PONE-D-23-05816

The Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences (INOE): Evidence of validity in the United States and India

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Dear dr. Taves,

I am happy to inform you that your paper has been accepted with minor revisions. I am sorry for the long delay, but we had some problems with the search of reviewers, due to the topic of your paper. I hope you can revise your the reviewer's commentaries and suggestions and send the paper back to the journal. Best regards,

Luca Valera

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Reviewers' comments:

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Reviewer #1: The manuscript deals with a new approach to the intercultural study of non-ordinary experiences (NOE). Especially, the INOE provides a first inventory of NOE, gathering US and Hindi cultures and checking their etic and emic aspects. I think that the topic is of paramount importance, in order to exceed the biases stemming from a priori established constructs and the ethnocentric perspective of scientific studies, as well as the traditional positivist approach to comparative philosophy and religion.

The manuscript is rather complex, but it is well-written and I have read it with interest. I think that the adopted method and aims are relevant and innovative, and should be pursued in future studies. I would only provide some suggestions that, in my opinion, may improve the quality of discussion. Anyway, the authors are not required to follow them, should they consider them irrelevant:

• The problem of non-ordinary experiences has been introduced by Ludwig in 1966 with the name Altered State of Consciousness, gathering both physiological and pathological conditions (Ludwig, 1966; Vaitl et al., 2005). Later on, the Concept of Anomalous Experiences as well as the umbrella term Exceptional Human Experience have been introduced (Cardeña et al., 2014; Palmer & Hastings, 2013). Their heterogeneity, lack of coherence and comprehensiveness of these classifications has recently led to revise them and introduce the term Non-Ordinary Mental Expressions (NOMEs), including a new synthetic classification and emphasizing the links between different NOMEs (Facco et al., 2021).It seems to me that a short description of the topic as a whole in the introduction might improve the quality of the paper by showing the presence and overlap between different non-ordinary experiences within a given culture as well as their relevance in cross-cultural comparisons.

• The authors’ approach seems to me perfectly in line with the metaphilosophical approach, aimed to search for key concepts and meanings common to different philosophies, beyond their formal differences and different modes of theorization (Burik, 2009; Jullien, 2015, 2016; Overgaard et al., 2013; Pasqualotto, 2008; Weber, 2013). Such an approach implies the openness toward the “other” and the willingness to step outside one’s own comfort zone. I have previously reported on the need for a transcultural, metaphilosophical approach to both consciousness and Self (Facco et al., 2023; Facco, Al Khafaji, et al., 2019), and even to foreign politics (Facco & Tagliagambe, 2022), an inescapable fact in a globalized world. Actually, the terms Ego, I, Self and soul are ill defined and their meaning greatly overlaps in the history of philosophy, while several scientific studies skip relevant aspect of the Self that may be encompassed and better understood by a more openminded approach including the knowledge of other cultures. Therefore, I have greatly appreciated the authors’ perspective aiming to check the etic-emic components, as a tool to overcome the narrow ethnocentric and chronocentric stance of most scientific studies: it seems to me a relevant approach that may be viewed as the other side of the coin of metaphilosophy.

• Absorption is not non-ordinary in itself, given that we spend our life incessantly shifting between different levels of arousal, awareness, absorption, dissociation, distraction, drowsiness, sleep and dream. Absorption is defined as the total attention that fully engages one’s representational resources, leading to imperviousness to distracting events (Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974). Therefore, absorption – i.e., concentration on a task - can be considered as the reciprocal aspect of dissociation - i.e., the neglect of what is outside the focus of attention (Facco, 2022). It is worth considering that absorption is an essential aspect of both meditation and hypnosis. Absorption also involves an openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences and, thus, the capacity to engender many NOMEs, including mystical experiences, OBEs, Near-death like experiences and experiences of other identities (with their link with dissociative identity disorders and possession) (Facco, Casiglia, et al., 2019; Facco, Mendozzi, et al., 2019; Machado et al., 2022; Shaw et al., 2023). An altered sense of agency (including automaticity) is a feature of hypnosis as well (Haggard & Clark, 2003). I think that reframing the comments on absorption (p. 55) taking into account the above comments, might improve the quality of discussion.

