Baland Jalal

Baland Jalal (born 14 October 1985) is a Danish neuroscientist at Harvard University's Department of Psychology, whose work spans clinical neuroscience, cultural psychology, and the biology of altered state of consciousness. Originally from Denmark and of Kurdish-Iraqi descent, he is best known for his research on sleep paralysis.

Baland Jalal
Baland Jalal in 2015
Born	Bulgaria
Nationality	Danish
Occupation	Neuroscientist · Author · Science Educator
Academic background
Education	Trinity College, University of Cambridge (PhD, 2020)
Thesis	"Vicarious Exposure": Experimental Studies Towards Developing Novel Therapies for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (2020)
Doctoral advisor	Barbara Sahakian; Trevor Robbins; V. S. Ramachandran; Richard J. McNally
Academic work
Discipline	Neuroscience Psychology Sleep research Psychiatry
Institutions	Harvard University University of Cambridge
Notable works	Transdiagnostic Multiplex CBT for Muslim Cultural Groups (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Website	balandjalal.com

Jalal's books explore neurological and psychiatric conditions such as sleep paralysis, Capgras syndrome, temporal lobe epilepsy, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and narcolepsy. His books include Transdiagnostic Multiplex CBT for Muslim Cultural Groups: Treating Emotional Disorders, which presents a culturally adapted psychotherapy framework, published by Cambridge University Press, Hjernens kraft (Gyldendal, 2026), a popular science book on the brain, and the forthcoming The Phantom Mind: Insights from the Borderlands of Sleep (Penguin, 2026), which examines sleep disorders and consciousness.^[1][2][3]

In 2023, Expertscape ranked him as the leading global expert on sleep paralysis.^[4] Media outlets including CNN, the BBC, and The Daily Telegraph have also described him as the leading authority on the topic.

Jalal has been active in public science communication. He has delivered TEDx talks and given public lectures at academic institutions, including the University of Oxford and Harvard University. He has also appeared on podcasts including The Jordan Peterson Podcast, Science Vs, and Lewis Howes's School of Greatness where he has discussed various topics in neuroscience including sleep, dreams, and neurological disorders.^[5][6]

As of 2023, he has also been teaching neuroscience courses at Peterson Academy, an online education platform.^[7]

Early life and education

Jalal was born in Bulgaria to Kurdish parents who had fled the war in Iraq and later moved to Denmark.^[8] In a 2022 interview with Vox, he recounted spending part of his childhood in a refugee camp before growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood in Denmark, experiences which he later linked to his scientific interest in sleep paralysis.^[8]

He went on to pursue neuroscience at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, where he earned his Ph.D., completing part of his doctoral research at Harvard University's Department of Psychology.^[9]

Career

Jalal is a neuroscientist at the Harvard University Department of Psychology. He previously served as a research consultant at McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, and was a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, where he earned his Ph.D. from Trinity College.^[10] At Cambridge, he conducted research under neuroscientists Barbara Sahakian and Trevor Robbins at the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute.^[11]

Early in his career, Jalal collaborated with V. S. Ramachandran, in California, whom he describes as a mentor and "like a second father". A 2016 profile in Business Insider described their collaboration as formative to Jalal's later research on sleep paralysis and neuropsychiatric disorders.^[12] The two went on to co-author ten scientific papers.^[13][11] In a 2021 interview with Frontiers, Jalal recalled that Ramachandran had introduced him to neurologist Oliver Sacks, with whom he exchanged correspondence on scientific topics.^[14]

He has been invited to lecture at universities in the United States and Europe, including a talk at Oxford University's Sherrington Society, one of the university's long-established medical societies.^[15]

Research and theory

Sleep paralysis

Sleep paralysis, is a condition in which individuals experience temporary paralysis upon waking or falling asleep, often accompanied by vivid hallucinations. Jalal has conducted studies exploring sleep paralysis in diverse populations, including samples from Egypt, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Turkey, the United States, and South Africa.^[16] Jalal's findings have highlighted how cultural beliefs shape the experience, interpretation, and distress associated with sleep paralysis.^[17][18][19]

In collaboration with V. S. Ramachandran, Jalal has proposed several hypotheses to explain why people experience hallucinations of ghosts and intruders during sleep paralysis.^[20][21] Their theories explore the roles of the right superior parietal lobule, body image projection, mirror neurons, and the neuropharmacology of hallucinations.^[22]

Jalal developed one of the first treatment approaches for sleep paralysis, known as Meditation-Relaxation Therapy (MR Therapy). The method combines cognitive reappraisal, emotional distancing, focused attention, and relaxation techniques to help manage recurrent episodes. In collaboration with researchers at the University of Bologna, he co-authored the first published clinical trial evaluating a treatment for sleep paralysis, which tested the MR Therapy approach.^[23][24]

Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD)

In 2015 Jalal, working with V. S. Ramachandran, conducted some of the first studies using the rubber hand illusion to examine body image in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). They found that when a rubber hand was "contaminated" with fake feces during the illusion, healthy participants reported experiencing OCD-like disgust.^[25] In 2019, collaborating with Richard J. McNally and V. S. Ramachandran, Jalal showed that OCD patients were more susceptible to the illusion—even when visual and tactile cues were misaligned—suggesting a more flexible body image. This research also proposed the illusion as a form of indirect exposure therapy for OCD.^[26][27][28]

In a 2017 study, Jalal and Ramachandran found that individuals with OCD symptoms experienced disgust simply by watching an experimenter contaminate themselves, and relief when watching them wash.^[29][30] In 2020, the findings were extended to a clinical OCD group with similar results.^[31] In later work with Barbara Sahakian and Ramachandran, Jalal tested a digital self-observation technique in which participants with subclinical OCD watched daily smartphone videos of themselves touching fake feces or washing their hands. After one week, participants showed measurable improvements in symptoms.^[32][33]

Reception

Jalal's research has been covered widely in international media. In 2025, CNN described him as "a leading expert on sleep paralysis."^[34] The BBC, VOX and The Daily Telegraph have likewise described him as "one of the world's leading experts" on the condition."^[35][36][8]

His app-based self-observation studies for obsessive–compulsive disorder were reported in The Times and The Washington Post, which described them as "simple videos that researchers hope will help people who scrub their hands until they bleed."^[37][38] BBC News previously covered his use of the rubber hand illusion as a potential therapy, calling it as "a party trick involving a fake hand" used in new treatment studies for OCD, while Reuters noted it could help patients better tolerate exposure therapy.^[39][40]

BBC Future has profiled his work on nightmares and sleep paralysis. The Guardian, Today, Der Spiegel, have also reported on his studies of hallucinations and cultural interpretations of the condition.^[41][42][43]

Expertscape has ranked Jalal as the leading global expert on sleep paralysis.^[44] His meditation-relaxation treatment for sleep paralysis was described in New York Magazine as "the most effective talisman against sleep paralysis."^[45]

Popularizing science and press

Jalal has been active in public communication of science. He has appeared on podcasts including The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, Science Vs, and The School of Greatness, where he has discussed topics such as sleep, dreams, nightmares, and psychiatric disorders. He has delivered TEDx talks and has lectured at public and academic institutions, including the University of Oxford and Harvard University.^[46][47][48]

He has written about topics in neuroscience including sleep, dreams, consciousness, and mental health, with work appearing in outlets such as TIME, Scientific American, Big Think, and The Boston Globe.^[49][50]

Jalal's work has been covered by media such as CNN,^[51] The Washington Post,^[52] Today,^[53] NBC News,^[54] The Times,^[55] and others. He has also appeared on broadcast media, including NPR's The Pulse,^[56] and BBC's Victoria Derbyshire show and the BBC documentary Uncanny.^[57][58]

Since 2023, Jalal has tought courses on neuroscience at the Peterson Academy,^[59] an online learning platform founded by Mikhaila Fuller and Jordan B Peterson.^[60] His courses include Introduction to Neuroscience, The Neuroscience of Human Nature, and The Neuroscience of Dreams.

Books

• Hinton, Devon E.; Jalal, Baland (2020). Transdiagnostic Multiplex CBT for Muslim Cultural Groups: Treating Emotional Disorders. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108671217. doi:10.1017/9781108671217
• Jalal, Baland (2026-02-03). Hjernens kraft ('Power of the Brain', Danish). Gyldendal. ISBN 9788702352573.^[2]
• Jalal, Baland (2026-05-21). The Phantom Mind: Insights from the Borderlands of Sleep. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780241729434.^[3]

Selected publications

• Jalal, B., McNally, R. J., Elias, J., & Ramachandran, V. S. (2020). "Vicarious exposure"—"spooky action" at a distance in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders. doi:10.1016/j.jocrd.2020.100567
• Jalal, B., & Hinton, D. E. (2013). Rates and characteristics of sleep paralysis in the general population of Denmark and Egypt. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 37, 534–548. doi:10.1007/s11013-013-9327-0
• Hinton, D. E., & Jalal, B. (2020). Transdiagnostic Multiplex CBT for Muslim Cultural Groups: Treating Emotional Disorders. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108772265
• Jalal, B., Bruhl, A. B., O'Callaghan, C., Piercy, T., Cardinal, R. N., Ramachandran, V. S., & Sahakian, B. J. (2018). Novel smartphone interventions improve cognitive flexibility and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms in individuals with contamination fears. Scientific Reports. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-29393-2