“I’m a completely different person now”: Extraordinary experiences and personal transformations in sport

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-718
Author(s):  
Amy Rundio ◽  
Marlene A. Dixon ◽  
Bob Heere
Keyword(s):  
Personal Transformations ◽  
Extraordinary Experiences

Cognitive Migrations

2019 ◽  
pp. 622-642
Author(s):  
Thomas DeGloma ◽  
Erin F. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Possible Selves ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Spatial Metaphor ◽  
Transformative Experiences ◽  
Personal Transformations ◽  
Self And Identity ◽  
Contested Meanings ◽  
Plot Structure

This chapter explores the ways individuals account for cognitive migrations—significant changes of mind and consciousness that are often expressed as powerful discoveries, transformative experiences, and newly embraced worldviews. It outlines three ideal typical forms of cognitive migration: awakenings, self-actualizations, and ongoing quests. Building on prior approaches to such personal transformations, it develops the notion of cognitive migration to argue the following set of interrelated points. First, cognitive migrations take autobiographical form, which is to say they manifest as the narrative identity work of individuals who undergo them. Second, such narrative identity work provides a reflexive foundation for an individual’s understanding of self and identity in relation to other possible selves and identities—for seeing oneself as a relationally situated character. Third, individuals who articulate cognitive migrations use the plot structure and cultural coding at the root of their narratives to express their allegiance to a new sociomental community. They thereby take on new cognitive norms and identity-defining conventions while rejecting potential alternatives, locating themselves within a broader sociomental field. The spatial metaphor of cognitive migrations draws explicit attention to the broader sociomental field in which such radical changes of mind take place. Finally, such narrative identity work links self-understandings to the often-contested meanings of broadly relevant issues, events, and experiences; when individuals account for their cognitive migrations, they also advance claims that reach well-beyond their personal lives.

scholarly journals Storytelling through experiencescape: Creating unique stories and extraordinary experiences in farm tourism

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiang Y Mei ◽  
Ann-Margret S Hågensen ◽  
Heidi S Kristiansen
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Explorative Study ◽  
Extraordinary Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Farm Tourism ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

Creating unique stories through storytelling as a way to stage extraordinary experiences has become increasingly important in the tourism industry, particularly in experience-based activities such as farm tourism. However, limited resources and the lack of knowledge of the experiencescape suggest that many farm tourism operators struggle to integrate the experiencescape as part of storytelling. The research method chosen was an explorative study with the use of semi-structured in-depth interviews with key farm tourism operators in the Inland region in Norway. How stories and concepts are created is dependent on the resources available, the perception of authenticity, the history of the farm as well as the environment. Storytelling can be facilitated through tangible elements in the experiencescape such as the physical environment as well as intangible elements including the interaction and dynamics between the host and guest. The farmer or the person telling the story also need to possess certain skills, engagement, and interest in order to be committed to deliver the story or the concept. Essentially, the farmer becomes a part of the product and the experience.

The dynamic interplay between structure, anastructure and antistructure in extraordinary experiences

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (9) ◽  
pp. 3361-3370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina C. Husemann ◽  
Giana M. Eckhardt ◽  
Reinhard Grohs ◽  
Raluca E. Saceanu
Keyword(s):  
Extraordinary Experiences ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

Reconceptualizing Tourists’ Extraordinary Experiences

2021 ◽  
pp. 004728752110646
Author(s):  
Sandhiya Goolaup ◽  
Robin Nunkoo
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
Collaborative Interactions ◽  
Extraordinary Experiences ◽  
Structural Perspective

Research that conceptualizes tourist extraordinary experiences both from the structural and anti-structural perspective is limited in the tourism literature. The purpose of this research is to develop a new theoretical perspective that re-conceptualizes our understanding of tourists’ extraordinary experience by taking into consideration both the structural and anti-structural elements of an experience. It draws on phenomenological interviews with 26 food tourists. The study finds that extraordinary experience consists of elements such as profaneness, collaborative interactions and conflict-easing, which represent both the structural and anti-structural elements. The findings of this study allow us to question whether extraordinary experience is purely structural or anti-structural as suggested by previous research. Rather, based on the findings, we argue that extraordinary experience is the positive co-existence of both the ordinary and the non-ordinary. As a result, we use the term “synstructure” to conceptualize the tourist extraordinary experience.

Berlin and Vienna

2019 ◽  
pp. 157-203
Author(s):  
Margaret C. Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Personal Transformations ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
New Institutions

This epilogue argues that the meaning of the Enlightenment resides in political structures and personal transformations that emerged in the course of the eighteenth century. These are most visible in the lives and ideas found in its last quarter. Since the late 1680s into the 1790s, all sorts of people tried to break with tradition and find alternatives to absolutism in church and state. By 1800, space and time on earth were filled by fewer miracles, saints, and prophecies than had been the case in 1700. Ultimately, the eighteenth-century philosophes, despite their disagreements, shared a universal distrust of organized religion and the priests who enforced it. Indeed, the century ended with revolutions that focused minds on making new institutions, new laws, new hopes and dreams.

An Encounter with the Other: A Thematic Analysis of Accounts of DMT Experiences from a Naturalistic Field Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Michael ◽  
David Luke ◽  
Oliver Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Field Study ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Death Experience ◽  
Extraordinary Experiences ◽  
Alien Abduction ◽  
Increasing Trends

Introduction: N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is an endogenous serotonergic psychedelic capable of producing radical shifts in conscious experience. Increasing trends in its use, as well as new trials administering DMT to patients, indicate the growing importance of a thorough elucidation of the phenomenology the drug may occasion. This is particularly in light of the hyper-real, otherworldly, and often ontologically challenging yet potentially transformative, nature of the experience, not least encounters with apparently non-self social agents. Laboratory studies have been limited by clinical setting and lacking qualitative analyses, while online surveys’ limitations lie in retrospective design, recreational use, and both of which not guaranteeing ‘breakthrough’ experiences. Methods: We report on the first naturalistic field study of DMT use including its qualitative analysis. Screened, healthy, anonymised and experienced DMT users (40-75mg inhaled) were observed during their non-clinical use of the drug at home. Semi-structured interviews using the micro-phenomenological technique were employed immediately after their experience. This paper reports on the thematic analysis of one major domain of the breakthrough experiences elicited; the ‘other’. Thirty-six post-DMT experience interviews with mostly Caucasian (83%) males (8 female) of average 37 years were predominantly inductively coded. Results: Invariably, profound and highly intense experiences occurred. The main overarching category comprised the encounter with other ‘beings’ (94% of reports), with further subordinate themes including the entities’ role, appearance, demeanour, communication and interaction; while the other over-arching category comprised experiences of emerging into other ‘worlds’ (100% of reports), in turn consisting of the scene, the content and quality of the immersive spaces. Discussion: The present study provides a systematic and in-depth analysis of the features of the otherworldly encounter within the breakthrough DMT experience, as well as elaborating on the resonances with both previous DMT studies and other types of extraordinary experiences which also entail entity encounters. These include the alien abduction, folkloric, shamanic and near-death experience. Putative neural mechanisms of these features of the DMT experience and its promise as a psychotherapeutic agent are discussed in light of such findings.

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