Could you describe to the people not familiar with Lucid Dreaming what it means?

When you consciously realize you are dreaming, while in the dream state, you are lucid dreaming. So, lucid dreaming requires conscious awareness of dreaming while in the dream. Normally it occurs after a sudden insight like noticing an impossible event, and you realize, “This is a dream!”

Once you realize that you are dreaming, you can think about what you want to do, make deliberate choices and act on your decisions. It’s like your own magic kingdom – you can fly around the room, ask the dream figures to explain the dream symbols, make items appear or disappear, and other incredible things.

By contrast in a normal dream, you usually accept whatever happens. If you are riding a horse, which suddenly becomes a bicycle and then a skateboard, you just unthinkingly accept it.

Can anyone achieve the ability to have lucid dreams?

Almost anyone can learn to lucid dream. Scientific surveys of college students around the world have shown that 47% to 92% claim to have become consciously aware of dreaming while in the dream state at least once. So the lucid dreaming experience seems relatively widespread, especially among the college age population.

Source: The Incidence of Lucid Dreaming within a Japanese University Student Sample
Daniel Erlacher, et.al., International Journal of Dream Research, Vol 1, No 2 (October 2008)

In my book, I provide a number of simple tips and techniques to help people become consciously aware in their dreams. Often people will have a lucid dream after simply hearing about it for the first time. Some people have emailed me about their first lucid dream after reading the first fifty pages of my book.

Children, who suffer from recurring nightmares, sometimes naturally learn how to become consciously aware in their dreams. They realize that the bogeyman only appears in their dream, and so then the next time they see the bogeyman, they conclude, “Hey, this must be a dream” and become lucidly aware. Some of the most prolific lucid dreamers are those who learned it as a child.

What is your personal experience with lucid dreaming?

I taught myself how to lucid dream in the spring of 1975 after reading Carlos Castaneda’s book, Journey to Ixtlan. In the book, don Juan suggests to Carlos that he ‘find his hands’ in the dream state and become consciously aware. So each night before sleep, I sat there looking at the palm of my hands for a few minutes while mentally suggesting, “Tonight in my dreams, I will see my hands and realize I am dreaming.” After a few nights, I dreamt that I was walking through my high school, and suddenly my hands appeared right in front of my face. I thought, “My hands? This is a dream!”

In many respects, this technique reminds me of Ivan Pavlov’s operant conditioning of dogs. Whenever he would bring food, he would ring a bell. Soon the dogs associated the presentation of food with the ringing of a bell, and would salivate whenever they heard a bell ring. In much the same way, I taught myself to associate seeing my hands with the conscious thought, ‘this is a dream,’ and mentally conditioned a lucid response.

In your book you state that through the use of lucid dreaming techniques one can achieve "paranormal" abilities, such as telepathy, clairvoyance etc. This is a bold statement and I'd like to review this subject in more detail.

Actually in my book, I state that 1) experienced lucid dreamers have numerous reports of seeking out and receiving valid telepathic and precognitive information while consciously aware in the dream state, and 2) scientific experiments could be easily set up to test the validity of these claims.

In my book, I show many examples of experienced lucid dreamers (some with PhD’s), who have actively sought out unknown information in lucid dreams, awakened with it and later discovered its validity. In the case of precognitive information, they often had to wait for the information to appear before confirming it.

Lucid dreamers did this to disprove the idea that lucid dreaming involved merely expectation and mental models, while others wished to determine the limits of awareness, when conscious in the subconscious of dreams. In seeking unknown information, these experienced lucid dreamers learned that lucid dreaming provided access to a broader field of awareness. Though Carl Jung proposed the idea of a ‘collective unconscious’ with internalized, biologically based ideas, forms and archetypes, lucid dreaming may allow science to experiment with Jung’s idea and expand it to include much more.

Why do you think gaining such inner abilities in lucid dreaming state is better than in the waking or meditative states?

Since recorded history, much of mankind has experienced precognitive and telepathic dreams. Dreaming naturally seems to ignore ideas of linear time and space. In a dream, we may be in our childhood home with our present day friends, and then hear an odd comment, which someone repeats in the waking world tomorrow. Dreaming may be a natural state of consciousness for the receipt of precognitive and telepathic information. Moreover, when you are consciously aware in the dream state, you have the capacity to pursue telepathic and precognitive information, and actively seek out the Muse.

Not all lucid dreamers will attain the level of proficiency and conceptual openness needed to gather unknown information, however. In those capable, lucid dreaming provides another means to investigate inherent, exceptional human abilities and to do so scientifically. Lucid dreaming may not be ‘better’ than waking or meditative states; rather, lucid dreaming may be another natural state that gives access to extra sensory information and capabilities.

