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Edson Freeman : UFO 遭遇体験 と 臨死体験 の間に統計的に異常な類似

· 110 min read

前置き​

Edson Freeman がタイトルの件について語っている。UFO 遭遇体験 と 臨死体験 の間に奇妙な 類似性/関連性 があるという発見は Kenneth Ring が嚆矢だった筈。過去記事、

Kenneth Ring : UFO/ET 体験者の共通点が「トラウマや悲劇」　 (2024-11-12)

で、その類似性が必然な理由を解説した。

概要​

AI

奇妙な光：現象と意識の探求

このインタビューは、ジェームズ・イアンドーリがエドソン・フリーマンの著書「奇妙な光：UFO、NDEs、その他の謎の物語」について語るものです。

フリーマンは、‌‌UFO現象の「物的証拠」の議論に不満を感じ‌‌、代わりに‌‌人々の個人的な体験が人生に与える影響‌‌に焦点を当てて本を執筆したと説明しています。彼は当初懐疑的でしたが、‌‌多くの体験談を読むことで、これらの現象が人生を大きく変える‌‌ことに気づきました。

特に、‌‌臨死体験（NDE）とUFO遭遇が同じ個人に起こるという世代を超えた現象や統計的な傾向‌‌は、単なる偶然では片付けられないと強調されています。フリーマンとイアンドーリは、‌‌これらの多様な異常現象がすべて相互に関連している可能性‌‌、そして‌‌現実の性質そのものについての深い示唆‌‌を共有している可能性について議論しています。

目次​

  1. 前置き
  2. 概要
  3. 詳細
    1. 1. はじめに
    2. 2. 主要テーマと考察
    3. 3. 本書に収録された重要な体験談
    4. 4. CE5とモンロー研究所での個人的な体験
    5. 5. 『奇妙な光』というタイトルとカバーアート
    6. 6. 読者へのメッセージと今後の展望
    7. 7. まとめ
  4. NDE と UFO 体験の統計的な異常な類似
  5. UFO体験後に他の種類の体験が始まる傾向
  6. ショーンの臨死体験
  7. Jamie の walk-in NDE
  8. 無神論者の臨死体験
  9. 時系列
  10. 主要関係者
  11. 情報源
  12. 文字起こし（話者識別）

詳細​

AI

詳細ブリーフィングドキュメント: 『奇妙な光』の主要テーマと重要な考察

1. はじめに​

このブリーフィングドキュメントは、James Iandoli と Edson Freeman の遠隔インタビュー動画「奇妙な光: UFO、NDEs、その他の謎の物語」をレビューし、主要なテーマ、重要なアイデア、および事実をまとめています。Edson Freemanは、UFO、NDE（臨死体験）、その他の高次の奇妙な現象に関する個人の体験談をまとめた著書『Strange Light (奇妙な光)』の著者であり、このインタビューでは彼の執筆動機、個人的な見解の変化、および本書に収録された体験談の興味深い側面に焦点を当てています。

2. 主要テーマと考察​

2.1 個人の体験談の重要性​

Freemanは、UFO現象に関する「いわゆる堅実な側面（nuts and bolts side of things）」、すなわち動画のピクセル分析や技術的な議論にフラストレーションを感じ、個人の体験談に惹かれたと述べています。彼は、こうした体験が人々の人生にどのように影響を与えるかに焦点を当てています。 「私は、人々が持っている体験に惹かれました。ただキャンプファイヤーの周りで怪談を話すような側面だけでなく、それが人々にどう影響するかということです。」(00:01:42) Freemanは、体験談を「証拠の一種」と見なし、科学的な「硬い証拠」とは異なるものの、その重要性を強調しています。 「時々、第一線の体験は悪い評判を受けます。人々は『それは証拠ではない』と言うからです。しかし、それは証拠の一種です。」(00:05:46)

2.2 体験による人生の変化と「存在論的ショック」​

FreemanとIandoliは、高次の奇妙な体験が人々の人生を劇的に変えるという点で意見が一致しています。 Freemanは、「ほぼ全ての場合において、少なくとも私が話を聞いた人々においては、彼らの人生の方向が変わります。」(00:06:20)と述べています。 Iandoliはこれを「存在論的ショック（ontological shock）」や「パラダイムシフト（paradigm shifting）」と表現し、「偉大なる故ジョン・E・マック博士が『宇宙へのパスポート』と呼んだものに非常に似ています。」(00:07:09)と付け加えています。体験者にとっては、その出来事が「100パーセント現実」であり、もはや疑問の余地がないとFreemanは強調しています。

2.3 懐疑論者からオープンマインドへ：Freemanの個人的な旅路​

Freemanは、以前は「測ることができず、触ることができず、確固たる証拠がないなら、おそらく現実ではない」というタイプの「非常に懐疑的」な人物であったと語っています。しかし、時間の経過とともに、「これはすべて人々の想像力だけであるには、あまりにも多くのことが起こりすぎている」と感じるようになり、見方が変わりました。彼は、証拠を求める姿勢ではなく、「ただ物語を聞き、物語全体のコレクションから何らかの理解に到達したい」というアプローチでインタビューに臨みました。(00:10:05)

2.4 さまざまな「奇妙な現象」の相互関連性​

Freemanは、UFO、NDE、プレコグニション（予知）、サイキック現象など、多様な体験が互いに矛盾せず、「すべて同じ空間に存在しうる」と指摘しています。 「物語は互いに矛盾しません。異なるものであっても、NDEや宇宙人との遭遇、予知、サイキック現象など、あらゆる奇妙な側面があります。それらは矛盾せず、すべて同じ空間に存在しうるということが、私の洞察の一つでした。」(00:11:25) 彼は、「一つの種類の並外れた体験をすると、多くの場合、そこから他の種類の体験も経験し始める」という共通のパターンに言及し、体験者にとっては「それらの壁が崩れ落ちる」と述べています。(00:16:48)

2.5 トラウマと「高次の現実」への開口部​

FreemanとIandoliは、トラウマがこれらの体験の引き金となる共通の要素であることに同意しています。 Iandoliは、「全体として共通しているのはトラウマです。多くの場合、トラウマは人々の殻を打ち破り、何らかの理由で彼らの視野を広げるようです。」(00:25:03)と述べています。 Freemanも、「確かに多くのトラウマ体験がありました。時には体験とは関係のない人生初期のトラウマが体験につながることもあれば、臨死体験そのものがトラウマの定義のようなものです。」(00:25:34)と付け加えています。

2.6 体験の「共創」と現実の流動性​

Jamieの「ウォークインNDE」や、生涯にわたる無神論者の男性がコミックキャラクターの「死」と出会う話など、本書に収録されたNDEの事例は、体験が個人の意識や無意識によって「共創」される可能性を示唆しています。 Freemanは、「それはまるで、あなたが参加者として、その形成される方法において共同創造されているかのようです。」(00:35:49)と述べ、Iandoliはこれを「現実の本質」そのものと関連付け、「現実の構成要素が、私たちが教えられてきたコンセンサス・リアリティという永続的な定義された構造ではなく、より流動的で適応性があるように輝いている」と考察しています。(00:36:14)

3. 本書に収録された重要な体験談​

3.1 ショーンの世代を超えた体験とNDE​

ショーンの物語は、トラウマ的なNDE（事業の失敗、結婚生活の破綻、重傷による出血多量）から始まり、その後にUFO体験が続くというものです。彼の家族にはUFO体験の歴史があり、祖父の日記にはUFO目撃やエイリアンとの遭遇、失われた時間（missing time）の記録がありました。ショーンもまた、祖父の日記に自分のことが「次なる訪問者を受ける者」として記されていたことを知ります。彼は、金属的でオゾン臭のある「奇妙な匂い」や失われた時間、テレパシー的なつながりを経験しています。この物語は、体験が世代間で受け継がれる可能性を示唆しています。(00:26:09)

3.2 ジェイミーの「ウォークインNDE」​

ジェイミーは警察の車内で死亡し、蘇生後に「ジェイミー・ワン」（死以前の彼女）と「ジェイミー・ツー」（現在の彼女）と表現する異なる魂が彼女の体を宿したと語っています。彼女はジェイミー・ワンの記憶は持っているものの、感情的なつながりはなく、興味やスキルも変化したと述べています。これは、アイデンティティと意識の深い変化を示す興味深い事例です。(00:32:24)

3.3 無神論者の男性とコミックブックの「死」​

病院で死亡した無神論者の男性は、ビーチでニール・ゲイマンのコミックブックに登場する「死」（顔にタトゥーのある友好的な女性）と出会うNDEを経験しました。彼はこの体験を、「彼の経験が彼に合わせて作られた」ものとして解釈しており、これにより死への恐れがなくなったと語っています。これは、個人の信念体系がNDEの内容に影響を与える可能性を示しています。(00:34:09)

4. CE5とモンロー研究所での個人的な体験​

Freemanは、CE5（Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind）活動やモンロー研究所での体験についても言及しています。モンロー研究所での「ゲートウェイ・プロセス」では、ヘミシンク技術を用いた瞑想を通じて、興味深い心霊現象を経験しました。特に印象的だったのは、参加者同士で「誰のためのメッセージか分からないアドバイス」を求め合う演習で、非常に具体的で個人的なメッセージを受け取ったことです。また、夜間の空観察では、参加者によって「異なる色に見える」反応性のある光の球体を目撃しました。これは、Iandoliが経験したUFO目撃における色の認識の違いと一致しており、現象の主観的で共同創造的な性質を裏付けています。(00:45:50)

5. 『奇妙な光』というタイトルとカバーアート​

「奇妙な光 (Strange Light)」というタイトルは、NDEで多くの人が見る「奇妙な光」、UFO、マーファの光、幽霊やスペクトル画像が発する「奇妙な輝き」など、様々な現象の側面に合致するとFreemanは説明しています。また、「光」には「啓発（illumination）」という深い意味も込められています。 カバーアートは、本書に収録されたキャリーの物語、特に彼女が曾祖母に会いに向かう途中で、白い牡鹿の群れに遭遇し、それが魔法のようなつながりを持った瞬間からインスピレーションを得ています。このカバーは「非常に印象的で、示唆に富んでいる」とFreemanは語っています。(00:58:24)

6. 読者へのメッセージと今後の展望​

Freemanは、読者に「オープンマインドと謙虚さ」を持って本書を読んでほしいと願っています。 「私たちが知らないこと、まだ理解していないことがあるかもしれません。まだそれらを測る方法や、どのような質問をすべきかを見つけられていないのかもしれません。」(01:03:15) 彼は、今後もこの分野での執筆活動を続け、もし「興味深く、ユニークで、異なる角度から体験を提示する人々」を見つけられれば、続編を検討したいと述べています。(01:02:07)

7. まとめ​

Edson Freemanの『Strange Light』は、UFO、NDE、およびその他の高次の奇妙な現象に関する個人的な体験談を通じて、現代の主流の唯物論的パラダイムに疑問を投げかける一冊です。本書は、これらの体験が人々の人生に与える深い影響、そして体験の主観的かつ共同創造的な性質を浮き彫りにします。

Freemanは、科学的な「硬い証拠」だけでなく、個人の物語に耳を傾けることの重要性を強調し、読者に対して「オープンマインド」で「まだ私たちが知らないことがある」という謙虚な姿勢を促しています。彼の著書と研究は、現実のより広範な性質と、私たちがまだ理解し始めていない意識の可能性について考察する貴重な視点を提供しています。

NDE と UFO 体験の統計的な異常な類似​

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Free Study (Ray Hernandez) の研究のより大きな文脈において、これらのソースはNDEs（臨死体験）とUFO体験の統計的に異常な重なりについて以下の点を述べています。

  • ‌‌FREE Studyの発見‌‌: James Iandoli氏によると、Ray Hernandez氏のFree Study（エドガー・ミッチェル財団）は、約4,000人の参加者を対象とした研究で、‌‌ある種の体験をした人が、他の種類の体験もする傾向がある‌‌ことを発見しました。
  • ‌‌統計的な異常性‌‌: Iandoli氏は、UFO遭遇を経験した人が、予測不可能な臨死体験（NDE）のような出来事をさらに経験する確率について、「‌‌統計的に言えば、それは異常だ、信じられないことだ‌‌」と指摘しています。NDEとUFO体験は、それぞれが「外れ値の出来事」（outlier events）であるため、両方が同じ人々に起こることは非常に稀であるはずだ、と彼は強調しています。
  • ‌‌「微妙な現実」への開放‌‌: Iandoli氏は、このような経験を持つことが、個人の「認識の窓」（aperture）を「‌‌微妙な現実‌‌」（subtle realities）に開かせ、その結果、PSI（サイキック）現象など、他のすべての現象にも開かれると考えています。
  • ‌‌相互接続された現象‌‌: Edson Freeman氏も、NDE、UFO、予知能力、ポルターガイスト現象など、多様な経験が「‌‌互いに矛盾しない‌‌」こと、そして「‌‌すべてが同じ空間に存在しうる‌‌」という見解を共有しています。彼は、これらの異なる現象が「おそらくすべて一つのものの様々な側面である」と示唆しています。
  • ‌‌複数の経験を持つ人々‌‌: Freeman氏の研究では、ある種の「特異な経験」（extraordinary experience）をした人に、関連性のない「奇妙な出来事」（weird things）について尋ねると、しばしば「他にこんな奇妙なことがありました」と答えが返ってきたことが示されています。これは、複数の種類の経験が個人に集まって発生するというパターンを裏付けています。
  • ‌‌ショーンの事例‌‌: Freeman氏は、自身の著書に登場するショーンという男性の例を挙げています。ショーンは‌‌深いNDEを経験した後、UFO体験を始めた‌‌だけでなく、彼の両親、叔父叔母、祖父母もUFO体験をしていたことが判明しました。これは、これらの現象に‌‌世代を超えた側面‌‌があることを示唆しており、個人が複数の「非常に奇妙な出来事」（high strangeness experiences）を経験する傾向を裏付けています。
  • ‌‌体験者間の認識の変化‌‌: Freeman氏は、UFO現象を「ナッツアンドボルツ（機械的側面）」から人間の「経験」に焦点を移した理由として、クリス・ベレドソーの『UFO God』のような書籍を挙げています。また、‌‌直接的な経験を持つ人々にとっては、現象の現実性にもはや疑問の余地がない‌‌こと、そして「経験者、特に複数の経験を持つ人々にとっては、そのような壁（異なる現象を区別する壁）は崩壊する」と述べています。

要するに、これらのソースは、FREE Studyのデータとエドソン・フリーマン氏の個人的なインタビュー経験の両方を通じて、NDEとUFO体験の間の異常な統計的重なりが存在することを示唆しています。この重なりは、個々の現象が単独で発生するのではなく、‌‌より深い、相互接続された現実の一部として現れる‌‌可能性を示唆しており、特定の経験が個人の意識を拡張し、他の異常な現象に対する感受性を高めるという仮説を支持しています。

UFO体験後に他の種類の体験が始まる傾向​

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「体験間の接続性」というより大きな文脈において、これらのソースは、UFO体験後に他の種類の体験が始まる傾向について以下の点を述べています。

  • ‌‌多様な「奇妙な出来事」の相互関連性‌‌: Edson Freeman氏は、自身の著書『Strange Light』の執筆を通して、NDE（臨死体験）、UFO遭遇、予知能力、心霊現象など、さまざまな「奇妙な出来事」（high strangeness）の物語が‌‌互いに矛盾しない‌‌ことを発見しました。彼は、これらの現象が「すべてが同じ空間に存在しうる」と述べ、さらには「‌‌おそらくすべて一つのものの様々な側面である‌‌」と示唆しています。
  • ‌‌UFO体験後の他の体験の開始‌‌: Freeman氏は、特定の種類の体験をした人々が、その後他の種類の体験を始める傾向があることを明確に指摘しています。「UFO体験、あるいは宇宙人との遭遇といった経験をした人は、‌‌その時点から、多くの場合、他の種類の体験もするようになる‌‌」と述べています。これは、一つの主要な経験が、より広範な異常現象への扉を開く可能性があることを示唆しています。
  • ‌‌「認識の窓」の開放（アパーチャの拡大）‌‌: James Iandoli氏は、Ray Hernandez氏のFree Study（エドガー・ミッチェル財団）が、約4,000人の参加者を対象とした研究で、「‌‌ある種の体験をした人が、他の種類の体験もする傾向がある‌‌」ことを発見したと述べています。Iandoli氏は、このような経験は、個人の「認識の窓（アパーチャ）」を「‌‌微妙な現実‌‌」（subtle realities）に開かせ、結果としてPSI（サイキック）現象など、‌‌他のすべての現象にも開かれる‌‌と考えています。
  • ‌‌体験者間での区別の壁の崩壊‌‌: Freeman氏とIandoli氏は、UFO現象、ビッグフット、幽霊など、異なるカテゴリーの体験を分けて考える傾向が「体験をしていない人々」には見られる一方で、「‌‌複数の体験をした人々にとっては、そのような壁は崩壊する‌‌」と指摘しています。つまり、体験者自身は、これらの現象を別々のものとしてではなく、相互に関連するものとして捉えるようになるということです。
  • ‌‌統計的に異常な重なり‌‌: Iandoli氏は、UFO遭遇とNDEのような予測不可能な出来事が同じ人々に起こる確率は、「‌‌統計的に言えば、それは異常だ、信じられないことだ‌‌」と強調しています。それぞれが「外れ値の出来事」（outlier events）であるにもかかわらず、多くの人々がこれら両方を経験している事実は、これらの体験間に深い関連性があることを示唆しています。
  • ‌‌ショーンの事例‌‌: Freeman氏は、自身の著書に登場するショーンという男性の具体的な例を挙げています。ショーンは‌‌非常に深遠なNDEを経験した後、UFO体験を始めました‌‌。さらに、彼の両親、叔父叔母、祖父母もUFO体験をしていたことが判明し、祖父はUFO目撃や宇宙人遭遇についての詳細な日記を残していました。ショーン自身も、UFO体験の後に「金属のような臭い」の感知、時間の消失、UFOの目撃、婚約者とのテレパシー的な繋がりなど、さまざまな種類の体験をしています。この事例は、一つの重要な体験が、その後の人生で‌‌多様な「高次の奇妙な出来事」を誘発し、さらに世代を超えて受け継がれる可能性‌‌があることを示しています。
  • ‌‌トラウマと意識の開放‌‌: Iandoli氏とFreeman氏は、‌‌トラウマが人々の殻を打ち破り、彼らの認識の窓を開く‌‌共通の要因である可能性があると指摘しています。NDEそのものがトラウマ的な経験であることが多く、また、UFO遭遇などの体験自体がトラウマとなることも、他の体験への感受性を高める一因となり得ます。

これらの点から、ソースは、UFO体験、NDE、およびその他の異常な現象が孤立した事象ではなく、体験者の意識を拡張し、他の種類の体験に対する感受性を高める、‌‌相互接続された現実の一部‌‌である可能性が高いことを示唆しています。

ショーンの臨死体験​

AI

書籍からの事例というより大きな文脈において、これらのソースはショーンのNDEs（臨死体験）とUFO遭遇について以下の点を述べています。

‌‌ショーンのNDEs（臨死体験）:‌‌

  • ‌‌きっかけと体験内容‌‌: ショーンの物語は、彼の人生が混乱していた時期から始まります。事業に失敗し、結婚生活も破綻し、彼は絶望していました。家のリノベーション中にポケットナイフで塗料缶を開けようとした際にナイフが滑り、腕の動脈を深く切って大量出血しました。彼は元救急隊員だったため、事態の深刻さをすぐに理解し、妻に救急車を呼んでもらいました。
  • ‌‌体外離脱と白い光‌‌: 次の瞬間、彼は自身の身体が家の前のコンクリートの上で出血しているのを上から見下ろしていました。多くの臨死体験の物語と同様に、彼も‌‌白い光やトンネル‌‌を通り抜けました。彼はこの白い光を非常に詳細に描写しました。
  • ‌‌理想郷と「記録の殿堂」‌‌: 光の向こう側で、彼は蝶が舞う牧歌的な牧草地にいました。彼はこれを「あまりにも出来すぎている」と感じ、臨死体験中にもハープの音楽が聞こえることに笑ってしまったと述べています。その後、彼は「‌‌記録の殿堂‌‌」のような場所に連れて行かれました。そこでは、彼が人生で下した決断の地図、つまり枝分かれする木のように示され、彼が選んだ道と他の可能性のある道、そしてそれらの道がどのような結果をもたらしたか、他人にどう影響したかを見ることができました。
  • ‌‌人生の変化‌‌: この非常に興味深い臨死体験は、彼の人生を根本的に変えました。

