Clinical Corner
A Discussion of Extraordinary/Anomalous Experiences and the Importance of Assisting Individuals in Processing, Integrating, and Utilizing the Experience
June R. Steiner, Ph.D, C.H.T.
Some examples of extra-ordinary or anomalous events are found in the UFO Encounter, the Near Death Experience, a Spiritual Crisis/Emergence, a Kundalini awakening, and the Shamanic Journey. These experiences range from the ecstatic to the profoundly traumatic, and regardless of where they lie on the spectrum are generally life-shaking or changing. The individual requires a supportive, safe, and non-judgmental environment that allows time and space to recall, process, and integrate as much of the event as possible.
This includes helping the person access, retrieve, and work with the physical, cognitive, affective and spiritual aspects of their experience and to reach their own conclusions within an environment of acceptance and non-judgment. Anyone having an experience that is different enough from the normal, everyday happenings of their culture to make it difficult to understand, explain, or be believed by self or others deserves trained help, if needed, in dealing with the trauma that can accompany it. This trauma closely resembles Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, often experienced by war veterans or victims of natural disasters. The quality of the help received by the experiencers can enhance the depth of understanding and integration of the event or add to the confusion, fear and/or inability to incorporate it into one’s life in a healthy way.
Research, according to Ring and Rosing in the Omega Project (1989), Laibow (1989a, 1990) and John Mack, MD (1994) does not exclusively concur, but seems to strongly indicate that people having these experiences do not have major mental disorders, but are dealing with post traumatic stress from the event itself. Even when the experiences are remarkably positive, the difficulty of being understood and believed afterwards and the challenge of integrating it into one’s daily life brings about stress and trauma.
Unfortunately, the emphasis on proving the event is "real" can over-shadow the person’s emotional and spiritual needs. The clash of scientific validation and psycho-spiritual understanding and integration can create additional stress. In this process, the individual is often robbed of the experience and burdened with self-doubt. When extra-ordinary experiences are worked with as "real" events without the burden of first having to prove it happened, one can go deeper into the meaning/consequence of the experience and provide greater understanding of the workings of one’s conscious and/or unconscious psyche. When one has some personal "context" within which he can approach his experience, time can be taken to focus on the origin of the event.
Omega Project research (1990), John Mack (1994), and Leo Sprinkle (1990), among others, discuss the possibility or probability that these extra-ordinary experiences are examples of what Groff (1989) labeled Spiritual Emergence or a growth in consciousness, calling for sensitivity and compassion on the part of counselors. UFO events are not the only experiences where one has difficulty recalling, understanding, or relating what went on. When we look at the Shamanic Journey, we see another kind of occurrence where the person moves into "other realities". The Shaman can manifest in many forms, speak in many voices or sounds, and move between worlds. In mythology, the gods and goddesses also had the power to change form and reality and travel in space. In a Near Death Experience, the individual encounters the spirit world, moves out of his body, and sometimes is allowed to choose which reality he wishes to continue experiencing.
Anyone returning from extra-ordinary events of this nature deserves and needs a professional counselor or helping individual who is open to new possibilities, able to stay in his/her neutral observer and listen without judgment, and who will hold a safe, supportive space within which the experiencer is assisted in exploring and integrating the event.
The Omega Project surveys by Ring and Rosing for both UFO and NDE events are psychological surveys that contain information on results obtained from instruments used for testing people after an event. Results show that experiencers have a greater sensitivity for non-ordinary realities both as children and adults. Along with the psychological findings, it is evident that the mystery and numinous affect of the UFO and NDE experience remains intact and that it is unlikely ever to be fully explained by psychological or scientific concepts. It is stressed that some people are simply born more psychologically sensitive, others encouraged through positive means.
Therefore there are likely to be many different and diverse factors associated with the emergence of UFO and NDE prone personalities other than those focused on in this study (the Omega Project). As an example, many cultures work daily with dreams, treating both the sleeping and waking state as separate but actual "realities" that provide them with important information from one’s unconscious process or as teachings-/communications from ancestor spirits. Others hold the shaman who moves between realities as an honored member of society. When one looks at Maslow’s actualized man and the B-values, one sees that he postulates that as society and the individual rises higher on the scale of actualization, having extra-ordinary experiences becomes a "normal, natural occurrence and is not considered deviant or suspect.
What, in fact, we may be facing is that humanity as a whole may be moving upward toward actualization. The fact that there are witnessable, and often significant changes in an individual’s life after an extra-ordinary experience (Ring and Rosing, Omega Project l990), (Sprinkle, 1970), and that those changes follow recognizable patterns points to the possibility that humans as a species are undergoing consistent, significant experiences that demand closer and more sensitive attention. According to the results of the Omega tests, most of these "out of the ordinary " experiences are followed by substantial shifts in spiritual values and beliefs, increased psychic abilities, as well as reported awakening of Kundalini energy. There are significant changes in personal values, opinions, and world views. The individuals feel that they have been expanded in their psycho-physiological functioning, cognitive processes and social values, as well as more hopeful concerning the outcome of humanity’s evolution. There seems to be a greater appreciation for life, oneself, others, and the world at large. There is a significantly greater move toward universalistic spiritual values as opposed to sectarian religious ones. There is widespread agreement across both UFO and NDE response groups that we are in the midst of an evolutionary spurt toward greater spiritual awareness and higher consciousness, with these experiences as an integral part of that progression. Sprinkle (1990). sees individuals undergoing UFO events as planetary persons becoming Cosmic Citizens. Barbara Harris, in her book Full Circle, hypothesizes experiences such as the NDE are catalysts for human evolution. Whitney Striber (1988), and John Mack(1994), pose that same possibility for those undergoing UFO events. Ring and Rosing pose the following question in their conclusions of the Omega Project:
"Should our findings be taken to imply that, at bottom, UFO experiences in general and abduction accounts in particular are traceable to the vicissitudes of individual psychological factors, as for example Evans (1987, 1989) has argued? Or, following a Jungian approach (Grosso 1985: Stillings 1989), should we understand these experiences to stem from the Collective Unconscious or from some other super mundane agency, such as Mind at Large, as Grosso (1985) has postulated? (According to this view, the sensitive individuals of a culture, whose psychology fits them to be the primary receiving agents for "transmissions" from this source, are essentially the weavers of a cosmic message for humanity which only appears to come in the form of a literal encounter with alien life.) Or, finally should we take our data to mean that we would do best to follow the UFO crowd (at least in the United States) that is convinced that these encounters do in fact represent the intrusion of alien life forms into human spheres of activity?" (1990)
At this time there are no ‘correct" answers but there seems to be strong agreement among experiencer’s that there are "higher forces" orchestrating these events and that they are meant to awaken individuals to the existence of a larger cosmic plan for life on Earth. As helping professionals, it behooves us to provide "excellence" in the quality of our guidance as people explore the depth and meaning of their extra-ordinary experiences.