I was a psychology undergraduate at
the time that this experience occurred and had already become interested in parapsychology
and psychic phenomena. But my interest was a purely intellectual form, and a skeptical one
at that. A friend had talked me into visiting the Maimonides Medical Center's Division of
Parapsychology and Psychophysics where psychiatrist Montague Ullman and psychologist
Stanley Krippner were conducting their now-famous dream-telepathy experiments.
Though pretty reticent, at first, I had to admit that what I observed of the experiments
at the Maimonides lab convinced me that strong psi results could be obtained under
rigorous experimental conditions. Deep inside, though, there was a nagging feeling that
there must be a catch, or an insidious, overlooked simple explanation somewhere--one that
didn't require the leap to the "paranormal." The real challenge, I figured, was
to uncover these errors or 'leaks' in the experimental protocol.
Then, uninvited, came this powerful experience which shook my belief system to its very
foundations. I had to face the fact that my whole attitude toward psychic phenomena, or
"psi," had been based on a kind of intellectual smugness. I had basically
swallowed the official position that, in one way or another, considered psychic phenomena
impossible, and then explained away any positive evidence with dozens of different
rationalizations. But I wasn't about to do that now. |
