September 8, 2025 • 50 mins
Join Sandra as she reveals this doctor's secret four-year journey into the scientific evidence for consciousness beyond the brain
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And you're here. Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Ghost Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for
podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained ends here.
They invite you to enjoy all our shows we have
on this network, and right now, let's start with Chase
of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast, AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:42):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know
that our loved ones have survived physical death and so
will we welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. What is
(01:13):
the biggest, most profound question we can ask as human beings.
For centuries, philosophers, spiritual leaders, and scientists have all wrestled
with it. What is consciousness? Is it just an accident
of biology, a trick of the brain's complex wiring that
simply powers down when our bodies die. Or is it
(01:37):
something more? Is it the very source of our reality
and eternal essence that exists beyond the limits of our
physical selves. Today, we're going to dive deep into that
very question of consciousness, and we're going to do it
through the eyes of someone who has stood firmly on
both sides of the debate. Our journey begins the secret
(02:01):
one held for years by a brilliant neuroscientist and medical doctor,
a woman who had spent her entire life in the
world of logic, data and the provable material world. She
was a person who is part of medical teams that
had locked people up for saying things that she herself
(02:21):
would later experience. Her story is one of profound loss,
of a world shattered by grief, and of a series
of unexplainable events that forced her to question everything she
thought she knew as a scientist. It's a journey that
took her from the sterile logic of a hospital to
(02:41):
the mysterious frontier of spirit communication. She went looking for answers,
and she says, now she is one hundred percent certain
that communication after death is possible. So get ready, because
this is the story of doctor Ta Swart, and it
is a powerful testament that sometimes the greatest truths are
(03:04):
found not by looking through a microscope, but by looking
deep within our own hearts. Doctor Swart is a neuroscientist
and a medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry. Her entire
life and career were built on the foundation of science.
She understood the brain, its chemistry, its electrical signals, and
(03:27):
its pathologies. She was a person who could diagnose mental illnesses,
who understood the line between a healthy mind and a
mind in psychosis. In her world, if something couldn't be measured, studied,
and replicated, it was not real. The idea of a
soul or consciousness existing outside the physical brain was a fantasy,
(03:50):
a topic for religion, not for science, she says. Then
her world of logic and order was completely shattered. She
lost her beloved husband, Robin, to leukemia, just two days
before their fourth wedding anniversary. The loss was, of course
absolute and devastating. As she said herself, everything she believed
(04:13):
in had gone wrong. She was totally lost and broken.
She was reading condolence cards on what should have been
a day of celebration for her. She credits the fortress
of friends and family around her with her very survival
in those earliest of days. But in the midst of
this profound grief, something strange started to happen. She began
(04:37):
seeing robins in her garden every single time she went
to the window. Not just one or two, but an
unusual noticeable number of them. She had never seen so
many robins in her life before or after. Her logical
mind immediately tried to explain it away. Of course, that's
what I want to see, she thought. Her husband's name
(04:59):
was Robin. It had to be a coincidence, a mind
trying to find meaning where there was none. Then, about
six weeks after he passed away, the strange occurrences became
impossible to ignore. One night, around four in the morning,
she was jolted awake by a massive thump to her shoulder.
As she described it, it wasn't a gentle tap, it
(05:23):
was a forceful physical blow. Startled, she opened her eyes,
and there next to her in bed, she saw him.
It was a vague, hazy version of her husband Robin
as if he were pushing himself through a thick fog,
just trying to be seen. She was transfixed, watching in
(05:44):
a state between shock and awe. She saw him become
clearer and clearer, the outline of his hair and his
face becoming recognizable. Then, just as suddenly, he dissolved from
the top down, and she shrieked out loud as she
saw his shins and feet disappear. Last, what does a neuroscientist,
(06:07):
a psychiatrist, a medical doctor do with an experience like that?
Her two worlds were at war. The scientist in her
knew that this was a classic grief induced hallucination. The
grieving wife in her new with every fiber of her
being that she had just seen her husband. In her desperation,
(06:31):
she did what she called the kind of thing that crazy,
desperate people do. She consulted a couple of mediums, but
she was not impressed. The information was general, vague and
offered none of the specific, evidential proof her scientific mind craved.
The experience left her feeling even more alone. But it
(06:53):
was in that moment of disappointment that a new powerful
thought emerged, a thought that would change which the course
of her life. She thought, if it's possible to communicate
with someone that's passed away, and he was my husband
and my best friend, and I am all about optimizing
my brain and expanding my consciousness, then I should be
(07:17):
able to do it myself. That single thought was the
start of her journey, a deep dive into the rabbit
hole of consciousness, quantum physics, and ancient wisdom, all in
a quest to find a scientific framework for the impossible
thing that was happening to her. Her journey began not
(07:38):
with blind faith, but with a hypothesis. As she explained it,
it was like two people who speak different languages needing
to learn a new shared language to communicate. She believed
that both she here on earth and her husband Robin,
in the spirit world had to learn how to bridge
(07:59):
that vibrationational gap. As a scientist, She started by observing
the data of her own experience, and so began her
training her going to the gym to build her spiritual muscles.
She began to ask for specific signs and got them
first over a period of time, and then with practice,
(08:20):
almost instantly, she learned to trust that inner voice to
differentiate between her own thoughts and the loving messages from
her husband. She had found the answer she was looking for,
and she is now, as a neuroscientist and medical doctor,
one hundred percent sure that it is possible to communicate
with someone who has passed away. Doctor schwartz journey is
(08:44):
so powerful because it wasn't unique. She follows in the
footsteps of other brave scientists who are forced by their
own experiences to question the rigid materialism of their profession.
Take the story of doctor Marjorie Woollcott. Like doctor Swartz,
she was a neuroscientist, a professor who had spent decades
(09:05):
studying the brain. As a young student, she had hoped
to find where the soul resided in the human body,
but her professors convinced her it was a silly question.
She then became a materialist. Then, at the age of thirty,
she went to a meditation retreat, and during a deep meditation,
she had a profound spiritual awakening. She felt a divine
(09:28):
consciousness that was vast, loving, and completely independent of her
physical body. She knew with a certainty that went deeper
than any scientific fact, that consciousness existed beyond the brain,
but she was terrified to speak about it. It was
in the nineteen seventies, and she knew that sharing her
(09:51):
experience with her scientific colleagues could end her career. For
over thirty years, she lived a double life, the rigorous
neuroscientist in the lab and a spiritual seeker in private.
It wasn't until she was nearing retirement that she felt
finally safe enough to come out of the closet and
write her incredible book, Infinite Awareness, bridging the gap between
(10:16):
her two worlds. And these two brilliant women are not alone.
They follow in the footsteps of other brave scientists. Take
the story of doctor Alan Hugueno, a man with a
doctorate of science and mechanical engineering and a nationally recognized
expert in physics. In nineteen seventy, after devastating motorcycle accident,
(10:36):
he had a profound near death experience rejourneyed to a
realm of pure light and unconditional love. He tried to
explain this experience to the hospital psychiatrist, but they told
him he was delusional. For years, he kept his story quiet,
building a successful career in science and engineering, all the
while knowing that a greater reality existed. Like Swarden, doctor Woollcott,
(11:01):
it was only later in life that he could integrate
his scientific knowledge with his spiritual experience, and now he
works as a research medium with top universities. Doctor Rupert Sheldrake,
author of the book The Science Delusion, argues that science
is being held back by centuries old assumptions that have
(11:24):
hardened into dogmas. And cognitive scientist doctor Donald Hoffman, author
of the book The Case Against Reality, applies this concept
to the whole of human consciousness. How we see, think, feel,
and interact all impacts the world around us. The journeys
(11:47):
of these scientists all point to the same revolutionary conclusion.
The brain does not create consciousness. It is a filter.
It is a radio receiver tuning into a consciousness that
is vast, eternal, and all around us. This one idea
changes everything. It means that the experiences of mediums, the
(12:07):
visions of the dying, the impossible knowledge from near death experiences,
they're not tricks of the brain. They're moments when the
filter is simply turned down, allowing us to glimpse the
greater reality that has always been there. Coming up in
our next segments, we'll hear the specific mind bending signs
A doctor Tara Swart asked her husband for and how
(12:29):
they appeared in her life. Will dive deep into the
idea of the brain being a filter and learn what
this confirmation bias is all about. We'll explore the surprising
importance of gut health to receive our own messages from spirit,
and finally, we will tackle the biggest question of them all,
what is consciousness. We'll be right back. You're listening to
(12:53):
Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM paranormal podcast at work. Welcome back to Shades
(13:24):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. In our last segment,
we heard the incredible story of doctor Terra Swart, a
neuroscientist and psychiatrist, who, after the devastating loss of her
husband Robin, was confronted with experiences that defied her entire
scientific worldview. She saw him in her room, received signs,
(13:46):
and made the brave decision to investigate the possibility of communication,
not with blind faith, but with the rigor of a scientist.
