The Telepathy Tapes - S2E17: Talk Tracks Season 2 Episode 6: When a Near-Death Experience Unlocks Hidden Genius Part One

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

In part one of this two part episode series of Talk Tracks, we hear the extraordinary near-death experience of David Ditchfield, who survived a devastating train accident that should have been fatal. David describes leaving his injured body behind and entering a realm of healing light, guiding beings, and overwhelming unconditional love that felt more real than physical life. When he returned, he discovered he had become an accidental savant, awakening an innate ability to paint complex, detailed scenes of what he experienced on the other side despite having no formal artistic background. He shares how this sudden creative intelligence emerged as a direct result of his NDE and became central to his recovery and sense of purpose. Together, the conversation explores how near-death experiences can radically alter consciousness, unlock hidden capacities, and reshape how we understand creativity, identity, and survival beyond the body.Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass 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.supercast.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi everyone. I'm Kai Dickens, and I'm thrilled to welcome you to the talk tracks. In this series, we'll dive deeper into the revelations, challenges, and unexpected truth from the telepathy tapes. The goal is to explore all the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, and yes, even unexplained things like sci abilities. If you haven't yet listened to the telepathy tapes, I encourage you to start there. It lays the foundation for everything we'll be exploring in this journey. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, non-speakers, and experiences. who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today, but won't for long. I think we're all in the midst of some cold and also very busy days. And honestly, most of us have

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These guests share an incredible commonality and something we didn't quite get into in our episode on near-death experiences. near-death experiences that result in acquired savant syndrome. So many similarities come up time and time again in the interviews that we've done with NDE experiencers. Often these are things like life reviews, engaging with some sort of light being or spirit guide, reuniting with loved ones who've passed, and the understanding that we are all part of a shared consciousness or source or oneness. And also, acquired savant skills.

Having NDE sometimes turns on a hidden gift. First, you're going to hear from David Ditchfield. After a horrific accident put him in the hospital with close to no chance of survival, David Ditchfield found himself pulled into a realm of overwhelming love, clarity, and presence, an experience so vivid, it changed everything he thought he knew about life and death. And when he returned, he woke up with extraordinary gifts that he didn't have before, including the ability to paint scenes that he said were shown to him on the other side. Today, David joins us to share what he saw, what he learned, and how his name,

near-death experience continues to shape his life. My name's David Ditchfield. I'm based in Cambridge in the UK, and I had a near-death experience, which followed on from a pretty horrific accident. It was a royal accident. I'd been seeing a friend off at a station in Cambridge, and I was actually living in London at the time, but I'd just gone to stay with my sister in a family who were living in Cambridge. And I was just kind of like hanging out there for a couple of weeks because I was

very down on my luck. My life was in a really bad place. I was running out of money. I was running out of options and I was about to be evicted from my apartment. So I needed to get away. So that's why I was there. And I just met somebody in London just prior to that who I just made this connection with. We were just kind of like, you know, we got on really well. Somebody called Anna who wanted to come and see me while I was in Cambridge. So that's how that came about. She needed to get back to London. She got an appointment, so I was seeing her off.

It was a February day, a very cold, sort of beautiful day, actually, not cleared in the sky. And she got onto the train, and I helped her onto the car with her bags and gave her a kiss, and I hooked to say goodbye. And it was at that point I stepped back to get off that the automatic closing doors closed on my coat. It was like the bottom sort of corner of it. It was like a three-quarter length coat. And I just couldn't pull it free. I tried everything. I really tugged hard, you know.

And that wasn't going to happen. I looked around for a guard, and there was no guard on that actual station, unbeknown to me. So I started banging on the doors. You know, I started yelling for help, and nobody turned up. This particular coat, it was like made of,

it was a sheepskin coat, actually, that I'd inherited. And so it was quite an old one. So it was like there's no way I was going to put it free because there was no lining on it. So it was sort of really tightly fixed. So I thought, oh, man. I remember the engine started to roar on the train, but I say raw because that's how it felt because I suddenly felt like I was for the first time in my life. I was facing death.

