Tags: Parapsychology Morgue
A ganzfeld (from the German for "open field") is a protocol used by parapsychologists to assess extrasensory perception. The ganzfeld test was designed by Charles Honorton as an effort to induce an extrasensory experience. Honorton believed that the various stimuli of everyday life suppressed peoples' innate psychic abilities. He proposed that inducing hypnogogia in a subject would make them ripe for psychical activity. He would therefore creating such conditions through sensory deprivation and relaxation techniques, such as a reclining chair, eyeshades, a dim room, and headphones with white noise.
In a classic ganzfeld test, one subject (the receiver) would be subjected to such conditions while a second (the sender) would "transmit" an image. The receiver would then identify the image from among a set of four.