TrueLife - 10 Profound Things That Happen in Altered States of Consciousness

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Altered States of Consciousness: Both magic and psychedelics can induce altered states of consciousness. Magic often involves rituals, meditation, or other practices that can lead to altered states of awareness. Similarly, psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, or ayahuasca can significantly alter one's perception, leading to profound and transformative experiences. Expanded Perception: Both magic and psychedelics can expand one's perception of reality. Magic often aims to uncover hidden truths, tap into higher realms of consciousness, or perceive the unseen. Similarly, psychedelics can enhance sensory perception, making colors appear brighter, sounds more vivid, and textures more intense. Connection to the Spiritual: Both magic and psychedelics have connections to spirituality. Magic often incorporates spiritual or mystical beliefs and practices, seeking to connect with higher powers or realms. Psychedelics have been used by various cultures for spiritual or religious purposes, providing individuals with profound spiritual experiences and a sense of interconnectedness. Symbolism and Archetypes: Magic and psychedelics frequently involve the use of symbols and archetypes. In magic, symbols are often employed to represent certain concepts or energies and can be utilized in spells, rituals, or divination. Similarly, psychedelics can induce vivid hallucinations and imagery that may be rich in symbolic meaning, often reflecting deep archetypal patterns of the collective unconscious. Healing and Transformation: Both magic and psychedelics have been associated with healing and personal transformation. In magical practices, spells, rituals, or energy work can be used to facilitate healing on physical, emotional, or spiritual levels. Psychedelics have shown therapeutic potential in treating various mental health conditions, facilitating personal insights, and promoting emotional healing and growth. Ritualistic Practices: Magic and psychedelics often involve ritualistic practices. Magic rituals often follow a specific structure, with the practitioner performing certain actions, reciting incantations, or using specific tools or objects. Similarly, psychedelics are often taken in ceremonial or ritualistic settings, where participants may engage in specific behaviors, such as chanting, singing, or guided meditation, to enhance the psychedelic experience. Non-Ordinary Realities: Both magic and psychedelics can lead to experiences of non-ordinary realities. Magic practitioners may enter trance states or engage in astral projection, accessing realms beyond ordinary perception. Similarly, psychedelics can induce profound experiences of alternate realities, with individuals reporting encounters with mystical beings, visions of other dimensions, or a dissolution of the ego. Enhanced Creativity: Magic and psychedelics have been associated with enhanced creativity. Magic practitioners often tap into their creative abilities to craft spells, create sacred objects, or develop unique rituals. Similarly, psychedelics have been known to enhance artistic and creative expression, leading to increased inspiration, novel insights, and unique perspectives. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scar's my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Live podcast. Hope everybody's having a beautiful day. It's Monday. We're back in the belly of the beast. It's a beautiful day.

I got my friend Magic Brad over here. We're going to get into 10 beautiful things that happen in altered states of consciousness. Brad, how are you doing today, my friend? I am well. I've got 10. That's right. You've got almost 10 on your ears behind you. If you were to lean back, you could see that.

My little rocky, this flying squirrel and, you know, remember Mr. What is it, Moose? I do. Oh, my bro. Rocky and boonkel. What am I hit? Do you remember? I think it was Boris and Natasha worthy.

Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yes. And they often played with Tom Slick, which was a great one. But anyways, what it kind of puts me in a different state of consciousness to go back and remember some of these things that happened in my childhood. But, you know, I thought today, Brad, we could talk about 10 profound things that happen in altered states of consciousness. And I think it bridges the gap between psychedelics and magic.

And I thought we'd start off with number one here, Brad, is that maybe we go number 10. We'll do it in reverse order. Number 10. Okay. What do you think about that? Is that all right with you? Can we handle that? Because then it's like that drum roll, we're kind of the number one is.

That's right. Wanting. Okay. Number 10 is expanded perception. Altered states of consciousness can lead to heightened perceptions, allowing individuals to experience the world and novel in profound ways. often transcending ordinary boundaries of time and space. So this is the point where you tell me about expanded perception,

something that's happened to you in an altered state of consciousness. To me, as soon as you said that, I thought about that aha moment because we get in our spaces and we start thinking about things. And all we've got to go off of is the past, our past experiences. And that's how we're going to make things happen, the things we learned in school, or the things we learned when we grew up. And sometimes, like, being a self-employed business owner,

I end up talking to myself about things. And I don't give good advice because I've given my same advice that I had that I used before. It's like, God, I can't get this A-track tape to fit into this Mac mini. It's fascinating. You can't think outside the box. Yeah. You know, I do that sometimes, but in a different way.

Sometimes I find myself giving really good a good, advice to other people, but then I don't take my own advice. And so I found myself when I found being stressed out, like, what would I tell my daughter to do? And then I think about what I would tell my daughter do if she was in the situation I'm in and I try to follow that advice. Yeah, and sometimes you might think that someone needs something and you don't know them real well. So you give them the advice. Like if I, if you were me, this is what I would do. Right. But I'm not you. I'm a different. My wife does that a lot to me. He says, you got to do this.

