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EDITORIAL

The Dissociations of Everyday Life

“Daily life is full of many small dissociations if we look for them.”

–(E. R. Hilgard, 1973)1

Hilgard’s comment has within it two observations: one regarding the ubiq-
uity of dissociative experiences in everyday life, the other concerning our curi-
ous lack of awareness of that fact. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I compose
this editorial for this special issue of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation on
“Dissociation in Culture.”2 The articles that constitute this issue–articles that
examine dissociative phenomena in aspects of popular culture and religion–
represent one of the first efforts, to my knowledge, to explore dissociative ex-
perience across a variety of relatively common, and surprisingly normative,
life activities.3 Although the topics covered here represent a small subset of
those that could be examined, I hope the reader comes away, as I have, with a
sense of excitement regarding the potential scope of these phenomena. In the
following, I briefly describe these papers, revisit the dissociative continuum,
and present several tentative observations regarding the nature, and perhaps
the purpose, of dissociations of everyday life.
Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, Vol. 5(2) 2004
http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JTD
” 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J229v05n02_01 1
2 JOURNAL OF TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION

THE PAPERS IN THIS ISSUE

The first four articles of this issue examine dissociation as represented, or

as experienced, in recreational activities of daily life, including film, fiction,
and music. Steven Gold conducts a psychological dissection of the popular
film, Fight Club (based on Palahniuk’s [1996] book of the same name),
wherein the two central protagonists–the Narrator and Tyler–are revealed to
be two facets of the same individual. Gold steps back from the diagnostic par-
ticulars of the story line to develop a textured and compelling argument that el-
ements of modern society (in particular, consumerism, technology, and rapid
mobility) are psychologically toxic–and specifically dissociogenic–to con-
temporary well-being.
Rachel Goldsmith and Michelle Satterlee examine the discourse of repre-
sentations of trauma and dissociation in modern fiction, documenting the
unique perspectives and naturalistic contextualization that fictional accounts
provide. By examining how fiction portrays individual experience, emotions,
dissociation, communication, meaning, and healing and recovery, and com-
paring these accounts to the definitions and conceptualizations of clinical psy-
chology, the authors convincingly demonstrate that study of such accounts
can add needed breadth and depth to our understanding of the effects of
trauma.
Oxana Palesh and I examine dissociation in film, including the propositions
that movie-viewing may itself be a dissociative experience, that cinematic rep-
resentations of peri- and posttraumatic experience rely on the moviegoer’s
innate understanding of such experiences, and that representations of dissociation
in film are common because of the rich plot possibilities of dissociative disor-
ders and because they provide a means to examine universal existential expe-
riences and themes of memory, identity and multiplicity.
Bridging the apparent gap between recreation and spiritual impulse, Kathryn
Becker-Blease examines dissociation in two modern music forms–New Age
music and trance music (associated with raves)–each developed and practiced
to induce trance-type states. Her fascinating analysis indicates that New Age
and trance music appear to be two modern secular instantiations of humanity’s
strivings for meaningful altered states of consciousness, including spiritual
trance states associated with stimulus-rich social events of dance and rhythmic
sound, and ecstatic religious experiences associated with tranquil, solitary
contemplation.
The final three articles offer intriguing examinations of dissociation in or
from religious contexts. Tanya Luhrmann proposes the provocative anthropo-
logical thesis that the waxing and waning (American) prevalence of dis-
sociative disorders over the past century mirrors the rise and fall of charismatic
Christian revivals and may be due, at least in part, to them. In support of one
 Editorial 3

