Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2020 May;15(3):669-690. doi: 10.1177/1745691619895047. Epub 2020 Feb 13.
Although many researchers in psychology, religious studies, and psychiatry recognize that there is overlap in the experiences their subjects recount, disciplinary silos and challenges involved in comparing reported experiences have left us with little understanding of the mechanisms, whether biological, psychological, and/or sociocultural, through which these experiences are represented and differentiated. So-called mystical experiences, which some psychologists view as potentially sui generis, provide a test case for assessing whether we can develop an expanded framework for studying unusual experiences across disciplines and cultures. Evidence for the special nature of "mystical experience" rests on the operationalization of a metaphysically untestable construct in two widely used self-report scales: the Mysticism Scale and the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire. Consideration of the construct in light of research on alterations in sense of self induced by psychoactive drugs and meditation practices suggests that "positive experiences of undifferentiated unity" are not sui generis, but rather a type of "ego dissolution." To better understand the nature and effects of unusual experiences, such as alterations in the sense of self, we need self-report measures that distinguish between generically worded experiences and the way they are appraised in terms of valence, significance, cause, and long-term effects in different contexts.
尽管心理学、宗教研究和精神病学的许多研究人员都认识到，他们的研究对象所描述的经历存在重叠，但学科之间的隔阂以及比较所报告的经历所面临的挑战，使得我们对这些经历是如何被表现和区分的机制知之甚少，无论是生物学、心理学和/或社会文化方面的机制。一些心理学家认为所谓的神秘体验可能具有独特性，为评估我们是否能够在跨学科和跨文化的背景下为研究异常体验发展一个扩展的框架提供了一个测试案例。“神秘体验”的特殊性证据取决于在两个广泛使用的自我报告量表中对一个形而上学上未经检验的结构的操作化：神秘主义量表和神秘体验问卷。根据研究表明，在自我意识的改变方面，考虑到药物和冥想实践引起的自我意识改变的结构，“无差别的统一的积极体验”并非独一无二，而是一种“自我消解”。为了更好地理解异常体验（如自我意识的改变）的性质和影响，我们需要自我报告的测量方法，以区分通用的体验和根据在不同情境下的价值、意义、原因和长期影响对其进行评估的方式。
