Consciousness and Quantum-Mechanical Wavefunctions

Ronald Bryan Department of Physics Texas A&M University College Station, Texas 77843, USA bryan@physics.tamu.edu July 24, 2004

Abstract Comparing the continuity of an e ve (electronneutrino) world line and a human consciousness, I show that the analogy can be extended to wavelike behavior, as when an electron undergoes diffraction and a human consciousness appears to be bilocal. I hypothesize that human consciousness and human wavelike behavior are but two aspects of the same thing, which I call the conscious human wavefunction. Since reports by Robert Monroe and research directed by Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne et al. suggest mental action at a distance, I propose an experiment in which a person attempts to flip the spin of an electron by directing his or her conscious wave-function to the electron's wavefunction. I hypothesize that the two wavefunctions interact, possibly through the exchange of qi, or perhaps a quantum of a conjectured M-field. The electron could be the valence electron of a barium ion confined in a Paul trap in a 50 -gauss magnetic field. Flipping the electron's spin would require less than 10 6 eV. The ion could be seen directly in the trap by shining 455 10 9 meter laser light on it, causing it to emit blue-violet fluorescent light. If the electron's spin were flipped, then the fluorescence would cease. A second flip could restore the fluorescence. A person who could flip the spin near the apparatus might also be able to flip the spin from across the street, or from across the country. He or she could send a message in Morse Code by having the ion fluoresce for suitable short and long intervals (dots and dashes). This experiment could be performed in a well-equipped atomic physics lab.

keywords: quantum physics, wavefunction, mind-matter interaction reprint requests: contact author at university address running title: conscious wavefunction

Introduction At a recent meeting where some two dozen grantees of the Lifebridge Foundation were gathered for a weekend at the Wainwright House in Rye, NY, one participant spoke of his first case as a young lawyer. Both he and his client went to jail! After he was released, he and his wife began visiting prisons and speaking to groups of incarcerated men. He would explain with large flip charts that no matter how much they had suffered, either through their own actions or those of others, their identities were intact. They couldn't be destroyed, even if they were killed! Meanwhile his wife, an aroma therapist, would use a diffuser to vaporize essential oils to enhance mental alertness and calmness, and play baroque music to increase learning and retention. In this way the lawyer and his wife made the meeting room a special place for the prisoners, if only for the moment. Meanwhile the prisoners could muse on the fact that, if their identities were intact, then they could build on them and begin to recover their lives. (Groom, 2000) As a theoretical nuclear physicist, I was struck by the similarity between an identity that cannot be destroyed and the world-line of an electron. In case the reader is not familiar with a world-line, let me describe one. Consider a single electron at rest in space. Its world line is simply a straight vertical line, showing that the electron does not move in space but does move forward in time. See Fig. 1.

time
5 4 3 2 1 0

electron space

Fig. 1. World-line of an electron fixed at a point in space but moving forward in time. The electron's positions are indicated by dots at particular spacetime points 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. _________________________________________________ Now suppose that the electron is moving to the right. Then its world line looks like the slanted line in Fig. 2.

time

5 4 3 2 1 0

electron

space
Fig. 2. World-line of an electron moving forward in time and to the right in space. The electron's positions at space-time points 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are indicated by dots. ______________________________________________________ Similarly, the world-line of a person moving to the right would look like the slanted line in Fig. 3.

time

person

space
Fig. 3. World-line of a person moving forward in time and to the right in space. Particular space-time points not indicated. _____________________________________________________ Now suppose that the electron in Fig. 2 absorbs a photon and recoils to the left. This process is diagrammed in Fig. 4.

time

electron

photon

electron space
Fig. 4. Right-moving electron absorbing left-moving photon and recoiling to the left. The strength of the interaction is governed by the electron's electric charge e. ______________________________________________________ If the electron absorbs a photon, it still continues to be an electron. It simply moves in a different direction. Similarly, if a human identity or consciousness absorbs, say, a psychological blow, then it still continues to be a human identity or consciousness, just oriented a little differently. Landing in jail might be such a blow. Now let us consider two electrons. In Fig. 5 they portray like charges repel each other. Electron A emits a photon and recoils to the right. Then electron B absorbs this photon and recoils to the left. Each electron has the same charge (e), and the photon conveys the repelling (Coulomb) force. Emitted photons that miss electron B simply return to electron A.

time

electron B electron A e photon

electron B electron A space

Fig. 5. Like charges repel each other. Electron A emits a photon which is absorbed by electron B. In so doing, the electrons push apart. ______________________________________________________ This process is somewhat like person A's standing on ice and throwing a heavy medicine ball to person B who is also standing on ice. Person A recoils to the right as she throws the ball, person B to the left as he catches it. Thus they move apart just as though they had pushed on each other, only the force is carried by the medicine ball. In a psychological analogy, Fig. 5 might depict person A's hurling an insult that person B receives. B's identity or consciousness is not destroyed, but does suffer the blow. A is not immune either; her identity or consciousness is likewise disturbed by the transfer. Next consider the elementary-particle process sketched in Fig. 6. Here an electron absorbs a positively charged W boson and turns into a neutrino. A neutrino, being a Dirac particle, is like an electron, differing mainly in that it has no electric charge and can travel extraordinary distances in matter before interacting with it. A W boson is like a photon except that it has an electric charge and is quite heavy. The neutrino (more precisely, the electron-neutrino) can turn back into an electron by emitting the charged W boson. Regardless of whether the particle is an electron or a

neutrino, its world-line is continuous. That is, it can never be destroyed (footnote 1).

time

electron-neutrino

electron space
Fig. 6. Feynman diagram of electron absorbing a W+ boson, thereby turning into a neutrino. ______________________________________________________ This transformation in Fig. 6 of an electron into a neutrino has a psychological analog in the traditional Christian story in which Saul experiences a blinding vision on his way to Damascus, changing his character to such an extent that he is thereafter known as Paul (Holy Bible, Acts 9: 3). The reader can no doubt think of a contemporary example, such as the experience of astronaut Edgar Mitchell in the Apollo 14 mission on his way back to Earth, where the 360 view of the stars inspired in him a transcendent vision of the connectedness of all creation on Earth and in the universe, and helped motivate him to found the Institute of Noetic Sciences (Mitchell, 1996). Wavefunctions and Human Identities The correspondence between electrons and human consciousnesses or identities is even closer than I have described. When theoretical physicists speak of an electron, they really have a quantum-mechanical wavepacket in mind, not a tiny ball-bearing or b-b. In Fig. 7, I have sketched the wavefunction or wave packet of an electron moving to the right with a velocity v. On the vertical axis I have plotted the amplitude of the wave, 6

denoted (psi). The amplitude is something like a water wave, except that it doesn't stand for height. Rather, the distance-squared ( 2 ) of the wave above (or below) the dotted zeroline equals the relative probability of finding the electron at that point. In Fig. 7, for example, the electron is most likely to be found at the center of the packet, under the letter p in packet.

