An analogue study of the initial carryover effects of meditation,hypnosis, and relaxation Using naive college students

An analogue study involving two experiments was conducted to test the initial carryover effects of hypnosis, meditation, and relaxation upon self-reports of awareness. In the first experiment, concentrative meditators reported fewer nonsensorial events than controls. In the second experiment, concentrative meditators again reported fewer nonsensorial events, but covariate analysis and pretest/posttest comparisons revealed that it was the controls who had changed, increasing their nonsensorial reports. In addition, the relaxation group increased its reports of somatic awareness. Results were discussed in terms of the effects of performance demands and the possibility that meditation and hypnosis might be able to disinhibit awareness processes otherwise inhibited by normal daily routines.This article represents in part findings from a masters thesis completed at Appalachian State University, Donald L. Clark, Ph.D., Director, and a doctoral dissertation completed at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, David P. Rogers, Ph.D., and George S. Welsh, Ph.D., Co-Directors. The research was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid of Research from Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, with additional monies from the Smith Fund for graduate research at the University of North Carolina. Thanks go to Michelle Batchelder, Elizabeth Barbee, Lisa Barboun, Susan Durham, Lee Earl, Elizabeth Evans, Pam Gilmore, Sally Hall, Willian Hatch, Anne Mahaffie, Sally Parker, Lee Pusser, Susan Roach, Jennifer Rosenbaum, Skip Salguerro, Jeannette Smith, Michael Smith, Sylvia Sutton, and Lourdes Vinuales for their help in conducting the second experiment, with special thanks also to Susan Woodard (Experiment 1) and Alisa Huffman and Melanie Thackston (Experiment 2) for their help in coding the data. Helpful comments were made by Arthur N. Wiens, Ruth G. Matarazzo, Mary Lawrence Cawthon, W. Grant Dahlstrom, and Aija Ozolins on earlier drafts of this article.