Synchronicity: When the Universe Winks | Dr. Bernard Beitman

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Welcome back to the Quantum Couch.
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I'm your host, Dr.
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Ina Komboy.
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Today's conversation will explore the world of meaningful coincidences.
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For example, when you think of someone and they suddenly reach out, or when a chance encounter shifts the direction of your life.
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Such moments have fascinated humans for centuries.
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I've personally experienced many moments in my life that even now still leave me in awe when I think back on them.
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I'll share one small story.
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I was about 21 years old studying for my medical school entrance exam, the MCAT.
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It was a challenging test, and I've never really considered myself a strong test taker.
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I spent months preparing long hours each day.
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A few days before the exam, I came across a suggestion to imagine in as much detail as possible myself taking the test.
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To picture what I would see, what I would feel, almost like rehearsing it in my mind.
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Looking back, I now recognize this what psychology and performance science call mental rehearsal, or visualization, a technique that can actually improve both performance and anxiety.
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As I was doing this exercise, I decided to take it a step further.
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I began imagining what each of the passages in the exam might be about.
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There were so many possibilities, but I pictured topics that interested me, subjects I felt more familiar with.
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The next day, I went in to take the exam, carrying my usual test-taking anxiety with me.
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I sat down, began, and very quickly, something unexpected happened.
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Many of the passages I had imagined the night before were actually on the test.
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One after another.
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The likelihood of that happening felt incredibly low.
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The range of possible topics was vast, and yet there they were, mirroring what I had visualized.
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To this day, I don't fully know what to make of it.
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Did the act of visualization somehow influence the outcome?
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Did I tap into something, some kind of knowing, and simply become aware of it through the exercise?
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What I do know is this.
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Moments that in some way feel woven into the fabric of your life.
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To help us dig deeper into meaningful coincidences, I'm grateful to have Dr.
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Bernard Beiteman as my guest.
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Dr.
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Beitman is a psychiatrist who spent many years organizing the field of meaningful coincidences.
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He attended Yale Medical School and did his psychiatric residency at Stanford.
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He's the author or editor of seven psychiatry books, recipient of two National Psychiatry Awards for his psychotherapy training program, and former chair of psychiatry at the University of Missouri, Columbia.
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He is the founding director and president of the Coincidence Project and has written several books on coincidence, such as Connecting with Coincidence, followed by Meaningful Coincidences, How and Why Synchronicity and Sterendivity Happen, which happened to receive a 2023 Outstanding Book Award from the Scientific and Medical Network.
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His coincidence memoir, Life-Ching Synchronicities, provides a mirror for readers into their own synchronicities.
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His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.
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He blogs for Psychology Today and hosts his own podcast called Connecting with Coincidence.
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He's currently writing a book entitled Therapy for Humanity: Imagining Our New Future.
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Dr.
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Beitman, thank you so much for being on the Quantum Couch.
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Welcome.
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Thank you very much.
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I don't know what a quantum couch actually feels like.
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I don't either.
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Maybe one day I'll find out.
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So I I read your beautiful memoir that contains many meaningful coincidences and stories in it.
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And I'm wondering if maybe we can start by you sharing uh if you feel comfortable, one of those stories um that you have written about.
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I definitely feel comfortable.
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That's why I wrote that thing.
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Um and uh Carl Jung has a famous scarab story that uh people often refer to as the paradigm of synchronicity.
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Uh woman had a dream of a scarab, and Jung pulled a scarab-like beetle from his window.
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Well, my story actually two of them are to me parallel because they were parallel with the scarab story, because they also illustrate key ideas and meaningful coincidences, synchronicity.
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The first one was the perhaps the most meaningful to me because I was young and I loved my puppy.
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And I was about eight or nine and I came home from school on my bike, and my mother was standing in front of the house, I think waiting for me, and I said, Hey Ma, where's Snapper, our dog?
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She said, I don't know.
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Why don't you go to the police station?
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Maybe they know.
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I've wondered for years why she gave me that suggestion.
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And one person, uh very psychic person, said right away, communicating with my mother, it appears, that she knew you could find him.
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That's the kind of confidence she had in me.
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So I got on my bike, rode back to school, the elementary school in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
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And uh did something I hadn't done before, which is go across the big street, the big road.
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It was big.
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It was divided was divided in the middle by a rapid transit, a kind of external subway, and I had to go across that street following the light, and took a left and um parked my bike at the foot of the police station stairs and climbed up those stairs.
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Climbed up more stairs.
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And there I was confronting a big door, which I pushed open.
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And then I walked in and there behind a very large desk was a very large policeman.
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At least to me.
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And he said, After I asked him, have you seen my dog?
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Sorry, son, we haven't seen your dog.
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I walked back down those stairs crying a lot.
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I needed that puppy.
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He was my best friend.
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We had a good time behind the garage, um, mixing stuff in the garbage can together.
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I'd mixed the vinegar and the mustard and the ketchup and other stuff and sniffed it and gave it to him to sniff.
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Uh he was it was a lot of fun.
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So I was crying a lot because uh I didn't know where he was.
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And instead of going to the left, I was crying so much, I went to the right.
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And this is a principle of meaningful coincidences.
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When about ten or fifteen yards I saw a dog coming toward me walking the way Snapper walks.
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And I said to myself, is that Snapper?
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He had a sideways walk, so when he was walking his back feet weren't behind his front feet.
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And it was it was.
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It was Snapper.
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He had m made four turns to get there from our house.
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He went one way, I went the other way.
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He made four turns to get to that spot where I met him at just about the right time.
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If I hadn't turned right, he would have kept walking and I would have never seen him.
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But there we were.
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And it's still funny to me when he jumped up on my leg and seemed to say what took you so long.
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So he went back home.
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That I call human GPS, the ability of each of us to get where we need to go without having a map, but following something else which fits under the broad category of intuition, of which there are many aspects.
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And since then I've heard many stories like that, finding the person you needed right at the right time, running across information at the right time, and other dramatic stories, like a woman when she was a teenager not knowing where her brother was and worried about him, so she got in her car, and uh she ended up at a lake she'd never been by and there was her brother in the parents' car.
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He was about to commit suicide.
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Those capacities are in people's stories.
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But I'm trying to suggest that these are repeated patterns that humanity stumbles across and that we can study them and try to understand how they look.
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I mean, I I really loved that story about you and Snapper.
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Um you write a bit more about him in your book, um, and you two were really best friends.
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Like it seems like you two had a really strong emotional connection.
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Um, do you think that that strong emotional connection had something to do with your ability to find him, or was there something else?
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What what is your theory about how that could have come about?
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For me, there's no other theory than what you just said.
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It's the emotional connection.
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We love each other.
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And all kinds of things happen when you love each other.
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That isn't really that aren't really the conventional things, but they happen they happen a lot where love makes something happen that seems out of the ordinary, but actually they're not out of the ordinary.
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They're out of the ordinary the way human beings have been told to think these days.
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Particularly psychiatrists, it's an awful problem.
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Can you say more about that problem?
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Why do you think it's a problem within psychiatry?
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Because there's not that many people like you interested in what's called crazy.
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I mean, the more I do this work, because I do a lot of the psychodynamic psychotherapy, the more I do this, the more I wonder if everyone who does this type of work feels the same way.
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Because some psychic stuff happens during therapy sessions all the time.
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Like the m the closer you know the person, the more stuff comes out.
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So I mean, just the idea of projective identification, for example, is just kind of mind-boggling where you're taking on someone else's feelings and then acting upon them, essentially, acting them out.
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I mean, isn't that in itself kind of out there too and crazy?
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Yeah, it I I I've I was fascinated with that term.
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Um it's confusing really.
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Projection, okay, but identification with the other person's projection enough so that you act in the way that that person is projected onto you.
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Mm-hmm.
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There are other explanations uh that are involved with that, um, but that's uh the beginning of um what we're talking about.
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Um a clearer example for me is a psychoanal psychoanalyst who was uh interviewing a patient for months and months.
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Then he knew each he knew the patient very well.
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And the patient was writing a book.
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You know how traditional analysts don't ask many questions and keep their mouth shut too much, was my experience.
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So what are you writing about came out and the patient told him.
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And it was a novel that fit very closely with the analyst's life.
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That's uh taking projective identification to a uh a whole nother level.
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Wow.
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You've mentioned in the beginning before you you told the snapper story that there were two stories that you wanted to share.
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Is there another one that you wanted to to share?
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Yeah, it's the same idea really.
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Um my father was the one who brought Snapper home um because he knew that his older son needed a dog.
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My father was one of those 1950s tired visitors to the house, a guy who worked much of the day and was tired when he came home.
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Um we didn't see much of him really.
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But we saw him and for many reasons uh in many ways, like Snapper, he loved me very much.
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And one of the reasons I was so important to him was that uh he was a refugee from Nazi Germany and was the first son of the first son of the first son.
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He was number four in the first lun first son lineage, as far as I know, as far as he could ever tell me.
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So it was important for him as part of a tradition he was raised in to have a first son, a son being Jewish, which I am.
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But there's more.
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That's a traditional part of it.
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Well, my father wanted me to marry a Jewish woman, why?
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So there could be another first son.
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Just keep that game going, baby.
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So that was deeply ingrained into me in a way I was not conscious particularly conscious of.
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I liked a lot of girls who weren't Jewish, no question.
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But I was coming back from a tombstone unveiling, his tombstone unveiling, and the as the seat assigned next to me in Dallas, Texas, coming from Wilmington, Delaware, I was, and we were both going to San Francisco, and my now seat partner became the mother of my first son and my second son, Jewish.
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My father had just died eleven months earlier.
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And our kind of new Jewish tradition was going to a tombstone unveiling, not quite a year later.
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Well, the year before, on February twenty sixth, nineteen forty three, I was standing in a sink in San Francisco, uncontrollably ch choking.
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I couldn't stop choking.
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It was eleven PM February twenty sixth.
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The next day my brother called to tell me that our father had died in Wilmington, Delaware, three thousand miles away.
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He died choking on his own blood.
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Eleven PM San Francisco time, two AM Wilmington, Delaware time, same time, same time.
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That fascinated me.
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So what?
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What what I got from that was Bernie remember me.
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Not only that, that I was choking when he was choking, three thousand miles away, but the next day for me, but the February 27th when he was dying, is also my birthday.
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So my father died choking on my birthday.
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Now, if you if you want to get yourself emblazoned in the mind of your son, why not?
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And then why not get him a Jewish girl with a marriage made in heaven on an airplane coming back from the tombstone unveiling?
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That makes this whole thing about what's this reality um shaken up.
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It ain't what they've been telling us in medical school.
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It ain't what they tell us even with psychoanalytic training.
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And I'm I'm saying psychoanalytic training because uh my first wife was the daughter of a past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
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That didn't last too long.
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Then I got to know Victor Rosen, and I looked behind the scenes of what's going on in among psychoanalysts, and it was disturbing.
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They were not um as together as they seemed to promise.
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So there's there's a lot in psychoanalysis, including Freud's grudging acceptance of telepathy, but he didn't want to get there because he thought he'd be left out of the town of Vienna.
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Just like he refused to continue to believe that some of his patients were sexually abused by family members.
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He was told you say you tell people that, no good.
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You have to make it a fantasy.
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So as you might tell, I've had a longstanding problem with uh psycho psychoanalysis, uh, which has changed, it's evolved.
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They've become uh more transpersonal, grudgingly, I must say, with a lot of uh terms thrown in to justify like projective identification.
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But nevertheless, part of our job, and I'm talking to you, Ina, is to keep widening the scope of what psychiatrists, psychoanalysts will consider as within normal limits.
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Absolutely.
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Um I also think it's very interesting that in in your book, if I may bring it in, is that you you told us a story about Snapper.
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You told us the story about your father, and that your father brought Snapper in, but your father was also the one that actually ended up taking Snapper out of life as well.
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Is that correct?
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Yes.
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How did you do with all of that?
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Because it's it seems like you haven't found out about the truth of what happened until you were much older.
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Is that correct as well?
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Twenty-two.
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Twenty-two, yeah.
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So do do you feel that there is also some connection there, that it's all somehow interconnected in some way, shape, or form?
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You know, I haven't asked myself that question.
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All I really know is that after Snapper disappeared when I was in eighth grade, I was crying in my bedroom and no one consoled me.
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No one.
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Um and I was left to deal with that grief on my own, which has been a pattern of my life is to work on things myself, uh, take care of myself.
