Mona Sobhani is a neuroscientist, researcher and author with a powerful story to share. We welcome her to Dreamland to discuss her journey as a scientist from a member of the materialistic establishment to an unusual and remarkable explorer of the unknown, which is set out in her new book, Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist’s Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe. Mona discusses her struggle as a scientist on a spiritual journey, the problem with placing the Western worldview on a pedestal, and her mother’s terrible prediction that led to her “dark night of the soul” and the emergence of a new vision of reality.
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Thank you both, such a wonderful talk and such good energy. The contemplation of time has been a major thread of inquiry for me and I agree some things are destined (not because they are fixed, but because they have momentum or statistically high likelihood), but we have free will in our lives and even free will in our relation to major those events. In some cases the Universe shows us things before they happen as if to say there is a plan, even if we are not privy to the details, it os not chaos.
Peace…
To me God is total love. I’m not sure if there is a God who, if we ask, will talk to us (not in a physical way, but in our minds) who will tell us the truth about our faults and also our virtues, and will tell us how we can love others better.
I’m hoping by the time I eat this cookie, that I realise I don’t believe in any of this retro-causality stuff…by the way, does anyone else smell baking noodles?
From what I’ve read, Neurons in the brain, can be triggered by other Neurons and also by electric fields propagating through the brain, from nearby Neuronal activity. I wonder whether certain of them could be quantumly entangled…with what I wonder…maybe themselves? I’m thinking along the lines of sympathetic vibrations, such that a future three dimentonal pattern of Neuronal activity, could retro-actively trigger a similar pattern of activity in the present, through the mechanism of quantum entanglement.
Perhaps that is what déjà vu is…a bi-directional link between two points in time… an echo from a likely future, where we will repeat similar thoughts or actions. So what does that say about free will? Could we decide not to have those thoughts, or perform those actions in the future… or is the future already set?
In the experiment described by Mona, I wonder if the time between the test and the subsequent study of the words might be a factor. Also, what about the distance from the test room and the future study room. I also wonder whether visualisation could be a factor during study.
That reminds me of a particularly important exam I took for work. It took weeks to get the results and I obsessed over the possible grade, as I knew that I needed at least 62% to pass and was sick to my stomach of the thought of having to do it all again. The number of times I visualised opening that letter and pulling out the result, I can’t tell you, it was all I thought about…like some kind of Schrodinger’s cat, neither dead or alive…with a force of will, I tried to drag the cat into being alive by the skin of it’s teeth. And sure enough when the fateful day came, I opened the results envelope and laughed out loud when I saw I had passed with exactly 62%. Did I do that? I can’t have done, right? But it certainly felt for a short while like I had maybe bent the Universe back on itself a bit. I imagined for a second Neo from the Matrix movie flexing, then relaxing and the green corridor rippling around him…haha, if only!
yep….i think you’re basically describing placebo effect
Retro-causation: In the experiment the tests could not be opened and graded until the future studying was done. If anyone scored the tests before the future study was done there was no effect.
I also do not think this is real and a much larger data set and replicated results would be needed for me to accept it. As you speculate, if true, then the mechanism might be very personal. As stated in the interview (and the work of Dean Radin) one hypothesis for precognition is that consciousness is a bit ahead of the present (I think we are missing too much understanding to apply a time locus to consciousness in this manner).
The two books that shattered my world view back in the 80’s was in fact Communion and Many Lives Many Masters!
My spiritual journey continues and I am eternally grateful for both!
Yep!!
i was a schoolgirl…in a room over an abandoned swimming pool, empty of course, when i started hearing the radio interviews with Whitley and of course got the book…which i could not finish it was tooo scary at that time….even though i was raised on edgar cayce and linda goodman at that point in time!!
I need to hear the interview with the man and his wife, the military couple, the woman that healed in the church basement and then ran,,,,,WHERE is THAT interview!!!
Wow! Go Mona Go!
lets hope she can steadily attract and collect our own scientific communities’ “breaks” with “real” i TEA, start a real Placebo’d Effect conversation out there, and bring us a new book of THAT!!
Me too, If someone has the link to the interview.
The Message Board post “Distinguishing Between Subjectivity and Objectivity” was very interesting.
Here it is: https://www.unknowncountry.com/tag/puget-sound-contact-experience/ We’ve also got it in the show description now.