You know, she insists the phone calls. You got to do the phone calls. I don't like doing phone calls. So if you want me pissed off and miserable, okay, here we go. I heard a good quote one time that said, when you find yourself in trouble, try to think about someone who's a lot smarter than you and what they would do and then do that. I think that's not much bad at, right? You know, what would Jesus do and all that kind of stuff?

the WWJD and yeah yeah just like I've I've got a friend of mine gave me these things that are called question cards and it's like affirmations instead of saying I am healthy it says why am I healthy and that gets your brain to think rather than your monkey mind going you say you're healthy but you got this big beer belly how can you say I am right look at and go why am I healthy well Well, yesterday I felt worse and now I feel better. So that's why I am healthy. Yeah. It's interesting.

The way in which you phrase a question changes the outcome. I've learned that how questions. If you find yourself in a conversation with someone and you ask them, how can I do that? Let's say you're in a heated debate and someone's like, you should do this. Or you should do that. If you just pause there and instead of firing back with an ad hominem attack or firing back with something that could be. barbed in a way, if you just ask them something along the lines of how would I, how would you do that? That changes the flow of the conversation and it forces that person to begin thinking instead of

attacking like, well, I would do it like this. Oh, well, then maybe you would come up on that aspect. But yeah, I think it's interesting. Also, you can go the Simon Sinek route and say, why would I do this? Because maybe you know how, but it's not a good idea. I wonder why in the hell am I doing this business stuff it's not very fun I think I should just go surfing and record it on a on a camera yeah maybe I can make money that way I don't it's a good point it's a very good point well that's so that's the number 10 the expanded this thing I think something like if you do like I've never done any hallucinogenic kind of things I've never done that experience personally right other than

In grade school, I did some blotter acid, and it was a bad trip because of the regulations in the room. If it was more of a guided thing, I probably would have felt more comfortable. But my mind did expand, if you will, into here comes the principal. I got paranoid. Well, I didn't get paranoid yesterday. Why am I paranoid now? So my consciousness did expand through that hallucinogenic blotter acid, if that's, is blotter acid? Is that hallucinogenic?

I think so. And I think it does. I think that's expanded perception. I think that that does change the way you perceive the world when you shift the senses you're using. You know, you went from being in a certain state that was prepared to be conditioned to learn in order to, whoa, maybe I should watch out for the authority coming over here.

So that'll move us into the number two. The number two is spiritual. Number nine. Thank you very much. I almost said two. Number nine is spiritual insights. Many people report profound spiritual experiences during altered states of consciousness. What do you think?

My thinking on that is I think we're physical beings. So we've got this duality in our head of the up, down, and the digital versus the analog. And you've got to get into that third entity, which some people would call like the Trinity, that goes beyond the physical, sort of metaphysical. And so sometimes that's what I think happens As you end up getting into that other space of like meditation You're not supposed to be thinking about things You're supposed to like focus on your breath

And then what happens is some weird information comes in from somewhere And then you've got to deal with it somehow Did that kind of answer the question for number nine? Yeah, so I would add to the idea of spiritual insights Number nine being that... That's the spirit that comes in because we're physical beings have a... Spiritual beings having a physical experience. So the spirit gets to come in instead of us thinking,

I need to get some to sleep because it's 9 o'clock and I got to wake up at 6. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that that is along the lines of some of the spiritual insights you get. I think that you see this connectedness. Like you no longer are. are a machine that is trying to produce goods so that you can provide. Now all of a sudden you see this bigger understanding an idea of like, well, I'm connected

to everything. Here's this beautiful relationship. I mean, I'm part of the planet. So that would be some of the spiritual, I think a very beginning idea of the spiritual nature, which begins to overcome you in the aura of expanded consciousness right there. That's all the similar, I mean, I've looked at some of the stuff like Joe Rogan doing ayahuasca and stuff like that. And you do get into a whole another world that you never even thought, you can't imagine. Yeah.

And those kind of things happen when you get, like when there's a third entity comes in or like two heads go together and you come up with a third idea. when a man and a woman get together they create this third entity that where did that come from where did that that energy come from when the sperm fertilized the egg it came from spirit in my opinion yeah the idea of spirit is it's a beautiful idea and it seems to be something that's always with us but we never pay attention to or maybe we don't always pay attention to because you can be it in deep meditation or be it in a heightened state of a awareness via through psychedelics or in theogens, you are reminded that you are something greater than the walk from the hospital to the graveyard.

You know, and I think that there's something spiritual than that. I think we've forgotten that. And there's a lot of conditioning that goes out to try to make sure that you don't see that. You know, if you just listen to the language that we use on a day-to-day basis, we're constantly using the inorganic to describe the organic. We have this incredible mechanistic idea of what the world is. We see everything through the Descartesian machine. We're all a machine.

We're all like a clock. And, you know, when we start using this kind of language, we really shut off that avenue or that door to spirit. So I think that heightened states of awareness open that door back up and allow the organism to revel in the organic beauty that it is. Very well put. Well, thank you. I totally get that.

Yeah. We'll move on to number seven here. Number seven is creativity and artistic expression. Altered states can unlock a surge of creativity, inspiring artists, musicians, magicians, and writers to produce extraordinary works that may not have been possible in their ordinary waking state. What say you about creativity and artistic expression,

potentially maybe even in some of the magic that you do? Well, definitely because you do have to think outside of the box and you have to think out aside of your own thinking and you have to almost think of what that spectator is going to be thinking about the motions and things you're going through. You need to kind of get inside of their head. How do they see what's going on here? Because you might be doing something as far as doing the magic stuff for the sleight of hand magic. you might be doing some things that are like a tell. You might have stiffness in the shoulder or something. The person watching sees that and goes,

okay, there's something weird going on in that sleeve over there. So if you are aware of that, you're kind of getting in the head of the spectator. And then the other thing for when artists, we were at an art fair this last weekend, and you know, see all these different styles of art. Some people are doing this stuff on metal and some people do stuff on wood

and some stuff is painted and some stuff is like a natural. I saw this one and I thought right away, they are using altered states of consciousness to comment their ideas. I could tell that that's what their art was. It was not of this world. But what was it that made you think they are in altered states of conscious when they create that? Was it the image that was translated to you? Like, how did you know that?

Yeah, because it didn't, you know, there would be an, image of like a human. I don't know who that artist is, but you can, when you can see the head and you can see all the blood veins and the nerves. It's gray. Yeah, the matrix. Right. So it was that kind of thing where it doesn't just doesn't look like a puppy dog. It looks like a puppy dog that's hooked up to, you know, electronics and neurons and cells and cosmic soup. Yeah. Yeah. I would add that the, the create the, the, artistic expression, which creativity seems to be the life blood of, is it does produce these images that make you think. It does produce images that make you see the world differently. And that's a beautiful thing. And I think that the altered states of perceptions allow you to do that. If you can go into a different state of awareness and imagine something, then you can bring that

back and share it with other people. And if it resonates with them, you're really connecting them both on a level. And I think that's something that you can really only do by being in these altered states. So I would say this. Well, there was another artist that my wife and I saw, he did stuff with frogs. And it had like picture of a frog sitting at a little piano. And you thought, okay, that's Photoshop. Yeah. It wasn't. He had a video of him with the actual frog he'd set on there. He used like Q-tips and stuff to move the frog onto the keyboard with his little hands and stuff. But maybe he was in a different state of consciousness to think about that idea.

You think, okay, how are you going to get a frog to sit on a piano bench? Freud did a lot of Coke. He did a lot of Coke, man. So that too is a different state of consciousness. I recently read an article in which they talked about how amphetamines and especially cocaine has an incredible way of neuroplastases. in the mind. So yeah, I mean, any sort of substance you take puts you in a different mode. You could even do like, you know, you've done breath work, you have done meditating, you have

done some of the blotter, like any sort of substance or any sort of different technique that takes you out of, takes the blinders off for a minute is basically an alternate state of consciousness. Yeah, definitely the breathwork, the way the guy this guy did this, you're basically hyperventilating, but you get to a place where you kind of, kind of pass out. Yeah. You know, a different space. And then when you, when you come out of it, you're all tingly and stuff.

It feels really, really strange. And you have these epiphanies, if you will. Of course. A-ha moments. Yeah, well, you're interrupting the blood flow to the brain. You're changing the flow to the heart. You're changing the flow of the blood to the extremities. Like your body is going to react in a way that is different than a normal every waking hour.

So, yeah, anything you can do. do to shake things up. You know, if you go to an ashram, if you go see a guru, he's going to do things to pull you out of your state of consciousness. I heard a good quote that once said, anybody who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have their head examined or anybody who goes to a guru ought to be beaten with a stick six times. You know what I mean? Like, that's what you're asking to happen. Like, you're asking for those things to happen. So it's interesting to think about. So moving on to number six, healing and therapeutic benefits, certain altered states, such as those induced by meditation, psychedelics, or breathwork, have shown potential therapeutic benefits for mental health conditions. What do you think?

Well, I just had a, we had a little broken wand ceremony for a fellow magician that passed away. That's a magician's when they kind of get together and tell stories about this. Okay. People and he had cancer and he got diagnosed with it. So I think that that's one of the dangerous parts about going to the doctor is because they see something. And okay, we're going to check and you got some pallets here or what do they call those palups. Yeah, yep. All of a sudden you've got those and now where's your mind going?