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And that was uh hard to understand me for an eighth grade boy somewhat.
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Um but then I realized after my father told me and my mother that they had uh father had come back home after I got on my bike to play a little football and gotten Snapper and taken him to the vet to kill him.
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That that and this makes me cry even now must have been so hard.
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It could only have been horrible because he had to do it.
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Snapper had snapped at some little kid in the neighborhood and uh did it again, and my father became afraid of insurance of being taken to court if Snapper did something.
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Uh by that time, in eighth grade, Snapper was not so dominant in my h life.
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And I think I was neglecting him by then.
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There were things called girls that were attracting a lot of attention from me and baseball and football and studying.
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So Snapper and I didn't hang around so much anymore as we did when I was younger.
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It's amazing what animals bring into our life.
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I have two dogs, I had a cat who died, and these pure souls are just some of the best friends that I've ever had.
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Like just pure love, all around pure love.
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Um You obviously had this coincidence moment with um with Snapper.
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Have you felt like a connection with Snapper beyond what you've had with humans, or in some ways just attachment or communication?
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Was it the same or did it feel different in the human?
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Carlin got a dog, my younger son, who wanted the dog has he has a dog named Walter.
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And Walter's uh also a character.
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Well, it's when you know you hear stories about dogs at the dog pound picking out their owner their owners.
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Snapper picked out I mean Walter, I mixed them up.
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Uh picked out Carlin.
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They're both uh they're both kind of cocker spaniels.
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Uh uh Walter's a pure American and Snapper was a mixture of a lot of stuff, but he looked like more like a cocker spaniel.
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So Walter and I uh established quite a relationship also.
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And Carlin thought when I'd call Carlin sometimes that I love Walter more than him.
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Walter.
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So the last time I saw Walter was just a couple of years ago.
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I was walking out of uh A room apartment that I was staying in underneath on the first floor of Carlin being on the third floor.
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And Carlin came down with snap with Walter, I mixed him up, and uh Walter stopped for a minute and I heard him say telepathically to me, This is the last time we'll see each other.
00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:20.720
It was very clear.
00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:25.759
And Walter was still somehow getting around at age 15.
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:35.440
Um, but it's the last time, and he so Carlin, Snapper, Walter, you get the idea.
00:22:36.559 --> 00:22:38.400
So th that's beautiful.
00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:42.160
Um how how do you explain all of this?
00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:43.200
Do you have an idea?
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:52.400
I mean, you've been doing a lot of research, most a lot of your life you spend researching coincidences, telepathy, all of those things I'm sure are interconnected somehow.
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:56.000
So how how do you understand all of this happening?
00:22:56.319 --> 00:22:59.680
Well, I've written two books on psychotherapy, too.
00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:05.279
So uh patterns are fundamental to everything that I've written about.
00:23:05.519 --> 00:23:15.680
Pattern recognition is what good therapists are able to do, see patterns that patients don't see, but I would see patterns be before I started writing these things.
00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:19.279
My mind is delights in pattern recognition.
00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:21.279
So I start seeing a pattern.
00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:25.359
I mean, Snapper finding me, Pim finding him, my father choking.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:28.160
I I did some research to read other things.
00:23:28.319 --> 00:23:39.200
This simultaneous this experience of the of the um difficulty, the pain, the physical problems of a loved one are coming.
00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:47.039
So some guys are coming here from to my house a couple weeks from now who study shared death experiences.
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:50.720
Now we've all heard of near-death experiences, I think.
00:23:50.880 --> 00:24:01.279
But shared death experiences are now being studied by this guy in Oregon with his group, uh people who share the death of a loved one.
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:10.480
And usually it's uh go along as if you're on an NDE and not a near-death experience with the person who's dying, and then you come back.
00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:20.480
But 15% of shared death experiences are actually experiencing the physical situation of the person who is dying, as I did.
00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:28.480
So they're coming to interview me because it's not a common form of shared death experience.
00:24:29.279 --> 00:24:32.720
And you've coined the term for this type of experience, right?
00:24:33.039 --> 00:24:35.599
Yeah, I've coined the term simulpathy.
00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:39.519
Simo at the same time, pathity, referring to feeling.
00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:45.599
But really, simopathity, feeling the pain of a loved one at a distance, used to be called telepathy.
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:49.759
Just look at the word telepathy, and you got tele at a distance and pathy.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:50.960
So that's telepathy.
00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:52.640
Then it got much more cognitive.
00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:58.480
So simopathity is another name for the old name for uh telepathy.
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:00.880
Yeah.
00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:12.799
And did you um in your years of experiencing and seeing these patterns, have you found any possible explanations of how these patterns happen?
00:25:13.039 --> 00:25:16.640
I mean, I I read that you uh you dabble in fractals a bit.
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:27.359
And so the idea of fractals and patterns obviously is part of our universe, which is uh part of the reason you chose the cover of this book, because it's kind of in a way fractals.
00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:36.640
Um so uh are you able to explain a little bit to people who may not even know what fractals are to kind of to understand some of that, please?
00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:40.559
Well uh the simple uh let's let's keep it simple enough.
00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:44.960
Um uh fractals is a fractured word.
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:48.960
Uh I don't like it because it's got too many edges on it, just as a word.
00:25:49.119 --> 00:25:51.839
But I mean it refers to repeated patterns.
00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:54.799
Fundamentally, fractals are repeated patterns.
00:25:54.960 --> 00:26:06.559
And the the simplest version of that could be a shoreline, uh, where if you look at the whole shoreline, you see a pattern of uh ins and outs and ins and outs.
00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:12.000
And if you keep focusing on a smaller part of the shoreline, you see the same pattern.
00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:18.480
So they are fractures, fractals, fract fractions of um the whole.
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:21.759
Each one represents the pattern of the whole.
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:25.039
Now this can get very complicated.
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:27.839
That's the simplest version of them.
00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:35.519
Uh they they happen in spirals like the cover of that book that you showed.
00:26:35.759 --> 00:26:44.720
Um they are built on a fractal uh equation uh and that uh that gets complicated.
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:56.480
But for what we're talking about, my interest in fractals comes from pattern repetition because it's it's how human beings know reality.
00:26:56.720 --> 00:27:06.160
Because when you're when you're asking about, hey, Bernie, you know how these things happen, I'm saying there are a variety of explanations.
