Exploring Human Experiences - a data-driven approach to nonordinary experiences and their mental health impact

Public Lecture by Professor Ronald Fischer, D’Or Institute of Research and Education and UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow.

Our life is a subjective stream of experiences, based on constant internal and external sensory input. Some experience have qualities that stand out from other experiences. Such non-ordinary experiences (NOE) may include intense emotional reactions, feelings of déjà vu or absorption in activities that we lose sense of time or space, various types of hallucinations or feelings of profound insights. The interpretation of these experiences has been alternately framed within the context of psychopathology, as indicating special abilities, or as evidence of spiritual connections. Recent studies suggest that these experiences may be much more common than indicated by psychiatric prevalence rates of clinically significant disorders, yet we still know little about the nature, prevalence and distribution in general population samples. Furthermore, these experiences, often pivotal for individuals, elicit interpretations ranging from profoundly positive and meaningful to deeply disturbing, perplexing, or incapacitating, contingent upon cultural backgrounds and individual characteristics.

Professor Fischer will present a new person-centered data-driven approach for the study of these experiences and how they may impact mental health. He will present data on the validation of a new inventory using person-centered qualitative methods and a series of representative quantitative population level studies that show their prevalence in the general population, their psychological structure and explore relationships with mental health indicators.

Ronald Fischer works in the Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics Unit at D’Or Institute for Research & Education, Brazil and the Pioneer Science Initiative. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society NZ Te Aparangi and the Association for Psychological Science. His research focuses on cultural and evolutionary dynamics of values, beliefs, personality and wellbeing. Currently, he leads a number of international projects on the nature of experiences that are variably classified as extraordinary, transcendental or paranormal, with a particular focus on the sense-making processes by the individuals that experience them as well as their impact on mental health. Currently he serves as the Editor in Chief of Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, a new transdisciplinary journal aiming to shed new perspectives on human behavior in context and also serves on the editorial boards of a range of journals in psychology, business and related disciplines.

9 October, 6pm-7pm, Fox Lecture Hall, Arts Building UWA