S2E10: Cognitive Decline and Higher Consciousness

When memory fades and language falls silent, we assume connection is lost. But what if it isn’t? In this episode, we explore whether telepathy might offer a bridge to those living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. The journey begins with Rebecca, a close friend from Season 1, whose father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis collides unexpectedly with the earliest telepathy experiments that launched The Telepathy Tapes. As caregivers and families reach out with similar stories, we follow Rebecca into a deeply personal experience with Dan Goerke, a man who communicates with people’s “higher self” of people who can no longer speak. What unfolds raises unsettling and tender questions about awareness, regret, forgiveness, and the possibility that something essential remains intact even as cognition declines. We then widen the lens, turning to physicians and researchers studying end-of-life consciousness, including hospice data showing that visions, communication beyond language, and profound peace are not rare—but incredibly common. These accounts challenge a core assumption: that a failing brain means diminished consciousness, rather than a thinning of our mind’s filter. Across these stories, an idea emerges. That dementia may not represent disappearance, but transition. That those we fear we are losing may still be present—listening, understanding, and connecting in ways we don’t yet know how to measure. This episode asks us to reconsider what it means to be “gone,” and whether communication—like love—might persist even when words do not. _______ Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass https://thetelepathytapes.supercast.com/ to get ad-free episodes, never-before-heard interviews, behind-the-scenes documentary footage, and access to our private Discord community. This is your invitation to come closer. To help shape what’s next. To be more than a listener… to be a co-creator of this paradigm shift. So if you’ve felt moved, if you’ve felt seen, if you’ve felt the call, subscribe today and join us: thetelepathytapes.com. https://thetelepathytapes.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ky Dickens?

  Hi everyone, this is Kai Dickens and you're listening to the Consciousness Cassettes from TTT Media.

• 0:11Ky Dickens?

  In our first series, The Telepathy Tapes, non-speakers showed us that telepathy is possible, shattering our assumptions about the world itself.

• 0:20Ky Dickens?

  In this series, we're turning to others who've also been dismissed, doubted, or mocked for the ways they claim to know, see, heal, or create. What if only by listening to those who've been ignored, we could unlock the deepest mysteries of who we are, where we come from, and where we're going? This is the Consciousness Cassettes, and we're opening up the next channel.

• 0:44Ky Dickens?

  Do you ever feel like you're eating well, exercising, trying to get enough sleep, but you're still not sure it's actually working? What if you could better understand how your body is aging and what you could do differently? That's why I'm excited about the True Age test from True Diagnostic. It uses epigenetics, which looks at tiny chemical tags on your DNA that can change with things like sleep, stress, diet, exercise, and your environment. True Age reads through those tags to estimate how your body is aging. What I find most interesting is that you get a clearer picture of where you are and where you may be able to improve. The test shows your biological age and how different areas of your body, like your heart, brain, and liver, may be aging. You also get personalized recommendations around nutrition, exercise, sleep, supplements, and lifestyle. So if you're already doing a lot of the right things, but want to know what you could be doing better and exactly where to focus, True Age gives you a much clearer place to start.

• 1:29Ky Dickens?

  The process is simple. It's an at-home finger prick. You send it back in the prepared kit, and you get your personalized report online in about three to four weeks. So if you're serious about longevity, or even just curious about whether your body is aging faster or slower than your actual age, this is one of the easiest ways to find out. Right now, go to trudiagnostic.com and use code TAPES for 20% off your entire order. That's trudiagnostic.com code TAPES for 20% off. In our last two episodes on healing, we explored how scientific research is beginning to explain how energy and information can move through us, even across distance. Those conversations grounded the idea that the body and mind are not closed systems. They gave some scientific validation to the fact that even though some mysteries are not yet fully understood, they're real and not imagined.

• 2:12Ky Dickens?

  But data can only take us so far, because at the heart of this work is something science has not yet been able to measure: is there a higher self? A soul? A part of us that exists beyond the physical brain. And this week, those types of questions become particularly relevant, especially if possibly a higher self or soul might be a bridge to connect with someone whose mind or body are failing them due to disease, decline, or dementia. When memory begins to slip, or cognition fades, or when language falls silent, it's one of the most frustrating and isolating experiences, almost like enduring grief while someone is living. And is it wishful thinking to believe that connection might still be possible? I used to think so, until I met scores of non-speakers who do not feel fully in command of their bodies, yet rely on telepathy

• 2:55Ky Dickens?

  as a real and dependable form of communication and connection. And if it's true for them, then we have to at least consider the possibility that those whose brains are failing them may still have access to something within, something aware. So the ultimate question is, could telepathy be a bridge for all of us when language is gone? And that's the question we're exploring today. And to begin this exploration, I want to introduce you to someone who's been a part of this journey ever since the very first telepathy test I ever witnessed in episode one of season one, a dear friend whose world, like mine, was deconstructed entirely and then reconstructed again.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  So originally, you reached out to me, and you were like, hey, I'm recording this non-speaker, autistic girl who's coming in from Mexico. And her whole family, they only speak Spanish. So you knowing that I'm Cuban-American, and so I know Spanish fluently, you were asking me to translate. And I'm here to help. You know, I love you. We've been friends for a while. So I'm like, whatever you need from me, I'm here to help. That's how it all originated.

• 4:02Ky Dickens?

  This is my friend Rebecca. And for those of you who did not listen to season one of the Telepathy Tapes, here's the context. When this journey began, I struggled to believe that telepathy was truly happening in non-speakers, even with neuropsychiatrist Dr. Hennessy Powell's years of research pointing in that direction. Her work was compelling. But if I was going to put my own time, resources, and reputation into investigating this, I needed to witness it firsthand. So I called in every favor I could to create a fully controlled environment for a series of telepathy tests with a family from Mexico, who had just reached out to Dr. Hennessy Powell regarding their daughter Mia, who was 12 years old, and said she could read minds. I flew a few scientists and the family to Los Angeles to do these tests. I invited Rebecca to the shoot as a translator.

• 4:45Ky Dickens?

  She's a parent and someone I trusted to enter that sensitive space, but I didn't know what she would think of it at all, because this was far outside of her typical life experience.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  I've animated for features across multiple studios, like Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, Sony, Blue Sky, you name it. So this is not the world that I'm familiar with. I just do animated family films.

• 5:10Ky Dickens?

  And so she really didn't have any exposure to things like telepathy or ESP. And Rebecca and I had never really talked about anything like that in our friendship, because up until then, I wasn't interested in those things either. So I had no idea what she was thinking going in.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  The only beliefs I've had, like in the past, is I do believe there's more to life. But that was just like an internal kind of like, yeah, I think there's more out there. Now what? I have no idea. And so I've never really thought beyond that point. When I was going over there, I was thinking more like, in my mind skeptically. And as an animator, I always look where I'm not supposed to look in a scene, because that's how I animate. I want to direct people's eye to where they need to be. So that's my mindset is more like, this is a magic show. Let me see where they're pulling off this trick.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  When I walked in and I met Mia and her mom and, you know, her other family members, they just seemed genuine. They seemed just curious, like, why is this happening? That's all they wanted to know.

