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| What is the "ganzfeld" experiment? | |
| ganzfeld: (German
for "uniform or whole field"). A sensory-deprivation protocol
for inducing a state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep; in
parapsychology, the ganzfeld
is typically used in association with telepathy experiments. The ganzfeld experiment in now one of the most popular experiments in parapsychology. Since its creation in the early 1970s, it has proved to be one of the most robust and repeatable experiments in psi research. Co-invented (independently) by Charles Honorton and Dr. William Braud, the experiment uses a sensory-attenuation procedure called the "ganzfeld" in which a subject's eyes are covered by translucent hemispheres and ears are covered by headphones. "White noise" is heard through the headphones and a homogeneous visual field is seen through the eye covers. This creates the experience of a "blank screen" against which the mind's imagery may be more clearly seen. This, coupled with the belief that an altered state (referred to as "blank out") occurs within about 10 - 15 minutes. When blank out happens, the subject becomes virtually unaware of the sound and visually imagery becomes clearer in the mind's eye. The ganzfeld experiment has been the center of a lot of attention by parapsychologists and skeptics who disagree on how to interpret the successful track record of these experiments. In the early 1980s, a version of the ganzfeld experiment was automated at the Psychophysical Research Laboratories (Princeton, NJ) by Dr Rick Berger and colleagues Charles Honorton and Dr Mario Varvoglis (author of the Psi Explorer CD-ROM). The automated ganzfeld (referred to as the "autoganzfeld") seeked to address the various criticisms of the experiment that had been posed by skeptics and objective observers. The autoganzfeld has produced successful psi results now for over 15 years, and is being replicated in several laboratories worldwide. In the experiment, subjects (called the "receiver") try to mentally visualize images that a remote person (the "sender") is viewing. The "targets" (i.e., what the senders are looking at) are various photographs and video clips. In a given experiment, a computer randomly chooses the session's target and all persons (except the sender) in the experiment are "blind" as to the actual target that is being used. Some of the correspondences given by the receivers in the ganzfeld experiments have been astounding, as if they were actually looking at and describing the actual target. Other times, the correspondences resemble the kind of description one might give to a stimulus that had been presented subliminally or for a very brief sensory exposure. more on ganzfeld Read "Does Psi Exist?" by Bem and Honorton (Psychological Bulletin) and Bem's Response to Hyman |
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