‌‌ショーンのUFO遭遇と家族の歴史:‌‌

  • ‌‌NDE後のUFO体験の開始‌‌: 臨死体験から生還した後、ショーンは‌‌UFOを目撃し始めました‌‌。これがきっかけとなり、彼は自身の家族の歴史を深く掘り下げるようになりました。
  • ‌‌世代間の経験‌‌: 彼の家族には、UFO体験の言い伝えがありました。彼の母親と叔父叔母たちは子供の頃、カナダの遠隔地で「カウボーイハット」のようなUFOを目撃し、そこから出てきた「妖精」のような存在が踊っていたと語りました。その後、UFOが飛び去ると、祖父が地面に焦げ跡を発見しました。
  • ‌‌祖父のジャーナル‌‌: さらに、ショーンの祖父は、UFO目撃や宇宙人遭遇についての詳細な‌‌ジャーナル‌‌を記していました。祖父は通常、実体を見ることはありませんでしたが、「金属のような臭い」や「時間の喪失」といった、誘拐体験に共通するような経験をしていました。また、祖父は一度、地球上の物事について奇妙な質問をする、この地域出身ではないと思われる人物と森林サービスで働いたこともジャーナルに記録されていました。
  • ‌‌ショーンへの継承‌‌: 祖父の死後、ショーンは母親からそのジャーナルを受け取り、彼自身がそのジャーナルに「‌‌次世代の訪問者‌‌」として言及されていることを知りました。
  • ‌‌自身の継続的な体験‌‌: ショーン自身も、UFO体験の後に、‌‌溶接や焦げた電線のような金属的でオゾンっぽい臭い‌‌を感じたり、‌‌時間の喪失‌‌を経験したり、多数のUFOを目撃したりしています。さらに、ドイツに住む婚約者との間で‌‌テレパシー的なつながりや共有夢‌‌のような体験もしています。
  • ‌‌「世代間の体験」の典型‌‌: ショーンの物語は、「‌‌一つの種類の経験が次々と起こる生涯‌‌」であり、Iandoli氏が述べるように「‌‌世代間の体験‌‌」という側面があることを示しています。

これらの事例は、NDEとUFO遭遇が同じ個人、そしてその家族に発生するという、‌‌統計的に異常な重なり‌‌が存在することを示す具体的な例として提示されています。これらの体験は孤立した事象ではなく、相互に深く関連し、個人の「認識の窓」を「微妙な現実」に開く可能性を示唆しているのです。

Jamie の walk-in NDE​

AI

「書籍からの事例」というより大きな文脈において、これらのソースはジェイミーの「ウォークインNDEs」について以下の点を述べています。

  • ‌‌体験のきっかけ‌‌: ジェイミーの物語は、彼女が警察車両の後部座席で‌‌死亡した‌‌という劇的な出来事から始まります。警察が状況を不適切に扱ったため、彼女は逆さまに放り込まれ、呼吸が止まってしまったとされています。
  • ‌‌「ウォークインNDEs」の概念‌‌: 彼女が蘇生した際、それは「‌‌別の魂、あるいは別の存在が彼女の肉体に宿った‌‌」と表現されています。この現象は「ウォークインNDEs」と呼ばれており、エドソン・フリーマン氏がジェイミーと話すまで知らなかった用語であると述べています。
  • ‌‌「ジェイミー・ワン」と「ジェイミー・ツー」‌‌: 彼女自身は、死ぬ前の自分を「ジェイミー・ワン」、そして現在の自分を「ジェイミー・ツー」と呼んで区別しています。
  • ‌‌記憶と感情の分離‌‌: ジェイミー・ツーは、ジェイミー・ワンのすべての記憶を持っているものの、‌‌それらの記憶には何の感情も伴っていません‌‌。それは「単なる情報」として認識されていると説明されています。
  • ‌‌興味とスキルの変化‌‌: NDEを境に、彼女の興味やスキルは大きく変わりました。例えば、ジェイミー・ワンは料理が得意で人をもてなすのが好きでしたが、ジェイミー・ツーは「自分の命を救うために料理ができない」ほど料理の仕方を忘れ、うまくいかないと語っています。一方で、ジェイミー・ツーは「ダンスに出かけたり、社交的になったり、キャリアなどにあまり執着しなくなった」とのことです。
  • ‌‌体験の反映的性質と共同創造‌‌: ジェームズ・イアンドーリ氏とエドソン・フリーマン氏は、UFO体験、臨死体験、超常現象のいずれにおいても、体験に‌‌反映的な性質‌‌があることを指摘しています。意識や潜在意識の一部が体験を形成しており、現象と参加者自身との間で‌‌共同創造‌‌されているかのように見えると述べています。これは、現象が体験者個人の背景や信念に「合わせて調整される」可能性を示唆しています。
  • ‌‌現実の流動性への証言‌‌: ジェイミーの事例のような複数の体験は、「現実そのものについて、より深い何か」を語っているとイアンドーリ氏は考えています。これらは「マトリックスのグリッチ」のように、私たちが教えられてきた「共通認識としての現実」が、永続的で固定された構造ではなく、‌‌より流動的で適応性がある‌‌ことを示す「証言」であるとしています。

ジェイミーのウォークインNDEsは、書籍『Strange Light』に収録されている個別の章の一つであり、NDEが個人の人生に根本的な変化をもたらすだけでなく、意識や個性の本質に関するより深い疑問を提起する具体的な事例として提示されています。

無神論者の臨死体験​

AI

書籍『Strange Light』からの事例というより大きな文脈において、これらのソースは、特に‌‌無神論者のNDEs‌‌について、以下の点を述べています。

  • ‌‌事例の概要‌‌: 本の最後の章に収録されている短い物語の一つとして、‌‌無神論者の男性が経験したNDEs‌‌が紹介されています。この男性は医療上の問題で病院で亡くなり、臨死体験をしました。
  • ‌‌体験内容の「調整」‌‌: 彼のNDEsは、彼が浜辺に辿り着き、「死神」のようなキャラクターに遭遇するというものでした。しかし、その死神は一般的なローブ姿の骸骨の人物ではなく、ニール・ゲイマンのコミックブックに登場する、顔にタトゥーのあるとても友好的な女性の「デス」でした。
  • ‌‌体験の背景にある「無神論」‌‌: この男性は、‌‌彼が生涯無神論者であったために、このコミックブックのキャラクターが彼の臨死体験に「合わせて調整された」‌‌のだと述べています。
  • ‌‌体験の結果‌‌: この経験により、彼は‌‌死を恐れなくなった‌‌ものの、再びそこへ急ぐつもりはないとも語っています。

この事例は、イアンドーリ氏とフリーマン氏が強調する、NDEを含む高ストレンジネス体験の‌‌「反映的」または「共同創造的」な性質‌‌を明確に示しています。フリーマン氏は、この現象は「私たちの意識や潜在意識の一部が体験を形成している」かのようであり、‌‌体験が個人の背景や信念に合わせて「調整される」‌‌可能性があると述べています。この無神論者のNDEsは、まさにこの「共同創造」や「調整」の好例であり、現象が体験者個人の理解できる形でコミュニケーションを試みている可能性を示唆しているのです。

時系列​

AI
  • 2017年: Edson FreemanがUFOの話題に興味を持つきっかけとなるNew York Timesの記事が発表される。 数年後 (2017年以降): David Grushの登場がEdson FreemanのUFOへの関心をさらに高める。
  • 時期不明 (Edson Freemanの若年期): Edson Freemanは懐疑的な視点を持っていたが、徐々に自身の信念が揺らぎ始める。
  • 時期不明 (Edson Freemanの執筆前): Edson FreemanがChris Bledsoeの「UFO God」やRobin Lasseterの「Earth, A Love Story」といった書籍を読み、体験談への関心を深める。
  • 時期不明 (Edson Freemanの執筆前): Edson Freemanが「Surviving Death」というシリーズの、過去世の記憶を持つ子供たちに関するエピソードを視聴し、多くの超常現象が繋がっている可能性に気づくきっかけとなる。このエピソードには裏付けとなる事実が多く含まれていた。
  • 時期不明 (本の執筆中または執筆後): Edson Freemanがノースカロライナ州のブラウン・マウンテン・ライツやマルファ・ライツのような場所で、体験者たちと出会い、不思議な光の現象を経験する。
  • 時期不明 (Seanの人生の転機): Seanのビジネスが失敗し、結婚生活が破綻。家を改築中にナイフで動脈を切ってしまい、瀕死の状態に陥る。
  • 時期不明 (Seanの臨死体験): Seanが臨死体験をする。自身の体が外の地面に倒れているのを見下ろし、白い光のトンネルを通り、牧歌的な牧草地に行き着く。その後、「記録の殿堂」のような場所で、自身の人生の決断の地図を見る。
  • 時期不明 (Seanの臨死体験後): SeanがUFOを目撃し始め、家族のUFO体験の歴史について深く掘り下げるようになる。
  • 時期不明 (Seanの幼少期): Seanの母親とその兄弟たちが、カナダの人里離れた場所で、カウボーイハットのようなUFOと「ピクシー」と表現される小柄な存在を目撃する。後に祖父が焦げ跡を発見。
  • 時期不明 (Seanの祖父の人生): Seanの祖父が、特定の臭い（金属臭や焦げた電気配線の臭い）と時間の欠落を伴う、UFOやエイリアンとの遭遇（エンティティは見ないが）を記録した日記を残す。ある夏には、森林局の同僚が「地球の仕組み」について奇妙な質問をしてくるため、エイリアンではないかと疑う経験もしている。
  • 時期不明 (Seanの祖父の晩年): Seanの祖父が様々な種類の癌を患い、長期間にわたり医療問題を乗り越える。
  • 時期不明 (Seanの祖父の死後): Seanの祖父が他界した後、Seanが自身のUFO体験をきっかけに、祖母に祖父の日記を見せてくれるよう頼む。母親が日記を発見し、「あなたも載っている」と告げる。
  • 時期不明 (Jamieの臨死体験): Jamieが警察車両の車内で、不審な状況で窒息死する。
  • 時期不明 (Jamieのウォークイン体験): Jamieが「Jamie 1」として死亡し、「Jamie 2」という異なる魂/存在として蘇生する。Jamie 2はJamie 1の記憶をすべて持っているが感情が伴わず、興味やスキルも異なる（例：料理が下手になる、社交的になる）。
  • 時期不明 (無神論者の男性の臨死体験): 無神論者の男性が病院で医療問題により死亡し、臨死体験をする。海岸で、ニール・ゲイマンのコミックブックのキャラクター「デス」と出会う。このデスは顔にタトゥーのある友好的な女性の姿で、男性は自身の無神論者としての背景に合わせて体験が調整されたと考える。
  • 時期不明 (Edson Freemanの大学時代): Edson FreemanがMorganという友人と出会う。Morganはパラノーマル現象には興味があったが、UFOや未確認生物には興味がなかった。彼女の家族にはシンクロニシティに関する歴史があった。
  • 2023年3月頃: Edson Freemanがモンロー研究所で1週間のゲートウェイ・プロセスに参加する。
    • 瞑想中に「クリックアウト」（寝落ち）することが多かったが、後半は工夫して意識を保つ。
    • ガイド役が「他の誰かのための3つのアドバイス」を求めるという二重盲検式の瞑想を主導し、Edsonは腕の骨折と手術に関する非常に具体的なメッセージを受け取る。彼がメッセージを送った相手も、特定の色の意味に涙を流すほど具体的な内容だった。
    • 昼食の内容を事前に知るなどの「奇妙なこと」が頻繁に起こる。
    • 屋外でのスカイウォッチング中に、多くの発光体（オーブ）が出現し、参加者の要求（例：明るくなる、三角形を作る）に反応する。ある発光体はらせん状に上昇しながら点滅していたが、参加者によって見えた色が異なった（例：Edsonは赤、他者は緑や青）。
  • 時期不明 (James Iandoliの体験): James Iandoliが日中のCE5（異星人とのコンタクト）活動中に、ルビーレッドの球体を目撃するが、一緒にいたパートナーは同じ色で三角形の物体を描写する。また、Jamesの家族が様々な色の物体を目撃する中で、一人の家族だけが白や水色しか見えなかったという経験がある。
  • 現在: Edson Freemanが「Strange Light」を出版し、プロモーション活動を行っている。Webサイト「strangelightbook.com」を運営し、YouTube、TikTok、Instagramで活動している。
  • 将来の展望: Edson Freemanは「Strange Light」の続編（Volume 2）の可能性を探っている。