We don’t have to live in a world where denial is the default stance of the ignorant. A culture of science that tolerates knee jerk ridicule among the uninformed is not OK. That is not true science or agnosticism. So glad Dr. Sobhani changed. We need more. I can call out ignorant denial more myself.
For more information on the source of consciousness I recommend Dr. Bruce Greyson, Psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Virginia. One good talk on Youtube is entitled “Conscious Independent of the Brain”. Two other researchers from the same university are Dr. Jim Tucker and Dr. Ian Stevenson who have done tremendous research on children with past life memories. There are a growing number of scientists who are beginning to challenge the scientific materialist view of reality.
An excellent discussion of the debate between physicalism and idealism is Bernardo Kastrup’s The Idea of the World. It points out how seeing reality as an idea resolves the many contradictions inherent in the physcalist approach.
Thank you for the suggestion and for unknown country. Upon retiring 6 years ago I decided to explore the nature of consciousness by reading and listening to everything I could on the topic. I had already become very uncomfortable with the scientific materialist model which I had been once an ardent follower of. A change of world view and spiritual journey was the result. I look forward to reading both books.
I watched a Lex Fridman interview several weeks ago with Donald Hoffman, where he talks about his theory that Consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain and that the sub-atomic world of Space-time is not fundamental at all (that, as he says, Space-time is ‘doomed’)… but instead that Consciousness itself is the fundamental building block of everything…that the formless gives rise to form… So that everything, mathematics, Space-time, Neurons, brains, the lot, are all an expression of a fundamental Consciousness agent.
Truly mind-bending and so densely packed, I could be researching some of the terms used for ages but if you would like to get a taste of it, there is an extract from that interview here…
https://youtu.be/VUIinjJLjkQ
A Donald Hoffman talk: do we see reality as it is?
https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY
https://youtu.be/ZTewDI8mlzE
Interesting that he describes our perception of reality more like a User Interface on a computer… i.e. we do not see reality as it is but rather a representation, a symbol, or an icon.
In light of the above, in trying to understand the Visitor experience, I suspect we must understand that we are dealing with something that understands completely, the way we see reality… it understands the User Interface we have evolved to use. So when we see a big-eyed being, what we are probably seeing is just an icon, a representation for something unfathomable, that uses a completely different User Interface to us…no wonder they use symbols to communicate with us. We humans don’t see the Universe as it is. If we were communicated with in the true language of the universe, like the the language of a computer CPU, or the electrical potentials between wires, we would have no clue…it would just seem like noise to us…But in the UI of our perception, pixels, icons and symbols we do understand, we can work with those. Of course, that tells us nothing of the reality of what a Visitor is, only that a communication has begun.
SHERBET UFO, I have included a comment at the bottom of this post.
I so enjoyed this interview, thank you and by the way, Mona said at the end of this interview she puts her wishes out into the universe. Interesting that Geppetto, WISHES UPON A STAR.
On this last Thursday September 15th, I watched the Disney new version of PINOCCHIO. For me this has ALWAYS been one of the most mystical books ever written. (Personal and do not expect others to necessarily feel this way).
Geppetto, A WOODCARVER and creator of his clocks and TIME. Look closely and you will see the many PAST/PRESENT from Disney movie figures/characters portrayed in the clocks, perhaps FUTURE as well but not yet made into a movie (still in the thought process).
Geppetto sold all of his clocks (time) for the love of his creation, PINOCCHIO. I do not think clocks were introduced into the movies and books until 1940?
(TIME-LESS CLASSIC).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf9zZGNkYA8&t=13s
Pinocchio – Official Teaser Trailer (2022) Tom Hanks, Joseph Gordon-Levitt – YouTube
SHERBET UFO, we are again back to the PINEAL/PINECONE CONNECTION.
Pinocchio has been created from PINE WOOD.
“Borrowed from Italian Pinocchio, possibly from the rare Tuscan form pinocchio (“pine nut”) or constructed from pino (“pine tree, pine wood”), also similar to Pino, diminutive of Giuseppe (“Joseph”), as is Geppetto (the maker of Pinocchio).”
Hi Carollee, Fascinating. I thought you might find this interesting too, in light of the pineal gland being associated with the ‘third eye’…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio
“…The name Pinocchio is a combination of the Italian words pino (pine), and occhio (eye)…”
I actually have a Disney+ subscription, so I will watch that over the next few days, to see if I can spot any more interesting links related to the pineal gland.
