Human Senses - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 8/9/23

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And welcome back to Coast to Coast George, and are with you back with Maureen Sieberg's book is fearfully and wonderfully made and her website is linked up at Coast tocoastam dot com. Maureen, who are some of the most talented sensors out there? Right now?

There is a woman in Scotland named Joy Known. She's a retired nurse and grandmother and she's working with scientists to identify Parkinson's disease, COVID cancer, tuberculosis all through the sense of smell.

Geez.

She is a super smeller who can detect these things.

We've heard that some hospitals have had cats who can sense cancer and they kind of cuddle up with the victim and they know something's wrong.

Yes, dogs too, but people to and you know, Joy explained it to me this way, the back of our neck, running down to the middle of our back. There's a lot of sebum there, like an oily secretion. She calls it a sink and she says so many cents on people are right there if we would only pay attention. And the way her abilities came to the fore is her husband started to smell differently to her, and at first she thought it was his long hours as an anesthesiologist,

Can you enhance these senses, Maureen?

Absolutely? So. What's really interesting is the senses are plastic, and unlike other forms of abilities like intelligence, they can be learned and grown. And in the last chapter of the book, called Vivify your Senses, I walk people through ten clear and enjoyable steps on how to expand your senses and they include things like simply practice. Joy Milne, the grandmother who can smell Parkinson's says, smell everything twice.

Is science beginning to look at this, Yes.

Very much so, And you know it's not. It is a renaissance, but it's not really declared or cohesive yet. Everyone is doing things out in their separate labs. But if you take a bird's eye view of it and talk to all of them, the things we're learning are just astonishing. For example, the eyes being able to see at the level of a single photon. So that work was done in twenty sixteen here in New York City

What is that?

So we can see photons? Right? We can see the smallest aspect of light, an atom of light. Can we see the activities of physics theorized by the greats in the past. Can we see two photons entangled with each other or in superposition with each other? Or are we going to see something completely different and rewrite the book on physics?

Fact I need readers now to see close up.

You and me both. But you know what's interesting, George, the gentlemen, they were all men who were studied so far. They're going to bring women in in later rounds. It wasn't intentional, but one wore glasses one war contact lenses and they were still able to see this. So what they did was put their subjects in what is called

Now, if they saw this, tell me the significance of being able to do this, it.

Means that we can actually see the fabric of things. That our eyes are so powerful, we are seeing an atom of light.

Wow, what about hearing and stuff like that?

Hearing is actually our most wide ranging sense. We can hear from twenty hurts to twenty thousand herts. So it's like the base of a nice stereo that the kind of sound that moves your pant leg at a concert, or the buzz of a mosquito. And these sound waves that we can pick up are also minuscule. They are smaller than the diameter of an atom. There is no machine on earth who can match us.

Didn't the lake Marilyn Monroe have some kind of ability?

Yes, So that was my and my professor's discovery. At the Norman Mailer writer's colony, I was up there writing my first book about synesthesia, and my professor called me and said, you have to pick up Norman Mahler's biography of Marilyn Monroe. And I did. I ran out and got it right away and called him back and he's like, this page, this page, Look what he says about her and her first husband actually described her as a cynisthete.

When asked what that is.

Yeah, so she has bonus senses. And the way he described it was she was like a lover of rock who sees vibrations when they hear the sound. And later I found Monaverey Miracle, who is Marilyn's surviving niece, and was able to ask her about it, and she said, not only was Marilyn Monroea sinisty, but she is two And it runs in families.

There are lots of them. You say, Billy Joel was one.

Yes, Billy Joel has such a vivid case of its. He he sees beautiful, colorful forms in the air when he's composing music.

And you say, I'm one.

Yes. Well, the last time I was on the show, we got into a bit and it a bit, and you realized that you associate color with numbers, which is beautiful.

Really, I don't know how I do that or why, but I do.

Yeah. Well, you know, George, they say, we're all born that way. Isn't that interesting? And for some of us four percent of us, like you and me, this pruning doesn't happen in the brain as it's growing, So all infants experience the world this way. But we continue to and I wonder, George, if you have superabilities that go in with that, Like do you do you have a very sensitive nose or palette? I know your hearing is extraordinary because you're very particular about sound.

I really never thought about the other things. Yeah, and sometimes when it's natural, you don't realize that.

Yeah. Isn't it interesting how we don't talk about these things because they're very personal, But it turns out they're key to so much. I mean, look what joy milk can do, and she can smell covid. Would you like to know what covid smells like? I'm not the other way.

I'm not sure.

It smells like apple cider plus infection.

That's not a very nice smell.

No, it's not. So we should be aware of that. And there's a lot more about that in the book.

What about people who sense death on other people death? Death?

You know, it's so intuitive that you brought that up because I was going to mention it next. A woman wrote to me today who had just read the book. The book came out yesterday. She read it the first day and she said, Maureen, I have to tell you before my dad got sick and died with hang freatic cancer. He smelled so different to me, and it really touched

To What about people again who have these abilities? And it's not just sensing through smell or stuff like that, but you can see auras or somebody who doesn't have an or like Edgar Casey had that ability.

Yes, so it's interesting because or a seeing, according to doctor Jamie Ward in the UK, is a form of synesthesia. So now they can look at these things in as MRI machines and know that people aren't just being outlandish or seeking attention, that these are actual human abilities.

It's very powerful, isn't it.

It is it is. And you know, for some reason, George, we're meant, we're We're conditioned to think that we're not special, that there's nothing extraordinary about being a human, even our valorization of other animals over ourselves. Like humans are so fond of talking about an eagle's vision right or a hound's ability to follow a trail. But we are all these things and more. And I'm so excited to think about a human future where we are the.

Technology, we could be artificial intelligence all by ourselves.

We are, My goodness, it came from our minds, didn't it. There must be a reason for that, because it's the way we work.

If people have these abilities, what do you recommend they do to make it work for themselves?

Well, there are ways to protect these abilities. So there are two things I recommend. In my last chapter, I talk about escaping the wonderful Synisy. Steve Roach is an Academy excuse me, a Grammy nominated composer, and he tells me in the book, you know, we have to have a sound diet in the way we are careful about

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