Phenomenological Differences among Self Hypnosis, Mindfulness Meditation, and Imaging
Daniel Brown, Michael Forte, Philip Rich, Gerald Epstein
Imagination, Cognition and Personality June 1, 1983 DOI: 10.2190/jwc1-axly-6r0l-g2nk (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Survey Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 122 |
| Population | Practitioners of self-hypnosis, waking dreaming, and mindfulness meditation |
| Interventions | Self-hypnosis Waking dreaming Mindfulness meditation |
| Measures | Profile of Trance, Imaging, and Meditation Experience (TIME) |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Citations | 20 |
| Key findings | Phenomenological dimensions in attention, thinking, memory, imagery, body sensations, emotions, time sense, reality sense, and sense of self distinguished the experiences of self-hypnosis, waking dreaming, and mindfulness meditation practitioners. Self-hypnosis involved self-referential thinking, memory changes, and intense emotions; waking dreaming emphasized emerging images with thematic unfolding and their own reality; mindfulness meditators reported difficulty managing distractions but greater bodily awareness and altered time and self perception with experience. The authors state the survey lacked the controls needed for causal analysis. |
Abstract
A survey of 122 subjects was conducted to investigate the differences in the phenomenological quality of the experiences engendered by three types of awareness discipline: self-hypnosis (21 subjects), waking dreaming (49 subjects) and mindfulness meditation (25 subjects from a 2-week retreat, and another group of twenty-seven subjects from a 2-day weekend retreat). A questionnaire, the Profile of Trance, Imaging, and Meditation Experience (TIME) was used in the survey Discriminant analyses were used to construct models of the differences in the phenomenological quality of the experiences among the three groups. A number of phenomenological dimensions, in the major areas of attention, thinking, memory, imagery, body sensations, emotions, time sense, reality sense, and sense of self, were found which could accurately distinguish among the experiences of practitioners of the three types of awareness training. Results show that while self hypnosis involves self-referential thinking, memory changes, and intense emotions, waking dreaming emphasizes the immediate impact of emerging images, which unfold in a thematic manner and have a sense of their own reality. Mindfulness meditators have difficulty managing distractions, but with experience learn greater awareness of bodily processes, and experience changes in the perception of time and self; mental processes seem to slow down, and awareness assumes an impersonal quality. No attributions as to the causes or sources of these phenomenological differences are made, as the survey was not large enough to provide comparison groups, subject matching, or other statistical controls necessary for causal analyses.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construct Validity of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire in Meditating and Nonmeditating Samples Experienced meditators and nonmeditating comparison groups | 2008 | Cross-sectional study | |
| Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling Adult participants | 2007 | Observational cross-sectional | n = 27 |
| Assessing mindfulness in children and adolescents: Development and validation of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM). School-aged children and adolescents | 2011 | Cross-sectional validation study | n = 1,413 |
| Mindfulness and self-compassion as predictors of psychological wellbeing in long-term meditators and matched nonmeditators Experienced meditators and demographically matched nonmeditators | 2012 | Cross-sectional study | n = 152 |
| Mechanisms of Action in the Inverse Relationship Between Mindfulness and Psychological Distress Undergraduates | 2008 | Cross-sectional, correlational |
Citations in the library
Cited by 4
- Meditation's impact on chronic illness. Holistic Nursing Practice 2003
- Direct comparisons between hypnosis and meditation: A mini-review. Frontiers in Psychology July 15, 2022
- Classes of multichannel EEG microstates in light and deep hypnotic conditions. Brain Topography 2007
- Differences in Experience among Mindfulness Meditators Imagination, Cognition and Personality September 1, 1987