Waking dreams and other metachoric experiences

Abstract

This paper summarizes the development of the concept of metachoric experiences from 1961 onwards. The name of metachoric experience was given to one in which the whole of the environment was replaced by a hallucinatory one, although this may provide a precise replica of the physical world and appear to be completely continuous with normal experience. Prior to 1968 three types of metachoric experiences had been recognized; lucid dreams, out-of-the-body experiences (OBEs) and false awakenings, all of which showed interrelationships. The Institute's 1968 appeal for apparitional experiences led to a recognition that many of these were probably metachoric. This was suggested among other things by certain cases in which the lighting of the whole field of view changes, thus indicating that the experience was completely hallucinatory. The study of apparitions led also to the concept of waking dreams, i.e. completely hallucinatory experiences which may be initiated and terminated without any awareness of discontinuity on the part of the subject. These experiences seem to be capable of considerable apparent extension in time, thus providing a possible explanation of some reports of UFO sightings and of some of the more anomalous experiences of psychical research. In this connection the paper discusses the well-known Versailles experience of Miss Moberly and Miss Jourdain, and a published case of C.G. Jung. In conclusion some of the most obvious similarities and differences between the different types of metachoric experiences are discussed.