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:19.200
And the trouble is people look for one explanation for a whole series of different categories of coincidences.
00:27:19.359 --> 00:27:22.559
And that's um a mistake.
00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:32.559
Uh because we want that one and the one answer that um satisfies a great many people is God.
00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:33.920
God does it.
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:34.799
Okay.
00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:41.440
There is unfortunately or fortunately a competing explanation called random.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:45.519
It's hard to have both of them be true at the same time.
00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:53.839
It just but the human mind is wonderful as making up stories uh that fit what they want to believe.
00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:55.920
And that's where this starts.
00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:58.079
It starts with each mind.
00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:09.279
And the central cause, the fundamental underlying cause or explanation for synchronicities is a mind willing to see the pattern.
00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:11.279
I can't emphasize that enough.
00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:13.680
It's not a lot of other things yet.
00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:21.920
The primary explanation is your ability to notice them, your willingness to notice them.
00:28:22.160 --> 00:28:29.519
So my job in this life, especially well, I did this with psychotherapy too.
00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:40.160
Just parenthetically, I got mad because there are so many different forms of psychotherapy, and so they're all adjectives, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic.
00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:42.160
But I said, What's the noun?
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:43.200
What's the noun?
00:28:43.440 --> 00:29:07.200
So I wrote a book about the noun of psychotherapy, and that's what I've done with synchronicity, is the fundamental explanation for a meaningful coincidence starts with the person's willingness to see the pattern, to see it, because so many people see it, but it doesn't register, so they don't know it's happening.
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:10.079
So it starts very psychologically, you know.
00:29:11.119 --> 00:29:22.319
It starts with each of our minds, and my job is to sensitize people to the possibility that this stuff happens, and then get to the two crucial questions.
00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:29.279
What does it mean for me personally, this coincidence, and what does it mean about the nature of reality?
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:38.480
Those are the two fundamental questions each synchronicity brings to the person experiencing it.
00:29:40.079 --> 00:29:46.799
So for the person who's curious and who already experienced some form of synchronicity, I think it just opens the doors to wanting to know more.
00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:50.559
So we're more likely to want to look for these patterns.
00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:58.799
But for someone who is not seeing those patterns, what would you say is a good reason for them to even want to start seeing them?
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:02.000
Why why would they want to open themselves up to seeing these patterns?
00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:04.240
Well, let's start with why they wouldn't want to.
00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:07.680
Um I think you know the term resistance.
00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:08.559
Sure.
00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:10.000
You've heard that.
00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:14.160
Uh and that's related to defense.
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:15.680
Mm-hmm.
00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:31.759
Just walk around your reality and kind of imagine the minds of many of the people you know and don't know, and how resistant they are to changing their beliefs about reality.
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:40.000
So when I'm interviewing somebody, uh I don't do it much anymore because I don't have to, because I know the people I'm interviewing.
00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:46.079
People who interview me sometimes, I haven't asked you this, um, is and I will right now.
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:51.359
What is your view, Inna, of the nature of reality?
00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:55.839
I think my my answer is I'm searching for the answer.
00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:01.599
My view is it's vast and untouchable.
00:31:01.839 --> 00:31:06.000
Um, and it's probably beyond what I could truly tap into.
00:31:06.160 --> 00:31:15.119
It's uh I think I'm just one of the manifestations of nature of reality, and perhaps I'll never truly understand until maybe I'm dead.
00:31:15.200 --> 00:31:16.799
And even then, who knows?
00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:18.480
Um I don't know.
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:19.920
The answer is I don't know.
00:31:20.319 --> 00:31:21.519
That's a good place to start.
00:31:21.599 --> 00:31:25.279
I mean, I don't when I can tell, they don't tell you everything after you're dead.
00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:38.240
So uh and the idea that a a disembodied person can communicate with you is goes against so much of what people are taught and believe.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:45.119
Unless you're religious somehow, spiritual, and it's just a basic thing.
00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:48.480
So there's this guy named Tim.
00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:54.640
I've known him never in person, never in reality, but I know his daughter.
00:31:54.799 --> 00:31:59.680
And he he's when I bring up his name like this, he's kind of floating around like right now.
00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:13.680
To say Tim and I just uh met somebody whose partner committed suicide a couple of years ago, and he floats around her to a point where she says it's annoying to have him around.
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:22.720
So if you connect uh you collect a lot of stories like this, you begin to have to wonder, well, is there something that happens afterwards?
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:37.519
NDEs begin to suggest that a lot of primitive supposedly uh people tell you about them, indigenous people connect, go to Bali sometime, and you'll hear a lot of those conversations.
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:43.599
So your view is I don't know, uh and that's a good place to be.
00:32:43.759 --> 00:32:47.119
However, it's also potentially paralytic.
00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:50.079
Uh I can't know, so why should I try?
00:32:50.319 --> 00:32:55.680
So what I would say to somebody like you is to welcome the mystery.
00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:57.440
Welcome the mystery.
00:32:57.680 --> 00:32:59.759
It's there for an adventure.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:13.680
For those of us who are curious, and curiosity is fundamental to all this, being curious is utterly necessary to be able to notice not the coincidences happening around you and to wonder about them after that.
00:33:13.839 --> 00:33:31.440
You've got to be curious if your mind is closed that this is the way it is, or what happens too often, somebody came comes along and says, I know the way it is, and so people tap into that person's belief system, then you're not doing it on your own.
00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:42.160
You need each of us to be able to discover our own realities because there's no one else where you are in it in this time and this place.
00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:42.880
Nobody.
00:33:43.039 --> 00:34:00.480
We're all unique in that way, and what your role is, which you're starting to do with these podcasts, is being curious and asking people who seem to have some ideas that are interesting to you, so that you can help expand your own understanding of the nature of reality.
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:06.720
And you will not get the whole thing because our brains are not capable of it.
00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:16.079
But we can inch our way piece by piece and synchronicities, which includes telepathy and clairvoyance and precognition.
00:34:16.320 --> 00:34:33.039
But what I am continually and continuously fascinated by is the people who study parapsychological events like near-death experiences, light telepathy, clairvoyance, clairvaudience don't think about synchronicity.