• 6:18Ky Dickens?

  We ran dozens of telepathy tests with Mia.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Once the actual telepathy started...

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I think it was like a little bit of a shock.

• 6:26Ky Dickens?

  Mia sat blindfolded on one side of the divider, while her mother was shown random words or pictures or numbers on the other side of the divider. And then we'd take off Mia's blindfold. And Mia's a non-speaker, so she spells to communicate by pointing to a letterboard or an iPad, and she typed out every answer correctly.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  By the end of the second day, I felt, I genuinely felt, okay, if people don't believe this, I don't even need to convince them anymore, because it's real, whether someone believes it or not.

• 6:57Ky Dickens?

  So, all of this was conflating with something happening in your personal life. So just tell me a little bit about your family.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Well, okay. I'll have to rewind a little bit. So, my family's from Cuba. So, my parents both came here. They got married, and then they had us, which is me, my brother, and my sister. We all grew up in Miami. English is my second language, technically. My sister and I have always been like best friends, 100%. But we had very different interests. Like, she has always had an interest in like law enforcement and like the military. And she became a police officer. She worked for the DA in Georgia. And I went sort of the avenue of creativity and art, and eventually stumbled into this career in animation.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  My sister and I have very like politically different views. But still, what's funny is we're able to sit together in a room, even though we have very different views on different topics, and have an open, honest, fully like transparent conversation, where we can completely not agree, but understand each other's point of view.

• 8:10Ky Dickens?

  Yeah, and I loved when you and I were talking about this, because I think that most families in America have political differences. And I come from the standpoint, I think, so do you, that above anything else, we should be love forward and finding our commonalities. And when you were talking about your family and what's different about you all, but there was a commonality that you all shared, which was wanting to try to reach your dad. And so, what happened to your dad? And how did it impact your mom?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  My dad was diagnosed in 2016 with Alzheimer's and dementia. When we found out that he had dementia and Alzheimer's, my mom shared it with us. And I don't think they, both of them, ever had real conversations with each other. Like it's, you know, husband and wife, about what that really means. I think more than, I think most families kind of do this. You just put it under the rug and you just kind of move on with your life. You're like, well, it's not affecting me today, so we'll just deal with it when it comes. So a few years ago, it just started getting worse and worse. He's gradually lost his memories and his mind as time kind of passed.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Now, it's what, 2025? So it's been quite a few years that he's had the disease. And it was three years ago where there was a real incident. He walked out of the house in the middle of the night. And when my mom woke up in the morning, she was like, where, where is he? We didn't know if we would find him. So all of Miami Police Department was out looking for him. The police department found him on the stoop of some big complex. And I think it was four in the afternoon when they found him. So we'd spent the whole day not knowing what was going on. So this was the first time it was very clear, this is serious. What do you do when this happens in your life?

• 10:16Speaker 01

  And of course, my mom doesn't want him to go anywhere. She wants to take care of him. So we thought as a family, okay, well, yes, we'll keep him at home. And then after a year, uh, something happened in the middle of the night where he gets up and he didn't recognize her. It was scary for her and he ends up, you know, jumping out of the window to get out of the house. He injured her in the process. I'm all the way in California, my sister's in Georgia. We get a phone call in the middle of the night. That was the turning point for us as a family. We're like, he can no longer live here. Like, that's that. But what do we do? Um, and that's when, you know, luckily there are services at that point that we were able to put him into a facility.

• 11:02Ky Dickens?

  Yeah, and that's such a hard decision for families to make. How did your mom and all of you handle it?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  It was not easy for my mom. Like, it wasn't easy for any of us, but certainly for my mom. It was not easy. She's always prided herself in taking care of everybody in the family. And this was the moment in her life where she thought, now I can take care of him? Where she can't. So it's been devastating for her to have to put him somewhere. I think she's paused her whole life because she's felt now that if he can't live a life and he's in there, I can't live a life out here.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think that's true of so many people.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:45Ky Dickens?

  And so this episode came about accidentally. It was never in my plans for the second season. But everything you were experiencing, Rebecca, in your personal life started to converge with the emails that were coming into the telepathy tapes inbox. So about a year ago, my then assistant Catherine started seeing a bunch of emails from people that have dementia or caregivers of those with Alzheimer's who say, hey, this telepathy thing is not just relegated to non-speaking individuals with autism or praxia. It's also happening with people who are non-speaking because they have dementia or Alzheimer's or a stroke or they're in a coma. And I remember treading lightly, but bringing this up to you, this possibility.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  When you'd mentioned it to me, I'm like, do you know how freeing that might be for my mom? Like, if she could actually hear from my dad? And if he could give her some comfort in knowing that he was okay? You know, that he's happy where he is? And is he happy? Because ever since they've been together, he would always say, don't put me in one of those places. I don't want to be in one of those places.

• 12:48Ky Dickens?

  And there was one person who I hoped could help her understand what this might look like in real life. A man named Dan Gurkey. And if you caught up on the Talk Tracks episodes that we recently dropped in our feed, you'll be familiar with the story of Dan and his late wife Denise, who was diagnosed with early onset dementia in her 50s. And as the disease progressed, things became increasingly difficult for Dan as a caretaker. He was working a full-time job in real estate and trying to take care of Denise, and things kept getting harder and harder. And one night, just totally exhausted, something incredible happened that changed both of their lives. And we're not going to tell this whole story again, but here's a brief recap.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  It would take upwards of anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. To get her to go to the bathroom. And that was everything from getting her in the bathroom to figuring out how she just would not sit down.

• 13:39Ky Dickens?

  Daily things that used to take minutes were taking a long time, making the caregiving strain on Dan way worse.

• 13:45Speaker 03

  I was exhausted. I was laying there next to her and I remember hearing myself, I said to myself, you know, if I could only talk to you and you could communicate back, that would help this situation. In somewhat thing of a frustration, I said that. And in my mind, I heard her voice, the intonation of her voice say, well, talk to me.

• 14:12Ky Dickens?

  Shocked but also intrigued, Dan started talking back in his mind. And thus began Dan's telepathic connection with what he describes as Denise's higher self. And this improved their lives significantly in both spiritual and practical ways.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  I said, okay, all right, how do I get you on the toilet so that it's easier for both of us? She starts explaining and again, I'm hearing her voice and I'm looking down next to me, right? She's, she's fast asleep, not moving a muscle.

• 14:45Ky Dickens?

