#148: Proof of Spiritual Phenomena, Psychedelic & Supernatural Experiences and Parapsychology with Mona Sobhani, PhD
01:06:17 Share

卿然,你好 and hello. Welcome to the Chiwi Journal Podcast. I am your host, Camille Yang. My guest today is Mona Sobani. She is a distinguished cognitive neuroscientist, researcher, and accomplished author with a rich and diverse professional background spanning over 15 years.

Her wide-ranging interests have led her to explore the intersections of science, technology, spirituality, and human behaviors. In today's episode, we talk about Mona's book "Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: Our Psychedelic and Supernatural Experience" and some key findings in parapsychology. Thank you for joining us on this enlightening journey with Mona.

We hope you gained valuable insight into the relationship between science and spirituality. Hi, welcome Mona and thanks to our mutual friend Tom Morgan's introduction. Hey,

hey introduce your books and we also have a little group chat we talk about spirituality and yeah so it's such a pleasure to have you on my show yeah thank you for having me i'm really excited to have this conversation yeah i always want to interview someone has a scientific background but also into spirituality

Because I know sometimes this can be a very separate part because all my science friends are very skeptical about spirituality. So I wonder what made you have this worldview transformation and can you share some key moments or experience that triggered this transformation? Yep, yep, yeah. So I was definitely one of those skeptical scientists.

I mean, they train you that way, you know. So I was very anti-spiritual, actually, and anti-religious because for multiple reasons, I think. But my parents came from Iran and...

there was an overthrow of their non-religious government for the religious government, which appended the whole country and everything. So I think my family sort of, I mean, my mom was very spiritual, but I think a lot of my family just kind of turned anti-religion after that.

So I grew up in that framework and I was always very, you know, interested in like coincidences and, and things like that, but not spirituality per se. But what happened was I, I basically had an existential crisis in a series of events that happened to me over the course of a few years. And one of them, it,

it started with my, so my cultural background, as I mentioned, I'm Persian and in our, our culture is actually quite mystical. If you go back, um, thousands of years to the true Persian cultural heritage, it's very mystical, you know, Sufism and, um,

You know, Rumi and Hafez are two famous poets that we still read. I still have on my nightstand that were very mystical and talk about, you know, like the forces of the universe. It's only in recent times that the culture has been co-opted by religion. So we have a very kind of mystical, spiritual background. And as I mentioned, my mother is spiritual. And so my grandmother, they did something called divination, which is using...

You can use anything, but my grandmother used coffee grounds, which probably sounds weird to Americans, but it's not like American coffee. It's this different kind of, it's like Turkish, Armenian, Greek, Middle Eastern coffee that you leave the grounds in the cup, it dries, it makes pictures. And then if you have somebody who's quote unquote intuitive, they can look into it and kind of tell you things about your life. And somebody taught my grandmother. And so she would do it for people,

And she was very good. And my mom learned from her. And so my mom would do it at family parties and things like that. And everyone loved her readings. And of course, I was, you know, when things are in your family, you don't really like pay attention to them at all. So I didn't really pay attention to it. But when I was in grad school, I would go home on the weekends and my mom would make me coffee and then she would just start reading my cup.

And at first I didn't really pay attention, but I started noticing over time things that she said would come true. And sometimes it would be things that were private, like really, really private to my life that I wouldn't have told anyone. And then a lot of times they would be things in advance of it happening. And so I started taking notes when she would do these casual readings to keep track of

And I just lived in cognitive dissonance because our mainstream scientific Western framework doesn't have any explanation for this kind of thing. You know, there's no way that you could know anything in the future. And it was also symbolic and science is very reductionist. We reduce everything to parts and like atoms and molecules.

But the coffee was symbolic. Like my mom would say, there's a turtle in the cup, which indicates something is moving slowly. So it was symbolic. And so I really couldn't make sense of it with science. And then, so that was just kind of there. But then there were, it was a few years where a few events happened that were really emotional. So one of them was, it was the death of someone I knew. And my mom had kept her,

She got all weird when she was doing her readings for six weeks in advance of this event happening. She kept saying, and she never had said anything like this before, I think you're going to get bad news. She's like, I think really bad news. She's like, I just want to warn you and I don't want to say what it is because I don't want to, what if I'm wrong?

So it started making me nervous. And I kept asking my friends, like, who, which one of you has bad news? I know somebody has bad news. Just tell me. But so then six weeks later, we found out that one of...

the professors at USC, which is where I got my PhD. And I had graduated at this point, but I was still closely tied to USC. Actually, I was working there. So he was killed by one of the students. And it was somebody who had helped. He was beloved in the program, wonderful professor. He had helped me with one of my experiments on my dissertation. And so it was

you know, upsetting and shocking and like a horrible event that happened to our community. And so then when I, when I found it and I told my mom, she was like, yeah, it was a death. And she's like, and I, she's like, I'd never seen anything like it. She's like, I didn't even know how to explain it. She's like, it was just very,

violent and unusual. And so, which is what it was. And so that really shook me because this was like a death life or death thing, right? Like all of her other readings had just been like, don't lose money or, um, you know, make sure you think about this carefully before you make a decision or something. But this was like, this was big. And so it scared me. It scared me. And it confused me because I was like, Simon says that this is impossible. How is this possible? And

But I was very busy at the time with a new job and, you know, dealing with the grief of that event. And so I just kind of ignored it. And then a few years later, something else happened too. So I had this relationship I was in and my mom had said it was going to, you know, it was positive. Like she saw every aspect of it embarrassingly in the coffin would tell me every weekend. And then it ended.

