Etzel Cardeña was born and raised in México, he has advanced degrees from Canada and the US and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. He holds the endowed Thorsen Chair in psychology at Lund University in Sweden, one of the top universities in Europe, where he directs the Center for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP). His areas of research include alterations of consciousness and unusual or anomalous experiences (including parapsychological phenomena), dissociative processes and acute posttraumatic reactions, the neuroscience of hypnosis and meditation, and the stream of consciousness during waking and altered states. He has more than 350 publications, some in top journals in psychology and related disciplines, and his work has also been covered by various media including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the BBC. Various professional organizations have awarded his empirical, theoretical, historical, and pedagogical contributions, and his research has been funded by organizations in the US, Sweden, and Portugal. He has also worked professionally in theatre as director, actor, and playwright, and is the artistic director of the International Theatre of Malmö.