I was looking death right in the eyes. And I thought, right, yeah, I went into fight or flight mode. I thought, and I'm going to fight this. I'm determined not to let this thing take me. I looked through the glass and I could see my friend looking at me with complete terror in her eyes. And then the train started to edge out.

I felt every gear shift, you know, as I got pulled, I was dragged along the platform initially, and then I lost my footing, and I was like, then I was sucked between the platform edge and the speeding train. and Andre I went. And I remember that transition going from, you know,

this beautiful sunny day into like this darkness. You know, it was just like being pulled into a very dark, violent machine. And I was tossed around like a rag doll. So it was very violent and terrifying. And I was fully conscious throughout all this. But I was still trying to hang on for life. By a miracle, I was just suddenly thrown in between the track as the train continued on. So I just thought it's not over.

yet, you know, I could get hit by part of the undercarriage. So I kept my face right down into the gravel, you know, and I could smell that oily gravel, but it doesn't matter because I thought I've got to survive. And clearly I did. The emergency guys jumped down onto the track and they started, like, cutting through my clothes and they got me up onto the platform, which is a goodness, and I was how, but they did, wheeled me into the back of an ambulance. And then I jumped in, well, I jumped, we,

We were in the back of the ambulance, and then the doctor who was in charge of the whole thing there said, look, we just come from a hospital around the corner. That's how we got here so quick. But the one that's going to save your life is a 30-minute drive. Can you hang in there? And I said, yeah, let's go. So we kind of screamed off down the highway, you know, with all the sirens going. Arrived at the hospital in Cambridge, Adamson's Hospital, which is a really big hospital. And there's a whole team of medics waiting there in the emergency department.

And, you know, I could hear fear in their voices. I didn't know what they were talking about. It was all science to me, obviously, but I just remember all this fast conversation going on. And I was losing a lot of blood at this stage. So I kind of figured even then at that point that it's not all over yet, you know. And the surgeon who was in charge of the whole thing came up to me and said, look, we've got to take you straight into theatre to start operating on you.

But your family are here. to see them before we take you in. I said, well, yeah, I was really surprised that my family were there. I thought, how did they get here? But there they were. So they came in and I said, yeah, I'd love to see them. I needed them. I needed my mom, actually. It was really hard. I just had that thing where I just wanted to see my mother. And she came in and she was in tears, you know, and I was going, Mom, I'm so sorry. So it was me bringing all the dramas to this family, isn't it? And she was going, no, stop it. It's not your fault, you know, which it wasn't my fault. But I was very keen to see my friend Anna, who I could see sat at the back of the emergency department.

So I said, I need to speak to her before I go. And so she came forward and she was shaking her head from side to side, you know, and saying, I can't believe you're alive. They announced over the speakers when the train stopped that, well, it was a fatality at the previous station. So she assumed I was dead. So it was at that point that I left all the drama. the hospital, I left all the agony that I was in, you know, and I was suddenly, it was kind of like,

it was like a beautiful transition from that place into a lovely, small, what appeared to be a small, darkened room. And I figured, okay, this is it. I haven't made it. This is death. You know, I thought I died, you know, and I thought this, this is, you know, what's happened. I knew nothing about near-death experiences at all, you know, before this, I was non-spirited. I was non-spirited. I had nothing to do with spirituality. You know, it didn't even occur to me. And so I just thought, I'm dead. This is it.

I didn't try to fight it or resist it. You know, I've since learned that some people who've had near-death experiences do try to resist that initial pull. Because I've got kids and stuff like that, which I didn't have that in my life then. So it wasn't really an issue, you know, to try and hang on. I didn't want to die, but I just felt everything I'd just been through, It just felt like it was so welcoming and safe that it was kind of like,

it was almost like I was tempted to just stay and go with it. So I did. I looked around to get my bearings and as I look around in this small darken space, I was suddenly greeted by these pulsating colors of lights. There were light orbs that were slowly pulsating all around me. And this made me feel safe as well. This made me feel like I was in a, in a good place.

