The Division of Perceptual Studies

TJ painting

"I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led."

-Thomas Jefferson (1812)

Information about the Division of Perceptual Studies

The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), formerly the Division of Personality Studies , is a unit of the Department of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, VA. The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) was founded as a research unit of the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at UVA by Dr. Ian Stevenson in 1967. (see History and Description for more information about the founding of DOPS).

Utilizing scientific methods, the researchers within The Division of Perceptual Studies investigate apparent paranormal phenomena, especially:

Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives (reincarnation)

Video on the topic of Reincarnation Research:

Watch a video of Dr. Jim Tucker describing a young boy who has memories of a previous life in which he was his own grandfather. In this video, Dr. Tucker discusses his own research as well as the research conducted by the esteemed founder of DOPS, the late Dr. Ian Stevenson. Click here to view the video.

Radio Interviews on the topic of Reincarnation Research:

Listen to Dr. Jim Tucker describe some of the findings, including unusual play, behavior patterns, specific phobias, and birthmarks or birth defects specifically related to the life and death of a previous personality. He discusses the interpretation of the data and details about the methodology as well as possible pitfalls of individual cases. This interview was conducted by Dean Radin Ph.D. on December 8, 2010. This interview was done for the IONS Telseminars series. Dean Radin is well known for his best selling books The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997) and Entangled Minds (Simon & Schuster, 2006). Dr. Radin is currently Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University.

Dr. Tucker appeared on the syndicated Wisconsin Public Radio program "To the Best of Our Knowledge" in November of 2005 to discuss his book and research in the area of reincarnation. Follow this link to hear Dr. Tucker in segment two of the program entitled The Meaning of Life: In the Beginning.

Near-Death Experiences

Read an article from the UVA Alumni Magazine, summer 2007 ,focusing on the research into Near-Death Experiences being conducted by Dr. Bruce Greyson.

Video on the topic of Near Death Experience Research:

This video is an excerpt of a Nour Foundation panel discussion at the September 11, 2008 United Nations Symposium, "Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness," In this video, Dr. Bruce Greyson is discussing "Near Death Experiences-Beyond the Mind Body Problem". Click here to view the video.

Here is another excerpt from the same Nour Foundation panel discussion in 2008. In this portion of the video, Dr. Greyson is discussing the idea of consciousness beyond physical brain activity. Click here to view the video.

Radio Interviews on the topic of Near Death Experiences:

Listen to Dr. Bruce Greyson discussing how cumulative research into Near Death Experiences challenges both a classical physical view of reality and an exclusively neuroscience-based view of consciousness. This interview was conducted by Dean Radin Ph.D. on October 13, 2010. The interview was done for the IONS Teleseminars series. Dean Radin is well known for his best selling books The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997) and Entangled Minds (Simon & Schuster, 2006). Dr. Radin is currently Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University.

Listen to Dr. Bruce Greyson discussing Near Death Experiences in an interview from November, 2006, hosted by Sarah McConnell on the award winning public radio program With Good Reason .

Out of Body Experiences

We welcome written accounts of experiences of these kinds. See What We Study and Contacting Us .

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Upcoming Lectures and Presentations by DOPS Researchers

Lectures and public presentations by the DOPS researchers will be posted here as they are scheduled. There are no presentations currently scheduled.

Recent Lectures and Presentations by DOPS Researchers

December 16-18, 2011, Dr. Bruce Greyson travelled to Dharamsala, India to present at the conference, " Cosmology and Consciousness: A Dialog Between Buddhist Scholars and Scientists on Mind and Matter". Dr. Greyson's talk was titled, "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?"

September 2-4, 2011, Dr. Bruce Greyson was one of the key-note speakers at the 2011 International Association of Near Death Studies. The Conference theme was Lives Changed Forever: Aftereffects of Near Death Experiences, Perspectives from Experiencers, Science, and Spirituality

February 25-27, 2011, Chopra Foundation's Second International Symposium: Sages and Scientisits-The Merging of a New Future Dr. Jim Tucker presented research being conducted at the Division of Personality Studies regarding the investigation of cases in which children claim to remember previous lives. He will present new cases as well as cases he has written about in his book Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives .

December 8th, 2010, 5:00-7:00, Live Teleseminar, Sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Dr. Jim Tucker was the speaker on the teleseminar "Life Before Life" which is also the title of his book Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives . The host of the program is Marylyn Mandala Schlitz, Ph.D.

In the interview, Dr. Tucker challenged the notion that consciousness is only the result of a functioning brain. He suggests that consciousness can be considered separately from the brain, which provides a basis for claims of reincarnation. He also discusses objections to reincarnation: the few persons who actually claim to remember a past life, the fragility of memories, the population explosion, the mind-body problem, fraud, and others. This was a live teleseminar.

October 1st, 2010,Time TBD, Louisville, KY, IdeaFestival 2010. Dr. Jim Tucker presented the research being done at DOPS regarding the investigation of cases in which children claim to remember specific facts about previous lives.

October 2nd, 2010, Serenity Ridge Retreat Center in Nelson County, VA, New Directions in the Dialogue between Buddhism and Science This was a one-day workshop with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, founder and spiritual director of the Ligmincha Institute and the DOPS researchers. There was a guided meditations led by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in addition to presentations by the DOPS researchers.

Topics covered by the DOPS researchers included:

Cases of the reincarnation type-Dr. Jim Tucker
Post-mortem survival-Dr. Emily Williams Kelly
Near-death experiences-Dr. Bruce Greyson
Psychic powers or “siddhis”-Dr. Edward Kelly
Impressions of a Westerner teaching neuroscience to Buddhist monks- Dr. David Presti visiting Neuroscientist from the University of California at Berkeley

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News about the Division

Congratulations to our esteemed colleague Carlos Alvarado Ph.D.

for receiving the prestigious

Harold and Sherry Crasilneck Award for Best Paper on Hypnosis

presented by the

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,

March, 15 2010, for his article entitled

"Ambroise August Leibeault and Psychic Phenomena"

published in Volume 52, Number 2, October 2009.

In addition to the above, Dr. Alvarado has also recently been given the

2010 Outstanding Career Award

Granted by the Parapsychological Association Board

Congratulations to our outstanding colleague, Carlos Alvarado Ph.D.

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Recent books written by the DOPS research faculty

image of handbook of NDEs

The Handbook of Near Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation. In this book, DOPS researchers Bruce Greyson, Carlos Alvarado, Nancy Zingrone, Edward F. Kelly, and Emily Williams Kelly as well as many other notable researchers in the field of near-death experiences share the history and current state of near-death experience research and knowledge. They explore controversies in the field, offer specific accounts of NDE's from the research, and express their hopes for the future of investigation into this fascinating phenomenon. The book is edited by Janice Miner Holden, Bruce Greyson, and Debbie James.

Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld, Michael Grosso, and Bruce Greyson have co-authored Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Current mainstream scientific opinion holds that all aspects of human mind and consciousness are generated by physical processes occurring in the brain. This book demonstrates with empirical evidence that this reductive materialism is not only incomplete but false.

Click this link to see the paper Empirical Challenges to Conventional Mind-Brain Theory written by Edward F. Kelly and Emily Williams Kelly. This is an excellent digest of the main empirical arguments contained in their book Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century .

Dr. Jim Tucker is the author of Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives, which is a review of our research with children who report memories of previous lives written for the general public. A review of this book appeared in the Journal of Scientific Exploration , 19 (4), 2005 , by Harvard Biologist Michael Levin.