00:34:33.199 --> 00:34:45.599
Synchronicity is an umbrella term for all of them, but they don't look at what is fundamental to them, this connection between what's in my mind and what's happening out there.
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:47.440
That's the fundamental thing.
00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:55.360
They don't see it as a uh part of something larger, that is, my environment.
00:34:55.599 --> 00:35:07.679
They do, in their own ways, get to the one of the fundamental teachings of synchronicity, which is our minds are much more connected to our environments than we have been told.
00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:18.719
Because what I'm thinking here happens out there, it's really kind of fun sometimes, like uh I want a little something to happen, so I go someplace and that little something happens.
00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:21.440
It's like it's like it's kind of fun.
00:35:21.599 --> 00:35:22.480
Playing with it.
00:35:22.639 --> 00:35:24.320
Uh manifesting.
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:31.440
Yeah, it's called manifesting, but you you gotta get out of your bedroom uh and walk around.
00:35:31.519 --> 00:35:34.800
And you gotta end up at the right place at the right time.
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:44.079
So it's this manifesting is like uh a narcissistic uh boost that if I think of it, it'll happen.
00:35:44.320 --> 00:35:47.840
And if there's uh you gotta do something, ladies and gentlemen.
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:57.840
You gotta get out there and make something happen and increase the probability because a coincidence is two lines that have little connection with each other coming together.
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:00.239
So you gotta go someplace where it might happen.
00:36:00.400 --> 00:36:02.719
It's not gonna happen sitting in your basement.
00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:13.679
Uh it might happen sitting in your basement watching television or listen to some music when you think of something, so it can't happen that way, but you're still interacting with your environment.
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:16.719
So the manifesting thing is getting old.
00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:34.239
That was 2009 when The Secret came out, and it was it was a good idea, but as seems to happen so much in human reality, is that ideas evolve, and manifesting is a narrower idea, at least the way it used to be.
00:36:34.880 --> 00:36:40.239
You've got to be out there doing something, interacting to make something happen.
00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:53.280
And it also sounds like what you're saying, and please correct me if I'm misunderstanding, is that one of the reasons to start paying attention to um synchronicities and serendipity.
00:36:53.679 --> 00:37:19.280
Um is partially because they're kind of like breadcrumbs that lead you slowly but surely to understand the bigger picture, puzzle pieces in a way, of the of the bigger picture of what what reality really is, which, like you said, is very limited to how much we can understand, but at least maybe they'll add a a little bit more puzzle pieces together to to get it, to see something more.
00:37:20.320 --> 00:37:21.599
They're pieces of a puzzle.
00:37:21.679 --> 00:37:26.800
And let's make sure as you say that, they're pieces of not one puzzle, but two.
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:37.039
The one puzzle is what how reality works, and the other is just who you are and what you're doing, and what the coincidence says to you.
00:37:37.599 --> 00:37:43.760
And I hasten to issue a word of caution.
00:37:44.400 --> 00:37:48.559
Too many people start thinking that synchronicities are commands.
00:37:48.800 --> 00:37:56.480
They're more like a well-intentioned relative or friend giving you advice and that you think about it and you know it's bad advice.
00:37:56.719 --> 00:38:00.159
That's it's not always the right thing for you.
00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:07.440
Uh it could be it could be the joker playing around or the jester uh messing with you.
00:38:07.679 --> 00:38:26.880
But if you allow yourself to see the joke, to see it's really not anything that's potentially useful, but it's a pattern being repeated, like a woman who saw the same guy at work, but he was at work, but she'd run into him when she'd be walking around in all kinds of places.
00:38:27.039 --> 00:38:30.559
They were like on a rubber band together.
00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:34.639
And she was confused by that.
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:39.519
And well, she might have been because it looks like romance is on the docket.
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:42.079
No, there was no relationship to be had.
00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:43.920
So what does that tell her?
00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:57.920
I don't try to be able to say what it means to her, but it's something that still is potentially about her, this guy, and connections that happen non-randomly, like this.
00:38:58.239 --> 00:38:58.880
Mm-hmm.
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:14.239
And I think what you wrote in um in your Meaningful Coincidences book is is basically there's some things that happen, but the meaning we ascribe to it is very important and it kind of can come up in psychotherapy or just processing it on your own.
00:39:14.480 --> 00:39:23.360
But you we there's no particular ultimate meaning to like objective meaning to the sign or to the coincidence.
00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:26.000
It's what often we ascribe to it that matters.
00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:26.960
Yes.
00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:33.199
This is all this is all mental in a this thing's it's mental.
00:39:33.599 --> 00:39:40.239
You got a body here, but it's the meaning we put on them, and just what is meaning, I'm not gonna get into now.
00:39:40.880 --> 00:39:42.400
No, no, we don't have enough time.
00:39:43.599 --> 00:39:44.719
That's a problem.
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:53.199
Uh but you attribute something that is important to you to this pattern coming together.
00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:56.239
Uh there's two pat two patterns coming together.
00:39:56.480 --> 00:40:05.039
Um and uh it means something for your life or what it might say about how reality works.
00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:09.599
Now I I haven't answered your question and I won't because I can't.
00:40:09.679 --> 00:40:14.000
I like one answer besides God and random uh for all of them.
00:40:14.320 --> 00:40:30.320
Uh and there's a lot you uh I thank you for reading uh the book Meaningful Coincidences, because it's intended to be uh a kind of textbook of uh synchronicity.
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:34.800
So it bec it categorizes them, these synchronicities.
00:40:34.960 --> 00:40:44.320
And I use the term meaningful coincidence because uh they are it's not as hard to understand as the word synchronicity for the general public.
00:40:46.639 --> 00:41:00.000
I'm wondering if you can tell us maybe a little bit about the next book you're writing and how can everyone uh be able to find your work and find what you're doing, and then we'll do a quick lightning round questions round.
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:01.519
You're on.
00:41:02.239 --> 00:41:06.480
Well, uh I I'm a therapist, psychiatrist.
00:41:06.800 --> 00:41:09.760
Humanity is currently in a lot of trouble.
00:41:09.920 --> 00:41:13.440
A lot of people aren't paying attention, of course, but they're still feeling it.
00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:19.360
There's a major set of disturbances in the planetary mind, the human planetary mind.
00:41:19.599 --> 00:41:26.960
Well, humanity is technologically overdeveloped and interpersonally underdeveloped.