And I was already in an existential crisis at this point because I had graduated with my PhD and I was in the workforce and I was kind of hitting that, even though I was in my early thirties, but I was, I was like, is this it? This is what we do forever. Go to work. And I felt, it felt meaningless to me. And I was like, what is the point of life? Like that was the first time that question popped into my head. And so then I,

with all of these things happening at once, I felt, you know, dealing with heartbreak. And I just felt like it was the first time I fell into like despair and hopelessness. And I didn't see the point of

being alive. I wasn't suicidal, but I just really like, I was like logically, rationally, I was like, why do we do this? So that's where I was. And then, and then I began, you know, I wasn't ready to like look at myself and the situation. So I focused on the coffee and I was like, it became this interesting thing to me. Cause I was like, how could maybe science is wrong. And so I got interested in it and started exploring. And I think, cause I was at such a, you know,

They always say like you have to kind of be broken down or there's like some beautiful quote that I cannot remember right now, but it's like you have to get whatever crap cracked for the light to come in. Yeah. And that's what happened basically. So I was, I would never, I,

have been open to these things at all before, but because it was in such a low place and it was part of the story, part of the whole situation, I got interested in, I was like, well, what is divination and what does symbolism, how does that play in? And maybe time doesn't work the way that we think that it does. I mean, what do we know? As a scientist, I know that we don't know a lot of things.

So I got curious and launched this personal project, which then turned into the book, but it was essentially me just trying to find answers to these questions, these big questions of like, why are we here? What's the meaning of life? But,

But through this avenue, so like I started interviewing people who are extremely intuitive or psychic or whatever you want to call it to understand their perspectives and their experiences. Then I interviewed scientists because then I thought I was going crazy because I was like, am I nuts for entertaining any of this? You know, the

the common sense or mainstream view is that all of this is fraudulent or it's been researched and disproved was kind of my sense or not researched at all or whatever. But I started looking into it and yeah, it just led me on this whole crazy journey.

long journey of it opened the door to spirituality which i think they're they're they're separate things so that's how it started i'll stop there so you can after reading your book i was like so resonated because i'm also very skeptical i grew up in academic background families so

Everybody is like, okay, you need to learn the science. And I was a science student in high school as well. I also found this very interesting because my grandfather and my father, they all trained in an academic environment. But late in their life,

they start to turn to spirituality. I have found this change. I couldn't understand. But back then, I was just like, why you start to look at this Chinese book like I Ching? So they can tell, okay, today you need to do what and you need to avoid what based on your like five elements or some destiny elements. So my grandfather turned mad because I thought, wow, how come this highly reputable

scholar now become like so spiritual yeah i couldn't understand i think his death like kind of struck me because he kind of know since he's started his friends in his late life so he started to know and also my dad's in his i think he got probably like a middle age crisis so he started to

studying some Buddhism and he also gave me some like a worship things so I couldn't understand I said okay thank you daddy but I don't but it's kind of saved my life or just a lot of coincidences

Like you mentioned in your books as well. So I started to feel like, hmm, interesting, this part. And also I had my existential crisis when I was working in finance. You earn a lot of money, but you still don't feel happy. And there are so many mystical things happening around you.

when you interview all these spiritual, mystical and psychic, so what are some of the findings you find is very profound that you can share with my listeners? Yeah, the most shocking thing initially was that a lot of my scientist colleagues

were open-minded. It turned out that they were more open-minded than I was. It turned out I was actually one of the more close-minded skeptical people. Yeah, and so all of them, when we sat down to have conversations about this, I kind of asked them, like, have you ever experienced anything

that you can explain with science? Are you interested in paranormal, supernatural things? Do you think there's things that we can't measure with science and that kind of stuff? And yeah, we have to like, I've known these people for over a decade and we have some of the best conversations that we've ever had in our relationships.

during that project and they all were just like first of all they all had stories every single one of them had a personal story of either themselves or someone they knew having some sort of you know quote unquote anomalous thing happen to them that they just couldn't explain with science and all of them were very like well you know there's a lot of things there's a lot of things that we don't know in science and you know we're supposed to be open minded and curious and it

if there's, you know, even one data point that, or if something happens just once, I think William James says it's if there's one white crow, then,

all crows are not black. Like it just takes one instance of something to make like a theory or a general statement not true. And yeah, in science, we're not supposed to ignore outliers because usually that data that doesn't fit the models, usually what causes a paradigm shift or an update in a theory or a model. And so they're actually really important. But as scientists, we don't like them because they break our models and

And usually they're not what we're looking for. So yeah, so I just found that, you know, and by the end of the writing the book, I, and now I always say these are, these are not anomalous experiences, they're human experiences, everyone has them, or everyone's capable of having them.

And I found that when I was talking to my scientist colleagues. I was like, these are very normal. We just ignore them and kind of whisper them to each other because we're like embarrassed because of Western mainstream culture to say anything, but that they're very common. And then with the intuitives, they, yeah, they were very interesting people. They were all very different and

What I found interesting about them was I thought, you know, because when I would go in for readings with my friends, we made it this like fun thing. We live in Los Angeles. There's no shortage of psychics here. So we would go in for readings and I thought, and then they would start saying things about spirituality. Like they would say, this is a lesson, a soul lesson or something.

This person is part of your soul group or this is from a past life or things like that. And I was not familiar with

with any spiritual frameworks pretty much at all. And definitely not the ones they were talking about. So it went over my head when they would, I would record them and write it down, but it didn't mean anything to me. So when I interviewed them, I would ask them about that. Like, where did you learn this spiritual framework? Did, did you grow up like when you grew up, is that what your family believed in or not?

did you go to psychic school? Like, is that what they teach you? Like, I literally had no idea. And they were, most of them came from families that were not like that. You know, one was like half Jewish, half Christian. Her parents didn't believe in anything anomalous. Like another, another one was like similar. She was like, oh no, my parents didn't believe in any of this. They weren't religious or spiritual. So then I would be like,

that's interesting. So then how did you get into this? And then, and they would just say, you know, something that I would consider crazy at the time where they'd be like, I don't know. I just knew like, or my spirit guide told me, or I had a dream and I understood that this is how it is. And I, and with certainty, which I was, I was like in shock of, you know, cause I'm a scientist. I was like, what do you mean? You just knew, like, and you just accepted it.

