Monday 30 April 2012

The Ganzfeld Experiment



Lately, we have been reading about and experimenting with the Ganzfeld experiment. Ganzfeld refers to a homogeneous field, whether it be visual, auditory, tactile, etc. Usually this translates into lying still, staring at something featureless with white noise in the background. Why subject yourself to such misery? Because you will begin to hallucinate.
The idea is that once you deprive your senses of any meaningful stimuli your brain starts to make things up. People may start out with flashes of greeny/purple shapes/fog but eventually vivid visuals or distinct sounds may burst out of nowhere.
So throw away those crystal balls and obsidian mirrors 'cause this here's the new scrying, baby.

Those who are interested into delving into the emerging science behind it might like to start by hunting down the following article:
Wackermann J, Putz P & Allefeld C 2008 'Ganzfeld-induced hallucinatory experience, its phenomenology and cerebral electrophysiology' Cortex, Volume 44, Issue 10, pp. 1364-1378.

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