I wanted to check my body. I wanted to check the wounds to see how everything was looking. So I lifted myself up and looked down. Everything was healed. Nothing, you know, everything was in place. There wasn't even a single scratch or bruise. It was just like my body has it been up until the point of the accident. In fact, even better.

It just looked really pristine. And I realized I was no longer close. I was just covered in this blue sort of satin, silky material. And I suddenly fell up beneath me and I thought, I'm no longer on the hospital trolley that I've been bought in from the ambulance. I was now laid on this huge rock. It was like a huge, sort of slate sort of rock. I describe it as being something like it's here in the UK,

like Stonehenge or a medieval altar, just something very primitive. But it felt remarkably comfortable. And so I kind of lay myself back onto this rock and I closed my eyes. I needed to just almost rest and adjust to where I was. And as I closed my eyes, I laid there for a while and then light started to appear through my eyelids.

So I opened my eyes. And there were like three symmetrical grids of white lights. very bright, pure white light, so that were closing in towards me. The light was so intense that, you know, you and I now would not be able to look into that light, you know, but in this realm, it was possible. And in fact, I couldn't take my gaze away from this light because I realized that it was, it was beyond just light itself. There was like a healing energy coming from that light, from these grids.

And I realized that the healing process was starting to heal. all the trauma that I'd just been through, my body and physically, but also mentally and emotionally, you know, the big trauma of going under a train, which was huge, in it? And so I was starting to feel even more calm and relaxed. This episode of The Telepathy Tapes is brought to you by Wildgrain. Wild grain is the first bake-from-Frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries, and fresh pastas. Plus, all items conveniently bake in 25 minutes or less, unlike many store-bought options. Wild grain uses simple ingredients you can pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be easier on your belly and richer in nutrients and antioxidants.

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And use code Tapes 20 at checkout for 20% off your first session. So I closed my eyes and went with this process of being healed. And as this process went on, I suddenly felt the presence of somebody was there, you know. That kind of feeling I always describe it as been if you're taking an afternoon nap, you know, and somebody walks into a room, you just know if someone's walked in, you know, and you open your eyes. So I did. I opened my eyes and lifted my head. And there stood at my feet was this beautiful being, an androgynous person with this pure white, blonde hair and skin that was like emanating light from within.

And this person was like wearing a very simple, contemporary black t-shirt, very similar to what I'm wearing there. in black and which kind of surprised me because I thought, well, if this is death, then I thought there'd be some kind of robed person or whatever, you know, but that wasn't the case. But I didn't mind. I didn't argue with that because I was more fixated by the fact that I knew this person's face. And I thought, but I couldn't figure where from, you know. And I said out loud for the first time, I said, who are you? I know you.

I know, where do I know you from? I know your face, you know. And this person just kind of then started to smile at me with a knowing smile looking back at me. And it was a reassuring smile as well and said nothing. But I also then started to realize the information was coming through. It was almost like telepathic, but it wasn't, it was very strange because it was very clear, but it wasn't spoken.

It was non-verbal, but I started to realize that this person was like, like the gatekeeper to what was happening at the moment. You know, this person was there to sort of guide me as to the process of what was beginning to unfold. So I trusted it. I went in it. There was complete trust and faith, you know, and I closed my eyes again and laid back. And as the time went on, I started to feel a sensation of more people, you know, and arrived.

so I opened my eyes again and either side of me were two female forms now. There was a girl to my right, very European in appearance, you know, wearing again a simple brown dress, but quite dark skin, long brown hair. Whereas the girl to my left was more American Indian, Asian Indian, you know, South American, I'm not sure, but she had a really beautiful sort of ornate dress on. It was quite traditional dress and lovely, dark. skin and they both had their hands slowly hovering over the contours of my body. And I was, again, I was feeling the sensation of this energy that I'd felt from the grids of light. But it was more

intense now. It was just, I realized that the healing process that was happening that was coming from their hands was going beyond just the physical wounds that I just received. I realized that they were starting to heal the years of hurt. that we all carry with us. There's no avoiding that. We've all got stories that we've carried throughout our lives, you know, and I felt like they were like literally releasing all the years of pain or baggage that I carried with me throughout those years.