I got cancer. What am I doing? I'm going to die. I can't believe I did this. And then people start saying, I've been diagnosed. So now it's got an authority figure that says this is what it is. Yeah. But hasn't there been someone that's been diagnosed and then they survived?

A lot of people. Yeah, because they might just kind of said, you know what? That's your opinion. Thanks for checking it out. I'll start eating better. I'm going to take care of myself. I'm going to start thinking better. So I think that will help a lot with getting outside of our self.

into, you know, if you're in your physical being like that and you got something that's that's not healed, you got to start taking that in. Like my wife has been clearing her throat and her brother had some smoking things. He's still smoking. I don't know why he's doing that, but she's been clearing her throat. We got this Canadian smoke that's coming into Minnesota now, you know? Right. So we started thinking about that, but where does your brain go?

It goes into, okay, there's this smoke and it's going to, you know, get my throat. And what am I going to do? I can't go outside because it's dangerous and all this. It's just freaking smoke. Yeah. It'll go away. Yeah. But if your brain starts thinking about all that stuff, it starts manifesting.

It starts coagulating and it starts creating the problem that you think you have. Yeah, I'll take it a step further. And I'll walk us right down. that primrose path of fear. You know, it seems to me that fear is the state that people want you to be in so that you're pliable, be it not necessarily doctors or anything like that, but it does seem to me that those who find themselves in states of fear are easily pliable. If you look at any sort of advertising, what happens? It's usually a scare tactic. It's usually a play on sympathy. if you look at any sort of, you know, be it an advertisement for a,

if you're going to buy something for your kid or you're going to buy a product, fear seems to be the number one driver that makes us do things. And you can see it coming from the, look at the, turn on the news. You don't even need to watch an advertisement. Just look at the news and see what gets clicks. Hey, there's going to be a nuclear war. Hey, man, this thing happened over here. Hey, there's these weird people over here.

Hey, it's like it's all fear, whether it's the smoke coming in from Canada or whether it's some odd people at a library or whether it is, you know, somebody that's claiming they have a nuclear device or a terrorist or a border crossing or a new movie coming out. Oh, my God. You know, it's fear. Well, that's a marketing thing, too. It's where the timeshare sales people come in and, you know,

they get you to be in this nice tropical environment and get you feel all warm and fuzzy. Right. And then you start going, God, I bet you don't want to go back home, huh? Yeah. Isn't it beautiful here? Here for... So they use that kind of stuff. It's basically putting salt in the wound and making it more painful

and then show them the solution and go, why don't you get it? Yeah. That's unfortunate. It is. It is. It's sometimes we gravitate towards the lowest common denominator. But then there's people like us who are bringing people to a higher elevation, so they don't have to deal with that.

Or maybe we, maybe this show can be the antidote to the fear, is we bring a little positivity, a little creativity, and now we're right back to number six, the healing and therapeutic benefits. So what do you think? Well, I thought we just did. We did. I was just testing you.

Now we're going to move on to number five. Number five, altered perception of self. These states may challenge one's sense of self and identity, leading to introspective insights and self-discipline. discovery, altered perceptions of self. Number five. That just came up not too long ago where someone wanted to have my title. Okay.

I don't know what my title is. I have a hard time putting a label on what I do or who I am. So it's tough for me to say, well, I am a magician. Oh, well, that's what you do. You're a magician. Now, no, I'm stuck in this little box of being a magician. and if I wanted to twist a balloon animal, I couldn't do it. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think it's good to be, like, to have that altered state of consciousness outside of that personal self identity. Yeah. I'll tell a quick story on the, on the topic of altered perception of self. Not a while back, years ago, I was at work. I was on my way to work and my phone started ringing really heavy five, six, seven times in a row and I'm like,

whoa, what is going on here? But I didn't answer it because it was an odd number. And shortly after that number it called me multiple times, my wife called me and it's like, George, the FBI came to the door. And I was like, what are you talking about? And she goes, yeah, they came here looking for you. Is there something you want to tell me?

I'm like, I got nothing, love. I don't think, you know? And so as I'm having that conversation with my wife, the phone rings again and it's the FBI agent. He's like, I want to Mr. Monty, I need to see you. I'm like, holy cow. So long story longer, I meet with this guy

and they had thought that I was like a suspect in this international crime ring. And I was like, it was a really interesting situation. And so, yeah, it was fascinating. But the altered perception was after everything blew over,

I sat back and I thought about it for a minute, like, wow, these people thought I was a master criminal. And I just sat with that for a little bit and I go, what if I was? I knew that was coming. Right. What if I tricked them? What if I, what if I just completely BS them and I got through this whole thing and I really

was the guy they're looking for? You know what it was a weird? But I just, I just rolled with it in my mind and for a while I believed it. You know, and I was like, maybe they're not, you're not the guy they're looking for, but you have the capability of being so. Absolutely. Yeah, and that's the altered perception. And the thing is for anybody listening to this,

you can be and slip into any personality you want if you have the imagination. Like, why can't other people believe things about you that you may think are ridiculous? Just pretend that you can for a minute and you can slip into this altered perception itself. And it's really powerful. Well, people do anyways.