wave packet 0 v space

Fig. 7. Wavefunction or wave packet of an electron moving to the right with velocity v. ______________________________________________________ This wave packet can take on various other shapes. If it is sent through a double slit, for example, then it turns into an array of packets. Two outgoing packets are shown in Fig. 8.

double slit

outgoing wavepackets incoming wavepacket

Fig. 8. Wavepacket passing through double slit and undergoing diffraction. Two of the many outgoing wavepackets are sketched. _____________________________________________________

The human identity or consciousness can sometimes split up too, just like the electron's wavepacket. In her book, ESP: A Personal Memoir, the famous English psychic Rosalind Heywood recalls,
One hot night my husband [a British diplomat] was peacefully sleeping while I wriggled, restless and wide awake, at his side in the great carved bed. At last the excessive peace became unbearable. I can't stand it, I thought, I shall wake him up . . . . Before I could carry out this egoistic idea I did something very odd I split in two. One Me in its pink nightie continued to toss self-centredly against the embroidered pillows, but another, clad in a long, very white, hooded garment, was now standing, calm, immobile and impersonally outward-looking, at the foot of the bed. This White Me seemed just as actual as Pink Me and I was equally conscious in both places at the same time. I vividly remember myself as White Me looking down and observing the carved end of the bed in front of me and also thinking what a silly fool Pink Me looked, tossing in that petulant way against the pillows. You're behaving disgracefully, said White Me to Pink Me with cold contempt. Don't be so selfish, you know he's dog tired. Pink Me was a totally self-regarding little animal . . . . and she cared not at all whether her unfortunate husband was tired or not. I shall do what I like, she retorted furiously, and you can't stop me, you pious white prig! She was particularly furious because she knew very well that White Me was the stronger and could stop her. A moment or two later I felt no transition White Me was once more imprisoned with Pink Me in one body, and there they have dwelt as oil and water every since. (Heywood, 1964).

As for the electron, although its wavefunction might be divided into two (or more) packets as in Fig. 8, it still stands for just one electron. If the packets impinge on a photographic film, for instance, only one packet will activate a grain of silver. In fact, no matter how fragmented the electron's wavefunction gets, it still represents just one electron. It is one of the mysteries of quantum mechanics why all of the electron's energy and momentum are deposited on just one spot upon colliding with the photographic emulsion. But the wavefunction represents one electron, and one electron is what you get. Similarly, even though a human consciousness might be separated into many parts, it still represents just one identity. If Rosalind Heywood were suddenly threatened in her extended state, I have little doubt that her divided consciousness would instantly coalesce to focus on the disturbance. Another interesting thing about wavefunctions is that they can represent two or more mutually exclusive physical states at the same time. In fact, this is usually the case! For example, consider the intrinsic spinning motion of an electron. Being a Dirac particle, the electron has intrinsic angular momentum s always of magnitude 1 h, where h is Planck's 2 constant divided by 2 . This angular momentum is analogous to the spinning motion of a ball. If the ball is spinning counter-clockwise when viewed from above, then we say that it has spin up because the axis about which it is spinning is vertical, and by a right-handed convention we say that it is pointing up. If it is spinning clockwise, then we say that it has spin down. Of course usually the electron's axis of spin points neither up nor 8

down, but in some other direction. However another of the curiosities of quantum mechanics is that this spinning motion in an arbitrary direction can nevertheless be represented as a wavefunction consisting of two terms, one standing for spin up and the other for spin down. That is,

=a +b ,
where represents spin up and represents spin down; a and b are just (complex) constants, chosen so that a 2 + b 2 = 1. With appropriate choices of a and b you can point the spin in any direction you like. Now let us direct an electron toward a highly divergent field between a pair of magnets, constructed so that if the electron's spin is pointing up, then the electron is pulled upward, and if the electron's spin is pointing down, then the electron is pulled downward. This is illustrated in Fig. 9.

S
electron's spin up

S
electron's spin down

Fig. 9. The magnetic field between the illustrated North and South magnetic poles is highly divergent, causing an electron with spin up to be pulled upward, and an electron with spin down to be pulled downward. This apparatus is called a Stern-Gerlach device, after Stern and Gerlach who first demonstrated it. _____________________________________________________ The interesting thing is that if the electron's spin is pointing neither up nor down but oriented in some other direction, then nevertheless the 9

Stern-Gerlach apparatus will only deflect the electron up or down and not somewhere in between. It is as if the electron, when confronted with the magnets, must choose to either be spinning up or spinning down. Mathematically speaking, it must either choose to keep the a part of its wavefunction, or the b part. The probability that the electron will be deflected upward is a 2 , and deflected downward is b 2. Analogous to the electron's wavefunction representing two physically incompatible states, the human identity can entertain two states that are physically incompatible as well, such as, say, when a person approaching a voting booth hasn't decided whether to vote Republican or Democrat. Let's give the person a wavefunction: person = a Democrat + b Republican . For example, if a 2 = 0.30 and b 2 = 0.70 , then, prior to voting, the person has a 30% likelihood to vote Democratic and a 70% likelihood to vote Republican. Upon reaching for a voting lever, he or she then decides which lever to pull, and his or her wavefunction collapses to either a Democrat or b Republican . The wavefunctions of electrons resemble human identities or consciousnesses in even more ways. Theoretically, it is possible to prepare two electrons, say A and B, in such a way that the sum of their spin angular momenta equals zero, even though individually they still have spin angular momentum s = 1 h apiece. Their combined state of zero spin is described by 2 the (unnormalized) wavefunction

= A , B A , B ,
where A , B denotes electron A with its spin pointing up and electron B

with its spin pointing down, and A , B denotes electron A with its spin pointing down and electron B with its spin pointing up. Now within this wavefunction, the terms A , B and A , B are physically incompatible: physically, electron A's spin can't be pointing both up and down at the same time; neither can B's. However, it is possible, in fact common, for wavefunctions to contain physically incompatible terms, as we have already seen in the case of a single electron's spin. The wavefunction is like two blueprints, only one of which is followed when the electrons' wavefunctions are forced to reduce to material electrons. Let us suppose that electrons A and B proceed in opposite directions until they are a light-year apart. Suddenly electron A reaches a detector (say, a Stern-Gerlach device) and must decide whether to choose spin up or spin down. Suppose it chooses spin up. Then according to most physicists' interpretation of quantum mechanics, this choice cancels the second term in wavefunction , so that electron B's spin must instantly point down. It is as if the electrons were conscious of each other (footnote 2). 10

Although such interdependence has not been measured for electrons at distances of light-years, it has been measured for pairs of photons in laboratories over short distances, and also over several miles. [Gisin (2001) and references cited therein.] Indications are that, upon measurement of A's spin, B's spin is indeed determined instantly, or at least after an interval of time several orders of magnitude less than light would require to carry the message. In the case of human twins, a similar awareness has been reported. One twin in California filed suit against Pan American for pain that she suffered at the instant when her twin sister died in a plane crash in the Canary Islands. [This case has been studied as part of a Law School Preparation Program offered by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (1998)].
M. B.'s twin sister, M. F., was one of the 583 people killed in the plane disaster at Tenerife in the Canary Islands on March 27, 1977. Consequently, M. B. sued Pan American World Airlines, not for the wrongful death of her sister, but for her own injuries, which she sustained because of the "extrasensory empathy" which is common among identical twins. At the moment of the collision, M. B., sitting at her home in Fremont, California, suffered burning sensations in her chest and stomach and a feeling of being split. On February 21, 1980, Federal Court Judge R. W. ruled against M. B., explaining that legally she had to be physically present at the accident to collect damages.

