Dream clairvoyance study II using dynamic video-clips: Investigation of consensus voting judging procedures and target emotionality.

Abstract

This partial replication study investigated whether individual versus small group consensus target judging procedures, and/or the emotionality of dynamic target video clips, would affect the frequency of correct identification of the target in a free-response dream ESP study. Two people located in Edinburgh (Scotland) and a third person located in Derby (England) acted both as experimenters and as participants and slept at their respective homes. On each of the 28 trial nights, a randomly-selected video clip was shown repeatedly between 3.00–4.30 am. The following morning the participants viewed four video clips (i.e., 3 decoys plus the target) and then judged the correspondences between the clips and records of their dream mentation. The Edinburgh participants obtained a greater number of direct hits using consensus as opposed to individual judgements. A discussion consensus procedure was marginally more successful than a more objective consensus procedure (12 hits, p = .0294, ES(h) = 0.38 vs. 11 hits, p = .0679, ES(h) = 0.30). Participants, both as a group and as individuals, obtained a greater proportion of direct hits when the target was emotionally negative than when it was either positive or neutral.