00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:31.039
That huge difference needs to be closed.
00:41:31.199 --> 00:41:41.840
So the book I'm writing is uh puts humanity on what is probably a quantum couch, because it's not going to be a regular couch or a regular chair.
00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:46.639
So humanity comes into therapy and the therapist says, Why are you here?
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:47.920
As usual.
00:41:48.320 --> 00:41:51.280
Humanity says, I don't want to be here.
00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:54.079
And the therapist says, So why are you here?
00:41:54.239 --> 00:41:56.480
Humanity says, My partner told me to come.
00:41:56.880 --> 00:41:57.599
Standard.
00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:06.000
So the therapist says, uh, who's your partner?
00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:07.519
Humanity says Gaia.
00:42:07.840 --> 00:42:11.360
For those of you who don't know who Gaia is, it's another name for Mother Nature.
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:19.679
And Gaia told me, humanity says, that she can live without me, but I can't live without her.
00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:20.880
So I have to change.
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:23.199
That's the underlying premise at the beginning.
00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:35.920
So what humanity develops in therapy is a recognition of it being a collection of cells, each cell being one human being, the collective human organism.
00:42:36.079 --> 00:42:41.840
And in therapy, the collective human organism develops a collective self-observer.
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:46.320
Analysts might call them observing ego.
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:48.079
It's all kinds of names for it.
00:42:48.159 --> 00:42:49.760
I'll say self-observer.
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:52.400
Witness, self-observer is what I use.
00:42:52.639 --> 00:42:56.320
So humanity begins to develop a collective self-observer.
00:42:56.480 --> 00:42:58.079
What does a self-observer do?
00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:00.000
It begins to notice patterns.
00:43:00.159 --> 00:43:02.639
Patterns that are not working for humanity.
00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:05.760
I like how you know that I'm describing therapy.
00:43:07.760 --> 00:43:10.559
And looking at those patterns, what are they?
00:43:10.719 --> 00:43:30.159
Well, there's a bunch of them, but uh rather than talk about the negative patterns, which so many people are doing now, there's so much like doom and gloom going on out there, that I'm going to talk about change patterns for the remainder of this time that I'm with you till we get on to your lightning round.
00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:35.440
That there are clusters of events happening all around us.
00:43:36.960 --> 00:43:40.239
And those might be called synchronicities.
00:43:40.400 --> 00:43:47.519
There are global synchronicities, the most prominent of which is COVID-19, or was.
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:51.519
COVID 19 was a virus that destroyed its host.
00:43:51.679 --> 00:43:54.400
Human beings are like that virus.
00:43:54.639 --> 00:43:58.960
We are destroying our host, the planet, the natural world.
00:43:59.119 --> 00:44:07.280
So right there There was a synchronicity between humanity's mind and what was happening outside it, the COVID-19.
00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:14.159
There are other dramatic coincidences, but that's one that tells us what we need to do a little differently.
00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:16.239
There's a lot of people didn't pick that one up.
00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:19.519
And what does it say about the nature of reality or some other questions?
00:44:19.679 --> 00:44:23.599
Well, I'll mention one more, and there are two more.
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:29.679
The explosion of narcissism globally is remarkable.
00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:36.079
The number of narcissistic human beings appears to be expanding.
00:44:36.159 --> 00:44:42.880
And you can define narcissism, but it's a self-involvement that does not pay attention to the mind of the other person.
00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:51.199
And what I'm trying to suggest is that mind blindness is becoming endemic in many parts of humanity.
00:44:51.360 --> 00:44:55.840
And we need to find ways in which to tune in to the mind of the other.
00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:59.280
And there's more to that, but that's a basic principle.
00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:11.679
And the final one, global synchronicity, that is most compelling from my perspective, is the outburst outbursts of reports of mystical experiences.
00:45:12.480 --> 00:45:13.679
So you recognize that.
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:14.639
Absolutely.
00:45:14.800 --> 00:45:15.119
Yeah.
00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:17.760
There is, I think there is a shift happening, major shift.
00:45:18.079 --> 00:45:21.119
And how do mystical experiences fit in with that, do you think?
00:45:21.519 --> 00:45:32.960
Perhaps we're enduring a stage of understanding the world in a different way, kind of like how physics just expanded the theory of relativity just in the end of like in the beginning of n 20th century.
00:45:33.039 --> 00:45:41.440
Perhaps this is similar where we're having this huge shift as a as a human race into understanding and growing.
00:45:41.599 --> 00:45:46.639
So perhaps the mystical experience is a part of it somehow to help us see the reality better.
00:45:47.519 --> 00:45:47.760
Yep.
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:48.639
What do you think?
00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:49.280
Yeah.
00:45:49.440 --> 00:45:52.159
Yeah, I could talk more about that, but you did pretty well.
00:45:52.320 --> 00:45:55.039
Um so it's an opening.
00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:07.039
Um it's an opening for new possibilities because it shifts mystical experiences, shift our ways of understanding the reality that we've been operating in.
00:46:07.199 --> 00:46:10.719
So it's you're you've got the general idea, so thanks for that.
00:46:11.039 --> 00:46:11.760
Thank you for that.
00:46:11.920 --> 00:46:14.639
I mean, so you're when do you think this book will be coming out?
00:46:14.719 --> 00:46:15.760
That sounds really interesting.
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:21.679
I'm sending it to my friend, the editor, in about two weeks.
00:46:21.920 --> 00:46:24.000
He lives he l he lives around here.
00:46:24.079 --> 00:46:26.639
Well, he's gonna he's got a lot of work to do.
00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:32.719
Um it's a million words right now, which is slightly longer than the usual book.
00:46:32.960 --> 00:46:40.880
And I'm gonna go through that book uh after I've just gone through it, and then try to help him out.
00:46:41.039 --> 00:46:55.039
And what the book has in it, and I'd like to end what I'm saying here about that book, is a description of the new human, like what are the capacities that human beings will embrace, telepathy being one of them.
00:46:55.280 --> 00:47:06.800
There's another one, this interpersonal problem that we both know exists, with selfishness, self-involvement, rigidity, not recognizing the mind of the other.
00:47:06.880 --> 00:47:08.000
How does that change?
00:47:08.159 --> 00:47:22.159
Well, I'm proposing that the collective human organism needs to function like a collective organism, which means each of the cells in the collective body needs to be able to communicate with each other.
