When Research Turns to Experience: A Conversation with Lisa Semmler and Dr. David Mitchell

0:00 Welcome to Big for Society. If you have Bigfoot activity to report from the same areas discussed in this episode, please reach out to me directly after this episode. And if you'd like to be on the podcast to discuss a personal Bigfoot encounter, please reach out to me directly at bigfo Society at gmail dot com. Do you wish there was more Big for Society to listen to every week? Well there is now. If you become a supporting member over at Patreon, you get a special members only episode every single week on Wednesdays, and sometimes even more episodes. Head on over to patreon dot com. Forward slash the Big for Society, and now let's get on with the show. All right, Big for Society. We've got the privilege of talking to a pair of new friends today. We've got Lisa Semler, who's a PhD candidate in the Integral and trans Personal Psychology department at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and doctor David SB. Mitchell, who specializes encrypted studies, particularly sasquatch.

1:00 So I'm excited to have both of you on here today. How's it going, guys, great? Thank you so much for having us. Awesome is there anything else that my listeners would want to know about you guys, what you do, what the institute is about, and all that good stuff. Yes, both being connected to the California Institute of Integral Studies, which focuses on integral which is more or less a kind of holistic approach to being in human diversity and the human experience. Our particular program being focused on integral transpersonal psychology and also some ethics. Psychology is somewhat of a niche field or subdiscipline, but we are really focused on bringing more research oriented approaches to the larger discipline of psychology and specifically to the gap that often persists between spirituality and psychology, such as everything from near death experiences, non egoic states where you're just going beyond the ego, and a variety of other experiences that people can experience or kind of pursuit. And so that's basically what the California Institute of Integral Studies is, and we're one of just several institutions in the United States that focus on this particular aspect of psychology.

2:28 Very interesting, So a lot of listeners probably right now they might be thinking that sounds awesome. What does Bigfoot have to do to play into all of this. I might be able to answer that. All right, go ahead, Lisa. There's a little background on myself. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in Boise, Idaho, and when I got my master's degree, I went on to get a PhD in marriage and family therapy, but then realized a solely Western approach was not didn't align with what my trusts were, and so I went to make a switch to what kind of psychology integrates the spirituality And that's how I found CIS. And because of my own personal experiences of either paranormal experiences, psychic experiences, states of higher consciousness that Western psychology would explain but not really help me in figuring out how to integrate it within myself. And that includes part of the reason why I'm here today is because I do study phenomenon related to extraterrestrial or star family or aliens for a broader term of our interactions with those beings and how it affects our ability to perceive and integrate that reality into our lives. And through my own studies, that's how cryptid experiences come along as well.

3:59 So I originally reached out to you. It was in the vein of Hey, I've noticed that a lot of spirituality connection, psychic connection, energetic exchange exists between humans and Sasquatch as. Well, which is fascinating because over the few years that I've done this podcast coming up on past five now, I believe I have started to have the theory where it feels like these witnesses that I talk to, these experiencers, it's almost it feels weird almost even saying it, but that like they have these experiences, they have these interactions, they're in an area, and then it almost feels like they have something unlocked. It's very strange, and I don't know if that's even that might be close to what you guys are saying too, but it just keeps seeing it come up over and over again, and I'm not really sure how to wrap my mind around it. But it's a very strange thing.

4:59 Absolutely, I'll just jump in briefly, so two things. One is absolutely what you're saying, Jeremiah. Those kinds of experiences can be wrapped into this larger umbrella of experiences, which we could refer to as entity encounters. At least that's how they referred to in the literature, which are a subset of exceptional experiences, and exceptional experiences themselves, which are a group of experiences that people can have everything again from trips as you would, to experiencing a variety of entities, from non humanoid entities to humanoid entities, etc.

5:39 And more. These exceptional experiences are one facet of what transpersonal psychologists can study, but also they're a facet of what parapsychologists can study. And parapsychologists have oftentimes been associated, at least in popular literature in popular culture with things like ghosts and other types of encounters. So that's one thing. Another thing is that our program doesn't explicitly offer training or education in en cryptid encounters, specifically around Sasquatch, But this is an area that is ripe for more research, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods research, and is also an area that some of our cousin or even sibling institutions like CIHS. The California Institute for Human Sciences is also another place where you have some of these things being looked at. The University of West Georgia is another. But we're just a small number of institutions institutes that are starting to look more so directly at some of these matters like entity encounters or kind of adjacent phenomenon, So I just wanted to bring that up as well.

