Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence, Second Edition
For individuals in the U.S. & U.S. territories
For much of the twentieth century, unusual perceptions and sensations, radical alterations of consciousness, and other extraordinary subjective experiences were ignored as legitimate topics of study in mainstream psychology. Recent years, however, have witnessed a burgeoning interest in the scientific study of anomalous experiences, thanks in no small part to the impact of the first edition of this book, which was published in 2000.
In this revised and thoroughly updated edition of their classic text, the editors have invited experts to provide definitive reviews and analyses of a wide range of anomalous experiences, from commonly documented sensations and perceptions like synesthesia, lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, and auditory and visual hallucinations, to rarer and more seemingly inexplicable experiences such as anomalous healing, past-lives, near-death, mystical experiences, and even alien abductions.
While acknowledging the difficulty inherent in studying any subjective experience, the authors nonetheless provide, along with new research in neuroscience, comprehensive scientific coverage of each of these experiences, through its prevalence and etiology, phenomenology, aftereffects, any related psychopathology, theoretical explanations, and related clinical issues.
An integrative summary chapter is a new feature of this edition.
The book makes a compelling case for the inclusion of these marginalized and under-recognized experiences as not merely incidental, but essential to our understanding of human psychology.
Contributors
Acknoledgments
I. Conceptual and Methodological Considerations
- Introduction: Anomalous Experiences in Perspective
Etzel Cardeña, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner - Researching States of Consciousness and Anomalous Experiences
Etzel Cardeña and Ronald J. Pekala - Anomalous Experiences, Peculiarity, and Psychopathology
John G. Kerns, Nicole Karcher, Chitra Raghavan, and Howard Berenbaum
II. Anomalous Experiences
- Synesthesia: A Teeming Multiplicity
Lawrence E. Marks - Hallucinatory Experiences
Richard P. Bentall - Lucid Dreaming: Paradoxes of Dreaming Consciousness
Stephen LaBerge - Anomalous Self and Identity Experiences
Etzel Cardeña and Carlos S. Alvarado - Alien Abduction Experiences
Stuart Appelle, Steven Jay Lynn, Leonard Newman, and Anne Malaktaris - Psi-Related Experiences
Caroline Watt and Ian Tierney - Anomalous Healing Experiences
Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg - Past-Life Experiences
Antonia Mills and Jim B. Tucker - Near-Death Experiences
Bruce Greyson - Mystical Experience
David M. Wulff - Anomalous Experiences: An Integrative Summary
Etzel Cardeña, Stanley Krippner, and Steven Jay Lynn
Index
About the Editors
Etzel Cardeña, PhD, holds the endowned Thorsen Professorship in Psychology at Lund University, Sweden, where he directs the Center for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology.
He has published more than 250 books, articles, and chapters on anomalous experiences, hypnosis, dissociation, and acute reactions to trauma, and in 2011 he coeditied the two-volume Altering Consciousness: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. He was elected president of three different professional organizations and Fellow of APA and the Association for Psychological Science, among others.
His empirical, theoretical, clinical, and pedagogical contributions have received multiple awards from the University of Texas and various professional organization. He has also worked in México, the United States, and Sweden as a theater director, actor, and playwright.
Steven Jay Lynn, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and the director of the Psychological Clinic at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is a licensed psychologist and a diplomate in both clinical and forensic psychology.
Dr. Lynn is a fellow of many professional organizations, and he has received major awards from APA as well as the Chancellor's Award of the State University of NewYork for Scholarship and Creative Activities.
Dr. Lynn is a past president of APA Division 30 (Psychological Hypnosis), the founding editor of Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, and serves on 11 editorial boards, including the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. He has written or edited 20 books and published more than 290 book chapters and articles.
His research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and has been featured in many media venues, including the New York Times and popular magazines, as well as television programs including ABC's 20/20, the CBS Morning Show, Eye to Eye, the Discovery Channel, and an award-winning film documentary, Capturing the Friedmans.
Stanley Krippner, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Saybrook University. He was the 2002 recipient of APA's Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Development of International Psychology. He is a fellow of four APA divisions and past president of two. He has received the Ashley Montagu Peace Award and lifetime achievement awards from the International Association for the Study of Dreams and the Parapsychological Association.
This book brings home the importance of understanding human anomalous experience as a developmental phenomenon that goes beyond a potential form of mental illness. As psychologists, if we truly wish to understand the human experience, we need to explore the causes, effects, and cultural legacies of AEs. The editors of this book have taken the first steps to pull this information together for us using the methods that honor the outer truth of scientific evidence but do not disrespect the inner phenomenological truth of individual anomalous experience.
—PsycCRITIQUES
;){kind=link}