Search

This study investigated relationships between thin mental boundary functioning, creativity, imaginary companions (ICs), and anomalous ‘(entity) encounter experiences.’ A convenience sample of 389 respondents completed the Revised Transliminality Scale, Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, Creative Experiences Questionnaire, Survey of Strange Events, and a measure of Childhood Imaginary Companions. Competing testing with path analysis found that the best-fitting model was consistent with the causal chain of ‘Thin Boundaries (transliminality and schizotypy) → Creative Experiences → ICs → (Entity) Encounter Experiences.’ These results suggest that deep-types of ICs (i.e., showing apparent independent agency) are perhaps most accurately characterized as syncretic cognitions versus hallucination-like experiences. The authors examine these findings relative to study limitations, as well as discussing the need for future research that approaches ICs as a special mental state that can facilitate allied altered-anomalous experiences. In this context, this study furthered understanding of relationships between conscious states related to mental boundaries, childhood imaginary companions, creative experiences, and entity encounters.

This study investigated relationships between thin mental boundary functioning, creativity, imaginary companions (ICs), and anomalous ‘(entity) encounter experiences.’ A convenience sample of 389 respondents completed the Revised Transliminality Scale, Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, Creative Experiences Questionnaire, Survey of Strange Events, and a measure of Childhood Imaginary Companions. Competing testing with path analysis found that the best-fitting model was consistent with the causal chain of ‘Thin Boundaries (transliminality and schizotypy) → Creative Experiences → ICs → (Entity) Encounter Experiences.’ These results suggest that deep-types of ICs (i.e., showing apparent independent agency) are perhaps most accurately characterized as syncretic cognitions versus hallucination-like experiences. The authors examine these findings relative to study limitations, as well as discussing the need for future research that approaches ICs as a special mental state that can facilitate allied altered-anomalous experiences. In this context, this study furthered understanding of relationships between conscious states related to mental boundaries, childhood imaginary companions, creative experiences, and entity encounters.

© Copyright © 2020 Dagnall, Drinkwater, O’Keeffe, Ventola, Laythe, Jawer, Massullo, Caputo and Houran. This paper contains a narrative overview of the past 20-years of environmental research on anomalous experiences attributed to “haunted house.” This exercise served as a much-needed update to an anthology of noteworthy overviews on ghosts, haunts, and poltergeists (Houran and Lange, 2001b). We also considered whether new studies had incorporated certain recommendations made in this anthology. Our search revealed a relative paucity of studies (n = 66) on environmental factors that ostensibly stimulate haunt-type experiences. This literature was diverse and often lacked methodological consistency and adherence to the prior suggestions. However, critical consideration of the content revealed a recurring focus on six ambient variables: embedded (static) cues, lighting levels, air quality, temperature, infrasound, and electromagnetic fields. Their relation to the onset or structure of witness reports showed mostly null, though sometimes inconsistent or weak outcomes. However, such research as related to haunts is arguably in its infancy and new designs are needed to account better for environmental and architectural phenomenology. Future studies should therefore address four areas: (i) more consistent and precise measurements of discrete ambient variables; (ii) the potential role of “Gestalt influences” that involve holistic environment-person interactions; (iii) individual differences in attentional or perceptual sensitivities of percipients to environmental variables; and (iv) the role of attitudinal and normative influences in the interpretation of environmental stimuli. Focused scrutiny on these issues should clarify the explanatory power of evolutionary-environmental models for these and related anomalous experiences.

© 2019 by Parapsychology Press. We review conceptualizations and measurements of base (or core) experiences commonly attributed to haunts and poltergeists (i.e., “ghostly episodes”). Case analyses, surveys, controlled experiments, and field studies have attempted to gauge anomalous experiences in this domain, albeit with methods that do not cumulatively build on earlier research. Although most approaches agree, to an extent, on the base experiences or events that witnesses report, the literature lacks a standard operationalization that can be used to test the factor structure of these occurrences or allow meaningful comparisons of findings across studies. Towards filling this gap, we identified 28 base experiences that include subjective (or psychological) experiences, more typical of haunts, and objective (or physical) manifestations, more common to poltergeist-like disturbances. This qualitatively-vetted list is proposed as the foundation for new measurement approaches, research designs, and analytical methods aimed to advance model-building and theory-formation.

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Research suggests a “Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S)” defined by recurrent and systematic perceptions of anomalous subjective and objective anomalies. Such signs or symptoms are traditionally attributed to “spirits and the supernatural,” but these themes are hypothesised to morph to “surveillance and stalking” in reports of “group-(or gang) stalking,” We tested this premise with a quali-quantitative exercise that mapped group-stalking experiences from a published first-hand account to a Rasch measure of haunt-type anomalies. This comparison found significant agreement in the specific “signs or symptoms” of both phenomena. Meta-patterns likewise showed clear conceptual similarities between the phenomenology of haunts and group-stalking. Findings are consistent with the idea that both anomalous episodes involve the same, or similar, attentional or perceptual processes and thereby support the viability of the HP-S construct.

Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection