PLANT SENTIENCE
There is provocative evidence that plants possess a form of sentience. This discovery challenges deeply entrenched assumptions both in biology and also in other scientific domains dominated by a materialist and reductively mechanistic paradigm. The properties and potential quantum physical processes involved in plant sentience also have deep and broad implications for understanding the intersection of Quantum Physics, Information Theory, Parapsychology, and computational information processing systems such as network-based AI.
In the first section I discuss how plants respond to music – not through human-like hearing, but via vibrational resonance. Classical and jazz music appear to promote plant growth and vitality, while harsher sounds, like heavy metal, induce stress and even death. Such interactions suggest a dynamic, sensitive relationship between plants and their environment, one that hints at a kind of awareness that transcends mechanistic explanations. Eventually, it becomes clear that the implications of these findings extend far beyond the laboratory. Research into the effects of sound waves on plants has revealed profound agricultural benefits. By harnessing specific acoustic frequencies, we can enhance germination rates, crop yields, and pest resistance, all while reducing reliance on harmful chemicals. Even if cellular resonance, hormonal regulation, and enhanced nutrient absorption are fairly well understood mechanisms underlying these effects, there is other empirical evidence for plant sentience that demands a non-mechanistic approach.
This evidence is reviewed in the second section of the article, where I discuss the work of Cleve Backster, a polygraph and CIA interrogation expert whose experiments revealed that plants not only respond to sound but also demonstrate some form of extrasensory perception (ESP). Backster’s experiments showed that plants react to human intention, form emotional bonds with their caretakers, and prioritize meaningful stimuli in their environment. These phenomena defy the conventional understanding of perception as tied to brains and nervous systems. Instead, they suggest a mode of awareness that operates through relational significance and contextual attunement.
In the third and final section of the article, I discuss the astonishing discovery of quantum coherence in plant photosynthesis. This is a process whereby plants achieve near-perfect energy efficiency by stabilizing quantum states at room temperature. This quantum phenomenon not only redefines our understanding of life but also invites us to reconsider the nature of perception, sentience, and information processing. It even has implications for the development of AI, especially when we consider the potential intersection of Quantum Physics and ESP research.
Plants Have Music Preferences
One of the best types of evidence for the sentience of plants is their apparent preference for “hearing” some types of music rather than others. Plants that are exposed to classical music grow toward the speaker that it emanates from, whereas those that are exposed to rock or heavy metal move away from the speaker and eventually wither and die. Studies have revealed that classical and jazz music foster plant growth, while harsh genres of music, such as heavy metal, induce stress by overstimulating plant cells. For example, Roses seem partial to the refined strains of violin music. Plants seem to be able to discern the quality and intensity of sound vibrations. Since plants are devoid of ears or a nervous system, they obviously do not “hear” music in the same way that we humans do. However, the vibrations of sound waves stimulate their cells, triggering the movement of nutrients throughout their bodies. This dynamic interaction appears to bolster the growth of plants and to fortify their immune systems. The fact that the mere resonance of sound can materially impact the life of a plant defies reductionist approaches to biology.
The research into this phenomenon has become worldwide. Devendra Vanol, from the Institute of Integrated Study and Research in Biotechnology and Allied Sciences in India, has demonstrated that plants can distinguish between various sounds, including genres of music, natural sounds, and even urban noise. As we shall see, when viewed in the context of other plant abilities, this sensitivity to sound suggests that plants have an awareness of their environment and a kind of sentience that challenges the hitherto dominant materialist paradigm in the sciences. Reda Hassanien of China Agricultural University found that sound waves not only increased yields of crops like tomatoes, spinach, and rice, but they also reduced pests and diseases. Sound treatments could provide us with an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides by enhancing plant immune systems. Music, rather than chemicals, may come to sustain and even amplify agricultural productivity.
A variety of studies have demonstrated that plants resonantly respond to their acoustic environment in dynamic ways. At frequencies within the human audible range, sound waves penetrate the cellular structures of plants, stimulating physiological and biochemical processes that enhance growth, resilience, and productivity. Plants that are exposed to specific sound frequencies exhibit accelerated growth, increased yields, and enhanced immune responses, all the way from germination to maturity. Moreover, researchers have identified optimal conditions for this effect. Sound waves at 1 kHz and 100 decibels (dB) promote cellular division, increase the fluidity of cell walls, and enhance the activity of critical enzymes.