  And then Denise sent him images or instructions of what to do to help the process.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Turn me this way, push me down, do this, do that, right? I get up the next morning, I'm, I'm excited. I like, okay, I have a new method to get her in. So we go into the, into the bathroom. And within 30 seconds, I've got her sitting down. And I am like raising my hands, whooping it up. It's like the NFL player scoring the touchdown.

• 15:13Ky Dickens?

  And then the same thing was going on with getting Denise into the car. It was a fight and a struggle that took a long time every day.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  She tells me what to do telepathically in my mind, shows me the images of how to maneuver her to get in the car. And guess what? Same thing the next day, in the car in 20 seconds.

• 15:35Ky Dickens?

  And I asked Dan how he thinks it's possible that Denise is communicating with him if her brain, which as far as most people know, is responsible for all communication and knowledge, was deteriorating. How could she be coherent enough in any way to express anything to him?

• 15:49Speaker 03

  I've come to believe that who, who I am communicating with. Is Denise's higher self, her soul, said another way, right? That is who I'm communicating with. And that higher self and soul is all seeing, all knowing, all loving.

• 16:06Ky Dickens?

  And once Dan's telepathic connection with his wife was opened up, it's like the floodgates had opened to his ability to do this. And he was suddenly able to communicate with others with Alzheimer's. And he even started receiving messages from strangers with dementia, asking for help.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  A lot of times there is somebody, you know, I could be in a restaurant. I could be out driving in the car and I just hear people starting to talk to me. And a lot of times what I'll say, okay, tell your loved one that you want to connect with me. And so sometimes I get a call, sometimes I don't. Yet I encourage that person's higher self to somehow, let's foster that connection.

• 16:46Ky Dickens?

  It's almost like Dan has a gift of mediumship, but not for those who've passed, but for those who are still here. And as we learned earlier in the season, telepathy would be the mechanism that makes that kind of communication possible. And we've come across many other stories like this. And in episode five of The Talk Tracks, you met Elodie. She had a near death experience in the hospital. And when she returned, she suddenly had a new gift for connecting with people who'd passed on, but also those who are unable to speak due to disease or dementia or a coma or a stroke.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  It's all telepathy. And I have done sessions where I'm communicating with somebody's mom. And that woman is saying, you have my mom, but she is still living. She has Alzheimer and has been nonverbal for years. Or maybe I'm communicating with a father that is passed on the other side. And then all of a sudden I'm starting to communicate with the mother. And, you know, one lady even said, I know you have my mother because you're describing everything, but she's still here. And that's happened to me quite a few times.

• 17:42Ky Dickens?

  Sean Collins, another medium based in Australia, echoed the sentiment.

• 17:46Speaker 05

  That's a very, very common thing that all of us mediums experience. It's like someone showing up and they're like, I know exactly who that is, but they're alive.

• 17:56Ky Dickens?

  So now back to Rebecca and her family's journey.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  If there was a way my dad could communicate with my mom telepathically and allow her some peace of mind to say, look, you have a life. You need to live it while you have it.

• 18:12Ky Dickens?

  I had to jump on it. So for one more layer of validation, we asked Elodie if we could speak with someone who had personally experienced her connecting with a loved one who had Alzheimer's and saw that connection make a meaningful difference in the real world. She introduced us to her friend, who we'll call Jane, to protect the privacy of the senior. And Jane, who was very skeptical of this type of thing, could have never imagined what happened next.

• 18:33Speaker 06

  I've known Elodie for a long time, and somewhere in the 2000s, we just became closer and she started to reveal and share a little bit more about kind of her ability to attune, how it developed. And I was very skeptical, hesitant, all those things. And I kind of wrestle with it personally, just within my own faith system of what it means, I guess. But over the years, I've seen so many examples of extremely bizarre connections that she's made, people I've sent to her or things like that, that, you know, they validated this was very specific and unique to them. And I know I didn't provide any information.

• 19:18Speaker 06

  I know that the people don't have social media or things like that where people can research. So, plus, I just know her ethically, and so I know that she doesn't do any of this for money and she's not trying to make a living from it. She's truly just trying to help people find healing. And so this was my first time to really kind of ask her for something.

• 19:39Ky Dickens?

  Elodie's friend Jane found herself in a desperate situation, and though hesitant, decided to reach out to see if Elodie could use her gift to help.

• 19:47Speaker 06

  I have a family member, and this family member has very early onset dementia and also like a primary progressive aphasia. So, limited ability to speak and things like that. And they were able to, even with all the safeguards in place, they were able to wander off and they were able to get lost. And so it became a situation where everybody presumed they would be found, they were not.

• 20:20Speaker 06

  I reached out to Elodie and I just said, "Hey, on the off chance that there's anything you can offer in this capacity, let me send you a picture of this family member who Elodie had never met." And I didn't say anything about sort of the area in which that person lived or what it looked like. Like, I didn't describe it. I just said, "They don't know, you know, if they made it far away from the house, if somebody picked them up, if they'd been kidnapped." I mean, all scenarios were possible. Within a short period of time, she called me back and she just said, "They're okay. I was able to make a connection. They are okay.

• 21:04Speaker 06

  They got confused. They got lost. It's not that far from the house. They're tired and they're going to rest." They said, "The only real thing that's happened is that their legs have gotten significantly scratched, or I guess it's wooded." And in my mind, listening to her, I was thinking, "I didn't even say that there were woods around there. We didn't talk about that." You know, like, that was weird. The next day, it was going on quite a bit. Like, we're talking a massive search. They knew the person had dementia. They knew this was a dangerous situation. I called Elodie back and I said, "Like, do you have, you know, anything else?" And she said,

• 21:49Speaker 06

  "You know that concrete thing that's like a cylinder that the road goes over and water runs through the cylinder?" And I was like, "Like a culvert?" And I sent her a picture. I said, "Is this what you're seeing?" And she said, "That's exactly what I'm seeing." She said, "There has to be one of those near that area." Another family member said, "We know where that is." And the team had the dogs with them. And as soon as they hit that area, my relatives said the dogs went bonkers, picked up a scent, and took off. One of the teams was able to find the missing relative within proximity to the culvert.

• 22:30Speaker 06

  And then I went to see the relative after they were found. And the first thing I did was look at their legs. And sure enough, they had all the marks like from branches and things like that. It was the first thing because it was fascinating to me that that had happened. And they were, indeed, they were OK, thank goodness.

• 22:54Ky Dickens?

