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Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 2000, 64, 65-81
USING QUALITATIVE GANZFELD RESEARCH FOR THEORY DEVELOPMENT: TOP
DOWN PROCESSES IN PSI-MEDIATION1 2
BY ADRIAN PARKER, ANNELI PERSSON, AND ANNHILD HALLER
ABSTRACT
It is proposed that the good quality hits of high psi-scorers with the ganzfeld
can provide a rich and as yet unexploited source of material for studying
how psi -mediated information enters consciousness. A qualitative study is
made here of the good hits which have occurred up to now in our
programme of research. For most of these sessions a technique was used of
recording the mentation report as it was given in real time on to a copy
being made of the target video clip. The analysis of the content of these
tapes strongly suggests that psi functions in a way similar to which other
sensory modalities do during periods reduced information input. The
material suggests that while psi mediated images can be in some aspects
quite accurate, the information responsible for them is often modified by top
down processes so as to also contain misperceptions. The accurate and
distorted aspects of the perceptual experience come, however, to be
regarded as equally real. A theory of the involvement of top down processes
specifies the parapsychological markers that will be evident in the mentation
reports and how target selection and judgement can be improved.
Some of the major critics of parapsychology (for instance Alcock 1998, Hyman 1995) are now
of the opinion that it is no longer of interest to repeatedly demonstrate psi-effects, and suggest
that the priority should instead be given in parapsychology towards finding a theoretical
framework for psi in terms of lawful relationships. Accordingly, after several successful studies,
replication is no longer a major goal of the programme of research at Gothenburg. This is now is
concentrated on the technical development of the autoganzfeld technique into a digital form that
can be readily used in many laboratories, specifying the conditions for success, and attempting
to learn something new about psi which would promote theory development. The present
report concerns the latter goal and in order to realise this, we have departed from our earlier use
of non-selected volunteers and summary statistics, and are working with selected subjects and
even examining what a qualitative analysis of our data can already tell us about the psi process.
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This paper is partly based on papers presented in 1999 at the 42nd Parapsychological Association Convention,
Stanford, California and at the 1999 International Conference of the Society for Psychical Research, Durham,
England.
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The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge financial support for this study from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary
Foundation and from the Perrott-Warrick Fond, Trinity College, Cambridge University and to thank Dr Joakim
Westerlund, Stockholm University for his technical help.
2
Before presenting this material, details need to be given about the data-base and non-data
base trials from which these examples are taken from. The data-base used for the quantitative
analysis is composed of six studies, each pre-set to 30 trials, that have been carried out at
Gothenburg five of which used the standard ganzfeld and the remainder used a multiple target
(serial) ganzfeld procedure. The five studies gave an overall significance with a hit rate of 36%
(effect size 0.24) and the four standard ganzfeld studies which used auditory monitoring of the
receiver’s mentation reports, gave) and a hit rate of nearly 40% (effect size 0.33) which is
consistent with the meta-analysis carried out by Bem and Honorton (1994). The findings from
these studies and the methodology they used are described fully elsewhere (Parker 1999, Parker,
Fredriksen, & Johansson, 1997, Parker, Grams & Pettersson, 1998).
In addition, to date, some further 15 trials declared in advance to be outside the data base
have been carried out as well as 29 sessions (the exploratory or E series) declared in advance to
be explorative trials. These were designated as such since most of these were for the purpose of
selecting our special subjects (who are required to produce two direct hits or one outstanding
qualitatively good hit to fulfil the entry criterion to the select group that we are working further
with. (These non-database trials gave a 30% hit rate.)
We estimate that about one in six subjects amongst those who score hits, produce impressive
qualitative hits, to the degree that the essential features of the film are represented in the
mentation report. Moreover, most of the participants who returned for a second session during
our third series succeeded in repeating their successes (four of the seven ”receivers” who had
made direct hits in their first session were able to repeat this again). These two aspects qualitative hits and repeaters - give reason for us to believe that we are dealing with real and
demonstrable effects, and form the focus of our current work in trying to learn something new
about the nature of the psi-phenomena.