Incidentally, the fact that electrons A and B are apparently in instant communication with each other is a famous aspect of quantum mechanics which Einstein called "Spooky action at a distance. He called the experiment spooky because after electron A chooses to point spin up, quantum mechanics says that electron B must immediately point spin down in less time than a light signal could travel from A to B. This violates a fundamental principle of Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, not to mention his General Relativity theory, which says that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Now, in the case of the human twins, an ordinary light (or radio) signal could have reached M. B. in just 0.05 sec after the crash, so there is no way to tell if Special or General Relativity was violated when she first felt the alleged pains. However NASA is considering a mission to send men and/or women to Mars, and even when Earth and Mars are closest, it still takes light over 4 minutes to travel from one planet to the other. Thus it might be possible to test if something happening to one of the astronauts can be perceived by a related person on Earth in less than the 4 minutes. The participants could use synchronized clocks to record the time. Wavefunctions and consciousness In the three analogies described in the previous section, a human consciousness behaved like an electron's wavefunction. Is it possible that the human consciousness is a wavefunction in its own right, not just analogous to the wavefunction of an electron? I will consider that possibility in this Section.

11

Also, is it possible that an electron's wavefunction is conscious, not just analogous to a human consciousness? Let us reconsider the three examples. 1. In the case of the electron's wavepacket transformed into many wavepackets by the double slit, quantum mechanics cannot tell us in which packet the electron will materialize. Perhaps the decision is made at the level of the electron, rather than the level of the experimentalist. 2. In the case of the electron's entering the Stern-Gerlach apparatus, quantum mechanics cannot tell us whether the electron will be deflected upward or downward. Again, perhaps the decision is made at the level of the electron. 3. Finally, in the case of the two entangled electrons, quantum mechanics cannot tell us how the second electron knows in which direction its spin should point after the first electron's spin is detected. Perhaps the electrons share a consciousness. There is no provision for consciousness in present-day quantum mechanics, so I will speculate that in addition to the wavefunction dictated by quantum mechanics, the electron also exhibits an elementary consciousness. I will call this generalized wavefunction the conscious electron wavefunction (footnotes 3, 4). If the electron's wavefunction embodies some kind of elementary consciousness, then so should the wavefunctions of the other elementary Dirac particles: the mu and the tau (both identical to the electron, only much heavier), the three massless neutrinos (the one which is paired with the electron, and two others paired with the mu and the tau, respectively), and the six kinds of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. [For a non-technical presentation of the elementary particles, see my essay (Bryan, 2000). For examples of technical models set in higher dimensional space-time, see Bryan (1986, 1998)]. The wavefunctions of protons and neutrons should also be conscious at an elementary level, as they are composed of the wavefunctions of three quarks each (two ups and a down for the proton, one up and two downs for the neutron). Likewise atomic nuclei should have a limited consciousness, as they are made up of protons and neutrons. Going up the chain, we should find that atoms made of electrons and nuclei also have conscious wavefunctions, as should molecules such as amino acids and DNA. Living cells. made up of the foregoing, ought also to have conscious wavefunctions. This brings to mind the consciousness units cited by Jane Roberts in the Appendix of her book, The Seth Material.
. . . . One of the reasons why [these conscious units] have not been discovered is precisely because they are so cleverly camouflaged within all structures. Being just beyond the range of matter, having a structure but a nonphysical one, and being of a pulsating nature, they can expand or contract. They can completely envelop, for example, a small cell, or retreat to the nucleus within. They combine qualities of a unit and a field, in other words. ( Roberts, 1970).

Just beyond the range of physical matter and having a structure but a nonphysical one sound a lot like wavefunctions. Farther up the chain are living organs which likewise should have consciousness as part of their (by now enormously complex) wavefunctions. Is there any evidence of consciousness at this level? Recent major organ 12

transplants seem to say Yes. Consider the following heart-transplant case, reported by Pearsall, Schwartz, and Russek (2000) in a recent issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies.
The donor was a 16-month-old boy [Jerry] who drowned in a bathtub. The recipient was a 7-month-old boy [Carter] diagnosed with tetralogy of Fallot, a syndrome involving a hole in the ventricular septum, displacement of the aorta, pulmonary stenosis, and thickening of the right ventricle. The donor's mother, a physician, reported: The first thing is that I could more than hear Jerry's heart. I could feel it in me. When Carter first saw me, he ran to me and pushed his nose against me and rubbed and rubbed it. It was just exactly what we did with Jerry. Jerry and Carter's heart are 5 years old now, but Carter's eyes were Jerry's eyes. When he hugged me, I could feel my son. I mean I could feel him, not just symbolically. He was there. I felt his energy. I'm a doctor. I'm trained to be a keen observer and have always been a natural born skeptic. But this was real. I know people will say that I need to believe my son's spirit is alive, and perhaps I do. But I felt it. My husband and my father felt it. And I swear to you, and you can ask my mother, Carter said the same baby-talk words that Jerry said. Carter is 6, but he was talking Jerry's baby talk and playing with my nose just like Jerry did. We stayed with the [recipient family] that night. In the middle of the night, Carter came in and asked to sleep with my husband and me. He cuddled up between us exactly like Jerry did, and we began to cry. Carter told us not to cry because Jerry said everything was okay. My husband and I, our parents, and those who really knew Jerry have no doubt. Our son's heart contains much of our son and beats in Carter's chest. On some level, our son is still alive. The recipient's mother reported: I saw Carter go to her [the donor's mother]. He never does that. He is very, very shy, but he went to her just like he used to run to me when he was a baby. When he whispered It's okay, Mama, I broke down. He called her Mother, or maybe it was Jerry's heart talking. And one more thing that got to us. We found out talking to Jerry's mom that Jerry had mild cerebral palsy, mostly on his left side. Carter has stiffness and some shaking on that same side. He never did as a baby and it only showed up after the transplant. The doctors say it's probably something to do with his medical condition, but I really think there's more to it. One more thing I'd like you to know about. When we went to church together, Carter had never met Jerry's father. We came late and Jerry's dad was sitting with a group of people in the middle of the congregation. Carter let go of my hand and ran right to that man. He climbed on his lap, hugged him, and said Daddy. We were flabbergasted. How could he have known him? Why did he call him Dad? He never did things like that. He would never let go of my hand in church and never run to a stranger. When I asked him why he did it, he said he didn't. He said Jerry did and he went with him.

