The “flights” and “perchings” of consciousness were studied by examining the rate of production of stimulus-independent and stimulus-dependent thoughts. Number of thoughts produced increased across post-stimulus word-intervals of 5, 10, and 15 sec. Stimulus-dependent thoughts increased at the rate of about 1.0 per 10 sec., while stimulus-independent thoughts increased at the rate of about 0.6 per 10 sec. over the three intervals studied. Word meaningfulness m and imagery-provoking value I were also varied over high-low values. The hypothesis that m-varied words would result in more reported thoughts than comparable levels of I-varied words requires qualification.
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