Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - My Dead Mother Texted Me From The Other Side. A Voice Predicted My Career First | Lisa Kudrow
Episode Date: July 21, 2026Lisa Kudrow (Friends, The Comeback) reveals some of the most astonishing stories and ideas she's ever shared publicly, from mysterious messages received after her mother's passing to profound... spiritual experiences that challenged her understanding of reality itself.Lisa opens up about supernatural events surrounding her mom's death, the unexplained text messages she received from beyond, and her family's experiences with an energy worker, including a remarkable moment when her son seemingly communicated that he was okay. She also shares why she was captivated by The Telepathy Tapes and why she believes "there's something going on" beyond our current scientific understanding.She explores what she learned about the nature of reality through playing "Phoebe Buffay", whether childhood imaginary friends might not be imaginary after all, and her thought-provoking perspective on why we're here, and why perhaps we're not meant to fully understand the spiritual side of existence.Lisa also discusses concrete examples of how spirituality can provide guidance when modern science falls short, the role of intuition and her inner voice in shaping her life's biggest decisions, and her mind-bending theories about possible causes of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.The conversation dives deep into creativity, consciousness, and human connection as Lisa explains why acting is ultimately an exercise in empathy, whether great actors may actually be channeling real people, and how portraying "Phoebe" transformed the way she thinks about life, consciousness, and the unseen world around us.Lisa also reflects on recently watching Friends episodes for the first time, revealing how her perspective on "Phoebe" has changed over the years, and shares the invaluable lessons her co-stars taught her about openness, playfulness, and unlocking creativity as an actor.She discusses why she chose acting over medical school, how those career-defining decisions unfolded, and what her intuition continues to tell her about future entertainment projects.Plus, Lisa breaks down why she loves Mayim Bialik's Breakdown and The Big Bang Theory series, and explains why specific episodes resonated with her so deeply, including conversations with Thomas Campbell, Anita Moorjani, Dr. James B. Glattfelder, Dr. Ellen Langer, Dr. Kevin Knuth, and Dr. Tara Swart.Enjoy Lisa's deeply personal exploration of the mysteries that exist at the edges of science, spirituality, creativity, and human experience, as she reflects on life's biggest questions—from consciousness and intuition to grief, purpose, and the possibility of something beyond what we can currently explain!Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/BialikBreakdown.comYouTube.com/mayimbialikIf you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started: https://learn.nocd.com/BREAKText BREAKDOWN to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply.Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to https://www.quince.com/breakdown for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.Go to https://helixsleep.com/breakdown to receive 20% off sitewide, 25% of Luxe Mattresses and 30% off Elite Mattresses.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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My mother passed away in 2020 when she passed.
She flew around and woke everybody up.
I don't think that's weird at all, except she didn't wake me up.
I'm left out of things a lot.
Am I just really annoying?
The next day, people are texting.
It said in all caps, M-O-M.
I didn't write that, and then another text.
M-O-M, my friend went, Lisa, your mom, texted you.
Emmy Award-winning actress Lisa Kudrow, the iconic Phoebe from Friends,
talks about her career, her spiritual journey,
and how she was guided by an inner voice
to begin her incredible acting career.
Don't you ever feel like there's something
that you just know,
and there's no reason you should know it?
Wouldn't you call that guidance?
When it's really important, you get the information.
When I would come home around senior year, maybe before,
I was watching people on David Letterman
seemed really phony and thought,
oh my God, Lisa, when you're on Letterman,
please just be yourself.
Wait, what?
I don't know when it was,
an inner voice. Why would I be on Lennerman for some evolutionary theory? Do you come from a science
background? I was pre-med. I was really interested in studying evolution of behavior. People love to
ask, how are you different from your character? I thought, I should get to know Phoebe a little better.
That's when Jennifer Aniston gave me Bringers of the Dawn. You discovered something about yourself.
Yes. I started realizing there's more going on. I think we're here to experience whatever this is.
Do you mean in life or in death?
Both.
All of it.
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Hi, everyone.
I'm Whitney Cummings,
and I have a podcast called Good For You
where I don't deliver the news
because I'm not a dork,
but I will give you the weirdest take and truest opinion on the news.
The world is insane, and sometimes it takes an insane person to make it all make sense.
And when it comes to what's going on in the world, I promise not to bum you out because that is social media's job.
If you want to laugh about this whole nightmare called life, check out good for you.
New episodes every week.
Hi, I'm I'm Bialik.
And I'm Jonathan Cohen.
And welcome to our breakdown.
I'd say this is one of the most unusual episodes we have ever done.
I'm just going to go ahead and say it.
We have Lisa Kudra.
She played Phoebe on Friends for a decade,
a multi-award-winning actress
who happened to reach out to me personally.
She slid into my DMs to say,
I think your podcast is amazing.
What followed was a conversation off the record
at the end of which I said,
would you ever come on our podcast?
And she said, what would I have to talk about?
Well, turns out a lot.
I don't even know what to say.
This conversation was so amazing.
Like, every time I thought there wasn't anything else to talk about,
she reveals something that's truly unbelievable from her mom,
texting her from the beyond after she passes to Lisa's own intuitive abilities,
signs that she got before she started acting,
that foretold what her life would be like,
and even her experiment with remote viewing.
It turns out Lisa Kudrow is not just a super fan
and wanted to review some of her favorite episodes,
but she had some questions for us as well
about why we do what we do,
how Jonathan knows about energy,
why I'm so skeptical.
There's a million anecdotes here.
We talk about her acting career.
We talk about her personal career,
her spiritual journey.
We're so thrilled to have her in the studio
So welcome to the breakdown, Lisa Kudrow.
Break it down.
Thank you.
I'm very excited to be here.
I'm a big fan.
So, yeah, maybe we can start there.
Okay.
We never thought that you'd be excited to talk to us.
We always knew we'd be excited to talk to you.
How did we get here?
Because I reached out to you.
We kind of met already with who do you think you are.
I was on a call with other people.
Yes.
Yeah.
But anyway.
And I was excited.
And then it didn't work out, and I don't know why.
But I don't. Do you?
I know why mine didn't work out.
Tell me.
Okay, so who do you think you are as a show where they do your, like, genealogy?
And they try and find, like, oh, you didn't know, you were related to a, you know, insert, amazing person here, like a prince or a, I don't know, famous something.
What I said when I got on the call was I said, my family were cigarette peddlers and peasants.
There are no records.
No one was keeping track of families from villages.
with no water running and no electricity,
I promise it's going nowhere.
And they were like, the promise of genetics
is that we will find.
They didn't find anything.
That's what happened with mine, a genetic dead end.
Do you know what happened?
Like, Gwyneth Paltrow found out
she's related to some fancy rabbis.
Could you believe that?
Yes.
Right.
It's amazing.
It was season one when there was more time
to do the research.
That's true.
So there would be something to find, I promise you.
Okay.
There really would be.
We'll put AI on the job.
Which you could do.