Pearsall, Schwartz, and Russek report nine other heart-transplant cases in their article which are just as compelling. It appears that with each donor's heart comes a consciousness which reflects his or her whole

13

personality, and which becomes entwined with the consciousness of the recipient. If the heart has a consciousness, and of course the brain has a consciousness, then perhaps the other organs have consciousnesses too. This suggests that there is an overall consciousness which coordinates these sub-consciousnesses. Furthermore, as the heart, brain, and the other organs also have wavefunctions (as they must, being composed of elementary particles), perhaps there is an overall wavefunction which organizes these sub-wavefunctions. I conjecture that the overall consciousness and the overall wavefunction are different aspects of a single entity, call it the conscious human wavefunction. This conscious wavefunction might be the seat of human consciousness (footnote 5). As with any wavefunction, this conscious wavefunction can sometimes be quite flighty. Wavefunctions are more like a collection of ideas or blueprints, just one of which is to be followed as when, say, a particle is forced to materialize. In the case of the human wavefunction, the human consciousness would seem to choose which blueprint to follow. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that the conscious human wavefunction or consciousness can sometimes partially leave the living body. For example, Robert Monroe, a pioneer in the study of consciousness, began to have episodes where his conscious awareness would leave his body and focus somewhere else. At first he was frightened by these so-called out-ofbody (OoB) experiences, but in time came to realize they were not a sign of mental illness but rather of an aspect of normal human consciousness not usually recognized in Western circles. I quote his account of one of his early out-of-body experiences which he reported in his first book, Journeys out of the Body (Monroe, 1971, p. 46).
9/10/1958 Again I floated upward, with the intent of visiting Dr. Bradshaw and his wife. Realizing that Dr. Bradshaw was ill in bed with a cold, I thought I would visit him in the bedroom, which was a room I had not seen in his house and if I could describe it later, could thus document my visit. Again came the turning in air, the dive into the tunnel, and this time the sensation of going uphill. (Dr. and Mrs. Bradshaw live in a house some five miles from my office, up a hill.) I was over trees and there was a light sky above. . . . After a while, the uphill travel became difficult, and I had the feeling that the energy was leaving, and I felt I wouldn't make it. With this thought, an amazing thing happened. It felt precisely as if someone had placed a hand under each arm and lifted me. I felt a surge of lifting power, and I rushed quickly up the hill. Then I came upon Dr. and Mrs. Bradshaw. They were outside the house, and for a moment I was confused, as I had reached them before I got to the house. I didn't understand this because Dr. Bradshaw was supposed to be in bed. Dr. Bradshaw was dressed in a light overcoat and hat, his wife in a dark coat and all dark clothes. They were coming toward me, so I stopped. They seemed in good spirits, and walked past me unseeing, in the direction of a smaller building, like a garage, Brad[shaw] trailing behind as they walked. I floated around in front of them, waving, trying to get their attention without result. Then without turning his head, I thought I heard Dr. Bradshaw say to me, Well, I see you don't need help any more. Thinking I had made contact, I dove back into the ground(?), and returned to the office, rotated into

14

the body and opened my eyes. Everything was just as I had left it. The vibration was still present, but I felt I had enough for one day. Important aftermath: We phoned Dr. and Mrs. Bradshaw that evening. I made no statement other than to ask where they were between four and five that afternoon. (My wife, upon hearing of the visit, said flatly it was not possible, could not be so because Dr. Bradshaw was home in bed sick.) With Mrs. Bradshaw on the phone, I asked the simple question. She stated that roughly at four twenty-five they were walking out of the house toward the garage. She was going to the post office, and Dr. Bradshaw had decided that perhaps some fresh air might help him, and had dressed and gone along. She knew the time by back-checking from the time they arrived at the post office, which was twenty minutes to five. It takes roughly fifteen minutes to drive to the post office from their house. I had come back from my trip to them at approximately four twenty-seven. I asked what they were wearing. Mrs. Bradshaw stated that she was wearing black slacks, and a red sweater which was covered with a black car coat. Dr. Bradshaw was wearing a light hat and a light-colored topcoat. However, neither saw me in any way or was aware of my presence. Dr. Bradshaw had no memory of saying anything to me. The great point is that I had expected to find him in bed, and didn't. The coincidences involved were too much. It was not important to prove this to anyone else. Only to me. It proves to me truly for the first time that there might well be more to this than normal science and psychology and psychiatry allowmore than an aberration, trauma, or hallucination and I needed some form of proof more than anyone else, I am sure. It was a simple incident, but unforgettable.

The fact that Monroe saw Dr. Bradshaw walking outside his house when he was supposed to be in bed, and at about the time that Bradshaw was heading for his garage, suggest that out of body, he really did see Dr. Bradshaw. Furthermore, Monroe saw Mrs. Bradshaw walking with Dr. Bradshaw, also verified. The Bradshaws did not see Monroe when he was observing them, even though he tried to attract their attention, so if Monroe had a conscious wavefunction which did go there, then it wasn't observed. Indeed, that was usually his experience. However he reports that on one occasion, his OoB presence was observed, if only dimly.
10/10/1962 Night. I have found another clue to the how do you look when you're not physical question. In the early evening, around seven-thirty, I decided to try to visit R. W. in her apartment some eight miles distant. I was sure she would be awake (non-physically, of course.) I had no difficulty, and found myself immediately in a living room. There was what I thought to be R. W. sitting in a chair near a bright light. I moved toward her, but she didn't seem to pay any attention to me. Then I was sure she saw me, but she seemed frightened. I backed away, then started to speak, but something pulled me back to the physical, and I found myself in my bedroom, in the physical, the vibrations fading. The reason for recall was that my arm was asleep and tingling from lack of circulation. I was lying on it the wrong way. There was a most unusual aftermath. The next day R. W. asked me what I was doing the night before. I asked her why, and she stated, I was sitting in the living room after supper, reading the paper. Something made me look up,

15

and there on the other side of the room was something hanging and waving in the air. I asked her what it looked like. It was like a filmy piece of gray chiffon, she said. I could see the wall and chair behind it, and it started to come toward me. I was frightened, and I thought it might be you, so I said, Bob, is that you? But it just hung there in mid-air, waving slightly. I then asked again if it was you, and if so, please go home and don't bother me. Then it backed away and faded out quickly. She asked if it was really me, and I said I thought it might be. Well, next time, say something so I'll be sure it's you, she answered. Then I won't be so scared. I assured her I would. At least I'm not a very bright-hued ghost, and I don't have human shape sometimes. (Monroe, 1971, p. 171)

