Cases of the Reincarnation Type (CORT) involve individuals—typically young children—who report memories they claim are from previous lives. One recurring observation is the apparent “intermission time” between the death of the putatively identified previous person and the child’s birth. However, systematic large-scale analyses of related factors remain limited. The present study analyzed 1,678 cases with an ostensibly identified past person, to test whether intermission time correlates with death characteristics and whether any observed association persists after accounting for variables likely to facilitate bias. Death unexpectedness and naturalness were both significantly associated with intermission time (both p < .001), with median intervals decreasing from approximately 21 months at the lowest level of death unexpectedness to 12 months at the highest level—representing about a 40–45% reduction. The unexpectedness of death remained the strongest unique predictor in multiple regression. The association persisted across five moderation analyses examining verification quality, memory contamination, family association, social status motivation, and reincarnation belief. Notably, the effect was stronger among families without reincarnation beliefs, opposite to what a cultural construction hypothesis would predict. Although the data are observational and subject to potential selection biases, our findings replicate and extend prior reports, suggesting that temporal patterns in CORT cases may reflect a systematic phenomenon not readily accounted for by existing psychosocial frameworks. Further research using contemporary cases is needed to clarify underlying mechanisms and theoretical implications.
In comparison to adults, little is known about children's near-death experiences (NDEs).A review of the literature shows a scarcity of studies that directly involve children and an absence of direction for this area of work.This presents challenges for researchers who want to develop studies with children and generate more knowledge around the NDE.From a phenomenological perspective, children may be a crucial cohort for the investigation of consciousness at the time of death and they should be included more in fields such as NDE and Consciousness studies.This article aims to address this paucity in evidence by performing a literature review of studies on children's NDEs and proposes some future directions for involving children in near-death research.
While mindful-based social-emotional learning has been widely studied in education, its application to academic leadership remains underexplored. This study, using a constructivist grounded theory approach, examines the lived experiences of 16 university leaders regarding mindful-based social-emotional learning. Data were collected through open-ended questions, narrative frames, and semistructured interviews, leading to theoretical saturation. The analysis revealed two interrelated levels of mindful leadership. Surface-level practices included mindful communication, transparent and trust-based governance, and conflict management, behaviors that promote participatory dialogue, build institutional trust, and reframe conflict as an opportunity for collaboration. At a deeper level, participants described internal capacities such as self-regulation, emotional well-being, ethical decision making, and a commitment to institutional improvement. Building on these findings, this study introduces the concept of dual-level mindful socioemotional leadership, a novel theoretical framework that integrates surface practices with deep capacities, thereby extending existing models of mindful and ethical leadership in higher education.
Depersonalization, characterized by experiences of detachment from one's thoughts, feelings, or sense of self, reflects a disruption in typical consciousness processes. Given that an intact sense of self is critical for goal-directed behavior, the present study examined whether the severity of depersonalization was associated with lower academic persistence in college students. Specifically, we examined the relations between depersonalization and college students' intention and perceived behavioral control to graduate, and whether these associations were moderated by sex and student generation status. A sample of 150 American college students (59.3% women) completed self-report measures assessing depersonalization, intention to graduate, and perceived behavioral control in achieving graduation. Women reported significantly higher levels of depersonalization, greater intention to graduate, and higher perceived behavioral control compared with men. Consistent with the hypothesis, higher levels of depersonalization were associated with lower intention to graduate. Importantly, this association was moderated by sex: The negative association between depersonalization and graduation intention was significant only in men. These findings suggest that disruptions in self-related consciousness, as reflected in depersonalization symptoms, may be linked to reduced motivation toward long-term goals, such as degree attainment, particularly in men. Further research is needed to better understand the direction and mechanisms of this association. Understanding the broader implications of altered self-consciousness on functional outcomes may help guide efforts to support academic persistence in vulnerable populations.
Daydreaming is a universal human experience shaping our inner lives through creative engagement and extending to compulsive patterns that disrupt daily life. Although immersive and maladaptive daydreaming have only recently gained scientific recognition, literary authors have long described characters whose inner worlds reflect these behaviors. This study explores how classic and modern fiction literature, written before immersive and maladaptive daydreaming were officially recognized, depict immersive fantasy, escapism, and the risks of excessive daydreaming. Drawing on a range of historical, cultural, and social contexts, we identified recurring themes of creativity, identity exploration, emotional coping, and distress associated with immersive, maladaptive fantasy. These stories illuminate the continuum between constructive imagination and pathological escapism, offering rich phenomenological accounts that parallel contemporary clinical descriptions. Such pre-21st-century depictions reinforce the clinical reality of maladaptive daydreaming by demonstrating its consistent phenomenology over past centuries. Our findings highlight the value of interdisciplinary dialogue. Fictional depictions of daydreaming can deepen our understanding of these ideas and contribute to discussions in mental health research and practice.