When used as a tool in agriculture, sound waves could influence almost every stage and aspect of plant development, from growth, to immunity, and yield. Exposure to sound accelerates germination and improves the health of seedlings. For example, rice seeds respond optimally to sound waves at 0.4 kHz, showing enhanced root activity, stem height, and membrane permeability. Studies employing plant acoustic frequency technology (PAFT) have demonstrated significant yield increases in crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and rice. For example, tomato yields rose by 13.2%, and spinach saw a 22.7% increase under sound wave treatment. Beyond quantity, the quality of produce – measured by attributes such as sugar content and vitamin levels – also improved. Sound waves bolster plant immunity, reducing the prevalence of pests and diseases. Greenhouse experiments recorded reductions in pests like aphids and spider mites, as well as diseases such as gray mold and rice blight. Sound waves enhance the photosynthetic efficiency of plants by increasing chlorophyll content and facilitating energy transfer within cells. The metabolic activities of enzymes, sugars, and proteins also experience a significant boost, leading to healthier and more vigorous plants.
There are some identifiable mechanisms for the impact of sound waves on plants through their effects on cellular structures and processes, although, as we shall see shortly, these are not likely to be explanatory in a comprehensive and reductive way, and really understanding these effects will require recognizing a kind of sentience in plants that requires relinquishing a reductively mechanistic approach to studying plants. Nevertheless, cellular resonance, hormonal regulation, and enhanced absorption are all involved in plant responsiveness to sound waves. Just as musical instruments vibrate in harmony with certain frequencies, plant cells resonate with specific sound waves. This resonance stimulates movement within the protoplasm, accelerates the cell cycle, and promotes division and elongation. Sound waves influence the levels of key plant hormones. For example, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), which promotes cell elongation, increases under sound stimulation, while abscisic acid (ABA), a stress hormone, decreases. This hormonal shift fosters growth and reduces stress responses. By opening stomata, sound waves improve the plant’s ability to absorb nutrients, water, and even herbicides. As already alluded to above, this is an effect that would reduce the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and it offers us an environmentally sustainable and ecologically sound alternative to chemical-driven agriculture.
Ultimately, the way in which sound waves interact with plants on both a molecular and energetic level suggest that plants have a bioenergetic meridian system akin to that in animals. Sound waves alter the secondary structure of cellular proteins, increasing membrane fluidity and enhancing the efficiency of photosynthetic and metabolic processes. There is good empirical evidence both for non-mechanistic bioenergetic aspects of plant sentience, and for quantum processes involved in photosynthesis that may be relevant to the information exchange and biocommunication between plants and other organisms in their sensed environment. As we shall see, there are studies that force us to reconsider the nature of perception and agency with regard to the sentience of various lifeforms.
“Primary Perception” or ESP in Plants
One of the greatest polygraph experts of the 20th century, Cleve Backster, produced rigorous and repeatable scientific evidence for plant sentience at a level comparable to human extrasensory perception (ESP). Backster was a former CIA interrogation specialist, so he brought decades of experience in detecting physiological responses and emotional states in humans to his study of plants. His mastery of the polygraph – a device that measures changes in electrical resistance, blood pressure, and pulse – had been honed through years of applying this technology to human subjects under conditions of extreme psychological duress. This expertise provided Backster with the tools and the mindset necessary to detect subtle, non-verbal forms of communication. Backster’s career in intelligence and law enforcement instilled in him both a deep skepticism of surface appearances and a relentless curiosity about underlying mechanisms, qualities that would serve him well in his foray into plant communication and his discovery that forms of life lacking a nervous system, let alone a brain, nonetheless possess acute sentience.
Backster’s foray into plant communication began serendipitously in 1966, when he connected a polygraph to a dracaena plant in his office. At the time, he only intended to observe changes in the plant’s electrical resistance as it absorbed water. This first “experiment” was motivated by nothing other than idle curiosity. It was not as if Backster was trying to validate any formal hypothesis. But he made one hell of a discovery. Rather than producing a predictable response to hydration, the polygraph pen exhibited a dramatic spike, which is a pattern that Backster recognized from his work with human subjects as being indicative of emotional stress or arousal. The line of inquiry sparked by this unexpected result would go on to consume the remainder of Backster’s career. With a view to testing the limits of the plant’s sensitivity, Backster decided to mentally threaten the plant. Standing fifteen feet away from the dracaena, he vividly imagined burning one of its leaves. The polygraph pen immediately registered another sharp spike, as though the plant were psychically reacting to his unspoken intent. This was the first indication that plants might possess a form of perception that is shared by humans and animals, but that exceeds the capacities of the physical senses, namely extrasensory perception (ESP).