And they were just getting down to the pure essence of my soul. You know, they were getting down really deep. And it was an incredibly liberating feeling. It was just, I'd never felt anything like this before in my life, because I'd never even allowed myself to even go there. You know, there was no sense of wanted to understand me or any pain that I carried throughout the whole of my life. But this was, yeah, this was liberating.

This was beautiful. And so I continued to bathe in all this beautiful hearing energy. And then I started to think about my family because, as I pointed out, you know, my mother was in tears. They were all in shock, the whole family. And I thought, well, okay, well, if this is death, then they're clearly going to be, my family are going to be really upset now. They're going to be going through the fact that they've just lost me, you know. So I decided to lift my head and see if I could see them.

And so I edged my way over from this huge rock that I was still laid on and looked down. I looked down through going, if I looked down, I would see them in the hospital. But I couldn't see them. I couldn't see them at all. But that was okay, you know, I kind of, me of old would have been for any in a sense of, like, panic and, oh my goodness, I can't see my family, no, what's happened, you know, where am I and why can't I see them? But none of that happened. There was a complete sense of, okay, well, I can't see them now, but, you know, they're going to be experiencing everything that I'm going through now when their time comes. And, you know, there was a sense of it's all right.

But what was more incredible than the sight of not being able to see them was this awe-inspiring view. As I did look down, I was suddenly looking into a waterfall of stars, a waterfall, the size of Niagara Falls, you know, Victoria Falls. It was vast. It was huge, you know. And I suddenly said, wow, I'm no longer in this small darkened space that I figured I was in. I'm actually in the universe itself. and I was just so awestruck. I was going, wow, look at this. And I was just kind of looking.

And instead of like billions of tons of water toppling over the edge, it was like billions of beautiful stars cascading over. You know, there were like shooting stars. There was like all these beautiful displays. And I was trying to fix my gaze. And I felt like I was looking down into infinity. I was looking into one galaxy into another. And I started to see colors, form, nebulous, gases, which was all new to me.

I mean, up until that point, I had no interest in astronomy or the universe or anything. To me, the universe was just that kind of black sky above me walking down the streets at night with white sparkling stars. I knew nothing about nebulous, so all this was new. All this was very awe-inspiring. And so I hoisted myself back over onto the rock, and then I just kind of laid back again and continued to really, really everything that was appearing and also sensing that the knowledge was still coming through.

The knowledge was that I was part of the universe and that I was moving forward with the universal energy and that I'd always been part of the universe and I hadn't realized it. So all that was kind of strange to me, but it all made sense at the same time. But the most incredible part, really, the most profound part, was to happen. and right at the end of this whole experience for me, was as I'd lay there with my eyes closed still, I felt this beautiful energy that was coming from the hands of the healers

and the lights was suddenly very, very intensified now. In fact, I felt like every single molecule of my body was just vibrating with a sensation of love. And it was a sensation of unconditional love like I'd never experienced in my life. It was all the different types of love. like whether it had been from my mother or my lovers or my pet animals, cats, dogs, whatever,

you know, all those different types of love all condensed and just coming through at once. And so I opened my eyes once more and looked. And just beyond the being of light, it was still stood at my feet with the black tishah, was this huge ton of white light that was coming through the universe, coming through the start and getting closer and closer. And this ton of the white light was surrounded by very dramatic flames that were slowly circulating around the edge. And again, normally this would have been quite terrifying

because it was quite huge. And it was kind of like causing this sensation of physical vibration. I thought, what is going on, what's happening? But there was no sense of terror or fear. Only complete trust and, What I was now being told was that this is the source of all creation. This is like not God as I had always figured God would probably be looked from my school books. You know, the Michelangelo image of God on the ceiling of the Vatican with a long great beard.

