Two studies examined psychological mechanisms behind precognitive dream experiences. Study 1 tested selective recall: participants read a dream diary and a life-events diary; they remembered significantly more dream-event pairs where the event confirmed the dream than pairs where it disconfirmed it. Paranormal belief did not affect this recall bias. Study 2 tested whether paranormal beliefs arise from a tendency to associate unrelated events. Participants who scored higher in paranormal belief and precognitive dream belief were better at finding correspondences between randomly-paired news articles and dream reports, but no relationship was found between belief and a neutral word-association task. Together, the studies show how selective recall and associative thinking can increase perceived dream-event coincidences.
A registered prospective meta-analysis of ganzfeld extrasensory perception (ESP) studies tested whether participants preselected for creativity, prior psi experience or belief, or mental discipline practice would show above-chance precognition. Using an automated design with randomly selected video clips as targets and decoys, 22 direct hits occurred in 60 trials (37% hit-rate), significantly supporting the precognition task. However, no correlation was found between altered state of consciousness measures and task performance, contrary to the hypothesis that the ganzfeld method induces a psi-conducive state. The authors conclude that further ganzfeld ESP research is justified.
A female parapsychologist recounts her academic career, from being the first in her farming family to attend university to becoming the second holder of the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology. She acknowledges privileges of being white and middle-class, and having an open-minded boss, while facing gender-related obstacles such as maternity leave and disproportionate domestic responsibilities, managed partly through part-time work. Her progression to senior positions was slow relative to male colleagues, a typical experience for many female UK academics, but data show other groups, especially black people, are even more poorly represented. The paper concludes that parapsychological research will benefit from a more inclusive academy.
About 3% of Americans report having had a near-death experience, typically involving a sense of the soul leaving the body, approaching a bright light, and entering a reality of overwhelming love and bliss. Contrary to popular belief, research suggests these experiences are not paranormal but rather result from normal brain function gone awry during a traumatic or sometimes harmless event.