REWIND: Talk Tracks Ep. 6: Alzheimer's and Telepathy

Today, we're going back to Talk Tracks Episode 6 and to the incredible man and husband Dan Gerke to bring his story into focus and to prepare you for the role that he plays in what comes next. Dan's experience telepathically communicating with his wife Denise after she lost speech was an incredible clue for us in our exploration of what consciousness really is, where it comes from, and what it looks like at its fullest potential. And next week on December 22nd, we return to Dan in a pivotal way as we take a much closer look at how he is able to do what he does and how his story and abilities lead directly into our final chapter of this season when we push the limits of consciousness in all of us. With cold days, big goals, and little time to cook, Factor makes healthy eating easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs. 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If you haven't yet listened to season one of the telepathy tapes, I encourage you to start there. It lays the foundation for everything we'll be exploring in this journey. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, non-speakers, and experiencers who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today, but won't for long. So I'm really excited about today's episode because it dives even deeper into our exploration of telepathy. Specifically in People with Alzheimer's and dementia. In the last episode of the Talk Tracks, we told the story of a woman in the late stages of cancer whose consciousness seemed to be traveling to her childhood home when she drifted into a sleep state. And then something caught the eye of our telepathy tapes coordinator, Catherine Ellis, as she was going through some of our incoming emails. So Catherine, you started working for me in December and you have your eyes on our incoming emails and messages and you kind of flagged something. What did you see? Well, what really caught my attention is that we're getting a surprising number of emails about Alzheimer's and dementia. People are saying that they're experiencing thought sharing or telepathy with someone who has dementia or late stage Alzheimer's. Okay. And just for clarity, we're talking about caregivers, family members, nurses, right? And they were all describing the same similar experience, which felt like genuine moments of telepathic connection with someone who had Alzheimer's or dementia. So you said that to me and I have to confess that I thought it was implausible. I had come to believe that yes, telepathy was legitimate and verifiable amongst non-speakers with autism, but how could it manifest elsewhere in such large numbers? But you said something that really hit me in my heart because it validated what parents of non-speakers had previously been saying. They were terrified to talk about it openly because they didn't think they'd be taken seriously. Exactly. Some of the people who wrote in even said they were afraid they were going crazy, but that they were absolutely certain that something real was happening, that their loved one was somehow communicating with them beyond words. And one name kept popping up as someone who had been through it and really put language to the experience, Dan Gerke. Okay, so tell me about Dan. Dan wrote a book called Unforgettable Unbelievable about his wife Denise, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at just 56 years old. As her disease progressed and she lost the ability to speak, Dan says he began communicating with her telepathically. And now he's become a kind of sounding board for others who are going through similar things and don't know where to turn. So Catherine asked if it would be okay to do an interview with Dan herself to check this all out and ended up being so fascinating and so important that we're featuring this interview today so others out there going through the same thing won't feel so alone. So here we go. Okay, I'd love to hear a little bit about the moment that you and your wife Denise found out she had Alzheimer's disease. So Denise was diagnosed when she was just 56 years old when that was in 2012. And it was a challenge to get the diagnosis. It took about a year and a half before we got an affirmative diagnosis of what was going on. I was shocked that somebody 56 years old could have Alzheimer's. I had no idea she could have that or anyone could have that at that young of an age. Denise's reaction was somewhat muted. I was a little surprised. She didn't show any emotion. She just sat there. We talked a little bit about the disease and kind of next steps which for him, for the doctor, wasn't much. He just wanted us to come back in a few months and do a follow up checkup. So on the way out of his office, there is a rack of flyers and brochures and Denise comes storming out of the office and she is grabbing every flyer and every brochure about Alzheimer's, this treatment, that treatment, this therapy, that therapy and we had a stack of papers. And that was really no different than how she handled life in general. It was this just take charge attitude and we're going to find out more. We're going to do something about this. And I know her attitude and thought was I'm just going to keep living my life as much and as well as I can. That was the day of the diagnosis. So then as Denise's disease progressed, she gradually lost her ability to speak. But what happened next was something Dan never expected. So Catherine, tell us what happened in the silence that followed. As Denise's disease progressed, she gradually lost her ability to speak. But what happened next was something Dan never expected. A new kind of communication began to emerge, one that didn't rely on words at all. Some reports that once Denise became