Phenomenal WorkshopProgress in Phenomenological Control
a day of talks at the University of Sussex for people using the
phenomenological control scale
a day of talks at the University of Sussex for people using the
phenomenological control scale
The first meeting of the Phenomenal Workshop will be held at the
University of Sussex on May 21, 2026.
The workshop is focused on those using the Phenomenological Control Scale,
with talks discussing the theory and application of phenomenological control.
Please contact the organisers, Zoltan Dienes and Kev Sheldrake,
with any queries.
Food and refreshments on the day will be funded by the hypnotism blog,
Cosmic Pancakes!
The Phenomenal Workshop will take place at the Meeting House, located at
the University of Sussex Falmer campus.
The campus can be accessed via Falmer railway station and is a short
journey from Brighton.
The university provides a list of discounted hotels which may be useful
in planning your trip.
| Time | Presenter(s) | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 09:30 | Coffee | |
| 10:00 | Zoltan Dienes (Sussex) | Introduction: People as phenomena factories |
| 10:20 | Vince Polito (Macquarie University) (zoom) | The role of phenomenological control in consciousness alteration |
| 10:40 | Jaime Arlandis (Champalimaud Research) (zoom) | Psychedelics, population dynamics, and the generation of experience |
| 11:00 | Keisuke Suzuki & Shu Imaizumi (Hokkaido University/Ochanomizu University) (zoom) | The Japanese version of the Phenomenological Control Scale |
| 11:20 | Art Pilacinski (Ruhr University Bochum) | Phantom Touch Illusion |
| 11:40 | Coffee | |
| 12:00 | Jana Nenadalová & Zoltan Dienes (Masaryk University/Sussex) (zoom) | The relation of experiences of a spirit world to phenomenological control |
| 12:20 | Oliver Collins, Ana Neves, & Dominique Makowski (Sussex) | The Involuntary Bending of Reality: Association Between Phenomenological Control and Visual Illusion Sensitivity |
| 12:40 | Vlada Aslanov, Nicolás Sánchez-Fuenzalida, Ivan Ivanchei, Tomas Knapen, Simon van Gaal & Johannes J. Fahrenfort (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/University of Amsterdam) (zoom) | The effect of conscious control on the automatic reading response & the link between suggestibility and metacognitive efficiency |
| 13:00 | Pete Lush & Zoltan Dienes (Sussex) | Reversing lab effects in consciousness science with phenomenological control |
| 13:20 | Lunch (provided) | |
| 14:20 | Kev Sheldrake & Zoltan Dienes (Sussex) | Controlling phenomenology for pleasure |
| 14:40 | Aleš Oblak (University of Ljubljana) | title tba |
| 15:00 | Carli Fine, Pete Lush, Anil Seth, and Jamie Ward (Sussex) | Synaesthetes exhibit higher phenomenological control beyond imagery contributions |
| 15:20 | Marie Luise Schreiter (Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics) | Phenomenological control predicts performance on the heartbeat counting task |
| 15:40 | Coffee | |
| 16:10 | Adrian Sanger & Tadeusz Pietras (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw/Medical University of Lodz) | title tba |
| 16:30 | Dali Geagea, Martin Yeomans, & Zoltan Dienes (Sussex) | A test of response expectancy theory by contrasting the effectiveness of placebo versus hypnotic analgesia |
| 16:50 | Anastassia Loukianov & Axel Cleeremans (ULB Brussells) | title tba |
| 17:10 | Alois Toussant, Olivier Desmedt, Mateo Leganes Fonteneau (UCLouvain/ ULB Brussels) | Investigating the internal dimension of phenomenological control |
| 17:30 | Finish |
|
Lush, P., Scott, R. B., Seth, A. K., & Dienes, Z. (2021). The phenomenological control scale: Measuring the capacity for creating illusory nonvolition, hallucination and delusion. Collabra: Psychology, 7(1), 29542. <Preprint link> Sheldrake, K., & Dienes, Z. (2026). Hypnosis and Suggestion. To appear in N. Srinivasan (Ed.), Consciousness: A Comprehensive Reference, 2nd edition. Elsevier. <Preprint link> |