Hey, everybody. Welcome to Mysterious Circumstances podcast. I have a very, very special guest

on who hits me right now. And this is something that I don't normally do. I mean, I do, but

I got hit up in an email and it's like, hey, you know, we're doing some interviews with some

authors. And I saw this book and I was like, I want to talk to that guy because I am super, super

curious. I'm here with Gary Simmons. He wrote a book called Despail Flag. And why I found it so

interesting is because it combines neuroscience with the paranormal. Gary, you can tell is highly

educated. If you read the episode description, you can see all of his accolades and education

and in his books. And there's also a link to his book in there as well. So Gary, welcome,

welcome to the show. How are you today, man? I'm great. And thank you so much for having me and

I am honored. All right. I'm very happy to have you on. I guess let's get started with some of

your background. What got you interested in neuroscience in the first place and being a neurosurgeon?

Oh, geez. We're really digging back now. You know, you go through when you're in medical school,

you go through all sorts of incarnations of what you're going to be. And I went through a whole

bunch. I started, I think, with I was going to be a family doc and then I was going to be a

cancer doc and then I was going to be a general surgeon. Then I was going to be a cardiothoracic

surgeon and that's kind of where I was set to go into training. You know, you do your residency

training after medical school. But and so I had a residency all set up and I was prepared to kind

of go down the the tracks of a cardiothoracic surgeon when my last month in medical school,

literally the last month. I saw my first brain operation and I literally kind of stood there

and all I went, oh my god, I've got to do that. And I mean, I had to kind of switch engines in,

you know, mid in mid track and run around the country trying to find a place that would train me.

But it was it was one of those truly, it was one of those, I guess, epiphanies where you're like,

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