Like I didn't, I didn't understand at all, but you know, I just listened and I was like, that's cool. And then, I mean, multiple of them said that. So then at some point I just got used to hearing it. I was like, I guess this is just a thing. And none of them, at least not the ones I, I spoke to. I know that there are schools or classes and certifications that they can get, but I

Some of them were certified, but they were like, I didn't learn my skills. Like they were, you know, I've had them. I've always had them. I just learned how to use them maybe, you know, for meditation classes or working with other people who are intuitive. So I thought that was really interesting. They were very matter of fact about it. It was really, I mean, when I think back on it now, it's just kind of funny thinking of how...

who I was at the time and the things that they were telling me, you know, like in the book I talk about one of them, just like one of the first interviews, she just starts telling me, she's like, you know, I've seen fairies and I was just staring at her like, what, what is going on?

But, you know, I just came to know them as people too. And they were very kind, especially at a time when I was very fragile. They kind of held me, you know. So I never wanted to denigrate them or...

discount their experiences. And that was kind of probably what helped me open up a little bit to what they were saying and just understand that these are humans and they have their own experiences. And, you know, as a neuroscientist, I know that we all

perceive things and then we all make our own meaning, you know, like we create meaning in the stories in our lives, we create them. So, and that's not to say that what they experienced is not true. I, I believe that that is what they experienced and that is the meaning that they derived from it. So that's kind of how I tried to start approaching it. But it was definitely hard coming from a very skeptical place.

to start it was kind of like a crash course it wasn't like a gentle entry yeah spirituality yeah are there any like specific moment like convinced you because it took me like at least 30 years like from 30 years for me to convince okay I think my shift would be like I accumulated so many interesting stories and I encountered a lot of supernatural things then

okay I start to okay I'll accept that are there any like moments for you as well yeah I had a lot of moments it did take me a while it took let me think for a second yeah it took like maybe three years I would say to become fully convinced and there's two people

that convinced me. And one of them is a really good friend of mine who's extremely intuitive, but I didn't even know he was until, until some of this started. And then another one is one of the intuitives that I, I don't know if I, I didn't interview her, but, but yeah, she's just one of the ones I came to know. The two of them together have, have said things

You want a story? Yeah, that would be great. I'm trying to think. Okay, so I had a...

a mentor who actually is the one who encouraged me or made me write this book. I had done all these interviews. I had all these notes. I didn't want to write a book, but he was like, no, you got to write a book. You got all these notes. So he gave me a two week deadline. I wrote it. He helped me, you know, pull it all together. Anyway, he, that was in 2020. And then he passed away in 2021 from COVID at the end of the year. And

And in November, and then in December, I had my friend come over.

who, again, I didn't know he was this connected until he came over this night. So it was December. I was hosting him and his husband. They came over. And then I had not told him that my mentor had passed away. It had just happened, really. And I was still processing. And I think I wasn't talking about it a lot. But he came over and he was like,

He's like, I don't want to alarm you, but you have a male spirit here for you. And then I was like, what? That is alarming. What are you talking about?

And then I was kind of like, oh, no, don't tell me. I don't want to know. Like, you know, I get scared of these things. I don't want to know. But he was like, no, no, it's positive. He's like, and it's someone who knows you. He's like, did someone pass away recently? And I was just staring at him like, what the hell is going on? So then I told him, I was like, yeah, I mean, I guess, yes, my mentor passed away last month. And then he just started saying things.

a lot of things really fast that only my mentor would know. And, and, oh, and this was the craziest thing. So a lot of those things he said were private, but this was weird. So he said, so I didn't find out about his death.

until a week after it happened. And I was pretty upset about it that no one got in touch with me. How come I didn't find out? Why did I find out a week later? And then, so then my friend, as when he was over for dinner, he said, he's like, you're upset about like, did you find out like...

after it happened, like way after something. And I told him, I was like, yeah, I found out a week later. And he's like, well, don't worry about that. That was supposed to happen that way. Because he's like, were you doing something with your book that week? And I just stared at him because I had edits. I was doing the rounds of edits on my book and I had

edits that literally, I think I received them the day before he died. And then they were due a week later. And so when I turned the edits in, that's the day I found out he died.

And so he said, he's like, did you have something to do with your book? And I was like, yeah, I guess I had edits too. He's like, that's why you didn't find out for a week. They, they, I don't know, whatever the universe arranged it that way so that you wouldn't be distracted. So anyway, when it's like, and I've had a million moments like that with him of things that there's,

No, like no way that he would know. I didn't even talk to anyone about that. My one week, my edits, it was so crazy. I didn't even think about it. So I've had a million moments like that with him and with that other intuitive, like things that there's no way that they, very specific things like that with timing, with the person they're talking about, the messages they give, that you're just kind of like, these are either the most accurate, wild moments

coincidental guesses or there's something going on yeah yeah true i think i had one totally shocked me i think last year december last year i have a friend and her girlfriend is a psyche but i never took her seriously because i'm a psyche whatever and she called me her uh my best friend uh

girlfriend called me and said, "Oh, you need to pay attention to a redhead Irish." I said, "What? I have never encountered any Irish people in my life, not to mention a redhead Irish." And I think just after that call, two days or three days later, there was an intern joined my company, and he's a redhead Irish. I said, "What the hell?"