In my book, I recount a story of a lucid dreamer who had a number of painful plantar warts on her feet. For months, she had tried visualizing and suggesting them away, but to no effect. Finally, she became lucid in a dream, recalled her painful plantar warts, and then placed a ball of light on each foot in the lucid dream along with her healing intent. In the morning, her plantar warts had turned black. Within a week, they all fell off and never returned. I read that a Buddhist lama said that a suggestion made in the lucid dream state was nine times more powerful than one made in the waking state. Lucidly aware in our subconscious seems surprisingly amenable to suggestion.

How one would know that what he perceives is not a dream. As I understand this, lucid dreams are still dreams and the remarkable events that may happen during this time are still the results of dreaming.

If a person becomes consciously aware in a dream, seeks out unknown (but verifiable) information, wakes with it, hands it to a scientist or impartial observer, who discovers that the information has validity, then the dreamt information has validity in the realm of waking consensus reality.

A lucid dreamer realizes that he consciously exists in a dream. He or she knows it. The question revolves around the validity of dream information; can a lucid dreamer, knowing that he or she is dreaming, discover unknown but verifiable information about waking reality? In my book, I share numerous anecdotes from many experienced lucid dreamers that show the answer appears to be, ‘yes.’ Now on occasion, the information comes metaphorically, but more frequently it comes literally. Experiments could be devised to focus on non-metaphorical responses.

Is there any scientific proof for this? Many would say that existence of telepathy, precognition or other such phenomena still needs proof. It's not a widely accepted fact, you know, and one would find it hard to prove these are real phenomena. Why go as far as to use lucid dreaming, which by itself a little known phenomena, to prove the existence of this abilities.

Scientific proof for lucid dreaming dates back to the late 1970’s. Keith Hearne at the University of Hull in England devised a sleep lab experiment in which a lucid dreamer would signal that he was consciously aware and dreaming by moving his eyes left to right eight times in a row.Hearne knew that in dreams, we have REM (rapid eye movement), so he deduced that the REM polygraph pad would capture any intentional eye movement signal. In April of 1975, his lucid dreaming associate, AlanWorsley, became lucid in the sleep lab and moved his eyes left to right to signal that he was consciously aware. Hearne, watching the REM polygraph in a nearby room, deemed the event scientifically and philosophically “mind-blowing.”

Unaware of Hearne’s work, Stephen LaBerge at Stanford, performed a very similar experiment a few years later by lucidly signaling his conscious awareness from the dream state through eye movements.LaBerge published his results in a widely read scientific journal in 1981, and has done much research on lucid dreaming since that time.

In my case, I taught myself how to lucid dream in 1975 before this scientific proof was published. Later I discovered that Buddhists have been teaching lucid dreaming, or dream yoga, for more than a thousand years.

Why use lucid dreaming? Again, the dream state seems naturally conducive for telepathic and precognitive information. Scientific studies of dream telepathy were conducted at the Maimonides Hospital sleep lab by Montague Ullman, M.D. and Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., in the 1960’s and ‘70’s with very significant, positive results. Using lucid dreaming, you can directly seek out the information as part of a scientific experiment, wake with it and provide it to the scientist. Lucid dreaming may be the revolutionary tool that provides the convincing evidence for these abilities.

Could you shortly tell the most compelling evidence you have to back your claims regarding these psychic abilities being gained while in lucid dreaming state?

In researching various books and articles and in talking with a wide range of experienced lucid dreamers, I discovered assorted evidence for lucid dreaming as a means to obtain unknown information that later proved to be valid. Some lucid dreamers would get information, then write it down, date it, seal it in an envelope and show it to others, once the event occurred. They felt convinced in advance that they had lucidly discovered future information.

Because the scientific proof of lucid dreaming only goes back thirty years, and most of the research has focused on the neuro-physiological experience, the ‘compelling evidence’ to date involves personal experiments by talented lucid dreamers.

For example, a college student wrote me to ask if I truly felt a person could discover unknown information in the lucid dream state. I encouraged him to conduct his own experiment and find out for himself. So he and a young woman in his dorm devised an experiment. She told him that she had a “bizarre freckle” on her back, and he should become lucidly aware in a dream to discover where it was. In his next lucid dream, he remembered the goal, and headed off to her dorm room to discover the bizarre freckle. Oddly, acquaintances (that did not believe in lucid dreaming) appeared and told him this was crazy, and he suddenly found it hard to move forward, and woke up. Apparently, these ‘distracters’ represented his own lingering doubts made manifest.

So he tried again in another lucid dream. This time he lucidly intended for the young woman to come to him. Suddenly, she was at the door, and he asked her to show him the bizarre freckle. She turned around and he could see it right above her rump. He felt shocked, since he believed that she had hinted it was on the side of her back – but he saw it right above her rump. He decided to wake and recall the unexpected information. Later, he went down to her room, knocked on the door, and announced that he lucidly dreamt the location of her bizarre freckle. When she turns around, he puts his finger on the spot. She pulls up her shirt, and ta-da, the bizarre freckle is directly under his finger.

