Life After Death Communication – Finding Love on the Other Side with Stephen Simon

Stephen Simon 0:00
I hear her in my heart. As we talk about in the book. This is a very interesting thing and people who have gone through it. It's one of those things that unless you experience it, it's really hard to put it into words because the words don't fit this experience all that well. We don't have the proper words

Alex Ferrari 0:31
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I like to welcome to the show Stephen Simon. How you doing Stephen?

Stephen Simon 1:08
Good morning, Good afternoon and Good evening as Jim Carrey would say.

Alex Ferrari 1:13
Yes exactly. Thank you so much for coming on the show my friend, we had a wonderful conversation about your film filmmaking history. And my other show and I found out about your book and it's like, well, I you know, I have to do it, I do this other show. That might be a good fit for what you're talking about your books. But I wanted to, you know, kind of give the audience a little bit background about you and where you come from. So what drew you into the, to the film industry, and then Saturday, that is the film industry and what kind of brought you into that world?

Stephen Simon 1:46
Sure. So I was very, very, very lucky. I was born into it. My father and my birth father was a producer and a director in the 1940s. And also the head of production at Columbia Studios at the end of the 40s. He made movies with Red Skelton and Abbott and Costello and a bunch of other major stars. He was a wonderful director and a wonderful producer. Unfortunately, he died when I was very young. It was just before my fifth birthday, but my mother remarried another film producer, who made movies at MGM with a bunch of other stars. So I was really born into the business. I was very fortunate about that. As far as my spirituality and how it all began, because it dovetails into my career. When I was young, and I don't remember exactly how old I was, I was probably seven years old, eight years old. It was a couple of years after my dad died. We had moved into a new home. And I kept telling my mother and my stepfather that there is a man in my wall every night. And they were like what? And I was like, There's a man in my wall. Well, does this scare you? No, no, it doesn't scare me at all. He's really, really nice. And I think he's there to protect me. Well, it took me a long time to realize that that was the spirit of my dad, who was indeed there. But it kind of got me going on a path where when I became a bit older, when I got into my teenage years, and into my 20s my favorite movies were like It's a Wonderful Life and lost horizons and the ghost and Mrs. Muir you know, films like that, that had a what I consider to be a spiritual content to them. I briefly very briefly, after college, I went to law school, I became a lawyer for a very short period of time, knowing that I would never be in the industry. I practice for about a year and a half never got it right. And had a big celebration when all the malpractice insurance. Deadlines had passed. And I realized that nobody could sue me. I was not a really good lawyer. But I knew I was gonna get into the film industry. I went into a bookstore in 1975. And was sold a book called Bid Time Return. And I took it home. I read it that night. And I thought that's it. I gotta get into the film industry. So I went to Ray Stark for people that were not familiar with who Ray was. Ray was a very, very successful powerful film producer. For many, many years in the industry. He made Funny Girl The Way We Were Annie, a bunch of other terrific films. And he was my father's protege my birth father's protege. So I grew up around Ray, again, I as I said, I got into this industry through connections and I was very, very fortunate to do that. I begged Ray for a job. He thought my mother who was a dear friend of his would kill them because she was going to take her son that Jewish lawyer at law this and put I'm in the film industry. But I convinced him to do it. The very first thing I did was got on the phone found out who the agent for the writer who wrote the book Richard Matheson was, I met him for lunch. And I told him, I had no idea what it was like to produce a film, except from afar, I was going to learn, and that that would be my first film, if he would give me a chance with it and give me an option. And he agreed, we shook hands. And three years later, that became somewhere in time. That began my relationship with Richard. And when we were prepping somewhere in time, Richard gave me the galleys for his next novel, which was what dreams may come. And it took me three years to get somewhere in time a took me 20 years to get what dreams may come to aid. That is quite a journey, we could actually spend an entire interview talking about how that came about and how it didn't over the years. But it took a long time, I finally got that film put together. And my life is really in the film industry has really been about trying to make spiritual movies and actually pushing the edge. I think with them, you know, somewhere in time when it first came out was a complete bomb. It bombed with the critics. It bombed at the box office, it was gone after three weeks, broke my heart, I thought we'd made a really beautiful and timeless love story. It took a while for it to catch on. There was a guy in LA named Jerry Harvey, who programmed the z channel, which was the first like pay pay per view kind of channel in LA. And he happened to love somewhere in time. And they only ran two movies a night in the beginning. And he used to run this twice at eight o'clock and at 10 o'clock. HBO bought it when they just started out because they didn't buy hit films, they couldn't afford it. And the film found its way into people's hearts. And now it's become quite a big cult film. Universal has sold an awful lot of DVDs and a lot of downloads with it. And every year now at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island where we shot that they have a summer in time weekend, and people come dressed in 1912 costumes, and they do trivia contests. And fortunately, we got to take our family, to a couple of those is very meaningful to me. I knew after what dreams may come that I needed to get out of LA. I became friends with a wonderful man named Neale Donald Walsch, who wrote the conversations with God books, Neil and I have kind of always considered each other since we met 20, some odd years ago, to be brothers from another mother. And at one point, I was living in LA 2001. And Neil said to me, you have to write a book, you got to write a book about spiritual cinema, because that's your life. And I'm like, Neil, you're the book writer. I'm not we kept arguing. And finally, one day, he said, Steven, you're gonna write the damn book. Do you want to argue with my source? No, sir. So I wrote the book, which was my first book called mystical movie messages that inspire our world. That was the drop line. The title of the book is the force is with you. And that got me into the whole idea of going out and talking about spirituality, which, frankly, Alex, is why I got into the film industry, you know, looking back on my career. Now, I know that's one of the major reasons that I came into this life was to get these films made, as I said, somewhere in time bond, what dreams may come did not bomb, what dreams may come did, almost $90,000,000.90 $5 million worldwide, but it lost money because it was very expensive. And it did push the envelope. And that was the point it was not to make a big commercial, mainstream movie, neither somewhere in time, nor What Dreams May Come are big mainstream movies. You know, I went on to make the film version of conversations with God, which is also not a mainstream movie, a little movie called Indigo, which is not a mainstream movie. But it was movies for an audience that I knew was there that I believe is underserved and is still underserved. And it was not meant to those movies are not meant to convert anybody. They're meant to make people feel better about being human. Dreams, I know is a quite a journey and it's a dramatic journey. I one time gave a kind of an elevator pitch about what dreams may come to somebody in somebody and no one will ever make that movie. I mean, it's just wait too tough, it's way too difficult. So that went on in my life. In 2018, I had been married for quite a while. I found the love of my life, my soulmate, my Twin Flame. And one morning, I came home from the gym, January 3 2018. And found that she had transitioned in her sleep. She was only 54. And it was a shock, which sent me into a tailspin. I know that there are people out there who have had these experiences, much worse experiences than that. And I know what people go through when you go through that kind of grief. I went, I totally fell apart, frankly, for almost two years. It was really, really difficult for me. We had had a lot of conversations, Lauren, and I, Lauren was and still is kind of incredible, intuitive, and had the same spiritual beliefs. And we actually talked about one night she said to me, honey, we got to figure out what we want our afterlife experience to be together. And you know, and she went into a channeling trance, where we started talking about it laying things out in detail. She knew, I think, looking back on it, that something was coming in her life.

