Conversion dreams

Conversion dreams—i.e., dreams prompting a profound transformation of religious belief and identity—have been reported in many different cultural and religious traditions. This essay argues that although such reports may appear to be mere fabrications, the experience of conversion dreams is a legitimate and important phenomenon. The essay provides three examples of conversion dreams reported in Christian contexts and uses research from the fields of religious studies, psychology, and anthropology to demonstrate that such dreams provide a bridge to connect and synthesize religious elements which had been in conflict at both the personal and cultural levels.This essay is based on a presentation made at the Western Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, March 25, 1994, at Santa Clara University.     

Integration versus conflict between schools of dream theory and dreamwork: integrating the psychological core qualities of dreams with the contemporary knowledge of the dreaming brain

The various ways schools of psychotherapy relate to dreams have been marked by isolationism and mutual conflict rather than self-examination and then integrating the discoveries and methods of other schools. Jung’s method was in opposition to Freud’s psychoanalysis. Existential psychology was dismissive of Freud’s and Jung’s discoveries, while cognitive dream interpretation and cognitive therapy sought other roads entirely. In addition, scientific and neuropsychological dream research has been only insignificantly tied to the psychotherapeutic dream theories. These conflicts and the lack of a comprehensive dream theory has made it convenient for the current rationalist collective consciousness and treatment systems to reject the often times challenging knowledge about ourselves that dreams can provide. This paper describes how contemporary theories of complex cybernetic information networks can create an overriding, constructive framework for uncovering common traits within the above-mentioned branches of dream research and dreamwork. Within this framework, ten core qualities are delineated, supported by both therapeutic knowledge as well as scientific research: 1) Dreams deal with matters important to us; 2) Dreams symbolize; 3) Dreams personify; 4) Dreams are trial runs in a safe place; 5) Dreams are online to unconscious intelligence; 6) Dreams are pattern recognition; 7) Dreams are high level communication; 8) Dreams are condensed information; 9) Dreams are experiences of wholeness; 10) Dreams are psychological energy landscapes. For each core quality I describe short dreamwork sequences from my own practice and a schematic image of how I perceive the overriding interaction between systems in the dreaming brain. For each core quality recommendations for practical dreamwork are provided. Finally, I draw attention to dreams as a huge psychological resource for humankind.     

A History of Psychology of Religion in the West: Implications for Theory and Method

The study of religion in Western psychology has an interesting history that provides many lessons for future attempts to understand the spiritual aspects of human experience. In the past, psychologists have typically operated from one of three paradigms in their study of religion: (1) hermeneutic–phenomenological, (2) positivistic naturalism, and (3) religious integration. Each of these paradigms has a number of important theoretical assumptions and a preferred set of methodologies that offer significant advantages and disadvantages. The paradigm of positivistic naturalism, with its emphasis on quantitative questionnaire methodology, has been the most influential but also the least helpful in generating new ideas for the psychological understanding of religion, particularly as it is practiced in non-Western contexts. A historical survey of the other competing paradigms offers many insights and practical suggestions about how research in the psychology of religion might proceed in the twenty-first century.     

美国宗教心理学研究的历史、现状与问题

在回顾美国宗教心理学发展历史的基础上,分析了美国宗教心理学研究的现状,并从中揭示出美国宗教心理学研究存在的问题。美国的宗教心理学经历了兴起、衰落、复兴的曲折发展过程。宗教观念、宗教体验、宗教行为系美国宗教心理学研究的基本维度,宗教同人格和心理健康的关系在美国宗教心理学研究中处于突出地位。两支研究队伍（心理学背景的宗教心理学研究者和宗教学背景的宗教心理学研究者）的分歧及心理学取向的研究者在研究方法方面的分歧,是美国宗教心理学研究值得重视的问题。     

The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (Book)

The growth of religious psychology with specific reference to the Malay people as the majority culture is discussed. This article describes attitudes of the Malays toward religion, and reviews related programs and developments in Malaysian universities and institutes. It covers contents of major seminars and conferences held in recent years; the application of religious psychology in the general Malay population and an analysis of some problems and prospects relevant to the general psychology of religion area. The article concludes that, although psychology of religion does not exist here in the Western sense, immense opportunities exist for psychological research on religion. Suggestions for improving the psychology-religion interface are given.     