Obviously this is not a scientifically devised experiment, but it does show some of the challenges, e.g., overcoming doubts, and some of the promise of lucid dreaming as a revolutionary tool to investigate time, space and unknown non-local information.

Back to your book, who's the target audience for your book? Whom would you recommend to read it?

Though my publisher would exclaim, “Everyone! The answer is everyone!”, this book is for those interested in the nature of mind and consciousness, serious lucid dreamers who want to become better at lucid dreaming and conduct their own experiments into the far reaches of lucid awareness, and those involved in Buddhism and dream yoga.

Besides the chapters on getting unknown information, I also have chapters on lucid dreamers who have apparently healed themselves in lucid dreams, sought out conceptual information from the ‘awareness behind the dream’ and seemingly encountered other dreamers in the dream state. Most importantly though, I recount what happened when I decided to go beyond lucid dreaming. Years later, I discovered how that experience apparently connected to the Buddhist tradition’s ultimate goal in dream yoga.

Lucid dreaming is a revolutionary tool to explore the nature of the unconscious mind, which Freud called, “the true reality of the psyche.”

My thanks to Robert Waggoner for this interesting interview

"At 3 PM (GMT) each day, I will travel to a randomly selected location. Once there, I will send a Tweet, asking everyone to Tweet about their thoughts concerning the nature of my location. Thirty minutes later, I will send another Tweet linking to a Web site that will allow everyone to view photographs of five locations (the actual location and four decoys), think about the thoughts and images that came to them in the 30 minutes before, and vote on which of the five they believe to be the actual target location. If the majority of people select the correct target, then the trial will count as a hit."

The trials will be held Tuesday to Friday this week (1st trial already ran).

My personal opinion is that this is a far cry from being any kind of a scientific experiment. To me it's more like a publicity stunt by Richard Wiseman (granted, he's a known person and might not want more publicity). I have run my own Psi Experiments a couple of years ago (site's still alive). Experiment also presented an image with a choice of 1 of 5, where only one was correct. The skeptics (rightfully) criticized the experiment because it was so unscientific and the results of my first psi experiment showed that people are much more biased to answer options 2 or 4 out of 5 options present.

I believe even my 3rd psi experiment (still running) is much better designed.

I must say that I’ve never heard of Lawrence LeShan earlier although, based on the book, he was researching paranormal for several decades. He was born in 1920, he’s trained and published psychotherapist, and is the author of the best selling book How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery.

“A New Science of the Paranormal” consists of seven chapters and an appendix. Each chapter also includes one or two “case histories” – a paranormal case from Lawrence’s career or another famous case. The chapters in the book are:

1. Psychic Research and the Consistency of the Universe.
2. What Do We Know About Psychic Phenomena
3. Normal and Paranormal Communication
4. Designing a Science of Psychical Research
5. Psi and Altered States of Consciousness
6. The Next Step: Implications of the New Science
7. What Dare I Hope

The Appendix in titled: “When is Uvani”.

Chapter 1 tells some history of psi research, the concepts, why is it difficult, including psychological factors. One tidbit is his current disapproval of connecting psi and quantum physics which has become so popular lately.

Chapter 2 describes the 4 things that were proven about paranormal research and 9 which are almost certain to be true.

Chapter 3 tries to compare normal and paranormal types of communication. He gets away from the “paranormal” terminology into cleaner one in order to better understand the differences and similarities between regular and “paranormal” communication types.

Chapter 4 begins what I think was the main goal in writing the book in the first place. Lawrence explains how science approaches different subjects and argues which approaches would be best for psychical research. He writes that he now believes that psi research should be approached not with more laboratory testing, like exact sciences, but like social sciences which employ other methods of research and deduction.

In Chapter 5 Lawrence describes how theories about “reality” shape the worldview and how the conflicts between observed phenomena and what we think about reality should be handled, in science. It is quite a philosophical chapter, in the good sense of the word.

Chapter 6 starts with some more psychological effects of psi events. How people reject them after they happen. This chapter also has a call to scientist to bring psi research into the mainstream science and also explains how to do this.

In Chapter 7 LeShan hopes that the acceptance of the existence of psi by the public will bring change to the way people think of the world and how they behave, to the better.

The Appendix is like a chapter by itself. In it LeShan tries to continue his design of the new science of the paranormal. He explains how we might try to overcome some difficulties with psi research by asking the right questions and thinking of it all in more abstract way, like in mathematics, for example.

The case histories after each chapter are very interesting and diverse. I’ve never heard of any of them although they all seem very compelling. They are all what a skeptic of psi would call “anecdotal” but again, one of the main points that Lawrence LeShan tries to pass in the book is that psi research should be taken out of the laboratory and the focus should be on these unique and very strong cases, which he calls “need-determined”. These are the cases where something “paranormal” happens because of a great need of some other person.