00:47:22.320 --> 00:47:32.320
So you got two cells right next to each other, liver cells, for example, heart cells, for example, and they're pretty much the same thing, but they gotta cooperate.
00:47:32.480 --> 00:47:33.760
They gotta work together.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:49.440
Well, in biology, uh a guy named Michael Levin at Tufts has studied planaria cancer cells and others in cell biology, and he's been able to find something called a gap function.
00:47:49.599 --> 00:47:58.079
A gap, like in a synapse, sends molecules across from one to the other, but something's lost in translation.
00:47:59.599 --> 00:48:03.599
They get caught in the middle someplace in molecules and they hit the wrong one.
00:48:03.840 --> 00:48:17.199
So if you imagine my fingers as different cells, one after the other, what's the cells can do is send a bridge between the two of them, the two cells, a bridge.
00:48:17.360 --> 00:48:25.199
That's the gap, and the function becomes this bridge so that each of the cells is absorbing what was in the other one.
00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:32.320
Human beings have experiences like that, where they aren't just one, two separate people.
00:48:32.719 --> 00:48:36.800
They begin to merge and a third being emerges.
00:48:37.039 --> 00:48:37.920
You're familiar with that?
00:48:38.239 --> 00:48:49.679
Not, but it it kind of uh reminds me of this concept of uh in psychotherapy where they're when you're listening and they're feeling something, you're trying to figure out am I feeling their feelings, my feelings, or something in between that's happening, the dynamic within.
00:48:49.760 --> 00:48:53.360
So I guess in some ways that's kind of what you're talking about.
00:48:53.679 --> 00:48:59.119
It's kind of um, but the analyst keeps her distance uh from that.
00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:07.920
Um the still the observing uh ego of the psychodynamic therapist keeps some distance.
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:13.599
I'm describing times when that distance is diminished.
00:49:13.840 --> 00:49:16.239
So it's like what you just said.
00:49:16.719 --> 00:49:17.679
What am I feeling?
00:49:17.840 --> 00:49:25.599
There is a third entity, the what's between the two of you, that you each put into and are sharing.
00:49:25.760 --> 00:49:28.400
And that's the direction I'm talking about.
00:49:28.880 --> 00:49:36.719
That third entity becomes something that each of you are a part of, and yet you also remain distinct.
00:49:36.880 --> 00:49:47.440
And that's the challenge for the new human, as it is for all of us in various ways, is to be able to merge and separate, come together and separate.
00:49:47.599 --> 00:49:54.480
So the cells of a human, collective human organism, need to have these bridges that allow them to function together.
00:49:54.639 --> 00:50:09.039
While each cell does its own cytoplasmic activity with mitochondria doing its own thing, each human being has to develop its own spiritual, psychological, interpersonal capacities while still being part of something greater.
00:50:09.280 --> 00:50:19.199
And that to be both separate and connected is not something that uh we've been trained to do very well in modern society.
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:23.039
Uh other places can do it, uh do do it.
00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:26.079
And I've experienced it on the dance floor, merger.
00:50:26.800 --> 00:50:31.039
It really is an amazing experience.
00:50:31.199 --> 00:50:32.400
So it's possible.
00:50:32.559 --> 00:50:48.079
So I'm hypothesizing that there is a protein, something like a protein called anexa, annex a connection with an X connection that cell biologists have been able to come up with that we have a metaphor for with human beings.
00:50:48.239 --> 00:50:59.039
And that will allow us to create groups that can connect with each other, not just with words, but by being part of the same biosphere.
00:50:59.599 --> 00:51:02.480
Because we're all biological electrical things.
00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:15.360
And within those, these bridges can take place not only in the present, not only on Zoom and other capacities, technological capacities, but also just at a distance.
00:51:15.519 --> 00:51:24.320
So we become able to dance together in the direction that is going to be most beneficial for the whole organism.
00:51:24.639 --> 00:51:25.519
That's fascinating.
00:51:25.679 --> 00:51:26.559
Really, really interesting.
00:51:26.719 --> 00:51:28.880
And what is the the name of your book again, please?
00:51:29.039 --> 00:51:30.159
The the one that you're writing right now?
00:51:30.480 --> 00:51:31.760
Therapy for Humanity.
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:32.800
Love it.
00:51:33.920 --> 00:51:38.400
Well, and and you have your own podcast, correct, that people can also listen to?
00:51:38.559 --> 00:51:39.920
Is this something that's still going on?
00:51:40.239 --> 00:51:41.440
Last I heard.
00:51:42.800 --> 00:51:44.719
I'm doing one right after this.
00:51:45.280 --> 00:51:47.840
I think we're gonna talk about serendipity.
00:51:48.400 --> 00:52:03.920
Yeah, I've I've done 400 of these podcasts, and now I'm shifting over to the collective human organism to trying to use synchronicity as part of uh the human development.
00:52:04.239 --> 00:52:11.679
And I'm I'm also uh founder and president of the Coincidence Project, which studies coincidence.
00:52:11.840 --> 00:52:13.119
We have a website.
00:52:13.360 --> 00:52:27.039
But if anybody wants to see anything I've done uh or doing, just put my name in the search engine and you'll get my podcast, my psychology today blog, um my books.
00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:33.119
Um and I'll include all of that in the in the podcast notes as well in the YouTube notes.
00:52:33.280 --> 00:52:34.559
So that will be there, all the links.
00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:34.880
Good.
00:52:35.119 --> 00:52:37.280
Well, Bernie, are you ready for the lightning round questions?
00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:37.840
We have three.
00:52:39.199 --> 00:52:40.880
Well, I guess we'll just have to do.
00:52:41.039 --> 00:52:41.440
All right.
00:52:41.599 --> 00:52:42.559
Question number one.
00:52:42.800 --> 00:52:48.159
If you didn't go on the psychiatry path in your life, what path do you think you would have taken?
00:52:49.760 --> 00:52:50.719
Cardiology.
00:52:51.039 --> 00:52:52.159
Cardiology?
00:52:52.320 --> 00:52:52.960
How come?
00:52:53.280 --> 00:52:55.679
Um I'm not sure.
00:52:55.920 --> 00:52:59.840
Um uh I'm not I really don't know.