In short, what is perceived in different ways in different cultures belongs to universal mind faculties and experiences, both the East and the West; some of them look non-ordinary from the adopted worldview, a fact regarding their interpretation rather than the experiences in themselves. Here, the etic-emic and the metaphilosophical approaches seem to me two inseparable aspects of the same, wiser way to comprehend both human mind and culture-related differences. Both of them allow to overcome cultural filters and constraints stemming from any narrow ethnocentric and chronocentric perspective(the latter involved when studying ancient thought).

I have found a few minor flaws:

1. Table 1, “ANNEX”: perhaps AANEX?

2. P. 16, l. 6, Mental state: It seems to me that it could be implemented with the item“Other”; in fact, these kind of experiences may be also favored by a variety of factors non mentioned in the text, such as psychotropic drugs.

3. TP. 29, l. 10, the formula and the following similar formulas are not clear to me ( I only see squares), and I am afraid it will not be clear to the reader as well:

4. P. 44, l. 1, “mediation”: perhaps “meditation”?

References

Burik, S. (2009). Opening philosophy to the world: derrida and education in philosophy. Educational Theory, 59(3), 297–312. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.2009.00320.x

Cardeña, E., Lynn J., S., & Krippner, S. (Eds.). (2014). Varieties of Anomalous Experiences. (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.

Facco, E. (2022). Hypnosis and Hypnotic ability between old beliefs and new evidences: an epistemological reflection. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 64(1), 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/00029157.2020.1863181

Facco, E., Al Khafaji, B. E., & Tressoldi, P. (2019). In search of the true self. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 39(3), 157–180. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/teo0000112

Facco, E., Casiglia, E., Al Khafaji, B. E., Finatti, F., Duma, G. M., Mento, G., Pederzoli, L., & Tressoldi, P. (2019). The neurophenomenology of out-of-body experiences induced by hypnotic suggestions. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 67(1), 39–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207144.2019.1553762

Facco, E., Fracas, F., & Tagliagambe, S. (2023). Consciousness and the mind-brain-body-world relationship: towards a transdisciplinary and transcultural approach. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(1), 414–433. https://doi.org/10.14738/ASSRJ.101.13896

Facco, E., Fracas, F., & Tressoldi, P. (2021). Moving beyond the concept of altered state of consciousness: the Non-Ordinary Mental Expressions (NOMEs). Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(3), 615–631. https://doi.org/10.14738/ASSRJ.83.9935

Facco, E., Mendozzi, L., Bona, A., Motta, A., Garegnani, M., Costantini, I., Dipasquale, O., Cecconi, P., Menotti, R., Coscioli, E., & Lipari, S. (2019). Dissociative identity as a continuum from healthy mind to psychiatric disorders: epistemological and neurophenomenological implications approached through hypnosis. Medical Hypotheses, 130(109274), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2019.109274

Facco, E., & Tagliagambe, S. (2022). The Century-Old Swinging of Russia Between Order and Dissolution, East and West: A Historical and Psychocultural Insight in the Russian-Ukrainian War. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(11), 447–460. https://doi.org/10.14738/ASSRJ.911.13497

Haggard, P., & Clark, S. (2003). Intentional action: conscious experience and neural prediction. Conscious.Cogn, 12(1053-8100 (Print)), 695–707.

Jullien, F. (2015). De l’Etre au Vivre. Lexique eurochinoise de la pensée. Gallimard.

Jullien, F. (2016). Il n’y a pas d’Identité Culturelle mai Nous Défendons les Resources d’une Culture. Éditions de L’Herne.

Ludwig, A. M. (1966). Altered states of consciousness. Arch.Gen.Psychiatry, 15(0003-990X (Print)), 225–234.

Machado, S. A. F., Farinha, A. P., & Simões, M. (2022). Hypnotically Induced Near-Death-Like Experiences: An Exploratory Study of Phenomenological Similarities to Near-Death Experiences. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 40(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.17514/JNDS-2022-40-1-p47-68

Overgaard, S., Gilbert, P., & Burwood, S. (2013). Introduction: what good is metaphilosophy? In An Introduction to Metaphilosophy. (pp. 1–10). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139018043

Palmer, G., & Hastings, A. (2013). Exploring the Nature of Exceptional Human Experiences: Recognizing, Understanding, and Appreciating EHEs. In The Wiley‐Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology (pp. 331–351). https://doi.org/doi:10.1002/9781118591277.ch18

Pasqualotto, G. (2008). East & West. Marsilio Editori.

