On the Correspondence Between Dream Content and Target Material Under Laboratory Conditions: A Meta-Analysis of Dream-ESP Studies, 1966-2016
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Can people really beam images into each other's dreams? This study is the first big statistical roundup of 50 years of dream-ESP experiments. Across 50 studies and nearly 2,000 trials, dreamers matched their dreams to a hidden target image more often than luck would predict — with odds against chance of about one in twenty million. The famous Maimonides Dream Lab got slightly stronger results than later teams, but the gap wasn't statistically meaningful, so independent labs did broadly replicate the finding. It didn't matter whether the experiment tested telepathy, clairvoyance, or precognition (seeing the future) — results were similar. Study quality was decent, and better-run studies didn't produce weaker results. One puzzling wrinkle: the effect has shrunk over time even as quality improved. You'd need over a hundred hidden negative studies in file drawers to erase the overall result.
Research Notes
First formal meta-analysis of dream-ESP literature spanning 50 years (1966-2016). Addresses whether Maimonides findings replicated independently. Shows significant overall effect (ES=0.20, p=5×10^-8) but with decline over time despite quality improvements. Bayesian analysis supports frequentist conclusions. Important for controversy #1 (telepathy/ESP) and controversy #2 (replication/decline effects). Companion to Storm et al. 2010 Ganzfeld meta-analysis. Authors include Storm, Sherwood, Roe (prominent dream-ESP researchers), Tressoldi (meta-analysis expert).
This meta-analysis examines dream-ESP studies from 1966-2016, testing whether dream content corresponds to randomly selected target material more often than chance. The homogeneous dataset (50 studies, 1,968 trials, 734 hits) yielded mean ES=0.20 (SD=0.31), Stouffer Z=5.32, p=5.19×10^-8, with 95% CI [0.11, 0.29]. Maimonides Dream Laboratory (MDL) studies (n=14) showed mean ES=0.33; non-MDL studies (n=36) showed mean ES=0.14, but the difference was non-significant, t(48)=1.97, p=.055. No significant differences emerged between ESP modalities (telepathy/clairvoyance/precognition), REM vs non-REM monitoring, or dynamic vs static targets. Bayesian parameter estimation (50,000 MCMC iterations) confirmed frequentist results: 95% HDI for ES=[0.03, 0.20], null rejected. Quality ratings (two blind judges, alpha=.84) averaged 0.64/1.00, with quality-ES correlation non-significant (r=.09, p=.527). However, ES declined over time (r=-0.29, p=.044) while quality improved (r=0.39, p=.006). Fail-safe N=110 unpublished studies would be needed to nullify results.
Links
Related Papers
Cites
Cited By
Companion
Also by these authors
EEG Correlates of Social Interaction at Distance
Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums Under Blinded Conditions II: Replication and Extension
Feeling the Future: A Meta-Analysis of 90 Experiments on the Anomalous Anticipation of Random Future Events
More in Telepathy
Rethinking Communication and Consciousness: Lessons from The Telepathy Tapes Podcast
Who's Calling? Evaluating the Accuracy of Guessing Who Is on the Phone
A Comparison of Four New Automated Telephone Telepathy Tests
Detecting Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis for Extrasensory Perception Experiments in Last 20 Years
Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies 2009-2018: Assessing the Noise-Reduction Model Ten Years On
📋 Cite this paper
Storm, Lance, Sherwood, Simon J, Roe, Chris A, Tressoldi, Patrizio E, Rock, Adam J, Di Risio, Lorenzo (2017). On the Correspondence Between Dream Content and Target Material Under Laboratory Conditions: A Meta-Analysis of Dream-ESP Studies, 1966-2016. International Journal of Dream Research. https://doi.org/10.11588/ijodr.2017.02.28663
@article{storm_2017_correspondence,
title = {On the Correspondence Between Dream Content and Target Material Under Laboratory Conditions: A Meta-Analysis of Dream-ESP Studies, 1966-2016},
author = {Storm, Lance and Sherwood, Simon J and Roe, Chris A and Tressoldi, Patrizio E and Rock, Adam J and Di Risio, Lorenzo},
year = {2017},
journal = {International Journal of Dream Research},
doi = {10.11588/ijodr.2017.02.28663},
}