00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:03.280
I thought it was interesting, but then I thought it was just a pump.
00:53:03.440 --> 00:53:05.199
It's complicated, but it's a pump.
00:53:05.440 --> 00:53:12.639
So the research that got me to be chair of psychiatry was on the relationship between chest pain and panic disorder.
00:53:13.280 --> 00:53:15.519
Uh 40 papers on the subject.
00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:21.119
Uh, and that was enough to get promoted uh and become chairman.
00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:28.000
So I was always tuned in to the mind-heart connection somehow, and it manifested in that way.
00:53:28.079 --> 00:53:35.360
But the the heart and the mind are are central to us humans and our consciousness and listening to the heart.
00:53:36.079 --> 00:53:37.440
You gotta have heart.
00:53:39.360 --> 00:53:43.199
And that word courage comes from the Latin of of heart.
00:53:43.679 --> 00:53:47.519
I think it was a more of an intuitive um feeling for it.
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:53.199
But then it was too boring, and I'm glad I didn't do it because it was so mechanical.
00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:55.760
Alright, question number two.
00:53:56.159 --> 00:54:02.239
Um, so from what I learned in your memoir, and I learned many things, but one of the things I learned is you were a pretty talented athlete.
00:54:02.400 --> 00:54:05.280
What is your least liked sport to participate in?
00:54:08.159 --> 00:54:09.360
Tiddlywinks.
00:54:10.159 --> 00:54:10.800
What?
00:54:11.119 --> 00:54:11.920
What is that?
00:54:12.159 --> 00:54:13.760
I'm not gonna try to explain.
00:54:15.199 --> 00:54:16.559
You mean like regular sport?
00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:18.079
It's you'll have to look it up.
00:54:18.159 --> 00:54:18.400
I don't know.
00:54:18.480 --> 00:54:18.880
It's too hard.
00:54:19.360 --> 00:54:21.119
Yes, I'm gonna have to look at what is it called again?
00:54:21.199 --> 00:54:21.760
Tiddlywings.
00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:34.800
It was uh it was um of the of the game of the of the g the big kinds of sports, football, basketball, and baseball.
00:54:35.840 --> 00:54:39.119
Um I was and tennis.
00:54:39.440 --> 00:54:47.280
Um I really liked playing them all, but I wasn't as good at at basketball as I was in baseball and football.
00:54:47.519 --> 00:54:57.920
And tennis I started late in life with my son playing tennis, so I didn't like the things that I wasn't very good at uh of those.
00:54:58.079 --> 00:55:01.760
So but I liked playing them uh 'cause they learn a lot doing that.
00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:06.719
So I'd r I I'd rather play I rather would have played football, rugby.
00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:08.480
I played rugby for seven years.
00:55:08.719 --> 00:55:20.639
And I think one of my favorite sporting event was walking around on Haight Street during the late 60s, early seventies, and seeing what would happen.
00:55:20.960 --> 00:55:23.360
That was a kind of sport.
00:55:23.440 --> 00:55:25.119
So anyway, that that was fun.
00:55:25.440 --> 00:55:29.599
Um that's part of an a somewhat of an answer.
00:55:30.559 --> 00:55:30.880
Okay.
00:55:31.119 --> 00:55:33.039
Question number three your favorite food?
00:55:33.280 --> 00:55:36.639
Uh bamboo curry.
00:55:36.880 --> 00:55:38.239
Ooh, that's a good one.
00:55:38.400 --> 00:55:38.719
Okay.
00:55:39.119 --> 00:55:39.760
All right.
00:55:40.079 --> 00:55:40.800
Well, Dr.
00:55:40.880 --> 00:55:46.960
Bernard Biteman, thank you so much for being here and really appreciate you visiting the Quantum Couch.
00:55:47.039 --> 00:55:49.840
And um, I can't wait to read your new book when it comes out.
00:55:50.079 --> 00:55:51.360
Well, I hope you do.
00:55:51.519 --> 00:55:53.519
Um, and I hope it comes out.
00:55:53.760 --> 00:55:55.119
It's one of those things.
00:55:55.280 --> 00:56:00.320
Um, but um, I've been working on it a long time and I overdid the intensity of it.
00:56:00.400 --> 00:56:02.480
It hasn't been good for my health.
00:56:02.800 --> 00:56:08.480
So I'm recovering from really chomping away at trying to make this thing happen.
00:56:08.800 --> 00:56:20.320
Uh I h I I'm and just listening to me tell you about it just shows how much to me, how much thought, condensed thought I've put into that thing.
00:56:20.480 --> 00:56:25.920
It's like putting things together in ways that haven't been done before very much.
00:56:26.079 --> 00:56:28.880
Um I'm I'm never I'm never the only one.
00:56:29.199 --> 00:56:34.079
But this is kind of a unique thing, if from what I can tell.
00:56:34.159 --> 00:56:36.000
But anyway, I don't I'll find out.
00:56:36.159 --> 00:56:41.440
Uh light hearing I've never described it in the detail, but I just described it to you.
00:56:41.599 --> 00:56:43.199
So thanks for listening to that.
00:56:43.599 --> 00:56:44.079
Absolutely.
00:56:44.239 --> 00:56:45.360
Thank you for sharing it.
00:56:45.519 --> 00:56:46.400
Thank you.
00:56:47.360 --> 00:56:49.119
Thank you for tuning in and listening.
00:56:49.280 --> 00:56:56.239
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share the quantum couch with someone you think might love this space too.
00:56:56.400 --> 00:57:00.400
If you would like to reach out, you can email me at thequantumcouch at gmail.com.
00:57:00.639 --> 00:57:03.119
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00:57:03.280 --> 00:57:05.440
Just search for the Quantum Couch.
00:57:05.599 --> 00:57:06.719
Thank you for listening.
00:57:06.880 --> 00:57:08.480
Until next time, I'm Dr.
00:57:08.559 --> 00:57:09.599
Ina Convoy.
00:57:09.760 --> 00:57:13.519
Take good care, stay curious, and keep exploring.
00:57:14.800 --> 00:57:23.760
The information in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:27.679
Listening to this podcast does not create a physician-patient relationship with Dr.
00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:30.480
Ina Convoy or any guest on this podcast.
00:57:30.719 --> 00:57:37.360
Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
00:57:37.599 --> 00:57:44.239
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