主要関係者​

AI

  • Edson Freeman (エドソン・フリーマン):本書「Strange Light: Personal Accounts of UFOs, NDEs, and Other Enduring Mysteries」の著者であり、本インタビューのゲスト。

    • もともと懐疑的な立場だったが、2017年のNew York Timesの記事やDavid Grushの登場をきっかけにUFOや高次の異常現象に興味を持つ。
    • 「ナッツ＆ボルト」的な議論に不満を感じ、体験者の個人的な経験とその人生への影響に焦点を当てるようになる。
    • 自身もシンクロニシティのような「奇妙なこと」を経験しているが、本の登場人物のような大規模な体験はない。
    • 臨死体験、UFO、過去世の記憶、超能力現象など、様々な高次の異常現象が相互に関連していると考えている。
    • 2023年3月にはモンロー研究所のゲートウェイ・プロセスに参加し、具体的なテレパシー的メッセージの授受や、オーブの目撃などの体験をしている。
    • 本の執筆の動機は、体験者が偏見なく自身の物語を語れる場を提供すること。

  • James Iandoli (ジェームズ・イアンドーリ):「Engaging the Phenomenon」のホストであり、Edson Freemanへのインタビュアー。

    • 自身も非人間知能との遭遇、体外離脱、UFO遭遇、ポルターガイスト現象、PSI現象など、様々な高次の異常現象の体験者。
    • CE5（異星人とのコンタクト）活動に熱心で、自身の経験からも、これらの体験が人々の世界観を大きく変える「パラダイムシフト」をもたらすと考えている。
    • 複数の体験が統計的に同じ人物に起こることに着目し、これらの現象が現実の本質に関わる「マトリックスのグリッチ」である可能性を考察している。

  • David Grush (デビッド・グラッシュ):UFOの話題に関心を抱くきっかけとなった人物の一人としてEdson Freemanによって言及されている。詳細な役割は本インタビューでは語られていないが、UFO/UAP関連の情報開示に貢献した人物として知られる。

  • Chris Bledsoe (クリス・ブレッドソー):Edson Freemanが読んだ書籍「UFO God」の著者。Edsonが体験談に引き込まれるきっかけの一つとなった。

  • Robin Lasseter (ロビン・ラセター):Edson Freemanが読んだ書籍「Earth, A Love Story」の著者。Edsonが体験談に引き込まれるきっかけの一つとなった。

  • Sean (ショーン):Edson Freemanの著書に登場する人物の一人。

    • 人生がどん底の時に重傷を負い、臨死体験をする。その体験で自身の人生の決断とその結果を見る。
    • 臨死体験後、UFOを目撃するようになり、家族のUFO体験の歴史（祖父母や両親の世代からの経験）を知る。特に祖父はUFOやエイリアンとの遭遇について詳細な日記を残しており、Seanはそこに自身が「次に訪れる者」として記されていることを知る。
    • 金属臭、時間の欠落、UFOの目撃、婚約者とのテレパシー的つながり（共有夢など）といった様々な現象を経験している。
    • これらの体験は世代間で受け継がれているようである。

  • Jamie (ジェイミー):Edson Freemanの著書に登場する女性。

    • 警察車両内で死亡し、ウォークイン臨死体験をする。
    • 「Jamie 1」（死ぬ前の自分）と「Jamie 2」（現在の自分）という形で、異なる魂が自身の体に宿ったと描写。Jamie 1の記憶は情報として残っているが、感情がなく、興味やスキルも変化している。

  • 無神論者の男性:Edson Freemanの著書に登場する人物の一人（名前は不明）。

    • 病院で臨死体験をする。海岸で、ニール・ゲイマンのコミックブックのキャラクター「デス」（顔にタトゥーのある友好的な女性）と出会う。
    • 自身の無神論者という背景に合わせた体験だったと解釈し、死への恐怖を克服したが、再び死に急ぐことはないと語る。

  • Morgan (モーガン):Edson Freemanの大学時代からの友人。Edsonの著書に登場する。

    • UFOや未確認生物には興味がないが、自身の経験からパラノーマル現象に興味を持つ。
    • テレパシー的な経験（彼女と子供たちの間）も持っている。
    • 彼女の家族の歴史はシンクロニシティ、つまり「適切な時に適切な場所にいる」といった偶然の出来事が多い。

  • Robert Monroe (ロバート・モンロー):モンロー研究所とHemiSync技術の創設者。James Iandoliが言及している。

  • John Wheeler (ジョン・ウィーラー):物理学者。James Iandoliが「参加型宇宙」の概念を語る際に言及している。

情報源​

動画(1:07:33)

Journeys Into Strange Light - Personal Accounts of UFOs,NDEs,and Other Enduring Mysteries

文字起こし（話者識別）​

展開

（以下は "Journeys Into Strange Light - Personal Accounts of UFOs,NDEs,and Other Enduring Mysteries" と題された遠隔インタビュー動画の文字起こしです。話者識別をしており、聞き手は James Iandoli で、話し手のゲストは Edson Freeman です。 ）

James Iandoli: Hey everybody, welcome back to Engaging the Phenomenon, and today we are honored to have on our guest Edson Freeman. And Edson just came out with a book called Strange Light. Love the name, by the way. Strange Light, Personal Accounts of UFOs, NDEs, and Other Enduring Mysteries. And this certainly stands out to me in the sense, number one, that it's first-hand experiences being told, not just about the phenomenon, but also the other high strangeness that goes along with it. So, Edson, what drove you to write this book? (00:00:52)

[Edson Freeman]: That's a good question. I think I got interested in the UFO topic, along with a lot of other people, starting with the 2017 New York Times article, and then when David Grush came along a few years later, it kind of piqued my interest a little more. I wasn't really into these topics before then. It was interesting, but I didn't spend a lot of time on it. But once I started digging into this, I kind of got, I don't know if bored is the right word, but I got frustrated with the so-called nuts and bolts side of things. (00:01:42)

[Edson Freeman]: Just endless arguing over pixels on a video or something. And I felt like we're never going to get to the bottom of these, because every video, especially now, it could be AI, it could be this, it could be that. Every video has a prosaic side that people are trying to pitch, and then a high strangeness side that people are trying to pitch. And for whatever reason, I just was drawn to the experiences that people have. And not just sort of the sit around the campfire telling ghost stories aspect, but how does it affect people? (00:02:25)

[Edson Freeman]: What does it do to your life if you have this experience besides in the moment? And I just started seeking out people that had had a lot of big experiences or lifelong experiences and just tried to find people that were willing to talk to me. So that's kind of where it came from. (00:02:49)

James Iandoli: And of course I have to ask, are you an experience of yourself? (00:02:54)

[Edson Freeman]: Not on the scale of anybody in this book that I've written. I've had some weird things that at the time I kind of blew off. But looking back, I'm like, that's pretty interesting. That seems like more than a coincidence. And since I've written this book, or in the process of writing this book, I have sort of started seeking out some experiences here and there. I met up with one of the people in the book and a few other people who were experiencers out at... I met up with one of the people in the book and a few other people who were experiencers out at... (00:03:42)

[Edson Freeman]: if you've heard of the Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina, it's similar to the Marfa Lights or some other places where if you go out at night and conditions are right, there's weird lights that move around and come and go. But yeah, nothing... I would describe most of my experiences more like synchronicities, you know, highly unlikely coincidences and things like that than any kind of firsthand encounters with non-human intelligence or things like that. (00:04:04)

James Iandoli: Yeah, and just to be clear, I'm not trying to... we use experiencer just as a term to point to a particular thing. It's not like... I don't like to have it in camps of like experiencers and non-experiencers or anything like that, because I mean, I understand that people who have had certain experiences like to, you know... well, in some regards, they want to distinguish that they've had a certain type of experience. But yeah, that's neither here nor there. (00:04:44)

James Iandoli: Now, in regards to the experiences, how is it that you went from like the nuts and bolts kind of all, you know, looking at what's coming out in 2017 to the inquiry into like, no, there's more here than just these arguments and like what's being put out in the public narrative space? (00:05:10)

[Edson Freeman]: I think what really got me furthest down... I mean, I was listening to different thinkers in this space, different podcasts and hearing different perspectives. But I think what really sort of pulled me down into these rabbit holes were reading some of the long form, like, you know, for example, Chris Beledsoe's book UFO God, or Robin Lasseter, if you know her, she's got a book called Earth, A Love Story. Those both were just really fascinating stories. (00:05:46)