About six weeks after she transitioned, she came through to me, we had talked about it a lot. It was not something that I was shocked by, I was so relieved that she came through to me because it had been six weeks. And even though that's a very short period of time, I it was just desperately important for that connection to happen. That then grew into a lot of conversations, which grew into a book that we wrote together, called What dreams have come, which we published in about two years ago, it's available exclusively on Amazon, we self published it, I knew there was no way I was ever going to get a publisher to publish a book written with my wife who had transitioned before. And we wrote the book for people, again, who have been through this experience who are going through this experience, and you will have connections with loved ones. On the other side. You know, there are a whole bunch of Facebook groups that actually are entirely focused on that one in particular love after life, which is a private one that is only dedicated to people who are still communicating with the loves of their lives, husbands, wives, children, parents, grandparents, etc. And again, we wrote this book for people who are having this experience who have been afraid to talk about it, because they're afraid that people will think they're crazy. I went past crazy decades ago. So none of that really amazes me whatsoever. That's what my life and my career have been about. And that's really the journey of film and the journey of spirituality and our book. And I hope we both hope Lauren and I both hope that it will bring comfort to people who are afraid to talk about it, because people will look at them, you know, askew and people look at me askew all the time when I talk about this, there are other people who welcome it. But we really wrote this to encourage people who are having this experience, or trying to have this experience that you're not alone. And when I look back on my life and my career, it's obvious that this had to happen. You know, if you look at somewhere in time, and what dreams may come and conversations with God and indigo, and also the spiritual cinema circle, which we operated for 16 years, this was where I was going in my life. And that I was gonna say in a nutshell, but it's a very big nutshell. That's the journey.

Alex Ferrari 14:18
Well, let's let's go back and unpack that a little bit. Because there's a lot that you just

Stephen Simon 14:22
I know well, you know, it's great for me to be able to do that because now the rest of the interview is up to you. You can tell me where we're gonna go and I will go right with you.

