Anomalous & Altered States—Overview

Can nonphysical consciousness (or realms) be revealed or accessed via anomalous, psi, or paranormal phenomena—extrasensory perception (ESP), out-of-body experiences (OBEs), near-death experiences (NDEs), and the like? Psychical research beginning in the late 19th century and parapsychology in the mid-20th century sought to study the phenomena scientifically.

Parapsychology and the Case for Psi

To those who believe in its existence—researchers and general public alike—the reality of psi/paranormal phenomena leads directly to consciousness being nonphysical, as well as to nonphysical modes of mental existence, whether as individual “spirits” or “souls” or in the broader sense of nonphysical realms of parallel worlds (Radin, 2007; Schlitz, 2007; Tart, 2007). There are innumerable reports of ESP—telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis—the vast majority anecdotal, some research-based; believers (“sheep”) and skeptics (“goats”) remain equally adamant in their convictions. Moreover, even among psi-sheep researchers, there are replicability problems and a possible paradox of confounding interactions between the researcher (the observer) and the experiment (the observed) (Rabeyron, 2020).

For the record, I [RLK] remain skeptical regarding the overwhelming majority of anecdotal paranormal stories and circumspect regarding statistically significant research affirming psi. I consider likely drivers to be illusion, delusion, fraud, imperfect experimental design, unwitting experimenter bias, ex ante sample selection, ex post data selection, ex post reasoning, and/or plain-old wishful thinking.

Still, I have to say, I generally respect parapsychologists and their experimental designs, and I cannot rule out all paranormal stories. This is why I must consider the profound implications for theories of consciousness if any claims of psi and the paranormal were to turn out to be veridical. (In the context of my skepticism and consideration, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I have a history.^[1])

Parapsychologist Dean Radin distinguishes sharply between the words paranormal and psi. They are not synonymous, he stresses. “The paranormal is a tabloid trope that encompasses Bigfoot, astrology, crystal healing, UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, etc.,” he says. “Equating paranormal with psi perpetuates the idea that psi is part of a great silliness, and this is one of the many reasons why sober academics strictly avoid the topic.” By contrast, Radin points out, “psi refers only to common aspects of human experiences reported throughout history and across all cultures, and psi research studies such experiences.” Radin acknowledges, “Yes, 95% of these reports may have mundane explanations, but 5% do not. And that 5% changes everything” (Radin, 2024).

Psi research, Radin notes, was “designed explicitly to exclude the illusion, delusion, fraud, p-hacking [misuse of data analysis to report false positives], and the like.” He asserts, “There is no better way to demonstrate the current state of the evidence for psi than to read major pro-psi and con-psi articles published in the APA's flagship journal, American Psychologist (Cardeña, 2018; Reber & Alcock, 2020). The pro article discusses meta-analyses of 10 classes of psi experiments reported in over 1000 individual studies. In reply, the authors of the con article state up front that they would not address the evidence because—and they actually say this—psi is impossible. That's the Spanish Inquisition approach to ignoring uncomfortable facts, and yet that is the state of psi skepticism today” (Radin, 2024).

Cardeña's paper, “The experimental evidence for parapsychological phenomena: A Review,” clarifies “the domain of psi, summarizes recent theories from physics and psychology that present psi phenomena as at least plausible, and then provides an overview of recent/updated meta-analyses.” The evidence, Cardeña concludes, “provides cumulative support for the reality of psi, which cannot be readily explained away by the quality of the studies, fraud, selective reporting, experimental or analytical incompetence, or other frequent criticisms.” The evidence for psi, he says, “is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them” (Cardeña, 2018).

Reber and Alcock's paper, “Searching for the impossible: Parapsychology's elusive quest,” presents an opposing perspective to “the general claims of psi (the umbrella term often used for anomalous or paranormal phenomena).” The authors mount “a broad-based critique of the entire parapsychology enterprise.” Their position is straightforward: “Claims made by parapsychologists cannot be true. The effects reported can have no ontological status; the data have no existential value.” Reber and Alcock base their stark conclusion “on well-understood scientific principles. In the classic English adynaton, “pigs cannot fly.” Hence, data that suggest that they can are necessarily flawed and result from weak methodology or improper data analyses or are Type I errors.^[2] So it must be with psi effects.”

What they find “particularly intriguing is that, despite the existential impossibility of psi phenomena and the nearly 150 years of efforts during which there has been, literally, no progress, there are still scientists who continue to embrace the pursuit” (Reber & Alcock, 2020).

Near-Death, Out-of-Body, and Other Anomalous Experiences

The vast anecdotal literature of near-death experiences (NDEs) and out-of-body experiences (OBEs), amplified by innumerable (supposed) communications with the dead and some serious but controversial research, gives rise to beliefs in a sentient afterlife, thus giving apparent credence to non-materialistic theories of consciousness. There are even reports of auras and halos around or emanating from people; some claim to witness, at the moment of death, the soul departing the body. “Terminal lucidity”—unanticipated and unexplained changes in mental clarity, verbal communication, and/or physical capability in the days and hours before death when each patient's medical condition should not allow for such sudden improvements—suggests, to some, that there is something nonphysical going on (Roehrs et al., 2023).