[Edson Freeman]: You know, if you set aside any of the arguments that happen around these experiences and just listen to the story, they're fascinating to me. And so that was kind of the approach I tried to take when I eventually got to this point of wanting to hear... I think first-hand experiences get bad rap sometimes. People are like, well, that's not evidence. But it's a kind of evidence. It's not hard evidence like, you know, in a test tube in a lab or something. (00:06:20)

[Edson Freeman]: But I think we dismiss these stories a little too easily sometimes. And what was really interesting to me was, like I said, not just the stories, but the aftermath. Sometimes these experiences are very traumatic. And so how do you move on past that? Sometimes they're very enlightening. But almost in every case, at least in the people that I talk to, they change the direction of people's lives. And that's something that I found fascinating, even if I can't understand what exactly is going on with regard to the phenomenon or with all these high strangeness experiences. (00:07:02)

[Edson Freeman]: I don't know what's behind it, but it changes people's lives in all different ways. (00:07:09)

James Iandoli: Yeah. And, you know, something I say is like, you're not going to come out of like a kind of in-your-face UFO encounter or non-human intelligence encounter or near-death experience. You're not coming out the side, the other side, the same person, more or less. Right. It's, again, traumatic or, you know, people have been using the terminology ontological shock, paradigm shifting. Yeah. Very akin to what, you know, the great late Dr. John E. Mack called the passport to the cosmos. (00:07:46)

James Iandoli: You know, it really like opens you up in your orientation as to, you know, where and where the hell am I? What is going on? Right, right. Like a totally just, it totally blows you away. And then there's a whole process of trying to understand, right? And I mean, even just trying to come to grips with the experience that you had just had. Yeah. And then trying to... Yeah. (00:08:20)

[Edson Freeman]: And I, sorry, I was just going to say, I think that sometimes people who haven't had any dramatic experiences can go on Reddit or Twitter or wherever and argue all day about this or that. But the people who have had these experiences, there's no question anymore to them. Like to these people, this is absolutely a hundred percent real. There's no doubt left. (00:08:47)

James Iandoli: Yeah. And I totally understand that because if I hadn't had the experiences that I had, I wouldn't expect anybody to take an account like that at face value. It's just not... even if you are intellectually inquiring and listening, right? Just in hearing the account, I think it's good for people to open their minds to it, but it's not going to have the paradigm shift of the individual who had that experience, right? There's... (00:09:21)

James Iandoli: Right. Yeah. Personally, for me, that's one reason I really got into CE5 and contact work, because I realized I could tell people about my experience all day or what have you, but people need to have that experience for themselves, to have the true paradigm shift of it. And before you wrote the book and you started speaking to these witnesses and interviewing them and curating their stories, what was your take on UFOs, non-human intelligence, and even a near death experience? (00:10:05)

[Edson Freeman]: So I would say if I go, like the further back I go, it was a gradual process. So the further back I go, the more of a skeptic I was. I'm coming from a place of, I used to be one of those people that was like, if I can't measure it, if I can't touch it, if I can't have some hard evidence for it, then it's probably not real. I didn't write it off completely, but I was very skeptical. (00:10:32)

[Edson Freeman]: But things, over time, some people are locked into their beliefs for their whole life and no amount of evidence is going to change their mind. And for me, it was just sort of this buildup of like, there's too much going on here for it to all be just people's imaginations. And people can argue with that, but to me, this has been, people have been describing these types of experiences for as long as we've been telling stories, right? And I tried to go into these interviews with people for the book without any idea of, I want you to show me your evidence or I want to see your photos or, you know, whatever. (00:11:25)

[Edson Freeman]: Show me, prove to me that this really happened. I was like, that's somebody else's thing. They can, somebody else, if they want to dig into stories that way, they can. I just want to just set all that aside and just hear the story and then maybe come to some kind of understanding with the whole collection of stories. I'm not sure I really did, to be honest. I like to say that the stories don't contradict each other, even though they're from all different, you know, there's NDEs and there's alien encounters and there's precognition and there's, you know, psychic phenomenon, all these different aspects of strangeness. (00:12:09)

[Edson Freeman]: And they're not, they don't contradict each other. They can all exist in the same space. That was one of my takeaways. But yeah, beyond that, it's still, it's a bigger mystery now than it was before to me. (00:12:29)

James Iandoli: And, you know, was there one thing, because I mean, this happens to everyone, right? Is there like, well, yeah, you know, UFOs are real and they're probably aliens, but this kind of afterlife stuff is, that's nonsense. Was there like a point where you thought maybe, you know, that you were, maybe when you started, you considered one aspect of this, like, yeah, this is, this seems like there's a lot to this. I don't know about this other thing. (00:12:59)

James Iandoli: And then all of a sudden it's like, holy shit, this other thing is part of the package. Was there like a moment with that thing? (00:13:07)

Yeah. (00:13:07)

[Edson Freeman]: I think what got me was, and I'm not going to be able to remember the name of it, but there was a series and there was one episode, it was a sort of a about death and dying and afterlife type stuff. And it had to do with children who have past life memories. Okay. Yeah. (00:13:29)

James Iandoli: Was it the surviving death? (00:13:30)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That was it. I didn't watch the whole series, but I did see the one episode about children with past life memories. And I actually have a friend who has, their child had that happen where they were like describing a previous life. And I think there was the thing that was interesting to me about that episode. And, you know, I just talked about how I was setting aside the quest for physical evidence, but in that story, there was a lot of evidence. There was a lot of facts that could be corroborated with the past or whatever. (00:14:09)

[Edson Freeman]: And that kind of was, I think my entry into, this is not just one thing. This is a whole bunch of different things that maybe are all facets of one thing, but there's some common threads through it all, but I don't know how to tie them together yet. Maybe I won't. I mean, if humanity hasn't figured it out by now, I don't know that I'm the one, but... (00:14:36)

James Iandoli: Well, you know, there's this, you know, generally speaking, there's usually, unless you are like thrown into one of these experiences, which spontaneously happens to thousands, if not, you know, hundreds of thousands of people, is that, you know, generally, you know, people have the kind of like almost, you know, the modern consensus materialism paradigm, right? Which is what we're taught and conditioned to accept is that, you know, oh, well, you know, the idea of extraterrestrials coming here in spacecraft, you know, that's not too far of a leap. It's driven in our media, like nonstop, you know, even if it's in science fiction, right? (00:15:21)

James Iandoli: The idea is very prevalent. And I think a lot of people go on this kind of hero's journey arc, you know, Joseph Campbell style, you know, of this path of discovery where it's like, oh, my God, there's aliens, right? You know, if and when they come to that idea, and then they're like, well, you know, who, who are they? And then they start taking it more seriously. And then they're, they're looking into accounts, and they see all this telepathy involved. (00:15:50)

James Iandoli: And they're like, wait, how is this telepathy happening? And then, oh, my God, psychic phenomenon is real. And what does that mean? And then, you know, you go on this kind of like journey of discovery. That's, I guess, I guess you can say, if you really follow down the rabbit hole, you're going to come to the conclusion that the high strangeness stuff is really at the center of a lot of the, you know, what we discuss as the phenomenon, right? And I think there is a kind of clumping together. (00:16:27)

James Iandoli: People like to compartmentalize and have like, oh, no psychic phenomenon here, UFOs here, but then there's also kind of like, well, no, they're, they're actually connected. But I think there is some globbing together of like, how do you differentiate, you know, at some point of what is what? (00:16:48)

[Edson Freeman]: Right, that and, and people who have one, you know, if you've had a, let's say a UFO experience, an alien experience or something. From that point forward, you start having these other types of experiences, too, in a lot of cases, you know, or if you, if you have your whole life been encountering ghosts or poltergeists or something, you know, maybe there's some connection to the, the alien abduction phenomenon or something. (00:17:17)

[Edson Freeman]: Like, it does seem like there's, the people who are on the outside looking in, who haven't had some kind of experience, sometimes, you know, there's, there has long been this joke of like, the UFO people think the Bigfoot people are crazy. And the Bigfoot people think the ghost people are crazy and the ghost people, you know, but the people who have had the experiences, especially multiple experiences, that those walls kind of come down. And it's like, there's, I think we get a little human centric with, you know, some, some other civilization on some other planet, build some ship that looks like it's made out of metal and it comes here from a long way away. (00:18:02)

[Edson Freeman]: And we can't figure out, you know, that's one of the arguments or had been one of the arguments for a long time is how could, you know, we have this relativity problem of it takes so long to get from there to here. How could this, how could they possibly do that? And it's like, well, maybe we're, we've got the wrong perspective on this. Maybe that's not how it works. (00:18:22)

[Edson Freeman]: And maybe we just haven't thought to ask the right questions yet about what this is or where it came from or how they got here or whatever. (00:18:30)

James Iandoli: Yeah. I, you know, and that's what I love about the, the UFO subject is that it, you know, generally has that effect on people where you, you, you start off with maybe nuts and bolts and, and then gradually you see a lot of the other, you know, again, like you said, in, and even in my case, right? Like I started with entity encounters, which went to out-of-body experiences, which went to UFO encounters, which went to poltergeist activity and psi phenomenon and through this hermeneutical cycle. And, you know, speaking of Ray Hernandez, the free study, you know, the Edgar Mitchell Foundation, they did that study with maybe 4,000 participants. (00:19:24)

James Iandoli: And they found that, like you were saying, somebody generally who has one of these type of experiences, in my opinion, what I think what happens is when you have that kind of experience, it, it, it opens your aperture to, to what we would consider subtle realities, right? And then that, that therefore opens you up to psi and everything else. But what is, what's kind of insane, right? Is like, what are the odds that somebody who had a UFO encounter goes on to have something that's unpredictable, like a near-death experience, right? (00:20:05)

James Iandoli: It's not just like a passive, subtle perception of something. It's an, it's an event that happens that what are the odds that both happen to the same people? And statistically speaking, right? Like it's, it's insane, right? If you look at the statistics of the number of people in the world who have a near-death experience and then go on to have a UFO, they're like, they're two outlier events, right? And even like a, like a kind of in-your-face psychic phenomenon experience, right? (00:20:40)

James Iandoli: Like, and these people are having all of them. So what do you make of that? (00:20:43)

