Numinous -like auras and spirituality in persons with focal seizures.
Item
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Title
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Numinous -like auras and spirituality in persons with focal seizures.
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Identifier
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AAI3330501
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identifier
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3330501
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Creator
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Dolgoff-Kaspar, Rima.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Susan Croll
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical | Psychology, Personality | Psychology, Developmental
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Abstract
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Background and rationale. Religion and spirituality have been associated with epilepsy for thousands of years, yet the nature of this association remains elusive. This study addressed this topic by seeking a relationship between aura symptoms that are reminiscent of spiritual experiences ("numinous-like auras", or NLAs) and spirituality of an unconventional form. It was hypothesized that seizure patients with greater frequencies of NLAs would have increased ictal and interictal spirituality as measured by the Experiential Phenomenological Dimension (EPD) and Paranormal Beliefs (PB) factors of the Expressions of Spirituality Inventory Revised (ESI-R), compared to patients with fewer NLAs and compared to a reference population. No differences were expected among the groups on ESI-R measures related to traditional religiosity.;Methods. Thirty-eight patients with focal seizures filled out the ESI-R for both their ictal and interictal experiences/beliefs, as well as the MMPI-2 to assess psychopathology. Patients were divided into Low and High NLA groups for comparisons. Sixteen introductory psychology students comprised the reference population.;Results. As hypothesized, patients in the High NLA group had significantly greater ictal and interictal EPD and PB scores compared to the Low NLA group (p < .05). The High group also had significantly greater EPD scores, and a statistical trend of greater PB scores compared to the reference population (p <.05 and p < .1, respectively). There were no differences between the Low NLA group and the reference group. Additionally, there were no differences among the groups on the other ESI-R measures.;Conclusions. The results show that patients with high frequencies of NLAs have increased paranormal beliefs and spiritual experiences both ictally and interictally. The findings support a conception of epileptic spirituality as personalized, experiential and distinct from traditional, culturally-based religiosity. The enhanced spirituality observed in this study may be attributed to over-activation of the limbic system, as it underlies most of the NLAs. Interictal spiritual experiences may be related to potentiation of select limbic-cortical circuits that underlie numinous-like experiences. Frequent NLAs may be key because they indicate sufficient activation to produce this potentiation. The relationship between spiritual experiences and accompanying paranormal beliefs is likely reciprocal, and is an interesting topic for future research.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