This decision plunged her into one of the most difficult
and terrifying dilemmas a person of her profession could ever face.
It forced her to confront the very nature of the brain,
(14:06):
of grief and of reality itself. Her journey provides a
fascinating look at the science of a grieving brain and
leads us back to that powerful central question, is the
brain a creator or is it a filter? As a scientist,
doctor Swart began by observing the data of her own experience,
(14:28):
and the first thing she noticed was that her body
seemed to have a memory all of its own, a
memory that was deeper and more primal than her conscious thoughts.
Months after Robin passed, she was preparing for the first
anniversary of his death. She was trying to be strong
to mentally prepare for the wave of grief she knew
(14:48):
was coming. But a few weeks before the anniversary, on
October fourth, her body was suddenly racked with aches and pains.
The pain was so intense that even a gentle massag
was unbearable. She had no idea what was happening. She
was also hit with a wave of depression so heavy
that she, a trained psychiatrist, had to look in the
(15:11):
mirror and go through the clinical criteria to see if
she was having a breakdown. Confused and in pain, she
looked back through the calendar on her phone, and then
she saw it. October fourth was that exact day, one
year earlier that she had brought her husband home from
the hospital to die. Her conscious mind had not yet
(15:34):
registered the date, but as she said, her body had remembered.
This led her to explore the work of scientists like
Besil Vanderkolk, author of the famous book The Body Keeps
the Score. This is the idea that trauma isn't just
a memory in our mind, It's an imprint stored in
(15:55):
the very tissues of our body. Doctor Swart explained that
there's even a part of the brain responsible for speech
that gets shut down by trauma. This is why we
have phrases like I'm speechless or I have no words.
There are some experiences so profound that they can't be
processed through talking alone. They have to be released physically,
(16:18):
through bodywork, dance, or even crying. This understanding that there
was a consciousness in her body, a cellular memory that
was operating independently of her mind, was the first crack
in her purely materialistic worldview. It opened her up to
the idea of a deeper, more mysterious level of our being.
(16:41):
Her next experience was even more unsettling. For weeks after
Robin's passing, she would wake up in the morning freezing cold,
shivering so violently she would have to blast the heat on.
She later realized the room was like a sauna to
anyone else. It was only later that she made the
connection her husband always had hated the cold, and during
(17:04):
those exact weeks his body would have been refrigerated in
a drawer in the morgue. Again, her logical mind could
have dismissed it, but the feeling was too real, too specific.
It was a strange and unsettling form of clare sentience,
the ability to feel something at a distance. It was
as if her own body's filter was breaking down, allowing
(17:27):
her to tune into the physical state of her husband's
body miles away. It was another piece of data that
simply didn't fit. But the most challenging and terrifying experience
for her as a psychiatrist was what came next. She
began to experience something called thought insertion. This is a
(17:48):
classic textbook symptom of schizophrenia, where a person has thoughts
in their head that they know with absolute certainty are
not their own. Imagine that terror of that here she
was a medical doctor who had been part of teams
that had institutionalized people, had them medicated against their will
(18:09):
for describing this very symptom, and now it was happening
to her. The thoughts were not her own. They were loving,
they were reassuring, and they felt like they were coming
from her husband. But the experience itself was a direct
challenge to her sanity. This is the ultimate test for
a person of science. Do you follow your training and
(18:32):
label your own experience as a pathology, a sign that
your brain is breaking down under immense stress or grief,
or do you entertain another more radical possibility that you
are not going insane, but you are in fact opening
up a new form of communication, that your brain's filter,
(18:52):
weakened by trauma and love, is now allowing you to
perceive something that has been there all along. Doctor Terraswart
chose the latter. She chose to be a true scientist,
to follow the data of her own experience, even when
it led her far beyond the boundaries of the known world.
(19:13):
She chose to believe that what she was experiencing was
not a symptom of psychosis, but a true connection with
her husband. This led her to the revolutionary conclusion that
has been echoed by so many other scientists and near
death experiencers who have glimpsed the other side. The brain
(19:34):
is not the creator of the mind. The brain is
a filter. As she put it, the brain actually filters
down the capability of the mind so that we can
exist on this material plane. The one idea changes everything.
It means that our true consciousness is vast and unlimited.
(19:56):
It means that in our normal waking state, we are
only perceiving a tiny fraction of reality. Our brain's job
is to filter out the rest so we can focus
on the tasks of earthly life. But in moments of
intense love, deep meditation, or profound grief, that filter can loosen,
(20:18):
The walls of our perception can become thin, and we
can get a glimpse of the greater conscious universe that
we are part of. This is why a grieving mother
can suddenly smell her son's favorite cologne in a room
where it couldn't possibly be. It's why a father sees
a specific, meaningful bird tap on his window the morning
(20:40):
after his daughter passes. It's why doctor Swart could feel
the cold of the morgue and hear her husband's thoughts
in her mind, It's not a broken brain, it is
an open filter. This scientific model, the idea of the
brain as a receiver, provides a logical framework for all
(21:01):
the phenomena we talk about on this show. It honors
the reality of these experiences without dismissing the science of
the brain. It suggests that science and spirituality are not
at war. They have just been describing the same mystery
from two different sides of the veil. Doctor Schwartz's journey
(21:24):
into this mystery led her to explore the fascinating link
between creativity, mental health, and spiritual openness. In her research,
she came across a concept called shared trait vulnerability. It
shows that there is a high correlation between creativity and
(21:45):
certain mental health challenges. She explains that this is because
both creative geniuses and people struggling with their mental health
share a similar brain trait, a loose filter. This is
what scientists call low latent inhibition. It means their brains
(22:05):
allow more information from the outside world to come through
things that most of us would normally filter out as irrelevant.
For someone with a very high IQ and mental flexibility,
this loose filter is the source of creative genius. They
can connect dots that no one else sees and come
(22:26):
up with brilliant new ideas. But for someone with a
lower IQ or less mental stability, that same flood of
information can be overwhelming and lead to a psychological crisis.
Doctor Schwart realized that her grief was putting her in
a vulnerable state, but it was also making her more
creative as she opened up her brain's filter. She wondered
(22:51):
if she could consciously use this process. Could she use
creativity through art, music, or writing as a safe way
to intentionally loose that filter and become more receptive to
the subtle messages and signs from the other side. This
is a revolutionary idea. It suggests that our ability to
(23:12):
connect with the unseen world isn't just some random gift,
but it is a skill that can be cultivated. It
implies that by engaging our creative minds, we can strengthen
our intuition and open ourselves up to a deeper level
of consciousness. It's another powerful piece of the puzzle, a
scientific explanation for how we can learn to tune our
(23:35):
own radio receiver to the frequencies of the spirit world.
Doctor schwartz journey through the science of her own grieving
brain led her to a place of profound understanding. She
realized that her quest was not about proving something to
the outside world, but about learning a new language of
(23:55):
the soul, a language of signs, intuition, and love would
allow her to continue her relationship with her husband Robin
in a new way. Think of it this way. For
most of her life, doctor Swart believed the brain was
the radio station creating the music of consciousness itself. Her
(24:15):
journey forced her to consider a new reality that the
brain is simply the radio receiver, a device turned to
a single frequency called everyday life. What she was discovering
is that profound grief and love can act like a
hand on that dial, suddenly scanning through the static and
(24:37):
landing on other stations that are broadcasting all the time,
just beyond our normal perception. When we return from the break,
we'll travel from the science of the brain to the
wisdom of the soul. We'll explore the practical ways doctor
Swart learned to open her own filter to strengthen her
(24:57):
intuition and to tap into the greater consciousness that surrounds us.
All there's a couple of brand new terms you'll learn
that were very new to me. And we'll ask the
big question, what is consciousness and where does it come from?
We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the
(25:17):
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm
(25:47):
Sandra Champlain. Here's the thought for you. Did you know
that your brains filter, the part that keeps you focused
on the physical world, is called the reticular activating system.