No, this was God in the form of this huge tunnel of white light. And as it closed in on me, the vibration was so strong. and just the knowledge that this was the source of all love, the source of all life, was then causing me to just, I remember laughing out to myself at this, knowing what I just learned and what I was feeling and experiencing, that I suddenly left it all. I suddenly came crashing back into my body and I was back in the hospital. I was like sort of back, you know, all the pain started to rush through my veins

and bones and muscles and, you know, all the beautiful light that was there was suddenly replaced by the fluorescent strip that was, you know, screaming into my eyes from above. And the noise and the drama at the hospital was like overkill, but there I was, you know, back on earth, as it were. And I'd not even gone into surgery, you know, in terms of time, it was very hard to tell because it was probably not that long. Nobody could tell me because obviously at that point everyone was in shock, everything that was happening. Nobody could really remember.

But it wasn't like it was hours or anything like that. But it felt like a lot of people asked me how long it felt to me to be in that other realm. And I always say that there's no, the one thing I realized when I was there, there's no sense of time then. You know, time doesn't exist. Because I remember sensing to myself,

as I was there, that for the first time in my life, I was no longer concerned with time. You know, I felt like I was in the present moment and that time didn't exist. I'd spent the rest of my, but my previous years, being either concerned with the past, past mistakes I've made, the opportunities I'd missed out on, or I was concerned with the future.

worried about where my life was going to go because I was running out of money and all those different things, you know, rather than being focused on the present moment, whereas in that realm, it was just about the present moment. And it was all about being present, which was just like a very powerful thing and something that I try to hang on to and, you know, and keep that in my life now. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about rest, real rest, the kind that lets your nervous system finally exhale. I kept hearing about my heart. magnesium breakthrough by bio-optimizers from friends and experts, and they all set the same thing. This one is different. Most magnesium supplements just use one or two forms, but magnesium

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Did you ever realize where you knew the mysterious white figure in the T-shirt from? That person was my highest self. You know, this person has been with me throughout not only this lifetime, but all the previous lifetimes and what have you, you know, say, yeah, that's how I knew that person so well. That's how I recognize that person's face, but I couldn't pinpoint it, yeah. And how long did it take to recover from the accident? A couple of years in order to recover from it, yeah. But when I was in hospital, you know, I remember the surgeon who is, the consultant who was

in charge of the whole thing. We formed a really good bond, you know, and he was saying to me, he said that you're recovering at an incredible rate, considering what's happened to it. We don't get it. And I started to tell him about what has happened. And he said, look, I'm a doctor, I'm a scientist. I don't want to hear any more. Let's leave it at that and laughed, you know. So there was something, because it's really bizarre. There was just when I, a lot of people say to me, when you did come back into the hospital, you must have been really gutted, you know, after all the beauty

that you've just been through. And I wasn't because I still felt, especially at the beginning, that I was still very attached to that other realm. I felt like I'd still got this um, biblical cord coming through, and there was like still energy coming from there. And when I was recovering in hospital,

even though physically I was in a mess, you know, I got tubes and wires coming out of me that I got so much power inside of me that I was just like, you know, I was like sort of like it was almost like the recovery for me was not a struggle. You know, obviously, yes, it was physically, you know, you don't come back to superhuman. But in terms of my well, my soul, my, you know, my inner self, I'd never felt so good in the whole of my life, you know, and that stayed with me, you know, and that helped me with the recovery.

It's been, it's become a very big part of my life. I've never really, I've never really let go of it. And I guess the reason being is because when I was laid the first night after I came out of theatre, you know, they'd operate on me for about eight and a half hours, the first operation. And I remember lying in the hospital room, they'd given me a room on my own. And I was lying, I just got this R2D2 machine bleeping, that's three, you know. And obviously I was, you know, thinking about processing what just happened going under a train because that's very, very big, you know, believe you made.