If you’re serious about psi research, consciousness and want to get a wider point of view on the various difficulties of this research and how to approach it, you should read “A New Science of the Paranormal”. It is quite different from many other books which are either too unscientific on one hand, or those which are heavy on statistics on another.

I think Leshan could also be a good guest for the Skeptiko podcast.

Most ESP tests show only a slight (but consistent) deviation from the expected results (e.g. in a test where the nominal chance of a hit is 50%, someone consistently scores 52%). In the long run, such an effect is statistically significant, but it is by no means “impressive” by human measures. BUT, consider these:

3. ...So, instead of trying to apply ESP on “raw” tests (e.g. testing telepathy with Zener cards), and just comparing the results with the expected hits, why not make the objects (e.g. the Zener cards) code some digital data (the “message”), protected with a heavily redundant error-correction code (e.g. one that increases data size to 1500%, but only needs 10% of the transmitted, protected data to recover the original). As the “receiving” subject senses the cards, assuming that we are witnessing actual psychic ability, the received results will likely contain enough signal (that is, receptions produced by ESP, not by random chance, i.e. noise) to recover the original message.

If you’re not familiar with FEC, here’re a couple of real examples which I gave later in the forum. I studied some of it in university but it was quite a few years ago so I might not be 100% accurate, so beware.

A basic example would be a Compact Disc. You know that even if it has scratches in a moderate amount, the player will still play it will. This is since it can reconstruct the correct information using data that is still available (if there’s enough of it). A more basic example of actual ECC would be transmitting everything 3 times. Then, if one of 3 is received with error it’ll still be able to select the right result (2 of 3). Of course, there are much better ways.

Since I liked his idea I decided to email Dr. Dean Radin, one of the leading parapsychologists today. His first reply on the topic was as follows:

Now, JJ has opened his own parapsychology blog. It's still new, opened in January, but I'm sure that being an experimental parapsychologist and an author, it will be an interesting blog to read.

So, head on to: http://parapsychologist.tumblr.com/

Between now and May 1, 2009,   Mrs. Roller will match, dollar for dollar, any donations made to the Gilbert Roller Fund to support this important line of research.  Traditionally most of the modest support for parapsychological research has come from individuals and foundations with the vision and courage needed to support science on the cutting edge.  Your contributions will enable qualified researchers with professional knowledge of past investigations of this type to continue to explore large-scale psychokinetic phenomena in the real world.

The PA provides a professional "home" for scientists and scholars around the world who dare to investigate phenomena shunned by mainstream science. Donations can be made to the Gilbert Roller Fund electronically by visiting their members site, or by check mailed to the Parapsychological Association at P.O. Box 24173, Columbus, OH 43224. The PA is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and donations are tax-deductible in the USA.

There was some criticism of the study and Dr. Dean Radin, with Dr. Emoto and other people decided to make a replication of this study, with tighter controls. The research was triple-blind, meaning that nobody knew everything - the people giving intentions, the raters, the photographers and researchers. All this should control for some biases that are usually present in loosly controlled experiments.

Now, Dr. Radin published some results of the research on his blog. Some excerpts:

An experiment tested the hypothesis that water exposed to distant intentions affects the aesthetic rating of ice crystals formed from that water. Over three days, 1,900 people in Austria and Germany focused their intentions towards water samples located inside an electromagnetically shielded room in California. Water samples located near the target water, but unknown to the people providing intentions, acted as "proximal" controls. Other samples located outside the shielded room acted as distant controls.

And some of the results:

Results suggested that crystal images in the intentionally treated condition were rated as aesthetically more beautiful than proximal control crystals (p = 0.03, one-tailed). This outcome replicates the results of an earlier (double blind) pilot test.

Some more information, including good Q&A in the posts comments can be found in the original post by Dean Radin. This may prove to be a very interesting and important experiment.

If it is proven that remote intention can change matter, then it's a whole new world. This can explain remote healing, micro-psychokinesis and other aspects and effects of psi. 

Remote Healing Measured by the Biofield Meter

Buryl Payne, Ph. D. Psychology, Psychophysics Laboratories, P.O. Box 514, Soquel, CA. 95073

Abstract

A force around the human body different from electric, magnetic, gravitic, photic, or thermal has previously been discovered and was used in this research. Originally called a ‘biofield’ and now called a ‘spin force’, it was found to vary in amplitude with lunar phase, solar activity, vitality of the subject and other factors. It was found to vary in amplitude with intended remote healing attempts. In 17 out of 20 trials in this pilot study, with healers from 50 to 3,000 miles distant, a clear change in amplitude of the spin force was observed.

