Nursing Home Staff Members’ Experiences With and Beliefs About Unusual End-of-Life Phenomena

Twenty-two members of a nursing home took part in a study examining their experiences with and beliefs about unusual end-of-life phenomena (EOLP). Nearly all the staff members had witnessed and/or been told about residents holding on for someone to arrive or for a specific event to occur before dying (95% and 91%, respectively). Other commonly witnessed/reported EOLP included residents having sudden, unexpected moments of lucidity, sensing or feeling the presence of deceased residents, residents’ dreaming about deceased relatives, friends or pets, and deathbed visions. More than three-quarters of the staff members regarded EOLP as transpersonal experiences, as comforting to dying residents and their family members, and as part of the dying process. Fourteen staff members described experiences they had had with EOLP in the nursing home. The most frequently described experiences involved the appearance of apparitions. Seventy-seven percent of the staff members expressed an interest in learning more about EOLP.

Methods of Exploring Transpersonal Lucid Dreams: Ineffability and Creative Consciousness

Lucid dreaming is being conscious and aware while dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a form of meta-consciousness and reflective practice that calls in to question habitual behavior, fixed perceptions, core beliefs, and presuppositions. From an epistemological perspective, lucid dreaming could be considered as a way of knowing. The practice of lucid dreaming ultimately leads to the practice of lucid waking, creating a recursive relationship between waking and dreaming awareness. This article discusses three research methods exploring lucid dreaming and specific transpersonal experiences within lucid dreaming I call “Hyperspace Lucidity”. Hyperspace Lucidity is the experience within lucid dreams beyond time and space, transpersonal in nature, nondual, nonrepresentational in content, and at times, extraordinary and impactful. These inquiries were conducted over two decades, however, their significance and implications are becoming relevant today as the topic of lucid dreaming is discussed within psychological and spiritual frameworks. Each research project informed the next. It began with quantitative research designed to explore the transpersonal experiences in lucid dreams, expanded into a phenomenological study including some of the lucid dreamers from the first study, and then finally it evolved into an art-based inquiry involving the public. KEYWORDS Dreaming, transpersonal experience, dream signs, creative consciousness, research.

Synesthesia and the Perception of Unseen Realities

Exceptional experiences (ExE) incorporate a range of phenomena including subjective paranormal and transpersonal experiences. Synesthesia and synesthetic experiences are discussed as important variables in understanding the etiologies of ExE. The neural and psychological correlates of synesthetic experiences (associated with hyperconnectivity) are discussed in relation to ExE. It is argued that synesthetic processes enable both the detection and conscious perception of information from a range of sources that are usually unseen or inaccessible, including abstract, unlanguaged, preconscious, and potentially other nonlocal sources.

Non-Ordinary Mental Expressions (NOMEs): clues on the nature of the human mind

The aim of this paper is to describe some ostensibly odd, Non-Ordinary-Mental Expressions (NOMEs), that have been considered implausible, illusory or hallucinatory phenomena, possible symptoms of disorders of the neurological or psychological functioning. They include a large variety of phenomena, encompassing hearing voices, seeing presences, communication with non-incarnated entities (including channeling), transpersonal experiences, out-of-body experiences, near-death-experiences, previous life memories, presentiments and precognitions, seeing at distance, mind interactions at a distance, mind-matter interactions at distance. We think that individuals experiencing NOMEs should not feel like they were outsiders or diseased; they should feel free to talk about their uncommon experiences and be listen to with an open, not-judging mind, respecting the patients’ experience and narration. In fact, NOMEs are non-pathological phenomena laying in a still misunderstood grey area between mental health and psychological or psychiatric disorders, while some of them suggest intriguing properties of human consciousness. Their ostensible incompatibility with some axioms and theories of consciousness, shows the inescapable epistemological implications of their proper investigation and understanding.