The first step towards making better use of this material, is the use of real time (synchronised)
recording of the ongoing mentation report of the participant (the receiver in ganzfeld) together
with a copy of the target film clip being made during the viewing.
Methodology of Real-time Recording of Qualitative Hits
The recording of the mentation report in real-time with the film clip can be simply achieved
by connecting the audio-input from the receiver’s microphone to one channel of a stereo-video
player which is simultaneously being used to make a copy of the film clip as it is being sent. The
remaining sound channel of the stereo-video player is available for receiving the sound input
from the film. The result is a copy of the film clip that will allow the participant’s mentation
report to be heard in real time along with the film content as it was viewed.
It should be emphasised that although there exist previous collections by the late Charles
Honorton and by Kathy Dalton of good quality hits, the technique that was then used to obtain
these, the autoganzfeld, does not permit real-time synchronised recordings. The introduction of
this simple procedure in our current set-up may therefore be a significant improvement in
ganzfeld methodology.
The present experimental set-up allows us to make use of real-time recordings to provide a
detailed examination of qualitative correspondences. All our ganzfeld sessions are routinely
tape recorded and our contemporary work involves audio-recording of mentation reports
directly on to the copies of the target video-clips. This has been in operation from session 100
through 150 and in our current exploratory work. The serial ganzfeld sessions (N=30) in which
all four films are used in a randomised order of presentation, have also for the most part used
synchronous recording of film clips and mentation reports.
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Since it is reasoned that we have the best possibility of learning something new about how
psi works when it is operating at a high level of performance, then from this point of view a
study of high quality hits is potentially informative and may provide clues for theory
development.
Accordingly, a selection was made of 18 ganzfeld mentation reports in which either a part or
the whole of the content of the video clip was described accurately in these reports. The reports
were contributed by 10 individuals. 14 of the reports were recorded in real-time. (In two cases,
this had to be reconstructed by using the sound recordings made in the sender room of
containing both the film-clip sound track and the superimposed mentation report which
allowed a matching of the mentation report with the visual content of the clip.) The remaining
four reports, including one precognitive session, were included because they illustrated some
further principles described here.
Five mentation reports were derived from the database for standard ganzfeld (150 trials), five
mentation reports were taken from 2 serial ganzfeld sessions (4 targets per trial, 30 trials), a
further five from our explorative sessions (29 sessions) designated as ”E” before the trial
number, one was a precognitive trial, and two others were from the current selected subject
study (19 trials to date) given the designation ”S” before the trial number,
It should be emphasised that the films were chosen randomly within the set. Each set was
selected either following the order in the video library as it was successively built out using new
films as they became available, or in later cases (the E series and our current series) selected by
random number tables. In all cases, it was judged to be extremely unlikely that receivers could
have had any foreknowledge of the films in their series. Although some film clips were from
films that are generally available and therefore relate to common human experience which
might create false correspondences with the content of imagery generated during a session, the
clips we used were chosen because of their relatively unusual content. Many film clips were also
chosen on the basis of containing some unexpected insert which could serve, if picked up by the
receiver as a ”psi-marker”. As well as the known films, it should be pointed out there were other
successful film clips that are not easily accessible and are generally unknown to the public.
Findings
It should be emphasised that although these examples do not constitute any "proof" of psi,
they do permit some tentative observations to be made. A review of these good quality hits
appears to reveal some principles that may be telling us something about the nature of the psiprocess. In this respect it is instructive to follow the flow of accurate descriptions that sometimes
occur and then discover why the next image which is given, suddenly deviates from that shown
in the target film clip. In this context, it may indeed be the case that more is to be learned from
when the psi-task only intermittently succeeds than when it is consistently successful. It is for
this reason that we have begun to incorporate post sessions interviews with our selected subjects
about their reactions to the content of the film clip and some of findings from these are included
in this report.
In most cases we have been able to find several examples that illustrate the principle which
appears to be at work. Session numbers are given in parenthesis and in some cases illustrative
static film images taken have been included here as illustrative material. A more complete
record will eventually be available in CD-ROM form.