Shaw, J., Gandy, S., & Stunbrys, T. (2023). Transformative effects of spontaneous out of body experiences in healthy individuals: An interpretative phenomenological analysis. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice., in press. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000324

Tellegen, A., & Atkinson, G. (1974). Openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences (“absorption”), a trait related to hypnotic susceptibility. J.Abnorm.Psychol., 83(0021-843X (Print)), 268–277.

Vaitl, D., Birbaumer, N., Gruzelier, J., Jamieson, G. A., Kotchoubey, B., Kubler, A., Lehmann, D., Miltner, W. H., Ott, U., Putz, P., Sammer, G., Strauch, I., Strehl, U., Wackermann, J., & Weiss, T. (2005). Psychobiology of altered states of consciousness. The Psychological Bulletin, 131(0033–2909), 98–127.

Weber, R. (2013). “How to Compare?” – On the Methodological State of Comparative Philosophy. Philosophy Compass, 8(7), 593–603.

Reviewer #2: This paper is an important contribution to the methodology of cross-cultural studies of unusual/nonordinary/anomalous experiences. The RPW methodology provides a systematic way of assessing the cross-cultural validity and comparability of these experiences. The INOE will likely be used, at least partially, in future studies by other scholars.

My recommended changes are, thus, of a minor nature:

1) Although the small N is mentioned as a limitation, there are additional limitations that should be mentioned: a) most respondents are male, despite the fact that typically females endorse more most of these experiences; b) although the procedure make it unlikely that respondents were robots or non-attentive, nonetheless the problems with Mechanical Turk should be mentioned, e.g., Perspectives on Psychological Science: "Too Good to Be True: Bots and Bad Data From Mechanical Turk." by Margaret A. Webb and June P. Tangney, c) it is VERY good that a question about mental states was added, but the list of possibilities is small and does not contain, for instance, meditation.

2) The literature review is fairly comprehensive. I would nonetheless recommend these two items: 1) Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Evidence for the early clinical relevance of hallucinatory-delusional states in the general population, R. Nuevo, J. Van Os, C. Arango, S. Chatterji, J. L. Ayuso-Mateos, for cross-cultural differences in a type of unusual experience (hallucination), 2) Dissolution of What? The Self Lost in Self-Transcendent Experiences. Lindström, L., Kajonius, P. & Cardeña, E., 2022, In: Journal of Consciousness Studies. 29, 5-6, p. 75-101, for an example of teasing out the conceptual vagueness of the term "ego dissolution."

3) It is mentioned on page 60 that the mysticism construct, as defined by Stace and

operationalized in the mysticism scales, “presupposes, on theological grounds, that experiences

of undifferentiated unity are inherently positive, that positive valence is part of the experience

itself, and that the experience is culturally unmediated (i.e., that the cultural environment does

not play a significant role in constituting the positively valenced experience as it unfolds)” (76), but that is not the conclusion reached by Wulff (reference 71), that mentioned that such experiences are not necessarily positive and that culture PARTLY mediates the experience. This should be mentioned, as well as his (and others}) categorization of different types of mystical experiences, which may explain part of the problem with the question used.

4) Re. the item Another self in the body", given the small and technologically savy sample, the problem may be that no one was involved in ritual possessions and thus could not attest to this. And even in ritual possessions there are differences in, e.g., amount of amnesia, see Cardeña, E., Schaffler, Y., & Van Duijl, M. (2023). The other in the self: Possession, trance, and related phenomena. In M. J. Dorahy, S. N. Gold, & J. A. O’Neill (Eds.), Dissociation and the dissociative disorders: Past, present, future. 2nd ed. (pp. 421-432). Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003057314-31

5) The references list needs to be proofed better. For instance, capitalization of paper titles is quite inconsistent.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Enrico Facco

Reviewer #2: No

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The Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences (INOE): Evidence of validity in the United States and India

PONE-D-23-05816R1

Dear Dr. Taves,

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Luca Valera

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PLOS ONE

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