Chasing Consciousness
Episodes
THE QUEST FOR CONSCIOUSNESS - Christof Koch PhD #84
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What are the best competing theories of consciousness? Can we isolate where it arises and measure how complex it is? How do 5meo DMT mystical or non-s...
HIGH-DOSE INTRAVENOUS VITAMIN C TRIALS - Dr. Richard Z. Cheng PhD #83
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Do the many clinical trials into high-dose vitamin C prove it can actually treat the common cold and cancer, rather than just boost the immune system?...
WILL AI ROBOTS BE SENTIENT & THE QUANTUM FOUNDATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS - Suzanne Gildert PhD #82
01 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Will artificial intelligence robots have subjective experience? What are the ethical and safety implications of such entities? Which quantum physics t...
EXERCISE INTERVENTIONS FOR MENTAL HEALTH - Dr. Brendon Stubbs #81
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is there evidence that even light exercise can improve mental health and help treat severe mental illness? How easy is it to prove the effects? Are ou...
ON FACING DEATH, according to C.G.Jung - Monika Wikman PhD
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How should we support the dying, and how should we approach death itself? What is conscious dying? What does Carl Jung’s work say about facing death...
THE 4th PHASE OF WATER EXPLAINED - Gerald Pollack #79
14 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What are the implications of the discovery of the chemical variation of water, nicknamed “The 4th phase”? What does the new structured chemical co...
THE MIND BODY PROBLEM & THE PANPSYCHISM SOLUTION - Galen Strawson PhD #78
01 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How can consciousness emerge from non-conscious material? If there is only one type of stuff, how is the potential for consciousness encoded in the bu...
MEMETICS IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE- Susan Blackmore PhD
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What are memes and why do some replicate while others disappear? Are the memes selected for always for the benefit of the host culture? How are our ne...
AI SAFETY - A SCEPTICAL VIEW - Stephen Wolfram PhD #76
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What are the benefits and risks of developing advanced AI? What kind of safety precautions could we take? Could we risk never making future discoverie...
OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES: THE ANTHROPOLOGY - Samantha Lee Treasure #75
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What are the contents of Out of Body Experiences? How closely do they map the actual physical world? Is it possible to induce them purposefully? How d...
INTELLIGENT LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS, WHAT ARE THE CHANCES? - Adam Frank PhD #74
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do astronomers detect the conditions for life and techno-signatures on exoplanets many lightyears away? What conditions on earth give us clues to ...
DMT ENTITY ENCOUNTERS, A QUANTITATIVE STUDY - Dr David W Lawrence #73
31 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What’s the architecture of a DMT experience, who are the entities that regularly interact and what’s their message? How can DMT therapy facilitate...
THE SLEEP DEPRIVATION EPIDEMIC & SOLUTIONS - Roxanne Prichard PhD
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What are we sleeping less and less? What are the benefits of getting a good nights sleep and the risks if we consistently don’t? How is sleep linked...
GLOBAL FIELD CONSCIOUSNESS THEORY - Roger Nelson PhD #71
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can intention alone cause changes in physical systems? Can the collective attention of a large group of people to an event cause changes in the cohere...
MOOD FOOD: TREATING MENTAL HEALTH WITH DIET - Felice Jacka PhD #70
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How much can a change in diet influence symptoms of mental health disorders? Why are a diversity of plants and whole foods so important to include, an...
EMBODIED COGNITION MEETS BUDDHISM - Evan Thompson PhD #69
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is the relationship between our cognition and our bodies in the natural environment? How do we reconcile the presence of mind in life without spl...
MEMORY - A NEW PERSPECTIVE - Charan Ranganath PhD #68
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why and how do we store certain memories and not others? What lifestyle elements influence memory for better or worse? Can traumatic memories be refra...
PLANT INTELLIGENCE, MEMORY & COMMUNICATION - Monica Gagliano PHD #67
01 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do plants communicate using sound? How do they remember previous stimuli that have proven not to be threat, when at first they seemed like one? Wh...
MORPHIC RESONANCE, NATURE'S MEMORY & EXTENDED MIND - Rupert Sheldrake PHD #66
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Where is nature’s memory of its evolution encoded? Is there evidence for extended mind occurring beyond individual brains? How possible is it that t...
POST-REDUCTIONIST SCIENCE - Marcelo Gleiser PHD #54
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why is our subjective experiences and cultural context inseparable from our scientific theories and attempts to be objective? Why is it that the more ...
