PsychonauticswithMike Jay
May 17, 2024
Here he focuses on the long history, within western science, of researchers exploring the effects and effectiveness of different drugs through self-experimentation.
Unusual Experiences of The Survival Type in Brazilian and British Children: Research in Progress
Mateus Martinez
InterPsi – Laboratory of Psychosocial Studies: Belief, Subjectivity, Culture & Health
Unusual experiences (UEs) or anomalous experiences may be experienced by a substantial amount of the population, but they “usually deviate from ordinary experiences or from the usually accepted explanations of reality”. Children’s UEs are depicted in cultural productions and are referred to in the history of modern Spiritualism and in classical biographical studies of mediumship. More recent research with adults also points to the onset of UEs in childhood. UEs of the survival type are those that the experiencer interprets in terms of the survival of consciousness after bodily death. Mediumship, after-death communications, and poltergeists are some examples.
The beginnings of experimental research on UEs that directly involve children can be traced back to Foster, a white researcher who worked with 50 Plains-Indian children in a government school in Canada. In the 1960s, Louisa Rhine, through a letter collection, studied the precognitive dreams of 216 children. Louwerens experimented on precognition with 684 children in the Netherlands, and Krippner with 40 school children in the USA. In the 1970s, Drewes & Drucker tested children’s ESP using M&M candles in order to improve children’s engagement in experimental tasks. In the 1980s, Blackmore researched ESP, and Morse and colleagues researched NDEs; of additional interest are children’s past life memories, lucid dreams, and ESP in Brazil. After the decline in the amount of research on children’s UEs in the 2000s, there has recently been a renewed interest in this topic, which has led to the current research project.
The specific and complementary objectives are to:
1. Identify the presentations of UEs of the survival type in children and the role of the sociocultural context in these presentations.
2. Examine children’s perceptions of the initial UEs of the survival type, on their possible continuity along the time and potential changes involved.
3. Investigate the role of social support on lived experiences.
4. Understand how the experiences are interpreted and meant subjectively by the experiencers.
5. Explore children’s emotions on having these UEs.
To accomplish these objectives, we aim to gather and analyze case studies of children claiming to have UEs of the survival type in each country. In-depth interviews will be conducted in-person or online with children in order to privilege their lived experiences, subjective points of view, and expressions.
The British phase of the research will be conducted first and is currently under review for ethical approval at the University of Northampton. Then, after the completion of the UK stage, the Brazilian phase will be carried on at the University of Sao Paulo. The data regarding UEs of the survival type will be selected to be compared with mediumistic experiences data. Reflexive thematic analysis and data triangulation will be used in the process. The target year for finalizing the research is May of 2025, at the latest, since it involves the first author’s Ph.D. research in Brazil.
—
Mateus Donia Martinez is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Sao Paulo (USP) – Brazil. His Ph.D. is funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). He is a member of the InterPsi – Laboratory of Psychosocial Studies: Belief, Subjectivity, Culture, and Health at USP and The Research Group on Altered States of Consciousness and Religious Experiences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. Mateus’ main topics of interest are dissociation and anomalous experiences in childhood, especially mediumship. He has also experience as a clinical psychologist and Jungian psychotherapist for children, adolescents, and adults in Brazil.
—
Program chaired by Jacob W. Glazier. Download the Abstracts at https://parapsych.org/uploaded_files/pdfs/00/00/00/01/26/2023_pa_abstracts_of_presented_papers.pdf
Find us:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/ParapsychologicalAssociation
X – https://x.com/parapsych
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/parapsychologicalassociation
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/parapsychological-association-inc-/
Donations to support the mission of the PA can be made by reaching office@parapsych.org or using this link: https://parapsych.org/section/11/support_the_pa.aspx
Published on January 20, 2025