6:53 Have you found that people that have sasquatch encounters will tend to also have interactions with other things such as maybe UFOs or aliens, and that there seems to be a real connection where they're not just going to experience the one thing, but they're probably going to have other things happen in their life as well. That was a segment of the dissertation proposal that I had worked on in order to get approval to do the research I'm currently conducting, which is, there's a lot of research in the literature for the past four or five decades that shows a link between people having UFO or ET encounters and then experiencing more parasychological phenomenon, specifically more encounters either with pultugeists or encryptids or sasquatch or developing a clairvoyant ability to see spirits or fairies or elementals.

7:55 So there is quite a bit in academic research that points to that, and part of the reason I chose my field of study is because I looked at all of that research and tried to figure out where is a gap in research. And one of the gaps I've found, which I eventually went with my study is called the et human connection that leads to psychic development. And so the study I'm currently conducting is a qualitative study having interviews and discussions with people who have had direct encounters with extraterrestrials or beings who they identify are not human but also not originating from Earth, so whether that be what they identify as extraterrestrials, aliens, or interdimensional beings, which is where a lot of sasquatch researchers put sasquatch in the category of interdimensional being, which would explain why humans have a lot of encounters with sasquatch that they capture on or in photographs, or they have a physical encounter or a psychic encounter. They hear them in the woods, they see evidence in footprints or hair, or mysterious things like broken branches or gift exchanges, but no one can and can seem to capture a body or have, like you know, an interview on a podcast with sasquatch. There

9:27 is a lot of research to point to to say that yes, these things are connected. So my research aims to talk to people who have had et encounters who then develop psychic abilities as a result. And psychic abilities is a category that includes increased parapsychological events or anomalous events. And so with some of the data I've collected so far, some participants have noted encounters with what they interpret is sasquatch after they started having contact with extraterrestrials from other planets, of the realms, other dimensions.

10:07 That's fascinating. So this contact that they're starting to have, would this be in all use terms used in the community, And if you're not familiar with them, please feel free to ask would this be considered like when people start to have mind speed happen? Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I think I alluded to that in my communications with you before this interview. I had my first experience with that this summer, and I when it happened, I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to make of it. Of all the psychic experiences I've had or paranormal things happened in my life, that was the first time where I had no context for what just happened. And I knew it was significant. I knew it was big, and so I had to reach out to other people doctor Mitchell included, to say, what was that? Only to have my experience validated by other people who actually have had direct contact or experiences with sasquatch.

11:08 Oh wow, that's fascinating. So did that happen in the middle of your research or was that at the beginning or. It was July sixth of this year the little backstory to that. So because of the research that I do, I've been paying attention to a lot of Sasquatch based either documentaries, books, research. I also follow indigenous content creators on social media. Stephanie big Eagle is one of my favorite content creators, so I've learned through her and that the Lakota and Dakota tribes talk a lot about how Sasquatch is telepathic and they can read your aura, your energetic field, and determine if you are safe to be in their space or if you are not safe person to be in their space. So I've been learning these things about how Sasquatch prefers to interact with us if we're going to be in the same geographical area, and I experimented with that when I went to Whitefish, Montana in May of twenty twenty four, and I specifically went with the goal of I'm going to put myself in a forested area. I'm going to create the mantras to commune with them, to meditate with them, experienced telepathy if they're willing. So I went with good faith and gifts of apples and fruits, and I brought a rose quartz

12:42 heart shaped pendant to leave as an offering in the forest. And so I had these mantras of hello, I would love to meet you, I'm safe for you, I'm not going to harm you, I'm not going to harm your babies. If you feel like showing yourself to me, please do. I'm not going to put you on the internet. I'm not going to tell anybody where you live. So I tried to create this environment hoping that I would have an experience, and of course I didn't, at least not in that moment that I know of. So I left the pendant high up on a tree. I left gifts of fruit and then said thank you and came back to home to Idaho. So that was in May, and then on July sixth, that was a particularly very stressful week for me, and I woke up at six o'clock in the morning with lots of racing thoughts, lots of worried thoughts about what was going on in my life.