THE YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS & SOLUTIONS - Louis Weinstock #64
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why are we seeing such a rise in youth mental health diagnosis? How do we relativise this against the rise in mental health awareness? What’s the be...
METACOGNITION: THE SCIENCE OF SELF-AWARENESS - Stephen Fleming PHD #63
15 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How and why did human’s develop self-awareness of what we know and don’t know? How does it develop in relation to how we evaluate what other peopl...
ANALYSING UFO EXPERIENCERS' BRAINS & ANOMALOUS MATERIALS - Garry Nolan PhD #62
31 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is the brain structure found in many UFO experiencers and remote viewers related to intuition? Are anomalous isotope ratio alloys, allegedly fallen fr...
UPDATING OUR MENTAL HEALTH APPROACHES - Camilla Nord PHD #61
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How can neuroscience help us personalise mental health diagnoses and treatments? How are mental heath stats changing and why? How effective are life s...
THE PHYSICS OF RETRO-CAUSATION AND TIME SYMMETRY - Daniel Sheehan PHD #60
14 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can time symmetry in physics, combined with exceptional violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and the “quantum handshake” transactional int...
THE MEANING CRISIS & EMBODIED PRACTICE SOLUTIONS - John Vervaeke PHD #59
30 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How have we ended up in a meaning crisis and what are the symptoms? Why is embodiment important to knowing? Why is an ecology of practices part of the...
THE BELIEVING BRAIN & CONSPIRACY THEORY - Michael Shermer PHD #58
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we have the tendency to believe things when they may not be true? Why do we project patterns, agency and meaning onto the world when sometimes ...
Dr. Sarah McKay - FEMALE HORMONES: MENOPAUSE & MOTHERHOOD
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What role do estrogen and the menstrual cycle play in the moods of women? Is ‘baby brain’ a real phenomena or does the brain actually sharpen duri...
Jeremy Rifkin - THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION SOLUTIONS
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What technological solutions can mitigate our ecological and economic crises? Why are horizontally integrated 'smart' data sharing networks so...
Dr. Neil Theise - COMPLEXITY THEORY & SELF ORGANISING SYSTEMS
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do complex systems self-organise? What is cellular uncertainty and stem cell plasticity? Can we create artificial digital life that’s subject to...
Peter Levine PHD - TRAUMA STORED IN THE BODY: SOMATIC EXPERIENCING
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How are traumatic memories stored in the body? How has Somatic Experiencing helped thousands of people release the symptoms of trauma through bodily p...
Diana Pasulka PHD - BELIEF IN UFOS: COLLECTIVE VISION OR OBJECTIVE REALITY?
31 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In what way is beef in UFOs religious-like? Is there evidence for collective visions of these objects and entities, or rather for their objective real...
Stephen Wolfram PHD - THE COMPUTATIONAL UNIVERSE & MODELLING COMPLEXITY
15 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Does the use of computer models in physics change the way we see the universe? How far reaching are the implications of computation irreducibility? Ar...
John Vervaeke PHD - USING OUR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How has the evolution of cognition led to homo-sapiens being such effective collaborators and how is the collective knowledge and wisdom of the societ...
Rebecca Dennis - BREATHWORK EXPLAINED
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How does breathwork interact with our nervous system, access memories and help integrate traumatic memories? How has it got results treating auto-immu...
Michael Levin PHD - BIOELECTRICITY AND THE BLUEPRINTS OF LIFE
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What role does bioelectricity play in the formation of new organisms? How do cells connect to form a hierarchy of ever more advanced cognnition, prefe...
Dr. James Hollis - 'THE SHADOW' AND HOW TO INTEGRATE IT
14 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What did Jung mean by ‘The Shadow’? What did he mean by making the Unconscious conscious? What is integrating the shadow so useful for us and our ...
Shohini Ghose PHD - QUANTUM COMPUTERS AND WOMEN IN SCIENCE
30 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How close are we to a scalable quantum computer? How do they work? Why is it so difficult for women in science? Is that changing? In this episode we ...
Roy Baumeister PHD - NEGATIVITY BIAS EXPLAINED
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we have a negativity bias that predisposes us to focus on bad things in the world? How can we channel that natural tendency to learn and improv...
Avi Loeb PHD - OUMUAMUA, INTERSTELLAR OBJECTS AND UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA (UAP)
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What data supports the idea that Oumuamua could have been space junk from another civilisation from another civilisation? Why is it so important that ...
Dr. Rosalind Watts - PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY EXPLAINED
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is the protocol for psychedelic therapy? How does it work? Who is it appropriate for? Today we have the interesting topic to look into, of how p...
