Report on the overall results of two surveys in a research project funded by the Bial Foundation in the 2008 bursary. A random postal survey and a web-based survey were conducted in which participants responded to a questionnaire into which items from the Tellegen Absorption Scale were embedded, extended by estimates of frequency of experiences, and additional items we included on childhood-based imaginary companion experiences and a variety of other exceptional experiences.

1. Nancy L. Zingrone, Carlos S. Alvarado &
Natasha Agee
University of Virginia IRB#2009-0260-00
Funded by the Bial Foundation

2.  Absorption: “a full commitment of available
perceptual, motoric, imaginative and
ideational resources to a unified
representation of the attentional object”
(Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974, p. 274).
 Imaginary companions: “an invisible
character, named and referred to in
conversation with other persons or played
with directly for a period of time, at least
several months, having an air of reality for
the child but no apparent objective basis”
(Svendsen, 1934, p. 988).

3.  Absorption has been related to:
◦ Hypnotic susceptibility
◦ Fantasy proneness
◦ Dissociation
◦ Openness to experience
◦ Mystical experiences
◦ Eidetic imagery
◦ Synesthesia
◦ Self-reported parapsychological
experiences (e.g., OBEs, aura
vision, apparition experiences, etc.)

4.  Experiencing Imaginary Companions
has been related to:
◦ Absorption in general
◦ Attentional focusing (a facet of absorption)
◦ Hypnotizability
◦ Creativity
◦ Imagery and daydreaming
◦ Dissociation
◦ Hallucinations

5.  Self-reported parapsychological
experiences have been related to:
◦ Absorption
◦ Dissociation
◦ Fantasy-proneness
◦ Dream recall
◦ Depersonalization
◦ Imaginary companions

6.  Tellegen’s Absorption Scale (TAS)
◦ True / False & Frequency of Experience
 Diener’s Satisfaction with Life Scale
(SWLS)
 Items constructed by us on:
◦ Features of the Imaginary Companion (IC)
experiences
◦ Demographics, medical questions
◦ Parapsychological and other experiences

7.  While watching a movie, a TV show, or a
play, I may become so involved that I
may forget about myself and my
surroundings and experience the story
as if it were real and as if I were taking
part in it.
 If I wish I can imagine that my body is
so heavy that I could not move it if I
wanted to.

8. True
False
If true, how often?
Very Rarely
Rarely
Occasionally
Frequently
Very Frequently

9.  In most ways my life is close to my ideal.
 The conditions of my life are excellent.
 I am satisfied with life.
 So far I have gotten the important things I
want in life.
 If I could live my life over, I would change
almost nothing.

10.  Strongly Disagree
 Disagree
 Slightly Disagree
 Neither Agree or Disagree
 Slightly Agree
 Agree
 Strongly Agree

11.  Age
 Gender
 Ethnicity
 Marital Status
 Birth Order
 Handedness
 Religiousness
 Head Injury
 Headache

12.  Dream Recall
 Disturbing Dreams
 Lucid Dreams
 Waking ESP
 Dream ESP
 Out of Body Experiences
 Experience of Apparitions
 Aura Vision

13.  Mystical Experiences
 Déjà vu
 Synesthesia-Like
Experiences of Colors with
Numbers and/or Letters
 Synesthesia-Like
Experiences of Colors with
Music and/or Sounds

14.  Have you ever had a special sort of dream in
which you knew during the dream that you
were dreaming and felt that you possessed all
your waking faculties?
 Have you ever had, while awake, a strong
feeling, impression, or “vision” that a
previously unexpected event had
happened, was happening, or was going to
happen, and learned later that you were
right?

15. Never
Rarely
Occasionally
Frequently
Most of the time

16.  Study 1:
◦ Random Survey of Richmond, Virginia
 3000 Questionnaires Sent via post to randomly
chosen residents of Richmond (1.6% of the
overall population)
 262 respondents (9% return rate)
 Study 2:
◦ Web-based administration to English-
speaking individuals
 Marketed via the “Study of Human Experiences”
website, chat lists, web-portals
 622 respondents

17.  that TAS scores would be higher for
individuals who claimed to have adult
memories of childhood imaginary
companions in both the random postal
and the web-based samples
 that TAS frequency ratings would be
higher for individuals who claimed to
have adult memories of childhood
imaginary companions in both the
random postal and the web-based
samples

