Assessing the roles of the sender and experimenter in dream ESP research

This study explored the role of the sender in a dream ESP task by considering the effects of presence of a sender (sender, no sender) and the receiver's expectancy that a sender was present. Forty participants each completed a sender and a no sender trial on consecutive nights by keeping a dream diary of all mentation they could recall when they awoke. The order of trials was randomised across participants. On no-sender nights a randomly selected video clip was played repeatedly from 2:00 until 6:30am; on sender nights a sender would also watch the clip between 6:00 and 6:30am and attempt to communicate its content. Both sender and no sender conditions produced above chance hit rates (30% and 35% respectively), but z scores for similarity ratings did not deviate significantly from chance (sender night: t(39) = 0.92, p = .18; no sender night: t(39) = 1.11, p = .14, one-tailed). There was no difference in performance in terms of sender conditions (z = -0.22, p = .41, one-tailed) or sender expectancy (z = -0.18, p = .46, one-tailed), failing to support the proposal that senders play an active role in dream ESP success. Possible improvements in the manipulation of participant expectancy are discussed.