  Sometimes you have an idea you really believe in, but figuring out how to bring it into the world is what stops you. You know what you want to create, but building a website, setting up payments and actually getting it into other people's hands can feel like a whole nother job. That's why I love Shopify. We use it for the Telepity Tapes merch store, where every cent we make supports nonprofits who are serving non-speakers. It makes it easy for our listeners to support our community. And I believe that doing good should be as simple as possible. For anyone getting started, Shopify's pre-built themes and AI site builder help you create a professional-looking store without touching a line of code. And its mobile app lets you manage inventory, customer support and payments from anywhere. That kind of flexibility matters when your business is one of several things you're pouring your energy into. With Black Friday approaching, launching now means you can take advantage of the extra online traffic.

• 23:39Ky Dickens?

  Give yourself time to get comfortable with your store before the holiday rush. Give that idea that you've been carrying around a place where people can find it. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/tapes to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/tapes. Go to Shopify.com/tapes today to hear your first You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated, everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted and made to be worn again and again. Their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $50,

• 24:24Ky Dickens?

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• 25:08Ky Dickens?

  tapes. It's the best way to support our show.

• 25:15Ky Dickens?

  Though Jane was reticent to lean on Elodie's gifts for help, desperation brought her to that point. And Rebecca and her family were in a similar situation, desperate to connect, to ensure the well-being of their loved one. And coincidentally, Dan Gurkey, who you met earlier and said he can connect with all sorts of people with dementia, happens to live about 20 minutes from where Rebecca's dad had just moved into a nursing home in Georgia. So I set up a Zoom call for Rebecca to meet Dan Gurkey. Rebecca, I'm sure you have questions as to how all this works. And Dan, you probably have questions regarding her family and their willingness to do this and that type of thing.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  I understand your dad has dementia or Alzheimer's?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Alzheimer's, yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Alzheimer's, okay.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  My dad's name is Pedro.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Pedro, okay. What about your mom?

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Her name is Maria. They both speak Spanish. You know, you speak English and they only speak Spanish. And so I was concerned, like, how does that look? Or would you be able to communicate?

• 26:09Speaker 03

  So what I have found is that as far as telepathy goes, that doesn't matter. I only know English. But when I do readings, I always get messages several ways. One is through words, which come to me in English. I might get a Spanish word that you would have to interpret. Or I get images of of objects or people. The basic premise of all that is to say that language is not a barrier as far as telepathy goes.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Again, this is fairly new for me, like, over the past, like, few years since originally I helped Kai translate on the very first episode with the very first family that came from Mexico. And since then, I feel like it's been a bit of an unfolding for me. Like, I was exposed to that, and then that led me down like a little bit of a rabbit hole to try and make sense of what I saw that day. And I think my sister has a lot of reservations.

• 27:12Ky Dickens?

  Toward the end of the call, Rebecca seemed willing to keep moving forward, but wasn't sure how to approach this with her family.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  How do we know that this is, like, for real? If there was something specific, I think that would, that would make both my sister and my mom be like, nobody would know that.

• 27:32Ky Dickens?

  Rebecca next had to get her sister on board. Her sister was a bit more skeptical, and she took Rebecca through a valid thought exercise, saying, "Look, let's say telepathy is possible. What if what their father communicates through Dan was negative or something they didn't want to hear?" And here's a clip from that conversation.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  So I was asking the questions that we all had a concern over, right? You specifically were telling me. You don't want Dad to come across and be all saying things that's gonna make Mom be in like, in a bad headspace, right? Right. As soon as I said that, he said first, he's never had an experience where someone has said something like that to him, like, a negative thing. But he said, like, basically, when he communicates or connects with someone, that it tends to be, like, the higher self. Like, you're not talking to someone necessarily, like, in this plane.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Like, if we could talk to Dad in this plane, it would be Dad in this plane. But he's talking to Dad's higher self, just like you have a higher self that kind of guides you. That's who he's communicating with. And I told you his backstory, right?

• 28:46Ky Dickens?

  Yes.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  His wife has since passed away. But his wife had Alzheimer's. So, two things. He communicates with people who has Alzheimer's, but also he has like firsthand experience, like what that feels like and what kind of questions are important. You know what I mean?

• 29:05Ky Dickens?

  Rebecca is one of the best humans I know, and she moves through her life with deep sensitivity and intention. And she approached this experience in the same way. And after many conversations with her mom and siblings, they decided that the best approach that would probably feel the safest and best to their dad and least intrusive would be for Rebecca to visit her dad alone with Dan Gurkey to see if they could telepathically connect. And we also had a sound guy tag along.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  So, I had already planned a trip to go to Georgia with my family to go see my mom and my dad and spend a little bit of time. So, it was just by chance that it was fantastic that Dan also lived there. So, we can kind of like merge the trips and make it kind of organic and natural and, you know, no fuss.

• 29:47Ky Dickens?

  And before Rebecca left, her and I talked just briefly on the phone. Okay, so we're gonna have a sound guy, Sully, there, and he'll be rolling the whole time. So, you don't really need to worry, you know, about any of that stuff. But if you can just try to remember to take notes maybe on how things unfold.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:02Ky Dickens?

  So, that way you can give me a recap later. And, you know, just if this doesn't work, it's okay. You know, if he's not connecting, it's okay.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:11Ky Dickens?

  Just because there's a sound guy there doesn't mean that something has to happen. It may not. So, no pressure. You know, just let it go where it goes and just report back honestly what happens and we'll learn something from it.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  The way we started is Dan and I met, we went to the facility so that he could sit with my dad and with me, and we could just have a conversation, just to see how it goes, see if he could connect, see if there was anything there.

• 30:35Ky Dickens?

  So, prior to Dan, sitting in front of your dad that day, you had no way of communicating to your dad or even telling your dad, "Hey, this man is here to speak with you telepathically."

• 30:45Speaker 01

  No, no. There was no conversation with my dad prior to this.

• 30:51Ky Dickens?

  So, he didn't know Dan was coming, wasn't introduced to him at all until he walked in that day?

• 30:56Speaker 01

  When I walked in, I was like, "We're gonna have a conversation with Dan." But prior to that moment, and none of it was, "We're gonna talk in telepathy." When we got there, that was the first time my father had any clue that we were having a conversation with anybody. With him. I guess Dan tries to sort of connect and communicate, you know, with whoever he's going to be talking to. And he did that with my dad. He said he'd been having conversations with him via telepathy over the course of the past week. So he'd already had that kind of communication.

• 31:29Ky Dickens?

  Okay, and now here's some audio from that day.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  What?

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Are we recording? We're good?