The aim of the study was to compare the neurophenomenology of high hypnotizables (highs) and low hypnotizables (lows) during hypnosis and ganzfeld contexts. This article focuses on the phenomenological reports. We collected phenomenological reports and electroencephalogram data from highs and lows during counterbalanced sessions of hypnosis with suggestions to have mystical experiences or exposed to multisensory homogenization (ganzfeld). We conducted quantitative analyses of depth reports of hypnosis and of questionnaires of dissociative experiences, changes in state of consciousness, mystical experiences, and sense of surrender. Experience sampling reports from the sessions were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. As compared with lows, highs had significantly higher scores of state depth, attention to internal processes, dissociated control, visual imagery, positive affect, and mystical experiences. During the sessions, the lows reported more everyday thoughts than the highs, whereas the latter reported more sensations of being out of the body/flying and marginally of greater imagery (and they were the only ones who reported a sense of unity). The conditions (hypnosis vs. ganzfeld) only differed in more frequent reports of sense of union in hypnosis and marginally more frequent reports of external perception in ganzfeld. There were striking phenomenological differences between highs and lows, but the conditions themselves produced very similar experiences, except for the specific hypnotic suggestions of unity. When not very different inductions/triggers of alterations of consciousness are compared, trait individual differences are likely to be more impactful than differences between the inductions.
How do people appraise their past and imagined future experiences of dissociation? Over three experiments, 1,482 people brought to mind experiences of dissociation and rated how negative, positive, and neutral those experiences were when they happened or would be in the future. People remembered their past dissociative experiences as most often neutral, and more often positive than negative. This pattern persisted among a subset of experiences associated with psychopathology and a subset of people who dissociate to levels that might be clinically interesting. When people were asked about their future experiences, their expectations depended on whether they had experienced that type of dissociation before-novel experiences were rated as more likely to be negative (and less likely positive or neutral) than familiar experiences. These findings further our understanding of dissociative experiences and suggest that-relative to other experiences-people might draw less on past experiences of dissociation to predict future ones.
Developmental synesthetes report automatic supplementary perceptions to a variety of stimuli (e.g., some words evoke colors). Some synesthetes also develop more sporadic synesthesia during emotional or absorbed states associated with activities such as meditation, sexual intercourse, or music listening. These state-induced synesthesias are sometimes accompanied by consciousness alterations, but the presence of the latter in daily life has not been investigated in detail. The present study examined 17 synesthetes who developed sexual synesthesia in addition to other state-induced synesthesias. Synesthetes and controls underwent a semistructured interview and completed standardized measures of consciousness alterations during sexual intercourse and in daily life. Significantly more synesthetes than controls reported alterations of bodily self-consciousness (body schema alterations, out-of-body experiences) both during sexual intercourse and in daily life. They also reported synesthesia involving interoception, like pain or visceral sensations, and the presence of these interoceptive synesthesias predicted alterations in bodily self-consciousness, whereas the presence of common language-color synesthesia did not. The results suggest that state-induced synesthesias are associated with a hyperexcitability of brain networks linked to bodily self-consciousness.
Prior research demonstrated the potential of virtual reality (VR) to induce mysticalexperiences (ME) in a sizable minority of participants. However, the specific designrequirements for successfully inducing ME in VR remain poorly defined, and thepsychophysiological correlates of ME in VR are unknown. The current experimentcompared subjective and psychophysiological responses to a fantastical guided imageryscript versus a comparably realistic guided meditation, delivered in both VR and standardeyes-open two-dimensional viewing conditions among 80 young adults. While a significantminority of participants experienced a complete ME during guided imagery (28%) andmeditation (18%) in VR, not a single participant did so during either two-dimensionalviewing modality. Subjective experiences that were reportedly stronger in VR also includedabsorption, vividness, sense of presence, awe, interest, serenity, being mindfully observant,and beauty. Further, VR was associated with indicators of increased psychophysiologicalarousal on electroencephalography and electrocardiography measures. Comparably, fewdifferences between the imagery and meditation conditions were noted. We conclude thatguided imagery of a fantastical encounter in VR, as well as meditating in VR, may be twooptions for inducing ME in at least a sizable minority of young adults. However, the specificdesign requirements for maximizing the potential for ME in VR warrant further study.