This would seem to indicate that Monroe had a conscious wavefunction which was indeed present in R. W.'s apartment and which had created a material representation of itself with whatever it could find at the site. At the same time, apparently part of his conscious wavefunction remained with his body because it informed him that his physical arm was tingling. By the time that he wrote his first book (Monroe 1971), Monroe could document 589 out-of-body experiences that he had had over a period of twelve years. A successful radio executive and producer in the 1940s and 1950s, he went on to found The Monroe Institute to help thousands of others learn that they too are more than their physical bodies. Countless other reports of out-of-body experiences have been published since Monroe's first book. For example, Bruce Moen and William Buhlman have written about their OoB experiences (Moen, 1997, 1998, 1999), (Buhlman, 1996). Also near-death experiences have been reported extensively, as in books by Moody, Sabom, and Ring, where the subjects usually go OoB as part of the experience (Moody, 1975), (Sabom, 1982), (Ring, 1980). A most important outcome of this research is that the human consciousness seems to have the capability to direct its wavefunction where it wants it to go. For example, when Monroe said, I want to visit Dr. Bradshaw, his consciousness or wavefunction went directly to Dr. Bradshaw, who happened to be on the path leading to his garage even though Monroe had expected to find Bradshaw in his bedroom. Also when Monroe wanted to visit R. W., his consciousness went right to her. (Monroe found it difficult to try to go to a distant geographical location. He said that he had much better luck when he specified that he wanted to go to a particular person.) Early on Monroe discovered that he could also move his second body just a little away from his physical body. For example, Monroe tells in his book how he could lie in bed and extend his second-body arms above his physical arms, perhaps to touch the ceiling. He could also push his secondbody arms through the ceiling to feel the plaster, the wood pieces, perhaps a nail. I would interpret his second-body arms to be part of his conscious wavefunction. 16

Monroe could do more with his second body than just feel plaster. On at least one occasion he left a mark with his second body hands. I quote from his book (Monroe 1971, p. 55) where he paid another visit to R. W., this time when she was vacationing.
8/15/63 Afternoon. . . R. W., a business woman whom I know quite well . . . has been away this week on her vacation up on the New Jersey coast. I do not know exactly where she is vacationing other than that. . . This afternoon, I . . decided . . to make a strong effort to visit R. W. wherever she was. . . I lay down in the bedroom about three in the afternoon, went into a relaxation pattern, felt the warmth (high order vibrations), then thought heavily of the desire to go to R. W. There was the familiar sensation of movement through a light blue blurred area, then I was in what seemed to be a kitchen. R. W. was seated in a chair to the right. She had a glass in her hand. She was looking to my left, where two girls (about seventeen or eighteen, one blond and one brunette) also were sitting, each with glasses in their hands, drinking something. The three of them were in conversation, but I could not hear what they were saying. I first approached the two girls, directly in front of them, but I could not attract their attention. I then turned to R. W., and I asked if she knew I was there. Oh yes, I know you are here, she replied (mentally, or with that superconscious communication, as she was still in oral conversation with the two girls). I asked if she was sure that she would remember that I had been there. Oh, I will definitely remember, the reply came. I said that this time I was going to make sure that she remembered. I will remember, I'm sure I will, R. W. said, still in oral conversation simultaneously. I stated that I had to be sure she would remember, so I was going to pinch her. Oh, you don't need to do that, I'll remember, R. W. said hastily. I said that I had to be sure, so I reached over and tried to pinch her, gently, I thought. I pinched her in the side, just above the hips and below the rib cage. She let out a good loud Ow, and I backed up, because I was somewhat surprised. I really hadn't expected to be able actually to pinch her. Satisfied that I had made some impression, at the least, I turned and left, thought of the physical, and was back almost immediately. Important aftermath: It is Tuesday after the Saturday of the experiment. R. W. returned to work yesterday, and I asked her what she had been doing Saturday afternoon between three and four. . . . Here is what she reported today: On Saturday between three and four was the only time there was not a crowd of people in the beach cottage where she was staying. For the first time, she was alone with her niece (dark-haired, about eighteen) and the niece's friend (about the same age, blond). They were in the kitchen-dining area of the cottage from about three-fifteen to four, and she was having a drink, and the girls were having Cokes. . . I asked R. W. if she remembered anything else, and she said no. I questioned her more closely, but she could not remember anything more. Finally, in impatience, I asked her if she remembered the pinch. A look of complete astonishment crossed her face.

17

Was that you? She stared at me for a moment, then went to the privacy of my office, turned, and lifted (just slightly!) the edge of her sweater where it joined her skirt on her left side. There were two brown and blue marks at the exactly the spot where I had pinched her. I was sitting there, talking to the girls, R. W. said, when all of a sudden I felt this terrible pinch. I must have jumped a foot. I thought my brother-in-law had come back and sneaked up behind me. I turned around, but there was no one there. I never had any idea it was you! It hurt! I apologized for pinching so hard, and she obtained from me a promise that if I tried any such thing again, I would try something other than a pinch that hard.

So Monroe reported that not only could he feel plaster with his second body. but on occasion he could even leave a physical impression. There is further evidence that the human consciousness can affect matter, this time data carefully amassed by Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne, Roger Nelson and their collaborators over a period of 12 years at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory at Princeton University (Jahn and Dunne, 1987), (Jahn et al., 1997). They looked to see if some 91 anonymous, unpaid volunteers with no special abilities could, by mental intent alone, alter a noisy diode's output which was being amplified and clipped to produce a randomly alternating series of positive and negative pulses. These were converted to 1s and 0 s in sets usually of 200 numbers each; a typical set might look like 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, and so on for the total of 200 1s and 0 s. On the average, there should be 100 1s and 100 0 s in each set. In 839, 800 sets, volunteers tried to increase the number of 1s, and in 836, 650 sets. they tried to increase the number of 0 s. Although they were only able to change about 1 number in 10, 000 , when taken over the total number of 1s and 0 s, namely 335, 290, 000 , the possibility that this difference occurred by chance alone is less than 1 in 14, 000 (Jahn et al., 1997) (footnotes 6, 7, 8). Others have also documented the abilities of certain subjects to mentally affect physical systems. For example, Targ and Puthoff (1977) report that the artist Ingo Swann was able to alter the cycling rate of a highly shielded magnetometer in a laboratory at Stanford University. Also Radin (1997) recounts how ten volunteers were able to alter the output of a matrix of random-number generators that he had constructed with the help of collaborators at Contel Technology Center (later merged with GTE). Now, the electromagnetic fields generated by the physical body are extremely weak and not likely to propagate far enough to affect the electronics of a RNG or other device. Furthermore Jahn & Dunne, and others have reported that the distance of the volunteer from the RNG or other device does not appear to play a role. Wavefunctions, on the other hand, can leap large distances, as when collapsing after entanglement. As mentioned earlier, they are more like an idea than physical reality. Therefore in the case of the RNG, say, I speculate that the volunteers' conscious wavefunctions, not their electromagnetic fields, interacted with the device. This is sketched in Fig. 10.

