This is really for Max:

There are some things that you can't verify. Like once, several years ago, I was staying at my parent's house. I had this horrible nightmare one night, that one of my two front teeth were missing. It was awful, I felt like a redneck hillbilly and was trying to hide it from everyone. It was a really vivid, embarrassing, emotional dream. When I woke up, the first thing I did was run to the mirror and make sure I had my front tooth. I did and thought, "whoo, what a nightmare! Glad that's over."

Then I went to the kitchen for breakfast. My mom was there, having her morning coffee. When she spoke, I noticed something was wrong with her teeth. One of her two front teeth was missing. I got chills and asked her what happened. She said she bit it off on a piece of food the night before. It was no big deal, she got it fixed that afternoon at the dentist. But I had arrived home from work very late the night she bit it off, like eleven, and she was already in bed. I hadn't spoke to her all afternoon or evening.

I can't believe this was a coincidence. But I don't know exactly what to make of it, either. You can't take something like this and make up a bunch of dopey theories about it. It was what it was. Obviously, a part of me knew what happened to my mom even though I didn't consciously know. So what, it doesn't prove reincarnation or souls or anything. We are still very primitive, we can't even get along! We don't know what's going on in our own bodies unless we cut another one open! If your own conscious mind doesn't know what's going on inside its own body, how is it supposed to interpret reality outside of it with any accuracy?

There is no proof for what happened other than my word it did. So I know it happened but it was not scientifically explainable or even provable to anyone else. But what does it prove? We don't know enough about consciousness or reality to even really guess!

All these so called scientific studies about consciousness are still in the beginning phases and that means they don't have a clue. You can't measure consciousness, you can't even define it properly. So how can you possibly come to any kind of conclusions about something supposedly involving consciousness? You can't - the thing you are using to evaluate the consciousness is consciousness, itself. We have a long ways to go to understand, we aren't ready. Imagine trying to teach a caveman to drive a car. He's simply not ready. First thing he's probably going to do is vomit all over it. Then pee his loin cloth, if he wears one.

The brain likes to find patterns, order and make sense of things. So that's why people hold on to dorky belief systems. It's scary to be truly open-minded. I don't mind it, I think it's a fun ride.