18.  that TAS scores and TAS frequency ratings
would correlate positively and significantly
with frequency ratings of seemingly
psychic, dream-related, mystical, déjà
vu, and synesthesia-like experiences
 That IC experients would obtain
significantly higher percentages of “yes”
responses to the other experience
questions than those individuals who had
not experienced imaginary companions in
childhood

19.  higher mean scores on the TAS and the
TAS frequency rating for web than
postal
 higher percentage of IC experients for
web than postal
 higher percentages of “yes” responses
on seemingly psychic, dream-
related, mystical, déjà vu, and
synesthesia-like experiences for web
than postal

20.  Relationship of demographic variables to:
◦ Presence/absence of IC experience
◦ Presence/absence of Dream experiences
◦ Presence/absence of Parapsychological
Experiences
 Pattern of characteristics / features of the
IC experience
 Relationship of SWLS scores to TAS scores,
and presence / absence / frequency of all
experiences

21.  52% married
 80% white
 57% female
 52 years old (Range = 19-89)
 37% First Born
 83% Right-handed
 87% had never suffered a head injury
 42% rarely had headaches
 42% moderately religious

22.  “white poodle”
 “humanoid animal”
 “I knew he was imaginary but I would just talk to
him.”
 “Her name was Molly and she was very real to me.”
 “She tried to talk to me but I was afraid.”
 “Joe was a guardian angel and an evil tormentor.”
 “She was crazy, lived in a hut, looked like a Disney
version of Jesus’ mother Mary, but her name was
Alice.”

23.  Average age when they first experienced it: 6 years old
(range = 3-16)
 36% had only one companion
 74% said the IC was a person
 48% said the IC was male
 28% only experienced the IC as a presence
 50% encountered the IC once a week
 74% no longer experienced the IC, and stopped at an
average age of 11 (range = 4-41)
 26% never stopped experiencing the IC

24.  78% felt the IC experience was positive
 26% said another family member had
his or her own IC experiences
 27% said another family member could
see the respondent’s IC too

25.  41% married
 93% white
 52% male
 38% First Born
 84% Right-handed
 85% never experienced a head injury
 44% rarely suffered headaches
 38% described themselves as not at all
religious

26.  “I would mainly see it here or there around the house. It
rarely spoke to me unless I spoke to it.”
 “I saw the Angel at the foot of my bed many times
watching over me in his mind. He was not visible and yet
he was.”
 “It didn’t really take much interest in me. It was just kind
of there and I could see it and others couldn’t.”
 “I had interaction with many different beings. One or two
were friendly but one terrified me so badly I had night
terrors from ages 2 to 5. During and after this I worked
very hard on blocking out all the outside energies.”
 “He lived in my grandmother’s house where I lived … and
he liked to follow me even sometimes outside the house.”

27.  Average age when they first experienced it: 5 years old
(range = 1-18)
 55% had only one companion
 83% said the IC was a person
 56% said the IC was male
 36% only experienced the IC as a presence
 39% encountered the IC several times a week
 77% no longer experienced the IC, and stopped at an
average age of 10 (range = 2-43)
 23% never stopped experiencing the IC

28.  74% felt the IC experience was positive
 25% said another family member had his
or her own IC experiences
 11% said another family member could
see the respondent’s IC too

29. Random Postal Survey Respondents
Analysis N
IC Yes
Mean
IC No
Mean
MW
z p
TAS Score by IC Yes - IC
No
Possible Score Range =
0-34 258 21.83 15.96
4.2
4 <.0001
TAS Frequency Rating
Means by IC Yes - IC No
Possible Score Range =
0-170 258 52.33 33.68
4.0
3 <.0001
Web-based Survey Respondents
Analysis N
IC Yes
Mean
IC No
Mean
MW
z p
TAS Score by IC Yes - IC
No
Possible Score Range =
0-34 579 25.89 21.19
6.6
4 <.0001
TAS Frequency Rating
Means
by IC Yes - IC No
Possible Score Range –
0-170 579 93.54 70.35
6.9
9 <.0001

30.  The higher the TAS Score, the higher the
frequency of TAS experiences, the higher the
frequency of:
◦ Dream Recall, Disturbing Dreams, Lucid
Dreams
◦ Waking ESP, Dream ESP, Apparition
Experiences, OBEs, Aura Vision
◦ Mystical Experiences
◦ Déjà vu Experiences
◦ Color-Numbers/Letters Synesthesia-Like
Experiences
◦ Color-Sounds/Music Synesthesia-Like
Experiences