But I was more fixated on what had happened, you know, the whole NDE, because as I say, I knew nothing about NDAs. And I thought, am I the only person this has happened to? And I thought, I've got to share this with people because this is like, I want people to know that life continues on. This is not the end, you know. I wasn't afraid to tell and share. Obviously, I wanted to pick my moment. And I was scared I was going to forget it all. I was really scared. So I thought, right, I'm going to do a painting. I wasn't not an artist I was a manual labourer

I was just thinking of work whatever I could do until that point but I thought I'm going to do a painting and I thought I'm going to do a big sort of like dramatic painting it's got to be like those big sort of Renaissance-style biblical scenes you know I wanted to do something like that

so when I came out of hospital that's the first thing I did once I was well enough was to start this painting and from that moment's on I started to realise that again I was still getting energy coming through from that realm, helping me to do this very first painting that I did based on my NDE.

And I thought, I was going, wow, this is amazing. This is not just me who's creating this painting. Something else is happening here. So I became prolific. I couldn't stop painting. And I was just doing so many bits of artwork that I guess I started to realize that this was like almost like my calling, you know, because I remember at the beginning, was I kept saying to myself, what is it? Why have they sent me back? What is my purpose? I felt like I must

have some kind of purpose here to have come back from all that. And at first I thought I was going to be a healer or helping people. But I realized that was my calling that was just going to do. I was starting to, people were coming, looking at my paintings as I was starting to put them together and I started explaining to others and I've started to realize that people were interested and fascinated. I've never looked for confirmation, you know, it's more like sort of validation. I've done quite a few sort of online NDE conferences, you know, which have been mainly US ones actually. And that's when I started to realize, that's when I started to meet other people who had NDAs. And we'd have kind of like a green room, if you like. We'd kind of meet the night before just to kind of all say hi

meet each other. And what was interesting there was, obviously we don't sit around sharing our experiences with each other, the actual NDE, but we talk about things that would happen, that we'd noticed certain things that would change in our life, just kind of small things. You know, we go, oh, do you get that as well,

that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, I felt that as well. You know, like, for example, I remember when I was in hospital that when my family and friends would come in and see me, that they couldn't touch the hospital bed because I was like full of static. You know, they were going, you're really, you're like this electrical, you know, stuff like that,

you know, which we kind of laughed about me and my family at the time. I never really thought much about it. But just things like that, small things, you know, where people were saying, yeah, I had that as well. Everyone would walk into the hospital room and they couldn't touch the bed.

I thought, ah, which is kind of nice. Those are kind of sweet things, you know, but it's still validation in a sense, yeah. And what I realized as well is that obviously most people's stories differ a lot. Not everybody sees the same thing, but there's lots of things like the tunnel of white light that I've talked about, which is obviously that's something that's quite universal. But all in all, there's a sense that even though everyone's stories are different, and some people have gone through different situations.

And me, some people, you asked about how long it was, when this all happened to me. You know, some people were in comas and stuff like that. And everybody is different. I mean, that's why it's called a near-death experience because it's kind of like you are, it's at that point where you may have flatlined or you may be very close to death as I was.

You know, I mean, to go under that train was a very close shave. And in fact, I remember the, because it was a big thing in the UK that we have like the UK Rail Police have to investigate it because of the nature of it, you know, for health and safety and stuff. And they spent a year doing all this, you know, and so they interviewed me a lot. You know, they come and see me, you know, they said, oh, we've taken the, you know, the train down to London, we've stripped the doors down to the last river. You know, it was a very big job.

And I thought, wow. And right at the end, I remember, you know, the head of the rail police said to me, well, we finished all our inquiries now, but you know what, David, we don't get it, the whole team. we've done all our figures and maths and you should not have survived that you should be dead now and not sat here talking to me you know

and so it's very strange as I say everyone's story is different but there's a universal sort of sameness as well my phrase for it is ultra real that's how I describe it because it is you know it's it's kind of like you know obviously

people will say to me which I'm completely open to as well because the more questions that come, the better. Some people say, are you sure, you know, that it wasn't hallucination to do with medication or are you sure it wasn't a dream? And I said, well, yeah, because hallucinations and dreams, they're more chaotic, you know, dream,

