Psychology of Improvisational Theater

In the field of the Psychology of Consciousness, Eberhard Scheiffele explored the altered state of consciousness experienced by actors and improvisers in his scholarly paper: Acting: an altered state of consciousness. According to G. WIlliam Farthing in “The Psychology of Consciousness”(see comparative study), actors (in performance, drama classes, or in psychodrama) routinely enter into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Acting is seen as altering most of the 14 dimensions of changed subjective experience which characterise ASCs according to Farthing, namely: attention, perception, imagery and fantasy, inner speech, memory, higher-level thought processes, meaning or significance of experiences, time experience, emotional feeling and expression, level of arousal, self-control, suggestibility, body image, and sense of personal identity.

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