[extropy-chat] The powerful impact of some non-veridical experiences

[Damien Broderick]

One impressive (if partisan and fallible) attempt to explore the induction 
of non-real experiences is described at length at

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/6521/

Back in 1977, before UFO abduction imagery was as pervasive as it is now, 
Dr. Lawson elicited from several good hypnotic subjects quite detailed and 
familiar close encounter/abduction narratives. Now one might argue that all 
he did was expose the terrifying ubiquity of *actual* abductions; a more 
reductive conclusion seems plausible to me: they made it up, but fooled 
themselves.

How can such contrived (and rather silly) quasi-experiences have the 
profound life-altering effects they often do? Lawson traces the impact to a 
recovery of perinatal child-parent bonding. That might or might not be 
substantiated, but perhaps the etiology of bogus abductions also helps 
explain some of the rapture and overwhelming uncritical bliss described 
with wonderfully intense sincerity by Samantha Atkins and John Wright.

Damien Broderick