13:35 And I'm a therapist, so I tried to use my therapy skills of try deep breathing, stretch your body, the us thoughts, stopping, try soft music. Nothing would make the thought stop, and so I was just in my head going, oh, I want the stop. And then out of nowhere I hear really loud Ooh. I had no idea what that was. I had no context for what was that. All I know is it was loud. It got my attention, It shook me up. It stopped all the swirling that was going on in my head, and I was overcome with a sense of relief and I was able to go back to sleep. And when I so, I sat there for a couple of minutes before going back to sleep and thought, ah, that was a sasquash. That's the sound I make in the forest. That's what I've seen or heard about, and so I thought, wow, it felt the energy of it felt feminine, and so I thought, oh, I wonder if she got my necklace. So that was just my experience with it, but still had to take a lot of time to think about it because I had no idea what was that, what happened? And so that's when I started reaching out to other people who maybe would know more about this than I would. And one of my good friends named Alex, who I know

15:05 has had a lot of a lot more paranormal experiences than I have, and she had disclosed to me that she's had encounters with sasquatch and she said, ah, all of that makes sense. They come to you when she described it as they've tagged me. So I went into a natural space, I made peace, I made the connection, and that was probably their recognition of we saw you and we're now connected. And she also said Rose Courts happens to be their favorite. Crystal courts is just from interviews I've done. If there's areas where there's big deposits of courts, there can be a lot of activity. I'm curious, why did you happen to choose that particular location in Montana that was.

15:53 Based on a lot of synchronousy. So doctor Mitchella smiling because he's a part of it. So over the past year and a half two years, with all the research I'd been doing for my own studies, I kept coming across this Whitefish, Montana and it would stand out. Big for society will be right back after these messages. And I always thought, this town, this mountain town in Montana, seems to keep popping up. I should go visit. But then I would forget. Your life would get busy, and then it would pop up again, and I would think, Oh, that's so strange. But why Whitefish, Why does that seem to have a lot of UFO or ET encounter reports.

16:51 And then it was last December, when we were about to go on Christmas break, I was having a conversation with doctor Mitchell and he had mentioned, Oh, I'm reading this book called Edges of Science. It talks a lot about the research that you're doing. So I ordered the book on Amazon and got it. The first chapter is about experiences in Whitefish, Montana with sasquatch. Oh that's it. That's like the third major ping. And so I waited to book a flight because flights were really expensive at that time, and then it just happened to be that, Oh I set up a Google alerts for flights, and I got a ping that the flight was like two hundred dollars cheaper, so I went to go book my ticket, and then while I was booking my flight, the price went down again by eighty dollars, and so I was like, Okay, message Recie, I'm supposed to go to Whitefish, Montana. And so that's how I ended up there.

17:54 That's some weird synchronicities for sure. When you got back to your home, did you have any vivid dreams that started after that? Yes? And no, the so vivid dreams always happen for me. I'm a lucid dreamer. I don't recall any lucid dreams that were related to anything anomalist. However, after my experience with the sas disrupting my anxiety thoughts and giving me a sense of calm, I was trying to figure out other people sometimes know the name of their sasquatch being, and so I just meditated on it and put out a thought of I would love to know her name.

18:44 And then about two weeks after I had that thought and that put out that intention, I had a dream that was really significant in terms of a significant actor showed up in it. So one of my college advisors showed up, someone I very much respected from two thousand and eight, and she was sitting at a desk, very serious, and she leaned over at me and she said Hyrie. And then that was it, and that was the end of the dream. And I woke up going the heck is a kyrie? Why did doctor Reader show up to say the word kyrie? That's weird? And I thought, Oh, here's the answer I've been looking for. I've wanted to know what's the name? What's the name? And then I have this random, chance, really vivid dream of my old college advisor showing up to say one word. So that did happen.

19:46 So you go from studying and doing research to now you're quite in the middle of things yourself, and it sounds like are continuing to progress and probably become more and more intense. Right, that's correct, and it is slightly off topic, so I won't go too far into it. So another just for my own personal studies, more goddesses started coming into my awareness, particularly synchronistic moments when other people would mention to me, Hey, Lisa Artemis is trying to reach out to you. Artemis is the goddess of natural spaces and animals and nighttime hunting, and so I thought, oh, if there was going to be a goddess connected to natural spaces like forests and forest creatures, and one of her primary animal symbols is a stag or a deer, I thought, Okay, that could be a spiritual connection that I was not aware of. So my own personal research went in that direction.

