Differences in Recumbent,Ecstatic Trance Postures in Terms of Dream Recall,Imagined Interactions,and Heart Rate

Shamanism and Ecstatic Trance Postures

The principles of general systems theory correspond to shamanism as it provides a technique for people to increase esteem as they become aware of inner potential while exploring their spiritual relationship to the universe and other life forms and to each other (Brink, 2013). Shamanism uses dream recall to enhance information transfer to the conscious, waking mode and its application to healing (Hunt, 1989; Winkelman, 2000). Brink (2017) discusses how ecstatic trance postures can help people override negative beliefs, salvage the lost innocence of the soul in a technological society, and create harmony within the family, community, and cultural supra-systems. He combines cognitive behavioral therapy, narrative therapy, and dream analysis in a series of case studies to deal with various psychological issues including agoraphobia, panic attacks, irrational anger, mood swings, obsessive behaviors, and control.

The similarities and differences between ecstatic trance and ecstatic posture should be made. Ecstatic trance is induced by rapid stimulation to the nervous system. Ecstatic or shamanic trance may be induced by dancing, drum beating, rattle shaking, or clapping at a rate of about 210 beats per minute (Brink, 2013; Goodman, 1990). Goodman examined ecstatic postures among her students at Denison University and discovered the relationship between body postures and ecstatic trance in which body postures had a specific effect on the trance experience. Some postures triggered a healing experience, other postures triggered journeying into the underworld, some triggered journeying in the middle world, and some journeying in the upper world (N. E. Brink, personal communication, September 16, 2017). Some postures were for divination, metamorphosis that often takes the form of shape shifting, and some for initiation, which often takes the form of a death–rebirth experience. Some postures provided a divinatory experience for foreseeing into the future. Other postures led the participant into the underworld, often considered the world of the unconscious mind; some postures were for journeying through our middle world, the world we live in; and some for the upper world.

Goodman (1990) and researchers from the Cuyamungue-Institute (USA) and the Felicitas-Goodman-Institut (Germany) have collaborated in investigating the effects of 80 different ritual body postures and their symbolic functions. Each body posture can lead into the alternate reality—or a different field of consciousness—when performed in conjunction with the proper rhythmic accompaniment of drumming in terms of 210 beats per minute. Bourguignon's (1973) comparative study of 488 societies around the world revealed that 437 (or 90%) were found to use at least one culturally institutionalized method to experience an altered state of consciousness including yoga and shamanistic posturing. We believe that when people recall dreams, they do so in various postures which may have therapeutic purposes. Indeed, the work of Brink (2017) precisely reveals the ubiquity of ecstatic postures in everyday life. Similarly, there is research on how sleep positions affect emotions and personality. Schredl (2002) found that the prone position was related to differences in self-confidence and anxiety traits compared with the other position groups.

People often recreate sleep positions when relaxing on a couch. In addition, research on dreaming and right- and left-side sleep positions reveals that left-side sleepers had more nightmares and less relief-safety compared with right-side sleepers (Agargun, Boysan, & Hanoglu, 2004). Sleep position was determined through semistructured interviews in which subjects were questioned about their usual body positions just before going to sleep, which position they found themselves in upon awaking, and which position they exactly kept in bed during the night. Only those who reported that they found themselves in the same body position (right or left side) before going to sleep and after awaking, even during the night were included in the study. The subjects who reported supine, prone, mixed, and unknown properties were not analyzed because of the small sample size.

The subjects were interviewed in terms of dream recall frequency, vividness, bizarreness, nightmare frequency, and dream emotions suggested by Hartmann, Zborowski, and Kunzendorf (2001). It is interesting that right-side sleepers reported more sleep quality, happiness, joy, excitement; hope; peace, restfulness; longing; relief, safety; and love than left-side sleepers.