• 31:34Speaker 03

  I'm recording.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Immediately when I wheeled my dad out into this little outdoor area where Dan was waiting for me, he recognized him to some capacity. And that's why he acknowledged him.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  He lit up when he saw me. I could sense that he knew who I was.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Sully, who was the sound guy, was also there. He was on the other side next to Dan. And he saw that connection, that they almost like recognized each other. So I wheel him out. We sit down by the table and then we just start having a conversation. My mom gave it to me. It's a dessert. He loves desserts. As soon as we sat down and we just started talking, Dan initially was saying, oh, I'm receiving some information. You know, I want to share this with you. And one of the things was food. I guess he would show images. That's how he would talk to him with telepathy. And he's saying, I'm seeing, you know, this, these images and I'm translating them as though he's saying that he wishes his food was more flavorful.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  The food, the food, he goes, I'm used to more spicy food. So anything you can do to spice it up.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  My dad would put Tabasco on everything. White rice, Tabasco. Eggs, Tabasco. You name it, Tabasco.

• 32:50Ky Dickens?

  Okay, but that could also be an easy guess or an assumption for someone who grew up in Cuba. But here's the thing that got really wild. What her dad said next.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Oh, he said you have to turn on your mind so you can talk. That's what he just said.

• 33:02Ky Dickens?

  He said, turn on your mind so we can talk.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  See, he knows.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  And I'll say this, like, my dad, sometimes you'll go see him and he's not having a good day. And other times you go and he's having a great day. This was a great day.

• 33:17Ky Dickens?

  He was actually like verbal?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Me anunció con una sonrisa placentera que pronto en el otoño de mi alma.

• 33:25Ky Dickens?

  And then did your dad say anything specific? Because, you know, it's easy to be like, oh, um, Dan was just saying things that weren't evidential. There's, he could have said that about anyone. But was there something that he said where it's like, no, this, he was obviously talking to my dad? Like, there's no way he could have known this. Were there any moments like that?

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Um, yes, my dad was sending him this information.

• 33:46Ky Dickens?

  How did he send that information? Like, just to be really clear, like, did your dad speak that in Spanish? And someone interpreted it to Dan? And he's retitled to, or how did that message get sent?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  He was sending it through telepathy. And he said, your dad is saying that he wants to make sure that he says he's sorry. That he had always planned for his life to be a different way. But as his life unfolded, there are many things that he regretted doing. That he was a very difficult person and that he made life difficult for us and for my mom. And that he was sorry for that.

• 34:27Ky Dickens?

  And so when you played that bit of audio back for your mom, did that track for her?

• 34:31Speaker 01

  My mom said, oh, yeah. Right before he got Alzheimer's and was able to communicate, he did share that with my mom. That was one thing that I think was very evident.

• 34:41Ky Dickens?

  And Dan had no way to know that your dad was kind of a rough person, right? Like, you know, because there's like, my dad's a really sweet man. It's not like he could have just known that or said that. Did anything else transpire that felt maybe unexpected or pretty evidential?

• 34:55Speaker 03

  He loves that you're a great mom to your kids, to his grandkids. He says, keep going with your career, what you're doing. And he wants you to remember that lesson of follow your heart. Follow your intuition, follow your heart and love, love, love, love what you do. That's the most important thing, not the paycheck, he says. And then there's something about your car. You need to take care of something with your car.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting. Well, he was a mechanic by trade. And then I was like, oh shit. Two weeks ago, I was going over a speed bump. And I went over one bump a little too fast and I could feel a scrape. And then I went over a second bump and I felt a second scrape. And before I went to Georgia, I thought, man, I need to check my car.

• 35:45Ky Dickens?

  When Rebecca returned home, she took her car in to get checked out. And then she called immediately after that appointment.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  The mechanic looked it over. He actually found that there was a fuel leak from one of the lines going to the fuel tank. And that they basically said the car is undrivable. And from what he explained, this is an incredibly serious issue that could potentially had caused an explosion of the vehicle from the fuel. So I'm eternally grateful to Dan and to my dad. The bottom line is that's pretty intense. I'm actually a bit at a loss of words.

• 36:30Ky Dickens?

  So there was a lot of audio to sort through and they covered a lot of ground. But the next part was wild. And even if everything else might be tossed into the column of coincidence or lucky guess, this is really hard to explain away.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  So when we sit down and we start talking with Dan and Dan starts communicating with my dad and translating what he's getting via telepathy from my dad. My dad's on the other side of me and he starts speaking in Spanish. As he's speaking in Spanish, I'm trying to translate for him, realizing what he's saying is, see the wind? Do you see the wind out there? That's, that is how we talk. And he started pointing at his own temple and then pointing at Dan, saying, that's how it happens.

• 37:15Ky Dickens?

  Here's some recording of Dan, Rebecca and her dad sitting outside in the courtyard.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  So he said that there's a wind was passing through and that you're listening.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  I'm listening all the time. Yeah, we've been talking.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  He keeps touching his head like

• 37:32Speaker 03

  The wind?

• 37:34Speaker 01

  You're listening.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Like the wind is listening.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:38Ky Dickens?

  It was a little hard to keep up with, so Rebecca talked me through this afterward.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  We were outside. He kept gesturing like that the wind is passing, the wind is passing here, and that's what's speaking to us. That's how you talk. And at that moment, my dad would point at his temple. He would point at his temple and then point at Dan, point at his temple and point at Dan, and talking about the frequency and communication. There's a frequency everywhere, and you talk via the wind. The wind is passing by. As it passes by, that's how you send messages. And I was like, what? And then Dan's like, do you think he's talking about telepathy?

• 38:19Ky Dickens?

  Is that something your dad would like be whimsical about it normally? Like what he said, they're talking about telepathy and communication through the wind? Or is that like totally abnormal for your dad to say something like that?

• 38:29Speaker 01

  My dad wouldn't be talking about telepathy. Like, as a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever had a single conversation, even with my dad's right mind, about telepathy or communication.

• 38:40Ky Dickens?

  To Dan and Rebecca, this exchange seemed to reveal that her father understood the diffuse, nonlinear nature of telepathic communication and was trying to describe it in a way that made sense to people who had never experienced it directly. And later, when Rebecca listened back to the recording, something else stood out. Throughout the day, Rebecca had been translating from Spanish to English, so Dan could follow her father's responses. But listening back, she realized she had not consistently been translating for Dan's English back into Spanish. And yet, her father, who didn't speak any English, appeared to understand what Dan was saying and respond to it.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  So, fast forward a little bit, because two days later, when I was in the house with my mom alone, I was like, oh, we have the track. Do you want to listen to what we talked about with Dad when you weren't there? And she was like, sure, play it. I'm hearing this whole conversation, and my mom's listening to it. And I paused it, and I go, hold on, Mom. Do you realize I didn't translate that to Dad? I translated to Dan. And even though he didn't understand Dan, because he doesn't know English, he was having a conversation with him. Why would he respond to a conversation we're having in English if he does not know English? That conversation happened telepathically, and that happened twice.

• 40:04Ky Dickens?

  So after your first day together, how did things end?