I think that's the moment. Yeah, because before also there's some like coincidence happens a lot. And I say, okay, okay, whatever. But this one I was like, wow. Because my friends, they all live in New Zealand and they have no idea like what's my life in Europe now and my company is in New York. So it's all this such a coincidence. I just couldn't believe it.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's those ones that really... Yeah, scary. Yeah, they are kind of scary. How come you know? I have this vision, blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh, wow. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I know. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I'm more used to it. But they're kind of...

Once you get over this scary part, though, they're kind of exciting. You're like, whoa, reality is way more interesting than I thought it was. True, yeah. You mentioned the parapsychology phenomenon in your book. I didn't quite get it. Would you mind elaborate about that and all the extensive researches you've done on this part? The research. Yeah, so I...

assumed, I actually assumed at the beginning of this project that there hadn't been any like lab research done on what they, I guess the field is called parapsychology. Now they call it

Psy Research, P-S-I. And I thought there wasn't any research because I was like, I don't know anyone who does this research. I've never heard anything about it. But then when I started doing interviews just for my own personal project, I came across there was this institute called the Winbridge Institute or Research Center. And they actually did quintuple blinded studies with mediums.

And they had a whole protocol, they had a whole center, they certified like 19 of them, they tested them, they had this whole like testing protocol and they had published scientific papers. So I spoke to the guy and I read their papers, one of the co-founders, and he gave me this huge reading list. He's like, there's been like over a hundred years of research done on this at Duke, at Princeton, at UCLA, at Berkeley, like at big universities.

And he's like, I'll give you a reading list. So he gave me the list and I dug in and I found out that he was right. And then just, I think, I think that was in 2020. And then so two years prior in 2018, there had been a review of the meta analyses published. So in science, that means

A review is like when you review all of the evidence in a field and a meta analysis is similar, except it's more technical. So you like pull all of the studies together and you look at the statistics and you kind of try to determine the effect size of the effect you're looking for.

So there had been one published that reviewed like all this like hundred years of research. And yeah, and it determined it was like there is an effect here. And it was a it was I don't remember the number anymore. Sorry, I've actually like noticed I wrote it in the book. But I remember that I remember there were different kinds of phenomena and I can talk about them if you want. But some of them. And so there was a range and effect size.

But what shocked me was that the effect sizes were, which means like the higher the effect size, the stronger the effect. Like if it's a really weak effect size, then it's hard to detect it. So it's like if you're trying to find it in a population, it'll be harder to find. So what was interesting was some of the effect sizes were larger.

comparable to like the what we find in neuroscience research and in psychology research and definitely in clinical research like I think clinical medicine they have to it has to be a certain percent efficacy you know to and so I when I compared I went in the literature to compare it to like diabetes medicine antidepressants and it was like comparable to those and so I was

And then also the methods, like, you know, a lot of times people won't even read those papers and they'll say, oh, they're faulty, bad scientific designs. But because they've been so scrutinized, there's been all this work into making them

airtight. So a lot of their designs were actually way better than normal neuroscience or psychology because we don't have the same scrutiny. So when I dug through all of that, I was shocked. I mean, I was like, this is crazy. Like this is really good evidence. And it's insane to me that anybody would discount this. It's as good as anything. It's as good as other neuroscience and psychology findings. So

After that, I thought, all right, well, there's scientific evidence for it. I know the psychedelics has influenced mental illness, especially PTSD, but still in the mainstream society, they still not accept that, although this has like a thousand years history and recent studies also very focused on it.

can you explain why and what what stops the mainstream to accept that it's a long history with psychedelics yeah i mean i think a lot of damage was done in the 70s um you know and it's a whole political thing um really but and i think actually um

Jules Evans writes a really great, he runs something called the challenging psychedelics project. And he has a great newsletter that used to be called the challenging psychedelics project. I think it's called ecstatic integration now, but he talks about this, about the difficult relationship between psychedelics and Western culture, because Western culture has a problem with ecstatic experiences or like,

experiences of like pure joy and mystical and spiritual experiences, right? Like the whole Western ethos is work hard, be productive, don't waste time, you know, be serious. Like, and so it has a hard time understanding these ecstatic states, which psychedelics would be considered one, one of those where, yeah,

And to be honest, that's the perception I had. I remember when I was turning to look at psychedelics in this journey, I thought, that's so weird. Who even cares about psychedelics? Aren't they just hallucinogens? Like I didn't know. And so then I went to read the literature and then I was shocked again to find that I was like, wow, first of all, they're very healing. Apparently they were studied well.

from the 1950s to the 70s before they were outlawed by psychiatrists. Psychiatrists used them to get patients' conscious minds out of the way so patients could more easily see their own behavioral patterns and problems and resolve them. And I was like, what? This is nuts. Like a hallucinogenic does that, you know? So then I found all that research. And then, of course, the modern day research, all the

with MDMA for PTSD, psilocybin for depression, and they're just continuing that tradition. But, and it's a shame, you know, we've lost so many years of research. We could have been way far more advanced in our understanding of them, but we're, you know, trying to catch up. So yeah, I think the reason of course is political. Like,

Yeah, in the US, it was Nixon and his drug war and they suppressing the anti-war movement, you know, all of that. But I think also, as I said, Jules Evans has a nice job of talking about how, you know, in general, Western culture kind of has a problem.

chilling out and like enjoy enjoying joy. Right. Like it has, it has a difficult relationship, I think with ecstatic experiences. So, um, I think that's definitely part of it. And I think that that, um, cause, because now we don't, we don't,

necessarily have the same political climate, right? We see actually the opposite. We see a lot of states decriminalizing or legalizing access to psychedelics. I mean, I went to the psychedelic science, the MAPS conference this summer, and Rick Perry, conservative governor Rick Perry, was on stage talking about supporting them. So I think that's changed, but I think that the culture in general still has an uneasy relationship. And I also get it because psychedelics are

It takes a lot of courage to do them because you don't know what you're going to get. Yeah, exactly. Can you share some of your personal experience with psychedelics? Like some most profound experience or highlights from your trips?