The ecstatic trance postures are designed to serve a variety of purposes including divination, healing, metamorphosis, and promoting a death/rebirth experience (Brink, 2014, 2017). We want to see how the most occurring postures occur during dream recall as posturing reflects nonverbal signaling of emotion (Dael, Mortillaro, & Scherer, 2012). A positive dream could be reflected in a posture showing reflection. The Nordic “Freyan Diviner” trance occurs when a person has one arm up extended to the underneath of the chin. This trance is associated with thoughtfulness. Given the research by psychologists and anthropologists at the Cuyamungue Institute for the Study of Ecstatic Trance, we asked the following research question (see www.cuyamungueinstitute.com/the-power-of-ecstatic-trance/):

RQ1: What ecstatic postures are associated with the recall of a recent dream that left positive and negative impression on the individual?

Dream Recall and Heart Rate

The scientific study of dreams emanates back to psychological analysis of dream interpretation in terms of Jung and Jaffé's (1963) archetypal psychology, which was initially based on Freud's (1900) analysis. The American Psychological Association publishes a journal, Dreaming, that explores the functions, clinical applications, and biological aspects of dreaming from an interdisciplinary perspective ranging including anthropology, communication, philosophy, and sociology.

Research has analyzed the brain scans of people while they were awake and while they sleep (Eichenlaub et al., 2014). The researchers split a small sample of 41 participants into two groups by dream recall frequency. Slightly more than half of the sample in one group remembered dreams at an average of about five mornings per week and the other group remembered dreams only two mornings per month. When asleep and awake, the high dream recallers showed higher levels of activity in the brain's medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction which helps in perception and information processing. Hence, dream recall is a matter of individual differences. In addition, electroencephalograms revealed that the high-recall group had twice as much awake time throughout the night as compared with low-recallers. However, the brains of high-recallers responded more strongly to auditory stimuli. Hence, an implication is that dream recall could be facilitated by sleeping with sound machines (e.g., waves, rain, wind, nature sounds). In addition, this is the basis for mobile apps that will wake a sleeper during the night to facilitate dream recall.

Research has revealed that the neurotransmitters accompanying stress, such as adrenalin, noradrenalin, and cortisol, tend to decrease while simultaneously the brain releases the body's own opiates, called beta-endorphins, into the bloodstream in combination with ritual body postures (see http://www.ecstatictrance.com/pages/trance.html). Therefore, we measured heart rate (HR) in beats per minute and heart-rate variability (HRV) in milliseconds as the individuals were recalling the dream. Pioneering research over 40 years ago revealed increased HR during dream recall when persons were wakened during rapid eye movement as they were dreaming (Shapiro, Goodenough, Biederman, & Sleser, 1964).

Given the functions of some of the ecstatic trance postures being associated with healing and past-life recovery, it is possible that positive dream recall is associated with a lowered HR as opposed to elevated HR because arousal is operating in terms of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). HR is controlled by the autonomic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system which is associated with relaxation while the SNS is associated with adrenalin, stress, and arousal (fight, flight, freeze). HR increases as the SNS is activated (Robertson, Biaggioni, Burnstock, Low, & Paton, 2011). Hence, the following hypothesis was tested on the basis of recalling negative dreams resulting in more arousal and stress.

Hypothesis 1: Negative dream recall is associated with higher heart rate compared to positive dream recall.

Dreams and Imagined Interactions

Dreams are defined as instances of mental activity during sleep (Schredl, 2000). They are a central aspect of human experience, as every human being experiences dreams every night (Aserinsky & Kleitman, 1953; Wittmann & Schredl, 2004). Large amounts of empirical evidence support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, which states that dreams are heavily influenced by waking-life actions, feelings, thoughts, and other stimuli (Schredl, 2003). This evidence has been confirmed in studies analyzing dream content, including the frequency of appearances from romantic partners (Shredl & Reinhard, 2012), vague emotions such as stress (Breger, Hunter, & Lane, 1971), and images of major life events such as divorce (Cartwright & Lamberg, 2000). Social activities and interactions are represented more often in dreams than cognitive activities are (Schredl, 2000).