It's like a bouncer at the nightclub of your mind,
deciding which information gets in and which gets ignored. But
(26:08):
what we're learning today is that we can actually make
friends with the bouncer. In our last segment, we heard
the incredible stories of people whose brains filter was temporarily
shut down, allowing them to have a stunning glimpse of
a greater reality. These experiences, while profound, often come through
(26:28):
extreme circumstances, like a terrible accident, a life threatening illness,
or a radical surgery. But what if we don't have
to wait for a crisis. What if we can learn
to gently and intentionally loosen our own filter to open
ourselves up to the subtle messages and the expanded awareness
(26:49):
that is our birthright. This is where doctor Terra swartz
journey takes a practical and empowering turn. After coming to
terms with her own unexplainable experience is she didn't just
accept them as a scientist. She began to deconstruct them.
She asked the question, how does this work? And more importantly,
(27:10):
how can we learn to do it ourselves. Her insights
offer a roadmap for anyone who wants to tap into
their own consciousness and strengthen their connection to the unseen world.
Her journey began with a simple but powerful decision to
believe that communication was possible and that she could learn
(27:32):
the language. As she said, it's like two people who
speak a different language having to learn a language that
they can both speak. She realized it wasn't just about
her husband Robin, learning how to send messages from the
other side. It was about her learning how to receive them.
She began to think of it like training a muscle,
(27:54):
like going to the gym. She started by asking for
specific signs. This is something we talk about all the
time on the show, but hearing it from a neuroscientist
adds another layer of validation. She would ask her husband
in her mind to send her a sign. At first,
it might take a while for the sign to appear,
but with practice, the connection became stronger and faster, until
(28:19):
the signs would almost appear instantly. She shared one incredible
story about this. It was coming up on the second
anniversary of Robin's passing. She was traveling for work and
feeling particularly vulnerable. In her mind, she had an image
of a phoenix rising from the flames, symbolizing her own
(28:40):
journey of re emerging from the ashes of her grief.
So she gave Robin a challenge. She said to him,
in her mind, Darling, send me the sign of a phoenix. Now,
as a scientist, she was very clever about this. She
intentionally chose something very unusual. But she said if she
(29:03):
had asked for a dog, she would see a dog
on the street every day, but a phoenix that was
a much higher bar. The very next day, while driving
through Chinatown in Oklahoma City, she passed a restaurant with
a huge emblazoned sign, the Phoenix Garden. It was a
(29:23):
direct and immediate hit, but the universe wasn't done. Her
work trip was taking her through the Navajo Nation, and
her flight home to Los Angeles was scheduled for the
exact day of Robin's anniversary. Her team, knowing how important
it was for her not to miss her next engagements,
had promised her a direct flight, but due to the
(29:46):
remote location where there were no direct flights available, she
discovered her layover would be in Phoenix, Arizona. On the
anniversary of his death, she flew through a city named
for the very sign she had just asked for. Now
I can hear the skeptics, and doctor Swart addresses us beautifully.
(30:07):
She talks about the concept of confirmation bias and the
brain's filtering system. It's true that when you're thinking about something,
you're more likely to notice it. If you're going on
a trip to Hawaii, you'll notice Hawaiian shirts, or if
you're buying a certain new car, you'll start seeing them everywhere.
(30:28):
But she says we should use this to our advantage.
The practice of asking for a sign is what she
calls the art of noticing. Our lives are passing by
at one hundred miles per hour, and we are constantly
filtering out information by asking for a sign. We are
telling our brains filter that particular activating system. Hey, I
(30:52):
want to pay attention to this. This is important. We
are consciously directing our awareness. She suggests setting very specific
criteria to test this. For example, she might say, I
need to see a button, the word button, or a
symbol of a button three times by eleven PM tomorrow.
(31:14):
By setting these clear intentions, we are training our minds
to notice the subtle synchronicities that are happening around us
all the time. It's a powerful way to build that
muscle of belief and to see the evidence pile up
in your life. Also, and this brings us to what
doctor Swart believes is the foundation for all of this,
(31:36):
our intuition, or what she calls our gut instinct, and
she means that quite literally. She explains that the brain
and the gut are in constant communication through a super
highway of nerves, hormones, and chemical signals. The most important
of these is the vagus nerve, a long wandering nerve
(31:56):
that connects the brain stem directly to our intents. This
isn't just a one way street. In fact, most of
the information travels from the gut to the brain Your
gut is like a second brain and is where your deepest,
most primal wisdom is stored. That feeling of butterflies in
(32:17):
your stomach when you're nervous, or that deep gut feeling
that tells you something is right or wrong, that is
real biological information being sent to your brain. Doctor Schwartz
says that to sharpen our intuition and become more receptive
to spiritual signs, we must first take care of our
(32:38):
physical foundation, and the most direct way to influence your
brain is through your gut. A healthy gut microbiome, the
trillions of good bacteria living in your intestines, reduces inflammation
throughout your body, including your brain. When your system is
in a state of balance or homeostasis, your brain has
(33:01):
the extra resources it needs for higher mental functions, including
that expanded awareness we call intuition. This is where ancient
wisdom and modern science come together beautifully. Practices like meditation, yoga, chanting,
and even deep rhythmic breathing have been shown to have
(33:22):
a beneficial effect on our gut microbiome and to stimulate
the vagus nerve. Our ancestors knew this intuitively. They knew
that these practices calmed the mind and opened the spirit.
Now neuroscience is showing us how it works on a
biological level. By taking care of our gut health through
(33:46):
good nutrition, and by engaging in these ancient calming practices,
we are physically tuning our radio receiver to be able
to pick up on the more subtle frequencies of consciousness.
For those who want to take this journey to its
deepest level, doctor Swart even explored the ancient practice of
(34:08):
dark retreats. This is a profound practice from Tibetan traditions
where a person spends several days or even weeks in
a room or a cave in complete and total darkness.
It is the closest one can have to emulating a
near death experience. At first, the person sleeps a lot,
(34:29):
but after a few days the brain starts to create
its own light. People report seeing sparks, then dimly lit walls,
and eventually vivid visions of animals, deities, and spiritual beings.
They come out of the retreat with many of the
same after effects as near death experiencers, a loss of
(34:53):
the fear of death, a deep sense of compassion, and
a feeling of profound For life and as these near
death experiences that provide some of the most compelling scientifically
documented evidence that consciousness can operate entirely outside a functioning brain.
Doctor Swart was particularly moved by thousands of cases researched
(35:18):
by doctor Bruce Grayson, a professor of psychiatry. He shared
one incredible story that is impossible to forget. A patient
in the ICU kept going into cardiac arrest. He had
a very close bond with his primary nurse, a young
woman in her twenties. One weekend, she had time off
(35:38):
and a different nurse was looking after him. The man
went into cardiac arrest again and had a near death experience.
In that state, he saw his primary nurse. She told him,
your life is an over. You have to go back
and get better, and please tell my parents I'm sorry
about the Red MG. Woke up in the ICU and
(36:02):
told the temporary nurse what he had seen. The nurse
burst into tears and ran out of the room. A
moment later, someone else came in and explained to him
the devastating news. His primary nurse had been given a
Red MG sports car for her twenty first birthday by
(36:22):
her parents just days before she had taken it for
a drive, crashed into a tree and was killed instantly.
The patient had no way of knowing she was dead,
yet he saw her on the other side and came
back with a message for her parents that was impossible
for him to have known. Now you and I don't
(36:44):
have to go sit in a dark cave for a week.
But what all of these practices, from asking for a
sign to engaging our creativity to taking care of our
gut health teach us is that tapping into consciousness is
an active process. Yes, it's a skill we can learn,
a muscle we can build. It's about making a conscious
(37:06):
choice to open our filter and listen with our whole being,
with our minds, our bodies, and even our hearts to
the beautiful, loving, and ever present reality that surrounds us.
When we come back for our final segment, we will
bring this all back home. We will explore the biggest
(37:26):
question of all. If consciousness is not in our brains,
where is it? Could it be the very fabric of
the universe itself? And we will talk about how we
can use the power of gratitude to begin creating the
reality we most desire. We'll be right back you're listening
to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
(37:49):
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades
(38:13):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. Here's our final thought
for the day, in the biggest, most mind bending question
of all. If consciousness is not in our brains, then
where the heck is it? Could it be that we've
had it all backwards? Could consciousness be the creator of everything?
