Citation

We examined how hypnotizability, dissociation, alterations in consciousness, belief in success, and previous psi experiences related to performance in a ganzfeld psi task. High (n = 14) and low (n = 12) hypnotizables participated in 2 sessions. The first included measures of dissociation and alterations in consciousness during ganzfeld, whereas the second consisted of a telepathy task with the percipient again in a ganzfeld setting. We hypothesized that high hypnotizability (perhaps interacting with dissociation), alterations in consciousness, expecting a successful psi performance, and previous psi experiences would predict successful psi performance. Percipients’ belief of their own success in the experiment and their reports of previous psi experiences correlated significantly with psi z scores, but contrary to our hypothesis hypnotizability overall correlated negatively with performance on the psi task. However, psi z scores correlated strongly to moderately with experiencing an altered state and other changes in consciousness, but only for high hypnotizables. Although we did not find an overall interaction between hypnotizability and dissociation, we observed that at least a subgroup of high dissociative, high hypnotizables seemed to be accurate when they followed their “hunches” rather than their imagery.