• 40:07Speaker 01

  I'm wheeling my dad back into his section inside. I said, oh, Dan, you want to, you know, come with? And it just, we'll place my dad and then we'll go together. As we did that, I'm leaving my dad. I'm saying my goodbyes the first day. And I turn around and I see Dan's like talking to other patients there. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Normally, nobody speaks there. It's usually very, you know, low energy. But it felt like there were smiles. There was white eyes. And I looked back and not only did he talk to one, but then there was another one who raised their hand and he came to them. It happened to like three patients. And I was like, that's weird. And then as we walk out together, just me and Dan,

• 40:52Speaker 01

  my dad stayed behind. As we walk into the hallway, I look at Dan and I go, hey, so what was that all about? And he looks at me and he's like, well, before I got here, you know, what I do is I like to, you know, communicate with this facility and reach out and say, hey, if there's anybody here who wants to communicate, who wants to talk to me or share some information that I can give to your family members, reach out to me, like flag me down. And that's what just happened. And I, I just froze thinking, that is what just happened. I just witnessed that. I saw it happen. He doesn't know any of these people. It was the first time he's ever been in this facility. And why are these people flagging him down? He just explained it to me.

• 41:33Ky Dickens?

  And when you've been there before, is any random person in the hallway flagging you down or your sister down or anyone?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 41:39Ky Dickens?

  So there's no, flagging down is not a natural occurrence here?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  No, not, not from my experience.

• 41:45Ky Dickens?

  And people were like, raised their hands trying to get to Dan?

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were looking at him. They would even like crack a smile. Like I could see their eyes become saucers. It was almost like, you know, when you're like excited about something and your eyes widen, that's what I saw.

• 42:00Ky Dickens?

  So you think Dan is the real deal?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  I think he is 100% and I'm so grateful. Like, he is an incredible human being and he is sharing and giving peace to a lot of families.

• 42:13Ky Dickens?

  So do you think that your mom believed in the end that Dan was telepathically communicating with your dad?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  There are definitely moments that resonated and comments that he did make that sounded like my dad. I do feel like this gave her what she needed to like be able to continue like living a life. So it did make a positive difference.

• 42:33Ky Dickens?

  So in the end, I believe you had three days there and I'm just curious how it felt for you personally. And maybe you could just share one more time like what you were hoping to get out of all of this in the first place.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Walking into this, I think what I really wanted to get and what I felt my mom needed was sort of the comfort of knowing that my dad was okay, that we placed him there and that not only was he okay, but that he understood why he was there.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  And I hoped that would happen through the telepathy.

• 43:04Ky Dickens?

  And then how did it feel to say goodbye to your dad on that final day?

• 43:08Speaker 01

  He just turned 87, so we just celebrated his birthday. I went over to the window, I sit next to him and I'm saying my goodbye. You know, and you don't always say goodbye when you're leaving with an Alzheimer's patient. You just say, I'll be right back or I'm going to work or you never end it or else, you know, it's difficult to walk away. So as I sit down and I'm like, oh, you know, I'll be right back. And he looks at me, he's a little emotional and I stayed quiet with him. And very rarely do you get moments of lucidity, right? He was lucid and he shared with me, he was like, he goes, I understand. It's okay.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  I think he was referring to being there, that he was okay and that he loved me. And I put my hand on his chest and I said, I love you too.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Thank you. And I was just thinking, I hope he's okay.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  And he did. And it felt like what he was saying is he understood why he was there and he wasn't going with us. And that he was okay, like I'm okay.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  And it's okay. So I was like, thanks.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Rebecca shared the story with me really candidly on the phone right afterward.

• 44:37Speaker 07

  And I tell you this, Kai, I haven't talked to my dad in over six years, maybe seven.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 44:47Speaker 07

  That he's actually had a conversation, a lucid conversation. And I knew in that moment that either Dan triggered something or connected something, and my dad came back to me in that moment to share that. And I know that was a result of those last three days where I was with him and with Dan.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  It's really amazing because for me, it's amazing for two reasons. One, it's like what you needed him to say through telepathy, he ended up saying to you with words, which is almost a better gift in his voice.

• 45:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  And then other thing that's so remarkable is that, you know, when I was listening back to your conversation with Dan, it sounds like there's so much going on with the higher self. And maybe like something he's doing in that work is connecting the higher self and the lower self. And I think about with the work with the non-speakers, like so much about it is about regulation and being in your body. And sometimes when you can be in your body, you can do remarkable things that you can't normally unless someone's there helping. Merge it all, you know?

• 45:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  And it's almost like spelling, like you need a communication regulation partner to like help you pierce through the praxia, that disease. We'll come back to this idea in a minute because it's important. But first I wanted to understand if this experience brought peace to Rebecca in the way that she hoped it would.

• 46:04Speaker 07

  Initially, all we wanted to know was that he was okay, that he was well and he was happy and content where he's at. And that's precisely what he gave us. He gave me that gift when his last words to me were that. And he literally used those words, which...

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Is very rare, and I was able to share it with my mom and my sister.

• 46:32Ky Dickens?

  I actually wonder if maybe somewhere deep down, he knew exactly what you needed to hear him say.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  I think, deep down and high up, he certainly knew. He's more connected there than he is here, and that's the gift, and a gift that Dan gave us.

• 46:50Ky Dickens?

  So, watching someone who's been disconnected from his body and his brain, someone who hasn't been able to hold a lucid conversation for six to seven years, suddenly speak with clarity, does make you wonder what happened, and it's often in moments like this where our usual explanations fall short, and that's when we reach for concepts that might help us make sense of it. Like, maybe there is a difference between a higher self and a lower self, and if Pedro's lower self was not able to communicate, was it his higher self jumping in? Like, did his higher self align even briefly with the part of him still tethered to this physical body, just so he could reach Rebecca? And to start to explore this, I wanted to share a brief snippet of a conversation that happened between Rebecca and Dan later, that made me start to think about this other side of dementia, disease, and death.

• 47:36Ky Dickens?

  Might those things that feel so scary actually inch us closer to understanding the true potential of our consciousness, and maybe even offer a wider vision to what's real?

• 47:45Speaker 03

  So, there's that part, and as, what I've found, as the disease, the physical disease of Alzheimer's progresses, those folks, was the case with Denise, they become less and less connected to the physical world, and they're more and more connected to the spiritual plane, so to speak. And they care less and less about the physical world, and stay on the other side. So, you often see a blank stare on their face, where you don't think they're paying attention. Well, they're paying attention, but they're getting messages or talking to people on the other side. And so... You may start to see more and more of that with your dad.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  And that's, you know, people have falsely associated that with, well, it's the disease. They're spaced out, they're gone, they're zoned out. No, they are clearly connected, living in, talking to the other side. And that's some comfort. I pass that along from my experience, but also your dad is telling me, I want that to be some comfort to you guys that I'm not checking out. I'm still here, but I'm just communicating at a different level, to a different plane.