20:48 Is learning which deities are reaching out to me and how are they all connected. That's fascinating, Lisa and doctor David, we are going to get to you in a minute. Is a fascinating converse. Have you had to set boundaries yet with the individuals that you have been in contact with in any way. Not related to Sasquatch. I've had to set boundaries with I don't want to call them poltergeist because I don't know if that's what they were. I've had to set boundaries with energetic spirits or ghosts, if you will, bothering me in my home and my boundaries work. I've also with some of the clients I work with, I've had to teach them how to set firm boundaries with either spirits or extraterrestrial energies that were effective, but it's not been part of my experience that boundaries had to be placed with anything related to the Sasquatch.

21:45 Okay, that is super interesting, and be careful how I say it, but it is. It's so incredibly par for the course. There are so many people out there that are also experiencing this time they go to an area, they come back, stuff starts to happen, and then these people are like, what's going on? They're just totally blown away and it's like the story gets repeated over and over and it's yeah, someone has to figure out what all this, why it's happening, what this means. It's so interesting and maybe that's just my lack of knowledge as well. But doctor David, have you had any interesting experiences with Sasquatch yourselves? It sounds like you're really into the topic of it.

22:33 Yeah, so before first of all, this is a wonderful conversation. Thank you both for having me inviting me. I have had some somewhat what I would say are ambiguous in other ways, very clear encounters, no class A class B encounters for the BFRO classification. But what I have had are one or two visions or dreams that were for me meaningful, I guess I would say, so, I don't have any trace evidence, you know, footprint casts or hair samples or anything, but I have this one dream. Actually, for example, I'm waiting to share this other vision that I had because I want to get some more feedback from the person I was with first and maybe do a regression on it. But because I don't, there are some pieces of it that I don't entirely remember. So I just wanted to say that, but this dream I had was interesting. I have been rather ambivalent in real life in waking life about whether or not to do any field investigation. I'm not a field investigator. And the reason I've been ambivalent is because of what we might call in academia ontological ambiguity. There's this question that keeps persisting in the big fitting community as to what is asquatch right, And so that question is at the heart of ontological enduity, ontology dealing with the reality of the thing,

24:03 and ambiguity being just that confusion about that nature. And so there have been all kinds of hypotheses and narratives put forth about sasquatch, from ets or star people to demons to angelic beings or deithic beings, to them being purely flesh and blood of course apes or everything from great apes to human And so the question around not knowing what I am spending this time of mine thinking about writing about, et cetera, has been something that has kept me playing double dutch, doing this kind of h not sure approach avoidance kind of thing. So that's the background.

24:52 But in real life I had tentatively committed to not do any field investigator investigations at least yet, And in the dream, even though I had made that commitment in waking life, I had involved myself in a BFRORO expedition. I think in the dream it was somewhere in Alaska, and we'd split up. We'd been given an orientation the night before our field outing, and then we'd split up into different groups, and at some point I'd encountered this cave that was up on this kind of ice shelf or something like that, and ended up getting a head injury or something to that effect. And as oftentimes happens in dreams, the scene shifts and suddenly I'm laying on a cot in my room, this room that we had rinted out or something like that, and all the lights are off except for there. All the lights are off in the room except for down this hallway that my cod is facing. There's a light way down the hallway.

25:53 And so then I have this. I'm looking at the wall, lying on my back, and there are these two shadows, one massive, rather large shadow and a smaller one that are approaching my bed. I can't see what's making the shadows yet because they haven't entered. They haven't come around the corner in the hallway yet. And then they entered the room, and it's a large male sasquatch and a little one like hugging on his leg. And so the large one, I don't think he ever actually said anything, but he comes over to the cot and he sits me up, and I think at some point I had to heave to move some things out of my system, either before or after he did this thing where he picks me up and he clings me over his shoulder and he hums, he hums. And I grew up with cats, and so it can be reminded me of a cat's per right. We oftentimes hear about infrasound and these incredible frequencies that sasquatch beans can apparently generate, and so his hums were energizing my body, the front of my body along my vagus nerve, if you will, and and then he puts me back down. And after he puts me down, I'm staring at the two of them, and I'm not really getting much in the term in terms of detail, right I'm looking at them because there are really no lights on in the room, there's no ambient light coming in from outside, and so I'm looking at them. And then the little one finally peeks from around his father's

