Patterns of Occurrence of Four States of Consciousness as a Function of Trait Absorption.
Journal for person-oriented research – January 01, 2019
Source: PubMed
Summary
Individuals with high absorption experience a unique relationship with different states of consciousness. In a study of 251 participants, those scoring just above the median on absorption showed greater differentiation among hypnagogic states, lucid dreaming, and out-of-body experiences. Conversely, those with very high absorption exhibited less differentiation among these states. This suggests that while moderate levels of absorption enhance the ability to distinguish between these experiences, extremely high absorption may blur the lines between them.
Abstract
Four states of consciousness are considered here: the hypnagogic state (the transitional state between waking and sleeping); the hypnopompic state (the transitional state between sleeping and waking); lucid dreaming (insight to the fact that one is currently dreaming); and the out-of-the-body experience (perceiving the world from a location outside the physical body). There are different patterns of occurrence of experience with these states of consciousness, and the present data set deriving from a cross-sectional study (a convenience sample comprising 251 participants who had completed a battery of questionnaires, as reported in Glicksohn & Barrett, 2003), enables one to plot these configurations. There are two contrasting positions on the relationship that trait Absorption will bear on the pattern of occurrence of these different profiles of subjective experience, or configuration of profiles of states. One is that higher Absorption will entail more differentiation among these states of consciousness; the other is that higher Absorption will entail less differentiation among these states. Both positions find support in the present data set: higher Absorption entails more differentiation as one moves from those respondents scoring slightly lower than the median to those scoring slightly higher than the median on Absorption, whereas very high Absorption entails less differentiation relative to very low Absorption.