The Religious Content of Dreams: A New Scientific Foundation

Dream content is meaningfully related to waking life religiosity, so much so that reading a person’s dream reports “blindly,” without any other personal information or associations from the dreamer, can reveal with surprising accuracy his or her basic waking attitude toward religion and spirituality. Two long-term dream journals are analyzed in this manner, and the results demonstrate that dream content is an accurate reflection of a person’s religious beliefs, practices, and experiences. The significance of this for pastoral psychologists lies not in specific new techniques of dream interpretation but more fundamentally in supporting the practice of paying attention to dreams in the first place. The goal of the article is to build a bridge between pastoral psychological interest in dreams and the latest findings in the scientific study of dreaming. Contrary to the assumption that religion and science inevitably conflict with each other, dreaming offers an area of potential religion–science convergence.     

Reading dream literature: frequency, influencing factors, and self-rated benefit

Dream books have a very long history, but systematic research on how many people have read magazine articles or books on dreams and whether reading such literature is beneficial to the dreamer is scarce. In the present sample of 444 people (mostly psychology students), about 75% of the participants stated that they had read at least one magazine article on dreams, and more than 40% had read at least one book about dreams. The main factor associated with the frequency of reading dream literature was a positive attitude toward dreaming, whereas personality factors play a minor role in explaining interindividual differences in this variable. The self-rated benefit of reading dream literature varied greatly, from not helpful at all to very helpful, and was associated with dream recall frequency and positive attitude toward dreaming. Using this approach in a more sophisticated way, eliciting details about the kinds of information participants have read would help researchers learn more about what techniques of dream work are effective and thus complement the research carried out in therapist-guided sessions.     

汉字:国人释梦实践的本土化面向

汉字释梦是根据梦像的视觉形象构造,寻找书写结构与其相对应的汉字,再依于汉字的本义把握梦的意义。首先依据现代心理学探讨传统梦学中汉字释梦的思想;然后对汉字释梦的可行性进行深入分析,认为梦和汉字都以表意为首要目的,都采取象形的表达方式,进而提出汉字释梦的操作思路;最后结合案例展现了汉字释梦在实践中的应用。     

Religiousness and Mental Health: Systematic Review Study

Many people use religious beliefs and practices to cope with stressful life events and derive peace of mind and purpose in life. The goal of this paper was to systematically review the recent psychological literature to assess the role of religion in mental health outcomes. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using medical and psychological databases on the relationship between religiosity and mental health. Seventy-four articles in the English and Arabic languages published between January 2000 and March 2012 were chosen. Despite the controversial relationship between religion and psychiatry, psychology, and medical care, there has been an increasing interest in the role which spirituality and religion play in mental health. The findings of past research showed that religion could play an important role in many situations, as religious convictions and rules influence the believer’s life and health care. Most of the past literature in this area reported that there is a significant connection between religious beliefs and practices and mental health.     

History, Present Situation, and Problems of Chinese Psychology of Religion

There have been few research studies on the psychology of religion in Mainland China because of the “leftist” ideology that shaped the People’s Republic of China from its foundation until the introduction of reform and open policy. Since the 1980s, research in the field of psychology of religion in Mainland China has made remarkable progress. The main efforts include translating and introducing representative works from the former Soviet Union and the West, while theoretical studies have concentrated mainly on the origins, features, functions, and schools of psychology of religion. Researchers have developed new measurement tools based on local culture in psychology of religion. Empirical studies pay special attention to the relationship between religious belief and mental health, the features of religious thinking of the Chinese, the psychological state of professionals, and characteristic emotions of religious experiences as well as their correlation with biological processes. The problems that currently exist in the field in Mainland China include the following: lack of critical in-depth studies on the history of Western psychology of religion, absence of diversity in research methods, and disconnection of theoretical study from practical application. Obviously, these issues should influence the direction of future efforts.     