You know, I'm trying to get them to think one thing about me. I go to a business networking event. I'd like to get them to be in my next trade show. And they're looking at me going like, he's wearing jeans and there's a rip in the knee. He probably isn't, they come up with their own. Absolutely. He determined whatever.

Yeah. Everybody has a story when they see you. People should remember this. When you walk in someplace, people are automatically creating a story about who you are, what you have, and what you can do for them. And you essentially are doing the same thing. So just think about that when you walk in somewhere. Maybe a good way to begin altering yourself is to change.

change the story you tell not only about yourself, but about other people. Try to make up a really cool story about someone, and people will probably begin to see you in a different life. You know, I was going to do that. When I lived in Asheville, North Carolina for a couple of years, there was a forest. It wasn't Sherwood, but there was Sherwood Estates,

but there was this forest. It was like near the Biltmore. And I was thinking, I'm going to reinvent myself. And my middle name is, Arthur. Okay. Oh, perfect. I was going to be King Arthur, King Arthur Bradley of Sherwood Forest. And I was going to re-re-do a whole story of how I grew up in this area. And my mother and father were not alcoholics. My mother and father were king and queen of this castle. Yeah. I was going to redo my whole self. I never did, but I still might. Yeah. It sounds like you started walking down that road a little bit. I mean, just the fact that you kind of have some framework laid out right there. I did. I had it all in my head,

but then the work comes in. We actually have to sit down with a piece of paper and pan and write it out and make up stories and all that kind of stuff. Then you got to take it to an editor and they got to tear it apart until you did it wrong and you redo it. And then they say, kind of did it right. Take it to a publish and then they say no.

Yeah. So I said, I'm not going to write it. It's in my head. It's good enough. I'm over with it. I could tell it to George Monty someday. Yeah.

And he'll never let me forget it. He'll keep bothering me until I do it probably. All right. Well, let's move. Let's keep moving down the line here. Number four is timelessness. In altered states, individuals might experience time in a nonlinear fashion, leading to a deeper understanding of the present moment and the impermanence of reality. Well, time's definitely a construct that we came up with in your own head. There is a cycle, you know, the earth is roachy, So the sun appears to rise and fall and the moon phases and all that stuff and zipping around the sun. There's that. But who says that it's 12, 25 p.m. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Or 725 in Hawaii. See, there you go. It's different for you than it is for me and we're here in the same time. How can we have two times at the same time?

Well, the problem is we're back to using a mechanistic metaphor. We're back using the idea of the inorganic to explain the organic. We are not a clock. We are not a machine. We're human beings. And when we try to use an inorganic idea to explain an organic organism, all kinds of things fail. Time is one of those things. Time is something, a full construct that we made up.

It's nice because we can look at a clock. We can see the sun go up and down. We can see the stars move across the sky and we can look at it as if it's a clock. Hey, it's like clockwork out here. But no, it's far from clockwork. It is a very metaphor. It's the very metaphor we use to explain what's happening. But explaining the planet or explaining a human like a machine does an injustice to everything that's associated with spirituality, imagination, beauty, love.

So I think that that's a big part of the problem is the language we're using. So I think the language we're using is what allows timelessness to be experienced in heightened states of awareness. Well, I told you about that situation I had when I was in Bali, Indonesia, and I was sitting across a table from this woman. And all of a sudden, we just disappeared and went into the cosmos, and we were like just orbs floating around. And when I came back, I didn't know if that was five minutes or five hours. Yeah.

There was no time and there was no space. I didn't really have a physical body. that I could really comprehend. And I don't know how long we were gone. Yeah. Try being in a stressful moment and see how long that lasts. What about a New York minute? How long is a New York minute?

There's all kinds of these little things that we hear about. That's right. Why do they have a different time? Yeah. I did hear, though, if you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love. I heard that somewhere. I think it was my friend Arthur.

Not King Arthur, but a different Arthur. Okay. Okay, what do we move? We are moving right along to, we're coming up on the top three, Brad. Number three is unity and oneness. Some individuals describe a profound sense of unity and interconnectedness with all living beings fostering empathy and compassion. I've definitely had that situation.