1.Psi-mediated cognition occasionally involves an accurate perception of the target:
The form in which the psi-mediated material appears to enter consciousness seems to be
more often direct, rather than associatively or symbolically. Like normal perception which can
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still be sometimes be accurate under poor conditions of observation, psi-mediated imagery can
also sometimes be entirely correct. Correct descriptions have been given which appear to follow
the changing content of the film imagery, picking up on the unexpected.
One participant in the receiver role (123) described the full sequence of the helicopter attack
against a native village as shown in the film-clip including its focus on a courtyard scene and
soldiers running back and forth. One of the most successful participants (session 141) gave a real
time description of the sequence of events in a rare film. This depicted a woman running
through a forest describing the point in time at which she fell down and correctly adding that
she hit her face on pebble-like ground. Many further correct and specific details were given in
real-time including the threat and presence of other women and the occurrence a boomerang
object at the point in time when she picked up a crooked stick to use in her defence against the
women attacking her.
Although the actual name of the film was not given, a third receiver (session E6) perhaps
came close by describing correctly a sequence from the film clip, saying correctly that it was a
black and white film about a concentration camp.
A further example (session 100) illustrates how the content of the mentation followed at times
accurately the changing content of the film clip. This was a children’s film, with unusual
combinations of sequences such as a racing car driver, the embankment of a river, a midnight
sky, and trains - all of which were identified at various points during the mentation report.
Two of our best successes concerned people in life-death situations but the descriptions
appeared specific enough to identify these from more general themes. The first one illustrated
here (session E14) shows a rescue scene from a tower building involving ladders and was
described accurately several times during the session by the receiver in terms of being high up
in tower building, a metal adder, and someone fetching someone else.
The other example (session E21) was in responding to a film about a group of people trapped
in and rescued from a lift (elevator). The receiver correctly described the hovering of the
rescuer, the focus of the film on the legs of the trapped person and the point in time when the
lift crashed down. The receiver saw this however not as a lift but first as a car and then as people
in a carousel.
Within the context of the serial ganzfeld experiment, two subjects in their sessions (SG1 and
SG30) gave several examples where the film clips appeared to be at least fairly accurately
perceived. For instance, a film about two bank robbers who in the process of escaping in a
dingy travelling over rapids, kill a park ranger who then falls backwards into the river, was
described fairly accurately (session SG1) in terms of travelling on a river and the shooting of a
person who fell backwards into the water. A further example (session SG30) again illustrates the
specificity of content that appears to be identified. Here a correct description was given of the
woman’s foot movements and stumbling in a short film showing the heroine crossing with
difficulty a hang-bridge in the course of which she stumbles, and the camera focuses on her feet.
In an attempt to see if we could extent our findings to a precognitive task, one of our most
successful participants volunteered to take part in a session and view the film-clip target
afterwards (session P1).3 The film clip was based on the book Lord of the Flies and among other
specific things she successfully described was the lotus position of one of the boys in the filmclip and the black marks around the eyes of his aggressors.
3
A complication arose in that the sender viewed post-session another film from the collection than the one (also
randomly selected) which the receiver viewed as the target in the post-ganzfeld session. Judges however were able
to match the mentation report to the film which the receiver viewed and therefore regarded as the target.
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Examples of the principle that psi-mediated cognition can give an accurate perception of the
target:
Session 141 The receiver gave correct real-time descriptions of the marsh, then the forest scene with
enormous trees, the way through the forest, the woman, the threat, the presence of other women, and that
she fell and hit her face on stony ground. In addition she gave an associative response to snow when the
film became snowy, and responded with an apparent misperception - "boomerang" - when the woman
picked up a stick to defend herself. Most of the other responses appeared to relate to the content of the
film-clip.
Session E6 The receiver described the film correctly as a very black and white film about a concentration
camp.
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Session 100 Essentially all the content of this film appeared at some point during the mentation report. Accurate
real-time identifications included race-car driver, midnight sky, trains, some kind of insect. Apparent
misperceptions included geyser (car radiator explodes water) and rocks (roundish rock statues). Vague perceptions
indicative of top-down processes included: something at two levels (a car and train travelling parallel at different
levels), something slithering by (an weasel´s arm) and spiky thing (a spiky car mascot that fell off the car and was
focused on ).
