Overview
A new exploratory study from the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is adding a genetic angle to a long-running question in psi research: whether some people may be biologically predisposed to report psychic experiences more often than others. Published in Explore, the analysis examined whether genetic variation was associated with self-reported experiences such as intuition, precognition, clairvoyance, empathic experiences, and lucid dreaming. The researchers found some statistical correlations, but they did not identify a specific inheritable psychic trait or a single “psychic gene.”
The work sits within a broader effort to understand whether unusual experiences sometimes labeled psychic, paranormal, or anomalous may have measurable biological or psychological correlates. IONS researchers note that family patterns, twin studies, and prior survey work have all hinted that heredity may play some role in psi-related reports, but the new study stops well short of claiming proof of a genetic basis for psychic ability.
How the study was conducted
Researchers recruited participants through the IONS community, social media, and earlier studies. To qualify, volunteers had to report at least one psychic experience and provide genetic data from direct-to-consumer testing services such as 23andMe or Ancestry.com. Participants also completed questionnaires measuring mental health, beliefs in paranormal phenomena, and the frequency of psychic experiences. The team then looked for genetic variants that might help distinguish people with relatively higher versus lower composite psi scores.
The study began with 583 volunteers, but only 102 completed all requirements. The resulting sample was described as predominantly educated white women living in the United States. On screening measures, participants’ average dissociation and psychotic-symptom scores did not suggest clinically significant pathology, an important caveat given the sensitivity of studying unusual perceptual experiences. According to the researchers, the participants reported a wide range of experiences, with intuitive knowing, empathic experiences, precognition, clairvoyance, and lucid dreaming among the most commonly endorsed.
What the researchers found
Rather than identifying a single causal marker, the analysis produced a set of candidate genetic variants that appeared to help the statistical model separate participants with higher and lower psi scores. Several of the variants were located in or near genes associated with neuronal signaling, neurodevelopment, cellular structure, and related biological processes. The authors caution that these results are preliminary and will require replication in larger and more diverse samples before any meaningful conclusions can be drawn.
One variant, rs10410488, emerged as the strongest signal and was not affected by missing data. It maps to or near ARHGEF18, a gene implicated in calcium-dependent dendritic growth and branching in cortical neurons. That finding is biologically interesting, but the study does not show that the variant causes psychic experiences — only that it may be associated with the self-reported scores in this small sample.
Why it matters
The study is unlikely to settle debates over psi, but it does offer a more disciplined framework for asking whether anomalous experiences have measurable biological correlates. That broader conversation is also reflected in work from neuroscientist and parapsychologist Edward Kelly, who argues that near-death experiences, spiritual experiences, and other anomalies present challenges to reductionist physicalism and deserve further scientific attention. For researchers in this field, the new genomic analysis is best understood as an early, exploratory step: intriguing enough to justify more study, but far from demonstrating a psychic gene or a hereditary basis for extraordinary perception.
