feel a strong emotion, and it's,
00:58:46.888 Speaker 1 like, completely out of tune with what I am. It's somebody, like, wants to reach out
00:58:52.888 Speaker 1 to me, or they wanna talk to me, and I keep pushing them away. Like, naturally as
00:58:57.348 Speaker 1 somebody [chuckles] I'm worried I'm going crazy. Um, and I can't figure out what's
00:59:02.308 Speaker 1 wrong with me. I'm treating it that way. And every time I push them away, it
00:59:06.568 Speaker 1 makes... I feel this intense, like, sadness, like a betrayal, like, uh, they're
00:59:11.248 Speaker 1 hurt. Like, they feel rejected. Uh, and but I don't feel that way. I'm like, "Ugh,
00:59:16.488 Speaker 1 go away. What is this? These aren't real thoughts. You're not real." And then I just
00:59:20.108 Speaker 1 feel this pain, like, "You jerk." Or, or just, like, "I feel sad that you've
00:59:25.948 Speaker 1 pushed me away. Like, I'm trying to talk to you." And you can only do that so many
00:59:30.368 Speaker 1 times before you're like, "Man, I feel like if this is, there's any truth to this,
00:59:34.468 Speaker 1 like, I feel like the asshole."
00:59:36.128 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
00:59:36.268 Speaker 1 [chuckles] Like, I've already accepted that things are pretty much idealistic. Like,
00:59:40.308 Speaker 1 I'm not in my body. I'm something beyond it. Uh, I couldn't tell you what that was
00:59:44.688 Speaker 1 at that time. Why not? Why couldn't there be non-physical things? And of course,
00:59:50.088 Speaker 1 this is when they would start reaching out. Like, you've done the groundwork. You
00:59:52.948 Speaker 1 have the abilities. You've got enough world models that, like, I'm not gonna just
00:59:58.068 Speaker 1 have a psychotic break right away pushing me to the edge here. So I start to take it
01:00:02.788 Speaker 1 seriously, and the more I try to engage with it... But it's like a pretense. Uh, I'm
01:00:06.848 Speaker 1 gonna pretend to have a conversation in my head. I'll just act like it's just me.
01:00:11.148 Speaker 1 And the more I do, and the more I entertain it, the more real it becomes. Um, and
01:00:17.848 Speaker 1 that's pretty crazy. And then the experiences at night and meditation, they don't
01:00:22.548 Speaker 1 stop, uh, as you well know. So these are, like, a recurring cast of characters.
01:00:28.848 Speaker 1 And I, I wanna know at some point. I... A lot of this is intuitive. Like, I just
01:00:32.968 Speaker 1 have feelings that important things are happening or what it means. Like, intuition
01:00:36.808 Speaker 1 is starting to go off the charts because I'm leaning into it, and I just have a
01:00:40.868 Speaker 1 feeling that I know these people. I know them.
01:00:43.508 Speaker 2 Mm.
01:00:43.668 Speaker 1 I already have feelings about them, but I can't remember them. It's very difficult
01:00:47.660 Speaker 1 to describe how jarring that is. Like, "Oh, yeah, I know who you are." Like, I could
01:00:50.900 Speaker 1 tell you a whole- exactly how I feel about you, what our relationship is like. I
01:00:55.120 Speaker 1 don't have any memories. I don't have, like, a lot of knowledge. I just have a felt
01:00:58.860 Speaker 1 sense of who they are, and it's familiar. That's very jarring. Um, and then I start
01:01:04.380 Speaker 1 to have liminal experiences, so waking up or falling asleep, that are extremely
01:01:09.480 Speaker 1 vivid. So not only do I see symbols and stuff in the visual field, this is not
01:01:13.980 Speaker 1 imaginary. I get those, too, the imaginary field also, the imagined visuals. But
01:01:18.839 Speaker 1 like-
01:01:19.040 Speaker 2 Hmm
01:01:19.380 Speaker 1 ... close your eyes and, like, if, as if, like, you could see... You know, stare at
01:01:22.580 Speaker 1 something, you see an after image, and it's painted in the blackness. I see stuff
01:01:25.920 Speaker 1 drawn like that. Sometimes the visuals snap into perfect clarity. I don't know how
01:01:30.520 Speaker 1 to do that consciously, but it, that started happening, too. [chuckles] And mostly
01:01:35.100 Speaker 1 symbolic stuff. Um, I realize, you know, we can communicate, but I'm in this weird
01:01:41.080 Speaker 1 state where I don't know what the hell is happening to me. I'm falling apart
01:01:43.660 Speaker 1 constantly, but it's, it's not bad. And then I start to have experiences at night
01:01:49.320 Speaker 1 where it's very vivid. Uh, I think the one experience that I mentioned to you is,
01:01:54.620 Speaker 1 like, the one story I'd tell before we move on to, you know, what's going on now,
01:01:59.680 Speaker 1 is that I had a sense I would talk to somebody at night. Um, I wanted to know,
01:02:05.800 Speaker 1 did I have a soul family? And I, I... At, at this point, like, I'm pretty on board
01:02:09.420 Speaker 1 for that's who this probably is. I think maybe they're spirit guides. Like, I don't
01:02:13.040 Speaker 1 know, man. Like, I'm just guessing, right? [chuckles] Deceased loved ones. Who, who
01:02:17.080 Speaker 1 knows? I don't know who they are. It's difficult. It's messy. It's very frustrating,
01:02:21.960 Speaker 1 this form of communication, 'cause it feels like your own thoughts. It feels like
01:02:25.120 Speaker 1 writing dialogue in a book a lot of the time.