Mind-wandering is associated with negative mood and depression. Factors potentially affecting this relationship include negative cognitions (i.e., perseverative thinking and brooding) and meta-awareness (i.e., explicit awareness of thoughts). However, how meta-awareness contributes to the relationship is unclear. Because meta-awareness characteristics (e.g., not being aware of our thoughts) overlap with dissociation, this study investigated a five-chain serial mediation model predicting that more mind-wandering would be related to more negative cognitions (perseverative thinking or brooding), which in turn would be related to greater dissociation, and decreased meta-awareness activation-to avoid/detach from the negative cognitions-which ultimately is associated with increased depression symptomology. Two hundred sixty-one crowdsourced participants completed mind-wandering, dissociation, brooding, meta-awareness, and depression measures. We used serial mediation analyses to test the proposed models. Perseverative thinking, brooding, dissociation, and meta-awareness independently mediated the relationship between mind-wandering and depression. Our five-chain serial mediation analyses did not support our proposed model. Instead, a four-chain serial mediation analysis supported a model that showed greater mind-wandering was associated with increased negative cognitions, which were associated with greater dissociation (amnestic, depersonalization, absorption), and in turn higher depression symptomology. Limitations include meta-awareness and dissociation measurements, recruitment of a nonclinical sample, and a cross-sectional design. People's mind-wandering is related to depression through its association with greater negative cognitions, which, in turn, is associated with increased dissociation across all three subtypes (absorption, amnestic, depersonalization/derealization).
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are efficacious nonpharmacologic treatments for chronic pain, yet the psychological mechanisms mediating the pain-relieving effects of MBIs remain incompletely understood. One potential mechanism may involve nondual awareness, a state of consciousness characterized by attenuation of the subject-object duality, reduced self-referential thinking, and an increased sense of connectedness with others and the world-at-large. We conducted a secondary analysis of pooled data from two randomized controlled trials (N=480) investigating the effects of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), an 8-week MBI, in patients receiving long-term opioid analgesic therapy for chronic pain. We tested whether nondual awareness, as measured by the Non-Dual Awareness Dimensional Assessment (NADA), mediated the effect of MORE on chronic pain severity and interference. Results demonstrated that MORE was associated with significantly lower chronic pain severity (p=.014) and pain interference (p<.001) compared to a supportive group therapy control condition. Moreover, participants in the MORE condition exhibited significant increases in nondual awareness compared to the control group (p<.001). Multivariate path analyses revealed that increases in nondual awareness significantly mediated reductions in chronic pain severity (p=.002) and pain interference (p=.01). Nondual awareness outperformed the mindfulness facet of nonreactivity as a mediator of mindfulness' pain relieving effects. Study findings demonstrate a link between mindfulness-induced nondual awareness and alleviation of chronic pain. Future research should elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms of this relationship. Moreover, studies could identify other potential interventions that produce nondual awareness (e.g., psychedelics) to address chronic pain, possibly in conjunction with mindfulness-based interventions.
Experimental parapsychology research has long examined whether individuals can identify hidden targets without conventional sensory cues, typically using forced-choice or free-response paradigms. This paper presents a computerized task in which participants attempt to guess the location of a hidden target on a screen, along with an analytical framework that evaluates whether performance exceeds chance. After describing the statistical approach, which uses a continuous measure of trial-wise response accuracy, we present data from a single participant whose performance was previously described as above chance in similar studies. Overall, performance did not exceed chance; however, a trend toward higher accuracy, though not surviving correction for multiple comparisons, was observed in one condition. Subsequent analyses using Monte Carlo simulations indicated that subtle differences in the spatial distribution of the random targets partly accounted for this effect. We discuss how the present framework differs from conventional forced- choice guessing tasks and emphasize the importance of post hoc analyses for drawing valid statistical inferences.