For centuries, science has operated on the assumption that the
(38:35):
physical universe is the ultimate reality. The Big Bang happened,
matter formed, planets cooled, and eventually, through a random process,
life emerged, and very late in the game, consciousness sparked
into existence as a byproduct of complex brain chemistry. In
this view, consciousness is a small, temporary accident and a vast,
(38:58):
unfeeling universe. But what if that's not the case. As
we heard the father of quantum theory, Max Plank, said,
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative
from consciousness. This is a complete reversal of everything we've
been taught. It suggests that consciousness was here first. It
(39:22):
is the canvas upon which the entire physical world is painted. Now.
I know this can sound like a wild philosophical idea,
but it actually lines up with what modern science is
discovering about the universe. Did you know that scientists today
admit that everything we can see, every star, every galaxy,
every planet, every single thing in the entire universe makes
(39:46):
up only five percent of what's actually out there. The
other ninety five percent is a complete mystery. They call
it dark matter and dark energy. They know it's there
because they can see its effects, the gravity that holds
galaxies together, but they have absolutely no idea what it is.
Ninety five percent of reality is an invisible mystery to
(40:09):
modern science. Could our loved ones, could the afterlife? Could
the very field of consciousness itself exist in that vast
unseen reality. It's a question science can't answer yet, but
it's a powerful reminder that the material world we see
is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a
profound scientific mystery, and it's why many researchers believe we
(40:33):
might find the afterlife. They ask a simple question. If
ninety five percent of the universe is an invisible, energetic
reality that we can't directly perceive, why is it so
hard to imagine that consciousness and the souls of our
loved ones could exist there too. Think about the invisible
energies that are filling the room you're in right now.
(40:56):
Radio waves from countless stations, Wi Fi signals carrying information
from all over the world, GPS signals from satellites in space.
They are all passing through your body at this very moment,
but you can't see them and you can't feel them.
But you know they are real because you have a device,
a receiver that can tune into their frequency and make
(41:18):
them visible or audible. Could this spirit world be the same?
Could our loved ones be coexisting with us in this
very room, just on a different frequency and a different vibration,
And could our consciousness, our soul be the receiver of
that when tuned correctly through meditation, grief or love can
(41:39):
briefly pick up their signal. This is a question being
explored by a growing number of brave scientists today who
are building on the work of pioneers like Max Planck.
There is doctor Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist from Cambridge University,
who proposes the theory of morphic resonance. It's the idea
(42:00):
that there is a collective, invisible memory field for all
of nature. He suggests, for example, that when a crystal
forms in one part of the world, it makes it
easier for the same type of crystal to form elsewhere
because it taps into this shared field. He believes our
own memories may not be stored inside our brains, but
(42:22):
in this external, non local field that our brains simply
tune into. There is also doctor Donald Hoffman, a cognitive
scientist at the University of California. He argues, based on
mathematics and evolutionary theory, that our physical reality is not
the real reality at all. He compares it to the
(42:45):
desktop icons on a computer. The icon for your document
isn't the real document. It's just a simple symbol that
helps you interact with a much more complex reality of
code and circuits. Doctor Hoffmann believes our physical world is
just that a simplified interface that helps our consciousness navigate
(43:06):
a much deeper, more complex reality that is made of
consciousness itself. For anyone who wants to dive deeper into
this fascinating intersection of science and spirit, there are some
incredible books out there. You could explore. Doctor Sheldrake's book
the Science Delusion, or doctor Hoffman's book The Case Against Reality.
(43:28):
Another fantastic resource is the work of doctor Gary Schwartz
at the University of Arizona, whose laboratory has conducted groundbreaking
experiments on mediumship and afterlife communication. What all of these
brilliant minds are telling us is that the old materialistic
view of the world is crumbling. Science itself is pointing
(43:49):
to a reality where consciousness is not a small accident,
but a fundamental force of the universe. If consciousness is
truly fundamental, if it is the source of all things,
then that means that our own consciousness, our thoughts, our feelings,
our beliefs, is not just a passive observer of reality.
(44:12):
It is an active participant, and it has creative power.
We see this in the stories of near death experiences.
People describe creating landscapes with their thoughts, communicating telepathically, and
moving from one place to another simply by intending to
be there. In the afterlife, it seems thought creates reality instantly.
(44:35):
This leads to a fascinating question, is it possible that
we humans have the exact same power, the same creative
power of our souls right here on earth? Now, maybe
it just takes a little longer to manifest here because
of the dense physical nature of our world and the
illusion of what we call time. This brings me to
one of the most powerful tools we have for shaping
(44:58):
our reality gratitude. And I'm not just talking about being
thankful for the good things in our lives. I'm talking
about a specific practice, a powerful technique of feeling gratitude
for things before they happen, as if they have already occurred.
I've done these experiences in my own life, and the
(45:21):
results give me goosebumps. The first one happened on a
planned weekend trip with my mother to Las Vegas. My
flight left from Boston and I had a three hour
layover in Salt Lake City before my final flight to Vegas.
I was so unhappy about sitting at an airport for
three hours. I had a very strong desire to just
get there. But on the flight, a passenger became ill
(45:44):
and we had to make an emergency landing in Iowa.
We were on the ground there for over three hours.
I was not happy. I can tell you that I
knew I would miss my connecting flight and I would
probably have to wait till the next day to meet
up with my mom. But then I remembered the power
of intention. I thought, maybe I can change my thoughts
and have a different result. For the entire flight from
(46:06):
Iowa to Salt Lake City, I did a powerful visualization.
I pictured with full gratitude and excitement, as if it
had already happened. I saw myself landing in Salt Lake
City and seeing on the monitor that my Las Vegas
flight had been delayed by an hour. I saw that
the departure gate had been changed to the one right
(46:27):
next to my arrival gate. I pictured myself handing the
boarding pass to the gate agent, and to my delight,
receiving an unexpected upgrade to first class. I saw myself
arriving safely and my mother waiting for me in the
baggage claim area there in Las Vegas. It was a
very difficult vision to hold my inner critic. That voice
(46:48):
in my head just kept jumping in, telling me it
was stupid, ridiculous. You know that this stuff doesn't work.
But I kept gently pushing that voice aside and focusing
on the feeling of gratitude. Over an hour later, we
landed in Salt Lake City, looking at my watch. I
knew my connecting flight should have already departed, But when
I got off the plane, I looked at the monitor.
The flight from Las Vegas had not yet left. It
(47:11):
was delayed, and they had changed the departure gate to
the one right next to where I was standing. They
were doing the final boarding, and as I walked over
and gave the gate agent my boarding pass, out of
the machine popped a first class ticket. And when I landed,
my mom was there to meet me in the baggage
claim area. Every single detail I had visualized with gratitude
(47:32):
had manifested perfectly. The second story involves my good friend,
the legendary race car driver David Brabham. David had a
lifelong dream to win the twenty four Hours of Lama.
The race was the following month, and he joined me
in an experiment. David told me in great detail everything
he wanted, how the race would start, whose main competition
(47:53):
would be, when he would take the lead, and how
he would win. He included every bit as detailed as possible,
and we sat there and pictured it together, full of excitement,
gratitude and desire. I even imagined him in the winter
circle spraying the bottle of champagne and celebrating the victory.
The race fell on June thirteenth and fourteenth. I watched
(48:17):
from home, and I was fascinated to witness David taking
the lead, just as he had described in our visualization.
And after that the miracle occurred. My friend David won
the race. I cried with tears of happiness, and I
watched him as he received a wreath of flowers in
winter circle and sprayed champagne and celebrated with his teammates
(48:39):
the victory. These experiences make me wonder was I predicting
the future or was I creating it? Does it help
if two or more people are giving gratitude for the
same thing, does it supply more power? If consciousness is
the fundamental reality, then perhaps there is no difference. Perhaps
by aligning our thoughts and feelings with a desired outcome,
(49:00):
by feeling the profound gratitude of it already being real,
we are sending a powerful signal into the field of consciousness,
a signal that organizes reality around our intention. This is
the ultimate secret. The journey that started with doctor Terra
Swartz grief and her search for answers has led us
here to the understanding that we are not just passive
(49:23):
observers in a random universe. We are powerful, creative beings.
We are sparks of a divine conscious reality, and we
have the ability to shape our lives through focus, our intention,
and our gratitude. This is the greatest lesson the afterlife
has to teach us that the creative power we will
(49:45):
experience instantly in the spirit world is a power we
possess right here, right now. It just takes a little
more focus, a little more belief, and a whole lot
of gratitude. So, my friend, I know this was packed
with things that think about and I thank you for
taking the time. Please come visit me at Wee Dontdie
dot com, join one of our medium classes, or come
(50:07):
see me on a free Sunday gathering inspirational service with
medium demonstration included. I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you so much
for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio
and Coast to Coast am Heironormal podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com
And you're here. Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Ghost Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for
podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained ends here.
