More than three quarters (76%) of the fantasty-prone college students (total N = 21) who scored in the upper 4% of the population on the Inventory of Childhood Memories and Imaginings (ICMI) [1] and who were administered a diagnostic interview met the criteria for either a past or present Axis I diagnosis according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [2] compared with 30% of medium fantasy prone students (total N = 20) who scored within 1/2 a standard deviation of the mean on the ICMI. Negative affectivity, as measured by the General Temperament Survey [3], was found to mediate the relation between fantasy and current Axis-I disorder, but not past Axis-I disorder. Whereas 5% of the medium fantasy prones received a dissociative disorder diagnosis, 33% of the fantasizers did so, with dissociative disorder not otherwise specified (DDNOS) constituting three quarters of the total dissociative diagnoses. Fantasizers also reported more dissociative experiences and more tenuous cognitive, affective, and attentional control than their non fantasy-prone counterparts. In general, the results provide confirmation of the findings of Rauschenberger and Lynn [4].
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