27:26 leg and he's staring at me, and I'm getting this intense, radiating sense of like joy and happiness coming from the little one, and it's just it's almost overwhelming, and I'm like Wow in the dream, and then after I woke up later, Wow, this is really this amazing amount of positivity coming from this being. And then at some point I think there's this communication of his name and it's something to the effect of bonum, and I said, well, that's very interesting. And then at some point thereafter, soon thereafter I woke up, and I don't have any particular I stake no claim in terms of what Sasquatch is.

28:09 I'm interested in all accounts and all that the data decide for me what Sasquatch is. But my main question isn't so much about what Sasquatch is. It's more so about what do Sasquatch do and what does that tell us about who we are as humans? Where's the overlap between who we are and what they are? And are they truly human? Are they the original humans as some people have suggested? And then what can we learn from the narratives about Sasquatch? And some of those narratives, in my opinion, include dreams. It doesn't matter if the dream is quote unquote anthologically real or not. It matters what we do with that, the meaning that we make, at least from my position in psychology. And so I found the dream to be interesting. It overlapped to some extent with some of what I've heard elsewhere in the literature, and so I find it to be personally meaningful and potentially insightful, again, mostly in terms of how that squatch seemed to you sound in their behavior in either mundane ways or more mysterious or mystical ones. And so, yeah, that's one one quote unquote encounter that I've had, even if it was just in my mind, and I found it to be meaningful again, So thanks for asking.

29:30 That is that is pretty cool and I understand that whole You're not wanting to cross the line or get in there's that thing. And I'm pretty sure, yeah, I crossed that pretty hard. About a year ago or mah, two years ago. My buddy was just like, yeah, you got to come out with me, come out with the and then man, stuff started kicking off, and before I know it, I'm out in Oregon in the middle of the Willamette National Forest, thirty miles out on a forest road, and we're getting roared and screamed at and it's once you, Yeah, you need to know if you really want to cross over that line, especially in your situation, because man, it can change things. At Lisa knows that herself. She went to Whitefish and then she gets back and it spam.

30:16 When you were in Whitefish, Lisa, did you try to find people that had experiences as well? I did. Everyone just gave me the side eye. In fact, I had a surreal experience, and I don't know, I don't want to derail too far, so I have a with all my synchronicities of how I booked the trip. I was telling some of my clients who I work with, Hey, we're going to have to reschedule your appointment because I'm going to be out of town this week. And one of my clients of female, said, oh, where are you going? And I said, I'm going to Whitefish, Montana. And she said, that's so strange. I was born in Kallis bell I grew up there, and she's had as far as I know, I've not asked her if she's had the sasquatch encounters, but she's had other kinds of experiences there.

31:07 Big for Society will be right back after these messages. And I thought, oh, this is okay, this is in line okay. And she recommended that I go to Moos's Saloon. She said it's the best pizza and berry you'll ever have. And so I walk in and I'm like, this is very like old school dark tavern, animal heads on the wall, like these are all locals. So I sit up at the bar and I'm looking around, go okay, I stand out like I really don't belong here. And so it was hard for me to strike up conversation with anybody. However, I kept having a strange experience. I was sitting at the bar. The barstools are very old school. There was a like a six inch backrest on the bar stool, and so I was leaning up on the bar and waiting for my pizza, and I kept feeling this thud on the back of my bar stool, like someone was coming by and just whacking my bar stool. And I kept looking behind me. Who keeps running into me? Why are people like shoving past me? Are people tripping over?

32:37 Am I in the way? And No. Every time I would turn around and see what has just hit me, there'd be nothing there. And so it happened probably three or four times before I just tapped on the person who was two barstools away from me. I said, so sorry to bother you. Is this bar haunted? And he was like probably, I don't know. So I was like, oh, okay, something people squacken me and I don't know what it is, and he's like, oh okay. So that kind of led to small little chit chat. And then later on we just make little chitchat as we're sitting there, but nothing serious. And then the bartender, who was quite a salty individual. I had I think one and a half glasses of wine, which is enough for me to feel tipsy. And I said, hey, bar Cape, what's the local word? Where do I need to go to meet sasquat?