They invite you to enjoy all our shows we have
on this network, and right now, let's start with Chase
of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast, AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:42):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know
that our loved ones have survived physical death and so
will we welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. What is
(01:13):
the biggest, most profound question we can ask as human beings.
For centuries, philosophers, spiritual leaders, and scientists have all wrestled
with it. What is consciousness? Is it just an accident
of biology, a trick of the brain's complex wiring that
simply powers down when our bodies die. Or is it
(01:37):
something more? Is it the very source of our reality
and eternal essence that exists beyond the limits of our
physical selves. Today, we're going to dive deep into that
very question of consciousness, and we're going to do it
through the eyes of someone who has stood firmly on
both sides of the debate. Our journey begins the secret
(02:01):
one held for years by a brilliant neuroscientist and medical doctor,
a woman who had spent her entire life in the
world of logic, data and the provable material world. She
was a person who is part of medical teams that
had locked people up for saying things that she herself
(02:21):
would later experience. Her story is one of profound loss,
of a world shattered by grief, and of a series
of unexplainable events that forced her to question everything she
thought she knew as a scientist. It's a journey that
took her from the sterile logic of a hospital to
(02:41):
the mysterious frontier of spirit communication. She went looking for answers,
and she says, now she is one hundred percent certain
that communication after death is possible. So get ready, because
this is the story of doctor Ta Swart, and it
is a powerful testament that sometimes the greatest truths are
(03:04):
found not by looking through a microscope, but by looking
deep within our own hearts. Doctor Swart is a neuroscientist
and a medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry. Her entire
life and career were built on the foundation of science.
She understood the brain, its chemistry, its electrical signals, and
(03:27):
its pathologies. She was a person who could diagnose mental illnesses,
who understood the line between a healthy mind and a
mind in psychosis. In her world, if something couldn't be measured, studied,
and replicated, it was not real. The idea of a
soul or consciousness existing outside the physical brain was a fantasy,
(03:50):
a topic for religion, not for science, she says. Then
her world of logic and order was completely shattered. She
lost her beloved husband, Robin, to leukemia, just two days
before their fourth wedding anniversary. The loss was, of course
absolute and devastating. As she said herself, everything she believed
(04:13):
in had gone wrong. She was totally lost and broken.
She was reading condolence cards on what should have been
a day of celebration for her. She credits the fortress
of friends and family around her with her very survival
in those earliest of days. But in the midst of
this profound grief, something strange started to happen. She began
(04:37):
seeing robins in her garden every single time she went
to the window. Not just one or two, but an
unusual noticeable number of them. She had never seen so
many robins in her life before or after. Her logical
mind immediately tried to explain it away. Of course, that's
what I want to see, she thought. Her husband's name
(04:59):
was Robin. It had to be a coincidence, a mind
trying to find meaning where there was none. Then, about
six weeks after he passed away, the strange occurrences became
impossible to ignore. One night, around four in the morning,
she was jolted awake by a massive thump to her shoulder.
As she described it, it wasn't a gentle tap, it
(05:23):
was a forceful physical blow. Startled, she opened her eyes,
and there next to her in bed, she saw him.
It was a vague, hazy version of her husband Robin
as if he were pushing himself through a thick fog,
just trying to be seen. She was transfixed, watching in
(05:44):
a state between shock and awe. She saw him become
clearer and clearer, the outline of his hair and his
face becoming recognizable. Then, just as suddenly, he dissolved from
the top down, and she shrieked out loud as she
saw his shins and feet disappear. Last, what does a neuroscientist,
(06:07):
a psychiatrist, a medical doctor do with an experience like that?
Her two worlds were at war. The scientist in her
knew that this was a classic grief induced hallucination. The
grieving wife in her new with every fiber of her
being that she had just seen her husband. In her desperation,
(06:31):
she did what she called the kind of thing that crazy,
desperate people do. She consulted a couple of mediums, but
she was not impressed. The information was general, vague and
offered none of the specific, evidential proof her scientific mind craved.
The experience left her feeling even more alone. But it
(06:53):
was in that moment of disappointment that a new powerful
thought emerged, a thought that would change which the course
of her life. She thought, if it's possible to communicate
with someone that's passed away, and he was my husband
and my best friend, and I am all about optimizing
my brain and expanding my consciousness, then I should be
(07:17):
able to do it myself. That single thought was the
start of her journey, a deep dive into the rabbit
hole of consciousness, quantum physics, and ancient wisdom, all in
a quest to find a scientific framework for the impossible
thing that was happening to her. Her journey began not
(07:38):
with blind faith, but with a hypothesis. As she explained it,
it was like two people who speak different languages needing
to learn a new shared language to communicate. She believed
that both she here on earth and her husband Robin,
in the spirit world had to learn how to bridge
(07:59):
that vibrationational gap. As a scientist, She started by observing
the data of her own experience, and so began her
training her going to the gym to build her spiritual muscles.
She began to ask for specific signs and got them
first over a period of time, and then with practice,
(08:20):
almost instantly, she learned to trust that inner voice to
differentiate between her own thoughts and the loving messages from
her husband. She had found the answer she was looking for,
and she is now, as a neuroscientist and medical doctor,
one hundred percent sure that it is possible to communicate
with someone who has passed away. Doctor schwartz journey is
(08:44):
so powerful because it wasn't unique. She follows in the
footsteps of other brave scientists who are forced by their
own experiences to question the rigid materialism of their profession.
Take the story of doctor Marjorie Woollcott. Like doctor Swartz,
she was a neuroscientist, a professor who had spent decades
(09:05):
studying the brain. As a young student, she had hoped
to find where the soul resided in the human body,
but her professors convinced her it was a silly question.
She then became a materialist. Then, at the age of thirty,
she went to a meditation retreat, and during a deep meditation,
she had a profound spiritual awakening. She felt a divine
(09:28):
consciousness that was vast, loving, and completely independent of her
physical body. She knew with a certainty that went deeper
than any scientific fact, that consciousness existed beyond the brain,
but she was terrified to speak about it. It was
in the nineteen seventies, and she knew that sharing her
(09:51):
experience with her scientific colleagues could end her career. For
over thirty years, she lived a double life, the rigorous
neuroscientist in the lab and a spiritual seeker in private.
It wasn't until she was nearing retirement that she felt
finally safe enough to come out of the closet and
write her incredible book, Infinite Awareness, bridging the gap between
(10:16):
her two worlds. And these two brilliant women are not alone.
They follow in the footsteps of other brave scientists. Take
the story of doctor Alan Hugueno, a man with a
doctorate of science and mechanical engineering and a nationally recognized
expert in physics. In nineteen seventy, after devastating motorcycle accident,
(10:36):
he had a profound near death experience rejourneyed to a
realm of pure light and unconditional love. He tried to
explain this experience to the hospital psychiatrist, but they told
him he was delusional. For years, he kept his story quiet,
building a successful career in science and engineering, all the
while knowing that a greater reality existed. Like Swarden, doctor Woollcott,
(11:01):
it was only later in life that he could integrate
his scientific knowledge with his spiritual experience, and now he
works as a research medium with top universities. Doctor Rupert Sheldrake,
author of the book The Science Delusion, argues that science
is being held back by centuries old assumptions that have
(11:24):
hardened into dogmas. And cognitive scientist doctor Donald Hoffman, author
of the book The Case Against Reality, applies this concept
to the whole of human consciousness. How we see, think, feel,
and interact all impacts the world around us. The journeys
(11:47):
of these scientists all point to the same revolutionary conclusion.
The brain does not create consciousness. It is a filter.
It is a radio receiver tuning into a consciousness that
is vast, eternal, and all around us. This one idea
changes everything. It means that the experiences of mediums, the
(12:07):
visions of the dying, the impossible knowledge from near death experiences,
they're not tricks of the brain. They're moments when the
filter is simply turned down, allowing us to glimpse the
greater reality that has always been there. Coming up in
our next segments, we'll hear the specific mind bending signs
A doctor Tara Swart asked her husband for and how
(12:29):
they appeared in her life. Will dive deep into the
idea of the brain being a filter and learn what
this confirmation bias is all about. We'll explore the surprising
importance of gut health to receive our own messages from spirit,
and finally, we will tackle the biggest question of them all,
what is consciousness. We'll be right back. You're listening to
(12:53):
Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM paranormal podcast at work. Welcome back to Shades
(13:24):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. In our last segment,
we heard the incredible story of doctor Terra Swart, a
neuroscientist and psychiatrist, who, after the devastating loss of her
husband Robin, was confronted with experiences that defied her entire
scientific worldview. She saw him in her room, received signs,
(13:46):
and made the brave decision to investigate the possibility of communication,
not with blind faith, but with the rigor of a scientist.