18

RNG RNG 1 changed to 0

Fig. 10. Conjectured conscious human wavefunction interacting with an electronic Random Number Generator to alter a single digit. _____________________________________________________ It is remarkable that the PEAR volunteers could by mental intent alone change the output of a microelectronic noise generator, if only once per 10, 000 opportunities. I estimate that altering a single digit might have called for an amount of energy ~ 10 6 V 10 6 A 10 6 s = 10 18 J = 6 eV plus or minus a couple orders of magnitude. It is even more remarkable that Robert Monroe could direct his consciousness to R. W. in another state and leave a mark on her body. I estimate that pinching her required his exerting a force of the order of 0.2 lb acting over a distance of at least 1mm. This equals an amount of energy W = Fd = (1 N ) 10 3 m = 10 3 J = 6 1015 eV ! This ability for some humans to mentally affect living or non-living systems at a distance suggests a physics experiment. If unpaid volunteers could once in about 10, 000 tries direct ~ 6 eV to alter an electronic signal, and if Monroe could, at least once, direct ~ 6 1015 eV to pinch a person, then could a person flip the spin of an electron every time if this only required directing ~ 0.6 10 6 eV ? This is the amount of energy required to reverse the spin of an electron in a 50 -gauss magnetic field. An Experiment If one wants to flip the spin of an electron, then one needs to know where the electron is and which way its spin is pointing. To see where it is, the electron can be a spherically symmetric quantum wavefunction

)(

)(

enclosing a 138 Ba ++ ion. The 138 Ba ++ ion has closed shells like a Xenon atom. The combined 138 Ba + ion is confined in a Paul trap in a volume of ~ 1 cm 3 at a pressure of about 10 10 torr . (A Paul trap consists of four parallel short metal rods, each about 2 cm long, defining the edges of a mathematical box of 0.5 cm 0.5 cm square cross-section. The bars are divided in thirds, with the end sections kept about 20 V DC higher that the middle sections. This keeps 19

the Ba + away from the ends. Then 1MHz, 1000 V AC voltage keeps the ion from escaping out the sides.) If we bathe the ion in a magnetic field and illuminate it with light from a tunable dye-laser, then when the laser is tuned to the right frequency, the ion will light up. In this state of laserinduced fluorescence (LIF), the ion will emit about 108 blue-violet photons/sec; the human eye can accept about 10 4 of these photons/sec, so the ion should be visible.

1 = 455 10 9 m and left circular polarization + excites the electron from the 6s1 , m j = 1 2 state to the 6 p3 , m j = 3 2 state. The excited electron returns
to its original state emitting another photon of wavelength 1 . This cycle is repeated about 108 times/sec. See Fig. 11. 3/2 1/2 1/2 3/2
2 2

Technically, when the ion is fluorescing, laser light of wavelength

6p

3/2

1
6s1/2

2
1/2 1/2

+ Ba
Fig. 11. Relevant energy spectrum of the valence electron of Ba + immersed in magnetic field. Laser-induced fluorescence is indicated for laser beams of wavelength 1 and 2 . Data taken from Moore (1958). The dotted horizontal line is not an energy-level in the 6 p3 multiplet. _____________________________________________________ While this excitation and de-excitation is going on, the valence electron's spin remains fixed in direction. Nothing disturbs it, not occasional collisions with the 106 or so oxygen and nitrogen molecules remaining in the trap, nor even a slammed door. (However a radiofrequency oscillator tuned to 150 106 Hz would flip the spin,) 20
2

I conjecture that the observer can also flip the spin of the valence electron by directing a portion of his or her conscious wavefunction to the electron, as sketched in Fig. 12.

flips to B B

Fig. 12. Volunteer directing a portion of his or her conjectured conscious wavefunction to flip the spin of a valence electron surrounding the filled electronic shells of a Ba++ ion; the ion is bathed in a magnetic field B . _____________________________________________________ But could a volunteer focus his or her conscious wavefunction down to the size of a Ba+ ion? The ion's diameter is about 10 9 meter! Here, I will cite the work of Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, a couple who were trained in India in the late 19th century to look at atoms using their inner senses (Besant & Leadbeater, 1908, 1919, 1951). They surveyed nearly the whole periodic table, drawing highly complex pictures of these atoms' structures. It is interesting that they saw atoms of twice and three times hydrogen's mass. Today we recognize these atoms as deuterium and tritium. The fact that Leadbeater and Besant reported a mass-3 atom by 1919, some years before it was discovered with the mass spectrograph, lends credence to their reports. Stephen Phillips has written two interesting books on Leadbeater and Besant's work, calling their ability to focus on single atoms micro-psi vision (Phillips, 1980, 1999). A more concise review of their experiences appeared in this journal (Phillips, 1995). The well-known remote viewer Joseph McMoneagle also seems to have seen the motion of single atoms or molecules. He has this to say about his out-of-body experiences (McMoneagle, 1993):
1. You arrive at the target just as if you had gone there physically. 2. You know that your consciousness is totally at the target location and where you left your physical body is somewhere else. 3. You see objects and people at the target location, just as if you were seeing them with physical eyes. Both animate as well as inanimate elements are seen with such pristine clarity that you can actually discriminate molecular movement within them. For example, looking at a table is like looking at an energy field in the shape of a table, with billions of component parts or elements contained within the energy field moving or interacting with each other.

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4. Seeing into the next room requires having to pass through a wall, which feels something akin to pushing your body through a veil of Jell-O.

I take the reports of Besant & Leadbeater and McMoneagle to indicate that some individuals, at least, have been able to focus their consciousnesses or conscious wavefunctions down to the size of atoms. A possible mechanism for this interaction between the conscious human wavefunction (CHW) and the electron's wavefunction is suggested by the Feynman diagram shown on the right side of Fig. 13. Here the CHW exchanges a boson with the electron's wavefunction, analogous to the exchange of the photon between electrons sketched in Fig. 5. I assume that the CHW is robust, that is, that only a portion of it collapses when it has flipped the spin of the electron. (For simplicity, the human conscious wavefunction is represented by a single Dirac line.)

boson

spin down

portion of conscious human wavefunction

spin up electron wavefunction

Fig. 13. Human figure at left and Feynman diagram at right showing a portion of the conscious human wavefunction flipping the spin of the electron's wavefunction by the exchange of a boson. _____________________________________________________ The boson in Fig. 13 might be a vector boson, similar to the electromagnetic-field quantum. It cannot actually be a photon since the electromagnetic interaction has been ruled out as the mediator in PK phenomena. However the boson might be a quantum of the hypothetical Mfield reported by Robert Monroe (1994), or the morphic field conjectured by Rupert Sheldrake, or perhaps qi reported by Yan Xin et al. (2002) in this Journal. These fields have very long range, so again their quanta must be massless. In an alternate scenario, if the mediating boson in Fig. 13 is of this variety, then it could travel most of the way between the human and the electron, thus requiring the CHW to extend only a short distance beyond the human (footnote 9). Let us return to the experiment. If the person succeeds in flipping the electron's spin, then the LIF will cease and the ion will disappear from view. This happens because the electron will now be in the 6s1 , m j = 1 2 lower level, and the 1 laser light will be trying to excite the electron to an
2

22

energy where no level exists, namely, the energy indicated by the dashed line in the 6 p3 spectrum in Fig. 11.
2