Wai H Tsang - FRACTAL BRAIN THEORY
15 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What does symmetry and self-similarity between life and intelligence mean for the nature of reality? How are neurones like genes? Today we have the...
Dr. Graham Rook - THE MICROBIOME, MENTAL HEALTH AND RETHINKING HYGIENE THEORY
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What evidence is there for a connection between the microbiome and the chronic inflammation and mental health problems on the rise in western populati...
Dr. Isabel Fernandez - EMDR PSYCHOTHERAPY EXPLAINED
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprogramming therapy? What could be the mechanism by which its bilateral stimulation relieves the disturbanc...
Dean Radin PHD - EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE FOR PSI PHENOMENA
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Just how much evidence for psi phenomena is there today, when we put together the data from all the studies? What theory of reality could account for ...
David Lukoff PHD - TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY EXPLAINED
14 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why are religious and mystical experiences important to our sense of meaning and purpose in life? What is a spiritual emergency and how can it actuall...
Vitaly Vanchurin PHD - THE WORLD AS A NEURAL NETWORK
30 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What do machine learning, physics and biology have in common? What maths emerges when we apply learning dynamics to physics, and can it reconcile quan...
Zhen Xu PHD - ULTRASOUND AND CANCER CELLS: HISTOTRIPSY EXPLAINED
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How Can Ultrasound destroy cancer cells and even increase immune response elsewhere? Are there any implications for a resonant field based understandi...
James J Hughes PHD - EXAMINING THE ETHICS OF TRANSHUMANISM
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What are the benefits and risks of transhumanist technologies, and why are they so taboo? How do we legislate to avoid existential risks, without hold...
Johnjoe McFadden PHD - QUANTUM BIOLOGY EXPLAINED
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What evidence is there for quantum effects in biological systems? What are the implications for life in general? Today we’ve got the relatively new ...
Bernardo Kastrup PHD - JUNG'S METAPHYSICS AND THE MIND AT LARGE HYPOTHESIS
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What are the implications of Jung’s theories about the Collective Unconscious, Archetypes, Synchronicity and Individuation? What can they suggest ab...
Carlo Rovelli PHD - TIME AND SPACE AREN'T LINEAR AND THE RELATIONAL INTERPRETATION
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What exactly are time and space? What are the implications of them not being as they seem? What is the relational interpretation of Quantum Mechanics?...
Lori Williams - CONTROLLED REMOTE VIEWING
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What theory of reality could accommodate a phenomena of remote viewing? What are the implications of its success? In this episode we have the extraord...
Anil Seth PHD - A CONTROLLED HALLUCINATION
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we have the fascinating proposition that what we call reality is in fact a hallucination we all agree on, to consider. We’ve already...
Susan Blackmore PHD - EXAMINING FREE WILL
15 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is our subjective experience of Free Will, supported by the experimental evidence? If not, how do we take moral responsibility for our actions? Why do...
Donald Hoffman PHD - USER INTERFACE THEORY EXPLAINED
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we explore a User Interface Theory of reality. Since the invention of the computer virtual reality theories have been gaining in popul...
Paul Davies PHD - THE IMPLICATIONS OF EINSTEIN
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are the implications of Einstein’s predictions? Has our understanding of reality integrated the implications of this thinking? His General and ...
Thomas Campbell - TESTING OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How can out of body experiences be explained? What theory of reality could accomodate such a phenomenon? Today we have the extraordinary topic of the ...
Philip Goff PHD - THE RISE OF PANPSYCHISM
31 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why is Panpsychism gaining popularity? Is it coherent to say consciousness emerged out of non-consciousness? What can we deduce from a universe fine t...
Alex Laird - MOOD FOOD: THE GUT, DIET AND INFLAMMATION
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we learn everything we need about how food relates to our mood and state of mind. We’re going to lay out the fundamentals of how di...
Antonio Damasio PHD - THE NEUROSCIENCE OF FEELING AND KNOWING
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Audio Note: There’s a short background sound at 10 mins, it only lasts for 5 mins and it was during an important a point about the role of feelings ...
Pim Van Lommel MD - A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE STUDY
28 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can we have conscious experiences after clinical death? In this episode we have the bizarre phenomena of Near Death Experiences to examine. The intens...
Kile Ortigo PHD - PSYCHEDELIC INTEGRATION via JUNG AND JOSPEH CAMPBELL
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do we integrate the intense experiences of psychedelic therapy for long term benefits? Can we apply those learnings to existential exploration in ...