Sure. I'll say as a neuroscientist, so I've tried a few things, but I did LSD once and it was what blew me away was the, I always describe it like this. It's like you're living in 2D and then you take a psychedelic and suddenly you're in 3D. Yeah, true. So suddenly you're

like you understand, you feel right. You feel so much more strongly. So you feel like all of these emotions that you normally suppress or that are normally muted, right? Usually the volume is turned down on our emotions.

And suddenly, yeah, they're turned way up and you're like, wow, I didn't know I could feel that deeply, you know, and it's a wide range, right? If you're listening to music, your emotions can change like that as the music changes. And so it's just this beautiful experience of like...

coming into your body suddenly and your mind and like seeing the relationship between your mind, your body and your environment in a totally new way. And, you know, coming to appreciate it. That's, that was my first, actually that wasn't my first experience, but that was my first like really profound experience. And then I think last year,

Wait, what year is it? Yeah. Last year, 2022, I tried five methoxy DMT, five NEO DMT. And that one was life-changing. I mean, in so many ways, it was the, I had the complete ego death, complete dissolution. And I became the entire universe, all of space and time all at once. I was every piece of

molecule of the universe all at once. And then I also had a near-death experience, though, in it. And so it was one of those experiences that you would consider a challenging psychedelic, the near-death experience is kind of challenging. But they also, that's why I love some of the mystical or esoteric traditions. I look to those now because they talk about

it's like an initiation, right? And it's death and rebirth. And it's, they kind of say, once you, when you die, before you die, like it helps you because you know. And so I felt like I came back from that trip. You know, when I thought I died in the trip, the only thing I thought of was, oh my God, I didn't get to say goodbye. Sorry, I'm getting emotional. But I was like, I didn't get to say goodbye.

I didn't get to say goodbye to the people I love. So when I came back, it was just a realization. I didn't think about money. I didn't think about accomplishments. I didn't think about a single one of my possessions. The only thing I thought about were the people in my life and how I didn't get to say goodbye. So it was, yeah. And I just came back also just really glad to be alive. Excellent. So, yeah. So, and I think, so again, like coming back,

And experiencing that on a personal level was just very evolutionary. But I think also from a neuroscience perspective, like, again, it's like... And that one was actually like stepping into 5D, honestly. 5M was like 5D. It was like a whole new level of understanding of existence and of our universe. It was a very...

very intense thing. So I, you know, obviously it's not for everyone. And that's why I say it takes courage because you don't know what you're going to get. I know I had friends, other neuroscientists who did 5-MeO and their experience was all love and like white light. And, you know, I was like, how nice for you. Meanwhile, I died in mine. But like,

you know it's different for everyone you don't know what you're gonna get um so but i i think they're i think the evidence also suggests that they're very useful clinically and i also think personally they're they're great um personal development tools yeah i think i had two psychedelic experience i with uh the plants ayahuasca and some paddling last year

Yeah, November last year, I also had a near-death experience with Ayahuasca. And I also saw my parents there because I haven't seen them almost three or four years since the pandemic because they are living in China. So the Chinese government shut the border.

So I saw them in my trip. Because before I was like, okay, but I always live overseas and we are not that close. But during my trip, I feel like super emotional that I booked my tickets to fly back to China as soon as China opens the border. Oh, that's lovely. The medicine just gave you some interesting thing you never thought about or you kind of surprised this emotion. Definitely.

I think we suppress a lot. We're taught to suppress a lot. So yeah, a lot comes up. - Yeah, exactly. 'Cause I thought, oh, I'm strong, I'm independent. I don't need my parents support me. I'm happily living overseas by myself, but not exactly in that you see. And also for my, like two years ago, I had a Thumpealoo, it's also like an ayahuasca cactus plant.

and I saw my previous life. It's so vivid. It's so many different clips, like a movie.

Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Because before I never believed in reincarnation or past life regression. So I kind of want to listen to your opinion about this part, like karma and past life regression. What's your thoughts from a scientific perspective? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. So, oh, yeah, I didn't tell that part of the story. But so I, but actually, yeah, before I started doing the personal journey, I was going to the, I mean, I was going to get readings with my friends for fun. And then I heard this podcast episode with Chelsea Handler, and she was interviewing authors.

Laura Lynn Jackson, who's a psychic medium and Chelsea Handler at the time was a skeptic or, you know, whatever. I've been a fan for a long time and she's always been a skeptic. But anyway, she had Laura Lynn Jackson on and this episode, this podcast episode like changed my life. It's so funny because at that point I was not listening to anything spiritual, reading anything spiritual. I wasn't interested, but yeah,

Laurel and Jackson's are talking about that the spiritual framework, it's like, oh, it's, you know, we reincarnate, we come back in soul groups to learn lessons, and whatever. And so I kind of listened. And I thought, how interesting. That's what the psychics I went to said. And then they mentioned this book, many lives, many masters by Brian Weiss, who's a psychiatrist who it was a case study about that, like past life regression. So I ordered the book. And that was that was the book that that changed.