• 49:04Speaker 08

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• 49:36Ky Dickens?

  For centuries, people have spoken about the veil, that when the veil is thin, we can perceive more than usual. And this seems to be a common experience for those with dementia and for those approaching the end of life. And from the framework of everything we've explored this season, it makes you wonder if the veil is metaphorically or poetically the same thing as the brain's filter, that necessary filter that keeps us anchored and functional on this very physical plane. And in that sense, the brain is filtering out a lot of extrasensory type perceptions that would make it almost impossible to exist in daily life. And we've talked about that possibility a lot, that the brain might act less like a generator of consciousness and more like a filter of it. And many of the non-speakers you met in season one seemed to show us that telepathy wasn't a singular gift.

• 50:20Ky Dickens?

  It felt more like the tip of the iceberg. Alongside it came other abilities that are sometimes harder to imagine, seeing auras around anything with an electromagnetic field, and seeing geometry and weather, and communicating with the other side, experiences that feel mysterious and wondrous. And quite a few scientists postulate that maybe when someone is less connected to their physical body, be it through non-speaking autism, or praxia, or through dementia, decline, or disease, maybe the brain does become less of a filter, opening up a whole palette of perception. And if so, what can we learn from those who appear to have a brain in decline? What might listening to them teach us about consciousness or our place in the universe? Because as you're about to learn, a vast majority of people close to death seem to have visions of and communicate with the other side and much, much more.

• 51:04Speaker 09

  Everyone's heard of people at the end of their life seeing dead people that they knew from the past. It turns out it's way more common than people generally think about it.

• 51:15Ky Dickens?

  That's Dr. Neil Thiess from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Thiess is a liver pathologist and stem cell research pioneer who was part of the group that discovered the interstitium, a breakthrough in modern science. His research around energy healing was featured in our last two episodes.

• 51:30Speaker 09

  In my mom's last six years, she became able to communicate with dead people who she knew personally. She had direct experiences of the true nature of reality that I only hear about in quantum physics or from Zen masters. She found herself able to travel to other realms. She would report what sounds to me like a spirit guide from the universe showing up. I wonder, in the mind of someone like my mom or someone who has some form of dementia, the broken brain that can't be fine-tuned, are they in fact having greater access to what lies beyond this material reality?

• 52:08Ky Dickens?

  Dr. Thiess is a firm believer in consciousness being the foundation of reality, and he had experiences with his mother at the end of her life that solidified this belief for him. Explain to me your mother's diagnosis and some of the things that you started noticing about her at the end of her life.

• 52:25Speaker 09

  She developed Parkinson's, and it was very mild. It was very slowly progressive, but within a few months, it was clear she could not remember like five minutes ago. And it became dangerous for her to be at home.

• 52:40Ky Dickens?

  Neil's mother's health started to decline, and she began losing all sense of where she was and who she was. Neil and his mother's doctor decided it was best for her to be in hospice care. And it was in the ambulance on the way there when his mom started communicating for the first time with the other side.

• 52:55Speaker 09

  In the ambulance to hospice, she started ignoring me and talking to dead people who were behind me. My dead father, a couple of her dead sisters, and stopped communicating with me at all.

• 53:10Ky Dickens?

  Shortly after this, Neil was at a conference in Europe on the science of consciousness, and the first thing he heard about was exactly this: the experience of those toward the end of life having visions of the other side, of a different dimension or a different plane.

• 53:22Speaker 09

  The first morning of the consciousness meeting, I hear Peter Fenwick talking about people having end-of-life visions, and I realized that's what's happening. She continued to talk to dead people for the rest of her life, which is about six years. We never embarrassed her, we never said, "Oh, that sounds crazy," or "That can't be mom." Just explored what was happening.

• 53:44Ky Dickens?

  And one of the people Neil's mother started to communicate with was their late rabbi.

• 53:49Speaker 09

  I'd come over and I'd say, "Have any visitors?" Because I always asked her, and she'd go, "Yeah, Rabbi Bodenheimer was here." I said, "I hope he didn't bore you." And she said, "No, he couldn't stick around. He had to be going because his sister was going to be arriving, and he had to welcome her." And I thought, "His sister, that was Mrs. Brown, she must be over 100, and she must have died by now for sure." And then I went home and got a phone call from my hometown. Mrs. Brown had died that day at 102 years old.

• 54:17Ky Dickens?

  Wow. And your rabbi had since passed, so he was dead.

• 54:21Speaker 09

  Oh, he was long dead. Yeah, he was long dead.

• 54:24Ky Dickens?

  And Neil, who's a distinguished scientist and researcher, marveled that his mom also seemed to be experiencing and seeing what quantum physicists have theorized about.

• 54:33Speaker 09

  This is one of my favorite experiences. I went in and she was lying on her back on her bed, wide-eyed, looking at the ceiling. I said, "What are you looking at?" She said, "Space." I said, "Really? What's that like?" She said, "Well, it's not at all what I expected, and it's just so beautiful." I said, "Well, what's it like?" She said, she made this gesture with her hand like she was chopping carrots, and she said, "Well, it's not smooth. It's like chopping carrots. It's in pieces, and it's just so beautiful. And time is like that, too. It's not smooth. It's in tiny little pieces. I wish you and Mark and the kids could see it the way I do. It's just so beautiful."

• 55:17Speaker 09

  Buddhist teachers talk about this, that the particulate nature of material existence. That's kind of like... Quantum theory. My mother's experiencing the quantum particular nature of the universe, but she has no short-term memory.

• 55:32Ky Dickens?

  Wow.

• 55:32Speaker 09

  And she was a very anxious woman. She spent, her life was pervaded by anxiety. And during this time, there was no anxiety whatsoever. And one day I said to her, Ma, you know, you're even smiling when you sleep. How do you stay so happy? And she said, well, I don't really worry about the future anymore. And I can't remember the past, so all I have is the now. And when you live in the now, you're happy.

• 55:55Ky Dickens?

  Has there been any research on this? I just wonder how, how wide spread this experience is.

• 55:59Speaker 09

  There's a prospective study done by a hospice doctor named Christopher Kerr in hospice Buffalo in New York State. He and his team have, have questioned every hospice patient that's come in. I think they've, there are over 1,200 people. So in his study, I think it's 88.1% of the patients coming into hospice, adults and children, some people with, who are neurodivergent. So many different kinds of brains are experiencing this. It's not uncommon. We just don't usually ask. A lot of people wouldn't talk about it. A lot of patients have to be coaxed into talking about it because they're worried people will think they're crazy.

• 56:41Ky Dickens?

  How does that look for kids, especially since they might not know anyone who's crossed? And usually who's coming forward is comforting, right?