nonverbal, he began to read her mind and communicate with her telepathically. At first he was shocked. So we were about two and a half years into the diagnosis and into the disease process. She was still at home and I was her full-time caregiver. And at the same time, I was still working full-time and leaving the house in the morning and coming back worrying about her. But yet that's the way it had to be. So I had had a particularly hard day getting her up and around and getting her places. One of the biggest issues we were having at the time was her toileting. And that was everything from getting her in the bathroom. And I just could not get her to sit down. And that transferred out to getting her in the car and all kinds of different things. I was just exhausted. I had had a particularly really hard day at work, very stressed out from the day. And we get home and the questions from the Alzheimer's patients just tend to go in circles. It's that same question coming up every minute or two minutes. This behavior is incredibly common in Alzheimer's patients and is linked to the breakdown of short-term memory. The hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for forming new memories, is one of the first regions affected by the disease. This can be incredibly disorienting and emotionally draining for caregivers. You just have to take a deep breath and give the same answer over and over again. So she decided, you know, it's about time for bed. So she goes back to bed and I said, I'll be back in a little while. I just had to decompress. I had to just be away from her, be away from the Alzheimer's for a little bit. So after a bit of decompressing, Dan goes to bed. I was exhausted. I was laying there next to her and I remember hearing myself, I said to myself, you know, if I could only talk to you and you could communicate back, that would help this situation. In somewhat of a frustration, I said that. And in my mind, I heard her voice. The intonation of her voice say, well, talk to me. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how we support our nervous systems, especially at the end of the day, when our bodies are supposed to download and rest. One thing I've added to my routine is magnesium breakthrough by bioptimizers. I kept hearing about it from doctors and wellness experts that I trust. And what stood out to me is that it's not just one form of magnesium. It combines seven different forms, along with key cofactors, so your body can actually absorb and use it. Magnesium plays a role in so many systems, from relaxation to muscle function to supporting more restful sleep. And most people don't even realize they're running low. 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Go to kachava.com and use code tapes for 15% off. This is Kachava, K-A-C-H-A-V-A.com code tapes. Wow. Okay. So what was your reaction? I was somewhat taken back yet I said, all in my head, I said, okay, all right, how do I get you on the toilet so that it's easier for both of us? She starts explaining and again, I'm hearing her voice and I'm looking down next to me, right? She's fast asleep, not moving a muscle, not saying anything. It's all what I hear in my head. She explains, well, okay, so you got to position me, grab my hips and turn me this way. And at the same time, I now know she was showing me pictures, right? Images in my mind of what to do. Turn me this way, push me down, do this, do that, right? That is so cool. I'm like, okay, thank you. I get up the next morning, I'm excited. I'm like, okay, I have a new method to get her in. So we go into the bathroom and within 30 seconds, I've got her sitting down and I am raising my hands, whooping it up. It's like the NFL player scoring the touchdown. So the next night comes around that same night, then I go back and I thought, okay, okay, let's see if this works again. I thought, Denise, I need help getting you in the car. How do we do that? So it's easier for both of us. Same thing. She tells me what to do telepathically in my mind, shows me the images of how to maneuver her to get in the car. And guess what? Same thing the next day in the car in 20 seconds. And I'm doing the victory dance around the car as I go toward my door. So that's how it started. So how do you reconcile with that? What do you think is going on in the brain that if she can't speak and if she's unable to remember things and communicate with you, why is she still able to communicate with you telepathically in a coherent way? I've come to believe that who I am communicating with is Denise's higher self, our soul, said another way, right? That is who I'm communicating with. And that higher self and soul is all seeing, all knowing, all loving. And so I also think that with Denise and with other Alzheimer's patients that they become withdrawn in the physical world and actually become more connected with their higher selves and whatever it is on the other side, just because they lose all the sensations and the physicality of being in the bodies that we're in and their minds go and stay in this place. And the higher self kind of kicks in and says, yeah, we're here. And that was the communication, the person, so to speak, I was communicating with. Yeah, I've heard from some other people in emails, a similar theory that they feel like their loved one is slowly almost slipping into the next realm or the other side and that their physical body is still just kind of here, but that that's not really a true representation of them anymore. Yeah, very much so. And I've heard plenty of stories and I experienced this somewhat with Denise. It was probably a year and a half or so before she passed away. I walked into her room and she is just staring off into the corner of the room. And I had this immediate because I had this connection