That kind of got me interested in all of this because it was, he, he was like a Yale at Yale and Columbia educated psychiatrist, like, um, atheist didn't believe in any of this stuff, but he had this patient that he starts healing with past life regression, which means he just puts her into hypnosis regression. She starts retelling her past lives. And then usually something from that life was traumatic, like drowning, let's say to death. And then she kind of relives it.

in the hypnosis. And then when she comes back, one of her problems in this life is resolved. Like she had a fear of swimming or something. And he had been trying to treat her for a year and a half and nothing had worked. And then suddenly this started working. So he was like, well, I don't know what this is, but I guess we'll just keep going. And one by one, her like anxiety got better and whatever. Like she was a mess. She couldn't leave her house or she, I don't remember the story exactly, but

Anyway, he ends up curing her. So I started digging into all the literature. I was like, well, maybe it's just this one guy or what is this? You know, this is so out. It was so far out there for me because I was not familiar with anything at that point. But I I read there were a few psychiatrists and behavioral health practitioners from like the 60s, 70s, 80s.

who stumbled across this in their practice, like Brian Weiss. And they stayed curious and explored it and then ended up doing this with thousands of patients. And they found that it works to heal people, both emotionally and physically.

And this, it does seem to be, that's the story that everyone tells when you put them in a regressed state and kind of ask them, you know, like if they're between lives or whatnot, if you ask them for what's going on, apparently all these thousands of people reported the same thing saying, Oh, I'm with my spirit guides or choosing my life. You know, this is my lesson in the last one, you know, like things like that. And so, um, yeah, so I read all those books and I,

you know, I still have a hard time understanding, but I mean, I'm open to it. I think also there was a

a lot of literature um from where's the university of virginia uh looking at kids between the ages of two to five years old who have these past life memories um so there was like 2 000 or 3 000 of them now they've interviewed there and then they go to try to verify that life like they'll get enough details and they have all these surveys and they publish papers so i think

I mean, honestly, I think there's like some evidence for it. Like, unless there's a, there might be another story or theory that we're missing. And the truth is that we don't have physics figured out yet. You know, like we can't reconcile regular physics with quantum physics. So who knows when we, when we figure some of that stuff out, maybe some of this other

you know, spiritual quote unquote anomalous data will make more sense. But I don't care that much anymore. I think it's probably true. Yeah. I think there's enough anecdotal evidence from... Yeah. So...

It's interesting. Yeah, when I visited Tibet, they have Tibetan Buddhism for all yin to believe the reincarnation because they select the Dalai Lama based on that. That's right. All these children, because it's already like a thousand years history, so each child they select, they could remember the previous Dalai Lama taught them.

like such a young age and they can recite all these Buddhism context and yes speaking interesting language so it's interesting. It's like two days ago my Brazilian friend he told me his daughter can speak Japanese in very young age and he has no idea what's going on because her daughter was so young like two or three years old and they can speak Japanese

he doesn't understand I think yeah he also share a lot of supernatural things wow that's fascinating he wants to to do the psychedelic trip to explain all his questions yeah so he share a lot of like private things about his supernatural encounters I find this wow fascinating I love those I love those stories now yeah because

because before I was just like, eh. But now I say, yeah, tell me more. I want to know more. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, and I think that there's, especially, you know, another near-death experiencers, like if you listen to their stories, those are really interesting too. And they report very similar things to what people report from past life regressions and also from the reincarnation, like the kids that report that.

So it's just interesting because a lot, you know, a lot of people don't come from cultures that believe in reincarnation. They like have no knowledge beforehand, especially the kids, right? They're just like two years old. They don't, they're growing up in a Christian household suddenly. Yeah. So yeah.

Yeah, I think there's quite a bit of evidence enough to say that we don't probably don't have the whole picture. Are there any practical things you can share with people like if they want to learn more about spirituality or just let them be open heart, such as like a meditation or something? Yeah, you can recommend people to try to start with. Let's see. Yeah, I mean,

Meditation is good, but it's so over-recommended. What I love that I've tried that is not as difficult as psychedelics, but is a step up for meditation, is breath work. So something like holotropic breath work or there's another...

called like neurotropic. I mean, whatever. I'm sure there's a lot of different variations, but breathwork is another way to get yourself into an altered state of consciousness. And it's,

It's actually, if you do it in a group, like you can have really powerful sessions, very similar to psychedelics and it gets you to that place where you can release emotions. And a lot of people have reported, like if you read any of Stan Grof's work, a lot of people have reported seeing past lives or releasing things like that. So I think breathwork is really great because it not only gets you in touch with your body and your emotions.

if you're lucky enough like to have or see something you know you might get in touch with a part of like have a spiritual mystical experience too so I really like I really like breath work obviously since I did this so much I really like getting readings like

Like, it's also the easiest way for you to not do anything. Like, you don't have to meditate. You don't have to take the psychedelic. All you have to do is show up. Yeah, no risk. Yeah, no risk. And if you don't like what you heard, throw it away. But yeah, like, it's kind of fun just to see, you know, what's going on.

Yeah. Lose an hour of your time. Yeah. I had a voice activation session with a Japanese monk last month. So this monk, he's using, he, uh, he's doing the chanting with a beat box. So he kind of, um,

remixed the modern technology with some old traditions. Very clever. I did that voice activation with him. And it's also involved with meditation and breath work. And I was so shocked because I was not on drugs, but I saw the perfect fractal patterns and geometry. Only if I'm on LSD, I will see it. But with that breath working and meditation, I saw it. Wow.

Whoa, that's interesting. Yeah. So actually there's a lot of, so one thing I'll say too, as a neuroscientist, like we don't have it all. We don't have a lot of research into like sound and light and how it affects your consciousness, but it's starting to be done. And,

And for example, I have some new friends, but friends at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies here in Santa Monica. And they're doing some of that. They're looking at different technologies, like these light and sound experiences and how they affect your consciousness. And they're actually going to, well, they're trying to raise money for it to do an ultrasound study to stimulate the pineal gland because no one apparently has actually studied the pineal gland in humans. Right.

that like much so yeah just kind of trying to see it test that hypothesis which is floating around the spiritual world but no one has ever tested so i think that there's a lot of potential there for like light and sound and altering consciousness and it's it's interesting true what other direction you see in this uh science world that they will lead to like more

with the spirituality? That's a good question. I mean, I think psychedelics is probably leading the way there, but I think what I just mentioned, the light and sound, that kind of exploration, because also what the psychedelics have done is propelled a kind of race for how do we get the psychedelic state and the benefits without the psychedelics. So then that's why you see some of these technologies like light and sound things picking up.

