• DOI:10.1037/0003-066X.40.11.1219
• Corpus ID: 52206370

Psychology and anomalous observations: The question of ESP in dreams.

@article{Child1985PsychologyAA,
  title={Psychology and anomalous observations: The question of ESP in dreams.},
  author={Irvin Long Child},
  journal={American Psychologist},
  year={1985},
  volume={40},
  pages={1219-1230}
}

• I. Child
• Published 1 November 1985
• Psychology
• American Psychologist

Books by psychologists purporting to offer critical reviews of research in parapsychology do not use the scientific standards of discourse prevalent in psychology. Experiments at Maimonides Medical Center on possible extrasensory perception (ESP) in dreams are used to illustrate this point. The experiments have received little or no mention in some reviews to which they are clearly pertinent. In others, they have been so severely distorted as to give an entirely erroneous impression of how they were conducted. Insofar as psychologists are guided by these reviews, they are prevented from gaining accurate information about research that, as surveys show, would be of wide interest to psychologists as well as to others. In recent years, evidence has been accumulating for the occurrence of sfich anomalies as telepathy and psychokinesis, but the evidence is not totally convincing. The evidence has come largely from experiments by psychologists who have devoted their careers mainly to studying these anomalies, but members of other disciplines, including engineering and physics, have also taken part. Some psychologists not primarily concerned with parapsychology have taken time out from other professional concerns to explore such anomalies for themselves. Of these, some have joined in the experimentation (e.g., Crandall & Hite, 1983; Lowry, 1981; Radin, 1982). Some have critically reviewed portions of the evidence (e.g., Akers, 1984; Hyman, 1985). Some, doubting that the phenomena could be real, have explored nonrational processes that might encourage belief in their reality (e.g., Ayeroff & Abelson, 1976). Still others, considering the evidence substantial enough to justify a constructive theoretical effort, have struggled to relate the apparent anomalies to better established knowledge in a way that will render them less anomalous (e.g., Irwin, 1979) or not anomalous at all (e.g., Blackmore, 1984). These psychologists differ widely in their surmise about whether the apparent anomalies in question will eventually be judged real or illusory; but they appear to agree that the evidence to date warrants serious consideration. Serious consideration of apparent anomalies seems an essential part of the procedures of science, regardless of whether it leads to an understanding of new discoveries or to an understanding of how persuasive illusions arise. Apparent anomalies--just like the more numerous observations that are not anoma lous-can receive appropriate attention only as they become accurately known to the scientists to whose work they are relevant. Much parapsychological research is barred from being seriously considered because it is either neglected or misrepresented in writings by some psychologists--among them, some who have placed themselves in a prime position to mediate interaction between parapsychological research and the general body of psychological knowledge. In this article, I illustrate this important general point with a particular case, that of experimental research on possible ESP in dreams. It is a case of especially great interest but is not unrepresentative of how psychological publications have treated similar anomalies. The Maimonides Research The experimental evidence suggesting that dreams may actually be influenced by ESP comes almost entirely from a research program carried out at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Among scientists active in parapsychology, this program is widely known and greatly respected. It has had a major indirect influence on the recent course of parapsychological research, although the great expense of dream-laboratory work has prevented it from being a direct model. None of the Maimonides research was published in the journals that are the conventional media for psychology. (The only possible exception is that a summary of one study [Honorton, Krippner, & Ullman, 1972] appeared in convention proceedings of the American Psychological Association.) Much of it was published in the specialized journals of parapsychology. The rest was published in psychiatric or other medical journals, where it would not be noticed by many psychologists. Most of it was summarized in popularized form in a book (Ullman, Krippner, & Vaughan, 1973) in which two of the researchers were joined by a popular writer whose own writings are clearly not in the scientific tradition, and the book departs from the pattern of scientific reporting that characterizes the original research reports. November 1985 • American Psychologist Copyright 1985 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/85/$00.75 Vol. 40, No. 11, 1219-123