01:02:28.160 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
01:02:28.220 Speaker 1 It's like I just know what the next line is. Like, it's not like...
01:02:32.420 Speaker 1 It feels like you're talking to yourself. But when it's really strong, this is what
01:02:37.680 Speaker 1 people would call telepathy, basically, the thoughts just come, and it's a person
01:02:42.620 Speaker 1 talking to you. And so this one night, I have an experience where I have a sense I'm
01:02:47.460 Speaker 1 gonna meet somebody. And so I, I wake up around 2:00 a.m., and I'm aware of my
01:02:53.440 Speaker 1 body, and I'm sitting in bed, uh, and I'm awake. And,
01:02:59.980 Speaker 1 but I can feel drawn into my imagined visuals is a person and a scene. It's a white
01:03:05.580 Speaker 1 plain. There's no... There's a floor, but no ceiling and walls. And it's a girl, and
01:03:11.240 Speaker 1 she's standing there, and she's talking to me. You know, just a little small talk
01:03:15.040 Speaker 1 like, "Hey, what's up? Hey, good to see you," this basic intro stuff. And I'm awake.
01:03:21.060 Speaker 1 Like, I'm not sleeping. Like, I can move my body, and when I move my body or put my
01:03:24.820 Speaker 1 attention on my body, I start to wake up. Um, and so it starts to dissolve, kind of
01:03:30.060 Speaker 1 like a dream dissolves. And so I'm putting my focus on this, but it's crystal clear,
01:03:35.240 Speaker 1 and it's stable, and it's like somebody is drawing a scene and a person into your
01:03:40.420 Speaker 1 own imagination. Like, it's happening. I'm not making it happen. You can imagine the
01:03:43.940 Speaker 1 scene on your own. Imagine that being forced into your imagination, and it's static.
01:03:49.880 Speaker 1 Like, it's happening whether you want it to or not. I feel like I can shut it down
01:03:53.760 Speaker 1 and turn it off if I want to, but it's like a shared thing. And so I'm just
01:03:58.600 Speaker 1 standing. I don't have a body. I'm just, like, floating in front of this person,
01:04:03.760 Speaker 1 dumbfounded, and she's, like, talking to me, and I'm not saying anything. Just,
01:04:08.380 Speaker 1 like, sort of knocking on the glass like, "Hey. Hello. I'm trying to talk to you.
01:04:13.660 Speaker 1 Can you answer me?" And then I just say, "Holy shit, this is real." Like-
01:04:19.360 Speaker 2 Hmm
01:04:19.400 Speaker 1 ... "You are actually real. Uh, I can see you now." Like, I'm in a... I guess you
01:04:24.820 Speaker 1 could call this, like, astral projection. I don't know. I don't know the terms. Uh,
01:04:28.940 Speaker 1 but I was there. It was more than imagination, but less than a physical reality,
01:04:35.060 Speaker 1 right? It's like I was being given an imagined space, and I had my senses, but they
01:04:41.000 Speaker 1 were like 50% volume, right? Um, and so I stop paying attention to
01:04:46.940 Speaker 1 my body, and I'm focused in this space. Now we're talking, and she's laughing, and,
01:04:52.380 Speaker 1 uh, I start to panic because [chuckles] this is very scary. Uh, she's like, "Don't
01:04:56.860 Speaker 1 do that." And I can feel the whole place start to, like, dissolve, like waking up
01:05:00.480 Speaker 1 from a nightmare. Um, and she's like, "Don't worry, you can't do that. Hey, you're
01:05:04.180 Speaker 1 fine. Don't, don't freak out. Just, just go with it. Nothing's hurting you. You're
01:05:08.160 Speaker 1 gonna be okay."