This decision plunged her into one of the most difficult
and terrifying dilemmas a person of her profession could ever face.
It forced her to confront the very nature of the brain,
(14:06):
of grief and of reality itself. Her journey provides a
fascinating look at the science of a grieving brain and
leads us back to that powerful central question, is the
brain a creator or is it a filter? As a scientist,
doctor Swart began by observing the data of her own experience,
(14:28):
and the first thing she noticed was that her body
seemed to have a memory all of its own, a
memory that was deeper and more primal than her conscious thoughts.
Months after Robin passed, she was preparing for the first
anniversary of his death. She was trying to be strong
to mentally prepare for the wave of grief she knew
(14:48):
was coming. But a few weeks before the anniversary, on
October fourth, her body was suddenly racked with aches and pains.
The pain was so intense that even a gentle massag
was unbearable. She had no idea what was happening. She
was also hit with a wave of depression so heavy
that she, a trained psychiatrist, had to look in the
(15:11):
mirror and go through the clinical criteria to see if
she was having a breakdown. Confused and in pain, she
looked back through the calendar on her phone, and then
she saw it. October fourth was that exact day, one
year earlier that she had brought her husband home from
the hospital to die. Her conscious mind had not yet
(15:34):
registered the date, but as she said, her body had remembered.
This led her to explore the work of scientists like
Besil Vanderkolk, author of the famous book The Body Keeps
the Score. This is the idea that trauma isn't just
a memory in our mind, It's an imprint stored in
(15:55):
the very tissues of our body. Doctor Swart explained that
there's even a part of the brain responsible for speech
that gets shut down by trauma. This is why we
have phrases like I'm speechless or I have no words.
There are some experiences so profound that they can't be
processed through talking alone. They have to be released physically,
(16:18):
through bodywork, dance, or even crying. This understanding that there
was a consciousness in her body, a cellular memory that
was operating independently of her mind, was the first crack
in her purely materialistic worldview. It opened her up to
the idea of a deeper, more mysterious level of our being.
(16:41):
Her next experience was even more unsettling. For weeks after
Robin's passing, she would wake up in the morning freezing cold,
shivering so violently she would have to blast the heat on.
She later realized the room was like a sauna to
anyone else. It was only later that she made the
connection her husband always had hated the cold, and during
(17:04):
those exact weeks his body would have been refrigerated in
a drawer in the morgue. Again, her logical mind could
have dismissed it, but the feeling was too real, too specific.
It was a strange and unsettling form of clare sentience,
the ability to feel something at a distance. It was
as if her own body's filter was breaking down, allowing
(17:27):
her to tune into the physical state of her husband's
body miles away. It was another piece of data that
simply didn't fit. But the most challenging and terrifying experience
for her as a psychiatrist was what came next. She
began to experience something called thought insertion. This is a
(17:48):
classic textbook symptom of schizophrenia, where a person has thoughts
in their head that they know with absolute certainty are
not their own. Imagine that terror of that here she
was a medical doctor who had been part of teams
that had institutionalized people, had them medicated against their will
(18:09):
for describing this very symptom, and now it was happening
to her. The thoughts were not her own. They were loving,
they were reassuring, and they felt like they were coming
from her husband. But the experience itself was a direct
challenge to her sanity. This is the ultimate test for
a person of science. Do you follow your training and
(18:32):
label your own experience as a pathology, a sign that
your brain is breaking down under immense stress or grief,
or do you entertain another more radical possibility that you
are not going insane, but you are in fact opening
up a new form of communication, that your brain's filter,
(18:52):
weakened by trauma and love, is now allowing you to
perceive something that has been there all along. Doctor Terraswart
chose the latter. She chose to be a true scientist,
to follow the data of her own experience, even when
it led her far beyond the boundaries of the known world.
(19:13):
She chose to believe that what she was experiencing was
not a symptom of psychosis, but a true connection with
her husband. This led her to the revolutionary conclusion that
has been echoed by so many other scientists and near
death experiencers who have glimpsed the other side. The brain
(19:34):
is not the creator of the mind. The brain is
a filter. As she put it, the brain actually filters
down the capability of the mind so that we can
exist on this material plane. The one idea changes everything.
It means that our true consciousness is vast and unlimited.
(19:56):
It means that in our normal waking state, we are
only perceiving a tiny fraction of reality. Our brain's job
is to filter out the rest so we can focus
on the tasks of earthly life. But in moments of
intense love, deep meditation, or profound grief, that filter can loosen,
(20:18):
The walls of our perception can become thin, and we
can get a glimpse of the greater conscious universe that
we are part of. This is why a grieving mother
can suddenly smell her son's favorite cologne in a room
where it couldn't possibly be. It's why a father sees
a specific, meaningful bird tap on his window the morning
(20:40):
after his daughter passes. It's why doctor Swart could feel
the cold of the morgue and hear her husband's thoughts
in her mind, It's not a broken brain, it is
an open filter. This scientific model, the idea of the
brain as a receiver, provides a logical framework for all
(21:01):
the phenomena we talk about on this show. It honors
the reality of these experiences without dismissing the science of
the brain. It suggests that science and spirituality are not
at war. They have just been describing the same mystery
from two different sides of the veil. Doctor Schwartz's journey
(21:24):
into this mystery led her to explore the fascinating link
between creativity, mental health, and spiritual openness. In her research,
she came across a concept called shared trait vulnerability. It
shows that there is a high correlation between creativity and
(21:45):
certain mental health challenges. She explains that this is because
both creative geniuses and people struggling with their mental health
share a similar brain trait, a loose filter. This is
what scientists call low latent inhibition. It means their brains
(22:05):
allow more information from the outside world to come through
things that most of us would normally filter out as irrelevant.
For someone with a very high IQ and mental flexibility,
this loose filter is the source of creative genius. They
can connect dots that no one else sees and come
(22:26):
up with brilliant new ideas. But for someone with a
lower IQ or less mental stability, that same flood of
information can be overwhelming and lead to a psychological crisis.
Doctor Schwart realized that her grief was putting her in
a vulnerable state, but it was also making her more
creative as she opened up her brain's filter. She wondered
(22:51):
if she could consciously use this process. Could she use
creativity through art, music, or writing as a safe way
to intentionally loose that filter and become more receptive to
the subtle messages and signs from the other side. This
is a revolutionary idea. It suggests that our ability to
(23:12):
connect with the unseen world isn't just some random gift,
but it is a skill that can be cultivated. It
implies that by engaging our creative minds, we can strengthen
our intuition and open ourselves up to a deeper level
of consciousness. It's another powerful piece of the puzzle, a
scientific explanation for how we can learn to tune our
(23:35):
own radio receiver to the frequencies of the spirit world.
Doctor schwartz journey through the science of her own grieving
brain led her to a place of profound understanding. She
realized that her quest was not about proving something to
the outside world, but about learning a new language of
(23:55):
the soul, a language of signs, intuition, and love would
allow her to continue her relationship with her husband Robin
in a new way. Think of it this way. For
most of her life, doctor Swart believed the brain was
the radio station creating the music of consciousness itself. Her
(24:15):
journey forced her to consider a new reality that the
brain is simply the radio receiver, a device turned to
a single frequency called everyday life. What she was discovering
is that profound grief and love can act like a
hand on that dial, suddenly scanning through the static and
(24:37):
landing on other stations that are broadcasting all the time,
just beyond our normal perception. When we return from the break,
we'll travel from the science of the brain to the
wisdom of the soul. We'll explore the practical ways doctor
Swart learned to open her own filter to strengthen her
(24:57):
intuition and to tap into the greater consciousness that surrounds us.
All there's a couple of brand new terms you'll learn
that were very new to me. And we'll ask the
big question, what is consciousness and where does it come from?
We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the
(25:17):
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm
(25:47):
Sandra Champlain. Here's the thought for you. Did you know
that your brains filter, the part that keeps you focused
on the physical world, is called the reticular activating system.
