extreme, exploration, environment, cognition, spaceflight

This chapter reviews the effects of a special category of environments on cognitive andcognitive/emotional processes. These extreme and unusual environments (EUEs) arecharacterized by drastic differences from the individual?s accustomed milieu, and byposing serious challenges to well-being, health, and survival. There is a massive andwide-ranging body of writing on this topic, from history, anthropology, sociology,literature, and biography, as well as from psychology. The chapter covers informationfrom studies of religion and ritual, mysticism, exploration, spaceflight, artistic endeavor,psychotherapy, and laboratory experiments. Sojourners in EUEs have experiencedchanges in memory and cognitive performance, perceptual anomalies, states ofdissociative fugue, and unusual flights of imagination, among other consequences. Bothpositive and negative effects have been found and are discussed.