Alejandro Parra

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

In an out-of-body experience (OBE), the “self,” or center of awareness, seems to temporarily occupy a position spatially remote from ones 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.

La "visión del aura" como experiencia alucinatoria en individuos no-clinicos

Resumen Individuos que dicen ver el aura/energia en forma espontanea tambien tienden a tener un nivel mas elevado de actividad imaginativa/fantaseosa o de propensidad a la fantasia. Hay indicadores que muestran que quienes experimentan alta capacidad de absorcion, usualmente experimentan tambien diversas formas parasomaticas, alucinaciones tactiles, y sensaciones de energias sutiles, asi como tambien ideacion esquizotipica, error perceptual, y mayor sinestesia. El objetivo es correlacionar puntajes de absorcion psicologica, disociacion, propensidad a la fantasia, intensidad de la imagineria, y tendencia a la esquizotipia en individuos que dicen ver el aura (N=83) en comparacion con un grupo sin experiencias (N=503). La muestra incluyo 678 estudiantes de psicologia de ambos sexos, 449 (76,5%) mujeres y 139 (23,5%) varones, cuya rango etario es de 17 y 57 anos (Media=25,54; SD=7,22) residentes en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y alrededores. Ningun estudiante recibio compensacion economica. Respecto a la experiencia de ver el aura, se formulo la pregunta de la siguiente manera: “?Ha tenido alguna experiencia usted es capaz de ver campos de energia o luces alrededor del cuerpo de una persona? (si duda, por favor, responda no)” . Si la respuesta es afirmativa, la pregunta tambien mapea tres dimensiones de la experiencia: frecuencia de la experiencia, explicacion subjetiva (racional, desconocida y paranormal) de la experiencia, y positivo o negativo impacto (emocional) en una escala Likert, siendo 1 positivo y 7 negativo. Los resultados muestran mayor nivel de esquizotipia cognitivo perceptual en comparacion con quienes no tienen la experiencia. Posiblemente, estas personas tienen mucha mas intensa vida imaginativa. Esta experiencia no necesariamente posee un significado psicopatologico para el individuo; quienes ven el aura simplemente podrian ser sensibles a las experiencias perceptuales anomalas. Palabras Clave: Aura; Propensidad a la fantasia; Absorcion; Formas parasomaticas; Imagineria.

Diferencias individuales en la frecuencia del recuerdo de sueños exóticos

This study aimed to assess personality traits amongst individuals who remember dreams, on the one hand, and to compare scores obtained in sleep disorder, neuroticism and extroversion, as well as indicators of proneness to schizotypy in individuals who cannot remember dreams, on the other. To this end, dream recall frequency was assessed as including strange, unusual and anomalous/paranormal content. Notably, few studies have explored individual differences in such dreams. A sample of 231 men and women with high (n=57) and low (n=174) scores on dream recall quality was clustered in this study. Three instruments that measure sleep stage and two which measure neuroticism, extroversion