Session E14 The receiver described in real-time accurately that it was high up in a building in a town, that
you could see a lake and forest, that the wall of the building had fixed stairs or a metal ladder of some
sort., and that someone was going to collect another person there. An apparent misperception was a
mobile telephone may have been seen as a pistol.
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Session E21 The receiver described accurately the rescue from a dangerously swinging lift as hovering
and lifting, and feelings of this in her legs when the film focused on her legs as she was lifted from the
elevator lift. She responded in real-time to the crashing down of the lift by saying something "dunshing
(crashing) down". A misperception was seeing this as a carousel.
2. Associative responses do also occur. A dramatic scene involving the drowning of a gangster
in grain which fell on him through an opening in the ceiling, was seen as the pouring of potatoes
or possibly grain from a wheel barrow (session E12). The threat of this gangster who attacked
the farm and its dwellers was at one point described but this description was then woven into a
narrative about a man from the farm with a barrow filled with grain that was in danger of
falling over.
In the middle of a sequence of correct descriptions of a film clip which included such an
unusual sequences of images as a rock formation, an imp hidden in the rock, and a sleeping bag,
the mentation report (session SG30) abruptly deviates from the film clip by saying ”a barber’s
sign”. However at this point time, the film focused closely on the hair and facial stubble of main
character in the film.
3. Misperceptions sometimes occur. Given the nature of the task and that in contrast to normal
perception there is little in the way of expectancies or context to use in order to identify an
image, some of the misperceptions seem quite plausible. We mentioned previously one of these
which occurred in the highly successful session 141, where the stick the woman picked up to
defend herself appeared to be identified as a boomerang.
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In one of the other sessions (session100) which contained several accurate perceptions, the
spurting forth of water from a car radiator in the film clip involving a car crash was seen as a
geyser. Occasionally the central theme can be misperceived. The assassination scene in the film
about the JFK assassination was described fairly accurately with the exception that it was seen
as a someone being knocked down by a car (session 16).
More often however it would seem like in witness testimony that the general theme can be
correctly identified but that the details go wrong. A film sequence about the dark haired boy
riding a white furry dragon, was described as an ”Indian boy riding an elephant”(session 123).
The shooting scene in the clip a film which showed a man being shot with a pistol and then
falling backwards into the river, was described as ”someone being shot with a rifle and falling
backwards into the river” (session SG1). Another of the four films in the session SG1 was
described as a machine or automation with teeth opening and closing. The film clip actually
focused on the head and jaws of a snake opening and closing. The receiver in this session when
he regularly lectures on the brain describes the reptile brain as essentially reflexes and hormones
giving a snake as an example and saying that this means that snakes behave essentially as an
automation or machine.
Simple misperceptions seem again quite plausible and revealing of the process involved. In
session E26, the film exclusively concerned small white monkeys hopping and jumping and
eating together. Their white colour and their constant jumping was correctly identified as as an
animal hopping and jumping about with the exception that the receiver in this trial saw them as
white lambs. When they sat eating together food she responded with saying a mass of people
eating chewing gum.
In the examples referred to earlier, along with the accurate perception, there were some
further understandable misperceptions. A rescue fireman equipped with a mobile telephone in
his hand was seen as having a pistol in his hand (session E14), and a dangerously swinging lift
(elevator) was apparently seen as a carousel (session E21).
Examples of the principle of how misperceptions can occur in psi
Session 141 When the woman was attacked by other woman with square shaped cloaks and picked up a
stick to defend herself , the receiver said something square shaped and a type of boomerang. The
coloured wigs of the attackers were seen as coloured balls.
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Session 123 The recipient described this film-clip at one point first as someone then as an indian boy
riding an elephant .
Session SG1-film A The receiver described correctly as someone being shot and falling backwards into
water. A misperception was that the pistol was apparently seen as a rifle.
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Session SG1-film B The receiver described the film-clip of a snake opening and closing it's jaws as an
something that opens and closes, a machine or apparatus with teeth.
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Session E26 The receiver described accurately the hovering and jumping of a white animal which she
identified as a white lamb. When they were sitting and eating together, she described "a mass of folk
eating chewing gum".