I remember when I was a child, I had a feeling of all-knowingness. It didn't last long. I talked myself out of it, but I did have that sense of connected to everybody. And if you think about it in the beginning, whatever source was, however it came, whether it be a black hole or a implosion or a big bang or an intelligent being in the cosmos, they had to come from somewhere. So everything is connected somehow, you know? Yeah, you know, I once heard that the feeling of connectedness that we all long for comes from the attachment from the umbilical cord to our mother. And if you think about that for a minute, when we're born, when all of us are born, regardless of your gender, regardless of where you were born, at one point in time, you were attached to be an umbilical cord to your mother. And it seems to me that if we just look at, we look at that as a metaphor, you know, the same way we as humans are attached. attached to our mother v. an umbilical cord, so too are we still attached to the planet via the, uh, the, the, the, the sustenance of life. I don't really have that one worked out yet, but I think

that there is some connection between us and the planet the same way we were connected to our mother in the womb. What do you think? I think there's also a connection to each, each individual. And I bring that up because I'm sure you've been at a stop sign and you glance over and you see the person looking at you and you think, who I think everybody has an inherent need or desire to connect with each other. They don't know why. That's why they don't just say, hey, you don't know who I am,

but you want to have coffee? They think you're a creep. But inherently, people want to connect with each other and come back home. Yeah. Do you think maybe what we're seeing in each other is ourselves? Like people that you see are like,

wow, I see myself there. You know, and it's, it's, there's a really well-known sculptor, an artist named Jeff Coons, and he's famous for this art piece called the balloon dog. And one of the beautiful things or

one of the biggest things about his artwork is it's like a, it's a giant balloon dog and it's all chrome, sometimes just like a red chrome or a blue chrome, but you can see yourself in the image. And a lot of people say that the beauty of that particular artwork is that the person not only sees

the structure that's built, but when they look at the artwork, they see themselves in it. And that is sort of mesmerizing. And I'm wondering if the same thing may be true when we look at other human beings. We see ourselves in that person. That's what draws us to them. What do you think? Well, they say that the eyes are the, what, the connection to the soul kind of thing?

Yes, the windows to the soul. I mean, have you ever had that situation where you just, two people sit down and you just look at each other's eyes? Yeah. First, it gets kind of creepy and then it gets very peaceful. Yeah. And you're almost talking to each other without saying anything. Yeah. I think there's something to be said about.

That's another point of this particular aspect of heightened states of awareness is that when your pupils are dilated, more lights coming in. So I think when you have really dilated pupils, you're taking in more information the same way if you shoot an image and camera raw, you may not see all the footage you're getting with the camera. So too with your eyes. Like you're getting in more information, so you're processing it. You may not be aware of it, but you know something to be said about pupil dilation and information and light. Well, there's that. And then there's something that's outside of the site. And that's the sensory of maybe there's somebody behind you and you can't see them, but you have a feeling that there's somebody behind you for some reason.

Yeah. You can feel people. You ever get that feeling like someone's staring at you? Like you said, like, hey, there's someone. You could feel it. You know, it's a visceral feeling. You've done the hallucinogenic situations, haven't you? Of course.

I have not. But do you have that feeling that there's someone watching you, maybe either paranoia or comfort? I've never had the feeling like some, it's not the same feeling as someone staring at you or watching you. Like I don't get that vibe from it. But I do feel as if I'm talking or speaking or connecting with someone, the same way I would with a very intense prayer.

You know, when you, if you pray to God or a loved one or you talk to yourself like I do sometimes, you feel as if you're actually speaking to someone. And I think there's a difference. When I had that experience of going through the cosmos with that woman. Right. I don't remember talking. It was more thinking. Yeah. We were just sharing the same brain, if you will.

Yeah. I think that there's a lot of evidence to support the idea that we, the amount of communication that happens when you're together with somebody, you know, language is only a small fragment of that. So yeah, I think that there's a lot to be said about the world of communication and oneness and in communicating. So yeah. I've done that stuff. I mean, this, I guess it could be a natural hallucinogenic of sweat lodge being in that spiritual situation. I remember I had a magic show once at a powwow way up northern Minnesota.

Okay. It was just a very spiritual feeling experience while all these people are in this same room and doing this drumming and stuff. And I can't explain it, but you feel it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there's something that goes beyond words that, I think that there's clearly something there.

And it only comes from a feeling. Like if you ever, the closest, I think we can get to communicating effectively is through poetry. I think when you read a poem or you share a poem between two people and you can see someone's face get flush and you can see their, the goosebumps on their skin. Like you're really beginning to understand that your words are having a real visceral effect on that other person. You know, it's music. Music, that's another way. A way to score like that. The spoken words seems to be.

much more of a greater tool than the written word when it comes to expressing ideas in the moment. And magic at times. Yeah, without a doubt. There's a magic illusion. It's called interlude. Okay.

The woman or the assistant, whoever gets inside this big box, and your arms are all stretched out, and you're holding onto these things, and all of a sudden the person goes behind you and bursts through your back, throughout your stomach. And David Copperfield did that,

And it was a, instead of a woman being inside the box, it was David Copperfield inside the box. And the woman then went behind and burst through his and busted out the chest. It was very erotic with the music and everything. Right. The visual thing happening of a female going through a male body, you know, all of a sudden you see his stomach and all of a sudden you see this, boom. His hand pops out right through his stomach and then she crawls right through, right out of his stomach. And then she jumps out and then it's done.

