Traumatic and Mystical Experiences
Journal of Humanistic Psychology December 18, 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0022167814563143 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Citations | 24 |
| Key points | Argues that mystical and traumatic experiences are fundamentally similar because both involve the subject's encounter with nothingness. |
Abstract
This article examines the similarity between the mystical experience and the traumatic experience, the latter involving a fundamental threat to life or bodily integrity. Despite the necessary caution and reservations, there are many similarities between these two kinds of experience. Indeed, the resemblance is not restricted to a phenomenological description but is far more deeply rooted: a result of the subject’s encounter with nothingness. This comparison provides us with an opportunity to improve our understanding of both the traumatic and the mystical experience as well as phenomena such as Posttraumatic Growth and Spiritual Crisis.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mystical experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death | 1969 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Vectorial Cerebral Hemisphericity as Differential Sources for the Sensed Presence, Mystical Experiences and Religious Conversions | 1993 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mystical Experience and Religious Doctrine | 1982 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 10
- How does it feel to lack a sense of boundaries? A case study of a long-term mindfulness meditator. Consciousness and Cognition December 1, 2015
- Self-Boundary Dissolution in Meditation: A Phenomenological Investigation. Brain Sciences June 21, 2021
- Pattern Theory of Selflessness: How Meditation May Transform the Self-Pattern Mindfulness August 1, 2024
- Predictors and potentiators of psychedelic-occasioned mystical experiences Journal of Psychedelic Studies March 22, 2022
- Clarifying and measuring the characteristics of experiences that involve a loss of self or a dissolution of its boundaries. Consciousness and Cognition March 1, 2024
and 5 more in the library
Cites 4
- Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis Perceptual and Motor Skills December 1, 1983
- The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death Harvard Theological Review 1969
- “Dark Nights of the Soul”: Phenomenology and Neurocognition of Spiritual Suffering in Mysticism and Psychosis Review of General Psychology September 1, 2007
- A Cognitive Psychology of Mystical and Altered-State Experience Perceptual and Motor Skills April 1, 1984