What made Backster uniquely qualified to undertake this research was not merely his technical expertise but also his disciplined approach to experimental design. Backster’s methods were rigorous and systematic. He ensured that his polygraph devices were properly calibrated and that experiments were conducted under conditions designed to eliminate interference. For example, when investigating plant responses to the destruction of brine shrimp, he automated the process to ensure that no human presence could influence the results. Consequently, human ESP could be eliminated as responsible for the tracings and spikes on the polygraph connected to the plants. As a polygraph expert, Backster was adept at identifying and controlling variables to isolate the causes of physiological responses. This precision proved invaluable as he expanded his experiments beyond plants to include bacteria, yogurt cultures, and even human cells.
Backster’s experiments revealed several key phenomena that fundamentally challenge a reductionist view of life and a mechanistic model of sentience. Firstly, plants appear to respond not to physical threats alone but to the intent behind those threats. For example, when Backster only pretended that he was going to harm a plant, say, by pulling out a lighter with only a feigned intent to burn a leaf with its flame, there was no measurable response from the plant. Only when Backster genuinely intended harm – with real mental focus and emotional conviction – did the polygraph register significant responses from the plant to which it was connected. Secondly, plants demonstrate a form of selective attention, responding to events of vital significance while ignoring irrelevant stimuli. For example, a plant would react intensely to the death of brine shrimp in another room within the laboratory that was its territory, but if there were a car accident in the street outside the window (spatially even closer than the shrimp), involving a place and people which were of no concern to the plant, no response would be registered. This indicates that the plant’s sentience is based on a mode of attunement that prioritizes relational significance – or a context of meaningful awareness – rather than sensory perception based on spatial proximity. Thirdly, Backster found that plants form specific attachments to their caretakers. This is another aspect of the “territoriality” of plants. A plant would respond to the emotions and actions of its caretaker even when separated by great distances, for example, if the caretaker were on a bus miles away from the lab, while it would remain indifferent to emotional states of far more proximal strangers, such as a person being mugged on the street outside and below the laboratory window. (Backster’s laboratory was in Manhattan.) Such findings suggest a form of memory and relational resonance that transcends the limitations of a Cartesian conception of space and time.
Plants were also attuned to other organisms in their territory, besides humans. Backster’s plants responded to the destruction of bacteria and yogurt cultures with the same intensity of polygraph readings as they displayed in response to threats against themselves. Backster hypothesized that plants are connected to other living organisms by an invisible field of communication that operates independently of physical proximity and electromagnetic signals. He termed this phenomenon “primary perception,” and suggested that it represents a basic aspect of life that predates and precedes the evolution of nervous systems, brains, and sensory organs.
In a materialist scientific framework, perception and memory are functions of complex nervous systems, are confined to the brain and dependent on physical proximity. However, Backster’s findings suggest that perception, and even some level of sentience, may be a property of all forms of life. Backster’s work also challenges the Kantian notion of space as a homogenous, abstract backdrop for events. The relational topology observed in plants suggests that we live in a world where space is primarily qualitative rather than quantitative and is defined by the significance of connections rather than mere physical distances. This aligns with Henri Bergson’s critique of static spatial concepts and his emphasis on duration and lived experience.
Backster’s research calls for a paradigm shift. The reductionist methods of modern biology, which treat life as a series of chemical reactions, is inadequate to account for the phenomena that he observed. Parapsychologists have long looked to quantum theory to help explain “psi” or psychic functioning in humans, and a new view of biological processes that would be informed by certain aspects of quantum physics may open the way for a more subtle understanding of plant sentience and what Backster called “primary perception.”
Plant Photosynthesis as a Quantum Physical Process
New studies of photosynthesis in plants have revealed an extraordinary intersection between biology and quantum physics. Apparently, through the process of photosynthesis, plants achieve feats of quantum coherence and energy efficiency in ways that were hitherto believed to be impossible and that call into question what have been fundamental assumptions about life, matter, and natural laws. The concept of a Bose-Einstein condensate is at the heart of this revolutionary discovery. A Bose-Einstein condensate is a state of matter where particles known as bosons coalesce into a single quantum state, effectively acting as one unified entity. In controlled laboratory conditions, this phenomenon occurs at temperatures nearing absolute zero, where matter is deprived of nearly all thermal energy. But it turns out that within the living tissues of plants at room temperature, the seemingly impossible happens, namely a quantum state analogous to a Bose-Einstein condensate, which allows for energy transfer without loss. When scientists at the University of Chicago modeled the molecular workings of green sulfur bacteria, they discovered what had eluded physics for decades. They found that excitons, particle-hole pairs generated by light absorption, formed condensates that enabled perfect energy flow. They were startled to find that such behavior, previously observed only under the frigid precision of laboratory experiments, occurs spontaneously in the chaotic and warm conditions of plant life.
