Measuring Counterintuitiveness in Supernatural Agent Dream Imagery

Counterintuitiveness theory, which holds that concepts violating basic cognitive categories are especially memorable and likely to be treated as religious, is tested on religious dream imagery. The article adopts a fractionated approach focusing on supernatural agent (SA) cognitions as building blocks of purportedly religious dreaming. It maps contemporary theorizing about counterintuitiveness onto empirical data, exploring the pervasiveness of cognitive counterintuitiveness in dreams, testing Barrett's counterintuitiveness coding scheme for intercoder reliability, and examining base rate frequencies of counterintuitiveness in dream reports. The work aims to contribute methodology and cross-cultural base rates for future research on religious dream cognition.

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Abstract

The present article tests counterintuitiveness theory and methodology in relation to religious dream imagery using data on religious dream content. The endeavor adopts a "fractionated" or "piecemeal" approach where supernatural agent (SA) cognition is held to be a pivotal building block of purportedly religious dreaming. Such supernaturalistic conceptualizations manifest in a cognitive environment of dream simulation processes, threat detection, and violation of basic conceptual categorization characterized by counterintuitiveness. By addressing SA cognitions as constituents of allegedly religious dream imagery, additional theorizing and supporting data are presented in a growing body of research in the cognitive science of religion (e.g., Barrett et al., 2009;Hornbeck and Barrett, 2013;Barrett, 2017) and on religious dreaming (McNamara and Bulkeley, 2015;McNamara, 2016). The aim of the article is partly to map and align contemporary theorizing regarding counterintuitiveness and CI schemes with empirical qualification of the prosaic hypothesis about the predominance of supernaturalism in allegedly religious dreaming. This is done by (1) exploring the crucial topic of the pervasiveness of cognitive counterintuitiveness; (2) testing Barrett's counterintuitiveness coding and quantifying scheme (CI scheme) for counterintuitiveness in the context of religious dreaming by assessing intercoder reliability; and (3) exploring the prevalence and base rate frequency of counterintuitiveness in dream reports. This undertaking aims to contribute to the methodology and understanding of religious dream cognition, as well as to establish the cross-cultural base rates of counterintuitiveness in dreams for future research.