Keywords: remote healing, subtle magnetism, biofield, spin force

Introduction

It is known by experience that prayer and other means of visualization at a distance enhance healing, although no satisfactory explanation has been found to explain this effect. This study shows the operation of a different type of force may be involved. Called a spin force, torque, or rotational force, it is hypothesized to exist around all living organisms.

Biological spin force was accidentally discovered by the author while investigating ‘pyramid energy’ in 1976. The author’s device, called a Biofield Meter, displays a spin force when placed around an organism. It was found to exist around every human tested, a couple of plants, a grapefruit, watermelon, cat, dog and horse. Presumably it exists around all living organisms and its existence has been observed by other researchers. The amplitude of rotation of the Biofield Meter varies with solar and geomagnetic activity, changes direction temporarily at times of new and full moon and varies to some degree with the health of the subject.

Several researchers have observed some physiological changes in humans as a response to remote healing. Ron Hruby, a retired NASA electrical engineer, made his own version of the Biofield Meter and hypothesized that it might respond to distant healing attempts on a subject. He found this to be the case. In 18 trials with four

subjects, he found 100% correlation of changes of the Biofield Meter amplitude of rotation with attempted healings by a small group ten miles distant from the subject. This study expands upon the work of Ron Hruby, and attempts to verify his results while using variable distances between the healers and the subjects.

Materials and Methods

The Biofield Meter consists of a square frame, made of 0.25 inch diameter wood dowels, 16 in. on each side. Six ring magnets are centered on each dowel and 16 in. long strings are attached in the center of the six magnets on each dowel. The strings angle to a center where a set of two mirrors of 1.5 inch diameter are glued back to back. A hook and additional string is used to hang the apparatus over the subject’s head at eye level. The device looks roughly like a pyramid frame.

In practice, the Biofield Meter rotates a few degrees after being placed over a subject. Given an initial impulse, and because it is a string suspension, the torque on the string, or winding force, limits continuous rotational movement. It winds up and unwinds, in other words, oscillating back and forth for a few minutes. The number of degrees of initial rotation was used as a measure of spin force around the body.

This experiment was conducted in Santa Cruz, California. Twenty trials were conducted May to June, 2005. The first trial was completed with a small group of remote healers in Sheffield, Massachusetts, a distance of 3,000 miles from Santa Cruz. Three Biofield Meters were set up around three subjects. The subjects’ first names were supplied to the distant healers. The healers chose one subject for the healing attempt, which was unknown to the observer. A start time was determined for the healing attempt, and observation of the biofield meters began at that time. Movement of the three biofield meters were measured and recorded during the trial period. Following the trial period, the name of the chosen subject was revealed to the observer.

In addition to this initial trial, seventeen other remote healers were invited to attempt distant healing on one of two subjects chose by the experimenter. Seventeen subsequent trials involved one to three subjects and one to four remote healers. It was not feasible to repeat tests using multiple subjects as it was too difficult to coordinate them. Two more trials were conducted on a radio show called ‘Out of Time’ in Hot Springs, Arkansas. On this show the author invited the listening audience to attempt remote healing on a subject sitting next to him. There were two main subjects who where involved in most of the trials.

Results

In the first trial, one of the three Biofield Meters rotated more than 720 degrees, (more than 2 complete rotations). Later phone communication showed that this was the subject chosen for the healing attempt. The subject did not report any sensations or feelings at the time of the attempted healing or on the following days. In seventeen out of twenty trials, the Biofield Meter showed deflections from about 3 degrees to four full turns (1440 degrees) around the subject chosen for healing. These seventeen included the trials involving the radio show audience.

No obvious ‘healing’ effects or sensations were observed by one of the two main subjects. The other subject felt sensations four times which resulted in some healing one time. In three trials where it was offered the remote healers correctly identified problem areas for one subject.

William Hope (1863-1933) was the founder of the Crewe Circle – six photographers who photographed spirits in the beginning of the 20th century. He later, around 1922, became a professional medium.

The photographs of Hope looks too good to be true, almost. Actually, his work was investigated by Henry Price from the Society for Psychical Research, who found him cheating during the photography process.

Yet, Hope continued to practice photography of spirits and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of his supporters.

Over 20 of Hope’s spirit photographs can be found on flickr, by clicking here

Here’s an excerpt of what he wrote:

I finally found a woman friend with a severe cold that after 12 days was actually getting worse and while on the phone would be consumed with coughing for like 30-45 seconds straight, She did that 3 times n 5 minutes while I was on the phone with her, and she was feeling so bad and not doing any housework etc and was in consultation with her Doctor for it who told her it sounded like a virus that a lot of people were getting and it was taking them longer than 2 weeks to cure.

She stared at a small patch of skin on her hand , for 17 minutes. She reports that in 5 minutes she was about 25% better, in 10 minutes she was well over 50 percent better and and after 17 total minutes she stopped and was almost cured, felt fine, then did all the work that had been building up and didn’t cough a single time the rest of this evening, with the only remnant of her cold being a fraction of the nasal congestion.

