They see dead people
When hearing the word dementia, we typically think of neurological degeneration resulting in memory loss, confusion, and other common hallmarks of senility such as such as impairments in language or cognitive skills. However, I recently heard about a report from the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry that highlights a rather unusual form of dementia; patients who firmly believe that a loved one has died despite clear evidence to the contrary.
Here are two cases as outlined in the article:
Case 1
An 81-year-old lady presented to psychiatric services for the first time with sudden onset of ideas that her grandson had developed grossly swollen legs, inflammation of the brain, lethargy and extreme tiredness after infection by a fly which had picked up radioactive waste in the English Channel. Despite speaking to him over the telephone, she believed that he had died. She believed that he had no stomach or internal organs, that his eyes had been removed and replaced with glass eyes, that his brain had died and been replaced by a clock and that he had expanded to become grossly obese.
Case 2
A 73-year-old lady with a 40 year history of paranoid Schizophrenia… maintained [that her lover] had developed ‘The Pox’ leading to his limbs rotting away, his heart being replaced by a machine and his brain requiring removal. She believed nonetheless that he could send messages to her via television to which she could respond by arranging candles in a certain fashion. She maintained that he had died but come back to live in her mattress in a grossly distorted form, being very much larger than he had been in real life.
It’s interesting to me that both cases present themselves with three similar delusions. Namely, that a loved one has had their brain or other organs removed and/or replaced with machines; can still communicate despite being “dead” (albeit through rather unconventional means!); and is transformed into a huge distorted version of themselves.
The authors maintain that this form of delusion should not be confused with Cotard’s syndrome or “Walking Corpse Syndrome” which is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder, in which the patient believes that they, but not others, have died, do not exist, are decaying, or have lost internal organs.
Hmmm…. I don’t know which delusion is worse.
Share on FacebookI’m sensing that there’s an app for that…
Remote viewing pioneer Russell Targ has jumped on the app band wagon and released a program called the ‘ESP Trainer‘ which aims to improve our intuitive abilities .
According to the developer website:
“The player is presented with four colored squares. For each trial, one has been selected at random by the ESP Trainer. Your task is to choose the correct square.
ESP Trainer app
If you succeed, you will hear a chime, feel a vibration, and see a large color picture. Otherwise, the system lights up the correct square, and you proceed with the next trial. The score indicator at the top counts the number of correct choices. Words of encouragement appear as you achieve the scoring levels of 6, 8. 10, 12 or 14 hits. After 24 trials you may begin a new game.
The purpose of the trainer is to allow you to become aware of what it feels like when you psychically choose the correct square. When you don’t have that special feeling, they encourage you to press the Pass button. (So this is not a “forced choice” test.)
In a year long NASA program with 145 subjects (under Contract 953653 NAS7-100) many were able to significantly improve their scores. Four of the subjects improved their scores at the hundred-to-one level or better. This approach has been used with surprising success on Wall Street. But of course, past results are no guarantee of future performance.”
Only four subjects out of 145 improved?! Doesn’t sound so good to me, lol. Well, being the curious person that I am I had no choice but to locate the original report on the study (NSSA-CB-157886) and see the data for myself. Happily, NASA archives provide a pdf scan of the original 70 page report entitled “DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNIQUES TO ENHANCE MAN/MACHINE COMMUNICATION Final Report (Stanford Hesearch Inst)”. Interestingly, the first page of the report is an assessment of the data from the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology which states that “JPL review of the experiment results led to the conclusion that the experiments conducted under the controlled conditions eliminate the possibility of interaction between experimenter and observer and reveal no positive evidence of ESP or ESP learning. NASA has concluded that there is currently no basis for support of further investigations”.
Aquarius Electronics ESP Teaching Machine developed by Russell Targ and David Hurt circa 1971.