with her. I immediate sensation that, oh, she's talking to her parents. I would feel her mom or her dad come and be with her from time to time. And she was she was most connected to her dad in this physical lifetime. So that connection was not surprising to me. And I thought that was something that was going on just a sense I had. OK, so Catherine, at this point in the story, what were you thinking? Well, I really couldn't stop thinking about why Dan was able to communicate with Denise telepathically. I mean, there are so many people with Alzheimer's out there. Right, because it's like, why does this one guy get to telepathically communicate with his spouse with Alzheimer's when there's so many people who probably can't? So Catherine did some fact checking. And Catherine, how many Americans are living with Alzheimer's? In 2023, an estimated 6.7 million Americans were living with the disease. And the numbers expected to more than double by 2060. So huge numbers of people are impacted by Alzheimer's. And how was that reflected in our inbox? Like, did we get five to 10 emails from people saying they experienced nonverbal telepathic communication with their loved ones with dementia or Alzheimer's? Or was it like way more than that? If I had to guess, it would probably be a little bit more than 20. OK, so this phenomenon really does seem like a bit of a key maybe to the question of whether telepathic communication is available to anyone. Right, like, are we getting a glimpse of higher consciousness with this population? And is there some part of ourselves that remains even if memory and language fade away? Or are we all just ignoring something that's always been open and available to us? So Catherine, let's go back to your interview with Dan. Dan, why do you think you were able to do this with Denise? I think part of the reason the communication with Denise continued was because I was open to it. And I remember saying to her, tell me more, I'm open to hearing more. I think also because of that thought, mentality and what I was putting out to the universe, other Alzheimer's people started coming to me. It was as if I had literally opened the door and these people saw that I could hear them and talk to them. Wait, what? You gained the ability to telepathically communicate with other people with Alzheimer's? So see if I can describe this. So the Alzheimer's person loses their ability to talk quite regularly. OK, so a lot of the people that were in Denise's memory care facility could not speak. Dan describes how individuals in Denise's memory care facility seem to know that Dan was able to telepathically engage with them. People he had never met started coming up to him, somehow recognizing he was able to receive what they were thinking. Their higher selves would recognize that, hey, this guy, Dan, he can hear you. The physical Alzheimer's person would stand there next to me and look at me. And I knew immediately, oh, oh, this guy wants to communicate with me. And so I would start that conversation. It was so cool. But it was, again, this door opening. And to this day, I see people. I know there are Alzheimer's people out there in the universe that want to talk to me. And they're coming because they recognize, hey, hey, this guy is listening. He can he can hear us. Whereas no one else hears us. That's so amazing. Wow. So this is wild. So nowadays, you'll just randomly be somewhere and hear someone with Alzheimer's coming in. How does that work? Do you ever think like, who the heck is this? Shortly after I started communicating with Denise, I wanted to talk to other people. A lot of times there is somebody, you know, I could be in a restaurant. I could be out driving in the car. And I just hear people starting to talk to me. And a lot of times what I'll say, OK, tell your loved one, tell your loved one that you want to connect with me. And so sometimes I get a call. Sometimes I don't yet. I encourage that person's higher self to somehow let's foster that connection. I still am very active in the senior world. I go into memory care communities. And again, the people in the community come walking up to me and they know I can talk to them. So a lot of times I'll go to the memory care director, give them my card, say, hey, I know this is sounding a little weird. Yet Mary over there wants to communicate telepathically with me. Can you pass this along to her caregiver or her loved one, whoever that is, daughter, whoever. And sometimes it resonates with that caregiver. Sometimes it doesn't. So just breaking in here, Catherine, what's so wild about this to me is it reminds me of the teachers who said that they were able to start hearing multiple non-speaking students telepathically. I know it really seems like once the floodgate is open, it's totally accessible. Was there a moment of telepathy you experienced with Denise that you found to be like extraordinarily profound? Oh, yes. So this was so cool. We were about two, three months after I started communicating telepathically with her. My dad started coming in. So almost 20 years after he passed away, never, never had any communication with him before. He starts popping in and, and saying, you know, telling me what's going on, how beautiful it is. He loves sports cars. And I would see these images of him being in a sports car, driving down the road. And it was just so, so heartwarming to see my dad again after all these years. And Denise and him start showing up together. My dad passed away 10 years before I even met Denise. They never knew each other. Okay. Denise also was an adventurous person, loved fast things, including, guess what, fast sports cars. So I see the image of the two of them. Denise is in the car with my dad as a passenger. He is flying down the highway. Her blonde hair is flying in the wind. And they've just got the biggest smiles on their faces and just loving it. And I'm just like smiling, beaming to see both of them having fun. And especially for Denise, because she wasn't having fun in life at that point. She was three or four years into the diagnosis. It was not a fun time with her. So to see her have fun was so heartwarming. So one night I'm putting Denise to bed. She's got her eyes closed and I'm tucking her in. She always loved to be tucked in. She opens her eyes and she says to me, I am so looking forward to getting to know your dad. And I was speechless. 