Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
December 30, 2022
Patrizio Tressoldi, Lance Storm
12 citations
A review of 11 meta-analyses on anomalous cognition, covering over 80 years of research, indicates that such phenomena appear possible. Effect sizes are larger when studies use non-ordinary or altered states of consciousness (e.g., dreaming, ganzfeld), free-response procedures, or neurophysiological dependent variables. These conditions seem to facilitate a form of cognition not constrained by known biological sensory or brain limits. The findings broaden understanding of the mind-brain relationship and the nature of the human mind.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
August 29, 2023
James Houran, Brian Laythe
4 citations
ChatGPT-3.5-generated narratives of mystical, supernatural, or anomalous entity encounters approximate but do not fully match the phenomenology of real-life accounts. The AI descriptions covered each encounter type, mapped to a Rasch hierarchy of anomalous perceptions, showed below-average scores on the Survey of Strange Events, and referenced at least one recognition pattern of Haunted People Syndrome. Inter-rater reliability was fair, and correlations among narratives were low but generally positive. The findings suggest that prototypical depictions based on popular source material can mimic core features of these experiences, yet they lack the full depth of spontaneous reports.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
October 18, 2022
Edward F. Kelly
3 citations
The Integrated Information Theory of consciousness (IIT) appears promising because it explains neuroscientific facts, makes testable predictions, and offers a technique for detecting consciousness in non-verbal organisms. However, the theory is fundamentally flawed. Key unresolved conceptual issues concern IIT's concept of "information" and its approach to the "hard problem" of consciousness. Empirical phenomena IIT cannot handle include: dissociative identity disorder with overlapping centers of consciousness in one organism; psychedelic states whose intense phenomenology is not reflected in neuroelectric activity; and near-death experiences during cardiac arrest, where IIT predicts no consciousness is possible. These arguments suggest IIT and its physicalist competitors are untenable, but scientifically and philosophically respectable alternatives exist.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
October 30, 2025
Anastasia Ruban, Michiel van Elk
Psychedelic experiences are shaped by culturally prevalent narratives rather than revealing unmediated insights. Psychedelics operate as non-specific amplifiers that magnify pre-existing beliefs within cultural feedback loops linking cultural set and setting, individual expectations, experience, and its articulation back into culture. This view reinterprets apparent disruptive effects as context-dependent intensifications. The authors identify methodological and ideological obstacles to studying culture in psychedelic science and propose a mixed-methods program including reflexivity, discourse analytics, neurophenomenology, and naturalistic cohort comparisons to operationalize cultural variables. Recognizing culture's constitutive role has ethical and epistemic consequences, including caution regarding metaphysical claims and attention to how psychedelics induce change in clinical settings.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
October 30, 2025
Jonathan Dinsmore
The scientific study of anomalous experiences sits at the border between religious/spiritual and secular physicalist worldviews, which can lead to biased practices. One such practice is the Abstraction Matching Fallacy, where researchers use known hallucinatory phenomena to explain spiritual experiences based on superficial resemblance, achieved by abstracting away incongruent details. This cherry-picking of data to fit theoretical commitments is arguably antiscientific, as science aims to adapt theory to reality through rigorous, objective data analysis. The paper provides examples and calls for researchers to abandon this problematic practice.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
October 30, 2025
Jos Ten Berge
A fourfold diagram models the feedback loop connecting cultural set and setting, individual set and setting, the drug experience, and its articulation back into culture. Because psychedelic drugs primarily amplify, their use tends to reinforce prior beliefs, making their sociocultural effect conservative. Transformative effects arise not from the drug itself but from impactful articulations of drug experiences in receptive environments. The paper argues that drug studies require minimal knowledge of cultural history.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
June 5, 2024
E. Cardeña
This issue honors Stan Krippner and two other pioneers in consciousness studies, Jeanne Achterberg and Ruth-Inge Heinze. Achterberg was a key figure in mind/body medicine, especially the role of imagery in healing. Heinze dedicated herself to the interdisciplinary study of shamanism. Krippner, described as a quintessential liminal figure, made major contributions to research on dreams, anomalous cognition, personal mythology, and other areas of consciousness. The text is a tribute and editorial framing, not an empirical study.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
April 3, 2023
Etzel Cardeña
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