Yeah. (00:20:44)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah. Well, and you're making me think of, of one of the subjects in the book, there's a guy named Sean. He had a near-death experience that was really profound, you know, changed the course of his life. And then he started afterwards, he started having UFO experiences, but then he comes to, to learn that his, his parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents had had these experiences, these UFO experiences as well. Going back, you know, when you get into, and, and you see this sometimes when talking to people, you have this generational aspect of it, you know, it's like his grandfather had a journal that he kept about his UFO sightings and alien encounters. (00:21:26)

[Edson Freeman]: And then his mom has stories and now he has stories. And, you know, his grandfather mentioned him in his journal and things like that. It's, it's definitely, I mean, a skeptic might be like, well, there's something wrong with that person. They're making it all up. But at the same time, it's, it's common, right? Like if you have this one type of extraordinary experience, you're bound to, if you ask the right questions, you might be like, oh yeah, no, I did have this other thing. Sometimes that's a super obvious, like in Sean's case, but you know, other times it's like when you ask somebody to tell their story and then you say, has there been any other kind of weird things that have happened to you that, that are not say UFO related? (00:22:16)

[Edson Freeman]: They're like, yeah, I had this other weird thing. Like that seemed to be a, a common thing when I, at least in my experience of talking to people. And it seems like others have had that too. (00:22:27)

James Iandoli: Yeah. Was there a common thread that you found in doing your research for the book and interviewing these, the witnesses? Is there, is there a commonality or common denominator that, that you see in retrospect that, that may have led to these individuals having such experiences or, or does it seem random in a sense? I don't want to say random is probably not the right word, but more spontaneous, or was there, was there any particular types of patterns that you picked up on? (00:23:02)

[Edson Freeman]: With like, regarding the, the people, like if they were common traits among the different people that I talked to, I didn't find anything. Like I had people from all over the world. I tried to, to make it as broad as I could in terms of like geography and also in terms of types of different experiences. You know, I had somebody from India, somebody from Japan, somebody from the UK, Australia, Canada. And I don't, I didn't notice any common theme among the people that I talked to in terms of, you know, their background or their culture or their family history or anything like that. (00:23:45)

[Edson Freeman]: I did see some common themes come up with the experiences. Like there seems to be definitely this like telepathy or mind to mind communication or even like instantaneous communication or knowledge. Sort of like what's been discussed in the telepathy tapes, where two people in two different locations can know something or share something mind to mind without any kind of like delay or any kind of complications in, in how that information gets transferred. But is that all the same mechanism that's happening? (00:24:42)

[Edson Freeman]: I don't know. Is it, is it all just like, do we have that ability and we just, it's, it's latent or it's, you know, somehow either blocked from us typically accessing it or emerging somehow. I don't know. It's, it's an interesting question. (00:25:03)

James Iandoli: Oh, cause I, you know, I bring that up in some regard because the one, one commonality that comes up in, you know, overall is trauma. A lot of times trauma seems to just crack people's shell open and open their aperture for, for whatever reason. And, and yeah. Yeah. And generally for, for whatever reason, people, it wakes them up to some kind of greater reality. (00:25:34)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah, definitely. There were a lot of trauma experiences either. Sometimes it was trauma in their earlier life that had nothing to do with the experiences, but then that led to experiences. Sometimes it was trauma, like a near death experience is sort of definition of trauma, right? Sometimes the experience itself is traumatic. If you know, if you get somebody coming into your room and yanking you out of your bed while you're sleeping and it's not a human, that's pretty traumatic too, you know? So there's definitely a trauma component. (00:26:09)

James Iandoli: Yeah. And you know, speaking of trauma and the near death, would you want to share a little about that gentleman's story, Sean, with the, with the near death experience who went on to have UFO encounters? Yeah, sure. (00:26:23)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah. So Sean, he, his, his story starts with sort of his life in shambles. You know, his business, he had started a business and it had failed. His, his marriage was falling apart and he just was feeling like a disaster. He was trying to renovate a house to sell it cause he needed money. And he was trying to pry open a can of paint with a pocket knife and the knife slipped and just went deep into his arm, cut a artery or something. And he was basically bleeding out. (00:27:01)

[Edson Freeman]: He didn't think it was a big deal to start with. But the more he lost blood, the more dizzy he got and the more he put pressure on it, it just wasn't stopping the bleeding. And he just, he was like, he had been a paramedic. So he was like, I'm, I'm in serious trouble. So he got his wife to call an ambulance. And the next thing you know, he's looking down at himself, you know, bleeding out on the concrete in front of his house. And as these stories go, you know, there's some kind of a white light or tunnel that he goes through. (00:27:35)

[Edson Freeman]: He had really detailed descriptions of what it looked like, this white light that he was going toward. And then he's on the other side, he's in this idyllic pasture with butterflies. And he kind of said it was almost too on the nose. Like he kind of was laughing, even in the near death experience that like, really there's harp music. Like, yeah, isn't that a little bit much? And then they took him to sort of a hall of records type place where they showed him, he described it as like a map of his decisions in his life. (00:28:11)

[Edson Freeman]: It was like a branching tree. And each decision point would have the branch he took and then other branches, and he could see what those paths would lead to. And he could know how it impacted other people. And sometimes the branches, even if he made a decision, and there was another path, sometimes they'd come back together. So there was a whole, you know, really interesting near death experience that he had. And that changed him. (00:28:39)

[Edson Freeman]: Then when he came back, he started digging more into his family's history, because he had seen a couple UFOs after this. And that reminded him of some things that were in his sort of family lore. His mom and her siblings, when they were kids, they had seen a UFO. They didn't have the terms for it then, because they lived in like remote part of Canada. They said it looked like a cowboy hat. And then some little beings came out, and they described them as pixies. (00:29:19)

[Edson Freeman]: And they kind of danced around. And then they got back in their cowboy hat and flew off. And when the grandfather came out, he found scorch marks on the ground. So that's sort of the family lore. But then his grandfather, the one who kept the journal, he had all kinds of experiences. I think he didn't typically see any entities, but there was a certain smell, and he would lose time, and some of the sort of common experiences that people have for abduction, like lost time things. And he journaled all of this. (00:30:04)

[Edson Freeman]: There was even one summer where he worked for the forestry service in Canada. His partner got swapped out for a different guy. And this new guy was asking all these weird questions about how things work on earth, kind of. Like, why are there wars? And what's the reason people do this or that? And he thought it was super strange. And always suspected that the guy was not from around here, as he put it. So the grandfather had journaled all these things, and then he had had a ton of different kinds of cancer. (00:30:45)

[Edson Freeman]: Eventually he passed away, but he survived a whole bunch of medical issues for way longer than anybody expected. And then along comes Sean after his grandfather's passed, and he's had this UFO experience, and he asks his mom, can I see grandpa's journal? And she says, yeah, let me find it. And so she calls him and says, oh, I found it. So Sean goes over to her house, and she meets him at the door with the journal, and she's like, you're in it. (00:31:14)

Yeah. (00:31:15)

[Edson Freeman]: So it was just his grandfather basically thinking that Sean was sort of next in line for having these visitations or whatever. And yeah, he reports that he does have this smell that he detects sometimes where it's like a metallic, it was differently described as like somebody welding or like burning electrical wires, that sort of ozone-y kind of smell. And he's had some missing time. He's seen a number of UFOs, and he's had some telepathic connections with his fiancee who, he lives in, I think he lives in Alberta or Calgary, I forget, somewhere in Canada. And his fiancee is living in Germany, but they've had some like shared dream type experiences and things like that. (00:32:07)

[Edson Freeman]: So he's had a whole life of just one type of experience after another that seems, like we talked about, it seems to be generational. (00:32:17)

James Iandoli: Yeah. And were there any other near-death experiences related in the book? (00:32:24)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah. There's one, a woman named Jamie had a really interesting near-death experience where, I didn't know this term until after I talked to her, but I guess it's called a walk-in NDE, right? So she died in the back of a police car under some pretty sketchy circumstances as far as the way the police handled a situation. She died, she was dumped into the police car sort of upside down, and it cut off her breathing. And then when she came back, it was a different soul, for lack of a better word, a different entity inhabiting her body. (00:33:08)

[Edson Freeman]: And she describes it as having all of the memories of, she calls them Jamie one and Jamie two. So Jamie one is her before she died in that police car, and Jamie two is her now. And she said she remembers all the memories of Jamie one, but there's no emotion connected to them. It's more just like information. And she has different interests and different skills. She said Jamie one was a really good cook and loved to entertain. And she said she can't cook to save her life. (00:33:38)

[Edson Freeman]: She doesn't remember how to do anything. And when she tries, it doesn't go well. But she's much more apt to go out dancing or be social or less focused on career and things. So that was another one. There's also a shorter one. In the last chapter of the book, I had collected some of the shorter stories that people had that weren't enough to fill a whole chapter. So I should say the structure of the book is each chapter is one person's story until you get to the end. (00:34:09)

[Edson Freeman]: And then there's a chapter of shorter ones. And there was another guy who had some medical issues and died in the hospital. And his near-death experience was he was visited, he ended up on a beach, and he was visited by Death, right? The sort of the Grim Reaper character. But it wasn't the typical skeletal guy in a robe with a scythe or whatever. It was Death from a comic book by Neil Gaiman. And it was a woman with a tattoo on her face, and she was super friendly. (00:34:49)

[Edson Freeman]: And he attributes that to the fact that he is a lifelong atheist, and his experience was tailored to him to bring this comic book character into his near-death experience. And he looks back on it fondly, and he said, it made me not afraid of death, but also that I'm not in a rush to get there again. (00:35:14)

James Iandoli: Yeah, that's such an interesting dynamic to these experiences, is whether it's a UFO experience, or a near-death experience, or even what people might consider a paranormal experience. There's often a reflective quality to the experiences where maybe some part of your consciousness or subconscious is informing the experience, if I can say. (00:35:49)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah, it seems like they're almost co-created with you as a participant in the way that it's formed. And you see that with some of the UFO-type visions and things too, where it's sort of a collaboration between you and whatever this other phenomenon is. (00:36:14)

James Iandoli: Yeah, and that's, I mean, and I think, I mean, for me, one of the takeaways, you know, is that, you know, it's not just the phenomenon that's doing that, or that's like that. I think it's speaking actually to the nature of reality. And maybe I'm going a little deep here, but in our participation, like the participatory universe aspect of John Wheeler talks about from Pearl Labs that, Pearl Labs, where it's, you know, we are participating in reality, even in an unconscious collective way. And I think these experiences are testaments to that. (00:37:09)

