Robert Moss - The Underground Railroad of Dreams

ASD 2000 Conference 17 Abstracts

Millennial Dreaming: Washington, D.C.

ABSTRACT

MAIMONIDES ESP DREAM LABORATORY
EXPERIMENTS: EVALUATING THE ASSAULT
OF THE CALUMNIATORS

Montague Ullman, M.D., Stanley S. Krippner, Ph.D., Robert L. Van de
Castle, Ph.D. , Mena E. Potts, Ph.D. & Dominic J. Potts, Esq., J.D.

The genesis of the first experiments with ESP dreams, conducted under scientifically-controlled laboratory conditions, began in 1960, when Montague Ullman conceived the idea of applying the newly discovered REM technique to the laboratory study of ESP dreams. Ullman received a grant from the Parapsychology Foundation to conduct a pilot study at their facilities, with the participation of parapsychologists Karlis Otis and E. Douglas Dean.
Eileen Garrett was the first experimental subject.

Subsequently the project was moved to the Maimonides Dream Laboratory at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Prior thereto, parapsychological research had relied primarily upon day experimental techniques. At Maimonides dream research would be conducted during the night, with ac-tual sleeping subjects monitored by electrophysiological and neurological equipment.

In 1964 Stanley Krippner was appointed Director of the Maimonides Dream Laboratory, and the formal experimental dream studies were then begun. One hypothesis tested by Ullman and Krippner was that a subject's "dream protocol on any given experimental night would reflect the influence of telepathy by the appearance in [a subject's] dreams of correspondences to the target material viewed by [an agent]." This hypothesis was supported by both the major and pilot studies conducted throughout the Maimonides ex-periments.

The experiments that followed established an historical precedent in the study of parapsychological dreams. The Ullman-Krippner research marked the first endeavor to investigate dream telepathy under scientifically-controlled conditions, employing sleep-monitoring technology.

A decade of dream research at Maimonides yielded significant results, de-scribed in numerous published studies, including a technical monograph by Ullman and Krippner, and a book, Dream Telepathy: Experiments in Nocturnal ESP (1989), by Ullman, Krippner and Vaughan.

Through their research, Ullman and Krippner provided experimental labora-tory support for the hypothesis "that dissociated states favor the appearance of psi effects." The Maimonides studies heralded a new era in scientifically-controlled parapsychological research. Respected scholars in the field lauded the Maimonides experimental design, commending the significant implica-tions of the studies. Among others, psychiatrist Berthold Eric Schwartz stated that Ullman and Krippner have "made a significant scientific contribution by their rigidly controlled psychodynamically and instru-mentally sophisticated dream and telepathy researches" (p. 250).

Van de Castle, a psychologist with a background in dream research and dream telepathy experiments, participated as an experimental subject in the Maimonides research and in later replication studies. Subsequently, Van de Castle (1989) expressed particular distress by the failure of replication studies to adhere to Maimonides research protocols.

There were also some divergent opinions concerning the Maimonides stud-ies, which Irvin L. Child, a Yale University psychologist, decided to explore. Child, who was interested in achieving a fusion of humanistic problems and experimental method, undertook to explore the constellation of divergent positions. Child read all the available Maimonides studies as well as all the reviews of those studies. He also conducted a thorough study of the psycho-logical community's response to the Maimonides dream research.

Based upon his review of the literature, Child concluded that psychologists were negatively biased in their reviews of parapsychological research, and failed to apply to parapsychological dream research the same fair standards of scientific discourse which they applied to other psychological reviews. Child (1985) published his findings and conclusions, stating, "Some of those [critical] books engage in nearly incredible falsification of the facts about the [Maimonides] experiments …, " reciting instances where the reports of the research at Maimonides were distorted, misrepresented and falsified.

Given the diametrically opposed assessments of the Maimonides dream ex-periments, and setting aside momentarily the manifest malice in some of them, which side is correct? Equally disconcerting, how is one to tell? What criteria should govern?

Panel members will review the Maimonides ESP Dream Laboratory experi-ments, and discuss the results and the critics. Applying the rules of the Law of Evidence and the classical principles of forensics and dialectics, the panel will also assess the requisite scienter required of critics.

References

Child, I.L. (1985). Psychology and anomalous observations: The question of ESP in dreams. American Psychologist, 40, 1219-1230.

Potts, D. J. (1993). Cross examination strategy of a proffered medical expert in a malpractice action. Paper presented at a meeting of the Regional New York Trial Lawyers' Association on Plaintiff's Trial Strategy and Tech-nique, New York, NY.

Potts, M. E., & Potts, D.J., (1994). From Maimonides to heuristics. An in-novative research model for parapsychology. In R. Heinze (Ed.), Proceed-ings of The Eleventh International Conference on The Study of Shamanism and Alternate Modes of Healing. Berkeley, CA: Independent Scholars of Asia, Inc.

Ullman, M., & Krippner, S. (1970). Dream studies and telepathy: An ex-perimental approach (Parapsychological Monographs, No. 12). New York: Parapsychology Foundation.

Ullman, M., Krippner, S. with Vaughan, A. (1989). Dream telepathy:
experiments in nocturnal ESP (2nd ed.) Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Van de Castle, R.L. (1989). Appendix C: ESP in dreams: comments on a replication "failure" by the "failing" subject. In Ullman, M., Krippner, S. with Vaughan, A., Dream telepathy: experiments in nocturnal ESP (2nd ed.). (pp. 209-216). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.