Brenda J Dunne
Summary
Brenda J. Dunne is an American developmental psychologist who served as Laboratory Manager and co-principal investigator of the Robert G. Jahn's Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory for its entire 28-year existence (1979-2007). After PEAR's closure she founded the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL) to continue analytical work on the PEAR database and related research.
Dunne is co-author with Jahn on nearly all PEAR publications and books; the partnership is one of the most sustained collaborations in modern parapsychological research.
Life
Dunne trained in developmental psychology at the University of Chicago and Mundelein College. She joined the Princeton-based PEAR laboratory at its founding in 1979 and remained its operational and analytical leader until its 2007 closure.
Since 2007 she has been President of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL), a successor organisation continuing analysis of the PEAR data and supporting research consistent with PEAR's research programme.
Key Contributions
PEAR programme operational leadership
Dunne was the day-to-day manager of the PEAR laboratory: protocol design, subject recruitment, data analysis, publication preparation. The PEAR programme's distinctive methodological rigour — pre-registered protocols, public reporting of all trials, conservative statistical analysis — reflected Dunne's operational discipline.
Remote-perception coding methodology
PEAR's remote-perception studies required reproducible coding of free-response data against target descriptions. Dunne developed and refined the binary-coding methodology that became the operational standard for PEAR's remote-perception analyses — a methodological contribution adopted by other parapsychological laboratories.
Theoretical and integrative writing
Beyond her operational role, Dunne is co-author with Jahn on the major PEAR theoretical and integrative publications. Margins of Reality (1987) and Consciousness and the Source of Reality (2011) are the principal integrative statements of the PEAR programme's findings and theoretical framework.
ICRL leadership
Since 2007 Dunne has led ICRL's continuation of PEAR-style research and analysis. ICRL publishes the Journal of Scientific Exploration (one of the principal venues for serious anomalies research) and supports a network of researchers continuing the PEAR research programme.
Reception
Dunne's standing in the parapsychological-research community is comparable to Jahn's: methodologically careful, intellectually serious, and respected even by mainstream commentators who reject the underlying conclusions. The Jahn-Dunne partnership produced what is generally regarded as the most-rigorously-conducted long-term parapsychological research programme in the modern era.
In the psionic framework, Dunne's contributions — operational rigour, coding methodology, sustained 28-year programme leadership — are part of what makes the PEAR data a credible source for the framework's evidence base.
Bibliography
- Jahn, R. G., Dunne, B. J. (1987, 2009). Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Dunne, B. J., Jahn, R. G. (2003). "Information and uncertainty in remote perception research." Journal of Scientific Exploration 17: 207-241.
- Jahn, R. G., Dunne, B. J. (2011). Consciousness and the Source of Reality: The PEAR Odyssey. ICRL Press.
See Also
External Links
- International Consciousness Research Laboratories (icrl.org).
- Journal of Scientific Exploration (scientificexploration.org).
References
- As above.