James Iandoli: If you look at, you know, what you did, a number of cases, right? Not just, you know, one or two cases, but you have this whole tapestry of cases that are all speaking to this idea that it's not just a near-death experience or UFO encounter. There's something that's much deeper about reality itself, right? Like a glitch in the matrix, right? You see, like, the shimmering of the construct of what we consider consensus reality in the way that we've been taught it, right? It's not this permanent, defined structure the way that we generally would think of it. (00:37:54)

James Iandoli: It's more fluid and adaptable. And yeah, that's one thing that fascinates me, is the kind of nature of reality aspect to it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. (00:38:08)

[Edson Freeman]: And, you know, it's definitely, it's almost like whatever is, like, if we just say these are all connected somehow, and there's some intelligence behind it, it's almost like it's trying to communicate with us on our terms, somehow, by doing this co-creation or this collaboration in the experience. It's like, I'm going to try and give you this information, or maybe open your mind up to this new way of thinking, but I'm going to do it in a way that you can relate to somehow. I don't know. (00:38:49)

James Iandoli: Yeah, I mean, I got that from my own experiences that, you know, during the experience, I took it very much at face value, right? The variety of experiences that I had. And then afterward, you know, and contemplating it and revisiting it over time, you know, I was considering, you know, what's, were these, you know, the non-human intelligence or entities trying to just symbolically speak to me in a way that I'm going to understand, and I'm comfortable with, or is it actually a literal representation? (00:39:30)

James Iandoli: And, you know, I actually lean more towards the former, you know, after much meditation, contemplation on the experiences. But the, in putting together this, the stories and speaking to the witnesses, what were you, what was driving you to finish this project? (00:40:00)

[Edson Freeman]: I think part of it was just a fascination with all these different aspects, whether it's, you know, the near death or the UFOs or the precognition or the poltergeists or all these different things. I mean, they are good, interesting stories, but also they're hard to tell sometimes. One, because of stigma, you know, people look at you funny if you tell them I've been visited by aliens, or your church might look at you sideways if you say, oh, there were ghosts in my room last night that talked to me. But also sometimes they're hard to tell because they have these strange elements that don't, you know, they're almost dreamlike or they're like, you almost don't want to share the full details of the story because it just doesn't make sense in conventional reality. (00:41:04)

[Edson Freeman]: And so I kind of was like, if I can be the middle man, if I can sort of take on that stigma, take it away from the person, they can get their story shared without them being on the front lines. And we can all maybe, you know, learn from this spectrum of different experiences that one, it's not the end of the world to talk about these things, depending on your circumstances. I'm sure there are people that, you know, talk about it, they lose their job as a pilot or as a pastor at a church or something because of just how the world is. (00:41:47)

[Edson Freeman]: But if we can talk about these stories more, that's how we, if we ever can get to the bottom of this, I don't know that we can, but it'll at least help us understand these experiences a little better. (00:42:07)

James Iandoli: And I mean, I know this is kind of a partial question. Was there any particular story in the book, somebody's account that you deeply related to? (00:42:27)

[Edson Freeman]: Not exactly. I think probably Morgan, who is somebody I've known for decades. It's somebody that I went to college with. And I knew she was interested in paranormal stuff. She didn't really have any interest in UFOs or cryptids or those other things, but she was interested in paranormal stuff because of her own experiences. And a little bit of that telepathy type stuff because of some experiences between her and her kids. But her whole family's history is more about synchronicities, being in the right place at the right time, or not being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or things like that, where things could have gone horribly wrong, but because of a decision you made, it didn't, or things like that. (00:43:31)

[Edson Freeman]: So that was probably the closest I could get to one that I relate to. But everybody that I talked to had so much bigger, so much more intense experiences than anything that I've come across, even since writing this book. I've done a little bit of the CE5 type stuff with some people and gone on ghost tours and things like that. And I've seen some interesting things along the way, but never anything that was worthy of one of these stories in the book. (00:44:06)

James Iandoli: I mean, maybe you shouldn't say that, right? I know what you're thinking. Sometimes you hear this other person's story and it's like, I don't know, it's, yeah, but don't, you know, I don't think you should undermine maybe your own experiences. But, you know, speaking to, you know, not being at the wrong place at the right time, or, you know, however you probably word that. Yeah, I don't know if a lot of people know, but actually, you know, I believe Richard Dolan, his dad was a fire safety director at the World Trade Center during 9-11. And he, I think he called out that day. (00:44:50)

James Iandoli: And every fire safety director, which is what I do, died in the World Trade Center that day. So that's, that's a, you know, I mean, like, what are the odds? (00:45:04)

[Edson Freeman]: I mean, yeah. 9-11 is an interesting event too, in this regard, because there are a lot of stories that seem to be that way, around, specifically around the Twin Towers. You don't see that with every natural disaster, like you don't hear about a lot of stories, say the big earthquake in Japan, or, you know, other big dramatic events. I'm sure the stories are out there, but 9-11 seems to have a ton of them compared to most type of disasters or attacks or things like that. (00:45:37)

James Iandoli: Yeah. And there's, there's a research organization, and maybe it's like the Consciousness Project, where they are running these random number generators. And it was the morning of 9-11, or the day before, there was a huge spike in the, as almost as if there was an unconscious anticipation that something was going to happen of global significance. Yeah. And, but, you know, you know, getting back to the, the CE-5 experiences or contact work that you got involved with, and the haunted houses you visited, do you want to share a little bit about that? I'm always interested in that, in those kind of... (00:46:25)

James Iandoli: Yeah. Yeah, sure. (00:46:26)

[Edson Freeman]: So recently, earlier, earlier this year, I think it was in March, I did a week at the Monroe Institute. Oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was very cool. (00:46:40)

James Iandoli: I'm sorry. When you were at the Monroe Institute, did you do the, like the gateway process or what, what did they have you do? Yeah. Yeah. It was gateway. Yeah. Okay. Very good. And did you go through like the entire, all the waves or... (00:46:51)

[Edson Freeman]: No. I think we went up to wave 15, I guess. I don't remember if we went higher. I think we had one, one exercise where we went all the way up to 21. But it's mostly focused on like the focus 10, 12, and 15 are for that introductory, I don't know, introductory, I mean, it's a week long, so it's not really introductory, but you know, yeah, yeah, it's mostly 10, 12, and 15. And they dabble in a few others. (00:47:27)

James Iandoli: I mean, I'm sorry, I don't want to keep interrupting you. But this is fascinating to me, because I'm actually revisiting of the whole gateway stuff and Robert Monroe and currently in something I'm working on. How did you find the HemiSync technology and the Monroe Institute in general? (00:47:46)

[Edson Freeman]: Like, so the Monroe Institute, the, like the experience of going there, setting aside the sort of HemiSync stuff, just the general, like, it's really well run, it's well set up. The nice thing is you can set all of your responsibilities aside for the week, like, they will ring a bell to let you know when dinner's ready, you don't have to look at your watch, you know, you don't have to take like, everything is taken care of, you got a place to sleep, you got food, you got snacks. (00:48:17)

[Edson Freeman]: So really, all you can do, I mean, all you need to do is the meditation stuff. And then talking to the rest of the group about, you know, sharing the different experiences. And the one challenge I had while I was there is that I fall asleep. Like, I fall asleep every time. So I had to get creative. I'm like, let me try with the lights on, let me try with sitting up. By the end of the week, I was getting better at it. (00:48:48)

[Edson Freeman]: But also, I was getting more aggressive with how to keep myself awake. Like at one point, they gave me some wireless headphones, so that I could walk around while we were doing the meditation. Because I just would, they call it clicking out, I would click out hard, I would just be like gone. And you know, they say that the your brain, your ears and your brain are still getting the benefit of hearing these things. But I was like, I want to, like, I want to actually be aware of what's going on. (00:49:22)

[Edson Freeman]: So and I did have some really interesting things happen there. During the meditations, there was one exercise we did where we were supposed to so the exercise has to do with asking for guidance kind of it's give me you know, three pieces of advice. But our instructor was like, I like to do this one a little differently. I want you not to ask for advice for yourself. I want you to ask for another person. (00:49:53)

[Edson Freeman]: But the trick is, you're not going to know who the other person is. You're going to get this advice, you're going to write it down, and then we're all going to come back and then I'll tell you who your person is. So sort of a double blind kind of a thing. And both the person who I had messages for, and the person who had messages for me, were both so specific, like a very weirdly specific as far as like, this couldn't have been meant for somebody else. Just as an example, I had, I don't know, I don't remember when it was, it was sometime maybe in January, I broke my arm, and I had to have surgery for the broken arm. (00:50:40)

[Edson Freeman]: And the guy who had the message for me had this vision of like, a stigmata, like a religious, you know, stigmata thing. And I didn't know what it was about at first, but I don't know if you can see it on camera, but I've got this big scar right here on my arm from the surgery. So that's just an example of like, that was so specific to me that it was weird. And then the same with going the other way, the person that I had messages for had to do with specific colors and things like that, that were like meaningful enough to this person that they teared up when I was, you know, describing it to them. (00:51:24)

[Edson Freeman]: And we would always know what was going to be for lunch, even though they cooked it in a different building down the mountain, like, somebody would always be like, I think we're having pizza today for lunch or whatever. And sure enough, it would be right every time. So there was a lot of interesting things going on. (00:51:38)

James Iandoli: Did you have any experience with HemiSync or meditation prior to that retreat? (00:51:45)

[Edson Freeman]: I had sort of been trying to practice meditation and, you know, dabbled in some of the HemiSync stuff. So I had sort of been, in fact, one of the chapters in the book is about someone who did the gateway process for like a year and a half and their experience around that. That was sort of one of the things that drew me to go try this. And now I lost my train of thought. (00:52:16)

James Iandoli: And I'm sorry, I also I asked you as like, you're CE5 and haunted. This is the Monroe Institute was in was related to that. Oh, yeah. Sorry, we got off track there. No, because I interjected with too many questions, because I know that's right. I love hearing about the Monroe Institute and HemiSync. And it's always a fascinating, you know. (00:52:40)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah, it's if you if you ever get an opportunity to go there, it's it's very cool. Um, I would I would tell anybody to go there. But one night we were out skywatching. Basically, we were all just standing around, staring up at the stars and the planes going overhead. And, you know, we were out there for probably at least an hour, maybe even closer to two hours. We were out there looking up and everybody was kind of hoping we'd see something. (00:53:09)

