In addition to forming a coherent assembly of the known facts about the psychology of abductees, the boundary-deficit hypothesis is richly testable. Hartmann’s profile offers numerous predictions about the inner world of abductees. Those listed above are just a fraction of the possibilities.
If you want to know if missing time derives from a fluid time sense or a fluid memory, you can test people who report this for concomitant phenomena: frequent episodes of deja vu or jamais vu, primal repression dated to two or three years of age as opposed to four or five, days organised according to flexible rather than rigid schedules, future plans lacking specific time frames, and a tendency to not answer questions in a temporally structured pattern. The core claim about a low categorisation drive can be tested by cognitive tests like those cited in a book by Theodore Sarbin. (19)
The boundary-deficit proposition has in it the implicit resolution of the paradox of how people without significant psychopathology can entertain the belief that they are victims of alien abduction. The abduction myth has opportunistic features wherein boundary-deficit traits act to justify id material crossing ego boundaries being considered real. Whether the crossing is prompted by leaky sleep/wake boundaries (as in ” Communion”‘s hypnopompic nightmares) or by the opening of the boundary for role-taking behaviour, the narrative material is no more evidence of pathology than an LSD trip is a proof that LSD is a toxin, (20) or a symphony arising from a composer’s unconscious can be called a product of psychosis.
Belief in the reality of the material need not evoke thin reality/fantasy boundaries, since logic is present within the received myth which requires a trusting, or rather distrusting, demeanour for its acceptance. If you have a forgotten scar and a ufologist unleashes a creative id to pull together a dramatic nightmare, is it illogical to wonder if the myth is right and the nightmare explains the scar? In the context of a belief in furtive extraterrestrials, it is not.
As developmental psychologists well understand, confirmative behaviour and absurd beliefs often owe more to pathological contexts than organic dysfunction. If there is any pathology to abduction belief it is within the science of ufology itself — a point I explore elsewhere. (21) Normal people will necessarily not waste their time or the money needed to develop a thoroughgoing scientific judgement on all the facts and systems of belief they are exposed to in life. Since it has been a relatively harmless and a glorious entertainment (in Jacques Barzun’s sense of science as a glorious entertainment) the concept of UFOs survives to haunt the imaginations of millions and attract the attention of individuals who have been the victims of life’s conflicts. From the alchemy of ideas and passions transformed by the human unconscious emerges the fertile and labyrinthine myth and mystery of the UFO drama.
Notes:
1. For the best treatment of the will to power concept I recommend Kaufmann, Walter; “Discovering the Mind”, Vol. 2, McGraw Hill, 1980
2. Resta, Stephen P.; “The relationship of anomie and externality to the strength of belief in unidentified flying objects”, dissertation, Loyola College Graduate School, Baltimore, Maryland, 30 October 1975. Resta failed to find a significant correlation between anomie and UFO belief. This could be consistent with a paranoid orientation. Paranoia acts as a defence against depression and meaninglessness.
3. Zusne, Leonard and Jones, Warren H.; “Anomalistic Psychology”, Lawrence Erlbaum, 1982, 184-185
4. Warren, Donald I.; “Status inconsistency theory and flying saucer sightings”, Science, 170 (6 November 1970), 137
5. Watson, Ian; “All in the Mind”, Doubleday, 1984, 137
6. Caughey, John L.; “Fantasy worlds and self-maintenance in contemporary American life”, Zygon, 23, No. 2 (June 1988), 138, n. 3
7. Greenland, Colin; “An indication of monsters”; in Slusser, George E. and Rabkin, Eric S.; “Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction”, Southern Illinois University, 1987, 208-217
8. Hartmann, Ernest; “The Nightmare: The Psychology and Biology of Terrifying Dreams”, Basic Books, 1984
9. Sarbin, Theodore R. and Coe, William, C.; “Hypnosis: A Social Psychological Analysis of Influence Communication”, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1972
10. “Abductees are “normal” people”, International UFO Reporter, 9, No. 4 (July/August 1984), 10-12
11. Bloecher, Ted; Clamar, Aphrodite; and Hopkins, Budd; “Final Report on the Psychological testing of UFO Abductees”, Fund for UFO Research, 1985
12. Hopkins, Budd; “UFO Abductions – the Skeleton Key”, “MUFON 1988 International UFO Symposium Proceedings”, 105
13. Karlen, Arno; “Sexuality and Homosexuality: A New View”, W.W. Norton, 1971
14. Etchison, Dennis; “Cutting Edge”, Doubleday, 1986, 279-280
15. Eidelberg, Ludwig; “Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis”, Free Press, 1968, 351
16. Strieber, Whitley; “On the road (with visitors)”, International UFO Reporter, January/February 1987, 9. Winter, Douglas; “Faces of Fear”, Berkeley Books, 1985, 192-206
17. Tom Snyder interview with Whitley Strieber, WIS Radio, Chicago, 2 March 1988
18. Meissner, W.W.; “Narcissistic personalities and borderline conditions: a differential diagnosis”; in Morrison, Andrew P. (ed.); “Essential Papers on Narcissism”, New York University Press, 1966, 403-437. Rinsley, Donald B.; “Borderline and Self Disorders: A Developmental and Object relations Perspective”, Jason Aronson, 1982
19. Sarbin, Theodore and Mancuso, James C.; “Schizophrenia: Medical Diagnosis or Moral Verdict?”, Pergamon, 1980, 203-206
20. LSD acts specifically on the dissolution of mental boundaries. Stanislav Grof’s studies of LSD experiences reveal systematic correspondence to Hartmann’s profile of boundary- deficit experience. Hartmann even reports that some of the nightmare sufferers volunteer the observation that they don’t need LSD because their lives are always like a trip! Most criticism of Lawson’s birth trauma study I have heard fails to display any recognition of his primary discovery, namely that Grof’s “Realms of the Human Unconscious” provides the blueprint to the emotional subtext of UFO experiences. To me, the concern over foetal self-imagery being the origin of the humanoid image is a side issue and a distraction. Reading Grof for oneself after being immersed in a series of abduction reports gives one a much better appreciation of Lawson’s excitement. It clicks.
21. “Ufology considered as an evolving system of paranoia”, Artifex, forthcoming