Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab

The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program was established at Princeton University in 1979 by Professor Robert G. Jahn, an aerospace engineer who was then Dean of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Its primary purpose was to pursue rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness with physical devices, systems, and processes common to contemporary engineering practice. An interdisciplinary staff of engineers, physicists, psychologists, and humanists conducted a comprehensive agenda of experiments in human/machine interaction and remote perception, and attempted the development of complementary theoretical models to enable better understanding of the role of consciousness in physical reality. The program has been endorsed by numerous scientific scholars in this and related fields. The book, Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World, co-authored by Robert Jahn and the PEAR Laboratory Manager, Brenda Dunne, was originally published in 1987 has been widely cited as the definitive text on the topic, and has been adopted for many academic curricula. In 2011 the authors published a sequel entitled Consciousness and the Source of Reality: The PEAR Odyssey. The laboratory concluded its University-based operations in February 2007 after 28 years of basic research, education, and outreach activities.

Research

Human/Machine Interactions

PEAR employed random event generators (REGs), to explore the ability of untrained volunteers to influence the random output distribution of these devices to conform to their pre-recorded intentions to produce higher numbers, lower numbers, or nominal baselines. Most of these experiments utilized a microelectronic REG, but additional experiments were also conducted with a macroscopic random mechanical cascade (RMC), and other random physical device. In all cases, the observed effects were very small, but over extensive databases they compounded to statistically significant deviations from chance behavior.

Consciousness Fields

Since many PEAR operators frequently spoke of "achieving a state of resonance" with the devices they were addressing, an experiment was designed to examine the influence on REGs in environments entailing group resonance. Portable REG devices were operated in a variety of venues where groups of people were engaged in emotionally charged shared experiences, and the output data were compared with data generated in more mundane situations. Results indicated highly significant deviations from chance during the resonant applications, suggesting that the emotional/intellectual dynamics of the interacting participants somehow generated a coherent ‘consciousness field.’ Bonded co-operator pairs, working together at a shared task also showed anomalous effects that were several times larger than the results produced by the same individuals working alone.

Remote Perception

In another class of studies, the ability of human participants to acquire information about spatially and temporally remote geographical targets, otherwise inaccessible by any of the usual sensory channels, was clearly demonstrated over more than 650 carefully conducted experiments. The protocol required a “percipient” to attempt to describe the scene where a second participant, the “agent,” was stationed at a randomly selected location at a given time, without recourse to any normal sensory information. Incisive analytical techniques were developed and applied to these data to establish more precisely the quantity and quality of objective and subjective information acquired, and to guide the design of more effective experiments. Beyond confirming the validity of this anomalous mode of information acquisition, these analyses demonstrated that this capacity of human consciousness is also largely independent of the distance between the percipient and the target, and similarly independent of the time between the specification of the target and the perception effort. The composite database yielded a probability against chance of approximately three parts in ten billion.

Theoretical Models

The stark inconsistencies of PEAR’s empirical results with established physical and psychological theory, such as the roles of operator intention and emotional resonance, the operator-specific structure evident in the data, the absence of traditional learning patterns, and the lack of explicit space and time dependence, made it clear that no direct application or minor alteration of existing theoretical frameworks are capable of accommodating such anomalous effects. Consideration was given to the development of alternative models that would allow consciousness a proactive role in the establishment of its experience of the physical world and facilitate a constructive dialogue between data and theory. Three such models have been proposed. The first is based on the premise that the basic processes by which consciousness exchanges information with its environment, orders that information, and interprets it, also enable it to bias probabilistic systems. This model regards the concepts that underlie all physical models of reality, particularly those of observational quantum mechanics, as fundamental characteristics of consciousness rather than as intrinsic features of an objective physical environment. The second proposes a modular conceptual framework wherein direct attention of the conscious mind to observable physical processes is bypassed in favor of alternative routes whereby the inherently probabilistic nature of unconscious mind and intangible physical mechanisms are invoked to achieve anomalous acquisition of information about, or anomalous influence upon, otherwise inaccessible material processes. Theoretical requisites for its pursuit include better understanding of the dialogue between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind; more pragmatic formulations of the relations between tangible and intangible physical processes; and most importantly, cogent representation of the merging of mental and material dimensions into indistinguishability at their deepest levels. A third approach emphasizes the need to elevate the subjective capacities of consciousness to complementary status with those of the more objective physical senses, along with recognition of the bi-directional capabilities of both, thereby allowing establishment of resonant channels of communication between the unconscious mind and the intangible substrate of physical phenomena that can exceed conventional information processing. The key elements in tuning these channels to amplify such information creation are the physiological and psychological filters imposed upon them, some of which can be enhanced or altered by conscious or unconscious attention.

Closing of the Laboratory

PEAR closed its doors at the end of February 2007 after 28 years of research, concluding that after tens of millions of trials it had provided definitive empirical evidence that human intention has a small, but cumulative effect on random physical processes and is capable of acquiring information about remote locations by non-sensory means. Jahn and Dunne continue to explore these phenomena and their implications in the context of a not-for-profit organization they established in 1996 called "International Consciousness Research Laoratories" or ICRL.

REFERENCES

 R.G. Jahn and B.J. Dunne (2005). “The PEAR Proposition.” J. Scientific Exploration, 19, No.2, pp. 195–246.

 Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. Dunne (1987). Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World.  San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.  Reprinted in 2009 by the ICRL Press.
 Benedict Carey, “A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its Doors.”  New York Times, February 10, 2007, The New York Times. 

 R. G. Jahn, B. J. Dunne, R. D. Nelson, Y. H. Dobyns, and G. J. Bradish, (1997). “Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre-Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program.”  J. Scientific Exploration, 11, No.3, pp. 345–367. 

 B. J. Dunne, R.D. Nelson, and R. G. Jahn, (1988). “Operator-Related Anomalies in a Random Mechanical Cascade.” J. Scientific Exploration, 2, No.2, pp. 155–179.

 R.D. Nelson, R.G. Jahn, B.J. Dunne, Y.H. Dobyns, and G.J. Bradish (1998).  “FieldREGII: Consciousness Field Effects: Replications and Explorations.” J. Scientific Exploration, 12, No.3, pp. 425–454.

 B.J. Dunne (1991). “Co-Operator Experiments with an REG Device.” Tech. Report PEAR 91005, December 1991. [Published in modified form in K.R. Rao, ed., Cultivating Consciousness for Enhancing Human Potential, Wellness, and Healing. (Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 1993) pp. 149–163.]

 R.G. Jahn and B.J. Dunne (1986).  “On the Quantum Mechanics of Consciousness with Application to Anomalous Phenomena.”  Foundations of Physics, 16, No.8, pp. 721–772.

 R.G. Jan and B.J. Dunne (2001). “A Modular Model of Mind/Matter Manifestations (M5).” J. Scientific Exploration, 15, No.3, pp. 299–329.

 R.G. Jahn and B.J. Dunne (2004).  “Sensors, Filters, and the Source of Reality.” J. Scientific Exploration, 18, No.4, pp. 547–570.