To read more about the background and the application of the proposed method, read the original post about curing cold for free.

OpenSourceScience, led by Alex Tsakiris, the host of Skeptiko podcast about parapsychology, with the help of several other people have started their long-awaited experiment to determine the possibility of anomalous information being received by mediums.

You too can help this experiment at this time. Just go to this site and fill the skeptic’s survey. It goes like this (from the site):

You’ll hear from four people. Each one wishes to connect with a deceased person. You’ll match the deceased to one of four descriptions and provide reasons for your answer. You may review and change your answers before submitting your results. Remember to explain your selection.

Here’s what you know about the deceased:
- all are deceased and somehow connected to the sitters
- all are men
- each of the descriptions match one of the deceased
- three passed away younger in life; one was only 13
- two of the names, Luke and Gabriel, have been designated as younger names, but do not necessarily correspond to younger descriptions - one name, Bill, has been designated as an older name, but does not necessarily correspond to an older description (see below)

There’s some more explanation at the site about the controls etc.

To learn more about the experiment, download episode 59 of Skeptiko from http://www.skeptiko.com/index.php?id=70.

To discuss the experiment, join the discussion at Skeptiko forum on this topic.

The lab researched a wide variety of subjects, in the core of parapsychology, such as non-local mind, human-machine interaction, remote perception and more.

Now, the Explore journal opened for free a whole issue devoted to the work of PEAR lab. Articles available for download in text and PDF formats.

To read about some serious parapsychology, visit Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing

—

Through Dean Radin’s blog.

Dr. Caroline Watt is a parapsychologist in the Koestler Parapsychology Unit (KPU) at Edinburgh University. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow (acting Head of KPU).

An Edinburgh online newspaper wrote an article about her and her work. Parts of the article are about ghosts research which I believe is of less interest to most readers of Mind-Energy. What I have fount interesting are some quotes of hers about parapsychology. On a question if she’s a believer she answers:

“I believe in science,” she laughs. “I would say I have probably become more skeptical over time but I am still on the fence. What I have learned is that the quality of the research is very good, probably better than mainstream psychology because you’ve got to bend over backwards to think of normal explanations and rule them out.

The article also describes the problems of the state of parapsychology research:

Resources are, of course, the big stumbling block, with parapsychology departments reliant on private finance. This means that Caroline and her colleagues are just scratching the surface and far from any meaningful explanations for paranormal experiences.

Dr. Caroline Watt join the Koestler Parapsychology Unit in 1986, and she was one of the founding members. She has published over 50 articles on parapsychology. Interestingly, many of the articles she published jointly with Dr. Richard Wiseman, a known psychologist and skeptic of paranormal.

They’ve even published a book together, called simply Parapsychology (International Library of Psychology), about 500 pages about different aspect of parapsychology.

The book I’m reviewing today, Personal Development for Smart People, by Steve Pavlina was one of my most anticipated books lately, since Steve announced it. And I was fortunate to be sent a review copy.

I’ve already written about Steve Pavlina here and there on this site, mostly as related to his and his wife’s experiences with developing psychic abilities, mostly mediumship. I’ve also interviewed Steve’s wife, Erin Pavlina in June 2007. She is a psychic medium. But this book is not about psychic abilities at all.

Steve is one of the most known personal development bloggers today. I’ve known his site for several years now and have found him to be one of the most original and prolific bloggers on the subject. He had many unique ideas and views on many topics and his writing style is very much to my taste.

Steve has published several hundred articles on his site on various topics and it was interesting to see what he could innovate in his book. Steve promised that the book won’t be a rehash of site’s content and I’m glad to say that he delivered.

The book is just about 150 pages but it is so packed with original ideas and concepts that other writers would have smeared it at least on a handful of books. Luckily for the readers, Steve’s ability to present his ideas succinctly, without much repetition packed the book dense with information.

So what is this book about? The book presents a way of how to look at conscious personal development. The book is built from the ground, in a bottoms up approach, which gives it a somewhat philosophical kind of depth. Indeed, Steve has tried, for the purpose of writing the book, to analyze, in his mind, many of the existing successful growth practices. He analyzed them by trying to identify the most basic principles that unite all of them.

His goal was to find a set of basic principles that would be universal, meaning that they should be for everyone and for all areas of personal development and life. They should be timeless – work in the future and should have been working thousands of years ago as well. They should be collectively complete, meaning that all laws of personal growth should be based on them. And the primary principles should be irreducible. Of course, they also shouldn’t conflict with each other.

Steve then introduces the seven principles. Three core principles: Truth, Love and Power. And four secondary principles, oneness, authority, courage and intelligence. These secondary principles are based on the first 3 in different combinations.

So, part I of the book explores these principles. There’s a chapter for each of them. This is the more “dry”, philosophical part of the book, where the reader builds the foundation.

