1. Presentiment Research: Past, Present, and Future Utrecht II 16 October 2008 Eva Lobach University of Amsterdam

2. Intro Eva Lobach Mathematics B.Sc. Psychology Research Methods M.Sc. 1999, University of Amsterdam Research projects on parapsychological subjects, intuition, and decision making (1999 – present) Maths courses for psychology students Ph.D. project with Prof. Dr. Dick Bierman on intuitive decision making (2005 – present).

3. Presentiment A Vague Sense of Impending Doom

4. Presentiment: definition Presentiment is also known as ‘anomalous prestimulus response’. Presentiment is an unconscious sensing of an event in the future. Presentiment may influence decision making. Presentiment can be measured as physiological changes (heartrate, EEG, skin conductance level, etc.).

5. Presentiment Research: Past Spontaneous cases inspired presentiment research. Early measurements of physiological processes (EEG, skin conductance) in parapsychological experiments. (Hartwell, 1978; Vassy, 1978). Analysis was cumbersome and error prone. Results were mixed. Impulsive and ‘intuitive’ decision to take day off from work on 9/11/2001

6. Presentiment Research: Present (1/8) New series of presentiment experiments initiated by Dean Radin. Replicated by Dick Bierman. E.g., Bierman & Radin, 1997

7. Presentiment Research: Present (2/8) Typical presentiment study: Independent variable Emotional and neutral future events: 30 randomly presented emotional and neutral pictures; 2 : 1 ratio Dependent measure Electro Dermal Activity (Skin conductance level)

8. Presentiment Research: Present (3/8)

9. Presentiment Research: Present (4/8) Typical presentiment results:

10. Presentiment Research: Present (5/8) Types of stimuli used in presentiment studies Visual stimuli: – Photos; neutral, violent, and erotic (compared with each other) – Light flashes (compared with no flash trials) Auditory stimuli: – Neutral and unpleasant sounds (compared with each other) – Loud bursts of white noise or other startling sounds (compared with silence trials) All types of stimuli showed presentiment effects.

11. Presentiment Research: Present (6/8) Physiological measures used in presentiment studies Electrodermal activity (Skin Conductance Level or Skin Conductance Response) Heartrate changes EEG fMRI All showed presentiment effects, not in all studies. Method of analysis may be relevant: overall measures vs. individual consistency

12. Presentiment Research: Present (7/8) Types of participants in presentiment studies Unselected participants (about 10 studies) Meditators (3 studies) Therapeutic Touch students (one study) Men and women (all studies) Scepticism may depress or counter effects. Meditators showed mixed results. Therapeutic Touch students seemed more effective. Some evidence that women show more effect.

13. Presentiment Research: Present (8/8) Variations in experimental design Participant initiates each trial + trial course is always the same. Participant is passive + timing of stimuli is randomly varied. Comparing different groups of participants and/or different consciousness states (e.g. meditation vs. non-meditation) in one experimental set-up Effects of timing appear not critical to presentiment effect. Effects of consciousness states and types of participants are inconclusive but intriguing.

14. Presentiment Research: Current Theoretical Approaches (1/5) WHY vs. HOW – Evolutionary perspective Focus on question why psi exists (Broughton, Carpenter) Presentiment Hypothesis: Psi-effect will be stronger with threatening stimuli. Note: Current presentiment studies comparing emotional/startle stimuli to neutral stimuli use this idea already as an implicit assumption.

15. Presentiment Research: Current Theoretical Approaches (2/5) Decision Augmentation Theory (DAT – May, Spottiswoode, Vassy) Experimental evidence that effect was due to lowered skin responses during no-stimulus trials. Presentiment Hypothesis: Presentiment-effect is due to unconscious psi- augmented decisions of the experimenter. NOTE: Hypothesis may be difficult to test.

16. Presentiment Research: Current Theoretical Approaches (3/5) Time and causality: Approaches from physics 1.Consciousness Induced Restored Time Symmetry (CIRTS – Bierman): Consciousness may act as ‘coherent absorber’. Presentiment Hypothesis Presentiment-effect will be stronger if consciousness is more coherent. NOTE: Difficult to define ‘coherence’ in consciousness

17. Time and causality: Approaches from physics 2. Syntropy (Fantappiè, Vannini): Life is a consequence of advanced waves; all living systems reflect retrocausality. Presentiment Hypothesis Presentiment-effect can be found in all living systems; ‘coherence’ is irrelevant. NOTE: To what extent is presentiment different from ‘life’, or integrated in living systems? Presentiment Research: Current Theoretical Approaches (4/5)

18. Time and causality: Approaches from physics 3. “Physics without causality” (Shoup) Output of REGs is restricted by future conditions in the environment. REGs respond to these future conditions because they are unbiased. Presentiment Hypothesis Presentiment-effect increases when participants’ minds can act like REGs, i.e., remain undetermined. NOTE: Like in Bierman’s CIRTS, an intriguing but questionable jump from physics to psychology. Presentiment Research: Current Theoretical Approaches (5/5)

19. 1.Further develop theories, continue to derive and test hypotheses. 2.Find more money and people dedicated to this cause: a.Connect with (mainstream) fields concerned with related, similarly perplexing fundamental questions, e.g., consciousness studies, quantum physics. b.Use experimental designs for presentiment studies that are familiar to psychologists, e.g., ‘precognitive habituation’ (Bem). 3.Pre-select participants: psi-gifted, special groups (e.g., meditators) 4.Explore idiosyncratic physiological pre-stimulus responses. 5.Causality is a pillar of science. Assuming current concept of causality is flawed: Explore ‘a-causal’ scientific approaches. 6.Find inspiration in reports about ‘enlightenment’ – experience shows analogies to features of presentiment theories. Presentiment Research: The Future

20. Thank You