4. Multi-modal effects appear to be present. Auditory mediated psi-effects appear to occur and
seem likewise to be subject to top down processes. In a film clip about a truck driver who was
trying to pick up to women, the sequence of events including a traffic sign, the motorway and
the body posture of driver was given fairly correctly. However the ”Hi” greeting of the lorry
driver was both synchronously heard translated into Swedish (and subtitled as such in the film)
as ”Hej!” (session SG1). In another film clip, the expression ”I should have been a plastic
surgeon”, was apparently perceived and re-given as in Swedish as the translation of
”physician” (session SG30). The drumming effect in the chase and the sound of a bird, both in a
film based on the book Lord of the Flies appeared however to have been correctly heard (session
P1). The above mentioned successful representation (session E21) of the film clip about being
trapped in a lift, focused on the bodily sensations of hovering and a being lifted and most of all
feeling this in the legs.
5. Perceptual defences appear to distort or delay some of the imagery: In one of our most
successful sessions (141) mentioned above, the theme of the film clip concerned a group of
women chasing and threatening another woman who was running away along a forest path.
The women were apparently first seen symbolically as a snake but the receiver then
spontaneously remarked at this point in the mentation that she believed this association to be
due to her childhood experience of being bitten by a snake. She then continued to give further
details relating to the content of the film-clip, including the presence of other women, nearly all
of which were correct.
The correct identification of the concentration camp film (session E6) occurred only during
the last 8 minutes of the session. This was apparently because the receiver had strong negative
personal memories of a concentration camp, both in having a friend who had been in one and in
having herself visited a former concentration camp.
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6. Top-down processes appear to be involved. It appears sometimes that psi-perception
functions in ways similar to that of visual perception. The forming of an image appears to
require memory recognition and as such it appears subject to top-down processes. Top-down
processes are used in cognitive psychology refer to how perception under non-optimal
conditions is subject to influences of expectancy and hypotheses about what is probable on the
basis of the information available.
It may be for this reason that the initial psi-mediated image is like the primary stage of
normal perception: vague and geometrical. For instance, in a film clip which shows a imp-like
figure partially hidden greenish rock in a cliff and which suddenly moves, was seen as a ”rock
covered with ivy and something in it” (session SG30). The children’s film clip about Toad of
Toad Hall is described in many aspects quite accurately by the receiver but vague, even if
formally correct descriptions, are also given amongst the precise ones. For instance the
sequence showing a train and a racing car travelling parallel to each other at two levels, was
seen here as ”something at two levels” although both the train and the racing car driver were
identified at other points during the mentation (session 100). The cloaks of the attacking women
who were chasing a woman in the forest and which fanned out into black enveloping square
shapes, were seen by the receiver as square shapes and their coloured wigs seen as coloured
balls (session 141).
An Example of the Principle of how top-down processes seem to be involved in psi.
Session SG30 The film-clip shows in the background - in the rock which appears to be partially covered
in moss or algae - an imp or elf figure which suddenly begins to move. The receiver responded in real time with " ivy covered rock with something in it" but the vagueness of the form may have hindered her
from `seeing´ more.
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7. Clairvoyant, telepathic, and precognitive effects appear to occur. It would seem from some
of our examples that the receiver can sometimes focus on the content of the target itself,
sometimes on the sender's activities, and even sometimes on personally relevant things
happening around.
In one session (session S13), we arranged, without the receiver’s knowledge, for a change of
sender to occur. Although the session was formally a miss, some of the images did synchronise
and correspond in well with the content of the film-clip. The intervention did not appear to
make any difference to the quality of the imagery that may have been psi-mediated. However at
the very point in time when the assistant experimenter re-entered the room, the words ”Where
have you been” suddenly came to the receiver and formed part of the mentation report. This
same receiver in a previous session (session 141) appeared to suddenly respond to her daughters
personal association to the woman in the forest scene. Her daughter who was the sender had
said to herself during the viewing that she felt a need to comb the woman’s untidy hair, at
which point in time, her mother responded with the word ”comb”.