I could do it now.
Okay, so we had met, we were faces on a Zoom.
Yeah.
But then.
But then, okay, then I don't even know how or why.
I stumbled upon your podcast.
It looked, something was really interesting.
And I can't remember which one was the first one.
And yes, I knew that you had, you know, done graduate work and neurovents.
science and of course and I had watched Big Bang theory. I discovered it over COVID.
What? Yeah. That's funny. And it was heaven on a stick. Wow. Yeah. Now when I think about the
years that you were on television, the years that I was, so I was on Blossom from 89 to 94. Oh, and then we
started. Correct. And then I went to college and grad school. Yeah. Didn't really watch TV because I was
busy doing nerdy science things. Yes. And then Big Bang was obviously this.
last adult phase of my life.
But yeah, we actually didn't kind of cross paths like that.
Our stages were across from each other.
Oh, yeah.
Because the Friends couch was outside of our stage.
Oh, then that's after we were gone.
And everybody would come and take tours.
Wait, did we share?
I think we had the same.
Our stages were across.
That's what it was.
Well, because I was just there at the Friends stage and saw that's the Big Bang stage.
That's right.
But I think I came on maybe when Friends was over.
That's what it is because I didn't start with Big Bang.
So what did you discover during COVID when you found Big Bank theory?
I discovered.
You just thought it was funny?
No, no.
That was really important.
Sheldon Cooper.
Why?
Because that was the first, I think, you know, neurodiverse.
Is that I used to neurodivergent?
Thank you.
Character that was, you.
You know, we're having fun with them, but in a respectful way and a real way.
And it was, I don't know what to say.
And Jim Parsons.
I mean, yeah, he's phenomenal.
And I know Johnny Galecki.
We worked together on a movie a long time ago.
And I don't know.
I just fell in love.
And then you came on.
Some Sheldon fans did not like when Amy came on.
Oh, no.
They are.
You were team.
Amy? I was going to say they're wrong, but those are their feelings and feelings are never wrong. But are they? Never wrong. Anyway. She humanized him in a way that he hadn't been before. She helped him grow. It was love. That's very sweet. I know. I mean, maybe not a relationship I would choose for myself. Because, you know, it's not a part. It's not a full, no, it's not a full partnership. Because he wasn't equipped, really. Oh.
Well, right?
I mean, they were both oddly equipped, you know.
They were odd puzzle pieces that did fit together.
Right.
So, you know.
But she seemed to have more capacity to bond and connect, obviously, than he did.
Yes.
And he was open to learning from her, taking, you know, some direction from her and trying to be a better person.
It was a fantastic finale.
But also what I always, everyone.
I was watching it, I was wondering, now, Miami knows this stuff.
Does she?
Like, does she?
And it wasn't that long ago that she had studied this stuff.
That's true.
So I wonder if the writers were so good at their research and they had consultants.
Like, did she have to ever say, ooh, here?
That's not going to work.
Yeah, I did.
I had a few times.
I mean, you don't just go up to Chuck Laurie and say, this is wrong.
but the notion was that they made me a neurobiologist
so that I could fix things if they were wrong.
That's what Chuck had said.
So David Salzberg is a physics professor.
David Salzberg was our physics consultant,
but with neuroscience stuff, yes.
I'd get emails from writers like,
we need a joke about a part of the brain
that would make them do this.
And I'd say, oh, that would be the basal ganglia,
you know.
And then when we had scenes in Amy's lab,
Dr. Salzberg and I would confer.
and I would say, oh, I could be doing this or I could be doing that, or, you know, here's the tools that I would need for brain slicing and those sorts of things. It was very fun. And also I felt like, because physics to me was just a no-go. I mean, that's just way too abstract. I can't. I don't speak the language of math. It's hard. And I felt like I could trust that the accuracy of everything on that show. And so I felt like I was learning a lot.
about physics. We started our podcast also during COVID. Is that when you discovered us? I'm just
picturing you hold up in your house watching Big Bang and listening to me. She was busy watching Big Bang.
She didn't have time for podcasts. Yeah. You found us after. Oh, yeah. I found you
not that long. I mean, within a year of getting in touch with you because it was too much. I mean,
I had to get in touch with you. And you literally DMed me on Instagram. Yes, I did. I thought it was a hoax.
No. Well, we found out. Here we were.
Like I'm telling you now.
Would have been an elaborate hoax.
No.
No.
Yeah.
It was not a hoax.
No, because here's the thing.
You know, I was pre-med and I didn't go to graduate school.
But, and this was in the 80s when there was no, it wasn't called neuroscience.
It was, you know, biosec.
And I was really interested in studying evolution and the evolution of behavior or how did our brains
evolved. Evolve. Yeah, that's what I was interested in. And that's what I was planning to do graduate
work in when I said, oh, wait, no, I think I need to try acting. Oh, my gosh. Do you come from a science
background? Tell us about, like, your folks, your family. My father's a, he's a doctor, he's
retired, but he's with us. He's really smart, really smart. And he actually went from general
practice to headache only, research and practice.
He's fun at parties.
He actually is extremely charismatic and, yeah.
But, and he came up with, I don't, you know, look, I'm not up to date, but I know at
the time it was like the only working theory for the mechanisms of cluster headache.
Whoa.
Do you know cluster headache is?
Yes, absolutely.
It's so weird.
It's very debilitating, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a whole other sort of syndrome, right?
Not like migraine or any of the others.
And benign, thank God, like a lot.
Most headaches.
But a strange message from your higher power.
Well, okay.
So that's, yeah, so that's my dad.
My brother is a neurologist.
He was in medical school when I was in college.
And when I was deciding, I don't think I want to be a doctor.
I don't want to practice medicine.
Medicine, I want to learn.
I want to keep learning.
So I called both of them and they both said, then don't.
Absolutely do not go to medical school.
It's a grind.
And it's, yeah.
And if you don't think you want to practice medicine, then, yeah, absolutely don't.
And I think my father threw in, remember, it was the 80s.
And most women who become doctors end up not continuing once they have a family.
Wow.
So may have been true, but not for most, I think.
Is your mom sciencey, artistic?
No.
No, she was a travel agent.
But really smart in that.
She passed away.
She knew herself.
And I don't think you can get smarter than that.
in this existence.
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So, yeah.
What was that decision then?
So if you don't want to go to med school,
like when did acting become your next idea?
Well, I mean, look, when I was younger,
I wanted to be an actress.
And I mean younger, like grade school.
And then junior high school, I wrote sketches,
and I was funny.
And that was very helpful at junior high
is the worst time.
ever. And so that helped, you know, we find a group and all of that. And they weren't actory people
anyway. But, and then for high school and college, I put it all away and just went, oh, no, no,
that is not someone you want to be if you want a good normal life. Because I'm looking at people
on talk shows and then you see, you know, like they're married five times. And,
you know, can't make a relationship work.
And I'm just thinking, oh, I bet that's why.
Okay.