Um, but, and I think that that's, and that's mainstream. I mean, and I know there's a lot of research like at the Institute for Noetic Sciences where they're doing more, they're much more, they're not mainstream. They're much more open-minded. Like they'll study anything. So not anything. I mean, they're very smart. They're like, they're,

research is very good. But yeah, they're more into like, let's study energy healers, like no one studies them. Like, let's, you know, see if we can measure the change in the room, like the temperature, the pH, the

whatever quantum stuff that's going on. And if everything is interconnected, which everything is like systems, science tells us, right? Then when you change, everything around you changes. So one thing that I always think about when I'm reading a lot of these studies or that we were always missing in normal science is that it's kind of like the environment and how that's changing. So

I think there's a lot of really interest. I'm trying to think if there were other, I don't know why my brain is drawing a blank. I'm sure there are other institutes that I cannot remember at the moment that are doing

like innovative research but maybe I'll send you some links later yeah sure no problem and also I found this very interesting because I always feel the divided between the east and the western culture because in in Chinese culture this kind of fortune tailor sense is very common

And people like to worship those spiritual things. But in the Western world, I do feel like people are more rational to say this. So what's your opinion on that? And also, you have this mixed culture, the Persian and American cultures. What's your opinion? Yeah, I think...

It's so hard for me to gauge. I mean, I do think mainstream, like Western culture is very, like rationalist. I mean,

they use that word woo-woo to discount anything. And I've been trying to get, I've been trying to get people to realize, I feel like that word is slightly racist because it's like, what do they usually say it about? You know, it's like, it's usually something that's not Western. And so I don't know. Yeah. I think that there's a lot of, a lot of, and it's part of it is just,

their ignorance like they just don't know you don't know what you don't know um but yeah i do think that i think i think that when you go down to the individual level and i included some of the the stats in my book but i think it was like 25 of the population in the u.s believes in reincarnation i think more people than ever have reported having spiritual awakenings or experiences in the u.s and in the uk probably everywhere in the world and we have people doing site where you

doing more and more meditation and people are doing psychedelics now. So I think we're going to have a lot more of that. So I think that actually we're probably going to start to see a shift, but I also think with that shift will come some conflict because you know, the old versus the new, which usually happens, but yeah,

I think it can be tricky. You know, I don't know, like as a scientist being interested in this stuff, I always think about how to talk about it. And it takes a little bit of intuition to feel out who you're talking to and how to talk about it. But yeah,

At the end of the day, I don't think there are two things. I don't think science and spirituality are two things. I think they're one. It's one universe. So I think that we just haven't figured out the missing link or the right language to bridge them. But yeah, I don't, I just play the game and pretend they're separate things.

now and talk about it separately but they're not yeah i'm sure it's the same thing i see yeah one of my friends she's uh she used to be an entrepreneur and very rational but then she turns into a spirituality and she kind of like an influencer in china and she spread the word of spirituality

But so many mainstream media criticized her as a cult leader. Oh, wow. So, yeah, because this is kind of like reminds me back to the 1970s, you know, in America, there are so many people on drugs and so liberal and so many cults also emerging. Yes.

so you know there's always some bad apples in the air like using people's vulnerability oh yeah so what's your advice for the people who wants to enter the spirituality world but not be scammed by those people yeah i i mean it's always a risk i think that especially with something like spirituality sometimes you turn to it when you're in a vulnerable position and i think psychedelics make you particularly vulnerable

to, you know, changing ideas or flipping worldviews. So it is a very, very, um, delicate thing. I would say part of what, actually, I was going to say this about science, the science of spirituality, but it kind of ties in here too, is to, is to use, um, is to recognize, you know, the left and right brain. Um, I know Tom loves this. Yeah.

But I think you also find a lot of this in the esoteric and spiritual literatures of like yin and yang, right? Like rational and intuitive, you know, using both. And that's another thing, like when people go to get readings, you should never hand over your power to somebody and think that what they say is true. You know you and your life best, right? Like you always have to check it against your own intuition, right?

Um, so I think there's a lot of that, like, um, and I, with the same as spirituality, like I could never personally, um, I just could not have opened to spirituality without some science. It was, uh, that was just the way it was for me. So I needed findings. Like I needed a scientific publication in my hand to say like some evidence, you know, something. Um, and so I think that, um,

I think that that helps too. And that's why I think actually it's important to start bridging them because then you can't have people making wild claims. But the problem is right now there's not a lot of research money. There's not a lot of people trying to seriously study the bridging of these two things. They're just like, no, that's woo-woo. I won't touch this. I'll ruin my career. And it's like, great, that the rest of us have to suffer by not having any research findings. Sure, sure.