In order to promote the effect of the film-clip used in session SG1 the sender had dressed up
as an Arab woman placing her scarf round her head. The receiver responded by saying the
sender's name and that she was dressed up in Arabian clothes or Indian clothes but then
appeared to focus on the urban scene in the film-clip saying it was Paris.
Moreover since we have many examples of accurate images occurring on the first viewing of
the film-clip and which actually are reported a few seconds before the relevant film-clip image
appears, this would argue that it is not practically meaningful to divide psi into various
categories.
An example of the principle of the psi-information focusing on target and sender.
Session SG1-film D The sender in order to facilitate the process, took her scalf round her head: The
receiver responded with the sender's name and saying she was dressed in Arabian or Indian clothes and
apparently then associated to the city setting of the film with "Paris".
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8. Meaningful psi-mediated holistic effects outside the constraints of the design appear to
occur: This is probably the most contentious of our findings. On some occasions striking
mixtures of two or more of the potential 4 videos clips in the series being used, appear to occur
which makes judging difficult. One of our best subjects, described in detail a metal plate that
formed a small insert in a film about convicts escaping through a sewer (S3). She then went on
to associate this to a train which formed part of the larger film from which the clip was taken,
but which she had never seen. The recognition of the plate was however sufficient in order for
her to make a direct hit. Nevertheless, she also claimed to have seen another very short scene
from one of the control films. The word giraffe was suddenly and unaccountably interjected into
the correct description of the concentration camp (E6). The sender in that session had arrived for
the experiment early, taken a walk and looked at a model giraffe in a children’s playground.
The precognition session was exploratory and it did pose a problem to evaluate because due
to a procedural error the wrong composite tape was left in the room for the receiver to view
after the session. She chose the correct target film number and her responses seemed to relate
very clearly to the contents of this tape with no relationship to any other film in the series or the
one later viewed by her sender. This was later confirmed by external judging.
9. Many, but not all, good hits showed repeated themes in the mentation reports. All but two
of our selection of hits in standard ganzfeld show a perservative effect in returning two or more
times to either the whole theme or to one important aspect of it. Since our target clips are shown
on average 6-8 times per session, this can easily be understood as an effect of re-playing the
clips. However, it does occasionally happen that the psi-material appears at the end of the
session or as a sudden insertion in the midst of the personal fantasy being generated (session
123 and session E12).
10. Psi seems to occur as an intact psychological process rather than individual series of
synchronistic or anomalistic correspondences. When psi appears to be working in a session, it
would seem that whole sequences of correct descriptions can emerge. For instance in the forest
chase film (session 141) a whole sequence of incidents are correctly given: that the film first
focuses on a marsh, then on a woman running between large trees, that there is a threat and
there are other women present. The mentation report then relates that she falls and hits her face
(she does), and a boomerang like stick appears (she picks up a crooked stick to defend herself),
that there is a child involved (she is pregnant) and responds with an association to snow when
film becomes briefly snowy.
In responding to another film (session SG30), the same receiver who had made the success
with this film clip, correctly described that there is "something in an ivy covered rock or stone"
(an elf or imp is suddenly seen to be hidden in an algae covered rock). She goes on to mention a
mattress or sleeping bag when the film switches a few moments later moment to a boy lying on
a blanket or possibly a sleeping bag and a mattress.
With the film clip (session E21) about people trapped in an elevator (lift), the receiver
described correctly sequences which focused on legs, the carousel-like appearance of the
swinging lift, and then that something (the lift) went crashing down. Another receiver (session
75) spent nearly half her session describing correctly her film clip as a car chase, with police cars,
sirens, a car with blackened windows (actually a bus) and a man and a woman being shot at.
The data thus support the view that psi is an ongoing extra-sensory process rather than a series
of odd synchronistic or anomalistic events. What appears to be convincing in this respect is the
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predictive value of some of the participants mentation reports. For instance, one participant
(session E14), when reviewing the target film for the first time, saw suddenly what looked like
planks of wood which appeared for a brief moment in the background. She then claimed that
was what she had meant when, at a point (which we heard later) during her otherwise very
accurate ganzfeld mentation, she had suddenly said the word ”planks”. A review of the
mentation report synchronised to the film, confirmed that this remark had occurred exactly at
the brief moment when these plank like objects re-appeared.