31. Postal Web
IC Yes IC No IC Yes IC No
Experiences % % % %
Dream Recall 97.2 95.5 99.3 98.5
Disturbing Dreams 100 97.3 97.3 98.3
Lucid Dreams 91.4 74.2 92.5 86.3
ESP Dreams 85.3 64.5 85.6 74.1
Waking ESP 75 54.1 87.9 69.2
Auras 30.6 12.2 60.1 32.7
Apparitions 69.4 35.6 89.3 71.6
OBEs 50 34.7 78.9 58.7
Mystical Experience 72.2 50.2 89.9 79.9
Déjà Vu 94.3 83.8 95.9 94.6
Synesthesia-Colors
with Sounds/Music 47.2 23.9 64.4 34.9
Synesthesia-Colors
with Numbers/Letters 36.1 12.2 43.5 22

32. Mean t p
All Participants TAS Score Means
Random Postal Respondents 16.66
Web-based Respondents 22.08 9.232<.00001
IC Experients Only
Random Postal Respondents 21.833
Web-based Respondents 25.888 3.333 0.001
Non-IC Experients Only
Random Postal Respondents 15.964
Web-based Respondents 21.176 8.173<.00001
All Participants TAS Frequency Means
Random Postal Respondents 35.890
Web-based Respondents 74.890 17.010<.00001
IC Experients Only
Random Postal Respondents 52.333
Web-based Respondents 92.545 7.247<.00001
Non-IC Experients Only
Random Postal Respondents 33.676
Web-based Respondents 70.279 15.317<.00001

33.  Postal: 263 respondents
◦ 36 IC Experiencers (14%)
 Web: 622 Respondents
◦ 156 IC Experiences (27%)

34. Postal Web
Variable Yes % Yes %
Dream Recall 99% 99%
Disturbing Dreams 98% 98%
Lucid Dreams 77% 89%
ESP Dreams 68% 77%
Waking ESP 57% 74%
Auras 16% 40%
Apparitions 41% 76%
OBEs 37% 64%
Mystical Experience 53% 82%
Déjà Vu 85% 95%
Synesthesia-Colors with Sounds 27% 43%
Synesthesia-Colors with Numbers 16% 28%

35. Variables
Positive Correlations
Random Postal Sample
SWLS scores with Aura Vision Frequency
SWLS with Synesthesia-like Experiences of Colors with Letters/Numbers
TAS Score with all dream-related, seemingly psychic, mystical, déjà vu,
and synesthesia-like experiences
TAS Frequency Rating with all dream-related, seemingly psychic,
mystical, déjà vu, and synesthesia-like experiences

36. Variables
Positive Correlations
Web-based Sample
SWLS scores with Aura Vision Frequency
SWLS scores with Mystical Experience
SWLS scores with Synesthesia-like Experiences of Colors with
Letters/Numbers
TAS score with Religiousness
TAS Frequency Rating with Religiousness
TAS score with Headache Frequency
TAS Frequency Rating with Headache Frequency
TAS Score with all dream-related, seemingly psychic, mystical, déjà vu, and
synesthesia-like experiences
TAS Frequency Rating with all dream-related, seemingly psychic, mystical,
déjà vu, and synesthesia-like experiences

37. Variables
Mann-Whitneys
Random Sample
Significantly higher TAS scores by IC “Yes” respondents vs IC “No” respondents
Significantly higher TAS frequency ratings by IC “Yes” respondents vs IC “No”
respondents
Significantly higher Apparitions frequency ratings by IC “Yes” respondents vs IC
“No” respondents
Web-based Sample
Significantly higher TAS scores by IC “Yes” respondents vs IC “No” respondents
Significantly higher TAS frequency ratings by IC “Yes” respondents vs IC “No”
respondents
Significantly higher experience ratings by IC “Yes” respondents vs IC “No”
respondents on Dream Recall, ESP Dreams, Waking ESP, Aura vision, Apparitions,
OBEs, Mystical, Déjà vu, Synesthesia-like experiences with colors with
letters/numbers

38. Variables
Comparison
Significantly higher TAS scores for the Web-Based IC “No” Respondents
than the Random Sample IC “No” Respondents
Significantly higher TAS Frequency Ratings for all categories of
respondents on the Web-based versus the Random Sample

39.  IC Experiences are related to dream,
parapsychological and other exceptional
experiences
 Absorption is related to IC Experiences
 Imaginary Companions are not only an
experience of childhood
 Further work needs to be done.