33:34 Oh? No, you're one of those. And so he dismissed me pretty easily. And so he said, I've been hunting my entire life. I've never seen a sasquatch. So I thought, okay, And then later on I said, okay, one more question. Where do I got to go to have an et encounter? Where do I have to go in this town to see UFOs? And he again just dismissed me. It was like, lady, were full of all the questions, aren't you? And I was like, yeah, that's kind why I'm here. So I there were other restaurants I went to where I just made casual conversation with the server or the bartender, and they were all like, I don't know, So there's no humans were on board with me there.

34:22 I bet there is someone listening to this that could probably provide one or two. I think we're going to have ways to reach out to you guys in the show notes, if you're cool with that. Like emails. I adore people's recommendations. I really tried to find them before I went, which is how I was told to go to Moose's Saloon and then. But yeah, I would love if your listeners have recommendations for uh particular spots to go. My airbnb where I stayed was quite magical and lovely. It was probably about nine miles outside of of the downtown area of Whitefish. It was located in the middle of the woods. I got that recommendation and the most excitement I saw.

35:09 There was a area in your research so far, and I'm going to ask it and you can decline there might be stuff you can't talk about. Sure, I would imagine you're probably partnering with people that are experiencing this as well, and it's part of your research. Are there any interesting things you've come across where people are having these interactions that you might be able to share And if not, that's okay. I think I can share generalities without giving specifics, so if anyone happens to be listening to this, they're not going to know, Oh, she's talking about so and so from this state. There are a couple of things where one of my participants reported that and she didn't have ET contact until.

35:57 Adulthood, and part of it was living in a remote area where she and her spouse had acreage and some wooded areas nearby. And she had a particular encounter in her driveway and that led to not very long after that, maybe days or weeks, seeing bright orbs of light moving through the trees of her property, and when she would go and investigate, and she would try to decipher what am I seeing here? Are these ets again? Are they back? But they're just coming in orb form? But then her understanding as she was trying to locate them or interact with them. She never did go up and touch or talk to or have an encounter with the orbs, but the telepathic communication that occurred in that exchange, she surmised that it was sasquatch energy presenting as an orb And then the other one pointed to it wasn't a place where she lived, but a place where she had visited in weeks Vermont, where it was described as a portal where lots of inexplicable things happened to either plant life, corn crops, animal mutilations, not the kind of animal mutilations that you care about in UFO citing reports, but more large animal, large predator

37:29 carrying away a deer carcass, like those kinds of reports. Yeah. Another one of my participants did say that she did visit a place like that where she did encounter not sasquatch itself per se, but the after effects, seeing the destruction to several rows of corn and seeing what she described as it seemed like an entity just picked up a young tree from the roots and just tossed it aside, something just picked up a tree and tossed it. So that has come up in my research. That is entirely fascinating. Yeah, that really lines up with people I've talked to as well, Doctor David. Have you and you've been doing this for years and I'm not sure if this is just because I'm getting more and more interested in the subject, but have you felt like there is an increase in more sightings or more experiences over the last few years.

38:30 Yeah, Yeah, I appreciate that question. So maybe there might be a kind of sampling error where it might be that there's just as many experiencers having encounters. It is just that people are more likely to share thanks to as some folks in the Bigfitting community who were aware of and Jeremiah, you might have mentioned this yourself at some point since post twenty seventeen, and this is something that Lisa and I talk about. You have this surge, this kind of seed change in how the UFO and ET topic are discussed in popular culture since the publication of the New York Times article that discussed the existence of the previously secret program a temp And so I think that in some ways what we might be seeing is potentially due to that, and also due to the presence of Sasquatch in popular culture thanks to shows like Monster Quest in Finding Bigfoot and maybe folks kids who want you to watch Monster Quest or now now coming back around to it, I think that there is a bit more space for people to discuss these things. It's just that even though they're still fringed as it were, there's a little more comfort and people might not get as mini side eyes. Even though I think they're they're

40:02 still very there. There are still more side eyes. There's still more denial than I would pay and that's something that I would like to change. But a long answer to your question, maybe perhaps, perhaps, but I think that that would take maybe some research. Hey, it's an empirical. Questioners, Absolutely that I might like the answer to that. It's something I gotta something I gotta work through myself as well. Guys, it's been a fascinating conversation. But is there a way that my audience can help you in what you are researching right now? Oh? Yeah, thank you. I'm not.