Conclusions
Although the above implication of the involvement of top-down processes in psi-mediation is
new, the notion that psi functions in similar ways to ordinary perception is not and is indeed is
reflected in the term extra-sensory perception. There are also several previous findings
supporting this similarity between the way in which information in normal perception and in
psi-perception is processed before it reaches consciousness (Irwin, 1978a, 1978b, Kelly,
Kanthamani, Child, & Young, 1975, McMoneagle, 1997, Roll & Persinger, 1998).
Although some of the examples given here may appear impressive, because of the selective
and subjective nature of this qualitative assessment, the above principles should be regarded as
tentative. Nevertheless , it is believed that by examining the process of how psi manifests into
consciousness, we can gain at least some clues as to how to improve the target selection and
make the judging procedure more accurate. One method of achieving this is to look for so-called
markers of the process and the information it bares.
Parapsychological Markers:
1. The use of expressions indicating uncertainty or the use of shapes such as: ”something like
...”, ”something with the form of ...”, ”it can be ....”. This may indicate the activation of top
down processes in psi-imagery and may occur more often here than in the generation of
fantasy images.
2. Unusual imagery or sequences of events that occur in the film-clips if represented in the
mentation report may serve as a marker to distinguish the target film from the controls.
3. Since a process appears to be involved which is akin to the flow of sensory information, i
when one aspect is correctly identified, it may well be that others will follow in a sequence of
correct or near correct descriptions or meaningful units of expression.
4. Repeated descriptions of the same object or theme may follow the replaying of the film.
Practical Implications:
The presence of top down processes may even have practical implications for the choice of
target clips. A simple example would be to incorporate the use of film-clips that focus constantly
on the same object but viewed from several angles may help the receiver to more easily identify
this object.
Although we do not yet have norms for ganzfeld fantasy, common responses appear to
naturally concern those aspects of the environment that effect us, namely water, cars,
aeroplanes, trees, and people in contact or in conflict with each other. Consequently the
inclusion of unusual contents or events in a film may, if correctly identified by psi and
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represented in the mentation report, enable the film to be clearly distinguished from the decoys
in the series.
We believe some examples of this are contained in this report. A mentation report which for
instance concerns a forest environment may not be so unusual. One which concerns a woman
who enters a forest with enormously tall trees from a marsh and then runs along a path and
experiences a threat may be still be considered less common but is nevertheless still a general
description. When the other correctly described aspects are added such as those of noticing and
remarking - all at the correct points in time - that the person falls and hits her face, that the film has
become snowy, and that there is a presence of a boomerang shaped stick (used just at that point
by the woman in the film for defence against her pursuers), then common sense argues against
the total effect being a chance correspondence. Even discounting the correct timing with respect
to the film images, this is a series of mental images that have never been reported before in the
approximately 200 ganzfeld trials carried out in Gothenburg.
It seems then to be evident that when psi is functioning in experiments, fairly accurate real
time correspondences do occur between the mentation and the target film clip. Used in this way,
the ganzfeld provides a methodology which is very near to that of real-life spontaneous
experiences. Moreover, since many of these correspondences appear to follow the repeated
viewing of the same clip, the search for repeated themes in the protocol as well as sudden
deviations from these, may allow the possibility of studying more of the phenomenology of how
psi merges into consciousness.
In terms of practical applications, the above examples provide a basis for arguing that realtime recording should be in future used in the judging procedure. In terms of learning more
about psi, post session interviews with participants about correct and incorrect imagery, can also
be a valuable tool.
In addition to the above practical applications, there may be some important theoretical
implications of the observations presented here. The data that we have reviewed, although
qualitative in nature, strongly suggest that psi can be understood at least in part as a
psychologically meaningful process and not as an odd synchronistic or anomalistic event.
However as far as understanding psi from the nature of top-down processes, there may well be
a two-way exchange. Our understanding of perceptual processes may be far less complete than
cognitive psychologists usually believe and that by understanding psi more, we will
significantly contribute to cognitive psychology and neuropsychology.
Department of Psychology,
University of Gothenburg.
Box 500,
17
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