To be certain that the electron's spin has been flipped, one can shine laser light of very slightly longer wavelength 2 and right circular polarization tuned to excite the electron, now in the 6s1 , m j = 1 2 level, 2 to the 6 p3 , m j = 3 2 level. This is illustrated in Fig. 11. If the person 2 succeeds in flipping the electron's spin again, then LIF will cease and the ion will once again disappear from view. It is worth mentioning that shining laser light on the ion at a frequency slightly below the peak frequency of the s1 p3 transition also slows the ion down, helping to keep it in the trap and within the laserbeam. This is termed Doppler cooling. We need to make sure that the impressed magnetic field B is strong enough to spread the levels of the 6 p3 excited states sufficiently far apart that their natural widths don't overlap. These natural widths are about 15 106 Hz wide, and the laser beam has a width of only about 106 Hz , so separating the 6 p3 levels by 100 106 Hz should be sufficient. It can be shown that the shift in the energy of the valence electron in a level of total, orbital, and spin angular momentum j,l and s , and z -component of total angular momentum m j is ehB E= gm j Ejlsm , j 2m where g is the Land g-factor. For the electron in any p3 state, g = 4 3 , so between two adjacent levels the difference in energy 4 ehB E= = 2 h . 3 2m
2
2

Thus if we want the 6 p3 levels to be separated by an energy equivalent to a frequency = 100 10 Hz, then the impressed magnetic field B = 3 m / e = 54 gauss. The Land g-factor g = 2 for the 6s1 levels, so with this same field,
6
2

these ground-state levels will be split by 150 106 Hz. This is equivalent to the previously quoted energy E = 0.6 10 6 eV , the energy difference between the electron with spin up and spin down when it is in the ground state. Summary and Outlook Noting a parallel between the indestructibility of the electron and the human identity, I observe that human consciousness can exhibit many of the features of the electron's wavefunction, such as diffraction and double23

valuedness. Thus I speculate that a human consciousness is a wavefunction. At the same time, the electron's wavefunction appears to exhibit some of the features of an elementary consciousness, so I speculate that the electron is also governed by a conscious wavefunction. Robert Monroe has reported that human intent can sometimes act at a distance to leave a mark on a person, and Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne and their collaborators have found that untrained volunteers can affect the output of an electronic random-number generator. Therefore I suggest an experiment in which a volunteer attempts to flip the spin of an electron in a weak magnetic field, a feat which probably requires far less energy than required for the Jahn & Dunne experiments. For practical purposes, the target electron could be the single valence electron whose wavefunction encloses the filled electronic shells of a 138 Ba ++ ion confined in a Paul trap. To see the single ion, one can cause it to fluoresce by shining 455 10 9 meter (blue-violet) light on it. If the person succeeds in flipping the electron's spin, then the ion ceases to fluoresce. This experiment involves a modest amount of equipment and could be replicated in a well equipped atomic physics lab. If a person can flip the spin of an electron in the lab, then reports by Jahn & Dunne, Monroe and others indicate that he or she might also be able to flip the spin from across the street or from across the continent. This would mean that the link between human and electron could not be mediated by electromagnetic or gravitational fields, as these fall off as the inverse square of the distance. However wavefunctions are highly mobile (witness the occasional instant collapse of a wavefunction over a large distance), so I speculate that the human might be able to consciously direct a portion of his or her wavefunction to the electron, however distant it may be, where it would interact with the electron through the exchange of a boson. Alternately, the human conscious wavefunction might not need to extend very far beyond the human frame, but instead might direct quanta of a conjectured M- field, morphic field, or perhaps qi to the electron to flip its spin. In this context, the fields resembles the gluon field of Quantum Chromodynamics in that they can extend to the target electron without losing intensity. Further studies of such a human-electron interaction might enable scientists to replace the human end of the link with purely electronic circuitry. This reminds me of the late eighteenth century experiments of Volta, who discovered that the muscles of a frog's leg could be activated by electric current. Later, of course, we learned that electricity could excite inanimate devices as well. If a person were able to turn on and off the laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) of an ion at will, then he or she could send a message. The sequence (on, off, on, off, on, off, oooon, off, oooon, off, oooon, off, on, off, on, off, on, off) would correspond to , or SOS in International Morse Code. This message could be read by anyone watching the ion. The person could send any text he or she desired, such as the Preamble of the Constitution. If the person could control the LIF of an ion nearby, then he or 24

she might be able to control it from across the country. Studies indicate that mountains and Faraday cages should be no impediment, so the person ought to be able to signal a submarine deep underwater (Targ, 1977), (Jahn, 1997). If the signal indeed reaches the receiver instantly, then humandirected LIF could be used to communicate immediately with spacecraft light-hours or light-days away. Persons who have lost the ability to control their limbs or speech could, in principle, use LIF to speak, to turn the pages of the book, or to navigate with the help of appropriate electro-mechanical devices. If the conjectured human conscious wavefunction survives physical death, then it might also be able to turn LIF on and off to communicate with living persons. Learning tapes put out by The Monroe Institute indicate that the volunteer attempting to control an apparatus at a distance will have a much better chance if he or she first of all believes that he or she can do it. Entering into a meditative state with no cares or external distractions is very helpful. The meditator might also imagine that he or she is extending an energy bar into a long tube that reaches over to the object with which he or she wants to interact. In this meditative state, he or she might ask for insight on how to perform the task, in this case to flip the spin (Monroe, 2000). We will also study the effect that additional people in the lab might exert on the experiment. In particular, we will see if visitors who are negative regarding the experiment will cause operators to fail who have previously been successful in flipping the electron's spin. Since the operator-plus-electron is a much simpler PK system than has been studied in the past, we may be successful in finding ways to suppress any negative conscious input. A front-rank atomic experimentalist colleague has agreed to do the experiment outlined in the previous Section if funding can be obtained. Acknowledgments First of all, I want to thank Bill Groom for giving me the idea of the parallel between the electron and the human identity. I would also like to thank Jensine Andresen for a conversation on quantum mechanics and consciousness, and Brenda Dunne for helping me to understand the statistics underlying the PEAR lab findings. I especially want to thank David Church and Hans Schuessler for carefully explaining to me how the orientation of the spin of a valence electron can be experimentally measured. I profited from in-depth discussions with experimental colleagues Robert Kenefick and Nelson Duller. Thanks are also due Brian Stagner for helpful suggestions on subject-machine protocol, and to Keli Lindelien for essential insight on adapting Robert Monroe's taped instructions to flipping the electron's spin. I also want to thank Robert Dunstan for a discussion on the human autonomic nervous system, Jane Wolferts for an interesting biographical anecdote, and Philip Hemmer and Walter Daugherity for information on current research in monomolecular 25