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Quints.com slash tapes. Well, I love that story so much, Dan. I want to ask you, what is your advice for someone who's looking to tap into the side of themselves that would be open to this kind of communication? I think so much of it starts with meditation. Just taking a little bit of time every day, minute, two minutes, and just sit in a quiet place. A lot of people think, oh, meditate. You got to sit there for an hour to two hours and say, oh, 100,000 times. No, no, no. It starts with a minute or two. Build that up to three to five. Build it to 10, 15 if you want to. But yet it's more about quieting your mind, opening your mind and your heart to what is out there in the universe and what messages you get back. The universe, I believe, wants to help us and it gives us these messages either through telepathy, through meditation, through intuition. And they want to help and that's where these messages come from. Yeah. Do you ever experience other people coming into your head who are not Alzheimer's? It's like people who are nonverbal in other ways. I have come across a lot of people that have passed along. Some are Alzheimer's people that have passed away and they want to come back and please tell my wife I'm okay. And a lot of times I hear, please tell her she was unbelievable in her caregiving and thank her from me. Because it's a doubt that a lot of caregivers have. We doubt sometimes what we're doing. Is this the right thing? And again, there's so many decisions you got to make during a day. You begin doubting yourself. So it's really heartwarming to hear that from the person saying, God, you did a great job. Thank you. That's important. I'm glad we're bringing up the role of the caregiver because I think it's... Unless you've sort of experienced this, it's a little bit overlooked on how emotionally, mentally, physically draining it can be. What would be a big piece of advice that you have for someone who maybe has a recent diagnosis and you're maybe tasked as being the caregiver? One of the first things I heard after I diagnosed this was, this is a disease about the caregiver. And my first reaction was, no, it's not. It's a disease about Denise. She's got the disease. It's about her feelings, her emotions, her well-being and all that. And six months later, I did a 180. After experiencing just a little bit of the disease, I realized, oh my gosh, this is a disease about the caregiver and how important it is for the caregiver to take care of themselves. And what I mean by that is that for caregivers not to go stick their head in the sand, so to speak, don't isolate yourself. Get out there and join a support group. That was one of the first things we did. Actually, from one of the flyers that Denise grabbed after the diagnosis, I found out about this class, which also had a support group. And it is so heartwarming and validating to hear other caregivers talk about their journey. Because a lot of caregivers go to themselves thinking, oh, I got this. I can do this. I'm big and brave. And I said, until death do us part. And it's like, you know, this is not like any other disease. You are going to get worn out. You're going to get frustrated beyond measure. There's a lot of statistics out there that the caregiver passes away before the person with the disease because of the stress and strain of being the caregiver. So don't isolate yourself and accept help. I really love that approach. I think so many of us have become isolated and afraid to ask for help. But more often than not, people will surprise you by showing up. It seems like despite the incredible hardship of Denise's illness, you came out of it with some truly beautiful insights about life and connection. Oh, Catherine, this disease changed my outlook and consideration of life. I was very much, you know, you live life one day at a time. Through that whole disease, I learned you live one moment at a time and to be in this present moment because all the Alzheimer's person has is this exact moment. They don't have anything else. And that's what I tell people these today is that live life fully because you don't know what your diagnosis is tomorrow and what life has to deal for you later on today. So live life fully, have fun, laugh, be with friends as much as you can, family and friends and go see the world. I wanted to end the episode by mentioning that if you're caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's or dementia, please remember you don't have to go through it alone. Support groups can be life changing. They offer a space to share, connect and feel understood by people who truly get it. Whether you're looking for emotional support, practical advice or simply a reminder that you're not alone, help is out there. You can visit the Alzheimer's Association at ALZ.org to find local and virtual support groups as well as resources for caregivers. The National Institute on Aging also has excellent information and tools at nia.nih.gov. I'll be sure to link both in the show notes. We'll be back on Monday, December 22nd as we begin winding down with the final two episodes of the telepathy tapes season two.