The second part of the book shows how to apply each of these principles in various areas of one’s growth process. There are chapters for habits, career, money, health, relationship and spirituality. Every area is explorer through the lens of the principles.

Some of these chapter include practical advice as to how one should analyze his situation in the given area. Usually this is done by truthfully answering some very difficult questions. Sometimes feelings and emotion are the guide. But everywhere Steve tries to be only the guide, asking the questions and showing the way one should take to analyze his situation and find the correct answer for himself, which might be different for everyone.

Whoever follows Steve’s blog knows that he changed his diet, from regular to vegetarian, then to vegan. In the last year he switched to eating only raw food. One of the positive effects that Steve mentioned from these changes and that his mental clarity improved with each of this changes. His thinking abilities improved since concentration was easier and mental fog dissipated. This book clearly shows that Steve’s mind capable of going into real depths of thought, giving the process of personal development an almost scientific approach.

The book is titled “Personal Development for Smart People”. And it delivers.

Could you please start by telling about how and why you became a parapsychologist?

As a youngster, I was curious as to how things ‘worked’ in the world, and naturally intrigued by paranormal phenomena. This intrigue grew stronger as I got older; if telepathy and precognition, for example, were real – there were serious implications for our world view and how the universe operated. I didn’t enter the field because of any personal paranormal experiences, or because I wanted to prove or disprove anything. I just wanted to look into things for myself.

What do the studies of parapsychology in the Koestler Parapsychology Unit include?

Things have changed now, but when I attended (2000-2003), there was a buoyant set of research programmes in place. These were conducted by full-time staff, postgraduates working on their PhD studies, and undergraduates doing final year projects. We had a full Ganzfeld suite in the unit, so (as you can imagine) there was a fair amount of research into Extra Sensory Perception. In addition, there was Psychokinesis work, investigations into ‘haunted’ settings, and DMILS (Direct Mental Interaction with Living Systems) studies.

Between 1984 and 2003, almost two dozen people gained their PhDs at the KPU, but in recent years, following the untimely death of Professor Robert Morris in 2004, the unit has been substantially downsized. Nowadays, there are only two permanent members of staff, the laboratory space has been given up, and very few students are taken on. Today, Edinburgh University seems to prefer to focus resources on other areas of psychology.

What specific areas of parapsychology did you concentrate on?

I primarily investigated emotion and its bearing on Psychokinetic functioning (the idea that your mind can influence events in your environment).

Using ‘Random Event Generators’ to generate random data-streams of ones and zeros, (akin to lots of coin tosses with perfectly balanced coins) I looked at how highly emotive states like anger, sadness and happiness impacted on the behaviour of these devices.

Later on, I began to examine psychic healing (still using micro PK protocols), and spent time in Zululand, South Africa – working with indigenous healers (izangoma).

*The REG approach is a measure of so called micro-Psychokinesis. With micro-PK, we rely on statistical analyses to see if the behaviour of a measuring system (e.g. the REG) can be accounted for by ‘chance’ (i.e. the ones and zeros are summed, and compared with mathematical probability). This is in contrast to macro-PK events like levitation, where you can see the event with the naked eye.

What are your thoughts on the state of parapsychological research these days? After the PEAR has closed, there are not much research institutions left in the academia in the field. Why is that? Should it be different?

There’s little doubt parapsychology is going through a tough time right now, with a lack of funding and a lack of institutional support being the primary reasons.

In academia, particular research areas often come in and out of favour. Certain fields might find themselves lavished with resources one moment, and conversely, starved of them the next. I hope that parapsychology is simply experiencing a cyclical dip in appeal (and support), and that we are not witnessing any long term decline. Whilst the funding environment remains difficult, it will inevitably be more of a challenge to advance research programmes, and we should expect the field’s progress as a whole to slow.

Nonetheless, despite these tough times, parapsychology perseveres. In recent years, for example, Professor Deborah Delanoy has done sterling work at the University of Northampton, at the Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes. Deborah has built up a unit of very capable and accomplished researchers doing valuable research. In turn, there are individual researchers dotted around various Universities who have an interest in parapsychology and who quietly work on their own experiments when they get an opportunity.

To return to the funding point, it should be pointed out that there remain a number of organisations who continue to support and promote parapsychology. These include, amongst others, the BIAL Foundation from Portugal, Trinity College, Cambridge (via the Perrot Warwick grants), and the Society for Psychical Research in the UK.

What areas of parapsychology are well researched, in your opinion, and which need much more effort?

Good question. I don’t think we’ve reached a point with any area of parapsychology where we can step back and declare: “aha – we’ve got it”. Psi (an umbrella term that’s often used when referring to ESP and PK together) is an elusive animal, and has a habit of tripping you up when you think you understand it. As I’m not holding my breath for a definitive experiment any time soon, it remains the case of patiently putting more evidence onto the pile.

