[5] He has expressed views in favour of what he terms "an open, informed study on all aspects of consciousness" and the validity of some paranormal phenomena.
A native of Mexico, Cardeña studied at the Universidad Iberoamericana in México and completed an MA in clinical psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada and an MA and PhD in Personality Psychology at the University of California, Davis.
He subsequently went on to do post-doctoral work in the area of dissociation and hypnosis at Stanford University under David Spiegel.
In a 2018 paper in American Psychologist he wrote that "The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them.
"[12] In a series of interviews with Swedish Newspapers he has said that there is evidence for telepathy, psychokinesis and precognition and that he himself has had experiences that could be interpreted as supporting the psi hypothesis.