Shauna Shapiro PHD - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
15 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This episode covers the fascinating science of mindfulness meditation. The massive explosion in popularity of meditation, has brought about a quiet re...
David Luke PHD - THE SCIENCE OF ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
30 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we have the challenging job of getting our head around the psychology of altered states of consciousness or ‘exceptional human exper...
Matej Pavšič PHD - BIOCENTRISM: A PHYSICS PERSPECTIVE
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we have the extraordinary theory of Biocentrism to consider: the hypothesis that the space, time and matter arose from life, and not t...
Maya Coleman PHD - PARENTING BY CONNECTION
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we look at an alternative child psychology approach to parenting and care-giving, than perhaps the one we’re used to from our own ch...
Yohann Hari - THE ATTENTION CRISIS
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we have the tough task of examining the evidence that our society is losing its ability for prolonged attention, focus and concentrat...
David Chalmers PHD - THE SIMULATION HYPOTHESIS, VIRTUAL WORLDS
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How likely is it that we live in a simulations? Are virtual worlds real? In this first episode of the 2nd Series we delve into the fascinating topic o...
Iain McGilchrist PHD - NAVIGATING BEYOND MATERIALISM
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What would a post physicalist world look like? So in this episode we’re going to evaluate the evidence presented by psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain...
Christoph Le Mouel PHD - JUNG'S SYNCHRONICITY EXPLAINED
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can Physics shed light on how synchronicity might work? “Synchronicity: A meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something oth...
David Lorimer - EXAMINING THE ASSUMPTIONS OF WESTERN SCIENCE
01 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Are our scientific assumptions justified? In this episode we’re going to be examining the assumptions of Western Science. All science is based on as...
Garret Moddel PHD - THE EXPERIMENTER EFFECT AND THE SCIENCE OF INTENTION
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can intention, attention or expectation affect random physical events? In this episode we’re going to be exploring the subtleties of an odd phenomen...
Joseph Le Doux PHD - FEAR, EMOTIONS AND THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In episode #11 we explore the way emotions work, and particularly fear - the way it’s triggered, what happens in the brain and how much we are consc...
Specialist Panel - MEDICALISATION AND RECIPROCITY IN PSYCHEDELIC TREATMENT @Medicine Festival '21
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
'Psychedelics in a changing World: medicalisation, reciprocity and planetary healing' With: Ben Sessa, Gabriel Amezcua, Nick von Christierson, David L...
Ashleigh Murphy-Beiner - TESTING PSYCHEDELICS FOR DEPRESSION
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can psychedelic therapy help depression? We are now in the middle of the first psychedelic resurgence since the last bout of research in the 60’s an...
Jonas Kaplan PHD - THE BACKFIRE EFFECT EXPLAINED
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we want to understand how easy it is to change our beliefs when we receive new information, a process that can be really uncomfortable...
Carla Stang PHD - THE HERO'S JOURNEY
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How important is story to to human understanding? Today we take a step away from science per se, to look at the role of story in the formation ...
Moheb Costandi - NEUROPLASTICITY EXPLAINED
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How easy is it to change our Habits? Today we have the important job of working out what neuroplasticity is all about. 50 years ago we thought the adu...
Monika Wikman PHD - JUNG'S COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How much of our consciousness is shared? In this episode we have the fascinating job of trying to get to get to grips with Jung’s concept of the Col...
Dr. Stephen Porges PHD - POLYVAGAL THEORY EXPLAINED
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What's the importance of safety to health? In this episode we’re going to be talking about the neuroscience of safety and how our sense of saf...
Chris Fields PHD - QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does entanglement actually mean? So in this episode we’re going to be trying to get our heads around one of the most extraordinary phenomena ev...
Mike Gazzaniga PHD - THE LEFT BRAIN INTERPRETER
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Do we realise we invent explanations? In this episode we look at the extraordinary phenomena of the Left Brain Interpreter, in which a part of t...
Jon Butterworth PHD - THE WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Wave or Particle? So in this episode we have the interesting job of trying to get to the bottom of the famous mystery of the Wave Particle duali...
Susan Blackmore PHD - THE HARD PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Subjective or Objective? In this Episode we’re going to be introducing one of the oldest and most talked about problems in philosophy, the pro...
TRAILER - What's the Chasing Consciousness podcast all about?
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
See www.chasingconsciousness.net/episodes for the full program. Here host Freddy Drabble introduces what he'll be covering with his guests in the firs...