Out-of-Body Experiences and Hallucinatory Experiences: A Psychological Approach

Abstract

In an out-of-body experience (OBE), the "self," or center of awareness, seems to temporarily occupy a position spatially remote from one's body. In support of previous studies, undergraduate students reporting OBEs (N = 132) showed a higher level of cognitive-perceptual schizotypy, absorption, dissociation, fantasy, and hallucination proneness, and visual imagery than did non-OBErs (N = 516). Absorption and cognitive-perceptual schizotypy were the best discriminators for visual and tactile hallucinations (p < .001). The results support a dissociation model of OBEs. Some persons reported beneficial adaptive effects from their OBEs. Despite the widespread occurrence of anomalous perceptual experiences, including OBEs, in the general population, the term hallucination still has pejorative overtones. The present results are in agreement with other studies in which measures of fantasy proneness seemed to be successful predictors of psychic phenomena (Myers, Austrin, Grisso, & Nickeson, 1983;Wilson & Barber, 1982). Such findings suggest that OBEs may be related to fantasy proneness and cognitive-perceptual schizotypy, which are correlated with each other. Future research should focus on the role of different types of OBEs in personality and cognitive processing. Irwin (1985) has defined an out-of-body experience (OBE) as an experience in which the "self," or center of awareness, seems to the person having the OBE to temporarily occupy a position spatially remote from the body. This

Gender Differences in Sensation Seeking and Paranormal/Anomalous Experiences

“…Moreover, several of the high correlations between sensation seeking and paranormal/anomalous experiences I obtained may be due to the fact that some paranormal events, such as out of body experiences and ESP are relatively rare [10,22], or, as in the case of sense of presence, occur spontaneously and unexpectedly [20]. Hence, if sensation seekers engage in such potentially low-stimulation activities as out of body experiences, they may become bored.…”

“…The internal reliability of the SSS is good, with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .87 and test-retest reliability has also been found to be acceptable for Spanish version [19]. Anomalous Experiences Questionnaire was used in the present study [20,21,22], which it is a 10-item self-report inventory. Each item has a likert scale, being 0= Never, 1= One time, 2= Sometimes and 3= Multiples times.…”

Experiencias fuera del cuerpo: una evaluación del constructo de transliminalidad y límite “fino” como anomalía cognitivo-perceptual

“…Los datos que confirman que las personas con experiencias fuera del cuerpo tienen más experiencias anómalas, transliminalidad y límite "fino" también guardan coherencia conceptual con aquellos estudios que han encontrado que la propensión a la fantasía parece ser predictora de ciertas experiencias paranormales (para una revisión, ver Parra, 2010). Otros estudios también sugieren que la EFC se relaciona con procesos cognitivos relacionados con alucinaciones visuales y táctiles, y propensión a la fantasía (Alvarado y Zingrone, 1997).…”

Asociaciones entre la calidad dormital, esquizotipia y experiencias perceptuales inusuales

“…Teniendo en cuenta que las experiencias paranormales comparten muchas características con las alucinaciones (e.g., Parra, 2009aParra, , 2009bParra, , 2010aParra, , 2010bParra, , 2012aParra, , 2012b, los patrones de sueño deberían ayudarnos a comprender mejor ciertas experiencias anómalas. Por ejemplo, personas que han experimentado experiencias cercanas a la muerte (Greyson, 1983) presentan sueños REM significativamente más cortos que quienes no han tenido estas experiencias (Britton & Bootzin, 2004).…”

“…Horne (2000) argumenta que en alguna medida, el sueño REM es "opcional" y potencialmente reemplazable, por ejemplo, por la meditación (diurna). La meditación también se asocia a ciertas experiencias perceptuales inusuales y otros autores (McCreery, 1997;Parra, 2010aParra, , 2010b postulan que las experiencias fuera del cuerpo también pueden relacionarse con procesos dormitales que se proyectan en el estado de vigilia debido a un aumento (o disminución) de la excitación cortical.…”