One of the wildest experiments in fringe science history: In 1966, Cleve Backster, a CIA-trained polygraph expert and interrogation specialist, hooked up a common house plant to a lie detector to see how long it took water to reach the leaves.
What happened next melted his brain. When he thought about burning a leaf (without actually doing it), the polygraph spiked like a human in terror. The plant reacted to his intent alone and not a physical threat, no touch. After this, he ran hundreds more tests:
- Plants showed "fear" when he planned to harm them or others nearby.
- They reacted to the boiling death of brine shrimp in another room.
- Severed leaves or human cells still responded to the donor's thoughts from miles away.
- It suggested a kind of interconnected consciousness or bio-communication beyond normal sense, but with polygraphs as evidence!
Skeptics say it's pseudoscience, but this influenced the ideas about plant intelligence we see today. (like Mycelial Networks)
I recently made a pod with NotebookLM about this subject because I find it fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7KxpcC5Ul8 (There are some other fringe science topics in there as well if it interests you)
What do you think? Is there legit primary perception/telepathy at the cellular level? Has anyone tried similar backyard experiments?
I would love hearing the takes in this sub! (It's hard to find like-minded people on this.)
by CaptCannoli
3 Comments
Well – it is pseudoscience if it’s not repeatable – has this been replicated?
Super interesting. I once read this book called “what a plant knows” and it completely changed my perspective on how I looked at the life’s of plants.
Theres another experiment where they put a plant that mimics nearby plants shape in an empty room with a plastic plant, and the plant start mimicking the plastic plant leaves, meaning they can see.