Schizotypy and mental time travel

Mental time travel is the capacity to imagine the autobiographical past and future Schizotypy is a dimensional measure of psychosis-like traits found to be associated with creativity and imagination. Here, we examine the phenomenological qualities of mental time travel ill highly schizotypal individuals. After recollecting past episodes (autobiographical memory) and imagining future events (episodic future thinking), those scoring highly oil positive schizotypy reported a greater sense of 'autonoetic awareness,' defined as a greater feeling of mental time travel and re-living/'pre-living' imagined events Furthermore, in contrast to other sensory domains. imagery of the past and future episodes contained more olfactory detail in these high scoreis. The results are discussed in relation to previous reports of anomolous olfactory experiences in schizotypy and heightened vividness of olfactory imagery in post-traumatic stress disorder, for which schizotypy is a risk factor (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved