Ganzfield Experiment
Location Information
Date:19th July, 2014 Type:Residential
Location Title:Ganzfield Experiment City/State:Lexington, MO
Investigation Times:09:00 PM - 11:00 PM Status:Analysis
Weather Information
Sunrise:06:05 AM Sunset:08:37 PM
High Temperature:78 °F Low Temperature:57 °F
Sky Condition:Clear Wind:S at 2 mph
Humidity:94% Precipitation:%
Lunar Phase:Last Quarter % disk visible:43%
Solar X-Rays:Normal Geomagnetic Field:Quiet
Pressure:30.03 mmHg
Investigators Present
Angela Hodge
Jenny Kerr
Becky Ray
Jennifer Sprague
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Location History
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A ganzfeld experiment (from the German for “entire field”) is a technique used in parapsychology which claims to be able to test individuals for extrasensory perception (ESP). The ganzfeld experiments are among the most recent in parapsychology for testing telepathy.
In a typical ganzfeld experiment, a "receiver" is placed in a room relaxing in a comfortable chair with halved ping-pong balls over the eyes, having a red light shone on them. The receiver also wears a set of headphones through which white or pink noise (static) is played. The receiver is in this state of mild sensory deprivation for half an hour. During this time, a "sender" observes a randomly chosen target and tries to mentally send this information to the receiver. The receiver speaks out loud during the thirty minutes, describing what he or she can see. This is recorded by the experimenter (who is blind to the target) either by recording onto tape or by taking notes, and is used to help the receiver during the judging procedure.
In the judging procedure, the receiver is taken out of the Ganzfeld state and given a set of possible targets, from which they select one which most resembled the images they witnessed. Most commonly there are three decoys along with the target, giving an expected rate of 25%, by chance, over several dozens of trials.
Investigators Notes
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Becky Ray:We had mixed results on our first night trying the Ganzfield Experiment. Angela and Jenny's results were amazingly accurate, while Becky and Jennifer's weren't even close. I'm intrigued enough by Angela and Jenny's results to attempt this again!
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Jennifer Sprague:I was a receiver for this experiment. It definitely plays with your mind because in my experience with this it gives you somewhat of a sense of paranoia. My paranoia was not overwhelming, but I did feel a little "on edge" and it took me awhile to relax. As the noise in the headphones increased and decreased, I began to notice that I kept seeing a floating red dot sporadically in my mind's eye. After I relaxed a little the images started forming. Everything from trains and doorways to rectangle shapes and colors and they kept coming. When it came time to pick the object that closely resembled the majority of the images I saw, the only thing that came close was a rectangle remote control and it wasn't the image of what the sender was sending me. I do find this experiment interesting and I would love to try it places that have had paranormal activity and also try it with various different types of noises in the headphones as well to see if that yields anything interesting. As far as it proving or heightening any sense of "telepathy" I think that remains to be seen, but it is interesting to see how the brain reacts to different stimulus as with the pink and white noise and Jenny and Angela did get some interesting results.