Dream telepathy

Dream telepathy is the purported ability to communicate telepathically with another person while one is dreaming.^[1] Mainstream scientific consensus rejects dream telepathy as a real phenomenon. Parapsychological experiments into dream telepathy have not produced replicable results.^[2][3] The first person in modern times to claim to document telepathic dreaming was Sigmund Freud.^[4] In the 1940s, it was the subject of the Eisenbud-Pederson-Krag-Fodor-Ellis controversy, named after the preeminent psychoanalysts of the time who were involved: Jule Eisenbud, Geraldine Pederson-Krag, Nandor Fodor, and Albert Ellis.^[5]

History

The notion and speculation of communication via dreaming was first mooted in psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud in 1921.^[6] He produced a model to express his ideas about telepathic dreaming.^[4] His 1922 paper Dreams and Telepathy is reproduced in the book Psychoanalysis and the Occult (1953) and was intended to be a lecture to the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society, although he never delivered it.^[6] Freud considered that a connection between telepathy and dreams could be neither proven nor disproven. He was distinctly suspicious of the whole idea, noting that he himself had never had a telepathic dream. (His two dreams that were potentially telepathic, where he dreamed of the deaths of a son and of a sister-in-law, which did not occur, he labeled as "purely subjective anticipations".) His ideas were not widely accepted at the time, but he continued to publicly express his interest and findings about telepathic dreaming. He also observed that he had not encountered any evidence of dream telepathy in his patients.^[6][7] Freud claims neutrality about the phenomenon itself, states that the sleep milieu has special likely properties for it if it does exist, and discounts all of the cases presented to him on standard psychoanalytic grounds (e.g. neurosis, transference, etc.).^[8]

In the 1940s, Jule Eisenbud, Geraldine Pederson-Krag and Nandor Fodor described alleged cases of dream telepathy. Albert Ellis regarded their conclusions to have been based upon flimsy evidence, and thought that they could be better explained by bias, coincidence and unconscious cues than by dream telepathy. He also accused them of an emotional involvement in the notion, resulting in their observations and judgement being clouded.^[9][10] Psychologist L. Börje Löfgren also criticised dream telepathy experiments of Eisenbud. He stated that coincidence was a more likely explanation and the "assumption of paranormal forces to explain them is unnecessary."^[11]

Experiments

There have been many experiments done to test the validity of dream telepathy and its effectiveness, but with significant issues of blinding. Many test subjects find ways to communicate with others to make it look like telepathic communication. Attempts to cut off communication between the agent, sender, and receiver of information failed because subjects found ways to get around blindfolds no matter how intricate and covering they were.^[12] In studies at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York led by Stanley Krippner and Montague Ullman, patients were monitored and awakened after a period of REM then separated to study the claimed ability to communicate telepathically. They concluded the results from some of their experiments supported dream telepathy.^[4]

The picture target experiments that were conducted by Krippner and Ullman were criticized by C. E. M. Hansel. According to Hansel there were weaknesses in the design of the experiments in the way in which the agent became aware of their target picture. Only the agent should have known the target and no other person until the judging of targets had been completed; however, an experimenter was with the agent when the target envelope was opened. Hansel also wrote there had been poor controls in the experiment as the main experimenter could communicate with the subject.^[13]

An attempt to replicate the experiments that used picture targets was carried out by Edward Belvedere and David Foulkes. The finding was that neither the subject nor the judges matched the targets with dreams above chance level.^[14] Results from other experiments by Belvedere and Foulkes were also negative.^[3]

In 2003, Simon Sherwood and Chris Roe wrote a review that claimed support for dream telepathy at Maimonides.^[15] However, James Alcock noted that their review was based on "extreme messiness" of data. Alcock concluded the dream telepathy experiments at Maimonides have failed to provide evidence for telepathy and "lack of replication is rampant."^[16]

The psychologist and noted skeptic Richard Wiseman took part in a dream telepathy experiment. It was conducted by Caroline Watt at a sleep laboratory in an attempt to replicate the results of Krippner and Ullman. The experiment was a complete failure. According to Wiseman, "after monitoring about twenty volunteers for several nights on end, the study didn't discover any evidence in support of the supernatural."^[17]