So, yeah, I mean, I hope that that changes. I will see. I think we're probably a few years, no, more than that. I think we're a little while away from that. I do think psychedelics is starting to shift that a little bit because you see psychedelic and consciousness centers opening up at big universities, but yeah,

you know, we'll see what happens. But yeah, if I had one plea to make, it's like, yeah, if you have money to burn, you should probably find some people doing interesting research and encourage it. So what do you hope readers and listeners take away from your book? Because your book kind of also gave me a confidence and affirmation to say, okay, science and spirituality can be merged together. They are together. Yeah, yeah. I,

That's what I was hoping. That's what I was hoping would happen. So, you know, my journey was really, really hard for me. It was like first I had an existential crisis, then I had an identity crisis. I have got, I'm still going through integrating all of it. It's,

a really long, difficult journey, but it's worth it. And I think the book was the first step in saying, first of all, you know, like, why should you care about spirituality? Because I never cared. It really is valuable. It's like, it's almost like if I go back in time to tell my previous self, like,

you won't believe it, but it'll actually help your life. Like you won't believe it, but your day-to-day life will actually get so much easier because yeah, you learn this way of reframing things, right? Like for me, this simple exercise of, okay, well, what we don't really know,

what this universe is and what reality is. And I don't care what any scientist says, since I am one, I know they don't know anything. So, you know, what if we do reincarnate? And what if I am learning lessons, then, you know, instead of every difficult situation in my life, I can ask myself, what am I supposed to be learning here? And that helps me anyway, significantly, to not be like, you

just a victim and just being like, God, this sucks. Like, why can't this person see my point of view or whatever, you know, like flipping the script and reframing the narrative in your head, which I got from spirituality helps me a lot. And then also that,

I guess, emphasizing or highlighting that these are human experiences. Like I talk about in the book, a lot of my scientist colleagues have had them. I mean, since the book I found whole communities. Well, first of all, I founded one with a fellow neuroscientist with a bunch of other neuroscientists who have had, or are interested in these experiences. And there's an even bigger one that we joined with like 600 physicians and scholars and scientists who have all had emergent experiences. What is what they call it? Um,

And so these are common. It's just that no one talks about them. And, you know, I feel like I guess I'm a little bit rebellious. So once I was when I came into this and I was like, why doesn't anyone talk about this? Then it's kind of like we should just talk about it.

I don't care that it makes people uncomfortable. I don't care that you don't believe in it. Like there's, you know, there's, there's evidence and not that we have to shove it in anyone's face or anything, but I think, yeah, it was like, I was looking for permission. I finally realized that, you know, in the, during, in the journey, it was like, I keep having these interviews with people because I'm looking for permission from another scientist to basically tell me it's okay for you to believe in something.

And then to find evidence for it. And so I wrote the book to give that to other people. Cool. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Thanks to Tom. He introduced your book to me. So I was like, yeah, that's good. Now I can also spread the word to my fellow skeptical science-focused friends. Yeah. And I think being...

Skeptical is fine. I don't like the word skeptical anymore. I think you want to be discerning, right? You want to discern what is valuable and what is good research and what is not and what makes sense for you and what is not. So yeah, I think that that's a better way probably to approach all of this. So last question. Can you tell me some upcoming projects or area you are working on or you're currently passionate about?

Yeah. Well, I do write a, as I mentioned, a psychedelics and altered states newsletter, which I still really enjoy doing. So I am doing that, but actually right on topic. So every year we have a big neuroscience conference. It's the society for neuroscience as a conference. Last year we did a neuroscience and spirituality social conference.

and 50 scientists showed up. I thought no one was going to come. I was like, no one's going to come to this, but 50 scientists showed up and the room was overflowing. They wanted to stay in touch. We started a group. We have a website. This year, we wanted to do it bigger because we're like, wow, a lot of people are interested in this. We should do something bigger this year. We decided to

to do basically consciousness is we talk a lot about that, but you know, consciousness is one of the hard things that you can study in neuroscience, but it's kind of, it used to be controversial. Um, like if you, they used to tell you don't study consciousness, it'll ruin your career. Um, but now it's a little more open, but it's still, um,

look, we just had a recent controversy actually last week where one group of scientists called another group with a different theory. They called their theory pseudoscience, even though it's one of the leading theories in neuroscience about consciousness. Okay. Anyway, so we were like, we need to have a panel and we're going to talk about alternative models of consciousness. And so that's what we're doing this year. And we're actually raising money for it because it's so expensive to like have the room and the food and like,

and all that but and i'll send you the link if you want to help spread the words yeah sure but we just got um yeah like some of the we got we just got one of the biggest neuroscientists who who leads one of the leading theories um christophe coke to agree to come and donald hoffman who has he's from uc irvine yeah he is he talks about the fit you know evolutionary reality yeah exactly um

Jonathan Schooler and Julia Mossbridge, who also he has, they talk about quantum fields and he talks about electromagnetic fields, theories of consciousness. So yeah, so we're putting this together to be like, we need innovative ideas. We need open minds and we need conversation because science has become a little bit like clicky and a little bit like, you know,

It's like they, with their disapproving stares and kind of quiet, like, condescension, discourage, I think, conversation in the field, especially in young neuroscientists. And I think that they need to see...

some innovation and some open minds, but you don't see a lot of that in science anymore, unfortunately. Yeah, for sure. Wow. That's exciting. Are you guys going to like live streaming or is it more close to in real life? It's a public event. So if you're in Washington, DC on November 11th, and I'll send you all the info or I have to put on my website, but it's public. You can come. It's not at the actual conference. It's at the satellite or whatever at the hotel. Yeah.

we are going to record it. I don't know if it'll be live streamed. We haven't figured that out yet. But yeah, we're definitely planning on recording it. That's gonna be a great conversation to listen to with all these big names. Yeah.

So yeah. Nice. Yes. We're excited. And then we're also working on like putting together science and spirituality retreats. We did two last year. I'm sorry, this year. We're still in 2023. We did two this year and we're planning one for next year. And it'll be a space where we can present some of the science findings, but then also have people come, you know, experience. Like you were asking, like, what's a good way? Like, you know, we could have a light sound experience or they can get readings or we could do energy classes or something. Yeah.

Something just happened. Is that angel coming? I don't know. I thought it was an earthquake, but nothing is moving. Wow. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. Very nice to have you and chat about your book and your experience. Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.