OBEs and fantasy proneness

Several years ago I undertook some work with Dr Kathryn Gow of the Queensland University of Technology, and a number of her students. We took a look at Australian UFO abductees in respect of measures concerning fantasy proneness, paranormal beliefs and personality characteristics. The findings of our research are available to you at: http://www.anomalistik.de/gow.pdf

While conducting my recent survey of scientific journal articles on out-of-body experiences, I was pleasantly surprised to find another article by Kathryn Gow and students, but this time on OBEs. Their abstract of their paper is as follows:

Gow, K; Lang, T; Chant, D.
"Fantasy proneness, paranormal beliefs and personality features in out-of-body experiences."
Contemporary Hypnosis. 2004. 21(3):107-125.

"This study investigated the relationship between reported out-of-body experiences, certain psychological variables and personality characteristics."

"One hundred and sixty-seven participants completed a series of questionnaires to investigate differences amongst those participants reporting out-of-body experiences and those who were classified as believers or non-believers on fantasy proneness, paranormal beliefs, psychological absorption, psychological association, somatoform dissociation, certain personality characteristics and OBE experience sensations."

"The findings revealed that experients were more fantasy prone, higher in their belief in the paranormal and displayed greater somatoform dissociation."

" Psychological absorption and dissociation were higher for believers than for either experients or non-believers and in relation to experients, fantasy proneness, paranormal beliefs and the personality dimensions of institution and feeling were significantly related, as were psychological absorption, psychological dissocation and somatoform dissociation."

These kind of psychological studies are aimed at examining the differences between individuals who have experiences; whether they be OBEs or alien abductions, and others who do not.

Previous posts here, related to neurological studies of OBE experiencers, which again, are trying to determine why some persons experience OBEs and others do not.