Indeed, after reading the full 70 page report, which was riddled with vague comments, sloppy methods, and assumptions about the data, I was not convinced by the findings either. Even those subjects that demonstrated correct hit rates above 25% (above chance levels) showed only modest levels of performance above chance ranging between 26-30% for correct hits and these findings could not be replicated in subsequent attempts. Although Targ and colleagues go on to acknowledge the overall lack of significance of their findings they nevertheless conclude by saying that their “work does suggest that it is feasible to train or encourage subjects to develop their latent ability…”.
Really? Um…no. That is not what the results suggest.
…Anyway, one thing that I have noticed since I began using the ESP Trainer app is that I seem to make incorrect choices almost 100% of the time which is well below chance levels. Does this mean that I have some sort of inverted psychic ability to always make the wrong choice? Actually, that might explain a lot about my life…
As always, I suggest you try it for yourself and just have fun with it. Of course, if you do end up with hit rates close to 100%, make sure to contact Targ. I’m sure he would love to feel vindicated.
By the way, the app is free 
Spooky Science
Some spooky research is going on at UBC. Psychology professor Ron Rensink was recently interviewed by Vancouver’s Georgia Straight newspaper about his research using Ouija boards to study unconscious intelligence. In this yet unplublished study, Rensink had subjects use a Ouija board to help them answer a series of general knowledge questions. Apparently, using the Ouija as a life line of sorts to provide answers to difficult questions increased the number of correct responses. Rensink claims that the experiment lends credence to the theory that people possess unconscious intelligence.
Unconscious intelligence is a form of implicit memory where information that is stored in the deep recesses of our minds can guide our behavior without us being aware of it. One example that Rensink gives in the article is being able to drive a car through traffic while “zoning out” behind the wheel. Since unconscious intelligence can be difficult to measure, the researchers came up with the unconventional idea (by academic standards anyway) to use the Ouija board. They hypothesized that because the players often don’t believe that they are voluntarily moving the planchette, the Ouija board could be used as a tool to bypass the conscious mind to access stored information from the unconscious. In this way, the Ouija board may promote an ideomotor response whereby a thought or mental image can bring about a seemingly “reflexive” muscular reaction that is outside of the awareness of the subject.
While reading this report, I couldn’t help but think of my friends over at Vancouver Paranormal who dedicate themselves to studying ghosts and other unexplained phenomena. Many people believe that Ouija boards really are communication conduits to the other side. I myself have had some pretty creepy experiences using the board and have since stopped using it. For instance, my friends and I once carried out a simple experiment to test the validity of information we were receiving from the “board game” and came to some shocking conclusions. In our experiment, we had one person leave the room and write down a word on a piece of paper that no one could easily guess. Meanwhile, the others used the board to tell them what the secret word was. The player who thought of the secret word did not rejoin the others until called back into the room after the Ouija had provided an answer. This way, the person who came up with the word could not unknowingly influence the other players. I was the first chosen to leave the room. The word “yellow” popped into my head so I wrote it down and waited. Just so you know, yellow is not my favorite color nor was anyone or anything in the room clad in yellow so it seemed like a good choice since it would be unlikely that anyone else would subconsciously think of it. After several minutes of waiting, I was called back into the room for the big reveal. Both pieces of paper matched. The Ouija had spelled out “Y. E. L. L. O. W”.
Now, you can interpret this result in one of three ways. One, you can posit that the board had correctly provided the answer by allowing unseen forces or spirits to communicate with the players. Two, a player or players possess psychic abilities and unknowingly guided the planchette to provide the correct answer. Three, it was a lucky guess. I should point out that we repeated our experiment six times, each taking turns coming up with a secret word. Four out of the six trials produced the correct word match. I suspect that results will vary depending on the players and the spiritual feel or “vibe” of the room. Nonetheless, given that four out of six trials were successful, I am fairly confident that option three can be discounted in our case. Of course, feel free to prove me wrong! If you try this out for yourself (in a serious manner please), let me know how it turned out.
Anyway, back to the Rensink study…. Could it be that an alternative explanation of his finding is that some unseen force or entity is actually helping subjects to answer questions?
For the sake of wanting to keep my job at the university I’m going to say probably not, but I just thought I’d throw that out there anyway 
To read the full story in the Georgia Straight follow this link.
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