01:05:09.160 Speaker 2 Hmm.
01:05:09.780 Speaker 1 So I try to. Uh, I keep pausing mid-conversation because I'm expecting it to not be
01:05:15.180 Speaker 1 real. And so I'm in that state for about four hours, and, um, it's stable.
01:05:20.340 Speaker 1 [chuckles] I can ask whatever I want. I can do whatever I want, and we talk. And
01:05:25.940 Speaker 1 this is basically like a sibling, like a twin. You can imagine a twin that wasn't
01:05:30.060 Speaker 1 born.
01:05:31.040 Speaker 2 Hmm.
01:05:31.220 Speaker 1 Uh, just chose not to, to be born. But, "Hey, you can hear me now, so
01:05:37.220 Speaker 1 I miss you. Hello. [chuckles] Hey." Uh, and, um, yeah, I
01:05:43.220 Speaker 1 mean, uh, we talk about a lot of things. I have a lot of questions, as you might
01:05:46.240 Speaker 1 imagine, but I'm dumbstruck. Um, and then, of course, there's a second part of that
01:05:51.720 Speaker 1 story if you, you want me to tell it, but I think you get the gist. Like, the... I
01:05:56.420 Speaker 1 get info dumped as well as conversation, just regular catching up. And yeah, just I
01:06:02.180 Speaker 1 have a, like a soul family of sorts, not just human. But like, you have a life
01:06:07.060 Speaker 1 beyond your life as well, and I think everyone does. Um-
01:06:09.940 Speaker 2 Hmm
01:06:10.120 Speaker 1 ... people, if you've lived more than once, if you believe in reincarnation, you
01:06:13.080 Speaker 1 might have people from other lives. Like, they're there, and they're not here, and
01:06:18.360 Speaker 1 once they can talk to you, yeah, they love you. They miss you, of course. "Hey,
01:06:21.600 Speaker 1 you've g- you've got a mailbox now. I'm gonna send you messages." And that's what
01:06:26.420 Speaker 1 was happening.
01:06:27.760 Speaker 2 Hmm. Wow.
01:06:31.320 Speaker 2 Sounds like a, just like a major relief to kind of like meet this... You're kind of
01:06:36.600 Speaker 2 like getting all of these communications coming through and, um,
01:06:43.900 Speaker 2 wondering if they're real, wondering if they're really your own thoughts, and then
01:06:47.400 Speaker 2 finally having this experience where you visually meet this person and feel as if-
01:06:52.628 Speaker 2 You're in their presence. You, you are in their presence. Your experience was you
01:06:56.848 Speaker 2 are in their presence.
01:06:58.728 Speaker 1 Yeah.
01:06:59.328 Speaker 2 But they're there all the time too, right? [chuckles] Like the-- It's just like-
01:07:02.488 Speaker 1 Yeah
01:07:02.488 Speaker 2 ... in that liminal state, you were able to, uh, to meet them more
01:07:09.728 Speaker 2 fully.
01:07:10.928 Speaker 1 Yeah, I was a real participant, and it was more, like, rich, a more vivid experience
01:07:15.168 Speaker 1 than just feeling like my own thoughts, which was great, uh, 'cause I, I, I needed
01:07:20.568 Speaker 1 that. Uh, we, uh... You, uh-- A lot of this is about belief, and you have to, like,
01:07:25.548 Speaker 1 wily coyote, you have to walk out on the edge and just like, "Ah, I believe I can
01:07:28.688 Speaker 1 move the tinfoil." And you have to really sit with that for a long time.
01:07:31.948 Speaker 2 Mm.
01:07:31.968 Speaker 1 Like, "No, I know I can, I know I can." And then eventually, one day it happens, and
01:07:37.068 Speaker 1 you're like, "Holy crap, I knew." Uh, we'll get to that in the poem at the end. Uh,
01:07:41.388 Speaker 1 but that's, um-
01:07:42.988 Speaker 2 Hmm
01:07:43.128 Speaker 1 ... it's, uh, it's happened to me so many times now with it. Every th- But I still
01:07:47.828 Speaker 1 do it. I still like, "I don't know. Maybe I'm making it up. Maybe that didn't really
01:07:53.328 Speaker 1 happen." Like, "I'm just gonna try to hold this belief. I'm just gonna try to hold
01:07:56.928 Speaker 1 it. It's gonna happen."