Alex Ferrari 14:33
So I just want to before we get into Lauren and the book, there's something really special about what dreams may come and as in I've still I've spoken to you as well that is one of my favorite films of all time and it is such a powerful film that as well as somewhere in time has found its audience over time. And especially because of Robin, Robin Williams who is the star of it and How he transitioned, how he passed. And the the, you know, the kind of two storylines between Robins life and the movies life and that movie would never have been made without Robin, is that correct? Correct. Yeah, Robin was the one who Robin at that time, could Greenlight anything he wanted to you just just tells us to do I want to do this movie. It gets done. I had the the creators of August rushed on as well. And which is another wonderful, wonderful film that has a spiritual twist to it without question. No one wouldn't get no one would no one would do it until Robin said, I'll do it. And he was a co star and that he wasn't even the main stars of that. And they'd let him do it. So he had a lot of power. And he can can you when you spoke to Robin, what about the story? Because it was unlike anything he had done? I think he did a movie called being human if I remember about multiple past lives. Yeah, funny. There was funny stuff. Like he was a caveman. And he was a

Stephen Simon 16:01
Terrific Scottish director whose name he doesn't come to mind right now. That made that film. That's a wonderful movie.

Alex Ferrari 16:07
Right, exactly. So he he's that he dabbled in it a little bit. But what was it when you when you sat down and met with him? What was that meeting like? In this? Because I'm assuming it was funny. But there was some sort of spirituality talk about at that time?

Stephen Simon 16:23
Well, you know, it's interesting. We, you're right about Robin green being the one that that got the film ultimately greenlit, because the film we knew was going to be very expensive, with all of the visual effects. And I'm very proud that the guys who actually did those visual effects won the Academy Award for it. In 1999, which is the year after it was released. We knew it was going to be an expensive movie. And we knew we needed to have a major star. It was offered to Robin, we had not heard a response. And I remember the director and retable, wonderful director from New Zealand, named Vincent Ward, we were told that Robin read it and wanted to meet with us. And we went to San Francisco. And we met with him hoping that he was going to say yes. And he walked into the room and said, Hello. And he said, guys, I just want to tell you something, not only am I going to star in this movie, you may this may shake you up a little bit, but I'm going to play all the parts. It's going to make it much easier for you to cast the rest of the movie, it's all going to be me, which was a wonderful way of getting the meeting started. You know, I I truly believe that the movie really hit Robin's heart in his own feeling for his wife and his children. As with most comic actors, Robin, actually, off screen in real moments was a very serious guy, very serious guy. And incredibly well read, sophisticated, cultured man, who had a voluminous library was very into art. I mean, Robin was a very, very, very smart guy and a very deep guy. And I think it hit him on that level, that it would be such a unique love story that he wanted to be a part of.

Alex Ferrari 18:23
And it definitely was and it touches on and people who are listening to this or watching this have not seen that movie, please go rent it. Buy it. It is one of those. It's one of those rare. It's one of those rare spiritual movies that has a budget. I mean, they just they don't exist. I mean, you're talking about, hey, I'm gonna go down to the bits of hell to save my wife rolls off the tongue not easy to film.

Stephen Simon 18:53
No. Suicide. It involves children dying. I mean it. It is a challenging, challenging project. And it had challenges from the book level. We were very fortunate to get Ron bass. To write the screenplay for it. He actually rewrote Richards screenplay, which Richard was incredibly kind with me about at one point, I realized that because of what the film was going to be, that we were going to need major stars. And I knew I needed a a major screenwriter who wrote roles for people like Robin and could get major movie stars. And I went to Richard and I said, Look, I, I've tried, I can't get the script that we develop made. I want to get Ron bass who was a friend of mine to rewrite it, but I want your permission. And he said, Absolutely, if that's what you think you need to do. That's the kind of man that Richard Matheson was one of the greatest people in my life and just an extraordinary man. Ron solved the issues in the book. I in the book when Annie takes her own life. Because of her grief over Chris Robins death. Their children are still alive. And we knew from day one that we could not do that you can't create sympathy for a character who takes her own life and leaves to children. orphans, right? Yeah. And we knew we had to fix it. And Ron figured out how to fix it. And people who have seen the film, know how he fixed it. And he did an absolutely extraordinary job. That was an incredible journey. I tried so many directors over the years, we almost got the film done at 20th Century Fox in the mid 80s. A lot of things happened, it didn't happen. There were a couple of years where I, it just was so painful to me that I hadn't been able to get it done that I put it on the shelf for a while. But I always knew that I would get back to it. And I'm, I'm so glad that you've had that response to it, because it is a deeply meaningful movie to me, as well. And again, a terrific love story with an amazing barrier between the lovers. You know, that's the the key to love stories is the is the the obstacles that the lovers have to overcome to be together starting with Romeo and Juliet and probably before Well, one's here and the other ones on the other side of the veil. That's a pretty formidable obstacle. And I'm really, really proud of the film. And I'm really proud of Vincent Ward, who did such a fantastic job of making a truly Impossible movie to put on screen. There were some directors, I won't mention them. But there are some directors over the years who said to me, Steven, this is fabulous. I love this book. I'd love to be able to do it with you. I don't know how I just don't know how to put this on screen. And these are pretty extraordinary directors. Well, Vincent knew how.