It's not.
But, but, and I just thought, and they seem really phony on talk shows and stuff.
And those are kind of silly people.
So, yeah, I just put it away.
It was just absolutely not.
Didn't do any plays.
Didn't do any plays in college.
Nothing.
And then, yeah, the plan was.
when I graduated, I'd work with my father, and he had an idea for a study about hemispheric
dominance and headache types, because someone somewhere said, yeah, I think there's some kind of
association, and my father already thought, no, there's not going to be. But let's do a study.
So that was great because it would help for graduate school, because I was really only like a
B student in college. It was hard for me. I read really slow. So slow when I got to,
When I got to college freshman year, everyone you get there and you take a reading comprehension test, me and my roommate and another person had to take a reading class, like a speed reading, which wasn't going to address whatever issue it was.
It doesn't work, right?
No.
It doesn't.
That's not the issue.
Right.
That's not the issue.
That's not the issue.
I can't predict what's coming next.
And there's a fluency.
Like there's a not trusting thing.
How are your ears to consterns?
assume information better through auditory process. Yes. Ooh. And taking notes. Yeah. I remembered absolutely
everything said in a class. That's the only way I got through school is because I would listen,
not read any of the books, and then I would talk to people about the things that were shared and
what they understood and I would fill in some of the gaps. I didn't read a single book throughout
high school. Right. But college requires a lot of reading. Reading. That's not dressed in class.
Yeah. Yeah. I went to, when I was in high school, I went to a summer program at Cornell University and I took a Jewish history class. And there was a lot of reading and I thought, yeah, well, I don't need to do that because, you know, I'm so great in the class and I'm straight a student. And I failed the first test. The teacher called me in. He said, teacher, professor. And he said, so, yeah, this is a fail. Did you do any of the reading? And I went, no. And he said,
well, you have to do the reading. I said, no, no, you don't understand. Something else is wrong
because I don't have to do the reading because I remember everything that said in class.
And he said, well, but I'm not addressing everything in class. And I said, and I, in my mind,
I went, well, then you're doing it wrong.
Obviously he is.
What an idiot.
I'll just say it from my perspective. I always thought it was an effort thing. If I concentrated more,
if I were to like be more focused, if I were to try harder, then I would overcome whatever this is.
I didn't realize that there was some sort of mechanistic error in, or not error, but limitation
in how I processed until I dropped out of school the first time because all this reading was
required that was not covered in class the way it was in high school.
Well, you know what?
Here's, I think, a really great thing.
I'm really grateful for that delusion I had in that.
oh, that sounds like a you problem in teaching and not me.
I liked myself a lot.
I don't know why.
I'm really grateful for it.
It's really helpful.
And I just, you know, even the reading class, I just went, all right, this isn't really doing anything.
I don't know what's to be done.
But I would also, it would take me a long time to read because I'd read some.
something, especially in any of the biology classes, you know, read something. And then I'm,
ooh, I bet this relates to that. You know, you just like it's, you start. Yeah. All those associations.
Yes. And, oh, okay. So in like theory, or maybe it already exists and someone already thought of it. And I'm just writing. And it's hours of
of thinking, which I loved and started resenting.
I have to learn this.
School isn't designed for that.
It's just get this in your brain so that you can show that you know it.
You were pre-med.
Yeah, and it is.
It's a tremendous amount of regurgitation.
And, I mean, I also went to, you know, a very, I'm very, you know, proud of UCLA as a facility.
But it is a very large university.
Right.
So you are, you know, it is on you to personalize.
your education and as you indicated, you know, when you go to college or university, it's everyone
who was the best student in their class, all in your class. And then there's going to be a bell curve.
And where you thought you were like, doing pretty good, you realize, oh, wait a second,
there are people who do not even need to read the textbook and everything is just clicking
for them. And I'm like, I got mono my first quarter just from studying all. I just studied all,
I mean, that's all I did. I just studied because it was also challenging for me. I was late to science,
You know? Oh.
It was not easy for me. I had to take, we called it remedial math and chemistry coming into college.
I mean, I had been working on Blossom. Like I was two years out of high school when I went to college. So, yeah, I was not in that kind of groove. But yeah, it's a lot of regurgitation. And it's like learning several different languages.
Yes. Meaning you're learning the language of chemistry. You're learning the language of physics. Like they're different alphabets. You're learning calculus, which is its own alphabet. Oh, no. It's like learning multiple languages.
No, that was very hard. That was eight hours a day.
of studying for calculus just to pass, like not even fully understand it.
Yeah. I mean, I think you understand the Big Bang Theory world probably better than a lot of people.
I mean, those were like those were the kind of people I went to school with, right?
But those were not the people I went to school with. I was at Vassar, you know.
There were a lot of people that, especially in the 80s, they were like, I wanted to go to Yale.
Now I'm here.
You know
So and I did assume
And they were all prepared
So much better prepared
Than I was
Because I went to
You know
Public school
Taftai
Midland Hills
Which was a good school
But you know
Senior year
I was done at 10 in the morning
Right
So I took class
Right
No I took classes at Pierce
Oh wow
College
Yeah
Which is I think
Why I got in
at the first place.
Yeah, didn't know how to write an outline.
Still don't.
Don't.
Still don't.
Can't use them.
Yeah.
So when you pivoted kind of to acting then,
you left behind this kind of whole part of you.
Yes, but I'm leaving out something.
And I did mention it.
I did a commencement address at Vassar 15, 16 years ago.
So when I would come home,
for spring break or something around senior year maybe before.
You know, and I'm driving around, and I'd hear on the radio some commercial for a sitcom.
And, you know, they're promoting what they thought was their best joke.
And it's, you know, well, that's a whole lot of a different color.
Like really broad and loud.
Yeah.
And I'm thinking, oh, God, pushing it so hard.
Can't they just throw it away?
Lisa, remember to throw it away when you do it.
And then I went, wait, what?
Why would I?
I'm going to do graduate work in evolutionary biology.
I don't need to.
Interesting.
Anyway, which in that speech I said, you know, I don't know what it was,
an inner voice, you know, because I certainly wasn't thinking something from the field or, you know,
time collapsed and I accessed something.
you know, that I was going to know.
And then again, watching people on David Letterman, for example, and seemed really
phony and thought, oh, my God, Lisa, when you're on Letterman, please don't be, just be yourself.
And then, yeah, wait.
What?
Why would I be on Letterman for some evolutionary theory?
Am I going to discover something that David Letterman would be interested in?
Anyway, yeah, weird, right? Yeah. Okay.
How frequent would those voices or that conversation be for you?
Not frequent, but impactful when it happens. So, because clearly not very open to it, not trying.
It's sneaking in.
It's sneaking in, but I don't know. Wouldn't you call that guidance? Like when it's really important, you get the information.
Yeah.
What's interesting to me is that it's not a part of you that's like wanting.
No.
It's actually a part of you that's almost shocked isn't the right word, but surprised and sort of taken
back by some form of guidance in some way.
