On some types of hallucinatory experience

There are types of non-visual hallucinatory experience which occur in the psychoses other than those which have a critical and derogatory content. Wish-fulfilment plays an important part in the formation of the content of these hallucinations. In others, ‘persecutory’ anxiety also occurs. A comparison is made between hallucinatory and dream content. An hypothesis is presented to account for the perceptual quality of these hallucinatory experiences. The therapeutic implications of these considerations concludes this presentation.     

EEG alpha activity and hallucinatory experience during sensory deprivation.

The relationship between hallucinatory experiences under sensory deprivation and EEG alpha activities was studied. Each of seven male students lived alone in an air conditioned, soundproof dark room for 72 hours. When hallucinatory experiences occurred, the students pressed a button at once. If they could not press the button during the experience, they were required to press it two times when the hallucinatory experience was finished. Spectral analysis was performed on the consecutive EEG samples from just before button-presses to 10 min. before them, and the average alpha band amplitudes were obtained for the four epochs (0-.5, .5-2, 2-5, 5-10 min.). For the single button-presses, the amplitude of alpha band increased 2 min. before the button-presses. Right-hemisphere EEG activation was observed in the occipital area for the double button-presses. The results suggest an association between the hallucinatory experiences under sensory deprivation and the amount of EEG alpha activity.     

Absorption, openness to experience, and hypnotizability

Absorption, a correlate of hypnotizability, is conceptually related to openness to experience. Study 1 found no evidence that gender moderated the correlation between absorption and hypnotizability, or of nonlinear trends. Study 2 showed that openness was factorially complex, and that absorption was related to imaginative involvement, but not to social-political liberalism. Study 3 found small quadratic trends in the relations between these variables and hypnotizability; hypnotizability was related to imaginative involvement, but not liberalism. Study 4 confirmed differential correlations between absorption subscales and hypnotizability but failed to confirm the nonlinear trends. Implications for future studies of the correlates of hypnotizability, and for the nature of the "fifth factor" in personality structure, are discussed.     

Toward a functional analysis of delusional speech and hallucinatory behavior

An approach to a functional analysis of delusional speech and hallucinatory behavior is described and discussed using concepts found in Goldiamond's (1975a and 1984) nonlinear contingency analysis and Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957). This synthesis draws upon and concords with research from the animal laboratory, with the extensive experimental literatures on stimulus control and signal detection theory, and with our own clinical experiences.In this formulation, delusional speech and hallucinatory behavior are viewed as successful operants. Accordingly, we argue that such behaviors can be considered adaptive and rational, rather than maladaptive and irrational, when analyzed within a model of consequential governance that includes alternative sets of contingencies. Several clinical examples are offered to illustrate both analytic procedures and the design of systemic treatment programs based upon a behavioral contingency analysis derived from a natural science of behavior. Throughout, we emphasize the consequential governance of these clinically important classes of behavior, in contrast to other approaches which suggest formal similarities to operant verbal behavior but largely ignore the role of consequential contingencies.     

The measurement of hallucinatory predisposition in male and female prisoners

This paper describes the development of a 12-item questionnaire scale to measure hallucinatory predisposition. The scale, which conforms to at least one mathematical model of unidimensionality, includes both pathological items and other items which appear to represent sub-clinical forms of hallucinatory experience.The scale was used to test certain hypotheses concerning the link between aggressive-paranoid tendencies and hallucinatory predisposition (using the Eysenck's P scale) in a prison sample. The significant results presented do confirm such a link, although the precise behavioural correlates of hallucinatory predisposition require further definition.     

Absorption and spiritual experience: A review of evidence and potential mechanisms

Some people seem to have a ‘talent’ for spiritual experience: they readily sense the presence of supernatural beings, receive special messages from God, and report intense feelings of self-transcendence, awe and wonder. Here we review converging strands of evidence to argue that the trait of 'absorption' captures a general proclivity for having spiritual experiences. Participants scoring highly on the Tellegen Absorption Scale report vivid experiences of hearing God's voice during prayer, intense mystical experiences in response to psychedelics or placebo brain-stimulation, and strong feelings of presence and transcendence when confronted with natural beauty, virtual reality, or music. Several mechanisms may help to explain the relationship between absorption and spiritual experience. We suggest that absorption captures an experiential mindset that intensifies inner and outer sensory experience in ways that reflect both prior expectation and novel sensory engagement. It seems to enable that which must be imagined to feel more real.     

Near-death experience as mystical experience

Near-death experience exhibits many attributes of mystical awareness. Assessing the mystical quality of psychedelic experience, Walter Pahnke identified a nine-category typology of mystical experience. It is used here to illustrate the mystical nature of near-death experience. The typology also describes the self-transformation which follows the mystical state of consciousness. Self-transformation results from near-death experience. Pahnke's mystical typology characterizes the near-death experience and allows for a definition of near-death experience as a mystical state.