It's like a bouncer at the nightclub of your mind,
deciding which information gets in and which gets ignored. But
(26:08):
what we're learning today is that we can actually make
friends with the bouncer. In our last segment, we heard
the incredible stories of people whose brains filter was temporarily
shut down, allowing them to have a stunning glimpse of
a greater reality. These experiences, while profound, often come through
(26:28):
extreme circumstances, like a terrible accident, a life threatening illness,
or a radical surgery. But what if we don't have
to wait for a crisis. What if we can learn
to gently and intentionally loosen our own filter to open
ourselves up to the subtle messages and the expanded awareness
(26:49):
that is our birthright. This is where doctor Terra swartz
journey takes a practical and empowering turn. After coming to
terms with her own unexplainable experience is she didn't just
accept them as a scientist. She began to deconstruct them.
She asked the question, how does this work? And more importantly,
(27:10):
how can we learn to do it ourselves. Her insights
offer a roadmap for anyone who wants to tap into
their own consciousness and strengthen their connection to the unseen world.
Her journey began with a simple but powerful decision to
believe that communication was possible and that she could learn
(27:32):
the language. As she said, it's like two people who
speak a different language having to learn a language that
they can both speak. She realized it wasn't just about
her husband Robin, learning how to send messages from the
other side. It was about her learning how to receive them.
She began to think of it like training a muscle,
(27:54):
like going to the gym. She started by asking for
specific signs. This is something we talk about all the
time on the show, but hearing it from a neuroscientist
adds another layer of validation. She would ask her husband
in her mind to send her a sign. At first,
it might take a while for the sign to appear,
but with practice, the connection became stronger and faster, until
(28:19):
the signs would almost appear instantly. She shared one incredible
story about this. It was coming up on the second
anniversary of Robin's passing. She was traveling for work and
feeling particularly vulnerable. In her mind, she had an image
of a phoenix rising from the flames, symbolizing her own
(28:40):
journey of re emerging from the ashes of her grief.
So she gave Robin a challenge. She said to him,
in her mind, Darling, send me the sign of a phoenix. Now,
as a scientist, she was very clever about this. She
intentionally chose something very unusual. But she said if she
(29:03):
had asked for a dog, she would see a dog
on the street every day, but a phoenix that was
a much higher bar. The very next day, while driving
through Chinatown in Oklahoma City, she passed a restaurant with
a huge emblazoned sign, the Phoenix Garden. It was a
(29:23):
direct and immediate hit, but the universe wasn't done. Her
work trip was taking her through the Navajo Nation, and
her flight home to Los Angeles was scheduled for the
exact day of Robin's anniversary. Her team, knowing how important
it was for her not to miss her next engagements,
had promised her a direct flight, but due to the
(29:46):
remote location where there were no direct flights available, she
discovered her layover would be in Phoenix, Arizona. On the
anniversary of his death, she flew through a city named
for the very sign she had just asked for. Now
I can hear the skeptics, and doctor Swart addresses us beautifully.
(30:07):
She talks about the concept of confirmation bias and the
brain's filtering system. It's true that when you're thinking about something,
you're more likely to notice it. If you're going on
a trip to Hawaii, you'll notice Hawaiian shirts, or if
you're buying a certain new car, you'll start seeing them everywhere.
(30:28):
But she says we should use this to our advantage.
The practice of asking for a sign is what she
calls the art of noticing. Our lives are passing by
at one hundred miles per hour, and we are constantly
filtering out information by asking for a sign. We are
telling our brains filter that particular activating system. Hey, I
(30:52):
want to pay attention to this. This is important. We
are consciously directing our awareness. She suggests setting very specific
criteria to test this. For example, she might say, I
need to see a button, the word button, or a
symbol of a button three times by eleven PM tomorrow.
(31:14):
By setting these clear intentions, we are training our minds
to notice the subtle synchronicities that are happening around us
all the time. It's a powerful way to build that
muscle of belief and to see the evidence pile up
in your life. Also, and this brings us to what
doctor Swart believes is the foundation for all of this,
(31:36):
our intuition, or what she calls our gut instinct, and
she means that quite literally. She explains that the brain
and the gut are in constant communication through a super
highway of nerves, hormones, and chemical signals. The most important
of these is the vagus nerve, a long wandering nerve
(31:56):
that connects the brain stem directly to our intents. This
isn't just a one way street. In fact, most of
the information travels from the gut to the brain Your
gut is like a second brain and is where your deepest,
most primal wisdom is stored. That feeling of butterflies in
(32:17):
your stomach when you're nervous, or that deep gut feeling
that tells you something is right or wrong, that is
real biological information being sent to your brain. Doctor Schwartz
says that to sharpen our intuition and become more receptive
to spiritual signs, we must first take care of our
(32:38):
physical foundation, and the most direct way to influence your
brain is through your gut. A healthy gut microbiome, the
trillions of good bacteria living in your intestines, reduces inflammation
throughout your body, including your brain. When your system is
in a state of balance or homeostasis, your brain has
(33:01):
the extra resources it needs for higher mental functions, including
that expanded awareness we call intuition. This is where ancient
wisdom and modern science come together beautifully. Practices like meditation, yoga, chanting,
and even deep rhythmic breathing have been shown to have
(33:22):
a beneficial effect on our gut microbiome and to stimulate
the vagus nerve. Our ancestors knew this intuitively. They knew
that these practices calmed the mind and opened the spirit.
Now neuroscience is showing us how it works on a
biological level. By taking care of our gut health through
(33:46):
good nutrition, and by engaging in these ancient calming practices,
we are physically tuning our radio receiver to be able
to pick up on the more subtle frequencies of consciousness.
For those who want to take this journey to its
deepest level, doctor Swart even explored the ancient practice of
(34:08):
dark retreats. This is a profound practice from Tibetan traditions
where a person spends several days or even weeks in
a room or a cave in complete and total darkness.
It is the closest one can have to emulating a
near death experience. At first, the person sleeps a lot,
(34:29):
but after a few days the brain starts to create
its own light. People report seeing sparks, then dimly lit walls,
and eventually vivid visions of animals, deities, and spiritual beings.
They come out of the retreat with many of the
same after effects as near death experiencers, a loss of
(34:53):
the fear of death, a deep sense of compassion, and
a feeling of profound For life and as these near
death experiences that provide some of the most compelling scientifically
documented evidence that consciousness can operate entirely outside a functioning brain.
Doctor Swart was particularly moved by thousands of cases researched
(35:18):
by doctor Bruce Grayson, a professor of psychiatry. He shared
one incredible story that is impossible to forget. A patient
in the ICU kept going into cardiac arrest. He had
a very close bond with his primary nurse, a young
woman in her twenties. One weekend, she had time off
(35:38):
and a different nurse was looking after him. The man
went into cardiac arrest again and had a near death experience.
In that state, he saw his primary nurse. She told him,
your life is an over. You have to go back
and get better, and please tell my parents I'm sorry
about the Red MG. Woke up in the ICU and
(36:02):
told the temporary nurse what he had seen. The nurse
burst into tears and ran out of the room. A
moment later, someone else came in and explained to him
the devastating news. His primary nurse had been given a
Red MG sports car for her twenty first birthday by
(36:22):
her parents just days before she had taken it for
a drive, crashed into a tree and was killed instantly.
The patient had no way of knowing she was dead,
yet he saw her on the other side and came
back with a message for her parents that was impossible
for him to have known. Now you and I don't
(36:44):
have to go sit in a dark cave for a week.
But what all of these practices, from asking for a
sign to engaging our creativity to taking care of our
gut health teach us is that tapping into consciousness is
an active process. Yes, it's a skill we can learn,
a muscle we can build. It's about making a conscious
(37:06):
choice to open our filter and listen with our whole being,
with our minds, our bodies, and even our hearts to
the beautiful, loving, and ever present reality that surrounds us.
When we come back for our final segment, we will
bring this all back home. We will explore the biggest
(37:26):
question of all. If consciousness is not in our brains,
where is it? Could it be the very fabric of
the universe itself? And we will talk about how we
can use the power of gratitude to begin creating the
reality we most desire. We'll be right back you're listening
to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
(37:49):
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades
(38:13):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. Here's our final thought
for the day, in the biggest, most mind bending question
of all. If consciousness is not in our brains, then
where the heck is it? Could it be that we've
had it all backwards? Could consciousness be the creator of everything?
For centuries, science has operated on the assumption that the
(38:35):
physical universe is the ultimate reality. The Big Bang happened,
matter formed, planets cooled, and eventually, through a random process,
life emerged, and very late in the game, consciousness sparked
into existence as a byproduct of complex brain chemistry. In
this view, consciousness is a small, temporary accident and a vast,
(38:58):
unfeeling universe. But what if that's not the case. As
we heard the father of quantum theory, Max Plank, said,
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative
from consciousness. This is a complete reversal of everything we've
been taught. It suggests that consciousness was here first. It
(39:22):
is the canvas upon which the entire physical world is painted. Now.