Well, what you're indicating is that it's almost as if whatever voice that was was from a
different time that knew that that was your reality.
I guess.
Yeah.
Well, look, and then the part of me, right, that is more of a materialist and, you know, afraid of looking foolish,
yeah, would say, all right, well, there was a part of you that kind of wanted, sorry, no, even as I'm trying to say it.
No.
That's not it.
That wasn't it.
No, that wasn't it.
And then my, you know, when I decided, okay, I'm going to be an actor, my brother's best friend is John Levitts.
And he got on Saturday Night Live.
I'd seen John, you know, it was a theater major in college and classes and groundlings and I have a guest star.
I'm like, okay, great.
Now what?
I don't know.
What's going to happen?
And then he gets on Saturday Night Live.
And I thought, oh, that's not for just people touched by magic that get to do this maybe.
I don't know and just felt compelled to, I think I know, I have to.
Wow.
And then I sort of set my brain to, not in a, it was faster than that, but just what makes this okay, an okay choice?
And it was you're 22.
You don't have any responsibilities.
This is a selfish pursuit.
Now's the time to do it and you won't have this part, I felt, you know, in your,
core or whatever, you know, this part. And it was, you don't want regrets later that you didn't try.
If it doesn't happen, you want to know why. And that was it. And how many years was it from that
moment to, let's say, friends? Because obviously you did other things. Yeah, about eight years.
Wow. And in that period, were there times where you're like, could I really be doing this and like the ups and downs
of that type of pursuit? Sure. But they didn't last that long.
That's the thing.
And, you know, right before friends, I got fired from Frasier.
So I thought, okay, well, that was about as close as a person can come to supporting themselves with this career.
What happened on Frasier?
I got fired before we shot the pilot.
I wasn't right for the part.
Perry Gilpin was right.
And we were both at the network.
They made a mistake.
Oh, my gosh.
and hired me and then corrected their mistake.
That doesn't feel good.
It doesn't, but, and yeah, I fell down, but I felt down.
I didn't say I fell down.
And, but, you know, I had this in that Vassar speech, too.
Richard Kind, who I was friends with called me up.
And he gets mad when I say this.
Sorry, Richard.
You said it.
And he would call him, do you know him?
Yes.
So funny.
Yes.
I worked with him on curb.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And he would say, I don't know how you get up in the morning.
Well, if this were me, you know, this would be so devastating.
And I thought, oh, but I am getting up in the morning.
And I am leaving my house and I'm taking walks and I'm getting a little chocolate croissant on the place and coffee.
and I am okay.
You know, someone threw out, like he, without knowing it, he threw out a little lifeline to me, you know?
And I went, yeah, that's right.
I am okay.
And Robin Schiff, who wrote Roman Michelle, she wrote a play Ladies Room.
That's how I knew her.
She said, you know what?
It always feels like, you know, I know this feels really bad.
You've got to trust that another door is going to open.
And I just went, all right, I guess.
I don't know.
Anyway.
And then I, I don't know.
And then I met the man who is now my husband, you know, 33 years later.
And then right after that, mad about you, which led to friends.
And so, you know, I don't mean to just sort of like flippantly be like,
and then that's a decade of your life.
But essentially, that's then a decade of.
of your life. Right. That was such an important decade and not just for what seemed to be the obvious
reasons, because that's where I learned that, oh, the way I go about things with my, you know,
science background and a student, I'm a smart person, didn't work, actually. And the other people
on that show, aside from
Schwimmer, didn't finish
or go to college at all.
They
were so much more
like, I don't know,
facile with
taking notes and
just carrying
on doing it and incorporating
all of it.
And I learned a lot
from them and not listening.
I couldn't understand we were getting notes
from Marta and David.
showrunners. And I'm listening really careful and I really want to understand their note and I want to be able to do it. And the others are sort of like tickling, playing, laughing. And I'm going nuts like the teacher's talking. Are you out of your mind? Right? And one time I went, you guys, and Matthew Perry, I think, went, okay, don't ever shush shush me again. Like, just don't ever do that again. I'm like, all right, wow.
How am I in the wrong?
They're not paying attention.
And then I came to realize it's got to be fun.
It's got to be relaxed.
There's no other way to do this.
It's not through making it an effort when you're really doing it.
Do you disagree?
You look like you disagree.
So I don't disagree.
You're also very surgical, no?
I'm very surgical.
Jim and I had a very similar process.
we, I won't speak for Jim, but I will say that for me, like, you know, when there's like bloopers,
you know, and like people mess up, you know, when I would mess up, like, I never thought it was funny.
And in front of a live audience, you know, you get these reactions of like, oh, you know, like, oh, it's okay.
And it's like the fact that I didn't get it right, right, was one level of pain.
Right. But then, right, but then to have this, you know,
And I remember like when Kanaal or really anyone, I think anyone really except me and I think Jim, whenever anyone else would mess up, they'd like make it funnier and the audience would be laughing more.
And it's like, oh, can you believe I did that?
And I, if I messed up, like, I wanted to crawl into a hole.
I'm sorry.
And never come out.
Like that's, well, that I just.
You're not still like that.
Yes, I am.
What?
Oh, 100%.
Yeah.
I mean, that's just.
There's a Salinger quote about like...
I'm not judging. I feel bad.
Yeah. That's...
Very heavy.
It's a very heavy way to live.
I'm not the only one.
You're looking at me like I'm like from another planet.
She wants to free you from that.
Well, yes.
And that's why she's here.
That's why Jonathan asked me here.
The DMing was all him.
I'm so surprised only because what part of what's taking me a year in it,
three podcasts to say.
is I opened up and I dropped all that
and that's when I started realizing there's more going on
than things that are here can explain.
Jennifer Aniston gave me bringers of the dawn to read
because I thought I should get to know Phoebe a little better
because this girl has nothing to do with me.
And when I read that, I had to say,
oh, that's a lot of
the same stories that this one, you know, psychiatrist is...
Tell us about the book for people who don't know.
Okay, I don't remember much.
But it was a person, like a psychiatrist or psychologist, who's out to sort of disprove, I think,
really a skeptic about past lives and stuff, and found through some of the patients or clients
that he couldn't argue with.
their stories.
I was curious about this
discrepancy between the character
who in some ways was ahead of
her time and her approach
to the world and her
hippie qualities that everyone loved
and your bookish
sort of more materialist approach
it sounds like you may have
discovered something
about yourself through that character.
Yes. Well and not just about your character
about the nature of reality as it were.
Yes. That's what I was trying to see.
opening to start questioning what I thought the nature of reality was.
So that was, that was fine.
And did other cast members sort of feel like they had insight into that world more than you did maybe at the start?
Well, I mean, yes, in a way, you know, I think Jennifer has always been open to things.
And, you know, but without being fanatical or, you know, there's a real balance.
There.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Phoebe, of course, the whole point at the beginning was sort of making fun of her.