• 56:48Speaker 09

  Tells a really wonderful story about this kid who come, a teenager, I think a young teen, if I remember right, who's dying of cancer. And he comes and he sits down in a chair and she says, oh, don't sit there. My dog's sitting. And he's like, oh, she's seeing her dog who had passed away. He asked her about the dog and says, the dog tell you anything? And she looks at him like he's crazy and says, please, dogs don't talk. So this isn't necessarily someone making up a fun story.

• 57:16Ky Dickens?

  A lot of what we talk about in this episode is dementia kind of turning on the gift of telepathy. I mean, have you stumbled across anything around telepathy and these deathbed visions?

• 57:27Speaker 09

  Deathbed visions often don't communicate directly by words. My mother said that to me once. I went in and she said, "Oh, I had a lovely visit from a man from the 13th century today." I said, "Really? Where was he from?" She said, "I don't know." And I said, "Well, what language was he speaking?" Because with her, it could have been Yiddish, German, Polish, maybe Hebrew. She said, "Oh, that's funny. I don't think we needed words to communicate."

• 57:51Ky Dickens?

  In our first episode of the season on near-death experiences, people came back not fearing death and saying that what they experienced was more real than here. It felt different from a dream and different from hallucination. And you said your mom was super anxious. So how did these experiences impact her?

• 58:07Speaker 09

  So Kerr, in his book, talks about this reporting that people talk about the deathbed visions are more real than real. And they're profound experiences that are utterly transformative, not like insight you get in a therapy session, but go from great terror at the end of your life, or great regret, or great sadness, into something of acceptance and lack of fear, et cetera. And what I think is happening there is that in the dying brain, the filtering of the greater consciousness that underlies everything, the filtering is diminished. You're getting more pure reflection of what underlies everything.

• 58:51Speaker 09

  Are they really perceiving less? Or are they perceiving more?

• 58:57Ky Dickens?

  Dr. Theis has some theories on how these things might be possible in someone with dementia.

• 59:01Speaker 09

  I'm one of those people who thinks that brains do not make our minds. Our minds are like transmitters or radios that sample the big C consciousness, big M mind that underlies everything. Some people might refer to that as God. Some people might refer to it as the absolute. Some people, like me and my collaborators, call it fundamental non-dual awareness, that there's some aspect of a universal mind that emanates what eventually becomes material reality as we experience it, as well as these other non-material realms. And so I wonder in the mind of someone like my mom or someone who has some form of dementia,

• 59:45Speaker 09

  are they in fact having greater access?

• 59:49Ky Dickens?

  This reminded me so much of what non-speakers have communicated about their experience. They often describe being less connected to their bodies, feeling less connected to time, the past, the present, and living much more in the now than most of us. I asked Neil if he thought this related to why they are able to have telepathic connection and access information that we don't understand.

• 1:00:07Speaker 09

  It takes a lot of energy, time, and focus to be able to take care of ourselves in the world. If you don't have a mind that's focused in that kind of detail, then you might have the opportunity to experience other things. It might be that people who experience that kind of stuff are less able to take care of themselves. And so in our society, where we don't value people who have different experiences of the world and treat them as beings that need to be warehoused or seen as burdens, but they may in fact have greater access than any of us can imagine. Some of us are like that for a lifetime.

• 1:00:52Speaker 09

  Some of us have glimpses of it, maybe through some practice that develops trance work or the use of psychedelics. Some of us may have openings because you've had a near-death experience and you survive it, and yet part of your mind remains open to what you saw. Some of us, only it seems most of us, get a chance to experience in the last hours or days of life, if you're gifted the chance to die in bed, not by violence. And I think all of these things are potential for every human. It's just how much do you value them, yearn for them, cultivate them? How much do you honor them in yourselves?

• 1:01:36Speaker 09

  And how much do you honor it in others?

• 1:01:40Ky Dickens?

  I love that. So what do you think these experiences reveal about how consciousness meets people in their final moments?

• 1:01:47Speaker 09

  One of the things in Christopher Kerr's book that he mentions over and over again that I think is one of the more profound lessons of his research is that in those final moments, these deathbed visions, even when they're scary ones or disturbing ones, which can also happen. It seems as though the universe is giving you the vision that you need to, in a moment, understand that it's all just fine. The universe, that underlying consciousness, meets you precisely where you are, with all your psychoses, with all your crazy worries,

• 1:02:29Speaker 09

  with all your beliefs and conditionings that you carry into those last moments, so that you're lying there in whatever state you're in. The universe shows up and presents you exactly the right medicine. But fundamentally, if the universe is entirely consciousness, then what's the difference between me and an angel, and a demon, and a god or a goddess? They're all just constructs of consciousness in the larger consciousness. It's just what's the perspective through which you're experiencing the universe in this moment?

• 1:03:13Speaker 09

  And what's the perspective of the universe experiencing you in this moment?

• 1:03:18Ky Dickens?

  This episode has taken us into one of the most mysterious and difficult places in the human experience: our consciousness when the brain begins to fail. And we heard the same thing repeated from family members and scientists, doctors, and mediums. As dementia progresses, people often seem to live partly here and partly somewhere else. And though bodies might be fading, awareness and access to something we can't see often feels more poignant and alive. And that makes you wonder if people at the end of life gain access to more of the non-physical world because their filter or veil is thinning. Is it the same for people at the beginning of life? Most of us have heard at least one story about children talking to a deceased loved one, seeing something that isn't there, or intuiting something they shouldn't know,

• 1:04:02Ky Dickens?

  abilities our culture would call impossible. And next week, we'll explore one of these abilities that seems to be much easier for children. It's been criticized, investigated, embraced, debunked, defended, and taught around the world. Mindsight, the practice of seeing through a blindfold. I had no idea what to believe about this, so I met with multiple teachers, witnessed this around the world. I even took classes and got trained to figure out how this was working or what the trick was. And in the end, I put my own very skeptical kids through the training to see if it's possible to see without using your eyes.

• 1:04:37Ky Dickens?

  To dive in deeper, subscribe to our Backstage Pass by visiting our website. With it, you'll unlock access to bonus content like telepathy tests, ask me anything interviews with myself and guests. You'll be able to enjoy the podcast ad free, connect with other members on our Telepathy Tribe Discord, and hear and see exclusive content from the Telepathy Tapes Vault. Visit our website at thetelepathytapes.com for more info on how to subscribe to our Backstage Pass. It takes a village to make this podcast, and I want to thank our producers, Jesse Steed, Jill Pachaznik, and Catherine Ellis. Original music is by Rachel Cantu. Mix, mastering, and additional music is by Michael Urbino. Our associate producer is Selena Kennedy. Original artwork is by Ben Kandor Design. And I'm Kai Dickens, your executive producer, writer, and host.