Assessing the roles of the sender and experimenter in dream ESP research.

This study explored the role of the sender in a dream ESP task by considering the effects of presence of a sender (sender, no sender) and the receiver’s expectancy that a sender was present. Forty participants each completed a sender and a no sender trial on consecutive nights by keeping a dream diary of all mentation they could recall when they awoke. The order of trials was randomised across participants. On no-sender nights a randomly selected video clip was played repeatedly from 2:00 until 6:30am; on sender nights a sender would also watch the clip between 6:00 and 6:30am and attempt to communicate its content. Both sender and no sender conditions produced above chance hit rates (30% and 35% respectively), but z scores for similarity ratings did not deviate significantly from chance (sender night: t(39) = 0.92, p = .18; no sender night: t(39) = 1.11, p = .14, one-tailed). There was no difference in performance in terms of sender conditions (z = -0.22, p = .41, one-tailed) or sender expectancy (z = -0.18, p = .46, one-tailed), failing to support the proposal that senders play an active role in dream ESP success. Possible improvements in the manipulation of participant expectancy are discussed.

This study explored the role of the sender in a dream ESP task by considering the effects of presence of a sender (sender, no sender) and the receiver’s expectancy that a sender was present. Forty participants each completed a sender and a no sender trial on consecutive nights by keeping a dream diary of all mentation they could recall when they awoke. The order of trials was randomised across participants. On no-sender nights a randomly selected video clip was played repeatedly from 2:00 until 6:30am; on sender nights a sender would also watch the clip between 6:00 and 6:30am and attempt to communicate its content. Both sender and no sender conditions produced above chance hit rates (30% and 35% respectively), but z scores for similarity ratings did not deviate significantly from chance (sender night: t(39) = 0.92, p = .18; no sender night: t(39) = 1.11, p = .14, one-tailed).
There was no difference in performance in terms of sender conditions (z = -0.22, p = .41, one-tailed) or sender expectancy (z = -0.18, p = .46, one-tailed), failing to support the proposal that senders play an active role in dream ESP success. Possible improvements in the manipulation of participant expectancy are discussed.