Alex Ferrari 22:01
And the thing is, too, if he would have tried to get done in the mid 80s. The technology wasn't there to make a film.

Stephen Simon 22:07
The technology wasn't there until we actually did the film. And I remember when Vincent came to me and he said, All right, I know how to do this. Now. I absolutely know how to do this. The the wife in the movie, Annie is going to be a painter. And she also works in a museum and an art museum, she curates an art museum. So he and she are very into paintings, or paintings and other ones so that when Robin gets to the afterlife, he is going to be in a wet oil painting. And that is what the afterlife is going to look like. It'll be dazzling, it'll be beautiful. He will be the only solid figure moving around in a world of wet paint.

Alex Ferrari 22:56
And

Stephen Simon 22:57
I'll never forget this breakfast. Because I said to him, that's mind boggling. Can we do that? And it was yeah, of course we can do that. And I said no. How? And he said, Hell no. It was very it out.

Alex Ferrari 23:13
It was barely from my understanding of visual effects at that time. They barely gonna get made in the way that they got like the technology was right on the edge of breaking. If you would attempt to do it today, it'd be easier because there's more power. And there's more technologies, but yet very challenging. You there's a reason why you haven't seen that technique ever again. Yeah, I mean, it's really expensive. It's not it's Yeah, even even if you had a Marvel budget, it's still complicated. And it is, it is a remarkable feat to say that that was the thing that sold that trailer. I mean, when you see him running around in whatever the painting of the dog is jumping around, and you're just like, how the hell did they do that? It was it was it's such a beaut beautiful film, but I just wanted to kind of dig into that. And you also said Ron bass, who was a little little screenwriter, he wrote a couple movies, right. A couple other movies.

Stephen Simon 24:10
Oh, yeah. One

Alex Ferrari 24:13
That little little yellow guy the Oscar at one point?

Stephen Simon 24:16
I'm sorry did he what?

Alex Ferrari 24:17
Did he ever winthat little guy, the little statue? The Oscar thing?

Stephen Simon 24:19
Oh, yeah. Yes. For kind of an unknown movie called Rain Man. Right. And, oh, Ron has had a lot of movies made, I think maybe 30 or 40.

Alex Ferrari 24:30
And that's a lot. But even even even at that level, it's a lot

Stephen Simon 24:34
And he's still doing it. You know, he's an extraordinary, extraordinary guy, and a fantastic writer. And again, when you get a film put together like dreams, a whole bunch of things have to happen at the right time. And the fact that Ron agreed to do it. When we had pitch, I pitched it to MGM and we're walking out of the office. Having pitched it and having them tell us, we're going to develop this thing, which was, you know, the end of it at that point about 16 or 17 years of me being with it. We walked out of the office. And as we were leaving, there was one other guy waiting for at a meeting with with an executive. What do you call that? The water bottle tour?

Alex Ferrari 25:23
Yeah, the water bottle to it. You go around to all the offices and you just do like a water and they just give you water bottles.

Stephen Simon 25:28
Yeah. So I think he was on the water bottle tour. But I haven't asked Ron who knew everybody in Hollywood, I said, Who is that guy? And he said, That's a director from New Zealand named Vince award. And a year later, Vincent became the director. So I think the universe said, Hey, Steven, you are not all that bright. And you sure aren't that quick. in the right place, we're going to give you a break. Here's your movie. Go try not to screw it up.

Alex Ferrari 25:58
Now, when you you mentioned earlier that when you were younger, you saw your father in your room. Did that ever happen? Again, after those sightings with your father? Did you have that ability to see people? Or was it just specifically your father at that diner that

