I examine a range of unusual experiences to identify common elements and consider interpretations that may differ from those of the experiencer. A study of these experiences also provides insight into the boundaries of perception and the dualities of sensing and knowing. These experiences include apparitions, hauntings, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, synesthesia, spontaneous healings, UFO sightings and abduction accounts. They are from personal incidents reported to me through numerous workshops and seminars and from my own informal experimental investigations and spontaneous experiences. Some insights regarding UFO incidents are from my access to the Project Blue Book files and the UFO hot line reports when employed by the Air Force as a civilian physicist at the Foreign Technology Division (FTD), from discussions about an astronaut's UFO sighting when I was an aeronautical engineer on the Gemini space program and from my position as Chief of the Advanced Concepts Office when preparing responses to queries about UFO sightings and other unusual incidents sent to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In my search for elements common to various unusual experiences I found that trauma had a role in some of the experiences and how they were perceived. Some had a symbolic or archetypal significance and some resembled lucid dreams. Some of the common elements were structural and had similar visual dynamics such as grids, and rotating indistinct imagery. I discuss the possible implications of these visual dynamics from a pattern recognition perspective and examine factors that relate to shifts in the boundaries of perception. I suggest that the mental state of lucid dreaming provides a convenient reference for evaluating a variety of experiences and discuss the role that psi, especially telepathy, has for various unusual experiences. Different modes of psi such as telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing, precognition and macropsychokinesis (macroPK), support a holographic interpretation of reality. An interdisciplinary study of the boundaries of perception can lead to new paradigms for understanding the conscious-subconscious domain. Understanding macroPK from a holographic viewpoint may provide clues into material transfer mechanisms. As we learn more about the boundaries of perception and our subconscious, our psyche, the more feasible it will be to understand a variety of experiences and to know when psi contact with others, either from terrestrial or from non-terrestrial sources has occurred. Recorded at the 27th annual SSE Conference in 2008 in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Published on November 13, 2018. The SSE provides a forum for original research into cutting edge and unconventional areas. Views and opinions belong only to the speakers, and are not necessarily endorsed by the SSE.