The language of altered states.
The Journal of nervous and mental disease July 1, 1988 T E Oxman, S D Rosenberg, P P Schnurr et al.
Computerized content analysis of 66 autobiographical accounts of schizophrenia, hallucinogenic drug states, or mystical ecstasy and 28 control accounts of important personal experiences found distinct patterns of lexical choice among the four groups. Word frequencies differed significantly in 49 of 83 lexical categories. Using the 13 most statistically significant categories, 84% of the samples were correctly identified by their word frequencies. The findings suggest that the subjective experiences of schizophrenia, hallucinogenic drug-induced states, and mystical ecstasy are more different from one another than alike.