Transliminality: Further correlates and a short measure

The factor-analytically derived concept transliminality has been tentativel y defined as "susceptibility to, and awareness of, large volumes of imagery , ideation and affect-these phenomena being generated by subliminal, supral iminal and/or external input." In the course of 5 papers it has been conclu ded that, in addition to the original variables making up transliminality ( viz., belief in and alleged experience of the paranormal, creative personal ity, mystical experience, magical ideation, and history of manic-like exper ience), there are other variables that correlate significantly with transli minality and all its 5 variables. These include general religiosity, freque ncy of dream interpretation, attitude toward dream interpretation, schizoty pal personality, Fantasy proneness, absorption, and hyperaesthesia. These v ariables have hitherto not been presented en bloc to a single sample. The p resent paper did this, using a sample of 301 persons, most of whom were psy chology students, and included also Bernstein and Putnam's Dissociative Exp eriences Scale (DES), Riley's Questionnaire of Experiences of Dissociation (QED!, and the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale. Principal component factor analysis using the Kaiser criterion was used to show that absorption, fant asy proneness, hyperaesthesia, and attitude toward dream interpretation cou ld be considered part of a single factor transliminality. Using a methodica l procedure, a 29-item short-form measure of transliminality was derived th at correlated with a large number of variables. Furthermore, as an example, it was demonstrated that the Transliminality Scale is strongly and positiv ely associated with the sheep-goat variable. Other studies using the scale are in progress or have been completed.