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How to turn professional experience into practical knowledge? How to reflect over one’s professional practice in order to improve it? How to further develop a practitioner’s responseAbility when facing challenging situations? Already Aristotle spoke of practical knowledge in terms of prudence or practical wisdom (phronesis), a notion which is also reflected in the term Bildung. In this podcast, the hosts prof. Michael Noah Weiss and prof. Guro Hansen Helskog are examining central aspects of this knowledge form and its relevance in professional studies by talking to different scholars who made significant contributions to the field. Listeners can get hands-on ideas on how to develop practical knowledge in their own professional contexts.
Hosts:
Michael Noah Weiss & Guro Hansen Helskog
TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY
(This transcript summary was AI-generated and then edited by the podcast hosts for quality assurance)
#25 Donna Thomas | Researching extraordinary experiences with children
- a podcast dialogue with Michael Noah Weiss and Guro Hansen Helskog
1. INTRODUCTION: CHILDREN, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE EDGES OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE
In this episode of the ResponsAbility Podcast, Michael and Guro welcome Dr. Donna Thomas, co-director of iCreates@UCLan and Perrott-Warrick Senior Researcher administered through Trinity College Cambridge. Donna’s work sits at the intersection of consciousness studies, critical childhood studies, social science, and what is often classified—too narrowly—as parapsychology. She investigates children’s and adults’ extrasensory or “out-of-the-five-senses” experiences within the broader context of human development. From the outset, Donna stresses that such experiences should not be treated as paranormal anomalies but rather as meaningful phenomena that reveal something essential about being human.
2. HOW DONNA’S RESEARCH BEGAN: LISTENING TO WHAT CHILDREN SAY
Donna explains that her research interest arose through a convergence of two strands: her own early experiences of extraordinary perception on the one hand, and decades of working with children in qualitative, participatory research on the other. Long before she formally studied these topics, she noticed that children often opened research sessions by sharing unusual experiences such as visions, voices, feelings of being watched, and moments of knowing something before it happens. Many of these experiences were reported with curiosity or concern, yet adults tended to react with anxiety, quick diagnosis, or dismissal. These reactions were harmful to children, who were not taken seriously,
For Donna, this mismatch revealed a much deeper issue: adults frequently misunderstand both the nature of mind and the full spectrum of human experience. Contemporary models of mental health, especially those grounded in strict brain-based materialism, often default to pathologizing children’s reports because they assume we already possess a complete scientific understanding of consciousness. Donna argues that this assumption is far from justified.
3. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES THAT SHAPED A RESEARCH PATH
Donna shares two impactful experiences from her own life. The first occurred at age five after she was struck by a Harley-Davidson motorbike in a hit-and-run accident. Rather than perceiving the scene from her physical body, she experienced a bird’s-eye perspective of the street, observing details she could not have seen from her physical position.
The second experience took place at age fifteen during a serious car accident. As the car rolled, she thought she was about to die, and in that instant, she felt herself no longer inside the vehicle. Instead, she experienced a profound state of peace, love, and union with something larger than herself, accompanied by panoramic 360-degree vision and a life-review. When she returned to her body, the experience left her with existential questions she struggled to integrate as a teenager.
Donna reflects that these early experiences eventually led to a deep academic trajectory: first into linguistics and discourse analysis, and later—after a period of pushing the experiences away—into research on consciousness and children’s lived realities.
4. WHAT CHILDREN REPORT: A WIDE RANGE OF “UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES”
In her research, Donna does not begin with predefined categories like “mediumship” or “precognition.” Instead, she asks children, “Have you ever had an unusual experience?” and invites them to choose how they want to express it, whether through painting, drawing, storytelling, play or other. Donna notes that engaging children creatively often brings forward two or three experiences in one session—much more than purely verbal interviews yield.
The experiences children report include:
Out-of-body experiences, one of the most common categories across age groups.
After-death communications, such as seeing deceased grandparents who appear younger and well.
Precognitive moments, such as knowing something before it occurs.
Subtle experiences, such as sensing being stared at or feeling events approaching.
Children’s descriptions often mirror features found in adult literature, yet without exposure to scientific terminology or theories.
5. RESEARCH IN PAEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE: CHILDREN’S NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES
One of Donna’s current research projects, in collaboration with Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, focuses on children who have undergone cardiac arrest in pediatric intensive care. Many of these children report elaborate and structured near-death experiences (NDEs). Clinically, however, these are often dismissed as “delirium”, and staff may overlook the existential and emotional significance of what the child is trying to convey.
Donna and her colleague are working toward developing a bedside toolkit for clinicians and nurses. The resources are meant to help them pause, listen, and respond appropriately, especially when children struggle to express experiences that exceed language. She argues that ignoring these reports can cause harm, whereas acknowledging them can support recovery and long-term wellbeing.
6. THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE OF THIS RESEARCH
Donna addresses the ethical tensions often raised: Should adults talk about extrasensory experiences with children? However, she argues that children are already talking about them but being silenced. From an ethical perspective, she argues that not engaging with these experiences can be more damaging than the reverse.
She highlights how strict adherence to brain-based diagnostic frameworks leads to repeated cycles of misdiagnosis, medication, and returning to the mental health system without meaningful improvement. Many children internalize fear and shame when their experiences are dismissed as signs of illness. Donna suggests that if services took children’s lived experiences seriously, including their extrasensory perceptions, they might improve outcomes, reduce resource burdens, and support children and families more effectively.
7. POST-MATERIALIST PERSPECTIVES: CHALLENGING DOMINANT SCIENTIFIC PARADIGMS
Donna’s recent book Children’s Unexplained Experiences in a Post-Materialist World builds on emerging scientific and philosophical work that challenges materialism, i.e. the assumption that consciousness is produced by the brain. She notes that there is no empirical evidence for this claim, and that multiple fields, including quantum physics, biology, and philosophy, are proposing alternative ontologies in which consciousness is fundamental rather than derivative.
Children’s experiences often resonate with these perspectives in their interconnectedness, non-local awareness, and forms of knowing that bypass the normal senses. Donna emphasizes that these ideas also echo ancient and Indigenous cosmologies, suggesting that Western culture may have forgotten insights that once shaped human understanding.
8. CAN EXTRASENSORY EXPERIENCE SUPPORT HUMAN GROWTH?
Michael asks whether experiences like those cultivated in the Trilogos Training can foster personal development in children. Donna responds that, based on her research, these experiences can support wellbeing—but only if adults respond in nurturing ways. When children are met with fear or medicalized interpretations (“You must be schizophrenic”), the experience becomes harmful. When met with curiosity and care, such moments can enhance resilience, meaning-making, and emotional healing.
Donna shares examples from her clinical research, including children who experienced visionary encounters that encouraged them toward recovery after major surgery. These experiences, she argues, should not be framed as “weird” or “abnormal,” but as natural aspects of human perception that are not yet fully understood.
9. CHILDREN’S EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY AND THE LIMITS OF TRADITIONAL RESEARCH
Donna critiques traditional qualitative methodologies for the ways they inadvertently marginalize children. Many methods assume that knowledge must be expressed verbally, logically, and in adult-defined categories. Yet extrasensory and transcendental experiences often lie outside language, making certain forms of knowledge inaccessible through interviews alone.
She emphasizes that children possess epistemic authority. They are credible interpreters of their own experiences. Research that relies only on observation or verbal articulation risks imposing adult interpretations and missing crucial dimensions of children’s knowing.
10. CREATIVE METHODOLOGIES: ART, PLAY, SEMIOSIS, DIALOGUE
Donna describes the range of creative tools her team employs: paints, clay, small-world figures, symbolic objects, and free drawing. These methods allow children to externalize experiences in ways that bypass linguistic constraints and open avenues for co-interpretation.
For example, two boys reenacted a frightening bedroom apparition using superhero figures. This enabled Donna to understand the sensory and emotional components of the experience while allowing the child to see himself as “Batman”—a figure of agency rather than fear.
In art children often produce abstract patterns, mandalas, or geometrical shapes that reflect features of the experience not capturable in words. Play, meanwhile, becomes a dynamic research space in which meaning emerges through interaction. Though similar to therapeutic approaches, Donna is clear that these methods are used strictly for research, not therapy, while acknowledging their supportive effects.
11. PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE AND CHILDREN’S INTUITIVE WISDOM
Since Guro and Michael have researched both with and on philosophical dialogue in the form of the Dialogos approach, Guro asks about the role of philosophical dialogue in Donna`s and colleagues` research. Donna notes that children naturally reflect on metaphysical questions such as the nature of reality, consciousness, God, or the origins of the world. Many of their metaphor such as “We are all raindrops from the same sea”, bear striking resemblance to contemporary philosophical theories like analytical idealism, which posit one underlying field of subjectivity.
She notes that children are not taught these ideas; they arise spontaneously through intuition. This reveals an innate capacity for wisdom that is often overlooked in adult-centered pedagogy and research traditions.
12. CLOSING REFLECTIONS: RECOGNIZING CHILDREN AS KNOWERS
The episode concludes with Donna affirming the need for research, education, and clinical systems to treat children as genuine knowers of their lived experience. Rather than forcing their perceptions into adult frameworks, she calls for listening, humility, and methodological openness. Children, she argues, may be pointing toward aspects of consciousness and reality that adults have forgotten how to perceive.