It's very erotic. I don't know why I brought that up, but. Well, it makes sense. I think that when we begin playing with emotions in different states of consciousness, eroticism is a huge one. There's all kinds of different sex magic that's happened throughout the years. And it's definitely something that pulls people into them. You know, just look, you know, if you look at any advertising, there's a pretty girl right there. Or there is something that looks like a rocket.

You know what I mean? Or there's something there to remind you. you of like, hey, we're sexual beings. Little subliminals, yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that that is the art of the erotic is something that is always playing, at least in the background of almost every image, if you pay close enough attention.

So I guess that that, what were we on number three or are we on number two? I don't know. What was three? Okay, how let's do this? Number three, mystical experiences. altered states can evoke mystical encounters leading to a sense of awe and wonder about the mysteries of existence. Definitely, it gets you thinking because I'm of the belief that there are miraculous things that happen, but being on the planet, there are physical constraints that you can't get beyond, unless you're like, you know, you can get beyond that and Jesus can walk on water kind of thing. I haven't seen that kind of thing happen myself.

And now I lost my train of thought, see if I can get back on it. But that's where the magic can make you think that. I remember seeing a soda can slide across a counter. And that expands the possibility. That would be a neat trick if I could figure out how to duplicate that. Right. I figured out what it was scientifically, why that did that. Was it a magnet?

Huh? Was it a magnet? it? No, there was no gimmicks. It was just sitting there. That's what made it amazing to a magician. It was just a mountain dew can sitting on the counter. But what happened as it gets warmer, that little concave bottom, the air in that expands. And the moisture from the can had and create the feel around there. So it expanded. And the table, of course, was maybe at a little bit of an angle. So this thing just slid across the corner. There were no magnets or strings. or anything like that. It was all scientific.

But in my head, it's like, whoa! And then now that gives me that new thought of, how could I maybe replicate that? Another thing happened where a friend of mine we were walking down Venice Beach just talking to each other. And then all of a sudden I looked back and he was gone. I was looking at the drummers and the belly dance and incense. And all of a sudden I look back and where'd he go?

He disappeared. And he was, you know, 30, feet away from any building or anything, but he, the timing was just perfect where he walked into a t-shirt shop. He didn't intentionally ditch me. He just walked in there as we were walking, and I happened to have my head turned. When I turned back, he was gone. And I thought, whoa. So there's an idea of how you could make a person disappear. If you just get the timing right and get the misdirection right, you can make a human disappear on Venice Beach. You know, on a similar note, one time I was sitting in my car and I was waiting for my wife to, she was shopping or doing something.

I was just sitting there. We're parked on this hill. And I remember there was like a, I was looking at like this old, old, old kind of like ranch house with like a, it was all beaten down house, right? And I was just staring at it. And I go, I wonder if I could make that house collapse. If I just, if I just had mental powers, like I make that house collapse. And I'm staring at it, staring at it. And it, boom.

Like it collapsed. I was like, holy cow. Shortly after there was a bulldozer that came over. Like there was a bulldozer on the back of it. But for a moment, I was like, I made that house collapse. You know, and it was like, oh, it was a bulldozer. But for that moment, like, I did it in my mind. And then I've never forgot about that because I'm like, maybe I did do it.

Maybe I created that bulldozer. You know, maybe I had to have something happen behind it so I wasn't too blown away. But it's those little synchronicities in life that, like, maybe I am doing it. Maybe this is my dream. Maybe I'm making it happen. Well, you had the intention of making it fall over. You didn't say how.

Yeah, that's a great point. It's a great point. I'll send you manifested a bulldozer. Yeah. You just align things. And then the guy that ran the bulldozer said, oops, I get back to work. Got to finish my coffee break.

You jumped in here and started so that you was in tune. He just heard what you were saying. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great point. Yeah. So I think that that is, you know, it's, it is an altered mystical experience to understand. I think it underscores the idea that maybe you are the creator in some way.

So I think altered states of consciousness can be. Well, when my dad died years ago and I was in like ninth grade, my family told a story of my brother. He was up motorbike riding, dirt bike riding up north. And they said that he had a sense that he had to go back home. And I just asked him just the other day. I said, is that a true story? He goes, yeah, it was.

And he told me the story. He says, well, there's something up there somewhere. Yeah. But he was way up north in the middle of the woods. And all of a sudden, he had this feeling that he had to go back, get back home. Yeah, there's something there. I remember hearing a similar story when I was a kid about one of my friends went to the Grand Canyon, lived in California.

They went to the Grand Canyon, and they took their dog with them. And they went for like two weeks. And then on the way back, about halfway back to California, they realized that they left their dog there. So they didn't, yeah, they didn't go back to get it, but they went home and they were real sad. And then a week later, they heard some scratching at the door. And it was their neighbor's cat. The cat was the neighbor's cat.