To understand what is going on here, let us consider the process of photosynthesis at a molecular scale. Plants absorb sunlight through chlorophyll pigments embedded within their leaves. When light interacts with a chlorophyll molecule, it excites an electron, creating a vacancy – or “hole” – where the electron once resided. The electron and its corresponding hole act together as a single quantum particle, a bosonic entity called an exciton. These excitons play a pivotal role in photosynthesis, transporting energy to the plant’s reaction center with astonishing precision. There, the energy is converted into chemical bonds within sugars. In this process, the plant overcomes the inherent inefficiencies of energy transfer by leveraging quantum coherence. The excitons, acting as a Bose-Einstein condensate, exhibit superfluidity – a state characterized by zero resistance and friction – allowing energy to move seamlessly between chromophores. This quantum coherence ensures that plants achieve near-perfect energy efficiency, harnessing sunlight in a way that transcends the capabilities of human-engineered systems.
The most astonishing aspect of this research is the discovery of exciton condensates in plants at ambient temperatures. In laboratory settings, exciton condensates have only been achieved at temperatures below 100 Kelvin (-173 degrees Celsius). The fact that plants maintain such states within the messy, fluctuating conditions of life on Earth underscores the evolutionary sophistication of photosynthesis. Research suggest that this can happen because plants have evolved means to stabilize quantum states at ordinary temperatures. The interplay between molecular structures and environmental factors within a plant cell creates a delicate but robust system where exciton condensates can form and persist.
This breakthrough raises tantalizing questions about the untapped potential of room-temperature quantum phenomena and their applications in science and technology. The implications of this discovery extend far beyond biology. If we could replicate the room-temperature quantum processes observed in plants, we could revolutionize energy systems, creating technologies with unprecedented efficiency. Room-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates could pave the way for breakthroughs in energy transfer, sensors for quantum computing, and biomimicry in engineering. Mimicking the superfluid energy flow in plants could enhance solar cells and energy grids. The coherence of exciton condensates holds promise for precision sensors and the development of quantum technologies. By studying the structural and molecular strategies plants use to stabilize quantum states, we may unlock new approaches to engineering and design.
However, to come back to the central theme of this article, namely sentience and even psi in plants, the discovery of room-temperature quantum physical processes in photosynthesis is very significant. Since at least August of 1974, when an international conference on Quantum Physics and Parapsychology was held at Hotel La Reserve in Geneva, Switzerland, prominent scientists from diverse research domains have seen certain quantum physical phenomena and principles as key to developing a scientific understanding of “Psi” or paranormal psychic functioning – including the ESP apparently demonstrated both by sentient plants and by psychic animals. Wave/particle duality, or the collapse of the wave function by observation, the non-locality of the entanglement of quantum particles, which appear to communicate and coordinate their states faster than the speed of light, are all fundamental physical processes that demonstrate the same phenomenological characteristics as macro-scale extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK).
While this takes us beyond the scope of the present subject matter and will have to be addressed in a dedicated article, we can at least draw the following inference. Quantum physical processes were once thought to reserve their “spooky” (as Einstein put it) qualities for microscopic, and indeed sub-atomic domains, except for macroscopic manifestations of quantum properties under very special conditions such as in superconductors kept close to absolute zero in temperature. If this turns out to be false because quantum effects occur at room temperature and at a macroscopic level in plant photosynthesis, then it stands to reason that the same quantum physical processes that may underlie Psi in humans and animals might also account for plant sentience or for what Backster termed the “primary perception” of lifeforms lacking a brain or nervous system.
At the aforementioned Geneva conference on Quantum Physics and Parapsychology, Costa de Beauregard of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris, France, delivered a seminal paper suggesting that the intersection of Quantum Theory with Information Theory could finally allow for a more rigorous scientific understanding of Psi. Again, a future article will have to be set aside for a dedicated exploration of this idea. But, in short, the suggestion is that, for the first time in the history of Physics, with Quantum Theory consciousness and information become basic, inextricable, and intrinsic properties of physical processes.
When we look at the various types of empirical evidence for plant sentience that have been reviewed above, the implications of this are profound and far-reaching. For example, an organism that lacks a brain and central nervous system but has similar organizational properties and functional relationships as plant life, even if it is a silicon-based network of “tendrils,” could wind up demonstrating sentience and even Psi functioning in the same way that plants do. Quite apart from CPU-based neural networks and localized Artificial Intelligence algorithms running on supercomputers embedded within an information processing network, the silicon-based network itself could turn out to be a plant-like organism with its own form of sentience and psychic awareness. That is a possibility that we really ought to wrap our minds around before this new form of life wraps its tendrils around us.
There's lots of data emerging about plant vision as well. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10724382/
Cheers.
Who wouldve thought that plants solved cold fusion