part of this claim, Luhrmann examines in evocative detail dissociative features

of religious induction methodology, as practiced in a modern evangelical
Christian sect, that emphasize and cultivate trance-like experiences through
prayer and other means.
Eli Somer describes fascinating 16th and 17th century records and eyewit-
ness accounts of spirit possession in Judaism (in the Kabbalist tradition) and
compares the characteristics of these cases to modern views of dissociative
identity disorder. Somer suggests that the former may represent culturally-
shaped and -sanctioned presentations of fundamental dissociative pathology
that meet the pressing psychological needs of the sufferer as well as serving
the social control and conformity objectives of the society in which they mani-
fest.
Lynn Waelde’s description of the centuries-old principles of concentrative
meditation also places altered states of consciousness in a rich historical tradi-
tion. Waelde examines the uses of meditation in the regulation of the contents
of awareness alongside an engaging case study of a Vietnam combat veteran
who used seemingly similar strategies for twenty years to regulate his post-
combat psychological functioning (a strategy that ultimately failed him).
Waelde compares the elements of meditation to features of dissociation and
discusses findings regarding the use of meditation practices in the secular
treatment setting.
Taken together, these papers provide evidence of the ubiquity of dis-
sociative phenomena in normative human activities. Additionally, they under-
score the contribution of the shaping influences “of individual psychological
needs and conflicts, social forces and cultural factors” (Ludwig, 1983, p. 95;
see also Kluft, 1984) that constitute the context in which dissociative pro-
cesses develop and manifest. The variety of these influences goes some
distance toward accounting for the protean expressions regarded to be dis-
sociative. For example, the diverse effects of cultural, subcultural, and social
contexts on experiences of dissociation are apparent in trance and possession
states (Becker-Blease, 2004; Somer, 2004) and religious and spiritual practice
(Luhrmann, 2004; Waelde, 2004), along with the representations of dissocia-
tion in fiction (Goldsmith & Satterlee, 2004) and film (Butler & Palesh, 2004),
and the hypothesized disintegration of identity resulting from pathogenic soci-
etal features (Gold, 2004).
In sum, the findings from these papers thread dissociative experiences
through history and across cultures; span disparate domains of experience
from impulse to striving, from recreation to religion; attest, in many cases, to
the continuity of dissociation from normality to pathology; and, highlight the
pervasive presence and use of dissociation in everyday life.
4 JOURNAL OF TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION

THE DISSOCIATIVE CONTINUUM

Theorists have long observed that dissociative experiences appear in minor

and major forms (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986) that seem to fall along a contin-
uum4 (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986; Ludwig, 1983; Putnam, 1989) ranging from
transient everyday events involving absorption (such as daydreaming) to more
chronic and relatively rare conditions characterized by dissociative pathology
(such as disorders of memory and identity). As these descriptions imply, expe-
riences sampled at different points on the continuum would be expected to dif-
fer with respect to the dimensions of duration and severity, the extent of
impact on functioning, the conditions that precipitate them (such as stress or
trauma), and their incidence over a lifetime or in the population at large.
For example, experiences of derealization and depersonalization that may
occur during and after a highly stressful or traumatic event would seem to in-
habit a more central position on the continuum. They are at once relatively
brief and almost universal reactions (and their precipitants are more numerous
and varied), and yet they can be disturbing and disorienting, and harbingers of
more serious long-term posttraumatic pathology. In contrast, everyday dis-
sociative experiences do not appear to be associated with pathology,5 nor trau-
matic experience, though they too are common (Ray, 1996). But beyond this,
what characterizes them?
Ludwig (1983) has observed that “[t]he widespread prevalence of dis-
sociative reactions and their many forms and guises argues for their serving
important functions for man and their possessing great survival value” (p. 95).
Most commentators (e.g., Kluft, 1984; Ludwig, 1983; Noyes & Kletti, 1977;
Putnam, 1989) put a particular emphasis on the defensive value of dissociation
in protecting the individual from overwhelming experience (see also Gold,
2004; Goldsmith & Satterlee, 2004; Somer, 2004; Waelde, 2004). In this way,
dissociation may be seen as a psychological clutch (R. Garlan, personal com-
munication, July 8, 2003) that allows the individual to disengage from the ten-
sion and action of the present. Those with the capacity to dissociate can evade
awareness of aversive perceptual, emotional, or behavioral inputs; past experi-
ences (memories); present meanings, associations, and preoccupations; and
the burden of volition. This capacity may allow the individual to psychologi-
cally survive traumatic circumstances. However, when voluntary phenomenal
self-awareness is curtailed, when the full scope of internal and external reality
is no longer engaged or accessible, when symptoms persist or reactions are
overgeneralized, dissociation has become maladaptive. If mental disorders
typically reflect alterations or perturbations in what are usually ordered pro-
cesses, it would seem reasonable to look for the functional value of ordered
dissociation in everyday life. The pathological end of the dissociative contin-
uum may represent, therefore, manifestations of the dysfunction of discern-
 Editorial 5

ible, adaptive nonpathological processes. In the following I pose tentative

observations regarding the nature and possible functions of benign or minor
dissociative experiences and briefly comment on whether and how they might
correspond to the major dissociations.