Yeah.
I've only just recently rewatched or watched for the first time some episodes and have been pretty,
oh, well, she makes sense to me now.
That's fantastic.
Good for her.
What's reality?
That's right.
Why not choose that one?
You know.
She has a wisdom.
Yeah.
That is probably more popularized now and actually many physicists are trying to explain it to us.
Yes.
Okay.
So back to your podcast for a second.
It's when you were talking to physicists.
I think that was the first one that I was listening to.
The Big Toe.
Oh, Thomas Campbell.
Thomas Campbell.
Yeah.
That's a mind-blowing episode.
It was mind-blowing.
I'm not sure how I feel about the all-encompassing theories.
that people propose because, you know, that's me anyway.
I mean, I wasn't so sure about natural selection, to be honest with you, even when I was studying it.
But, yeah.
Yeah, thinking back, I mean, Thomas Campbell, one of the things that stands out to me the most about that episode was that he was not a believer.
Right.
His first experience with anything outside of the realm of numbers and equations was he,
saw a sign that was like, do you want to relax? Come take a, you know, a class. And he went for what
turned out to be a lesson in transcendental meditation, which usually, like, you're given a mantra
and you have to practice and you have to do this. And then one day, hopefully, you will reach
some state that many of us never reach. His very first time trying it, he said he was like
rocketed into the atmosphere. He had no idea where time went. He was in another plane and he
came back like what the fuck was that and that was it and he said he was walking one day do you remember
this yeah and he saw what looked like cotton candy between the trees and he said to some guy oh what are they
decorating and the guy said i don't know what you're talking about he was seeing like strands of
essentially energy like the things that everyone says like he could visualize it that's what strikes
me most about his story and that's what's mentioned that that those strands of the light and things
around is in course and miracles.
Yes.
So it's, that stuff gets weird to me.
When someone who he didn't read that, he didn't have any knowledge of that, but it's, it just keeps coming up and then ancient spiritual or religions and then you see similarities and things coming up and then.
Yeah.
But I'm sorry, it's just this sort of academic snobbery that.
when a physicist from a reputable institution starts saying no, consciousness is not non-local, right?
Or it's out there.
It's fundamental, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's when.
Well, you said something earlier, which was something to the effect of, you know, fear of being
foolish.
Right.
You were talking about the materialist in you trying to explain that intuition.
and I can relate a lot to that because I started exploring energy work in a basement of someone's
house who was like talking about energy and somatic and I started to experience things,
but like I go back to my materialist neighborhood and you sound like an idiot.
Right.
And you're like, how do you explain that?
He used to be so smart.
Right.
And so people will discredit or, you know, out of their own lack of being able to explain anything.
And so what we do for me, I was like, yeah, I need someone who's credentialed to make my experience make any sense.
In terms of like the kind of other approaches into sort of understanding this stuff, did you do personal exploration besides our podcast?
Oh, well, but for years I did see, and I still do.
There's a healer, an energy worker who's wonderful.
Is it like a hands-on, a hands-over?
A talking?
It was hands over.
Okay.
Sometimes hands on.
And this is 27 years.
Oh.
That I first saw her.
And wasn't even convinced.
Sure.
Fully.
Just felt, well, it's relaxing.
I feel centered when I'm down.
All right.
All right.
Fine.
You know, didn't want to tell anybody.
Oh, I see a healer.
You know.
And then over time there was, you know, she would get information, you know, not like a psychic or, you know, it's not claiming to do any of that.
But things that, you know, it's just, okay, that's really interesting and that makes sense.
Okay, that's fine.
I mean, I can tell you one.
I was in New York working on a movie.
My son was turning three and delayed in speaking and had some sensitivity, you know,
sensory sensitivity issues, walked on his toes and things like that, and was also probably anxious because he thought we moved.
But we didn't move.
Mommy's just an actress.
Yeah.
But would say, I'm never going to see, like, bye, Lita, you know, our housekeeper at home and who we loved.
So he was a little anxious.
Anyway, the preschool in New York thought we should take him to see a speech therapist who, I,
I'm working 17 hours a day, so there is a nanny who's sweet taking him.
And then my husband and I are supposed to meet with this person to see what, you know, her evaluation.
And the night before, this healer calls me and says, listen, because she was pregnant,
I was just at the self-realization center, you know, meditating on my child, and your son came in.
And you need to know that he's okay.
Well, he just came to me.
She said, he's okay.
And he's older than he is now.
And you need to know he's okay.
You have to be really clear that he's okay.
I said, oh, yeah, how funny.
Because tomorrow we're going to, right,
because still not believing a lot, I guess.
And I said, oh, how funny.
Because tomorrow we're going to go see this speech therapist
and she's going to give us her evaluation.
She said, yes, whatever she says,
you need to be really clear that he's okay.
And I said, yeah, I mean, she's probably just going to tell us.
My husband's French and, you know, everyone's speaking a different language thing, you know.
And she said, Lisa, please listen to me.
Oh, my God.
I have chills.
You need to be really clear.
He's okay.
You need to know.
He's okay.
You need to be clear with that.
And I said, all right, thanks.
Hung up.
Go see this person and this person is a fucking nightmare.
You know, saying, you know, well, he seems to like isolated play.
No, he loves playing with kids.
But, yeah, he's not going to play with the teacher.
He's not going to play with you.
You're a 57-year-old woman.
We just fired a nanny.
And there was a answer for everything, you know, and it's not me just denying there's something.
And she said, you know what, you dress him cute, give him a cute haircut, doesn't make him okay.
And your denial is not getting your son the help he needs.
And I went.
Oh, this is what she was trying to tell me.
Okay, don't let it in.
Oh, don't let it in.
Don't engage.
Not another second.
Don't engage.
Not another second.
Yeah.
And my husband and I are walking back and my husband saying, yeah, I'm looking it up.
And, oh, there's a lot of, he's got a lot of signs.
I said, yeah.
But that doesn't mean anything.
Those are, yeah, it's okay.
He's okay.
It's a phenomenal example of, like, so concrete about how intuition and spirituality can work,
because had you not had that clarity, you could be sucked down a path of someone who really
doesn't understand the conditions that your child is in.
Right.
And sometimes kids need help.
We're not saying that it's not.
No, I'm not.
And also, yeah, he was speech delayed.
And, yeah, he was kind of in his own world.
He's also creative.
Is he a little on the spectrum?
Maybe I think I am too in ways.
I mean, we all are.
But to pathologize him was always a problem.
And that was the thing to do.
Sure.
With kids.
Yes.
I have a 20-year-old and we each have an 18-year-old.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My God.
And also it was very different back then
when we were all trying to figure out
when kids are different.
What does it mean?
Does it mean something?
What do you do? Do you have to do something? Am I being horrible if I'm not doing something?
And how extreme should the intervention be? My son was two and a half and didn't have the same verbal advancement that I had at that age. And so we're being told, wait a second, there's something that needs to be done. And I don't think that was the case at all.
