Brain imaging of hypnosis altering colour perception
🎓 Academic research
Harvard, Kosslyn et al. (American Journal of Psychiatry 2000) · USA · 2000
When highly hypnotisable subjects were told to ‘see colour’, PET showed the colour area really activated, whether the stimulus was grey or coloured.
VerdictIn the brain, the hallucination is ‘real’.
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The rubber-hand illusion
🎓 Academic research
Botvinick & Cohen (Nature 1998) · USA · 1998
Synchronously stroking a rubber hand and a hidden real hand made people adopt the rubber hand as their own within minutes.
VerdictBody ownership can be ‘constructed’.
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Havana syndrome
🏛️ Official record
US State Dept commissioned · US National Academies 2020 report · Cuba · China · embassies worldwide · 2016–2020
Diplomats had tinnitus, vertigo and cognitive problems; a 19-expert panel judged ‘directed pulsed radiofrequency energy’ the most plausible mechanism.
VerdictOfficials accept the symptoms are real; the source remains undetermined.
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The Frey microwave-auditory effect
🎓 Academic research
Cornell / GE, Allan Frey (J. Applied Physiology 1962) · USA · 1962
Pulsed microwaves can produce a ‘click’ directly in the head — the physical basis of alleged ‘voice-to-skull’ weapons.
VerdictA real effect; weaponisation evidence is weak.
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MKUltra ‘Operation Midnight Climax’
🏛️ Official record
CIA · USA, San Francisco · 1954–1963
In safe houses, prostitutes dosed unwitting clients with LSD while agents watched through one-way mirrors.
VerdictA confirmed official hallucinogen experiment.
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