Consciousness isn’t just a problem for philosophers. On this episode of Dispatches, Kmele sat down with scientists, a mathematician, a spiritual leader, and an entrepreneur, all trying to get to the heart of “the feeling of life itself.”

The Santa Fe Institute is a cradle of modern research. Our host Kmele meets some of the brilliant minds who work there.

Combining years of neurological research and mindfulness techniques, Dr. Heather Berlin helps us better understand how the body’s most complex organ can easily be misled into negative thinking - and how we can stop that from happening.

Various environmental phenomena can play tricks on our brain.

We need a hypothesis that accounts for both the fine-tuning of physics for life but also the arbitrariness and gratuitous suffering we find in the world.

Lucid dreamers may have “privileged access to their inner world,” with “heightened awareness... to the outside world.”

What a long strange trip it's been.

Is immortality a tantalizing possibility or a philosophical paradox?

If the "self" is not real, then we are slaves to a billiard ball universe, trapped in a nihilistic nightmare in which we cannot change our fate.

Only about 10% of patients survive cardiac arrest. Of the ones who do, many have amazing stories to tell.

Could a theory from the science of perception help crack the mysteries of psychosis?

Will you die when your body dies?

In a psychedelic state, the relationship between your “narrative” and “minimal” selves seems to transform in unique ways.

Jung thought these autonomous entities live in your unconscious mind — often at a cost.

A relatively new interpretation of quantum mechanics asks us to reimagine the process of science itself.

Do humans share one consciousness? This psychologist says yes.

How do “you” emerge from a collection of cells? A biologist explains.

The Schumann resonances are the background hum of the entire planet. But they don't affect humans in any way.

Scientists can't define spirituality. But we can study its healing effects, says this Columbia psychologist.

Why does the DMT experience feel so familiar to some people — even those who are trying the psychedelic for the first time?

There were many similarities, but also some profound differences.

Our minds seem both physical and intangible. That paradox has gripped this neuroscientist since childhood.

Will we ever unravel the mystery of consciousness? Two academics made a 25-year bet on it. The scientist lost.

A proponent of panpsychism argues moral truth is inherent in consciousness.

The idea that consciousness emerges naturally alongside intelligence could be an anthropocentric distortion.

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Descartes broke from the European philosophers who preceded him and devised a new way of considering humanity and the world.

“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself — and there isn’t one.”

The dying brain experiences a surge of electrical activity. Could this help explain the mysterious phenomena of near-death experiences?

A recently identified stage of sleep common to narcoleptics is a fertile source of creativity.