if you think about it, when you have dreams at night, you know, even if you've had a really strong dream and you wake up the next day and say, hey, I had this really strong dream last night, that it is the kind of chaotic, but not only that, if you keep repeating, that dream over time, you realize that it starts to shift. It changes, you know, the narrative, whereas like, weird, well, my own story, that the narrative has never changed. I don't really

listen back to previous interviews I've done either. In fact, I don't enjoy doing that. You know, it's not pleasurable for me. But there are been times when I've just kind of cross a clip, you know, from something I've done before. I thought, wow, you know, so nothing really changes it is what I'm trying to say that from what's happened, the whole experience itself, which is very far from being like a dream. I think most people who've had NDAs will also agree on, and that is that the sensation that everyone does feel when they're there is a sensation of love, you know, that, you know, as I said, there was the healing energy that was coming through, it was an unconditional love that was coming through to me, but it also kind of like, for the first time in my life, I felt love for myself

as well. I'd never, and I realized I'd never done that. I'd never really had any self-love. And because I'd got no self-love until that point in my life, I'd got no feelings of self-worth either, you know. And that was a really important takeaway from me from that experience, I think, that a lot of us can try to explore, because we don't, we don't really give ourselves enough space as it were. We don't allow ourselves to stop, you know, because it's like we're so consumed with our lives, you know, because, you know, when I said too early about that thing about when I was looking down into the waterfall stars and that sensation of being in the universe itself and that we are part of that universe, it's another thing that I think that we've forgotten

that that's the case. If you think about it, you know, we're part of the animal kingdom, obviously, but we're not governed by the universe anymore. The rest of the animal kingdom is, whether They're birds, fish, you know, sort of tigers, moths or whatever. Everything is governed by the laws of the universe. Birds migrate every year, you know, trees, it lives, their leaves, and all those different things and then regrow again, spring, time and what have you. Whereas like, we've forgotten all that now. We're, you know, we're governed by technology now, which I don't mind.

I love technology. I love, you know, I don't try and shy away from it. But I think it's also important to remember that we are part. of the universe and the universe is something that is a very beautiful, powerful force as well. And it's one that wants to create. It wants to create life, obviously. And it wants us to create and keep recreating rather than self-destructing, which is obviously we're very prone to doing, you know, on a mass I'm talking about there.

So I think those were like really big lessons for me. You know, it's interesting as well going back to the universe. I'm now fascinated by watching, you know, TV documentaries all about how the universe works and stuff like that. And I started watching a series here in the UK on the BBC, all about all the difference of the NASA trips going to the moon or whatever. and interviewing astronauts, which I always find astronauts fascinating to be interviewed. Because to be an astronaut, you've got to be a complete scientist, haven't you just like going back to that doctor I talked about earlier, you know? But they get moved.

They get that profound sort of like out-to-body experience themselves because they're floating around in space and they're looking back at our beautiful planet, you know. And some of the stuff that comes out is really quite beautiful and profound, you know. considering their scientists. So that says an awful lot. That's almost like saying that they've managed to step out of the technical sort of noise that we surround ourselves with. And they say the same thing as well.

They say that when you're looking back at the Earth, there's no sense of divide. There's no sense of wars or anything. You're just looking at this beautiful, beautiful, peaceful planet and all these beautiful colors, you know, and you just, you don't see that. You don't see conflict, you know, you just see all the, the beauties of nature all coming together, you know. I guess that's a very big thing for me, you know, just being aware that we are part of the universe. That's it for this episode of the Talk Tracks. But new episodes will be released every Wednesday.

So stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together are reality. And please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true, true skeptic requires an open mind. Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Our executive producer, Jill Pachesnik, our producer, Catherine Ellis, and associate producer Selena Kennedy, original music by Rachel Cantu, opening and closing music by Elizabeth P.W, original logo and cover art by Ben Kendore Design, the audio mix and finishing by Sarah Ma, and I'm Kai Dickens, your writer, creator, and host. Thank you again for joining us.