01:07:58.488 Speaker 2 Hmm.
01:07:58.488 Speaker 1 "This is how it works, I know." And then you go, it sounds easy, but...
01:08:05.408 Speaker 1 And then eventually it happens, so you're like, "Holy crap. [chuckles] Okay. All
01:08:09.788 Speaker 1 right, cool." And for those wondering, like, I've asked for real world validation. I
01:08:14.088 Speaker 1 get definitions to terms I've never heard of before. I've... I will lose stuff
01:08:18.448 Speaker 1 around the house and just randomly go, "Ugh." It's like somebody's frustrated with
01:08:22.628 Speaker 1 me. Like, it's in the bottom drawer near the sink. I'm like, "That's not where I put
01:08:26.528 Speaker 1 that." Then like, I'll look everywhere else around the house, like there's no way. I
01:08:29.868 Speaker 1 go, and I'm like, "Fine." I go look in the bottom drawer near the sink, and there it
01:08:32.668 Speaker 1 is, and there's just this sense of, like, laughter. And it's like, "Man, goddammit."
01:08:37.128 Speaker 1 [chuckles]
01:08:37.328 Speaker 2 That would be helpful. I need, I need that. [chuckles] Having two young kids,
01:08:41.608 Speaker 2 like... [chuckles]
01:08:42.548 Speaker 1 Yeah, well-
01:08:43.128 Speaker 2 Your mind is just like a, a chaos. [chuckles]
01:08:46.848 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, but it's not, you know, they're not always there. It's like-
01:08:50.008 Speaker 2 Yeah. [chuckles]
01:08:50.808 Speaker 1 I don't know. It's just like, just checking in on you.
01:08:53.148 Speaker 2 Hmm.
01:08:53.168 Speaker 1 "Hey, what's up?" Uh, or they could always be there, right? There's not always
01:08:56.108 Speaker 1 presence.
01:08:56.128 Speaker 2 How does that shift your, like, sense of self and autonomy-
01:08:59.408 Speaker 1 [chuckles]
01:09:00.548 Speaker 2 ... knowing that you're, like, always being watched essentially, right? [chuckles]
01:09:04.008 Speaker 1 Well, surprise, everyone's always being watched.
01:09:06.748 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, but we don't-
01:09:07.628 Speaker 1 Everyone's got a loved one or a guide or someone
01:09:09.108 Speaker 2 We don't realize that we are, right? But now you know.
01:09:13.248 Speaker 1 Yeah. Like time is a thing here beyond like the 3D material, linear space-time
01:09:18.288 Speaker 1 world. Like there's no scarcity of time, and if somebody cares about you, their
01:09:24.308 Speaker 1 grandma, whatever, they're probably watching all the time. I got a crazy medium
01:09:27.748 Speaker 1 story where after the Mindsight training, some of the ladies there were mediums. So
01:09:31.068 Speaker 1 I go... And they're training, right? They, there's five old ladies. They bring me
01:09:34.428 Speaker 1 into a mediumship session. Like I've never done this before, not like this. Like
01:09:38.408 Speaker 1 cool, I'll just sit there. So they stare at me for 20 minutes over Zoom.
01:09:42.068 Speaker 2 Hmm.
01:09:42.088 Speaker 1 And then they take turns reading impressions of whoever showed up, like deceased
01:09:45.568 Speaker 1 loved ones. And it's interesting, um, I have this experience of, well, that was cool
01:09:50.708 Speaker 1 and all. It's kinda hard to place some of this stuff. Um, like, eh, that was neat, I
01:09:55.228 Speaker 1 guess. No dead ringers or anything. And um, but I just have this sense of like
01:10:00.288 Speaker 1 sadness that I didn't expect, and I realized I kinda just wanted them to tell me
01:10:04.828 Speaker 1 that they loved me. And instead I got like a lot of, you know, "This is about my
01:10:09.408 Speaker 1 life. Here's some advice," a little bit of lecturing.
01:10:12.708 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
01:10:13.448 Speaker 1 Like 'cause like, okay, cool, but like that's all I really wanted was that you think
01:10:18.208 Speaker 1 about me and you care about me. I didn't know, I didn't know to ask for that.
01:10:21.828 Speaker 1 There's nobody else's fault.
01:10:23.688 Speaker 2 Yeah.