See also

• Collective unconscious
• Parapsychology

References

1. Krippner, Stanley; Franasso, Cheryl. (2011). Dreams, Telepathy, and Various States of Consciousness. NeuroQuantology 9 (1): 4.
2. Wiseman, Richard. (2014). Night School: Wake Up to the Power of Sleep. Macmillan. p. 202. ISBN 978-1-4472-4840-8 Wiseman writes regarding Krippner and Ullman's experiments "Over the years, many researchers have failed to replicate their remarkable findings and, as a result, the work is seen as curious but not proof of the paranormal."
3. Hansel, C. E. M. (1989). The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited. Prometheus Books. pp. 141-152. ISBN 0-87975-516-4
4. Ullman, Montague (2003). "Dream telepathy: experimental and clinical findings". In Totton, Nick (ed.). Psychoanalysis and the paranormal: lands of darkness. Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Karnac Books. pp. 14–46. ISBN 978-1-85575-985-5.
5. Devereux, George, ed. (1953). "The Eisenbud-Pederson-Krag-Fodor-Ellis Controversy". In Psychoanalysis and the Occult. Oxford, England: International Universities Press.
6. Eshel, Ofra (December 2006). "Where are you, my beloved?: On absence, loss, and the enigma of telepathic dreams". The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 87 (6): 1603–1627.
7. Frieden, Ken (1990). Freud's dream of interpretation. SUNY series in modern Jewish literature and culture. SUNY Press. pp. 102-103. ISBN 978-0-7914-0124-8.
8. Freud, S. Collected Papers, V. IV pp 408-435 International Psychoanalytic Library No. 7, Ed 1, Basic Books 1959 "Have I given you the impression that I am secretly inclined to support the reality of telepathy in the occult sense? If so, I should very much regret that it is so difficult to avoid giving such an impression. In reality, however, I was anxious to be strictly impartial. I have every reason to be so, for I have no opinion; I know nothing about it." p. 435. Here Freud explicitly refers to the conflation of telepathy as such with clairvoyance and other occult elements.
9. Ellis, Albert. (1947). Telepathy and Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Recent Findings. Psychiatric Quarterly 21: 607-659.
10. Ellis, Albert. (1949). Re-analysis of an alleged telepathic dream. Psychiatric Quarterly: 23: 116-126.
11. Löfgren, L. B. (1968). Recent Publications on Parapsychology. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 16: 146-178.
12. McBroom, Patricia. (1967). Dreams, Art and Mental Telepathy. Science News 92: 424.
13. Hansel, C. E. M. The Search for a Demonstration of ESP. In Paul Kurtz. (1985). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 97-127. ISBN 0-87975-300-5
14. Belvedere, E., Foulkes, D. (1971). Telepathy and Dreams: A Failure to Replicate. Perceptual and Motor Skills 33: 783–789.
15. Sherwood, S. J; Roe, C. A. (2003). A Review of Dream ESP Studies Conducted Since the Maimonides Dream ESP Programme. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10: 85-109.
16. Alcock, James. (2003). Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi. Journal of Consciousness Studies 10: 29-50. "In their article, Sherwood and Roe examine attempts to replicate the well-known Maimonides dream studies that began in the 1960s. They provide a good review of these studies of dream telepathy and clairvoyance, but if one thing emerges for me from their review, it is the extreme messiness of the data adduced. Lack of replication is rampant. While one would normally expect that continuing scientific scrutiny of a phenomenon should lead to stronger effect sizes as one learns more about the subject matter and refines the methodology, this is apparently not the case with this research."
17. Wiseman, Richard. (2014). Night School: Wake Up to the Power of Sleep. Macmillan. pp. 200-201. ISBN 978-1-4472-4840-8

Further reading

• Alcock, James (1981). Parapsychology: Science or Magic? A Psychological Perspective. Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-025772-0
• Devereux, George, ed. (1953). "The Eisenbud-Pederson-Krag-Fodor-Ellis controversy". Psychoanalysis and the Occult. Oxford, England: International Universities Press.
• Ellis, Albert (1947). "Telepathy and Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Recent Findings". Psychiatric Quarterly. 21 (4): 607–659. doi:10.1007/bf01654321. PMID 18904525. S2CID 28772668.
• Child, Irvin (November 1985). "Psychology and Anomalous Observations: The Question of ESP in Dreams". American Psychologist. 40 (11): 1219–1230. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.40.11.1219.