NORMATIVE DISSOCIATIVE EXPERIENCES

As mentioned elsewhere in this volume (Butler & Palesh, 2004), the term
nonpathological dissociation implies an altered state of consciousness that is
not organically induced, that does not occur as a part of a dissociative disorder,
and that involves the temporary alteration or separation of normally-inte-
grated mental processes. The essence of the normative dissociative process, as
I see it, is absorption (see also E. R. Hilgard, 1977; Spiegel & Spiegel, 1978;
Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974)–intense focal concentration and cognitive in-
volvement in one (or more) aspect(s) of conscious awareness, resulting in the
exclusion (dissociation) of other content from the phenomenal field and, of-
ten, the context in which it is experienced (for example, the loss of self-aware-
ness and self-reflection, the experience of volition, or the experience of
relatedness to self or world; Butler, Duran, Jasiukaitis, Koopman, & Spiegel,
1996). In dissociative pathology, what is often most salient (and diagnosable)
is a deficit associated with the dissociated material (e.g., the missing memory;
the apparent loss of function). However, in a study of nonpathological or nor-
mative dissociation, perhaps we should first attend to its possible adaptive
functions.
Although this is a topic that I hope to examine more extensively and rigor-
ously in the future (and upon which I am currently conducting research with a
student, Adam Kaufman), I hope the reader will bear with me as I propose a
tentative (and at this point relatively unsupported) delineation of some of the
dissociations of daily life. At first pass, it appears that there are three general
varieties: dissociative experience as a forum for mental processing, dis-
sociative experience as an escape, and positive dissociative experience as rein-
forcement.

Passive Dissociative Experience

as a Forum for Mental Processing

Of the first variety, we can identify passive (and apparently spontaneous)

absorptive experiences that are often, though not always, secondary to other
activity. These experiences, typically described by the term daydreaming6 (or
in some cases “spacing out”), can occur in the absence of diverting external
stimuli or cognitively demanding tasks, such as when sitting quietly gazing
out a window. They may also accompany routinized physical activities such as
6 JOURNAL OF TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION

driving (highway hypnosis), taking a shower, jogging, or playing simple com-

puter games. In Ludwig’s (1983) typology, these phenomena are accounted
for by the function they serve in automating behaviors and increasing the
economy and efficiency of effort. However, it is worth considering a comple-
mentary functional emphasis: engaging in such behaviors allows the mind the
opportunity to wander where it might or perhaps where it needs to go.
The reveries that accompany such activities typically involve absorption in
the internal world of thought, imagination, or memory, with the concomitant
(relatively temporary) loss of awareness of self, place, behavior, and passage
of time. If one introspects regarding the contents of awareness during such epi-
sodes, it often appears that the phenomenal field is consumed with activity–re-
vising past conversations, fantasizing about future conversations or activities,
problem-solving, judgment-making, and planning–in short, the mind is doing
work, milling the grist of daily life.7 Daydreaming can also allow one to
(nondirectively) mull over material unsuited to conscious deliberation, as
when one employs reverie to engage intuition, creativity, or other unconscious
processes. Although the automaticity and evanescence of such experiences
mean that most of them pass relatively unnoted (particularly because self-
awareness is often lost during them), their frequency is apparent upon reflec-
tion.8
Normal dreaming–another altered state of awareness that some assert is
dissociative (e.g., Barrett, 1996; E. R. Hilgard, 1977)–has long been thought
to provide the opportunity to work through the unfinished business from our
waking experience (e.g., Freud, 1900/1965, described in Cartwright, 1996).9
Perhaps engagement in the commonplace activities that allow for daydream-
ing provides the organism with the waking occasion to contemplate or grapple
with issues that require intellectual or emotional attention or the contribu-
tions of unconscious process. The pathological counterpart to the normative
“dreaming” of day and night may be, therefore, the processing failure indi-
cated by the unbidden and repetitive intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and night-
mares of traumatic re-experiencing (Horowitz, 1986).