A dimensão espiritual na psicoterapia

O artigo coloca em discussão o significado da demanda espiritual quando esta se faz presente na psicoterapia. Emerge a necessidade de desmistificar a realidade espiritual como experiência que não é compatível com a terapia. Nessa ótica, faz-se necessário tomar a espiritualidade como necessidade, cuja finalidade não seria outra senão alcançar o desenvolvimento humano. Percebe-se que a espiritualidade, compreendida aqui como busca em vista do crescimento psíquico e espiritual, se encontra presente nas demandas psicológicas. Significa que a religiosidade, quando bem compreendida, tem o poder de levar o ser humano ao crescimento. Para discorrer sobre a dimensão espiritual na psicoterapia, dividimos o artigo em quatro partes: a necessidade da experiência religiosa na realização pessoal; a psicologia da dimensão arquetípica transpessoal da individuação; a existência fundamentada e permeada pelo espiritual e, por último, a psicologia da plenitude de autorrealização nas experiências transpessoais. Abstract: This article discusses the meaning of spiritual demand when that is present in psychotherapy. The need to demystify the spiritual reality as an incompatible experience with therapy emerges. Thus, it is necessary to take spirituality as a need whose goal is to achieve the human development. We observe that spirituality, understood here as the pursuit of psychic and spiritual growth, is present in psychological demands. This means religiosity, when well comprehended, has the power of leading human beings to growth. To discuss the spiritual dimension in psychotherapy, we divided this article into four parts: the need of religious experience within personal realization; the psychology of individuation’s transpersonal archetypal dimension; existence grounded on and permeated of spirituality; and, at last, the psychology of self-realization in transpersonal experiences’ plenitude.Keywords: Psychology. Spiritual dimension. Psychotherapy. Therapist.

Exploring Integral Transpersonal Thinking Concepts Through Non-Ordinary States Of Consciousness: An Experiential Look At Transpersonal Thinking

Consciousness and cognition have always been of interest to me and I have spent a large part of my life exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness and their effect on my thought processes. Many concepts in Integral Transpersonal Thinking resonated with my experience with non-ordinary states and it was through this resonance that I was able to make sense of terms that were initially confusing. Some of my resonance reflected experiences with psychedelics. We are in what has been called the Second Psychedelic Revolution, marked by a cultural shift in acceptance and an increase in the scientific study of psychedelic compounds, their effects on the brain, and their power to heal. This new research also shows that psychedelics allow the brain to make more connections. These compounds reliably produce transpersonal experiences that, in many cases, allow the subject to experience a sense of unity and to transcend normal boundaries of thought. The similarities between concepts in Integral Transpersonal Thinking, as presented in Beyond the Mind, and the psychedelic experience prompted an experiment in which I entered a state of non-ordinary consciousness to help further my understanding of the presented material. The result was a deep feeling of knowing, as if the knowledge is part of my core being. I now feel more prepared than ever for my journey into the science of consciousness. KEYWORDS Integral, Transpersonal, Consciousness, Entheogen, Psychedelic, Experiential.

Near-Death and Other Transpersonal Experiences Occurring During Catastrophic Events

The purpose of this article is to describe examples of near-death and other transpersonal experiences occurring during catastrophic events like floods, wars, bombings, and death camps. To date, researchers have limited their investigations of these transpersonal events to those occurring to seriously ill patients in hospitals, those dying from terminal illnesses, or to individuals experiencing a period of grief after the death of a loved one. Missing is awareness by first responders and emergency healthcare professionals about these transpersonal experiences and what to say to the individuals who have them. Some responders experience not only deaths of the victims they assist, but also deaths of their colleagues. Information about these transpersonal experiences can also be of comfort to them. The examples in this article include a near-death experience during the Vietnam War, an out-of-body experience after a bomb explosion during the Iraq War, a near-death visit to a woman imprisoned at Auschwitz, and two after-death communications, one from a person killed in Auschwitz and another from a soldier during World War I. Also included are interviews with two New York City policemen who were September 11, 2001 responders. It is hoped the information will provide knowledge of these experiences to those who care for those near death, or dying, or grieving because of catastrophic events, and encourage researchers to further investigate these experiences during disasters.