THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENS

In a book I reviewed a couple of years ago, Larry LeShan wisely observed that impossible things don't happen. If they happen, they are by definition possible, so the problem lies with your theory rather than with the fact. The subtitle – 'a scientist's personal discovery of the extraordinary nature of reality' - provide the framework for the narrative by a professor of psychology who teaches courses on consciousness while at the same time being involved in experiments himself. This means that he can bring a rigorous approach to his own experience. He urges the reader to take a critical view throughout. The topics covered include precognitive dreaming, remote healing, dreaming through a personal health crisis and talking to dead people. This will be relatively familiar territory for readers of this Review, but not for most scientists. The author recounts that his conclusions were arrived at gradually through an accumulation of evidence that became overwhelming and could not be explained away.

The narrative draws on diaries and dream journals with interspersed commentary explaining the significance of various events. There is some interesting symbolism relating hockey games with the publication of academic papers, but the details do seem to correspond. His experience of pre-cognitive dreams leads to a revision of his concept of time, whereby a dynamically changing now embodies both past and future; the future is in some way enfolded in the present. The author's experience of the most healing is informed by Richard Bartlett's book Matrix Energetics. He describes various experiments involving students including some control sessions in which he did not actually do anything active. Sometimes, the sensations experienced by the subject corresponded to an increased focus of energy on his part. He observes that the more deeply he is able to enter a non-dual state, 'the more profoundly participants are affected by healing processes that lie outside myself.' This leads him to speculate that reality is structured so that changes in the imagination can directly affect physical manifestation.

The most interesting chapter is about dreaming through a health crisis involving a blob on his liver. He introduces a healer friend called Jeanette. One evening he was sitting on the beach reflecting on the nature of reality (as one does) when he notices that his left ankle is vibrating. He wonders if Jeanette is healing him, so he texts her and gets the response 'hehehe'! He goes on to describe the diagnosis of the liver blob; amusingly, when he interrogates his imagination what it was doing there, the answer comes 'to create a sense of urgency.' One can see that this might be the case with almost any health crisis. He discusses this situation with Jeanette, who comments that he seemed to have picked the blob up from a patient he healed a few months back. She herself regularly took on illnesses that she then eliminated from her body, which is almost health equivalent of the vicarious atonement. The path of least resistance for healing may sometimes lie through the body of another. Jeanette talks about the way she does this and recommends Chinese herbs for detoxification. Finally, during a healing session he feels a gentle vibration in his body, then, after a minute his abdomen collapses inwards by an inch and a half. He observes that it felt as if something had disappeared, which Jeanette interprets as the departure of a pattern of information. It is interesting to consider diseases as embodied manifestations of such patterns of information. This is not an all or nothing event, but rather a peeling back of layers as a transformation occurs. It is a bold but insightful chapter to write.

The final chapter considers a few cases relating to survival of consciousness. One interesting incident concerned words appearing on a computer including 'screaming' and 'ouch' just after the person had hit their knee on a desk. It seemed like the deceased grandmother was trying to find a way of communicating; in a later document, the phrase 'sorry loves' appears. The author takes a sceptical view of instrumental transcommunication but describes a pretty convincing mediumistic session ostensibly with a dead hockey player. Finally, he asks if death might be an awakening into another reality, and describes a significant occasion in his own life when he seemed to wake up from ordinary consciousness as a result of deep reflection on Heidegger. I suspect that, as Elizabeth Lloyd Meyer's book Extraordinary Knowing noted, many more people have anomalous experiences than are prepared to admit them, still less discuss them with colleagues. Stimulating books like this may encourage other professionals to come forward and redefine the scope of academic psychology as well as expanding our understanding of reality.