I'm breaking with my normal style to bring you something special today. Because it is the main thing on my mind right now.

People who know me well, know that I am a bit of a podcast junky.

Mostly I listen to personal improvement podcasts from people like Rich Roll and Chris Williamson. Sometimes a bit of DOAC and Mel Robbins.

But I also have an interest in some niche philosophical and "spiritual" ideas. Particularly related to the "non-dual" understanding.

Interestingly, former rugby superstar Jonny Wilkinson has some of the most accessible podcast episodes about this in his I am series. You should check it out.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the point Stephen.

Recently I listened to two fascinating series of podcasts/audiobooks:

• ​Lights On, How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand the Universe, with Annaka Harris.
• ​The Telepathy Tapes, with Ky Dickens.

Lights On takes the form of a series of interviews with scientists and philosophers about the nature of reality.

The Telepathy Tapes explores the world of people with severe autism and how they seem to have gifts (such as telepathy) that can't easily be explained by science.

So what connects all of this?

Well, without really thinking about it, most of us, and most of science, has what's called a materialist view of consciousness.

That is that there's physics (atoms etc), which leads to matter, which leads to life, which leads to complex life, which leads to consciousness.

More simply, consciousness is produced by our brains/bodies.

What both of these podcasts explore is an idea that this might be wrong. That, actually, consciousness might be fundamental.

More simply, everything is made of consciousness and we emerge from that.

Crazy as that sounds, there are lots of insights from modern physics that hint this might be true.

And of course there are instincts we have that there's something else "out there". Like when we know someone is looking at us, or when we think of someone just before they call. Could that be a connection in consciousness?

Told you this was wild.

Now, I don't want to suggest this is fact. These are ideas. They probably can't be tested by the scientific method. You might be as well to explore them through meditation as a laboratory.

So, why am I sharing them with you?

Let's just imagine, for a moment that this is true. That we live in a universe made of consciousness. And that we borrow part of that to be, well, us.

One of the implications of that is that we don't need to be together to be connected. That we're connected with those we love and care about all the time.

And so, this implies that our intentions towards those we love matter. And our intentions and dreams are as real as our physical bodies.

Our thoughts become ripples in the universe. For real.

With that in mind, this message is sent to you with a genuine wish. A wish that it carries some power or energy that lights you up, makes you think and makes you feel connected.

I really hope it does.

Have a lovely day, Stephen

PS Next week I'll be back in the world of the rational. Probably.