Stephen Simon 26:12
And I didn't see him? You felt? I saw? Yeah, I felt him. I did not see him and no. And as much as I have tried, I cannot see Lauren, I hear her in my heart. As we talk about in the book. This is a very interesting thing. And people who have gone through it. It's one of those things that unless you experience it, it's really hard to put it into words, because the words don't fit this experience all that well. We don't have the proper words. But when Lauren first came through to me, people asked me, Did you hear her voice? My answer is through my ears. No. Because she was cremated. Her body does not exist on this plane anymore. So I could not have heard that voice. But through my ears. But in my heart, I heard it and I still hear it. She's here with me this morning. And I know when she's around, we have a there's something that happens that I have not described to people which I'm not going to because it's very private with us and it's private. Everybody has their own tell with this type of thing. But I know when she's present, and we talk really literally every day. And I know that that's very difficult for a lot of people to talk about. I've had people say to me, Stephen, how can you be sure that you're not just making this up? Because you were so traumatized by Lauren's transition, that you had to create something? How do you know that's not true? And I try to answer in the most honest way I can, which is that if I'm responding from my brain, I have to say that, yes, there's got to be a 1% chance that I'm making all this up. I can't 100% up here logically explain that for sure. It's real. In my heart, I'm 1,000,000%. Sure. And because of all of the other people that are going through it, I know this is real for us. I know because of the conversations that Lauren and I have had, and continue to have, that it is her and that it's not me. One of the principal ones is that when Lauren was physical, we had a lot of laughter at my expense. I tend to be a bit eccentric and certain things. I just did a wedding ceremony for one of our daughters. I officiated at it. And she gave me some rules. And the first rule was no dad jokes. Okay, no dad jokes. So anyway, we, we had a lot of fun laughing at me. And Lauren still has a lot of fun laughing at me. And I know what and she's doing it. And it's an extraordinary experience. The veil, has thinned, you know, there are a lot of different things that as you know are going on in the evolution of our humanity. And this is one of them, that we can have these communications through the veil. I know that that is very difficult for some people to accept. And I respect that but I know that it's true for me, and I know it's true for literally millions of other people around the planet.

Alex Ferrari 29:39
So when So take me to the the moment when it first happened. What was that? What was that? Like? How did you What was the feeling you had that you said? Oh, this is not just my brain talking to myself. I can feel it and I understand what you mean. But I feel because the brain can't wrap its head around many things that happen, experiences. And if I've had the pleasure of talking to channelers in psychics and mediums and near death experiences, it's really difficult for the brain to wrap their head around something like that.

Stephen Simon 30:13
Yeah, absolutely, logically, we talked about this in the book, but I will tell you right now how it happened. It was six weeks after she had transitioned. I was watching television one night, I used to record a bunch of different shows. I was in a deep state of shock. And I was also really depressed because we had not yet been able to make that contact, or I had not heard her yet. So I was watching the end of a particular show. And all of a sudden, I heard I felt Lauren, say to me, honey, watch the end credits. And I was like, what, what? And she said, Honey, watch the end for edits. Now, I never do that with television shows. As soon as the show's over. I don't like to see previews for the next week. I always turn it off. And I was watching this one show. And she said, watch the credits. So I was like, Ah, okay, so the last, the last commercial is over, and they show the credits. And over the credits, they played the song. Hey, girl, you know, things are gonna get easier, things are gonna get better. Someday we'll walk in the in the rays of a beautiful sun. And that had been one of our favorite songs. And as soon as I heard when your head is much lighter, we'll walk in the race of a beautiful sun. I knew it was Lauren. And she waited until that time, I think, or maybe that was the first time she could have gotten through. I don't know. But I know she wanted to be in touch with me in such a way that I would know it was her. And that's how it began.

Alex Ferrari 32:07
Did you did when you heard her voice in your mind? Was it her voice? Or was it your voice through her? know her? So it was like her tone her everything in your head?

Stephen Simon 32:19
But it wasn't her voice? That's it. See that? Not through my ears?

Alex Ferrari 32:22
No, no, no, in your mind, in your mind?

Stephen Simon 32:24
Absolutely. And it is her voice and it is her laugh, which is a very distinct laugh that she has. It is absolutely I do hear that voice but not through my ears. I hear it in my heart. And I know that's a very difficult concept for a lot of people to grasp. But it's the only way I can explain it.

Alex Ferrari 32:44
Now when you guys first so that was the very first communication, then the next at that point, would you would you could the conversation continue? Or was it just like in the credits and nothing?