01:10:24.208 Speaker 1 And um, so after that happened, you know, I didn't expect to feel those emotions. I
01:10:29.768 Speaker 1 didn't really share-
01:10:30.368 Speaker 2 Yeah
01:10:30.368 Speaker 1 ... that with anybody. It was just a private internal thing, like, "Oh man, I feel a
01:10:34.068 Speaker 1 little hurt, actually." [chuckles] I didn't-
01:10:35.248 Speaker 2 Hmm
01:10:35.288 Speaker 1 ... think I would. Uh, and so the next morning, I get, uh, a text message from
01:10:40.748 Speaker 1 somebody who was in that Mindsight training, and she messages me and she says, "I
01:10:44.568 Speaker 1 was thinking about you when I was making my coffee this morning," 'cause we shared
01:10:47.628 Speaker 1 like the same like living space, uh, while we were training. And she's like,
01:10:53.008 Speaker 1 "I also had this really weird feeling that I needed to reach out to you, something
01:10:58.928 Speaker 1 about grandmas and like loving you. Uh, does that mean anything to you? I'm sorry if
01:11:03.288 Speaker 1 it doesn't because I, I know that's totally out of the blue. We haven't talked in a
01:11:07.248 Speaker 1 long time. I just felt like I had to tell you that for some reason." And I'm like,
01:11:10.928 Speaker 1 "Oh my God, grandmas." So I mean, if you buy the story, like, I mean, that happened.
01:11:17.688 Speaker 1 Some grandma is like, "Oh no, this boy needs to know I love him." Like hold up. Uh,
01:11:21.628 Speaker 1 go grab the nearest person you can possibly-
01:11:22.948 Speaker 2 I forgot to say, I had so much to say, I forgot to say the most important thing.
01:11:26.188 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
01:11:26.728 Speaker 1 Well, I think it's more like, "Oh, you don't think that we-"
01:11:29.568 Speaker 2 Oh.
01:11:29.908 Speaker 1 "You didn't know that?" Like-
01:11:31.028 Speaker 2 Gotcha
01:11:31.128 Speaker 1 ... "Well, you need to know that." No, this is much more like, "You, I'm gonna make
01:11:34.448 Speaker 1 sure you know we love you."
01:11:35.808 Speaker 2 Hmm.
01:11:36.128 Speaker 1 And so I just... That's, if that's not such a grandma thing, but I get validation
01:11:41.128 Speaker 1 like this all the time. I don't get a lot of it because
01:11:46.768 Speaker 1 I think it's counterproductive.
01:11:48.308 Speaker 2 Hmm.
01:11:48.828 Speaker 1 And that's supposed, you're supposed to start trusting, trusting your non-primary
01:11:53.228 Speaker 1 physical senses more.
01:11:56.348 Speaker 1 But yeah, so I mean, all this stuff is what happens to me, um, at this stage, and I
01:12:01.928 Speaker 1 guess, you know, we can round it out with that-
01:12:04.168 Speaker 2 Yeah
01:12:04.168 Speaker 1 ... where I'm at now, if that's okay with you.
01:12:06.228 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, this feels like a good place to begin landing.
01:12:09.908 Speaker 1 Yeah.
01:12:09.948 Speaker 2 I'm curious to hear, like, you know, having shared all of that and gone through this
01:12:13.608 Speaker 2 process of reflecting, what meaning do you make of your journey?
01:12:18.228 Speaker 1 Well, I never expected this. What a plot twist of a life. I like to think of my life
01:12:23.548 Speaker 1 as a story now at this point. It, uh, a co-created story, [chuckles] but less
01:12:29.268 Speaker 1 attached to events. Um, I think that's a better way of looking at it. I
01:12:35.228 Speaker 1 realized the power of intention and that we can kind of have almost any experience
01:12:40.028 Speaker 1 we want within reason. You know, we're in a place where there are rules and order
01:12:45.068 Speaker 1 and physics, and that's, that's good. That's like a different thing. Like you're not
01:12:49.048 Speaker 1 gonna be able to snap your fingers and make a giant block of gold appear. Well, I
01:12:52.808 Speaker 1 mean, probably not. Uh, I don't... And that's good because it would defeat the
01:12:56.888 Speaker 1 purpose of a lot of the re-reason we're here. And so I think a stage of development
01:13:02.536 Speaker 1 I'm in now is I have everything I want in life for the most part. I'm happy, I'm
01:13:07.756 Speaker 1 healthy, I'm stable, and that's really when this started to pick up. And now I have
01:13:12.916 Speaker 1 a sense of why am I here? Both me authoring why I'm here, but also
01:13:19.876 Speaker 1 being receptive to more of being used like a tool, like in a sort of pre-agreement.