Is analytical psychology a religion? Rationalist and romantic approaches to religion and modernity

The relationship between analytical psychology and religion is part of the larger issue of the relationship between modernity and religion. There are three main views on the issue. The fundamentalist position sets religion against modernity and opts for religion over modernity. What I call the 'rationalist' position likewise sets religion against modernity but opts for modernity over religion. By contrast to both views, what I call the 'romantic' position reconciles religion with modernity. Rationalists maintain that religion can exist only in so far as it serves as an explanation of the physical world, which the rise of science now precludes. Romantics maintain that religion, while serving as an explanation of the physical world till dislodge by science, is at heart anything but an explanation. The toppling of the religions explanation by the scientific one, far from dooming religion, prods religion into making explicit what it has in fact been all along. By this categorization, Jung is overwhelmingly a romantic. For him, the function of religion has always been more psychological than explanatory, and the rise of science does not preclude the continuing existence of religious myths as a psychological rather than an explanatory phenomenon. For those for whom science does spell the demise of religion, secular myths can replace religious ones, and those secular myths are more secular versions of religions myths than secular alternatives to religions myths. Yet even if for Jung religion can still exist today because religion is in fact psychology, it does not follow that psychology is therefore a religion.     

Psychology: Twentieth century religion? A psychologist's view

Conclusion In conclusion, then, let me ask again the question: Is psychology our century's religion ? My answer is that psychology is not, and can never be, a full-fledged organized religion with comparable characteristics to Judaism, Catholicism, or Protestantism. Psychology is a modern science and has no coherent system of religious attitudes and beliefs, no conception of ultimate values, no dogmas supernatural in character, and no God. At most psychology is, or can be, a religious-like substitute for religion for a certain subgroup of our population, mainly intellectuals.However, both religion and depth psychology are deeply concerned with modern man's predicament. It is my belief that many people may experience religious — like phenomena within a therapeutic relationship and as a consequence of successful psychotherapy. Therefore, the roles of the clergyman and of the therapist overlap in their efforts to help modern man in his suffering and creative growth. But religion will always have its unique function and so will psychology.This article is a revised version of a talk prepared for the symposium during the Campus Conference on Religion at Cornell University, October 23, 1961.     

When cognitive scientists become religious, science is in trouble: On neurotheology from a philosophy of science perspective

Since the 1990s medical technology has afforded exciting possibilities for studying the brain. Together with knowledge accrued through psychology and psychiatry, it has set the stage for pioneering research and stimulated disciplines such as Social Neuroscience, the Cognitive Science of Religion, Cognitive Anthropology, and Cognitive Archaeology. Another discipline has arisen, Neurotheology, which is interested in the brain and religious experience. Early proponents such as d'Aquili and Newberg had a religious agenda in their work. Others, such as members of Transcendental Meditation, have used experimental and brain studies to legitimate religious agendas. Experiential shamanists have embarked on a similar legitimation process. The differences between science and therapy and spirituality have been blurred or denied. Neurotheological attempts to discover areas of the brain responsible for religious experiences have led to untenable results. The fact that such research has passed the peer review process of leading psychological, psychiatric, and neurological journals is perhaps more indicative of the pervasiveness of religiosity throughout American society than of objective brain science. This essay argues that neurotheology is an example of the struggle between confessional and critical approaches to the study of religion. The main difference is that the battlefield of this struggle is the brain.     

