‘Primary perception’ is the theory that plants can perceive their surrounding environment, and subsequently respond to it – what we might call emotion or at the very least behavior, in animals. That is, sentience. And the phenomenon has some crossover with our understanding of polygraphs aka lie detectors.
Cleve Backster was a respected operator in the controversial field of polygraphy, the use of lie detectors. But in February 1966 he became known for plant telepathy.
Curious to measure how long it took water to reach the leaves of a dracaena cane plant, Backster attached polygraph electrodes to it. These measure galvanic skin response – electrical conductivity – and should, he thought, have registered a change when water reached the leaf. Unexpectedly, the plant showed readings similar to those of a human.
Backster wondered if the plant would effect the polygraph in other ways. He dipped a leaf into warm coffee. Nothing happened. Then he considered burning the leaf; the polygraph, he claims, “went wild. The pen jumped right off the top of the chart”. The plant,it seemed, had registered a stress response to Backster ‘s thoughts of harming it.