The inner life
Ganzfeld Experiment
Direct answer
Ganzfeld Experiment: The ganzfeld experiment is a test of telepathy in which a receiver, eyes covered and ears filled with steady noise, describes a picture that a sender in another room is looking at.
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At a glance
- Also called
- ganzfeld procedure, ganzfeld telepathy test, autoganzfeld
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- Telepathy, Parapsychology, Extrasensory Perception, File-Drawer Problem
The ganzfeld experiment is a test of telepathy in which a receiver, eyes covered and ears filled with steady noise, describes a picture that a sender in another room is looking at.
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What does ganzfeld mean?
Ganzfeld is German for whole field. The receiver lies back with halved table tennis balls over the eyes under a red light and hears a soft hiss through headphones, so that sight and hearing are filled with something even and blank. For half an hour the receiver says aloud whatever comes to mind while a sender elsewhere concentrates on a picture or film clip chosen at random. The receiver is then shown four pictures and picks the one that best fits. Chance gives one correct choice in four.
The method was meant to quieten the senses so that a faint signal, if there is one, might be noticed. It became the most discussed experiment in parapsychology because its results could be pooled and argued over.
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What sets Ganzfeld Experiment apart
The ganzfeld is a test built on an idea: that psi, if it exists, is a weak signal drowned by the senses, and that an even, featureless field of light and sound lets it through. The same blankness makes people report vivid imagery, which gives judges plenty to match against a picture. Its design fixes the odds at one in four, so results from different laboratories can be added together, and that pooling is where the dispute lies.
- Meaning: German: whole field
- Set-up: translucent eye covers under red light; soft hiss in headphones
- Session: about thirty minutes of spoken impressions
- Chance rate: one in four, 25 per cent
- First telepathy use: Charles Honorton and colleagues, 1974
- Disputed reviews: 1994, about one in three; 1999, no effect
Often mistaken for something else: A Zener card run asks for a forced guess among five designs; a ganzfeld session asks for free description, judged afterwards against four pictures.
The story behind Ganzfeld Experiment
Psychologists of perception used the ganzfeld in the 1930s to study what the eye does with a blank field. Charles Honorton and others adapted it for telepathy tests from 1974. Ray Hyman and Honorton published rival analyses in 1985 and a joint statement in 1986 on the controls needed. Daryl Bem and Honorton reported a hit rate near one in three in 1994; Julie Milton and Richard Wiseman pooled thirty later studies in 1999 and found no effect.
Why Ganzfeld Experiment matters
Ganzfeld Experiment is the experiment on which the argument for telepathy has mostly rested since the 1980s.
How to read Ganzfeld Experiment
Results are given as a hit rate against the one in four expected by chance, pooled across many sessions and laboratories.
Ganzfeld Experiment in practice: an example
The receiver speaks of water and a bridge. Of the four pictures shown afterwards, one is a harbour, and it is chosen; the target had been a waterfall.
Where readings of Ganzfeld Experiment go wrong
Ganzfeld Experiment is a laboratory procedure. Home versions sold as a way to open a faculty test nothing.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- ganzfeld, ganzfeld procedure, ganzfeld telepathy test, autoganzfeld
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does ganzfeld mean?
It is German for whole field: a field of vision that is the same in every direction. In the experiment it is made with a diffuse light over translucent eye covers and a steady hiss in the ears.
What is the chance hit rate in a ganzfeld test?
One in four, or 25 per cent, because the receiver chooses among four pictures. Reported hit rates in favourable studies have been around one in three.
Do ganzfeld experiments prove telepathy?
No. Some pooled analyses find hit rates above chance and others find none, and the studies differ in how tightly they were run. The result has not been repeated reliably enough to settle the question.