The dog died, I think, in the Grand Canyon somewhere. But the neighbor's cat was there. That's such a twisted sense of humor. I'm sorry. Ladies gentlemen, I can't help it. Okay. Number two, expanded consciousness. These states can reveal the limitations of our usual perception,

providing glimpses into broader realms of consciousness beyond our everyday awareness. That's like a 180, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. Yeah, I guess you could be in that space that all of a sudden you had this altered state and go, I never thought that was possible. I was thinking I was going to stay here. And you get this, I don't even know how to explain it. So we're having one right now.

I don't really know how to explain it, but you're kind of seeing it from the other side looking in. I don't know how to explain that one, man. Yeah, it's kind of, I think they call that meta. Like when you're looking beyond. Yeah, looking beyond or looking into the same way that you can see the world in a grain of sand, so too can you see what's going to happen in your life

by listening to our conversation. It's interesting to think about it from that aspect. And I always think of it as like our fractal nature. You know, here's an interesting thing people can do. If you look at the coastline, like if you blow up a map of, say, Hawaii, and you look at the coastline, it mirrors the mountain range. And it makes sense because that's where all the runoff comes down.

And so the coastline is going to mirror the mountain range. So if that's true, if the coastline mirrors the mountain range, what other aspects of our life mirror a greater force? And I think that that is the, you know, that helps me at least catch a glimpse into the broader realms of what's really happening out there. Well, that makes total sense. As above, so below kind of thing, the microcosm, the microcosm. Agreed. Agreed. Okay, well, we finally made it here, Brad. Can you give me a drum roll so I can give us number one? I do have a drum roll. One second. Okay.

Nice. The number one. Number one is potential for personal growth. Altered states of consciousness can be transformative experiences, catalyzing personal growth and fostering a deeper understanding of oneself and the nature of reality. As soon as you said, the word potential, that came into Deepak Chopra and his book, the seven laws of spiritual, spiritual laws of success, and one of them was pure potentiality.

That there is unlimited potential. Things are possible, there may be probable, but there is the potential of unlimited stuff happening. So if you can get beyond that can't word, like, we're going to go to Hawaii. Well, we can't. We don't have the money.

Well, we can find the money. We can't because we don't have tickets. Let's go get tickets. But they're going to cost money. Well, let's go borrow it from that guy we don't even know. You never know. The potential is out there if you can just not limit yourself by that four-letter word can't. Yeah, can't is the cancer of can.

And I cannot agree more that the potential for personal growth from altered states of consciousness can be a transformative. can be a transformative experience. Sometimes that altered state of consciousness could be depression. Sometimes that altered state of consciousness could be a manic episode. Sometimes that altered state of consciousness can just be a quiet moment of contemplation. But the real growth is done when you get away from the limiting beliefs. And way too often, and every day get up, go to work, come home, get up, go to work, come home, get up, go to work. Come home, get up, go to work.

Come home. Too much of that leads to a life that is not fulfilling. So I would challenge everybody today to take a moment, find a way to get into an altered state of conscious, whether it's a moment of meditation, whether it's at your lunch break and doing a breathing exercise, whether it's listening to this video right now, and just taking a moment to shut it off, think some positive thoughts, and understand that you can do, you can begin anything. Whatever the wildest dream that you have, you could begin it. You may not accomplish it today, but you could begin it today. Totally agree. Give it a shot. Swing the bad.

Who knows? That's right. That's where the magic happens, right? But Brad, this has been an awesome episode. I love digging into these 10 ideas that happened to us and really digging down to it. Before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Three questions all at the same time.

Oh, boom, boom. Well, you can find me by just Googling the keyword Magic Brad and then whatever topic you're thinking about. Okay, perfect. Keywords, Magic Brad, and then whatever you're thinking about, you'll find me. Pretty much because I kind of got that brand on the internet. And what was the second one? The second one was, what do you have coming up? I've got my Expo, September 20th, that I've got to do here in Minneapolis.

and that's pretty much that's where my most of my focused energy is right now it's a little business collaborative social trade show thing I do

what is the third one what are you excited about I'm excited about that event and I'm actually excited about doing another one of these because for some reason you and I kind of resonate and we have a lot of fun

we sure do talking about this stuff and shedding different light and it's possible because you're a lot the magic with the j and i'm the magic with the g and our brains kind of think different and if i remember right aren't you a gemini as well i'm a scorpio no so watch out for the tail it stings it's in my nature remember i ever heard that story about the scorpio and the frog i can tell you next time

i'm way over here go ahead and sting me well that's all we got for today ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for hanging out with us and listening to the 10 most powerful things about about alter states of consciousness and we'll be back next week. I hope you have a beautiful day. That's all we got. Aloha.