Research in attentional capture reveals a tendency for attention to be attracted to visually salient, unique pop-out stimuli. This tendency interferes with visual search. We hypothesized that the pop-out distractor stimuli are processed quite deeply. In a variant of a visual search task, participants were instructed to find a target stimulus (e.g., a green circle) among other stimuli (e.g., green squares), including a single pop-out distractor (e.g., a red square). Inside each shape, there was an arithmetic stimulus (e.g., 3 + 1). In the critical experimental conditions, the answers to the arithmetic problems of the distractor and target stimuli either matched or mismatched. A match would be when the target presents, for example, "3 + 2" and the distractor presents "4 + 1." We found a significant difference in reaction time between the match and mismatch conditions. This finding reveals that, in visual search tasks, pop-out distractors are processed more deeply than one might assume.
Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is a recently defined clinical condition characterized by an excessively immersive use of fantasy and imagination, which can significantly impact both professional and social life. MD shares functional characteristics with behavioral addictions (e.g., problematic social media use and hypersexuality) that may stem from underlying narcissistic personality functioning. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to examine whether higher levels of MD are associated with higher levels of hypersexual behavior and/or social network addiction. A further aim is to explore if pathological narcissism is associated with MD and to the two behavioral addictions. Additionally, we aim to investigate the role of narcissism in partially mediating the associations between MD and the two behavioral addictions, respectively. In a cross-sectional online sample of 559 adults (M = 27.16, SD = 10.21, 68% women), MD was moderately associated with hypersexual behavior (r = .40, 95% CI [0.33, 0.47]), problematic social media use (r = .28, 95% CI [0.20, 0.36]), and narcissism (r = .40, 95% CI [0.33, 0.47]. Path analyses using bootstrapped indirect effects indicated that narcissism partially mediated both associations (indirect bs approximate to .33-.38, 95% CIs [0.22, 0.46] and [0.26, 0.52]). The models accounted for 19%-24% of the variance in MD (R & sup2; = .19 and .24, p < .001). The associations observed in this study support a link between addictive behaviors and MD, with narcissistic functioning appearing to play a significant role as a common underlying mechanism. A psychological intervention focusing on narcissistic vulnerabilities and addictive behaviors may be important, especially in the young adult population, to prevent the development of chronicity.
The study examines the neuropsychological effects of social media use on cognitive and relational functioning. A randomized controlled trial (n = 300) compared three groups: digital abstinence, moderate use (30 min/day), and intensive use (over 3 hr/day). Content typology was also analyzed for its impact on cognitive flexibility. The study lasted 8 weeks. The research protocol combined qualitative and quantitative approaches: Neurocognitive tests were supplemented with an assessment of the psychosocial condition of the participants. Group A (abstinence) showed improvements in attention (+27.3%), working memory (+24.8%), reduced anxiety (-28.2%), and higher empathic accuracy (79.3%). Group B remained stable (+/- 5.2%) with a slight anxiety reduction (-8.5%). Group C showed cognitive decline (attention -18.7% and memory -12.6%) and increased anxiety (+16.8%). Time-management interventions partly mitigated deterioration. Findings support integrating digital literacy programs emphasizing time regulation, content discernment, and metacognitive strategies into educational systems to prevent cognitive decline. Future research should use neuroimaging and longitudinal designs.
Nondual awareness (NDA) includes the constructs of self-transcendence and bliss, both of which are associated with positive mental health outcomes. Increasing such experiences may aid those living with rheumatoid arthritis to manage their pain. Contemplative traditions emphasize meditation as an effective means for inducing NDA, however, such techniques often require specialized training and lengthy practice. This study explored the effect of a brief positive emotion generative meditation (savoring meditation) on NDA experiences in a secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Patients (n = 44) were randomly assigned to savoring meditation or a slow breathing control group (four 20-min sessions). Self-report measures of NDA were assessed using the Nondual Awareness Dimensional Assessment-Trait Scale at baseline and posttreatment. Baseline measures of savoring beliefs and mindfulness were also assessed and modeled as NDA moderators. Linear mixed effects models indicated significantly greater increases in Nondual Awareness Dimensional Assessment-Trait Scale total scores (b = 5.32, p = .031, 95% CI [0.49, 10.15]) and measures of self-transcendence (b = 4.64, p = .010, 95% CI [1.13, 8.16]) among those in the savoring meditation condition. Neither savoring beliefs nor mindfulness moderated these effects (p > .05). These findings provide preliminary evidence that a brief savoring meditation training program increases trait measures of NDA in those with rheumatoid arthritis. Future research in larger samples should investigate how such NDA experiences prospectively influence clinical outcomes.
