The Ganzfeld Experiment is a technique in parapsychology to test people for ESP abilities, with one notable side occurrence of causing one’s volunteers to, for lack of a better term, “trip balls.”  Being a curious party with a love for science and an unusual amount of time on my hands, I decided to recreate this supposed hallucinogenic, drug free, experience with only a ping pong ball, a red light, and some white noise.

In the original intent of the Ganzfeld Experiment, volunteer subjects would lay back in a dark room with two white, translucent coverings on their open eyes, facing a red light.  With headphones playing only white noise (flat frequency noise), they were to relax whilst another volunteer consentrated on a singular thought and attempted to send that thought to the sensory deprived volunteer.  The experiment is said to have a 32% hit rate.  However, volunteers who underwent the mild sensory deprivation did report on having pseudo-hallucinatory experiences and some even think it may induce global functional state changes (altered consciousness ie out of body experiences and astral projection).   It is only the latter I was interested in, the idea of inducing an LSD-equivalent experience without the chemicals or twelve hour bad trips (in all honesty, I’ve never tried LSD or any hallucinogenic).  Thus, the quest of epic proportions began.

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My friend Barrie’s 2 month old son is  the cutest little button in the world, and I am looking forward to more opportunities to photograph him in the future.  In this pic, Barrie holds Renya’s feet. Click to enlarge.

While an entire nation was busy watching, praying, and volunteering to help get an innocent 6 year old boy down from the sky in a homemade weather balloon… a couple was laughing at how easily the instant renewal in their publicity had come.   Not going to bore you with the details as everyone as I’m sure had heard the story of little Falcon Heene ad nauseam by this point, but I would like to join the official side of the “the parents are camera hungry whack jobs who staged it” believers.   And I will tell you why.

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Or so my study guide is titled.  As I sit here, pouring over the study material between the handbook and the practice test questions on CD rom, I find myself torn between my desire to live uninterrupted with my husband and the extreme indignation I feel over having to answer questions that the majority of Britain’s own could not answer.  Sadly, that last bit isn’t even an estimation.  According to howbritishareyou.com, out of a test pool of more than 10,000 home grown british citizens, only 14% could pass the test.  So much for “England for the English.”  I’ve heard it argued time and tme again that if we, as immigrants, want to live in a country such as the UK then we should be willing to learn about and embrace British culture… which would be a valid point… if it wasn’t for the fact that the so called “Life in the UK” exam wasn’t a misnomer in and of itsself.    You see, this material has very little to do with embracing the British culture and everything to do with rote memorization of worthless facts and census figures that will be quickly forgotten the second it is all over.

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