01:13:24.716 Speaker 1 You could call that a calling or a purpose, but a scribe. They actually kind of line
01:13:29.156 Speaker 1 up, and I feel like intuitively, much more directly, like literally just being told
01:13:34.876 Speaker 1 sometimes, "Uh, why are you here?" Um, but it's more like a menu, like it's an
01:13:39.936 Speaker 1 offer. "Here's what you're good at, here's what the world needs. Do this." Like
01:13:44.556 Speaker 1 just... But mostly it's an intuitive sense. So I'm moving into a stage where I have
01:13:49.776 Speaker 1 a feeling like I know what I want out of life, and now I'm more interested in
01:13:54.656 Speaker 1 helping. What do you do with a good thing? Like all of this is awesome. A surprise
01:13:58.936 Speaker 1 like, uh, for those who are unaware, like you're not gonna die when you're dead. You
01:14:04.196 Speaker 1 get to live forever, and reality is way, way better than you thought it was, and you
01:14:07.456 Speaker 1 can have almost anything you want.
01:14:08.876 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
01:14:09.056 Speaker 1 So, uh, there's the gift. In fact, uh,
01:14:13.616 Speaker 1 one of these journals is me waking up in the middle of the night, somebody very
01:14:17.536 Speaker 1 surprised, uh, like a surprise party and just like, "What is this thing?" Telling me
01:14:23.456 Speaker 1 happy birthday. I think, uh, like what are you talking about? It's like, "You're
01:14:28.316 Speaker 1 about to get a gift." And then it's like, "What's the gift?" "It's the gift of
01:14:31.936 Speaker 1 everything. You're about to learn that it's all awesome, and you can have almost
01:14:36.836 Speaker 1 anything you want, and you're not gonna die." Like, "Oh, cool." Uh, but now I know
01:14:41.896 Speaker 1 it, right? I, I know it on a deeper level. Uh, so life is more playful and more
01:14:48.216 Speaker 1 what can I do with this, right? How can I have fun? How can I live into this? How
01:14:53.216 Speaker 1 can I do something meaningful? And that's sort of the stage I'm in. I feel like I...
01:14:59.256 Speaker 1 I'm, I'm in the rarefied position of, from my perspective, kinda understanding the
01:15:04.756 Speaker 1 80/20 of how reality and consciousness works and who I am and how it all
01:15:10.496 Speaker 1 works, the big questions. I wrote yesterday in a journal that I feel like I have
01:15:16.456 Speaker 1 satisfactory and firsthand validated answers to
01:15:23.496 Speaker 1 all the big questions I've ever come up with. That is a very strange position to be
01:15:27.776 Speaker 1 in as a human being. Um, well, now that those boxes are checked, I guess I'm just
01:15:32.876 Speaker 1 gonna have fun and try to help other people have fun too. Uh, so that's where I'm
01:15:36.936 Speaker 1 at.
01:15:38.096 Speaker 2 Mm.
01:15:39.776 Speaker 1 I recommend it.
01:15:40.896 Speaker 2 I really like that you said reality is way better than you think it is. [chuckles]
01:15:45.516 Speaker 1 Yeah.
01:15:46.136 Speaker 2 I love that.
01:15:46.196 Speaker 1 And it keeps happening.
01:15:47.576 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, and so much of your story just testifies to that, so I'm-
01:15:52.136 Speaker 1 Hmm. Yeah
01:15:52.676 Speaker 2 ... you know, thanking you for bringing that up and-
01:15:55.396 Speaker 1 Sure. [clears throat]
01:15:56.716 Speaker 2 If anyone listening is moving through their own rupture, what would you like them to
01:16:00.216 Speaker 2 hear?
01:16:02.416 Speaker 1 I would say that your thoughts, emotions, feelings, beliefs are,
01:16:09.516 Speaker 1 um, not just-- They are not you, so chill out. Uh, they're part of an
01:16:15.396 Speaker 1 experience, but they are also what's controlling what you get to a large degree
01:16:21.036 Speaker 1 eventually, right? It's y- imagination, all of these things that I treated as
01:16:26.196 Speaker 1 secondary or ephemeral or just like icing on a reality cake, turns out they are what
01:16:31.696 Speaker 1 determines the cake, like eventually. Think of it as like steering something very
01:16:36.376 Speaker 1 slowly, but sometimes not so slowly. And the more you can lean into that, the more
01:16:40.936 Speaker 1 you'll get what you want. Like you're always creating your own reality to a degree
01:16:45.476 Speaker 1 or largely influencing here, uh, eventually creating, um, whole cloth.
