Therapists are generally reluctant to report psychic dreams when they occur in the therapeutic setting because such dreams most typically occur when the patient is feeling neglected or ignored by the therapist or they occur when the therapist is struggling with some unresolved personal problem. Few therapists would readily acknowledge that they ignore their patients, and they would be even less inclined to make a public admission about their personal "hang-ups" and to confess all of the associated embarrassing details in order to show how they parallel the patient's dream.

Telepathic Dreams in the Laboratory

The most extensive laboratory studies of psychic dreams have been undertaken at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. Dr. Montague Ullman, who was the Chairman of the Psychiatry Department, began this unique program of scientific studies in 1962. For over a decade Dr. Ullman and his colleagues, Dr. Stanley Krippner and Charles Honorton, have carried out a series of investigations to discover if telepathic dreams could be produced in a laboratory setting and to explore possible factors related to their appearance.

The Maimonides team utilized an EEG machine to detect dreams by monitoring the brain waves and eye movements of the person attempting to "receive" the telepathic dream (the percipient). The person trying to "send" the telepathic message is designated the agent. Reproductions of famous paintings were employed as stimulus materials because they would be likely to tap into enduring emotional themes that transcend any given age or culture.

The percipient would report to the laboratory in the evening, and the EEG electrodes would be attached to his head (to record brain waves), near his eyes (to record eye movements), and on his chin (to record muscle tension). Following this, the percipient retired to a soundproof room where he was to sleep for the night. No one else entered this room during the night. All communication was carried on via an intercom system between this room, and the monitor's room where the EEG equipment was running.

After the percipient began to doze off, the experimenter determined that night's target stimulus through some form of randomized technique to obtain the art print that would be selected from the hundreds available in the files. These target stimuli were concealed in opaque envelopes so that it was impossible for the experimenter to know which art print the agent was being handed. The agent went to a room in another part  of  the  Medical Center,  and was locked in for the night.