40:44 I am currently working on some research, but that's a bit a field from basically, I'm working on some writing projects, but we've already collected the data for most of them. But the other most of the manuscripts currently working on are not involving. They're more theoretical, inspecting the as opposed to research oriented. But I can share my contact information and I'd be more than welcome to have people reach out to me. And I think, Jeremia, you said you'll be putting some of our contact info in the show notes. Absolutely, yeah, thanks. But yeah, Lisa, please sure. I think I also need to back up a second.

41:24 I uh just realized I hadn't provided this information yet for your audience. Doctor Mitchell is actually my dissertation chairperson. He has my dissertation committee for the research I'm doing. He's my chair person at cis. My internal member of my committee is doctor Dean Raden for those of you who don't who aren't familiar with him, he's the chief scientist at the Institute of Neuetic Sciences, has a long history of doing research on these topics as a history and electrical engineering, being and physics, and beauty in psychology. And then my external member is doctor Sean Esbjorn Hargens.

42:08 He is the Dean of Integral Education and no Whatic Sciences program director at the California Institute for Human Science. My entire process is being overseen by these three experts in their various fields, and so the interaction I would love to see with your audience, if it happens to pertain to them, if it speaks to them. Is so I'm halfway through my research study and I still have to recruit ten to fifteen more participants. And essentially the criteria is they have to be over the age of eighteen, speak and write fluent English. It is worldwide, so anyone from the globe can participate, and there's some other screening criteria that they would have to meet, but essentially, if they've had life experiences where they've experienced et contact and then started to develop psychic abilities, whether that be parapsychological events, anomalist experiences, if they did start to notice and encounters with sasquatch, or the psychic abilities. The umbrella term also includes things like if you've had a near death experience, if you have electrical or technology interferences, being able to astral project or remote view, having telepathy or telekinesis by location, mediumship, so a lot of different ways that humans higher consciousness

43:45 evolves as a result of their contact. So if anyone in your audience can reflect on their life and go, yeah, that's me, I would love to talk to them. And there's a three step process, so it would be the initial screening questionnaire that determines if they're eligible for the study, and then there's a follow up questionnaire asking about it. I provide a checklist of about twenty different psychic abilities that also includes an other field, so if they happen to have a different kind of psychic related experience, they can enter that. And then also it asks about if they have any identifiers for what beings they encountered, like labels did you meet a gray, did you meet sasquatch?

44:32 Have you met or did you develop animal communication as a result, and that's how you interact with sasquatch now, So they're open fields for people to describe what their experience was. So those are the two first the first two processes, and then the third process is a one hour zoom interview where I have structured my interview questions. There's five main questions asking about their experiences, and then with each question there might be three or four follow up questions. And then from there I examine the transcripts and look for commonalities in what people are reporting to me.

45:14 When you are done with this, I'm just going to say a project. Just because my lack of upper terms, I'm not in this. I'm in the big foot field. I'm not in the educational field anymore. So my apologies. But will you be publishing a paper or anything like that regarding this. Yes, this study I'm conducting is for my dissertation to achieve my PhD. Maybe doctor Mitchell, if you have more insight on this, so I know internally within our school, they make an announcement of who is defending their thesis, and my own outreach either on social media or things I can announce when i'm going to be defending my PhD, so that kind of announcement would be made, but I'm not sure how it would work if CIS makes a broader announcement to the world, Doctor Mitchell, do you know.

46:09 Yeah, that's a great question. I'm I'm not sure that they typically do. But we can definitely share your the zoom link that they end up giving you with the Big for Society podcast community folks might be interested in attending. And then also after you publish your dissertation, people can look it up and get access to it online through most likely I think it's either ProQuest or one of the other databases. Yeah, fascinating, I know definitely a lot of listeners would love to read through that once that comes out. But Lisa and doctor David, this has been just a really, really interesting discussion. I've learned a ton from it, and I would be keeping up to date with your future work as well. But did you guys have any closing thoughts before we wrap up our conversation today? And also what's the best way people can keep up to date with what you're doing with the university.