Actively Sought Dissociative Experience as Escape

A second type of normative dissociative experiences accompanies many of

our recreational and other life activities (E. R. Hilgard, 1977), specifically
those actively sought experiences that fill up conscious awareness, thereby
temporarily supplanting personal concerns or preoccupations or dissociating
them to the periphery of awareness. Many people experience such dis-
sociations while listening to music, watching films, reading fiction (e.g.,
Becker-Blease, 2004; Butler & Palesh, 2004; Goldsmith & Satterlee, 2004)
and, perhaps, during contemplative religious trance or meditative states (e.g.,
 Editorial 7

Luhrmann, 2004; Waelde, 2004). In these cases, the absorbing material is in-
troduced into consciousness by the external activity, rather than arising spon-
taneously. For those with prodigious imaginative capacities, imaginary
companions in childhood or fantasy-created alternate worlds in child- and
adulthood (J. R. Hilgard, 1970; Wilson & Barber, 1983) may provide func-
tionally similar absorbing experiences.
The adaptive function of seeking out such dissociative experiences seems
clear–occupying one’s present awareness with absorbing externally-derived
content relieves one, at least temporarily, of contemplating one’s own internal
productions. In other words, actively sought dissociative experiences may
serve as diversions, distractions, and escapes10 from life stresses, preoccupa-
tions, and perhaps dysphoria. Presumably, this psychological vacation pro-
vides both psychic respite and the opportunity for rejuvenation. Butler and
Palesh (2004) noted that Americans and others spend substantial time partici-
pating in potentially dissociative recreational activities. It is possible, there-
fore, that dissociative experiences are not incidental to these activities, but
central to their appeal because of the relief and restoration they offer.
The instrumental use of normative dissociation described here is reminis-
cent of pathological states where maladaptive behaviors are enacted to deploy
dissociation to manage affective states.11 Similarly, involuntary immersion
into a flashback in posttraumatic stress disorder or the identity and amnesia of
a given alter in dissociative identity disorder, for example, may be pathologi-
cal parallels to the alternate phenomenal reality we voluntarily enter into in
many of our recreational or imaginal activities.

Positive Dissociative Experience as Reinforcement

A third and less common form of nonpathological dissociative experiences

has been identified by researchers in and outside the trauma field. For exam-
ple, Pica and Beere (1995) have described intense positive dissociative experi-
ences that involve a narrowing of perception and alterations in the experience
of self, body, or world in association with events and activities of personal sig-
nificance such as engaging in sports, sex, hobbies, or prayer, anticipating or
hearing good news, having contact with nature, performing, and listening to
music. These findings may represent a normative counterpart to the peri-
traumatic dissociation associated with highly stressful or traumatic events. In
other words, intense affective experience–whether negative or positive–ap-
pears to elicit similar peri-event experiences of depersonalization and dereali-
zation.
Some of these experiences have also been described (though not con-
ceived of as dissociative) in the literature on flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990;
Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002) and peak experiences (Maslow, 1964).
8 JOURNAL OF TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION

Flow (or optimal experience) is described as a function of a dynamic inter-

play between perceived challenges and existing skills. When the challenge
neither overmatches, nor underutilizes, available skills, flow is experienced
(Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). The state of flow shares many features
with dissociative experience including intense, focused concentration; a
merging of action and awareness (i.e., attention is completely absorbed in
the present action) that results in the loss of reflective self-consciousness; and
distorted time sense. The features that distinguish flow from other dissociative
experiences are the sense of self-efficacy experienced with respect to the task
at hand and the intrinsically rewarding nature of the experience.
Further research is needed to determine whether flow experiences represent
a subset of the positive dissociative experiences described by Pica and Beere
(1995) or a distinct type of normative dissociation. In both cases, though, the
strong positive affect would make these experiences highly reinforcing–per-
haps signaling the organism that the associated activities are life-affirming
and worth repeating. The pathological counterpart to both positive dis-
sociative and flow experiences would seem to be peritraumatic dissociation.
In the latter, personal significance is also high–in this case because of threat–
but the experience is unpleasant rather than pleasant because the challenge ex-
ceeds or overwhelms existing resources and capabilities.