Having said that, certain areas have been carefully researched for many years, and there comes a point when a sensible decision can be made as to whether more and more replications are needed, or whether we can move on – to new avenues of enquiry. The literature and meta-analyses from micro-PK research suggest the micro-PK is a valid, low order, but replicable effect. So the question that follows is how can we move things forward? Can we think of fresh methods to ramp up effects? Can we utilise new technologies to better measure the phenomena and the processes that underpin them? If a large cheque came though my letter box, I would love to instigate some MRI studies. In turn, I am always fond of experiments that try to break new ground with creative approaches. In recent years I’ve followed the Global Consciousness Project with great interest.

What are the most promising research areas in parapsychology in terms of establishing the fact that there’s something to it?

In terms of positive results, the Ganzfeld has shown itself to be an effective means of generating supposedly paranormal effects, as has the micro-PK/REG based research already mentioned. Of course, there is always the argument that these laboratory based investigations have limited crossover to the real world – which ultimately is something we need to address. But, once phenomena are established in the lab – it’s pretty likely they exist outside the lab in some way.

Some of the DMILS work has also enjoyed good results, and I’d like to see more of it, as I believe it should help us understand how psi might operate in the real world. If psi is real, it probably didn’t develop to enable us to influence the electrical current of Zener diodes (these form the basis of many Random Event Generators).

Going to your book, The Hidden Whisper, why did you write it? What was your goal in writing it? Do you think you’ve achieved this goal?

When people find out what I do, I get a whole spectrum of responses. Some smile and change the subject, others tell me it’s all nonsense, and others instruct me at great length on esoteric and quite unique universal theories.

In between, there are a lot of people who are unsure as to what parapsychology is, and what parapsychologists do. They would like to know more without enduring a lecture. So, The Hidden Whisper is for them.

Who is the targeted audience for the book?

I tried to write a book that could be picked up and enjoyed by anyone, regardless of their knowledge of parapsychology. I wanted to keep the book accessible and easy-going, and not get bogged down with lengthy didactic explanations. I also hope that people who enjoy mystery stories get a kick out of the narrative.

How much is Luke Jackson, the main character, based on yourself or perhaps other parapsychologists that you know?

Luke is a mix of real life people and fiction. I originally thought the book would take about a year to write, but it took three. Over that period Luke’s character morphed quite significantly. Luke Jackson (Mk.1) was very different to the one we see today.

Why did you select the case of poltergeist for the subject of the book. I would not consider poltergeist as a central aspect of parapsychology.

I wanted to write a book that hooked people into an interesting fast-paced story, and reckoned that mystery fiction – something with a central puzzle – was a good way to do so. I wanted to have an interesting plot which I could frame the science around. Poltergeists seemed to fit the bill.

How was the book accepted so far, by critics and by general audience?

So far, the reviews have been very pleasing… which is reassuring. A lot of time and effort was spent developing and writing the book, and if it had gone down like a lead balloon – I’d be in a right old grump. The ‘mix’ of fiction and expanded endnotes has been received especially well, which is good, as that was the riskiest part. A number of publishers I spoke with, advised me strongly against it.

One of the reviewers on Amazon suggested you write a series based on this character. Is this something you might want to consider?

There is another book, circulating in the back of my mind, but it is very different to The Hidden Whisper. I have no immediate plans to bring Luke back in any sequel, but you never know.

What other books on parapsychology could you recommend to people who are genuinely interested in it?

There are a number of good introductory books out there, including:

Irwin and Watt’s “An Introduction to Parapsychology”, Dean Radin’s “The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena”, and “Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence” (edited by Cardena, Lynn & Krippner).

Then, when you start to drill down into specific areas, there are numerous specialised titles. “Healing, Intention and Energy Medicine” (edited by Jonas & Crawford) is one I can recommend.

If people want to stay abreast of the latest research, the best thing to do is get hold of parapsychology journals, such as the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the Journal of Parapsychology, the European Journal of Parapsychology, and the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

At the end of the book, you write about the skeptic-believer debate and how both sides need to consider that they might be wrong. What are your thoughts on the state of this debate today?

The broad ‘uninformed’ debate will tick along regardless of the facts. You find people on both sides who hold views that appear to bear no relation to the evidence. The debate between informed critics and advocates of the paranormal is more interesting in many ways, because it is one of interpretation. Informed critics are aware of the experiments and the positive results generated – it’s now a question of what they mean…

At the end of the day, I simply suggest that people form their own opinions by looking into parapsychology for themselves, from a fair and impartial starting point. It is up to both sides of the debate (proponents and sceptics) to put across their positions convincingly. They should do this backed up by evidence, not rhetoric or conjecture.

Let me thank JJ Lumsden for this great interview. I wish him best luck both in his parapsychology research and his writing career.