Ganzfeld effect: what it is, origin, what it is for and consequences

For a long time there has been a great interest in going beyond the limits of the human being and numerous inventions have been created to try to achieve it. Medicine and other branches of health have been interested in it and have produced devices that seek to reorganize the human body, in addition to other sectors such as the automotive industry, which has created cars with the ability to exceed extreme speeds. However, some of these attempts can pose a risk to people.

There is a methodology that seeks to alter the senses of the human body to achieve sensations novel that can cause significant deterioration in the body and affect its functioning general. In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about the Ganzfeld effect: what it is, origin, what it is for and consequences.

Index

1. What is the Ganzfeld effect
2. Origin of the Ganzfeld effect
3. What is the Ganzfeld effect for?
4. How the Ganzfeld effect is put into practice and its risks
5. Consequences of the Ganzfeld effect

The Ganzfeld effect is a methodology used within the field of parapsychology whose purpose is the perception of paranormal sensations from the isolation of certain senses of the human being. In other words, the Ganzfeld effect consists of a technique that starts from the basis that the human being could perceive extrasensory stimuli by canceling the sensessuch as sight and hearing.

To address the origin of the Ganzfeld effect, we must consider some historical facts that occurred over time.

The beginnings of the experiments from parapsychology begin around the 1930s, from research by Wolfgang Metzger, German psychologist. Based on his observations, Metzger considered that people are able to perceive elements that are not present in reality by blocking some fields of the perception.

Around the 1970s, an American psychologist named Charles Honorton he was interested in investigating telepathy as a superhuman ability. To do this, he conducted experiments using the Ganzfeld method.

After a long period of time, Honorton's investigations were refuted, as it was he considered the results of experiments that featured visions and/or hearings extrasensory were influenced by other variables. For this reason, it was concluded that telepathy was not possible.

As we have mentioned before, the Ganzfeld effect is carried out with the intention of verifying if the human being has the ability to perceive objects and/or sounds that are not part of the field perceptual.

In other words, the Ganzfeld effect serves to investigate the existence of telepathy and other supernatural abilities of people. These qualities comprise the area of ​​brain function linked to the thoughts, emotions and behaviors that a person experiences in the face of the stimuli they perceive.

There are a number of steps that must be met to carry out the Ganzfeld effect, in order for the study to have considerable validity.

First of all, the person You should cover your eyes andput on hearing aids to remove possible distracting sounds and objects. In general, the place of the experiment must be far from external stimuli that can interfere.

In second place, a white noise is played through the headphones. After a short interval of time, another person, located opposite, will try to telepathically send some images that he observes at that moment.

Lastly, the person who carried out the Ganzfeld effect must verify if they actually perceived extrasensory signals.

Beyond the procedure used, it is necessary to warn of the risks involved in putting this methodology into practice. Next we will talk about some of the most relevant consequences of the Ganzfeld effect.

auditory hallucinations

If the Ganzfeld effect is repeated frequently, hallucinations. At a general level, this can occur as a consequence of the human body having the ability to get used to lack of stimuli that come from abroad.

While it is true that this may not happen to everyone, there is a possibility of auditory hallucinations. The perception of sounds that are not located in reality can occur from the brain trying to find perceptible sounds while listening to white noise.

visual hallucinations

The vision of objects that do not belong to reality is another risk factor for the Ganzfeld effect. As in auditory hallucinations, in this type of hallucination the brain tries to compensate for information it does not receive from the environment with the figures that appear. However, these distortions of reality do not occur in all cases.

On the other hand, the intensity of the hallucinations can vary according to the personal characteristics of each individual, such as age, sex or hereditary diseases, among others.

Disturbance of perception

The frequency of the Ganzfeld effect could interfere with the degree of perception of each sense of the human body.

It should be noted that these adverse effects are hypotheses made from real cases and not universal truths.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Ganzfeld effect: what it is, origin, what it is for and consequences, we recommend that you enter our category of cognitive psychology.

• Dalton, K. (2016). The anomalous transfer of information in Ganzfeld. Argentine Journal of Paranormal Psychology, 10 (1), 1-11.
• Najar Sualdea, S. (2017). Perceptual distortions. Claustrophobia through Art, Architecture and Cinema. Polytechnic University of Madrid.