CONCLUDING COMMENT

The articles in this issue, along with the experiences discussed in this edito-
rial, suggest that normative dissociative experiences are not incidental to daily
life, but central to it–central not just in the sense that they are commonplace,
but also in that they may be instrumental and integral to adaptive functioning.
We may not be acutely aware of them because they are so common and second
nature, neutral to pleasant in affect tone (and therefore not noteworthy), and
involve loss of self-awareness (and consequently, without reflection we tend
not to remember them). But we engage in dissociative experiences, neverthe-
less. Whether passively, as in daydreaming, or actively for coping and creativ-
ity, whether for recreation (e.g., reading fiction, listening to music, watching
films) or for self-soothing and psychological maintenance (e.g., meditation,
trance), whether in solitary pursuits or as socially sanctioned group activities
(e.g., as part of some religious gatherings, or attending raves), we can see per-
sons using dissociation to smooth or augment daily living. Imagine, for a mo-
ment, life without everyday dissociation–no daydreaming, no escape from the
environmental or social press, no opportunities for deep reflection, no loss of
self. (For example, I doubt that I could have written this editorial without the
 Editorial 9

transient reveries, distractions, and pleasures that normative dissociations pro-

vide.) The ubiquity and importance of the dissociations of everyday life, I
would suggest, make them worthy of focal attention, both personal and
empirical.

Lisa D. Butler, PhD

Guest Editor
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University School of Medicine
401 Quarry Road, Room 2320
Stanford, CA 94305-5718
E-mail: butler@psych.stanford.edu

NOTES
1. Quoted in Putnam (1989, p. 9).
2. This issue would not have been possible without the instigation, inspiration, and
support of JTD Founding Editor, Elizabeth Bowman; the patient editorial guidance and
expertise of JTD Founding Editor, James Chu; the superb editorial assistance of
Xin-Hua Chen; the creative and critical contributions of Robert Garlan; and the
thoughtful, constructive reviews provided by experts in the dissociation community.
Thank you all.
3. There has, of course, been extensive research (e.g., Bernstein & Putnam, 1986;
see also Ray, 1996) quantifying the frequency of a variety of dissociative experiences,
including nonpathological ones.
4. I invoke the continuum metaphor here to convey, as others have, aspects of the
phenotypic presentations. I do not mean to imply that a single continuum can or does
capture the underlying complexity of dissociative experiences or mechanisms.
5. Gold (2004) also notes subclinical maladaptive dissociations engendered by
sociocultural and interpersonal factors and their resemblance to pathological forms.
6. Readers should note that there is an extensive daydreaming literature (e.g.,
Giambra, 1974; Singer, 1975) that will be reviewed in a future publication and related
to the observations made here.
7. Clearly there are also instances of daydreaming where the content is an imagina-
tive flight of fantasy, rather than a purposeful rumination. Such experiences may repre-
sent dissociations of the second variety proposed here–dissociations as escapes (see
also J. R. Hilgard, 1970).
8. Indeed, novices in meditation face the challenge of learning to observe, rather
than be swept up in, them (Waelde, 2004).
9. As Freud put it: “Unsolved problems, tormenting worries, overwhelming im-
pressions, all of these carry thought activity into sleep” (p. 593, quoted in Cartwright,
1996).
10. See also J. R. Hilgard (1970), Ludwig (1983), and Frankel (1976). In a similar
vein, Baumeister (1991) has argued that a common pathology of our modern iden-
tity-preoccupied world is to seek out ways to “escape the burden of selfhood” (through
10 JOURNAL OF TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION

such activities as alcoholism, masochism, suicide, and binge-eating) because self-

awareness is a stressful, self-evaluative enterprise. Although the author does not dis-
cuss dissociation in this regard, his description of the psychological process of escape
is related.
11. For example, some individuals use self-cutting (Gardner & Cowdry, 1985) or
binge eating (Baumeister, 1991; see discussion by Butler et al., 1996) to dispel
dysphoria (see also Somer, 2002 on maladaptive daydreaming).

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