Dreaming mystical experience among Christians and Hindus: the impact of culture, language, and religious participation on responses to the Dreaming Mysticism Scale

ABSTRACT

This study examines the responses of Nepali Christians and Hindus to the newly developed Dreaming Mysticism Scale (DMS). Factor breakdowns of the DMS for Christians and Hindus were basically identical, and together they and the factor breakdown of the combined sample suggest an interpretation–extraversion–interpretation typology that corresponds to the typical finding of studies employing the cognate M Scale. Differences between the DMS and the Spiritual Dreams Scale (SDS) with regard to factor structure appear to be linguistic in origin. Overall, the language employed in the DMS is more generic than that found in the SDS, making the former more suitable for cross-cultural investigations.

KEYWORDS:

• Mystical experience
• dreams
• dreaming mystical experience
• M Scale
• continuity theory
• Nepal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We rely on the results of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to test this hypothesis. Although we could have used confirmatory factor analysis for the same purpose, we chose EFA because the DMS has not been studied previously and we wanted to understand the factor structure prior to imposing expectations (cf. Brown, 2015, pp. 11–12).

2. The large subject loss is mainly due to stringent requirements for completion (all of the original scale items had to be answered). Many students (intentionally or unintentionally) would skip one or two items on the form, rendering their responses invalid.

3. Middle or low caste means not Brahmin, Chhetri, or Newari. Middle caste persons are typically distinguished from high and low caste individuals by East Asian (“Mongolian”) descent. They account for 52.08% of the Christian sample (n = 100). Low caste persons comprise 20.31% of the same sample (n = 39).

4. Newari persons are not included in these per cents (although generally considered “Mongolian”, Newari persons have frequently intermarried with Khas persons).

5. The M Scale includes both positively worded and negatively worded items in its design: for example, “I have had an experience which I knew to be sacred”/“I have never had an experience which seemed holy to me” (Hood, 1975).

6. In some cases, forms with missing demographic information not crucial to the investigation were included in the analyses.

7. In very few cases discretion was used to maintain or eliminate items if they failed to meet the cut-off or exhibited similar cross-loadings near the .35 level.

8. The initial eigenvalues were 6.239, 1.737, 1.584, 1.319, and so on. The fourth eigenvalue (1.319) of the real data set was less than the fourth eigenvalue (1.344) derived from a set of random data (constrained by the same number of variables and subjects as the actual data). Hence, a parallel analysis of the eigenvalues suggests three factors should be extracted from the actual data (see Brown, 2015, pp. 24–25). Final eigenvalues (of the 24-variable data set) were 4.986, 1.628, 1.433, 1.202, and so on. Again, the fourth eigenvalue was less than the fourth eigenvalue (1.259) of a random data set. Random eigenvalues were generated by MacParallel, a free app for MacOSX. For download, go to http://download.cnet.com/Mac-Parallel-Analysis/3000-2053_4-75331575.html.

9. Factor-item loadings for each (Christian/Hindu) sample are withheld in order to conserve space. They are available upon request.

10. Although the history of Christianity in Nepal can be dated to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when Catholic missionaries first made contact with peoples living within the nation’s present-day boundaries, isolationist and exclusionary policies by a succession of Nepali rulers essentially abolished Christianity in Nepal until the early 1950s, when the nation again opened its doors to foreign influence (see Barclay, 2009). Since that time, the Christian population in Nepal can claim to be one of the fastest growing Christian populations in the world (Barclay, 2009).

11. Although Christians’ greater tendency to report inner subjectivity is consistent with our third hypothesis, it is somewhat befuddling that this should be the only non-interpretive component garnering a greater Christian response – especially given Christians’ repudiation of a Hindu worldview that attributes life/consciousness to plants and non-living things.