Stephen Simon 32:56
Oh, no, the conversation continued. And I was extremely emotional. I know, I cried like a baby, I was so relieved that it had happened because we had talked about it happening so much. And it began a regular literally daily interaction between the two of us. And after a day or so I decided for my own purposes, that I wanted to make notes of our conversations, what I said what she said, et cetera, because I wanted to have it to refer to later on. I was not in good shape emotionally. In any way. This began a long climb back to being able to actually live again. People who have had these grief experiences, know that if somebody says well, you just you know, eventually you'll get over it. Those people do not understand what grief is. That kind of grief, you do not get over you absolutely do not get over it. It is a part of your life. For the rest of your life. What you do learn is how to live with it. And the it changes in intensity. It changes in frequency. And it changes in the way you respond to it. You know I can go a week, two weeks without having now then I couldn't go more than 20 minutes without crying or something like that. I remember one night falling my friend Neil. And I was crying so hard that I literally couldn't speak. And God bless Neil. He's just the most extraordinary man and extraordinary friend. He just waited me out and just said breathe, buddy. Breathe. And when I could finally speak. I said to him, Neil, I'm out of my mind with grief. And he has such a great typical neol response. He's like, good, good. I'm glad to hear that you need to be out of your mind and in your heart because your mind doesn't understand this. And that was really the basis of Lauren and I having these conversations. So anyway, I wound up doing this every day and writing what she would say and what I would say, etc. This was in February, this started of 2018. In September of that year, and I was still making these notes, I went to Ashland, Oregon, where I had to live for a few years where Neil lives to see one of our daughters who lived there. And to see Neil and I had dinner with Neil and his wonderful wife him one night, at a restaurant we used to go to, and I, we discussed this in the book, I was facing the windows of the restaurant. It had not rained in Southern Oregon in several months at this point. I have the date in the book, and I think it was September 28. of 2018. I don't remember it right now. But I think it was around that time. It had not rained in months. That's an important story. There'd been quite a drought down there. So we started talking and, you know, Neil said, How are you doing? And I said, you know, I'm doing fine. I'm making a lot of notes. For the people who have read Conversations with God. They know that that's how Neil started writing Conversations with God. He started making notes for himself of the conversations that he was having with God. And he started writing them down. I said, you know, it's kind of eerie, but it's kind of like what you're doing. I'm just doing it for myself. And he kind of looked at me a little strange. And I said, oh, oh, I think maybe. I think maybe we're supposed to write this book. At that stage, and I welcome people to check the weather in Ashland, Oregon on that date. lightnings strikes outside the window, went up the whole night, lit up the whole night. And everyone turned around to look at it. There was thunder. And Neil smiled. And he said, I know the title of the book, nother lightning strike. And I said what he said, You're gonna call it what dreams have come. nother lightning strike. And I said, So Lauren and I are going to write this together. Right? Another lightning strike. And after, I think there was maybe one more, we knew we weren't in Kansas anymore. And I knew I had to go home after that trip and write the book. And when I came home, Lauren, and I talked about it. And she said, Yes, we're going to do it. And we wrote the book, I gave it to a dear friend of mine, to read before we published it, one because she's the best proofreader I've ever been around. And to because she's a deeply spiritual woman who really understand new new Lauren. And I want her to get her take on it. And for people who have seen the book, or if you do read the book, all of the things that Lauren says in the book are in a different font, than the rest of the book. And that was my dear friend, Anna's idea to do it that way. And we put the book out there. Two years ago, this month, actually, two years ago, in October, we put the book out there. And I want to say to people, before I forget, if you've had an experience like this, or if you are having an experience like this, and you want to share it with me. My email is Steven Ste pH. En, at what dreams have comm.com. Steven Stephen, at what dreams have comm.com I want to assure you that I am the only one that has access to that email account. I don't have an assistant. Okay. Somebody will say Well, I'm sure your resistance reading it. Well, that exists, the system doesn't exist. And it's not Lauren, because if it was an assistant, it would be me, not her. And I promise you, I will read it. And I promise you, I will respond to you. You need to give me a little bit of time depending on when I get it because sometimes I get a lot of these at once and sometimes I'll go a week or two without getting any. But I will respond to you. Because I want people to have the freedom to discuss this with somebody else who gets it. So please feel free to be in touch with me.

Alex Ferrari 39:43
Thank you so much for that generosity of putting putting yourself out there like that to help people Stephen. So I have to ask when you start talking to Lauren, I'm assuming the conversations are fun and unexpired, but did she explain to you what But her transition was like what the other side is like any, anything that you can bring back to us here that because we're going through some stuff right now. So any any little thing that you can throw our way might be,

