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Spontaneous Paper – Notes Wilde, D. and Murray, C.D. (in press) The evolving self: finding meaning in near-death experiences using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Mental Health, Religion and Culture. Abstract Objectives: A variety of anomalous experiences have been reported in the research literature as enhancing, rather than indicating poor mental health. The out-of-body experience (OBE), where the person‟s self and body are phenomenologically separate, is a relatively common anomalous experience. The aim of this study was to investigate the experience of an OBE and its resultant after-effects. Design: An idiographic, phenomenological, qualitative approach was adopted. Methods: Three participants took part in recorded face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results: IPA found experients perceived their OBEs as occurring at times of personal significance. They were inextricably linked with participants‟ lives beyond their point of occurrence and played an adaptive role in response to difficult life events. The process of integration was helped or hindered by the varying reactions from others to the disclosure of the OBE. Conclusions: The idiographic nature of this study was instrumental in highlighting the subtle personal and social factors that influenced how the OBE was managed and integrated. Key words: Anomalous experiences; out-of-body experiences; Interpretative phenomenological analysis; mental health; qualitative methodology 1 Introduction The Out-of-Body Experience (OBE), whereby “the centre of consciousness appears to the experient to occupy temporarily a position which is spatially remote from his/her body” (Irwin, 1985, p.5) has been a topic of research in the psychological sciences for over 100 years (Alvarado, 1992). Whilst the experience incorporates a variety of features, those most commonly reported are: a floating sensation, seeing the physical body from a remote point in space, and the impression of travelling to distant locations (Alvarado, 2000). Prevalence in the general population is widely considered to be between 10-12% (Alvarado, op cit), rising to about 25% in student populations (Gow, Lang & Chant, 2004), and 82% in those with a strong interest in the paranormal (Alvarado & Zingrone, 1999). The OBE tends to be a phenomenon that the person will experience more than once. Murray and Fox (2005) found that 79% of their OBE respondents experienced at least two OBEs, 39% at least five, and 17% had experienced more than 10. Previous research has aimed to „profile‟ people who have OBEs; in order to describe their personality, or to predict what kind of personality would be most likely to have an OBE. People who have had out-of body experiences (OBErs) do score higher on measures of dissociation, especially somatoform dissociation (Irwin, 2000, Murray & Fox, 2005), fantasy proneness (Gow et al., 2004), paranormal belief (Tobacyk & Mitchell, 1987), and display a propensity to become more psychologically absorbed (Myers, Austrin, Grisso & Nickeson, 1983) than their non- OBE counterparts. A considerable body of psychological research has been conducted with the theoretical assumption that the OBE is some form of hallucination (Blackmore, 1984) and that it may be linked to mental health disorders, such as depersonalisation 2 (Whitlock, 1978) or schizophrenia (Rawcliffe, 1959). However, there appears to be no evidence linking OBEs to psychosis (McCreery & Claridge, 1995) depersonalisation (Twemlow, 1989) or schizophrenic body boundary disturbances (Blackmore, 1986a). One personality variable that has received considerable research attention is that of schizotypy, in particular the fully dimensional model proposed by Claridge (1997). This model portrays schizotypy as a psychological concept which encompasses a range of personality traits related to psychosis and schizophrenia, varying over a normally distributed continuum from psychological good health to psychological ill health (Goulding, 2004). This is distinctly different to the categorical view of the same illnesses, where someone either has the illness, or does not. Schizophrenia and psychosis, on the other hand, are considered to be breaks in normal psychological functioning, which make up a second continuum, with schizotypal personality disorder at one end and advanced schizophrenic psychosis at the other (Claridge, 1997). Claridge‟s model effectively decouples the concept of schizotypy from that of mental illness whilst still allowing for certain aspects of schizotypy, particularly at the higher end of the spectrum, to be causally linked to such illnesses (McCreery & Claridge, 1995). Claridge‟s model comprises four factors, 1) aberrant perceptions and beliefs (sub- clinical forms of positive symptomatology), 2) cognitive disorganisation with anxiety (sub-clinical forms of thought blocking and high social anxiety), 3) introvertive anhedonia (sub-clinical forms of the negative symptomatology of schizophrenia), and 4) asocial behaviour, such as social non-conformity, impulsiveness and disinhibition of mood. Evidence from research into this model suggests that schizotypy, although associated with psychopathology, may also have an adaptive value, particularly where 3 anomalous experiences are concerned (McCreery & Claridge, 2002). For instance, McCreery and Claridge (1995) found that OBErs scored higher on the positive factor of aberrant perceptions and beliefs than non-OBErs, moderately on neuroticism, and low on physical anhedonia and social anxiety. In another study (McCreery & Claridge, 2002) the same authors found that the only discriminating factor between OBErs and non-OBErs was the aberrant perceptions and beliefs factor. Research on schizotypy has been extended to other anomalous experiences, some of which have been linked with OBEs. In a review of the literature, Goulding (2005) listed 18 studies conducted over a 25 year period that showed people who were believers in, or who claimed to have experienced, paranormal phenomena also scored high on measures of schizotypy. Goulding‟s research adds support to McCreery and Claridge‟s (2002) view of the healthy schizotype, which they define as people who are fully functional in everyday life “in spite of, and even in part because of, their anomalous perceptual and other experiences” (p.141). A criticism of much of the previous work on the OBE is that it takes a largely „top- down‟ approach rather than first eliciting such experiences in detail before forming testable hypotheses which would provide the best psychological insight into the phenomenon (Alvarado 1997). In particular, Alvarado and Zingrone (2003) have been critical of the lack of systematic work conducted to elicit the impact the OBE has on the experient. In so doing, research in this area has tended to overlook the relevance or the significance of the experience for the person having it. While this previous work has added substantially to our understanding of the OBE, there is a need for an examination of the longitudinal after-effects experienced by people who have them, and the nature of those after-effects. To date there has been no in-depth examination of the lived experience of having an OBE and what meaning 4 OBErs attribute to that experience. Such work would be expected to contribute to an understanding of how anomalous experience (or aberrant perceptions) may contribute to, or impact upon the mental well-being of such persons. The present research aimed to address these issues. Method Study Design A qualitative, phenomenological approach, that of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, 1996), was adopted which enabled an in-depth analysis of, and engagement with, individual accounts of OBEs. This was achieved through the use of face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. The use of IPA to study the OBE here is focussed upon the interpretation and meaning of such experiences, drawing out the implications for mental health issues. It makes no claim, nor do we have an interest here, with regards to whether these experiences are of 'real' veridical events. Sample Sampling in IPA research is purposive; that is, it seeks the experiences and opinions of the most appropriate persons for the particular research issue being addressed. Although, there are various factors that may influence the sample size of a study, Smith and Osborn (2008) point out that there is no objectively finite sample size for an IPA study. The intense analysis of individual accounts and the examination of shared meaning, along with any nuances in these meanings, are reflective of the idiographic characteristic of IPA which is generally characterized by small and homogeneous samples (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999). To meet these requirements three participants (two males and one female) were recruited; one participant was 5 recruited at a local paranormal annual conference day. The remaining two participants were recruited from a database of respondents who had taken part in previous research studies and who had given their contact details with the wish to take part in future research. Mark (age 30) estimated he had had between 20 and 50 OBEs. These had begun in childhood. A typical OBE for Mark began when he experienced a variety of physical sensations usually beginning with a buzzing or vibration that ran up and down his body; a stage of sleep paralysis followed and a feeling of pressure on his chest area. This was followed by a period of light-headedness before finally he felt he had exited his physical
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