No. This is also an acknowledgement. And this comes up in a lot of episodes that we have. There are people who are tuned to a different frequency.
meaning healers, people who in other cultures would be shamans, prophets, right, leaders.
And I think that the challenge is the notion is not that everyone is tuned into that frequency.
Can you learn to tune into that?
Supposedly, yes.
Right, that's what I'm hearing.
Right.
But the notion that there are people tuned into, that never occurred to me, you know, as a person growing up when I grew up.
there were sane people and there were crazy people. Those are your choice. You could be sane or you could be
crazy and anything that did not fall in line with what we can kind of see, touch, smell, measure,
you know, those were the things that were real. Yeah. And everything else was not. Right.
Because like where does that information about your son that arrived to this lady? Where did that come from?
Yeah. What's what is your under, like what would your, I'm trying to think what my explanation would be, right?
I mean, I have my version.
trying to rationalize it.
Not rationalize, but like...
It doesn't matter to me.
It doesn't matter.
She loves a mechanism.
I know.
I'm sorry.
She's having fun while she's acting.
The mechanism doesn't matter.
Every second.
I stress a little.
But that was my big realization.
Right.
Was it doesn't matter because I'm...
I have to trust...
I'm getting the information I need when I need it.
in a way that I can't argue with it.
That's a big one too.
So deciding that's really great and lucky
that I'm getting some guidance when I need it.
So that's great.
And it will come in whatever form,
through whatever person,
whether it's directly to you or through a channel,
you're going to get the information you need.
Yeah, especially if I'm ready to see it, hear it, get it.
How many times do we get a message and we're not open?
Right. Oh, okay. So as open as I am, my mother passed away in 2020. Yeah, probably COVID. She had dementia for 15 years and she was non-speaking. And so she passed away. I felt like she took the first opportunity, COVID, you know, to go. My dad was really, he's a doctor testing her urine every morning. Is there a UTI?
put her in her hand, but he did not want to let her go.
So, okay, when she passed away, my brother was up when he got the call.
It was like 2.30, like almost 3 in the morning.
My father was up when he got the call.
My husband was up.
She loved my husband.
My sister and her husband, their alarm went off in their bedroom.
And everything's on his phone.
He's like, breach, master bedroom.
I don't see a breach.
Like nothing happened.
and my sister, who could be really unnerved by an alarm going off and waking her up, was fine, calm, not scared.
And I woke up because my brother called me.
So after she passed away, they're exchanging these stories and everyone is a little,
isn't it weird, though, that I was up?
Isn't it weird that you had that alarm?
and I'm saying it's not weird at all.
She flew around and woke everybody up when she passed.
I don't think that's weird at all.
Except she didn't wake me up.
Am I annoying?
I'm left out of things a lot.
I've been left out of things.
Am I just really annoying?
And so she didn't want to wake me up?
Okay.
Anyway, there's a funeral now to put together.
So I'm, you know, the next day or day after putting together the slideshow,
because everyone's coming to my house.
after the funeral. And I'm not speaking. I'm not uttering a word. I don't talk to myself when I'm
engaged in a task. And that's important for the story. It is important for the story. So thanks.
No speaking going on. Yeah, I'm not good at telling a story. You're doing great. Also. But so I'm
busy, you know, pictures of her and, oh, that's a good one. And people are texting. So I'm answering
them. Thank you. Oh, that's nice. Okay. You know, condolences. And I'm,
And then I get another text and I open it up.
And it's as if I've already responded.
There's some writing in the box, message box.
And I'm like, I didn't write that.
It said in all caps, M-O-M.
No cursor and no suggestion.
Mommy, but I'm not noticing that.
I'm just saying, I didn't write that, delete, delete, delete.
And answer them because I'm busy.
I've got a task to do.
don't have time for a quirky phone.
Okay, so I'm doing, and then another text.
What?
M-O-M-O-M, all caps.
I didn't write that.
Delete, delete, delete.
And it's still not.
And I'm still not connecting.
And then I think it happened one more time.
Why is this?
Oh, because I'm thinking about my mom.
I'm doing that, but I'm not speaking.
I didn't say.
I must be because I'm thinking about my mom.
That's why it's happening.
That doesn't make any sense either.
Your phone is not yet controlled by your mind.
Just clarifying.
I know.
But I, right, that's how open I am.
Oh, I'm thinking about her.
It takes a couple days later.
My husband, we're having dinner and a friend is over, and I'm still sort of, why did my mom leave me out?
She woke everybody up.
She left me out.
She left me out.
I'm the only one she didn't get in touch with.
And my husband's saying, my phone's been weird.
And I said, my phone's been weird.
And I tell them, and in there, M-O-M.
And he and my friend went, Lisa, your mom, texted you.
From the beyond.
From the beyond.
I still, part of me says, yeah, maybe.
I mean, I don't know what happened.
It is weird.
She could have written a little more, maybe.
She did another time.
Go on.
What's you right?
So I got then lockdown, and I'm, you know, texting with a friend.
and I didn't write XO, XO, XO, XO, all caps.
And I went, what?
Well, that's not my mom.
She never signed anything.
Hugs, kisses, hugs, kisses.
Yeah, it wasn't her.
But the day after that, my father said,
oh, I was looking at old letters and look at this one from your mom.
And there were a lot of old letters, but he's sending,
I didn't tell him about that either.
And he's sending me one, and she's 18, they got married at 18,
and she wrote a letter.
He had got drafted.
He was drafted.
And at the end, half a page, XO, XO, XO, XO, XO, XO, all over the page.
And for him to send you that particular letter, right when you were experienced, that's wild.
It's a strange coincidence.
Can we ask for an explanation of the afterlife once she's texting?
Just like, what's over there?
Yeah.
And on my birthday, my 60th birthday, which was a big birthday, and I'm having a party.
and my son and my husband are out finding a gift for me at this crystal store.
And I'm trying to, there's a leak and I'm running around trying to, you know, when you're busy with something and text what?
There's something written in there.
Oh, wait a minute, there's something written in there.
Pay attention.
And it's not as concrete as X-O or M-O-M-O-M.
But it's letters that, you know, if you want, you can make them represent the first letter of it.
any word you want. But it did sort of say something like happy birthday or on your birthday,
your J.U. was in there. And I do call my son Jude J.U. His name's Julian. So I went,
oh, all right. I guess that's my mom. That one I took a picture of. Not the other ones that
were more interesting. But the one where I could describe it, whatever, I goddamn want.
because it was just. So besides the fact that like, as you said, like it doesn't really matter, right,
where it comes from. Right. But what would you say you walk around the world believing, right?
Like if you had to sum it up, like death is not the end. You know, like what is the...
I'm pretty convinced, even though I should be fully convinced after all the near-death experience
stories I've heard from your podcast and others, telepathy tapes I went through.
Holy cow.
Holy cow.
And I find I'm getting a little irritated with people that say, well, I mean, I think, you know, somehow it's being manipulated.
We don't know what this is.
It's like, well, no, we don't know what this is, but we know.
It's something.
It's something.
Okay.
telepathy or not, they are communicating in another realm, dimension, something on the hill.
So, like, why would you just want to shut it down and not explore it in case it is something?
Because it's happening to a lot.
Yeah.
So is that what it feels like to you?
Like, there's some other level of communication that we're capable of?
And that when we die, we get access to that?
Yeah, well, sure.
I mean, I think we're here not to have that.
I think we're here to experience whatever this is, which doesn't include all that.
So not that I agree with the simulation game theory about that's what we're doing here.
I feel like we invented games to approximate our lives and strategies and the things that we need to do here.
And, you know, I've heard all of you, you know, all of you, neuroscientists, like the brain, it's a filter.
It's filtering out.
We can't possibly be aware of everything that's happening.
You need filters to function.
And sometimes it doesn't matter what the filter is.
There's permeability.
Right.
And things just get through.
And we don't know what to do with that, so we just discount it.
But it bothers me when academia discounts it because the whole point.
is to investigate things.
And there's a real hard shutdown there that bothers me.
And I think it only bothers me because I am buying into it.
So, right.
You know, I'm discounting it myself a little bit.
There's something about like when you say we're not here to know all of it,
like all the mechanisms.
It can be overwhelming and distracting, right?
It's like we're supposed to be here.
and we're supposed to have some permeability.
If you get too lost, and I've seen those people,
where they're so focused on receiving messages and guidance for every turn and every part of their lives,
then they just get distracted.
And, you know, when you talk about people who have a balance of curiosity, but not fanaticism,
I think that fanaticism of, like, I got to consult my angels for every issue.
Like, that can be its own, I don't know, almost.
Well, it's not the point.
That's not.
To me, that's not why we're here.
Yeah.
I don't think.
It's to integrate it somehow.
And I think what we've seen is the people who are changing, of growing, open and curious,
have the ability to have some permeability.
If you're too rigid and you're the materialist that shuts everything out, then there's no curiosity, no wonder.
And then you've closed off.
Right.
Some pretty intricate and magical part of what this existence is.
I think the filter, though, I'd like to, you know, think about that a little bit more because you're right.
Like the fact that we can sit here and not freak out that clothing is touching our skin or that our, you know, tushes on the seat.
Like those are all the things like.
Or the heart's beating.
Or that your heart's beating.
Correct.
Like your thalamus is processing all this stuff and it says like not important, not important.
You know, which is why for those of us with attention challenges or spectrumy stuff, we sometimes can't filter, you know.
Like I don't really have that ability.
You know, I can't tell you the number of times
I've sat in a concert, a movie, a restaurant, a synagogue,
and it is not possible for me to focus.
And all the normal people around me are like, just ignore it.
I don't even know what that means.
I'm not filtering.
But the thing that we talk about with people
who have near-death experiences,
the things that we've spoken about with people
who do research on DMT, right?
The notion is that this all, right?
And this is also, it's a Kabbalistic concept,
Plato talked about it, right?
This is the people in the cave.
This is the filtration system, right?
We're already wearing the virtual reality headset.
Like, we're in it.
And there is some other reality that when you do a deep meditation,
when you can transcend this conscious state,
you can touch it.
If you die, which we shouldn't all have to die to experience it,
if you die, that veil is lifted.
If you have a psychedelic or transcendental experience
through the use of usually drugs and therapy, I would say, or a gifted shaman,
you can peel back, right, this thing and see what's under there.
I mean, the matrix is exactly what it is, right?
Yes.
There's an entire other reality.
The favorite example we talk about, right?
Like, we think we know what these things are and your shirt is black and this is this.
But like we're only seeing the colors that are not absorbed by the set of atoms and molecules,
right, that an object is.
this is just our version projected on the back of our retina upside down, right?
There's a separate reality.
And when you remove all those filters, it's like everything explodes.
And apparently from what we've heard, right, from everyone who's died and come back,
from people who have, you know, experienced these things, what's above the clouds, right,
is love.
Right.
It's warmth.
It's more openness, more acceptance.
it is a world where we don't have to fight over borders.
We don't have to hate each other.
We don't have to have conflict.
That's the messianic concept that religion has said,
oh, here, give us your money, follow us.
We'll get you there, right?
Right.
It's not the only way to get there.
But that's, to me, what that philosophical messianic concept is.
But what if we're not supposed to get there?
That's another question.
That's where.
That's what I think.
As a society or like as a human race or as a human race
or as an individual. Or the struggle is that. All of it. It's all the same thing. Like this experience here
is what it is. Well, there's something for me in all of this that connects back to the lesson that
you learned on the set of friends about not, like that thing should be fun. Yeah, relax. That's the only way in.
I want to touch on that in just a second. But as you were talking, a memory occurred to me that may be a little
weird, and I don't know if either of you have experienced it, but I remember being like six,
seven, eight years old and laying down to sleep, particularly my parents had a place north of the
city and it was very quiet there and things were just different up there, right? Like the family
was out of the routine and my dad wasn't working and so the stress was less and a lot more
playful. And I remember often laying down to sleep at night and hearing a whoosh in my ears
that was so loud that I couldn't sleep because it was keeping me up.
And when you were talking about the filtering, I'm like, what was I hearing in my ear that was just like,
and I was like, was it blood moving in my brain?
What was happening?
Have you, either of you experienced this?
All the time.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, it depends on the amount of inflammation in my.
As a kid or now all the time?
Well, whenever I had ear problems when I was a kid.
And recently, I had a mastoidectomy when I was five.
And last year had a mastoidectomy on the other side.
What is that?
What is that?
What is that?
You know, it's that part of your skull behind your ear, mastoid process.
Well, yeah.
I mean, I have to know.
Yeah, yeah.
And, oh, my God.
People used to die because the infection would go through.
It eats through the bone, your skull.
and then gets in the brain.
Wow.
And then they figured out they could just remove.
So then you would see people with a big dent in, you know, like caving in of the,
because that part of the skull is gone.
So when I was five, I had that.
The tricky part was my father, his mother, my grandmother, still around,
her first child died at the same age from mastoiditis.
So luckily she was.
was visiting her brother in Argentina.
My father said she can't know about this.
And he was nervous.
When you had your surgery.
And it was scary anyway because they're drilling holes in your skull and scooping out, you know, the inside of that was on this side.
So then when I had to have it last year, I'm thinking, oh, that's no big deal.
I've done it before.
It's fine.
It's not a big deal.
And the surgeon, the, you know, your surgeon is also, yeah.
So mostly you do it on kids if it has to happen.
They're up like two days later, one day.
They're fine.
So you'll go home the same day.
Not so much for a grown-up.
No, that's right.
Not to mention whatever emotional stuff happened that just hit me so hard.
You drilled holes in my skull and scooped out gulp.
And then sort of like a, I'm just going to say it.