transistors. I want to thank Swejen Salter and Maggie and Jules HarschFischbach for insight and strong support in this research. Finally I want to thank Michael Manson, Andreas Mershin, Keli Lindelien and Mary Lind Bryan for their careful reading of the manuscript. This research was supported in part by the Lifebridge Foundation of New York, NY. Footnotes 1. W particles are quanta of the electroweak field, which also includes the (neutral) Z 0 and the photon. This quartet of fields is massless until the W and the Z 0 acquire mass from the Higgs boson through spontaneous symmetry breaking. Similarly, the electron and its neutrino form a doublet satisfying the Dirac equation. Both are massless until they acquire mass, again through spontaneous symmetry breaking. In many high-energy calculations, the mass of the electron can be neglected because it is so small. 2. This two-electron phenomenon is David Bohm's version of the EinsteinPodolsky-Rosen experiment (Bohm, 1951). 3. I suspect that if consciousness is indeed an aspect of a quantum mechanical wavefunction, then it will be expressed in a higher-dimensional representation of the wavefunction. See my paper on eight-dimensional Dirac particles (Bryan, 1998), where the internal quantum numbers of these particles emerge as the footprints of the higher-dimensional component of the wavefunction. 4. In this context, wavefunction seems like a poor choice of words to describe the phenomenon. Instead of electron wavefunction, it might be more meaningful to refer to it as the electron's waveform, since the wave exists whether or not we choose to parameterize it with a mathematical function. 5. Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne have used a quantum wavefunction to picture the interaction of the human consciousness with its environment (Jahn & Dunne, 1986, 1987). 6. The Princeton group also investigated whether volunteers could alter the paths of small balls cascading down a peg board, and found similar results although on a smaller data base. They also tested volunteers' ability to remote-view, i. e., using just their minds, describe details of the locale where a scout was standing. Taken all together, Jahn et al. (1997) report that the probability that all of these results occurred by chance alone was of the order of 10 13 . 7. Edwin C. May, Jessica M. Utts and S. James P. Spottiswoode (1995) have argued that the PEAR volunteers did not alter the random distribution of 1s and 0 s in the sets; rather they altered the random distribution of the run start times, where a run might consist of 50 , 100 , or 1000 sets. 8. However these results were not replicated (Jahn, 2000), when the PEAR group in coordination with groups at Freiburg and Giessen, Germany, repeated the PEAR experiments (Jahn, 1997).

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9. To account for the spectrum of elementary Dirac particles (the six leptons and the six quarks of three colors each), I have constructed wavefunctions in eight dimensions (the four of ordinary space and time plus four higher) (Bryan, 1986, 1998). I assume that the four extra dimensions are flat (not curled up as in string theories), so there is plenty of room for a wavefunction to propagate outside ordinary space and time. If the M-field that I propose also lives in higher dimensions as well as the four lower, then it can rise above obstructions in ordinary space, such as Faraday cages or the ocean, and travel unhindered to the absorber, such as the electron in the experiment that I propose.

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References Besant, Annie and Leadbeater, C. W. (1908). Occult Chemistry (1st edition). London: Theosophical Publishing House. Besant, Annie and Leadbeater, C. W. (1919). Occult Chemistry (2nd edition). London: Theosophical Publishing House. Besant, Annie and Leadbeater, C. W. (1951). Occult Chemistry (3rd edition). Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House. Bohm, David (1951). Quantum Theory. New York, NY: Prentice-Hall. Bryan, R. (1986). Isoscalar quarks and leptons in an eight-dimensional space. Physical Review D 34, 1184. Bryan, R. (1998). Are Quarks and Leptons Dynamically Confined in Four Flat Extra Dimensions? Nuclear Physics B523, 232. Bryan, R. (2000). What Can Elementary Particles Tell Us About the World in Which We Live? Journal of Scientific Exploration 14, 2, 257. Buhlman, W. (1996). Adventures Beyond the Body. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco. Gisin, N (2001). Sundays in a Quantum Engineer's Life. Talk presented at the Conference in Commemoration of John S. Bell, Vienna 10-14 November 2000. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0104140 Groom, W. (2000). Mind'scape: Escaping From the Prisons of Our Minds. to be published, and private communication. Heywood, R. (1964). ESP: A Personal Memoir. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., p. 101. Jahn, R. G. and Dunne, B. J. (1986). On the Quantum Mechanics of Consciousness, with Application to Anomalous Phenomena. Foundations of Physics 16, 8, 721. Jahn, R. G. and Dunne, B. J. (1987). Margins of Reality. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Jahn, R. G., Dunne, B. J., Nelson, R. D., Dobyns, Y. H., and Bradish, G. J. (1997). Correlations of random binary sequences with pre-stated operator intention: a review of a 12-year program. Journal of Scientific Exploration 11, 3, 345. Jahn, R., Dunne, B., Bradish, G., Dobyns, Y., Lettieri, A., Nelson, R., Mischo, J., Boller, E., Bosch, H., Vaitl, D., Houtkooper, J., and Walter, B. (2000). Mind/Machine Interaction Consortium: PortREG Replication Experiments. Journal of Scientific Exploration 14, 4, 499. May, E. C., Utts, J. M., and Spottiswoode, S. J. P. (1995). Decision Augmentation Theory: Applications to the Random Number Generator Database. Journal of Scientific Exploration 9, 4, 453. McMoneagle, J. (1993). Mind Trek. Exploring Consciousness, Time, and Space Through Remote Viewing. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. Chapter 12. 28

Mitchell, E. (1996). The Way of the Explorer. New York: Putnam Moen, B. (1997). Voyages Into the Unknown. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. Moen, B. (1998). Voyage Beyond Doubt. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. Moen, B. (1999). Voyages Into the Afterlife. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. Monroe, R. (1971). Journeys out of the Body. New York: Doubleday. Monroe, R. (1994). Ultimate Journey. New York: Doubleday. Monroe, R. (2000). Wave III. Freedom 2. Gateway Experience. Lovingston, VA: Interstate Industries. CD #GE045C. (compact discs) Moody, R. A. (1975). Life After Life. Atlanta. GA: Mockingbird Books. Moore, Charlotte E. (1958). Atomic Energy Levels, Volume III. National Bureau of Standards, NBS Circular 467. Pearsall, P., Schwartz, G. E. R., and Russek, L. G. S. (2002). Changes in heart transplant recipients that parallel the personalities of their donors. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 20, 191. Phillips, S. M. (1980). Extra-Sensory Perception of Quarks.. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House. Phillips, S. M. (1995). Extrasensory Perception of Subatomic Particles I. Historical Evidence. Journal of Scientific Exploration 9, 4, 489. Phillips, S. M. (1999). ESP of Quarks and Superstrings. New Delhi, India: New Age International. Radin, D. I. (1997). The Conscious Universe. San Francisco, CA: HarperEdge. Ring, K. (1980). Life at Death. New York, NY: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. Roberts, J. (1970). The Seth Material. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Session 505. Sabom, M. B. (1982). Recollections of Death. New York: Harper & Row. Targ, R. and Puthoff, H. (1977). Mind-Reach. New York, NY: Dell. University of Nevada at Las Vegas (1998). http://www.unlv.edu/ Colleges/Continuing_Ed/LegalEd/LawSchoolPrep/newpage3.htm Yan, Xin et al. (2002). Certain Physical Manifestation and Effects of External Qi of Yan Xin Life Science Technology. Journal of Scientific Exploration 16, 3, 381.

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