Exiters of religious fundamentalism: reconstruction of social support and relationships related to well-being

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, researchers have documented the steady growth of religious “exiters” – those who drop their affiliation with any organised religion. Religious disaffiliation or “exiting” may affect health, and while most studies of religion and health are quantitative and emphasise the health benefits of religious involvement, little qualitative research has been devoted to documenting the lived experience of religious exiting. This qualitative study investigates the social psychological consequences of leaving religion in an understudied subgroup of exiters – individuals who have left Christian fundamentalist religions. Drawing on 24 in-depth interviews, this research reveals the processes through which former religious participants reconstruct supportive social relationships to reinforce their well-being. The results demonstrate that while it is challenging in the initial stages of the exiting process to forge and cultivate new supportive relationships, the construction of nonreligious social networks eventually contributed to their greater well-being.     

Being one with the spirit: dimensions of a mystical experience

Mystical experience has intrigued both religious and non-religious persons for centuries. Several elements of mystical experience have been identified by scholars of the psychology of religion. This essay explores those critical elements and appropriates them in developing a theological anthropology. This understanding is expanded using the framework of the mystic, Howard Thurman, who argued that true mysticism leads to responsible action. Together these components form the basis for a pastoral theological framework for mystical experience.     

Conceptualizing Religious Practices in Psychological Research: Problems and Prospects

This article addresses the problems and prospects that follow from the conceptualization of religious phenomena and practices for scientific investigation in the psychology of religion. Two Western research traditions—instrumentalism and operationalism—are described and their potential contribution to a mismatch between what researchers intend to study and what they actually study is illustrated through two exemplar studies. The exemplar studies show how researchers’ concern with methodological rigor can compromise the rich and thick meanings of religious practices, resulting in the misrepresentation of the practices and misleading both the psychological and religious research consumer. Several suggestions for dealing with these problems are discussed.     

IS A COMPLETE BIOCOGNITIVE ACCOUNT OF RELIGION FEASIBLE?

The biological and cognitive approach to religion has matured somewhat and reveals interesting results. Nevertheless, some questions arise about its foundation and development. The essay offers a review of current research in the cognitive field, focusing on its conclusions, the internal discussions, and the problems that need more study or correction. Emphasis is placed on a more intricate account of the factors involved in religious experience, discussing the proper use of the discoveries of biocognitive research and the limits that should be placed on said conclusions.     

Concerning the Rumored Falling to Earth of 'Time's Arrow'

In this article I suggest that at least three crucial questions have been largely overlooked in recent research on the psychology of religion: First, is the field currently placing too much emphasis on the effects of religion on physical and mental health? Second, could negative emotions associated with religion lead to adaptive outcomes in some situations? Finally, should we begin to devote greater attention to specific religious beliefs or doctrines? Attention to issues such as these may help to increase the impact of research on the psychology of religion.     

Continuity between waking activities and dream activities

Empirical studies largely support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Despite of previous research efforts, the exact formulation of the continuity hypothesis remains vague. The present paper focuses on two aspects: (1) the differential incorporation rate of different waking-life activities and (2) the magnitude of which interindividual differences in waking-life activities are reflected in corresponding differences in dream content. Using a correlational design, a positive, non-zero correlation coefficient will support the continuity hypothesis. Although many researchers stress the importance of emotional involvement on the incorporation rate of waking-life experiences into dreams, formulated the hypothesis that highly focused cognitive processes such as reading, writing, etc. are rarely found in dreams due to the cholinergic activation of the brain during dreaming. The present findings based on dream diaries and the exact measurement of waking activities replicated two recent questionnaire studies. These findings indicate that it will be necessary to specify the continuity hypothesis more fully and include factors (e.g., type of waking-life experience, emotional involvement) which modulate the incorporation rate of waking-life experiences into dreams. Whether the cholinergic state of the brain during REM sleep or other alterations of brain physiology (e.g., down-regulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) are the underlying factors of the rare occurrence of highly focused cognitive processes in dreaming remains an open question. Although continuity between waking life and dreaming has been demonstrated, i.e., interindividual differences in the amount of time spent with specific waking-life activities are reflected in dream content, methodological issues (averaging over a two-week period, small number of dreams) have limited the capacity for detecting substantial relationships in all areas. Nevertheless, it might be concluded that the continuity hypothesis in its present general form is not valid and should be elaborated and tested in a more specific way.