Originally published as Peter Rogerson’s Northern Echoes, Magonia 23, July 1986

This article may be seen as a continuation of  Taken to the Limits. If that may be seen as looking at the ‘why?’ for a range of paranormal phenomena, then this piece reviews one set of experiences which may give some clues as to ‘how?’

As readers of Magonia know, not all the most important literature in our fields comes neatly packaged in books labeled ‘paranormal’ or ‘UFO’. One particular piece of work which I think should be brought to our readers attention is a study by Theodore X. Barker and Sheryl C. Wilson on ‘fantasy-prone personalities’.

To summarise the work, the authors found that of twenty-seven women, rated as ‘excellent hypnotic subjects’ in a study, all but one had profound fantasy lives, the fantasies often being of an hallucinatory intensity. The authors suggest that there is a small percentage of the population (about 4%), who although otherwise perfectly normal, fantasise much of the time. They experience these fantasies ‘as real as real’, and exhibit syndromes such as an ability to hallucinate voluntarily and profound hypnogogic imagery, as well as presenting superb hypnotic fantasy related performances and vivid memories of life experiences. They also claim, at least, talents as psychics and sensitives.

It is worth looking at some of the findings in rather more detail: As children the girls lived in a make-believe world much of the time; those who played with dolls and toy animals felt that these playthings were alive and possessed unique personalities (not just the pretend personalities of children’s conventional play).

As children almost all the fantasists believed in fairies, elves, etc. Many claimed to have seen, heard or even played with them. Even as adults they either still believe in them, or are not absolutely sure they do not exist. About half (compared with 8% in a control sample) had imaginary companions who were experienced with hallucinatory vividness.

These companions would take on the role of characters in a book, or other fantasy characters, extending such roles far beyond playtime. One child who fantasised she was a princess felt that she was a princess pretending to be an ordinary child.

Although these fantasies caused initial problems, the subjects usually learned to cope with the real world, for example by asking adults if they saw the same things as themselves. All learned to be secretive, many not even telling spouses or close family, although they may tell fantastic stories to strangers, and may believe such fantasies while telling them. They found that they must learn to concentrate when in hazardous situations to block out their fantasy life.

There are a number of factors which seem to stimulate this fantasism. They include: encouragement by parents or significant adults, often the children were isolated or lonely, bedridden, and needing to escape from a closed environment, and special_ life-situations such as precocious involvement in the arts.

As adults they remain absorbed for much of the time in hallucinatory fantasies, and cannot imagine life without them. They can experience anything whilst in their fantasy states, and during the fantasy do not question its reality. In some cases their fantasy world is much more vivid than reality and memories of fantasy and reality can become confused. These fantasies have an involuntary, automatic quality absent in the comparison group; this can present problem when driving, for instance. In this manner they can escape the routine boredom of everyday reality.

Fantasy-prone subjects have since a very early age been acutely aware of, and have focussed on, sensory experiences. They have vivid memories of their childhood.

The fantasy world can produce physiological effects – sexual fantasies can produce orgasm, violence on TV makes the subject feel ill; they experience fantasy heat and cold as real. 60% of the subjects had experienced a false pregnancy. It appears that they may have a high degree of voluntary control over physiological responses.

No fewer than 92% of the subjects claimed to be psychic in one form or another, with claims of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, seeing ‘auras’, affecting electrical devices, dowsing ability, facility to discerne spirits, etc. The authors examined the biographies of several psychics and found they were all fantasists.

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Fantasy-prone individuals can bring Magonia into our world and themselves enter into Magonia.

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The vast majority of the subjects (88% as against 8% in the control group) have had out of the body experiences. Some claim profound shamanic roles. Half experienced automatic writing, two thirds claimed healing abilities, six had profound religious experiences. 73% (16% in control group) had impressive experiences with apparitions; 64% (as against 8%) had frequent hypnogogic imagery. All ghost percipients experienced frequent hypnogogic imagery, though some who had hypnogogic imagery had not seen ghosts. It should be emphasised at this point that fantasisers now occupy a broad band on the introvert-extrovert scale, and the majority do not suffer from classic psychiatric disorders.

The authors note parallels from earlier studies, especially Schatzman’s ‘Ruth’. The implications of this study for our subjects are clear, and its importance to investigators undertaking ‘anamnesis’ type research cannot be overstressed. Already- some predictions can be made:

* All contactees and abductees will be fantasy-prone personalities (FPPs).
* The vast majority of CEIII percipients will be FPPs.
• At least one person in a ‘haunted house’ will be a FPP.

The same study applied to the general run of UFO percipients, witnesses to mystery animals, etc. should produce some very suggestive results. If a consistently high proportion of of such witnesses are FPPs this would demonstrate that the major component of such experiences lay in the psychology of the witness.

The study clearly shows that, for FPP’s at least, consensus reality is learned, not a’given’. What happens if ’significant adults’ do not cross-reference fantasy, but themselves confuse it with cogsensus reality? ‘Belief-oriented’ researchers, perhaps?

There seems little doubt that the fantasy prone personality shares many features with the classical shamanic personality as discussed by Eliade, and others. Like the shaman, the fantasy-prone individuals can bothe bring M agonia into our world, and themselves enter into Magonia – classical shamanic gifts.

Evaluating the FPP’s claims of wild talents, it is difficult to separate three possibilities:

1. The events took place in consensus reality, and could be independently verified.
2. The subjects really fantisised the experiences – the were ‘experienced’ when the subject says they were experienced.
3. The subjects fantisised to the interviewer that they had the experience: they are stories, believed in when being told.

Quite likely it is a mixture of all three, and here we see how the boundary fences between folklore and experience can easily fall

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Source:

WILSON, Sheryl C. and BARBER, Theodore X. ‘The fantasy prone personality: implications for understanding imagery, hypnosis and parapsychological phenomena’  in: SHEIK, Anees A. (Ed.) Imagery: Current Theory, Research and Application (Wiley Series on Personality Processes  John Wiley, 1983.

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This post is tagged fantasy prone, Northern Echoes, psychological explanations