Credulous readers will find an inexhaustible supply of NDE/OBE anecdotes and stories, but modest serious research of sound design in which the extraordinary claims are supported unambiguously by extraordinary evidence (to paraphrase Carl Sagan) (I acknowledge claims to the contrary^[3]).

Perhaps the most common claim of “evidence” that consciousness is nonphysical comes from out-of-body experiences (Tart, 1987, 2007). Those having OBEs report their experiential awareness to be as a nonphysical entity (spirit/soul) in a nonphysical world. It is all sensorily or perceptibly real, vivid, and stable, yet they sense not being in their earthly bodies and not being in our earthly world. The more lucid quality of OBE consciousness (compared to dream consciousness), which is typical of OBEs, convinces OBE adherents of the nonphysical nature of their personal consciousness and the reality of nonphysical realms.

It is no surprise that psi researchers are more compelled by laboratory tests than by OBE/NDE anecdotes. They also point to everyday phenomena that people experience, such as thinking of someone and then getting a text or phone call from them, fueling the sense that it feels too unlikely to be a coincidence.

To philosopher and parapsychologist Stephen Braude, the answer to the mind-body problem depends in part on how much exotic data you are willing to entertain. “If you are willing to look seriously at some of the data suggesting a persistence of personality after bodily death, after the body has decomposed,” he says, “then certainly the conventional materialist, neurophysiological view goes out the window” (Braude, 2007a). (For mathematician-astronomer Bernard Carr, paranormal phenomena inform his views of consciousness and the nature of fundamental reality.)

The fact of the matter—whether such psi/paranormal phenomena have credible claims on reality, or whether they are purely and merely illusion, delusion, poor design or faulty analysis (those that aren't already outright frauds)—is not for adjudication or even for assessment here. (But the wholly skeptical view, personified engagingly by Susan Blackmore, does need voice [Blackmore, 2002, 2007].)

Rather, if any of these psi/paranormal phenomena—even if a minuscule fraction of them—is real and does challenge or defy the laws of physics as currently construed, then non-materialistic theories of consciousness would have to be taken more seriously. This possibility, however remote or however likely, justifies inclusion, at least for me, of psi-motivated theories of consciousness here on the Landscape of possible explanations.

I largely agree with Àlex Gómez-Marín: “The study of consciousness requires that we take seriously the many flavors of human experience, particularly those that lie at the edges of what is typically explored scientifically and discussed in public. From psychedelics and synchronicities, to lucid dreaming and psychic phenomena, the ‘backdoors of perception’ have the potential to transform not just neuroscience and physics but our very understanding of the nature of reality and our place in it” (Gómez-Marín, 2023b). (I am, however, modestly less optimistic that meaningful progress can be made.)

Altered States and Non-Materialist Theories

The more general “altered states of consciousness” subsumes diverse deviations from our normal alert, waking consciousness as induced by various physiological, psychological, or pharmacological actions or agents (“Altered state of consciousness,” 2023). Charles Tart, whose book, Altered States of Consciousness, was the first comprehensive treatment of the subject, focuses on the subjective nature of the experience: “Altered states of consciousness are alternate patterns or configurations of experience, which differ qualitatively from a baseline state,” stressing “… such that the experiencer feels his consciousness is radically different from the way it functions ordinarily” (Tart, 1969).

Note that Anomalous and Altered States theories, strictly speaking, are generally not theories of consciousness per se in that they are not theories of what consciousness is. Rather, they are claimed as evidence of what consciousness is not—not reducible to neurobiological states without residue. It is natural that those who interpret psi results favorably are also motivated to accept (or to create) non-local theories of consciousness.

Moreover, while advocates of Anomalous and Altered States theories skew toward dualist or idealist theories, they espouse all the non-materialist theories: quantum, panpsychism, and monism, as well as dualism and idealism. For example, Dean Radin supports a “quantum oriented,” non-substance dualism, while Charles Tart supports an “emergent interactionism” substance dualism. All the theories that follow are motivated, at least in significant part, by anomalous, psi, or paranormal phenomena (often NDEs and OBEs).

Footnotes

[1]. I followed parapsychology from my mid-teens through undergraduate years. J. B. Rhine, a pioneer in the field, invited me to do a PhD in parapsychology with him at Duke—which I turned down to do brain research at UCLA (a surprisingly wise choice for a passionate youngster). I continued to follow parapsychology, with decreasing interest, through the 1970s. Decades later, I began again, modestly, on Closer To Truth, and now with this Landscape, keeping both skepticism and spirited speculation in a kind of superposition.

[2]. A type I error (false positive) occurs when a null hypothesis is rejected even though it is actually true in the population.

[3]. Upon reviewing an early draft of this paper, cognitive scientist/parapsychologist Edward Kelly said (after some pleasant words that shall remain private), “I think you and Jonathan Schooler both substantially underestimate the cumulative force of the evidence for psi processes.”