ESP and altered states of consciousness: an overview of conceptual and research trends

(*) These were negative relationships.

Note. This table includes only a few examples of research on the subject. Unless otherwise specified, all the significant relationships were positive.

In 1977, Honorton presented in the Handbook of Parapsychology what I believe was the most influential of his literature reviews in the sense of articulating the relationship between ASCs and ESP based on his own work and that of previous and contemporary researchers. In this paper, Honorton found that when groups of studies were analyzed by topic (e.g., hypnosis, meditation), the cumulative results obtained statistical significance. In this and in other papers, Honorton (1974a, 1974b, 1974c) developed a model of sensory attenuation to account for the optimization effect he believed altered states or internal attention states had on ESP. Honorton (1974a) argued that "success in extrasensory tasks will be augmented by attenuations of externally-directed attentive activity" (p. 54). In the same publication, he said that "relatively large and rapid shifts in state will be associated with enhanced ESP performance" (p. 55). The latter obtained some support from the above-mentioned studies showing correlates between changes in state using self-report measures and ESP test performance. As for noise reduction, Honorton (1974c) noted that "relatively weak psi impressions may be more readily detected and recognized during periods in which the sensory `noise level' (including body tension) is minimized" (p. 250). In Honorton's view, a pattern in the studies done with dreams, relaxation, and other conditions, indicated that openness or receptivity to ESP was facilitated or increased by reducing the sensory input of the organism. Honorton also used the writings of Patanjali on yoga, which were popular in the United States and elsewhere during the 1960s and the 1970s, to support this contention (Honorton, 1981).(15)

The noise-reduction model influenced others such as Braud (1978), whose research program was in many ways better articulated than Honorton's. Braud specified in more detail the possible sources of noise, mainly sensory and perceptual noise, bodily and autonomic activity, mental activities, logical and linear thinking, excessive striving to obtain ESP information, and interference from other ESP signals. Consequently, Braud summarized many of his studies in which he attempted to reduce noise using sensory deprivation, relaxation, autogenic exercises, right-hemispheric thinking, concentration, and other techniques. In his view, some possible explanations for the effectiveness of noise reduction included such concepts as improved access to imagery and other impressions that mediate ESP, or a more direct sensitivity to weaker ESP signals. But Braud also mentioned such competing explanations as changes in attitude and the value of ritual in reducing personal responsibility for results.

Perhaps no other area of research is more directly linked to ASCs in recent times or to the noise-reduction model than the ganzfeld. As argued in Bem and Honorton's (1994) well known review: