Common misconceptions

Psychopathy

The media, film and TV industry often promote stereotypes and they’re usually inaccurate. In this case, they depict those experiencing unusual experiences as dangerous, ridiculous, sinister, etc. As a result, the general public may make assumptions, stemming from the term ‘psychosis’, and jump to thinking about murderers or psychopaths. However, roughly 1 in 10 adults will have unusual experiences within their lifetime whereas psychopathy is present in roughly 1 in 100 people. Psychopathy is actually not related to whether a person has unusual experiences, although these could occur together.

Violence

Again, unusual experiences are sometimes linked to violence, as popularised by media representations. However, individuals who have these experiences are no more likely to be violent than anyone else and are more likely to harm themselves than somebody else.

Multiple Personalities

It is sometimes thought that people who have unusual experiences have more than one personality, this stems from the term ‘schizophrenia’ which means ‘split mind’. However, they are not directly related, having more than one personality isn’t the same thing as having unusual experiences, but they may co-occur.

Life-long

People may assume that having unusual experiences means they have an untreatable, life-long condition. However, the vast majority of individuals who have an unusual experience will only do so once. Some people will have times where they have unusual experiences and times where they don’t. Other individuals will have unusual experiences over the longer term. However, most people, regardless of the frequency of their experiences, will be able to make sense of them and go on to lead a satisfying and fulfilling life.

Diverse

People may believe that unusual experiences are due to some demographic factor, for example skin colour or intelligence. However, anybody can have these experiences regardless of their gender, age, sexuality, intelligence, culture, ethnicity, race, spirituality or economic status.