47:11 Great Lisa, do you want to go first or do you want me to sure? I guess some final thoughts are once I started becoming aware of your work, Jeremiah, I love the content that you bring, and I love the energy that you bring to the I guess the world of the internet and how we discuss these topics, bringing legitimacy and rational discourse to these topics. I really appreciate that about you and then being able to keep in touch. I would love if we could do that, and I would imagine that just in my own social medias are the social media accounts that I have. I'm just not very popular on social media. So yes, I plan on announcing to the world when my searches published, and I plan on maybe producing my own copies and given them out for Christmas gifts.

48:07 But I will definitely let you know where the general public can find that information. Awesome and doctor David, Yes, so a few hopefully quick shout outs here. So Lisa and I are members of the Exceptional Experience Er Empowerment Initiative, and it's a group of individuals who were mostly mental health professionals, but we're engaged in educational resources and community building and sharing around ways to help mental health professionals be more prepared to support individuals who have, for example, entity encounters like encountering sasquatch, etc. And so we do have a website and I've provided Jeremiah with that with that link. Another thing is the Minefield Bulletin from the Parapsychological Association as well as the Edge Science Journal with the Society for Scientific Exploration. Those are two organizations that are professional that also produce peer reviewed journals, and Minefield Bulletin and Edge Science except publications accept submissions from people. So if you're a solid writer and you have information that you want to share with the world, both Edge Science and Minefield are more public facing and are that is, they're focus more on lay folk and not necessarily on academic or the academic community. And so I highly suggest people look at those organizations and those publications.

49:36 I'm on the editorial board for Minefield Bulletin. The last thing I would say very quickly is that there's a book, Paranormal Ruptures, that I contributed to as an author, and that book received one of the twenty twenty four Book Awards from the Parapsychological Association, and the chapter that I wrote on it is about the disconnect between Western culture or Western science, it's mainstream science more generally, and the pursuit or discovery of sasquatch. So I would just say that for anybody who's interested, are okay picking up a book that has paradorable of the title, definitely check that out or you can reach me at DSB Mitchell at gmail dot com, and I'd love to hear from you about any questions or anything you want to share. So I'm really glad to be here, really thankful Jeremiah for all that you do and for the community that you've cultivated.

50:30 Fantastic Lisa similar Doctor David SB Mitchell, thank you so much for coming on the show and we will definitely be in touch, but thank you again. To participate in Lisa's study or contact Lisa or doctor David directly, please go to these show notes which contain that information, and thank you for listening. Here. At big for Society, our goal is to provide a platform for those that have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter and is safe in respect environment. But we need to hear your story. If you've experienced something that you just can't explain, please send me an email at Bigfoot Soociety at gmail dot com. Then we can start the conversation.

51:14 I know a lot of you have not shared your encounter at all. It's been twenty years and it's time that you get this off your chest and then you can get some well deserved for rest because I know you haven't been sleeping. I understand what you're going through and I appreciate every one of you listening. Bigfoot Society podcasts hosted by our captain there Amaya Byron. Whereas all Bigfoot, all the time, have you ever had the urge to do more? To be more? Now? You can by joining Bigfoot Society on the patreons. Get out free episodes and even number only episodes, take part in movie Night and even live video chats, interact behind the scenes with Jeremiah and other Patreon members like me, play it the Powerful podcast goes on, and you may contribute a verse in our Patreon community car padm Seize the day, big twitters and make your lives extraordinary.

52:16 Please take a minute to help out the show by subscribing on YouTube, making sure you hit the bell so you don't miss any notifications, and share the episode on YouTube with a friend. Also, if you're listening to us on a podcast Thank you so much. Make sure that you're subscribed. Share the show with a friend. Really, it's all about sharing the show wherever you can. If you've had a Bigfoot encounter related to the following, or know someone who has, please reach out to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com or pass on my email. Here's the list. These are all on Oregon by the way, Oakridge, Dexter Fall Creek, to Shoot, National Force Area, Cultist Lake, Spirit Lake, Subtle Lake, Mackenzie River Area, Sweet Home Area, the area west of Crater Lake, east of two thirty West Diamond Lake Highway and north of sixty two Crater Lake Highway. You can use email Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. A special thank you to all the Bigfoot Society, Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's your support that helps keep the show going and I extremely appreciate it. If you want to join in the fun, you can join over at patreon dot com forward slash the big Foot Society.

53:36 I'll see you there and again, thanks for listening.