Stephen Simon 40:13
I tell you I have best way for me to describe this, Lauren has parameters that she needs to work within. Because there are things about her existence now. They're really kind of beyond our human ability to be able to grok. And so there is a limitation on what she can share with me. She shares with me quite a lot, the life that we designed, and the things that we said we were going to do. She has been in the process of putting together and is assured me that they are waiting for when I do crossover. Lauren did share with me and so did somebody else very close to Lauren, when she transitioned. And she actually, and I'm going to use these words, but they're probably not correct. When she came to consciousness on the other side, she was assured she was certain for awhile that she was still asleep that she was dreaming. And it took her a while to acclimate to the fact that she had actually crossed over. So it took a while for her to be able to do that. She got in touch with me as soon as she could, because she knew, you know, she knew that I was suffering and missing her. And so she got to me as quickly as she could, I know she had to go through a certain amount of review of her own life of what her life had been like. And again, when I say that takes time, because time does not exist. On the other side, it's a little difficult to actually translate that into what that experience really is like. We have had moments in which I mean, and I talk about this with her a lot about what it's going to be like for me when I do transition. And we are together. Again, on the same side of the veil. She has said to me, it's more beautiful than you can imagine. Now, I've already experienced it. And it is everything that you hope and believe it will be. Now that's because time is not the same thing on the other side of the veil. I also know that she has been in touch with a couple of our kids. They're all adult kids, the youngest, the kids are between 26 and 46. I know she has been in touch with a couple of them who are open to it. A couple of them are not as open to it. And yes, we do we laugh. There are times that I cry with her because I I still even though I'm incredibly grateful that she is around me, I miss us physically being together. And people automatically think that I'm talking about sex, which I'm actually not. I'm talking about hugging her. We used to meet in the kitchen in our house, she worked from home. And I worked from home, we used to meet in the kitchen of our house three times a day and hug for a while I miss our hugs, I miss holding hands with her. There, I miss our laughter together, we basically did not have a lot of mutual friends that we saw. We had our family and we really just spend an enormous we were together 24/7 I still miss that. And I will always miss that. There's a lyric from a song that always plays for me. When I talk about this I will find my way back to into your arms. I survived for your love. And in many ways I do feel that and I know that people who have had these experiences over a long period of time. I know that they understand that as well. And there are people that have had a heck of a lot more difficult experiences than me and then that I've had with people that have had long term illnesses and you need to watch your you know your the love of your life fade away. People have gone through this with children. I've been some have been in touch with me losing a child which is something that I is so horrific. I can't even imagine how people survive it. It is yes we laugh we talk I I also cry. Our kids say dead cries at card tricks. And there's a great deal of truth in that. But you know, she's my forever love. And we know we've been together over a whole bunch of different lifetimes. And then it all kind of built to this lifetime about us being conscious of all that. So anyway, I, there's a lot of that in the book. And I hope that people if you're looking for this kind of comfort, I hope people will try that. If I hope they'll check it out, because I think it will give you some comfort.

Alex Ferrari 45:35
So I have to ask you, Stephen, that I mean, there's so many of us on the planet who have loved ones with deep loved ones, either parents or lovers, lovers or children, or even deep friendships, who have these loves when people transition, but not everyone gets this opportunity. Not everyone gets this kind of connection with the other side. Why do you think use Did you ever explain to you why you to have this connection? And why does it happen to some and not happen to others?

Stephen Simon 46:06
Great question. Yes, we have, of course, talked about this. Lauren, when Lauren was so physical, was a therapist, she worked with young women with eating disorders. She also was an is a world class intuitive. And she used to do readings for people. It for anyone out there who lives with an intuitive. You know what I'm about to say here, it is a very, very interesting experience that takes some time a while to get used to, you know, we would sit and she would say if you're apart from your friend Michael in a while, and I said No, I haven't heard from him in lunch. He said, he's about to call and like 30 seconds later, the phone would ring and it would be Michael. We are both very spiritual beings. And we talked about this a lot. Lauren was very connected to somewhere in time Lauren, was 17 years younger than me. She now delights in the fact that it's she's almost 22 years younger than me, I keep getting older, she doesn't

Alex Ferrari 47:17
Good sense of humor.

Stephen Simon 47:22
We thought that I would be the one that would transition first. And that obviously wasn't going to be the case. But we all we both knew that we had been together and Lauren channel some of our previous lives. We knew that we had been together for a very long time, not every lifetime, and not for every lifetime. We don't have the time today to go into all of the synchronicities that had to take place for Lauren and I to actually physically meet in this lifetime. We joked about it later saying that our higher selves really deserve a vacation in Tahiti for pulling that off. Because we met in a city that neither one of us had ever been to before. That story is in the book. We knew that this was our journey. You know, it is our belief that we make these choices about our lifetimes, we make the choices about the soul groups that we incarnate and reincarnate with, which was one of James Redfield big things in self esteem prophecy. And we knew that we had spent a long time planning this lifetime. And that we would be together in this lifetime now we did not know it was going to at least consciously did not know is going to be for a relatively short period of time. From the time I met Lauren to the time she transitioned, was a little over 14 years. So we got those 14 years, which I'm incredibly grateful for. But we had no way of knowing consciously at that time that it was going to, to what was going to happen was going to happen. But we had memories and distinct memories of various lifetimes that we had spent together at least little snapshots. I know that now Lauren obviously has access to all of that. But it was never this was never like Oh, isn't this weird or something? This was us. You know, this is like speaking English. You know, if you're born in America, you learned just speaking, it's like an automatic thing. You just you get to be an adult you speak English unless you learn another language. That's the best way that I can describe it that we really knew that we'd had this before and that is why that one night. Warren said to me write this all down and she went into trance and we designed this afterlife experience. That was the way we wanted it to both both to be on There's a wonderful writer whose name always, always slips my mind. And I wish I could remember it. I don't right now, because this line is absolutely not original with me, it's his. But he said in the afterlife, we can choose islands of similar relief realities, which means that, that we can choose in our afterlife experience to be with others that share that in the Unlimited, quote, space of the afterlife, that we can choose how that will be. You know, one of the things we talk about in the book, and I know this is controversial for a lot of people, and I don't say this in any way to be disrespectful, because I am a great believer in all of the major religions of the world. I mean, everybody has things in their religion, and people in their religion that kind of take things, perhaps maybe too far. But I have great respect for all the religions of the world. And as I have said to people, why is it that we think we have all these different beliefs Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, people who believe in the towel, people, I mean, all over the world, and their various sects, everything else, we have all these different pathways to God and all these different definitions of God? How is it even reasonable to believe that when we do crossover, we cross over into only one reality from one specific religion? If we have all of these things in life, why is it not that case that if you have, if you're a Christian, and you believe in Christian beliefs, your afterlife reflects that,

