We are pleased to announce that Professor Stanley Krippner, former Alan Watts Professor of Psychology at Saybrook University, Affiliated Distinguished Faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and academic member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), has been elected as an Academician of the World Academy of Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his important contributions to consciousness studies, dream research, transpersonal psychology, hypnosis, altered states of consciousness, personal mythology, shamanic studies, creativity, trauma psychology, and anomalous experience research.
Professor Stanley Krippner is a highly influential scholar in contemporary consciousness studies, dream research, transpersonal psychology, and humanistic psychology. He long served as Alan Watts Professor of Psychology at Saybrook University, and previously served as Director of the Dream Research Laboratory at Maimonides Medical Center and Director of the Child Study Center at Kent State University. He has conducted extensive and sustained research in dreams and consciousness, hypnosis, altered states of consciousness, cross-cultural psychology, personal mythology, shamanic studies, creativity, trauma, and anomalous experiences.
His work systematically explores how human dream experiences reflect psychological structures and life meaning, how non-ordinary states of consciousness expand our understanding of subjective experience, how culture and ritual participate in the shaping of consciousness, and how individuals construct self-narratives and worlds of meaning through personal mythology, imagination, dreams, and symbolic systems.
WAAC believes that research on artificial consciousness requires not only advances in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive science, and computational models, but also open and careful interdisciplinary exploration of dreams, imagination, symbols, narrative selfhood, altered states of consciousness, cross-cultural conscious experience, and boundary questions of consciousness. Professor Krippner’s work provides important theoretical resources for key issues in artificial consciousness, including subjective experience modeling, dreams and generative cognition, symbolic reasoning, self-narrative, transformation of states of consciousness, machine subjectivity, meaning generation in artificial systems, and cross-paradigm research in consciousness science.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to consciousness studies, dream research, transpersonal psychology, hypnosis, altered states of consciousness, personal mythology, shamanic studies, and anomalous experience research, the World Academy of Artificial Consciousness has decided to confer upon Professor Stanley Krippner the title of WAAC Academician.
- Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem
Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Oxford, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.
- About WAAC
The World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (https://www.waac.ac/) is a global academic institution established in Paris in 2025. Its mission is to advance frontier research and international collaboration in artificial consciousness through the integration of science, technology, and philosophy. The Academy publishes open research, policy recommendations, evaluation standards, and more. The current President is Academician Yucong Duan, and the Secretary-General is Dr. Yingbo Li. The Honorary Academician List: On May 3, 2025, WAAC released its first batch of Top 100 Honorary Academicians, recognizing scholars who have made foundational or leading contributions to the theory of artificial consciousness.