What if consciousness is not created by the brain, but is something more fundamental?In this episode of Connecting with Coincidence, Dr. Bernard Beitman speaks with Laurel Waterman, a Canadian researcher and educator working to bring consciousness studies into the classroom. Together they explore how education, worldview, and direct experience shape our understanding of reality.Laurel shares how her perspective shifted through grief, personal anomalies, and unexpected signs from beyond. She argues that research alone is not enough. Real transformation comes through a combination of experience, story, and trusted relationships. The conversation moves through themes of synchronicity, self-awareness, cultural conditioning, and how young people can be empowered to think beyond the materialist model.If you've ever felt guided by something invisible, or questioned the source of your own awareness, this episode invites you to reconsider what we think we know.Laurel Waterman holds a PhD in Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning, Wellbeing Emphasis, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, Canada. Laurel’s research focuses on consciousness education, defined as education about perspectives on the source and nature of consciousness and their implications for ways of being, knowing, teaching, and learning. She aims to popularize participatory and postmaterialist paradigms in education in service of wellbeing. Laurel is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Toronto’s Department of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and in the Alef Trust’s MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychologyhttps://www.aleftrust.org/about/team/laurel-waterman/ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Laurel-Waterman/research https://thenarrowwindow.substack.com/p/beyond-the-brain-with-laurel-waterman#synchronicity #serendipity #coincidence 00:00 - 01:27Opening the Question of Consciousness01:27 - 04:10Why Consciousness Matters for the Future of Humanity04:10 - 08:00Questioning the Assumption That the Brain Produces Mind08:00 - 14:30Why Data Alone Does Not Change Worldviews14:30 - 22:30Grief, Direct Experience, and Paradigm Shift22:30 - 33:14Synchronicity, Personal Proof, and Meaningful Coincidence33:14 - 48:00Self-Observation, Holism, and Consciousness Beyond the Individual48:00 - 1:38:05Purpose, Love, Mystery, and Living With the Unknown