I know this can sound like a wild philosophical idea,
but it actually lines up with what modern science is
discovering about the universe. Did you know that scientists today
admit that everything we can see, every star, every galaxy,
every planet, every single thing in the entire universe makes
(39:46):
up only five percent of what's actually out there. The
other ninety five percent is a complete mystery. They call
it dark matter and dark energy. They know it's there
because they can see its effects, the gravity that holds
galaxies together, but they have absolutely no idea what it is.
Ninety five percent of reality is an invisible mystery to
(40:09):
modern science. Could our loved ones, could the afterlife? Could
the very field of consciousness itself exist in that vast
unseen reality. It's a question science can't answer yet, but
it's a powerful reminder that the material world we see
is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a
profound scientific mystery, and it's why many researchers believe we
(40:33):
might find the afterlife. They ask a simple question. If
ninety five percent of the universe is an invisible, energetic
reality that we can't directly perceive, why is it so
hard to imagine that consciousness and the souls of our
loved ones could exist there too. Think about the invisible
energies that are filling the room you're in right now.
(40:56):
Radio waves from countless stations, Wi Fi signals carrying information
from all over the world, GPS signals from satellites in space.
They are all passing through your body at this very moment,
but you can't see them and you can't feel them.
But you know they are real because you have a device,
a receiver that can tune into their frequency and make
(41:18):
them visible or audible. Could this spirit world be the same?
Could our loved ones be coexisting with us in this
very room, just on a different frequency and a different vibration,
And could our consciousness, our soul be the receiver of
that when tuned correctly through meditation, grief or love can
(41:39):
briefly pick up their signal. This is a question being
explored by a growing number of brave scientists today who
are building on the work of pioneers like Max Planck.
There is doctor Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist from Cambridge University,
who proposes the theory of morphic resonance. It's the idea
(42:00):
that there is a collective, invisible memory field for all
of nature. He suggests, for example, that when a crystal
forms in one part of the world, it makes it
easier for the same type of crystal to form elsewhere
because it taps into this shared field. He believes our
own memories may not be stored inside our brains, but
(42:22):
in this external, non local field that our brains simply
tune into. There is also doctor Donald Hoffman, a cognitive
scientist at the University of California. He argues, based on
mathematics and evolutionary theory, that our physical reality is not
the real reality at all. He compares it to the
(42:45):
desktop icons on a computer. The icon for your document
isn't the real document. It's just a simple symbol that
helps you interact with a much more complex reality of
code and circuits. Doctor Hoffmann believes our physical world is
just that a simplified interface that helps our consciousness navigate
(43:06):
a much deeper, more complex reality that is made of
consciousness itself. For anyone who wants to dive deeper into
this fascinating intersection of science and spirit, there are some
incredible books out there. You could explore. Doctor Sheldrake's book
the Science Delusion, or doctor Hoffman's book The Case Against Reality.
(43:28):
Another fantastic resource is the work of doctor Gary Schwartz
at the University of Arizona, whose laboratory has conducted groundbreaking
experiments on mediumship and afterlife communication. What all of these
brilliant minds are telling us is that the old materialistic
view of the world is crumbling. Science itself is pointing
(43:49):
to a reality where consciousness is not a small accident,
but a fundamental force of the universe. If consciousness is
truly fundamental, if it is the source of all things,
then that means that our own consciousness, our thoughts, our feelings,
our beliefs, is not just a passive observer of reality.
(44:12):
It is an active participant, and it has creative power.
We see this in the stories of near death experiences.
People describe creating landscapes with their thoughts, communicating telepathically, and
moving from one place to another simply by intending to
be there. In the afterlife, it seems thought creates reality instantly.
(44:35):
This leads to a fascinating question, is it possible that
we humans have the exact same power, the same creative
power of our souls right here on earth? Now, maybe
it just takes a little longer to manifest here because
of the dense physical nature of our world and the
illusion of what we call time. This brings me to
one of the most powerful tools we have for shaping
(44:58):
our reality gratitude. And I'm not just talking about being
thankful for the good things in our lives. I'm talking
about a specific practice, a powerful technique of feeling gratitude
for things before they happen, as if they have already occurred.
I've done these experiences in my own life, and the
(45:21):
results give me goosebumps. The first one happened on a
planned weekend trip with my mother to Las Vegas. My
flight left from Boston and I had a three hour
layover in Salt Lake City before my final flight to Vegas.
I was so unhappy about sitting at an airport for
three hours. I had a very strong desire to just
get there. But on the flight, a passenger became ill
(45:44):
and we had to make an emergency landing in Iowa.
We were on the ground there for over three hours.
I was not happy. I can tell you that I
knew I would miss my connecting flight and I would
probably have to wait till the next day to meet
up with my mom. But then I remembered the power
of intention. I thought, maybe I can change my thoughts
and have a different result. For the entire flight from
(46:06):
Iowa to Salt Lake City, I did a powerful visualization.
I pictured with full gratitude and excitement, as if it
had already happened. I saw myself landing in Salt Lake
City and seeing on the monitor that my Las Vegas
flight had been delayed by an hour. I saw that
the departure gate had been changed to the one right
(46:27):
next to my arrival gate. I pictured myself handing the
boarding pass to the gate agent, and to my delight,
receiving an unexpected upgrade to first class. I saw myself
arriving safely and my mother waiting for me in the
baggage claim area there in Las Vegas. It was a
very difficult vision to hold my inner critic. That voice
(46:48):
in my head just kept jumping in, telling me it
was stupid, ridiculous. You know that this stuff doesn't work.
But I kept gently pushing that voice aside and focusing
on the feeling of gratitude. Over an hour later, we
landed in Salt Lake City, looking at my watch. I
knew my connecting flight should have already departed, But when
I got off the plane, I looked at the monitor.
The flight from Las Vegas had not yet left. It
(47:11):
was delayed, and they had changed the departure gate to
the one right next to where I was standing. They
were doing the final boarding, and as I walked over
and gave the gate agent my boarding pass, out of
the machine popped a first class ticket. And when I landed,
my mom was there to meet me in the baggage
claim area. Every single detail I had visualized with gratitude
(47:32):
had manifested perfectly. The second story involves my good friend,
the legendary race car driver David Brabham. David had a
lifelong dream to win the twenty four Hours of Lama.
The race was the following month, and he joined me
in an experiment. David told me in great detail everything
he wanted, how the race would start, whose main competition
(47:53):
would be, when he would take the lead, and how
he would win. He included every bit as detailed as possible,
and we sat there and pictured it together, full of excitement,
gratitude and desire. I even imagined him in the winter
circle spraying the bottle of champagne and celebrating the victory.
The race fell on June thirteenth and fourteenth. I watched
(48:17):
from home, and I was fascinated to witness David taking
the lead, just as he had described in our visualization.
And after that the miracle occurred. My friend David won
the race. I cried with tears of happiness, and I
watched him as he received a wreath of flowers in
winter circle and sprayed champagne and celebrated with his teammates
(48:39):
the victory. These experiences make me wonder was I predicting
the future or was I creating it? Does it help
if two or more people are giving gratitude for the
same thing, does it supply more power? If consciousness is
the fundamental reality, then perhaps there is no difference. Perhaps
by aligning our thoughts and feelings with a desired outcome,
(49:00):
by feeling the profound gratitude of it already being real,
we are sending a powerful signal into the field of consciousness,
a signal that organizes reality around our intention. This is
the ultimate secret. The journey that started with doctor Terra
Swartz grief and her search for answers has led us
here to the understanding that we are not just passive
(49:23):
observers in a random universe. We are powerful, creative beings.
We are sparks of a divine conscious reality, and we
have the ability to shape our lives through focus, our intention,
and our gratitude. This is the greatest lesson the afterlife
has to teach us that the creative power we will
(49:45):
experience instantly in the spirit world is a power we
possess right here, right now. It just takes a little
more focus, a little more belief, and a whole lot
of gratitude. So, my friend, I know this was packed
with things that think about and I thank you for
taking the time. Please come visit me at Wee Dontdie
dot com, join one of our medium classes, or come
(50:07):
see me on a free Sunday gathering inspirational service with
medium demonstration included. I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you so much
for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio
and Coast to Coast am Heironormal podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com
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