In previous studies, children aged 8-13 completed questionnaires concerning
psychic experiences and altered states of consciousness. Very high incidences
were reported. For example about a quarter of the children had seen
UFOs or strange lights; about a third claimed to have had an out-of-body
experience, or sleep paralysis or to have seen a ghost; and over half
reported false awakenings and a sense of presence.
There must be some doubt about the accuracy of these figures because
the children may not understand the questions or may answer them on
the basis of experiences other than those intended by the researcher.
Also, very little detail can be obtained from questionnaires, especially
with children who are too young to write extensive accounts of their
experiences. For these reasons I wished to interview a smaller group
of children in some depth.
Nine boys and five girls aged 9 to 11 were
interviewed at their primary school in Bristol. There were three sessions
on different days. First the whole class completed the same questionnaire
that was used previously. Then, with the teacher’s help, I asked
for volunteers to come and talk to me in an adjacent room about their
experiences. There was no shortage of volunteers and in fact some had
to be disappointed as there was not enough time to talk to everyone.
Most interviews lasted 15-20 minutes.
The interview was semi-structured, including
the following questions; what do you think about when falling asleep
and on waking in the morning, what happens if you wake up during the
night, have you ever woken up and could not move, can you control your
dreams, have you ever seen strange lights, or creatures or heard strange
noises during the night, have you ever seen a ghost, what do you think
dreams are - do you have a theory about dreams? Are there any other
experiences you would like to tell me about? Each topic was explored
in as much detail as seemed appropriate. If they had drawn pictures
to go with their questionnaire, I asked about these too. The ethical
issues involved in asking young children about such topics will be discussed.
The high incidences found from the questionnaires
were backed up by these interviews, although the correspondence between
questionnaire answers and interview answers was not exact. The differences
will be discussed.
Several children described being able to control
their dreams, or at least trying to, in one case to escape from a repeated
nightmare. Several described lucid dreams, two saying that they became
lucid when they realised that they could fly and that this would not
be the case in waking life. One described an unpleasant confusion of
waking and dreaming that sounded like a false awakening. One eleven
year old boy who had lucid dreams and good dream control had tried an
experiment to meet up with a friend during dreams - but in their dreams
they both forgot. Other experiences included apparently precognitive
dreams, ghosts, and out-of-body experiences.
These interviews provide a useful check on
the validity of asking children to complete questionnaires about their
experiences. They have also provided some rich and varied accounts of
children’s experiences. Many of the children described in a very
matter-of-fact way experiences which, if reported by adults, would be
considered very unusual or strange.
I wish to thank the Perrott-Warrick for financial support.