Method

Results

Manipulation Checks

We checked that the recall of dreams was specific and recent. A one-tailed t test in which an average score of 4 was used as the test value indicated that our participants reported that they recalled dreams that occurred within the last week up to one day ago and that their memories were specific and detailed: t(121) = 19.15, p = .000, M = 5.30, SD = .75. There were no differences in recalling positive (M = 6.76, SD = 2.61) or negative dreams: M = 6.35, SD = 3.32, t(101) = 1.05, ns. In addition, subjects were asked if the way they positioned themselves on the couch mirrored their typical sleep position and they responded in the affirmative. They were also asked the extent to which the layout of the lab with the dimmed lights and sound machine was realistic in mimicking an area to sleep, using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much. The one-tailed t test supported the ecological validity of the lab setup: t(121) = 14.67, p = .000, M = 5.78, SD = 1.34. The results are discussed in the order of the research questions and hypotheses.

RQ1: What ecstatic postures are associated with the recall of a recent dream that left positive and negative impression on the individual?

A frequency count of the recumbent, ecstatic postures revealed that the most occurring poses were the La Tolita, Metamorphosis posture (36.4%) followed by the Hallstalt Warrior posture (19.4%), Mayan Divination Oracle (15.9%), and the Chiltan Healing Spirits posture (14.8%). Hence, these trances accounted for 85.5% of the postures. Figures 1 to 4 display the original postures. The remaining percentage was distributed among the other postures. Based on this division, we used a one-way analysis of covariance in which dream recall was the covariate and these four postures were the independent variables. The dependent variable was how the recalled dream made them feel. OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

La Tolita Mayan Metamorphosis Posture derived from the Chichen Itza.

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Figure 2.

Norse Hallstatt Warrior posture.

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Figure 3.

Mayan Oracle Divination posture.

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Figure 4.

Chiltan Healing Posture, 300 to 800 AD (Cerro de las Mesas, Veracruz State, Mexico).

There was a significant effect for ecstatic postures on positive dream recall: F(4, 70) = 3.72, p = .015. Figure 5 reveals a plot of the means. Post-hoc tests revealed that the Mayan Divination pose resulted in the highest level of positive feelings about the dream followed by the Chiltan Healing Pose while the La Tolita, Metamorphosis, and Hallstalt Warrior poses yielded the least positive affect. There was no significant effect for recumbent postures on negative dream recall: F(4, 57) = .94, p = .447.

H1: Negative dream recall is associated with higher heart rate compared to positive dream recall. OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 5.

Positive dream trances and emotional affect.

This hypothesis was supported. The HR when reporting on a negative dream was slightly higher (M = 85.98, SD = 10.24) compared with positive dream recall: M = 83.82, SD = 9.63, t(121) = −3.33, p = .001. In addition, HRV was higher when recalling a positive dream (M = 724.96, SD = 81.40) compared with the negative dream: M = 707.16, SD = 80.88, t(121) = 3.01, p = .003. HRV is a measure of the beat-to-beat changes in HR measured in milliseconds. The moment-to-moment variations in HR are often overlooked when average HR is singularly examined. Yet, HRV is an indicator of health and fitness. As a marker of physiological resilience and behavioral flexibility, it reflects our ability to adapt effectively to stress and environmental demands (see http://www.heartmath.com/science-behind-emwave/).

H2: Women will recall more dreams than men.

This hypothesis was confirmed. Women reported more dream recall (M = 5.38, SD = 1.08) than men: M = 4.51, SD = 1.30, t(115) = −3.72, p = .000.

RQ2: During recall of a positive or a negative dream, are imagined interaction functions correlated with heart rate?

In order to answer the third research question, we used partial correlation in which extent of dream recall was a covariate. HR during the positive dream recall was associated with maintaining relationships (partial r = .22, p = .046). The same pattern was observed during negative dream recall. HRV was associated with II compensation during the negative dream recall (partial r = .31 p = .004) and HR in beats per minute (partial r = .28, p = .008). Catharsis was associated with HRV during the negative dream recall (partial r = .24, p = .024). Similarly, self-understanding was associated with HRV during the negative dream recall (partial r = .20, p = .05). The intensity of negative dream feelings was associated with lower HRV (partial r = −.25, p = .023). The pattern of these partial correlations reveals that there is more cardiovascular reactivity during recall of negative dreams. The only exception was the association between maintaining relationships and HR during positive dream.