Thank you for this, sooo very interesting……..
Hi Carollee, I’ve just watched Pinocchio and noted down the following, that might be worth looking at regarding symbolism…
1). References to time being stopped, or being out of time:
a) Right at the beginning, Jimney Cricket is talking to himself, the narrator, who is out of time (i.e. he knows the story from beginning to end).
b) When the Blue Fairy turns up, the clocks stop.
c) The Father sells all his clocks.
d) When Pinocchio descends into the anarchical fun fair, there is a section called ‘Clock Stoppers’.
2). Hero’s Journey:
a) Call to Action / Quest: Told by the Blue Fairy that to be truly real he has to pass an ordeal.
b) Descent into the Underworld: – Wheel of Misfortune, Sugar mountain, Contempt corner, Clock stoppers, Broken mirror.
c) Death / Rebirth: Apparent death of Pinocchio (floating face down in the sea) and then quick rebirth.
d) Death / Rebirth: Apparent Death of father, who comes to life after tear falls on his face.
e) Aided by Sophia the bird (Wisdom).
Note: When in Clock Stoppers, there is a symbolic blinding of the right eye of the grandfather clock (- blinding of the knowledge of Spirit / our spiritual nature).
3). Was there any significance in Pinocchio being called ‘Slats’ by the boy he was with?
4). Symbolic significance of turning into an ass, (Shakespeare`s character Bottom, also The Metamorphoses of Apuleius)?
5). “Going into the light” (final illumination?) right at the end. Part of the Hero’s Journey?
WOW! What a list of observations. I am printing these off so I can really think about them. THANK YOU.
One last thing: This is a quote:
“Before duplicitous fox Honest John (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) sells Pinocchio to traveling puppeteer Stromboli (Giuseppe Battiston), he promises the wooden boy riches and stardom, telling him to abandon school and become “an influencer.” He later suggests stage names for Pinocchio, one of which is (((Chris Pine))) (of “Don’t Worry Darling” fame).”
“The same ‘Chris Pine’ is perhaps best known in his roles as, (((Captain Kirk))) in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek.”
Also, another movie, “A Wrinkle in Time.”
WOW! What a list of observations. I am printing these off so I can really think about them. THANK YOU.
One last thing: This is a quote:
“Before duplicitous fox Honest John (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) sells Pinocchio to traveling puppeteer Stromboli (Giuseppe Battiston), he promises the wooden boy riches and stardom, telling him to abandon school and become “an influencer.” He later suggests stage names for Pinocchio, one of which is (((Chris Pine))) (of “Don’t Worry Darling” fame).”
“The same ‘Chris Pine’ is perhaps best known in his roles as, (((Captain Kirk))) in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek.”
Another movie, “A Wrinkle in Time.”
I always seem to mix up Chris Pine and Chris Pratt… But both have a link to ‘Star’…Star Trek and Star-Lord! Star Trek into Darkness was the one I think of when I picture Chris Pine.
Thanks for the link! I’ll watch this evening.
What a wonderful show. I really like that Mona was made aware that there are many layers in this world. That it opened her up to possibilities she would not have ventured into.
Prayer has changed for me , it isn’t being sent out there anymore. It is more inward.
Thank you Whitley for another mind bending show, keep up the good work!
To me God is total love. I’m not sure if there is a God who, if we ask, will talk to us (not in a physical way, but in our minds) who will tell us the truth about our faults and also our virtues, and will tell us how we can love others better.
I enjoyed this interview on so many levels. About 15 years ago I created an performance (dance,music and storytelling) work based on the premise of a materialist scientist encountering something that shattered his world view. The scientist, who is also an author and really did have such an encounter, eventually joined this collaborative work and we remain friends and engaged in this very conversation to this day. It was a deeply interesting and satisfying experience both artistically and personally.
On another note, I think that things like reading the grinds of coffee actually work because they are simply tools to access a deeper part of the self that has access to information on another level. There are many ways to get there- it may be that every culture has a few. The tools provide access and then practice helps us interpret what we are seeing. It may be the this can be a passed down form other practitioners. I had the very disturbing experience of seeing a terrible event (thinking of the death her mother saw) in my own life through such a practice. Once you tap in,the array of information that comes through is astounding. Much more to explore here….