Throughout history, during contemplative practice and during everyday life people have felt oneness with others, nature, or the universe.

ACISTE members are invited to participate in a ground-breaking survey on ONENESS.  Eric Van Lente is conducting this research as part of his PhD program at the School of Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Eric is especially interested if you have some type of meditative practice, but he’d like to invite everyone to participate. (The survey takes 30 to 50 minutes).

Participatory Aesthetics: A Phenomenological Study of Aesthetic Experiences of Persons in Substance Abuse Recovery

Participatory aesthetics is understood as an active involvement in a creative endeavor. Similar to Spiritually Transformative Experiences, (STEs), an aesthetic experience can be explained as a transformative experience; awakening self to being interconnected with creation and beauty.

For this study, 25 participants will be asked to describe their transformative experiences and creative activities in relation with their recovery. Interested participants need to be older than 17 years and free from alcohol and drug abuse for more than 3 years. Some interviews can take place in the state of Georgia, in-person with adherence to Covid19 safety protocol. However, online meeting interviews are possible and encouraged. Only audio will be recorded. All participant identity is protected by consent agreement.

People everywhere have experiences like hearing voices and seeing things other people don’t. Sometimes, these are part of mental illness. Often, however, they occur in healthy individuals. There are usually a few differences between the experiences of people who seek psychiatric care and people who don’t. One difference is the ability to regain empowerment in the distressing life experiences that aren’t working for them—specifically with perceptual experiences. For example, many people say they can schedule times for when their voices (whether they consider them voices, aspects, guides, spirits, etc.) can talk to them.

Influence over our experiences is complex. It involves neurological, psychological, and social factors. Today, there is no way to measure the ability to influence perceptual experiences.

We have made the first tool to study these experiences. It will help us design new treatments for individuals to gain empowerment in voice-hearing and other perceptual experiences. But we need your help!