01:16:51.476 Speaker 1 And that, um, the good news is you were, you have inherited a
01:16:57.976 Speaker 1 unconditionally loving and completely connected universe that wants nothing but to
01:17:03.956 Speaker 1 give you everything you want and cares about you and fundamentally, like no
01:17:08.356 Speaker 1 conditions. Uh, it didn't have to be this good. Uh, it doesn't always feel that way
01:17:13.756 Speaker 1 from our current seat, um, but we're playing on hard mode right now. And, um,
01:17:19.576 Speaker 1 don't worry so much because the big things are already sorted out. You already
01:17:24.356 Speaker 1 inherited like everything you could ever want, and even if you screw up here
01:17:28.996 Speaker 1 completely, it doesn't really matter. You're already good forever. So don't worry
01:17:34.876 Speaker 1 too much. And if that doesn't feel true yet, the advice I keep getting over and over
01:17:40.736 Speaker 1 again every time I hit a moment where it's like, "Holy crap, like what is reality?
01:17:45.616 Speaker 1 How do I go to work tomorrow? I can see through my eyelids, and I'm talking to
01:17:50.456 Speaker 1 people in my head that appear to be real. Like I don't know. How do I keep going?
01:17:54.496 Speaker 1 Like how do I integrate this? Like how do I make sense of anything? What is even
01:17:57.716 Speaker 1 real anymore?" The answer is just keep going.
01:18:01.816 Speaker 2 Mm.
01:18:02.036 Speaker 1 If you can do that, if you can
01:18:05.836 Speaker 1 somehow get yourself to a positive orientation
01:18:10.016 Speaker 1 and just keep going,
01:18:12.556 Speaker 1 you'll make it. Like you'll, you'll find your own experiences. You have your own
01:18:17.876 Speaker 1 revelations. You'll have your own... It won't be the same as mine. We're all
01:18:22.156 Speaker 1 different, and so you get your own personalized experience, um, and it'll keep
01:18:27.616 Speaker 1 happening. The magic will be in the world as long as you expect it to be there and
01:18:31.996 Speaker 1 as long as you keep playing.
01:18:33.636 Speaker 2 Mm.
01:18:33.676 Speaker 1 So hopefully that's helpful. Just don't stop playing.
01:18:37.016 Speaker 2 Hmm. Don't stop playing. I dig it.
01:18:41.556 Speaker 2 Do you have any, um, anywhere people can find out about your work or your writing,
01:18:45.736 Speaker 2 your thinking?
01:18:48.136 Speaker 1 Yeah. I have-- I write fiction, but it's not super relevant to this. Um, but I, I've
01:18:53.656 Speaker 1 been trying to write about my experiences or distilling, I think, important lessons
01:18:58.036 Speaker 1 on a blog. That's devas.compass.ink. I don't get anything out of this. It's just
01:19:04.976 Speaker 1 read it. Uh, I don't need anything. I'm in the- A wonderful position of I've got
01:19:09.708 Speaker 1 what I need. I just wanna-
01:19:10.908 Speaker 2 Good
01:19:11.208 Speaker 1 ... have good times with good people. Um, so by all means, if you found this useful,
01:19:16.828 Speaker 1 please go read that. Uh, but you kinda already have everything you need is, is the
01:19:20.688 Speaker 1 advice I give to everyone else. But if I can help you make sense of it or, uh,
01:19:24.008 Speaker 1 Joshua can, by all means, borrow and cheat and steal. I've cheated every opportunity
01:19:29.028 Speaker 1 I get.
01:19:29.368 Speaker 2 [chuckles]
01:19:29.928 Speaker 1 Why wait in line?
01:19:31.728 Speaker 2 Yeah.
01:19:33.568 Speaker 2 All right. Thank you, Steven. Um, as we're closing, I'm just, like,
01:19:40.108 Speaker 2 feeling gratitude and, you know, awe in hearing your story and reinvigorated on my
01:19:46.128 Speaker 2 own path and practice and, um, so many of the things you've brought into
01:19:52.548 Speaker 2 the circle that we've initiated together and, you know, in our conversations have
01:19:57.868 Speaker 2 motivated me to, you know, try new things and go in new paths. And every time I
01:20:02.768 Speaker 2 close my eyes now, I'm like, I tell myself, "I can see without my eyes," and I'm
01:20:07.228 Speaker 2 just-
01:20:07.488 Speaker 1 Mm
01:20:07.948 Speaker 2 ... you know, even as the, at the end of my meditation, I've been trying to affirm
01:20:11.908 Speaker 2 that, remember to affirm that. And, uh-
01:20:14.008 Speaker 1 Heck yeah
01:20:14.408 Speaker 2 ... so I'm excited to know you and be inspired on the path, the path that you're,
01:20:19.568 Speaker 2 you're treading your, for your own life. Yeah, in a couple words, like, how are you
01:20:23.728 Speaker 2 checking out today?