[Edson Freeman]: And we'd be like, what's that? Oh, that's just a satellite. You know, it's moving in a track straight line, not deviating, not doing anything interesting. And then we'd see, oh, look, there's something. No, that's just a plane. And, you know, it was just a lot of us just standing around chatting. And some people gave up and went to bed. And eventually there were probably, I don't know, eight or 10 of us outside and all of these orbs started showing up. And it was they were responsive. (00:53:39)

[Edson Freeman]: You know, it would be like, you know, you hear about people that are like, can you get brighter? And it'll get brighter. Somebody jokingly said, can you make a triangle? And it made a triangle, like two lights down below and one up top, just like going across together. And then we saw one that was really weird. The best I can describe it as is if you've seen the kids' shoes that light up in the heel when they step on them, like that type of little LED blinking. But it was in the sky and it was going upwards in a spiral. (00:54:15)

[Edson Freeman]: And it was blinking that fast. So it wasn't like it was a firefly or something. But what was really interesting about it was we all kind of gasped and we were like, whoa, what was that? And then we were telling some of the people the next day at breakfast or something, we were describing what we had seen. And we discovered that different people saw different colors. So like what I saw it as red and somebody else saw it as green or blue. Like, how does that work? (00:54:43)

James Iandoli: Yeah, and you know, it's so funny. I did a CE5. It was a daytime CE5 and I was with one of my former partners. And we both, and it was broad daylight, it was maybe like 4.30 in the afternoon in the summer. And we had a really good... We were on a really good streak, if you want to call it that. We were in a really excellent flow doing like CE5 almost every day. And, you know, she was doing it with me. (00:55:22)

James Iandoli: And whenever we did the CE5, we would just get amazing results because of our coherence. And, you know, one afternoon we were doing it again. It's probably 4.30 in the afternoon, clear blue sky, and saw this ruby... I saw a ruby red sphere in the sky. And it was... I don't know how to... celestial, magical. It had this just amazing qualities to it. And I saw it as a sphere. And, you know, we're... I'm saying you see that, right? (00:55:58)

James Iandoli: And she's like, yeah. So I'm assuming she's seeing what I'm seeing. And she's a little bit artistic. And so she was... she actually drew a number of these encounters that we were having. And she is, you know, shortly after this experience, she's drawing it. And I was like, what are you... I was like, what... that's what you saw? Because she drew a freaking triangle, like a red... but it was ruby red, but it was a triangle. I was like, I saw clearly, like, I wasn't like... it wasn't like I kind of couldn't make it out. (00:56:34)

James Iandoli: It was clear as day to me, a spherical, right? And she's here drawing the same exact color, the ruby red everything with the same, like, ruby, magical, celestial qualities, except she saw a triangle. And I was like, I was just like, I didn't know what to make of it, right? I'm like, right. I'm sure it was a sphere. Like, there's no question. It was so clear to me. And so it's just, I don't, I don't even know what to make of that, right? (00:57:06)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah. And it was the same with, with my experience. It was like, okay, it was a hundred percent red for me. Like, yeah, like ruby is probably a good description of it. And I could understand if one person said, oh, it was white. Another person said, oh, it was blue. Right. Those are close enough, but like red and white and blue and green, like they can't, it couldn't have been, it doesn't make sense in, in conventional terms. So, yeah. (00:57:30)

James Iandoli: And there were, there was another experience I had. There was, it was pretty dramatic and in your face experience where my whole family was there. And, you know, there were all these colors of different objects and what, just one of my family members there didn't see the colors at all. They saw like white and like, again, maybe like a light bluish, they didn't see the purples, the greens, the reds and all, all that that was going on. And I'm like, and they're not colorblind, like not, not even a little bit better vision than me. (00:58:06)

[Edson Freeman]: And I've heard a similar weird thing where there's something weird about these lights because there was somebody who was describing how the light came close, but it didn't cast a reflection on my, like the windows or the water or anything. (00:58:23)

Yeah. (00:58:24)

James Iandoli: Well, and, and so, you know, actually that, that kind of brings up the, begs the question to me is where'd you get the title? Strange light, which by the way, I love that. It's just, it sounds so fricking cool, man. Honestly, strange light is dope. So where did that name come from? Yeah. (00:58:43)

[Edson Freeman]: I, it took me a long time to come up with a title. Like I had some working titles that I just, I was never really happy with. And I was like, I, I w I knew I wanted something short, like a short name, because if you have a six word title, people are going to stop half halfway through and just be like, okay, next book, you know, the attention spans are so short. But I felt like that phrase sort of captured a lot of different aspects of this, whether it's the NDE with this strange light that a lot of people see, or the UFOs, or you know, like there's a story about the Marfa lights, or sometimes these ghosts or spectral images have a weird glow about them. (00:59:25)

[Edson Freeman]: And it just felt like strange definitely fit and light you know, there's, there's also that sort of illumination aspect of it, sort of going a layer deeper where something about this opens people's minds up to things. But yeah, I, I don't know exactly where it came from. It was just a long, a lot of brainstorming and, and just, I settled it on that one. (00:59:56)

James Iandoli: Yeah, I love that name. It's really cool. For me, it definitely. Yeah, I love it, man. And the, how'd you come up with the the cover of the art? (01:00:06)

[Edson Freeman]: So the cover art was inspired by one of the stories in the book. There's a woman named Carrie who had an experience where, well, she had a whole lot of experiences, but that particular one seemed good for cover art because it was very, a very visually striking idea where she, she had seen a white buck that sort of blocked her path from going to see her grand, her great grandmother who was passing away. (01:00:39)

[Edson Freeman]: And just so that we can get the visual here, right. So she was, she was on her way to see her grandmother or her great grandmother to say her last goodbyes. And this herd of deer kind of blocked her way. And this white buck sort of had this connection with her for a few moments that seemed kind of magical. And so I, there was an artist that was sort of a friend of a friend who I really liked his style and his, his artwork. And I reached out to him and I said, Hey, do you ever do commissions? (01:01:19)

[Edson Freeman]: Because I'm, I'm working on something. And he said, well, I don't do a lot of commissions. They're kind of a pain and stuff, but what do you got? I think he sort of gave me the benefit of the doubt. Cause I, you know, we had a mutual friend and I told him about the book and he's like, Oh yeah, I'd totally do that for you. So, and then we, we kicked around some other visual ideas from the book, but we kept gravitating back to this one. (01:01:43)

[Edson Freeman]: And it's yeah, I just, I love the cover. It's so striking and evocative. (01:01:51)

James Iandoli: Yeah, absolutely. I think so. I think it's really cool. So where, where are you going to go from here? I mean, you got this book out, you put the book out what's, what's, what's going on in, in Edson Freeman's world. (01:02:07)

[Edson Freeman]: I don't know. I've been, I've been kicking around the idea of just sort of doing a volume two maybe, maybe putting a slightly different spin on it or something. But the one, like the one thing I don't want to do is for it to become just a repetitive turnout, more stories that all sound the same. So if I can find people who have experiences that are, that are interesting and unique and bring something, it doesn't have to be something brand new to the table, but, you know, bring a different angle to these experiences. I may, I may try to do, do this again. (01:02:49)

[Edson Freeman]: I've kicked around other ideas as well, but nothing that I've really settled on. You know, this is a, this is a hard space to, to get your bearings in sometimes. So I'm still, I'm still thinking, but yeah. (01:03:05)

James Iandoli: And is there, is there anything that you would like people to take away when, when reading this book? (01:03:15)

[Edson Freeman]: An open mind, maybe a little humility in terms of, of humanity as a whole, like to just step back and say, maybe there's things that we don't know about, maybe we don't understand yet. We haven't figured out how to, how to measure them or what questions to ask. I feel like there's, there's a lot more unknowns than, than we like to think. And I'm sure every civilization throughout history thinks that they've almost got it all nailed down. (01:03:52)

James Iandoli: For sure. Yeah. (01:03:53)

[Edson Freeman]: And then, you know, some big new discovery comes along and opens things up and, and people fight against it. You know I'm sure when, when, you know, quantum theory came along, it took a long time for that to get accepted. And I feel like there's, there's people that are dabbling on the, around the edges of this in a scientific way but they can get discredited sometimes or, or lose their funding or things like that. So I applaud the people that are trying to figure this stuff out as, as part of their profession. (01:04:30)

[Edson Freeman]: And I don't know if we're ever going to get all the answers, but you know, it's, it's cool to keep trying to figure it out. (01:04:39)

James Iandoli: Yeah, for sure. For sure. And, and where, where can people find the book? Where can people connect with you and your work? (01:04:46)

[Edson Freeman]: So I've got a website set up, strangelightbook.com, where you can, you know, if you want to share a story with me, you can reach out that way. You can, I've got links to buy the book from various, you can buy direct from me or you can buy from various retailers. Even my favorite local book shop, you can buy from them if you want. So yeah, when you write a book, you find out that there's pros and cons to all the different ways that people can buy. You know, I might make more money one way, I might get more exposure one way, I might get more this or that. (01:05:22)

[Edson Freeman]: So I always tell people buy it from wherever you want to buy it from. (01:05:25)

James Iandoli: Yeah. So, yeah. And you know, it's been great speaking to you, finally. You know, again, I keep seeing this book come up and I saw you on Neon Galactic with James Falk, who's awesome. So it's great to finally speak to you and I look forward to whatever further projects you put out. And you have a YouTube as well? (01:05:49)

[Edson Freeman]: Yeah, it's mostly just shorts promoting the book. I haven't really done a whole lot else with it, but it's yeah, I've got I'm on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and all the places just sort of trying to do that, that author thing of letting people know about the book and, you know, stupid dad jokes and things along the way too. But yeah, you know, it's been, you know, it's been an interesting project. And I hope I can keep working in this space. (01:06:22)

[Edson Freeman]: You know, still got to pay the bills and do the day job. But yeah, you know, it's a fun side project for sure. (01:06:30)

Yeah. (01:06:31)

James Iandoli: Well, again, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. And I appreciate your time. And I appreciate you trying to deliver and communicate in a kind of authentic way of trying to tell these people's stories and taking the brunt for them just in case. Yeah, yeah. (01:06:56)

[Edson Freeman]: People can yell at me for being full of it or whatever, but yeah, I can take it. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on here. It's been a pleasure and I appreciate you letting me yammer on about all these things that I've been exploring. (01:07:17)

James Iandoli: Yeah, it's been very cool to talk, man. I'll speak to you next time. Take care. All right. Thank you. (01:07:22)

(2025-08-27)