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The Ganzfeld Proceedure


What is The Ganzfeld Proceedure? (Wikipedia)  Basically, it uses sensory deprivation to get the mind to hallucinate.

I decided to give the experiment a try.  Now, ideally, the procedure requires two halves of a ping pong ball and headphones, but I used taped-over goggles instead. I should have cut open one of my two ping pong balls I have lying around, but I couldn't bring myself to do it; what if one of them broke and I needed the other to challenge someone to a game? (Ping pong is obviously a high priority in my life right now.  Master Chen and I are really working hard in the evenings.) In addition to the darkened goggles, I set my radio to static and laid down on my bed. Everything was dark. Even though the radio static was blaringly loud, after about 3 or 4 minutes, the radio would seem to auto-correct itself and I would begin to pick out songs and an announcers voice through the static. When that happened, I would adjust the dial to random static again.


After 7-8 minutes, I still wasn't getting any pink elephants. I figured that my mind was too well-practiced in picking out rational thought out of irrational situations. It was probably going to take a LONG time. (But that would be OK. My roommates hadn't moved in yet, so the static wasn't bothering anyone.

At about the 10 minute mark I was seriously considering the possibility that this whole thing was a hoax to get people to spend hours on their beds listening to static really loud. Then, suddenly, something nuts happened! I was touching foreheads with a Siberian tiger! (FYI: There are only 200 of them left in the wild.) Our eyes were looking directly into each other's. And the freakiest part was that I could feel the fur of his nose move against my own nose and upper lip! I cherished the sensation for a moment longer and then tore the goggles off cause it was really wigging me out.

So there you have it. You can now go deprive your senses with the Ganzfeld Procedure and see how crazy you are. Warning: prolonged exposure and side effects may include loss of identity, apathy and depression.

*Skeptics, click here to commiserate.

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Comments

  1. evieperkinsWed Apr 29, 07:39:00 AM MDT

    What's the history behind this experiment? How did it get to be so scientific that it got the name "procedure" like an established fact? Who thought of this?

    ReplyDelete
  2. NoelleMon May 04, 02:33:00 PM MDT

    Yeah? More background please! How random!

    ReplyDelete

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