01:20:25.568 Speaker 1 I'm just grateful to have fellow people to be on the journey with, you know? And,
01:20:30.448 Speaker 1 um,
01:20:32.208 Speaker 1 I just hope that-- I don't want anyone to ever... Inspired is, is exactly what I
01:20:37.588 Speaker 1 hope for because I kinda just want other people to go get their own version of this.
01:20:41.268 Speaker 1 It's waiting for them. You don't have to live in mundane reality anymore. If you
01:20:45.068 Speaker 1 just ask, just say, "Hey, I want my version of this," and then take whatever
01:20:49.348 Speaker 1 breadcrumb comes your way-
01:20:50.688 Speaker 2 Mm
01:20:50.688 Speaker 1 ... and something will, and just keep following those. The universe, the universe
01:20:55.408 Speaker 1 will play with you however you wanna frame it. Um, it'll give you the next step.
01:21:00.588 Speaker 1 Keep following those steps, and you can have your own version of this, and I, I hope
01:21:04.728 Speaker 1 that everyone does that, you included. 'Cause I, I wanna live in that world with
01:21:08.908 Speaker 1 other people. Who wants to do it alone? That's no fun.
01:21:11.528 Speaker 2 Let's all become yogis with yogic superpowers, flying around-
01:21:15.847 Speaker 1 Yeah, whatever your version is, yeah
01:21:16.428 Speaker 2 ... communicating with our mind and build a world like that. [laughs]
01:21:21.628 Speaker 1 Whatever you want.
01:21:22.008 Speaker 2 That's a fun, that's a fun world. I, I wanna live in. Cool. Thank you, Steven. Um,
01:21:26.748 Speaker 2 we always like to close with a little offering from the guest, so if you have
01:21:30.348 Speaker 2 something, please share it with us.
01:21:33.328 Speaker 1 Cool. Um, I did select something. I wrote a poem. I don't usually like poetry
01:21:38.548 Speaker 1 because it makes me do too much work, and that stresses me out. Like, did I
01:21:42.088 Speaker 1 understand it correctly? I don't know. So I don't actually enjoy it because it's,
01:21:45.968 Speaker 1 [chuckles] I'm too psyched out about it. But I decided to write one, um, and this
01:21:50.988 Speaker 1 happened after one of, one of many things that I, I never thought could actually be
01:21:56.668 Speaker 1 true ended up being true. So that's the context to know. Uh, so the poem itself is
01:22:01.968 Speaker 1 called To Know.
01:22:05.408 Speaker 1 To know that you really are the person you hoped you'd be, that the things you told
01:22:11.128 Speaker 1 yourself you didn't need were fundamental truths from a changed heart and not the
01:22:16.568 Speaker 1 lamentations of a spurned one. When this life offers you opportunity to prove,
01:22:22.588 Speaker 1 you will feel that solitary triumph. No one knows of the tension held so long
01:22:29.108 Speaker 1 even you forgot it was there. It was true. Oh,
01:22:35.148 Speaker 1 it was true all along. This is what it feels like to know they
01:22:41.128 Speaker 1 were not just words.
01:22:42.748 Speaker 2 [gentle music] Thank you
01:22:48.528 Speaker 2 again for joining us in this circle of ruptures and roots. These stories remind us
01:22:52.868 Speaker 2 that rupture isn't the end. It's where roots begin to reach once more for life. If
01:22:57.748 Speaker 2 this conversation touched something in you, then I invite you to sit with it, let it
01:23:02.068 Speaker 2 ripple, and maybe share it with someone who might also feel the resonance. This work
01:23:07.308 Speaker 2 is offered in the spirit of the gift. If you feel called to honor the energy and
01:23:11.508 Speaker 2 commitment that goes into creating this podcast, then I invite you to become a paid
01:23:15.768 Speaker 2 subscriber on Substack at gospelsofrupture.substack.com.
01:23:22.088 Speaker 2 Until next time, may you find nourishment in the roots beneath you and courage in
01:23:26.448 Speaker 2 the ruptures that open your path.
01:23:28.068 Speaker 2 [gentle music]