The Mystery

Daydreaming is the stream of consciousness that detaches from current, external tasks when attention drifts to a more personal and internal direction. This phenomenon is common in people's daily life shown by a large-scale study in which participants spend 47% of their waking time on average on daydreaming. There are various names of this phenomenon including mind wandering, fantasy, spontaneous thoughts, etc. Daydreaming is the term used by Jerome L. Singer whose research programs laid the foundation for nearly all the subsequent research in this area today. The list of terminologies assigned by researchers today puts challenges on identifying the common features of the phenomenon, in this case daydreaming, and on building collective work among researchers. There are many types of daydreams, and there is no consistent definition among psychologists. However, the characteristic that is common to all forms of daydreaming meets the criteria for mild dissociation. Also, the impacts of

Despite the ubiquitous Hollywood depiction of hypnosis as a trance, investigators have had an extremely difficult time pinpointing any specific 'markers'—indicators—of hypnosis that distinguish it from other states. The legendary American psychiatrist Milton Erickson claimed that hypnosis is marked by several unique features, including posthypnotic amnesia and 'literalism'—a tendency to take questions literally, such as responding 'Yes' to the question “Can you tell me what time it is?” We have already seen that posthypnotic amnesia is not an inherent accompaniment of hypnosis, so Erickson was wrong on that score. Moreover, research by Green, Binghamton University psychologist Steven Jay Lynn and their colleagues shows that most highly hypnotizable subjects do not display literalism while hypnotized; moreover, participants asked to simulate hypnosis demonstrate even higher rates of literalism than highly hypnotizable subjects do. Other experts, such as the late

Charles T. Tart, PhD discusses a couple of altered states; dreaming and hypnosis. He describes his concept of 'state specific research' using lucid dreaming as a clear example. Excerpts from the film, Altered States, with actor William Hurt are shown as they refer to Tart and his work. He also reviews the significance of altered states of consciousness for psychology in general as well as for our understanding of spirituality and the soul. He suggests that different states of consciousness are like different tools, each with unique capabilities. Charles T. Tart, PhD, is emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, as well as the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He is a past-president of the Parapsychological Association. He has published over 100 scientific papers in parapsychology. He is editor of several anthologies including Altered States of Consciousness, Transpersonal Psychologies, Mind at Large, and Body Mind Spirit: Exploring the Paraps

“I was making a basic comparison between the state of consciousness of a baby and that of a so-called mature adult. Respectively, what we would call undifferentiated and differentiated. The adult consciousness being highly selective, and the baby consciousness being very open and hardly selective at all, and therefore unable to distinguish what adults consider to be the important things, which have to do with the conventions and rules that the positive aspects—whether they be called good, or pleasant, or life-giving, and so on—must prevail over the negative aspects. And I went on to show that this contrast between the two views of the world has another marked characteristic: that, in the case of the baby who hasn’t been trained or told about the difference between himself and all that is defined as ‘other’ than himself, doesn’t distinguish between voluntary behavior and involuntary occurrence.” — Alan Watts https://youtu.be/05kZAn3xX4E