Is lab psi the same thing as spontaneous psi?

I wonder if anyone has any thoughts about this question.

Probably the assumption underlying most parapsychology research is that the phenomena apparently seen in experiments - telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance and micropsychokinesis - which manifest themselves as deviations from the statistics expected by chance, are essentially weaker forms of spontaneous phenomena such as apparitions of the living and dead, veridical visions, precognitive dreams and poltergeist and perhaps mediumistic effects. Maybe even magic, according to some.

But is that really so? Do the rare and striking spontaneous phenomena necessarily have anything in common with the weak statistical effects that are the focus of experimental parapsychology?

As far as whether they represent genuine anomalous effects that can't be explained conventionally, there are four possible views - neither do, both do, only lab psi does, and only spontaneous psi does. And for those who believe both do, either they could be weaker and stronger versions of the same phenomena, or else they could be essentially different things.

I think they're very different. Like comparing firing a gun at a range to being in a war. That's at least been my experience. Trying to eliminate too many variables changes things to such a degree that it's not even the same thing anymore.

What i would say is that life itself is difficult to contain in a lab.

Recently I was looking through some old papers and came across something I wrote back in the early 1980s. It was a description of something which happened to me. Actually I still remember the original experience but was surprised both by the detail I'd forgotten, as well as the detail I still remember, which wasn't written down at all.

Now that wasn't even an example of psi, it was 'something else', but my main point is that some things may occur just once in an entire lifetime, and have a duration of perhaps a few seconds, maybe even a couple of minutes. Trying to catch those moments in a butterfly net and enclose them inside the walls of a lab, well, in practical terms, it's never going to happen.

Sorry if this sounds cryptic. I'll see if I can get that account typed up so I can share it - but it may take a while.