Discussion

We discovered some similarities in the arm positions to Goodman's ecstatic trance postures. Although lying down totally changes the nature of the effect of what these postures communicate, what they communicate in a prone position is still interesting and likely meaningful. This examination of the effect of the prone postures on dream recall offers a new dimension in understanding a person's dreams.

As noted earlier, sleep position and postural stances are associated with dream recall. It is interesting that recall of positive dreams was associated with the recumbent Mayan Divinity and the Chiltan Healing Spirits pose. The Mayan Oracle Divination ecstatic posture is one in a series of the divination postures that has been found to help access guidance, insight, and wisdom. When recalling a dream, the person is reliving the dream and subconsciously this posture attempts to reinforce the drive for wisdom in telling the dream. Relatedly, Hartmann (1998) discusses the importance of the thick and thin boundaries in dream recall and how thin boundaries are associated with more dream recall which we controlled for in terms of the lucid recall of recent dreams. Hartmann found that people with thin boundaries have more nightmares with more bizarre content. However, we found that the intensity of affect in negative dream recall was not associated with the recumbent Hallstalt, Norse Warrior trance. However, a limitation of our study is that we did not explicitly ask for recall of nightmares because of IRB restrictions.

One of the most significant results of this study is that negative dream recall is associated with higher HR compared with positive dream recall. Although, in this study, rapid stimulation to the nervous system was not used in the induction of trance as with ecstatic trance, it would typically increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system with an increase in HR. But with such ecstatic trance stimulation, an unusual drop in blood pressure also is likely to occur. This unusual occurrence is sometimes considered a preliminary stage of dying, an occurrence that is often mentioned in the experiences of shamans. On the other hand, nighttime dreams may go in either direction. The sympathetic response, the quieting and relaxing response as hopefully occurs with deeper alpha sleep, is likely associated with pleasant dreams, whereas nightmares trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, the flight or fight response and increases HR.

We replicated earlier studies revealing that women recalled more dreams than men. There are subtle differences in the way men and women think, express feelings, perceive feelings, and participate in the world. The reason for these differences could be to a variety of explanation including socialization, evolutionary, or biological factors (Baumeister, 2005). Consistently, research has revealed a variety of sex differences in dreaming including dreaming more about family members and people they know while men dream less about familiar characters. Their descriptions are more vivid and lengthier (Hall & Van de Castle, 1966). Our replicated findings notwithstanding, similarities and differences in dreaming usually have more to do with a person's background, personality traits, levels of introversion and extroversion, cultural environment, belief system, and worldview, than to do with an individual's sex (Garfield, 1988).

Finally, the recall of positive and negative dreams was associated with various II functions. The pattern that was most evident consisted of negative dreams being associated with HRV in terms of compensation, catharsis, and self-understanding. These findings are harmonious with Hartmann's (1998) findings on dream recall being associated with the desire to seek understanding of one's self-concept in terms of its etiology. Perhaps, dreams can reinforce or challenge existing values and beliefs on relationships, change, ideology, and spiritual beliefs (Barrett, 2007). The catharsis functions of IIs are designed to deal with anxiety as persons seek to expunge internal tensions. Hence, a person having a negative dream can explore ways of alleviating anxiety. The sheer act of the dream recall reveals catharsis as persons relive the episode. The catharsis function allows people to release emotions and anxiety. It is interesting that prior research has revealed an association between cognitive complexity and catharsis (Honeycutt, Vickery, & Hatcher, 2014). In terms of dream recall, it is interesting to note that earlier studies reveal that neuroticism is associated with catharsis which is compatible with Freud's (1908/1972) discussion of neuroticism and poetic imagination (Honeycutt, Pence, & Gearhart, 2013). Freud discusses how neurotic individuals have a tendency to engage in too many “flights of fancy” that distract from the reality of the present moment (cf. Klinger, 1990). In addition, there is abundant research in the dream journal indicating that dreams help us process emotions and consolidate memories (Brink, 2005).