I want to say it out loud because it might be stupid and bullshit.
But I thought, because my brother had told me, oh, that's interesting because when I do MRIs or CAT scans, there's frequently fluid in the mastoid.
And I've sent it to E&Ts to say, is there anything in here?
Like, nah, it's fine.
It's fine.
It happens.
And I started wondering.
I'm just going to say it, and I don't care if I sound like an idiot,
but it just sort of, you know, sometimes you just like an idea comes into your head.
Sure.
Wait a minute.
Dementia happens a lot with women.
It's an immunological thing.
Now that's where they're looking, right, for dementia, Alzheimer's.
What if there's infection in there that's not treated?
As you get older, it get the bum.
Bones more permeable, especially with women, and it's getting in, even in small amounts, trickling in.
That could be a breakthrough.
And I said to the surgeon, you know, maybe you talk to the guys.
But it's like this, the girl on Friends is telling him, here's an area of research you might want to consider.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just so stupid.
We can't get to break.
But this could be the breakthrough that they haven't looked at that solves Alzheimer's.
Anyway, and my mother had dementia.
So I just thought, you know what?
I think I'm just going to decide.
Thank you for scraping the infection out of my head to protect me from whatever
it would have caused down the line because it had been there for a while.
I wasn't in pain.
It's just because he was doing scans to see if the fluid had cleared up from an infection
that he said the bone is thinning a little.
I think we need to do this.
So that is not necessarily.
related to your whooshing in your ears.
But, sorry, I go off.
I'm the worst.
This is great.
No, no, no.
It's all good.
But what I was going to say is there is this notion that we can tune in differently.
And a lot of times also, bedtime is scary for kids.
I remember my heart too.
I would keep me awake.
I don't mean to be clinical about it.
But a lot of times when kids are anxious, like bedtime is the time when we start thinking,
feeling, you know, perceiving. So that makes sense. But I do think it's related to what we're talking
about that there's all these different levels, right, of perception. Children, it is more permeable.
That's why they're like always playing and making fantasy and things like that, right?
And the cottage was a lot more fantasy and playing. Yeah, the cottage that's where they were at the city.
But also when we think about sort of our development and for, I think, actors, I think it is,
it can be more permeable because we're literally playing make believe.
as our living.
Like, I play dress-up for a living.
You're tuned into a very different world
than if you are programming computers
or all the other important things that people do.
But you're also, it's not just playing dress-up,
playing make-believe.
You are practicing being someone else.
Yes.
And that's empathy.
And lying.
Or connectedness.
And how do you know that you're not actually being very true?
to another person out there that you're connecting into.
Well, and people love to ask that.
How are you different from your character?
I'm sure you got asked that a million times.
And it's hard to answer because in some ways, night and day,
and then in other ways, oh, very, very close.
So I don't, and I don't know.
And especially someone like Valerie Cherish or Phoebe played for so long
that I feel like that's another human being that I create.
in some way. Do you know what I mean? And I don't know if you feel the same way, but people feel very
attached also. They do, but you feel different. You know, Valerie Cherish doesn't get sick, you know.
Yeah, so she has a lot of energy. I don't. I need to sit and do nothing. I do that really well, too.
But so that's when you were a kid, and kids do do that.
And kids have imaginary friends, but what if they aren't?
I know someone's brought that up before here.
Lorna Byrne, Angels in My Hair, right?
Oh, right.
Lorna grew up thinking she had playmates that no one else could see,
and they thought that she had some sort of brain damage.
Yeah.
And it turned out she was seeing energetic entities.
He's like, I mean, even she doesn't know how to articulate it.
Right.
But yeah, she met a little boy that she played with who it turned out announced himself as
her brother who had died before she was born, which she knew nothing about, right?
That's right.
How do you explain that, you know, I can't?
There's a through line with almost every intuitive that we've spoken to that as children,
they were highly creative.
There's this overlap between whatever muscles being exercised.
in creativity that opens them up to being able to perceive things that don't yet exist.
And what is creativity?
Like, if you're given a script to create a character, there's basically a blueprint for a human
being that then has to be animated.
Right.
Or sometimes I wonder when someone's really an actor or something's really connecting in
or a writer who's writing about a person who lived, but couldn't possibly know them
because it was in the past.
sometimes I wonder if they're really connecting in,
they aren't picking up things that no one would have known.
And we can't know because it hadn't been written about.
And, you know, sometimes I do wonder about that stuff.
That's going way out there.
There was an episode of the telepathy tapes.
One of the most powerful episodes for me of the telepathy tapes,
there was a guy who was writing a book and this kid who did not know this man.
communicated to his mother that he knew what chapter of a book this guy was working on.
And the mother was like, I don't even know what to do with this.
She contacted the writer and said, this is going to sound crazy.
My non-speaking autistic child told me to find you about the chapter of the book you're writing.
And it was spot on.
Like that.
And then you have the writer saying, got in touch.
And yes, that was what it was. And that's when I don't understand the people saying, yeah, somehow the mom. Like, what? Are you imagining happened? And I'll also, because you brought up childhood and you were six, and I got so excited because I think we've all had experiences, things, when we were children, that we've forgotten about, ignored, or pushed away. But every friend of mine,
that I speak to and say, and they don't seem to have a connection with any of this stuff,
and I say, don't you ever feel like there's something that you just feel that you know,
and there's no reason you should know it? Have you ever felt that? Well, yeah. And then they
feel safe enough to confide because we're terrified. I mean, it used to be you'd be burned,
you know, at the stake or, you know, thrown into a mental. I mean, we've got a lot of,
reasons to... Women especially, yeah.
Not want to say anything.
Well, during our witch trials, there was one man who was hanged.
But, yeah, we've got a lot of reasons in our kind of strict society.
It just is, no matter what, you know, can't be shunned, can't be left out.
We need our community to survive, so...
We had a recent guest that says the number one fear for everyone is public speaking,
but it's not the speaking itself, it's the fear of being judged.
Right.
Well, I have it even right now because you two are so smart.
And I, you know, am sounding like an idiot, but, you know.
We're going to hit pause here.
There is so much more to our conversation with Lisa Kudra.
We couldn't fit it all in one episode.
Part two is incredible.
She's going to describe the comeback, how she did three seasons of a series over the course of almost 20 years.
She's also going to talk about her favorite.
lessons from the episodes about near-death experiences.
We talk about God, higher power, how to have intuition.
She describes her own intuitive moments, knowing things as a child that she could not
have known as well, miraculous healing, and she asks me about Reiki.
All that and so much more in part two of our conversation with Lisa Kudrow.
Make sure you check us out on Substack.
There's material from this episode.
You can't get anywhere else.
Go to biolicbreakdown.substack.com.
and from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have.
We'll see you next time.
It's my and Bialyx breakdown.
She's going to break it down for you.
She's got a neuroscience PhD or two.
One fiction.
And now she's going to break down.
It's a breakdown.
She's going to break it down.