Alex Ferrari 51:54
Right! There's a heaven and there's a hell and there's this and that and,

Stephen Simon 51:58
And, and, and that's beautiful, and that's wonderful. But if you have these spiritual beliefs, somebody asked me about that one time, well, you know, how can you describe that? And I thought of the great humorist, Will Rogers. At one point, he was asked, you know, was he a member of any organized political party? And he said, No, I'm a Democrat. Now. Now that could go for No, I'm a Republican, too. Okay. So. So, you know, it's, it's, the way I describe this to people is, you know, look, I can't really quite explain all of this to you. But I know it was all meant. And I'll give you one other thing that we talked about a lot that again, is not original with me, it comes from a spiritual teacher that I had at one point, which is in the afterlife. Picture this, you're between lives, you go out to a celestial running track. And you start going around the track, setting up hurdles, some are high, some are low, some are close together, some are not close together. And those are all of the experiences that you intend and your soul intends for you to have in your next lifetime. And you do it all the way around the track. Then you're born and you start running the track. And you get very irritated a lot at the idiot who set up the hurdles. So close together and so high. This is what we felt and what I now know is true that everything about my life and everything about her life headed to this, it headed to us writing this book together. And it will eventually lead the two of us to have our reunion together. And I think one of the things that that has done for our adult kids is that when the time comes that I do transition and I have no reason to believe it's anytime soon, although it could certainly could be but I have no reasonably they will not they'll miss me but they won't be sad for me because no no I'll be with Lauren

Alex Ferrari 54:09
Stephen It's such a beautiful story and I really hope everybody gets out there and reads the book and and people who are going through this take this conversation and hopefully bring some sort of peace to them as well. I'm going to ask you a few questions I ask all of my guests What is your definition of living a good life?

Stephen Simon 54:30
Doing what I came here to do.

Alex Ferrari 54:33
What is your definition of God? Ah just small stuff.

Stephen Simon 54:41
Oh, boy. Um, I believe that there is an there is an extraordinary power in the universe that I relate to as God but I relate to that as God goddess. All that is Yeah, Um, that it is not male, it is not female, it is all of the above. And it's the entire energy of the universe. I think now, with this new telescope that we have up in space, and we are seeing the vastness of that space, seeing black holes being created planets being spit out of those black holes, etc. The majesty of the eternity of space has to have been originally created by an extraordinary force. And in my own feeling, an extremely loving force. I believe that it's there. I think that the challenges that we have in life are not imposed upon us. They're things that we choose to experience that our souls choose us to experience as we evolve from time to time. So it's very difficult for me to define God in in a in a more specific way than that.

Alex Ferrari 56:09
And where can people find out more about you and the work that you're doing where they can buy the book.

Stephen Simon 56:13
So whatdreamshavecome.com is our website, you'll get a brief description of the book and the link to Amazon, where it is for sale. Or you can just go to Amazon and look up what dreams have come. And you can get the book there. And again, my email is Stephen@whatdreamshavecome.com. If you want to share these experiences with me, I welcome you to do that. And I hope that we will provide the comfort for people that we have received from having right written this book.

Alex Ferrari 56:49
And is there any message that you would like to leave us with or that Lauren wants to leave us with?

Stephen Simon 56:57
We wish you love.

Alex Ferrari 56:59
Stephen, thank you so much for being on the show. And thank you so much for sharing your experience not only on the show, but in the book and continued success in all your ventures in this life, my friend, be well.

Stephen Simon 57:09
Thank you. It's been a lot of fun, Alex, I appreciate it very much.