Humans are signal enhancement machines. We extract signal from noise. As soon as we lose interest in a signal, it becomes noise on the way to silence.
One person’s noise is another person’s signal. One person's signal is another person's noise. But nothings stays noise or signal for long.
We cannot perceive, conceive, think, feel, or act without selectively attending to some things and not attending to others. We selectively attend to get a handle on the barrage of stimuli coming our way every micro-second, the better to anticipate the next wave. Signal detection is not just reactive - it's proactive. Signal detection serves prediction. Without the ability to predict, we're toast.
So it's more accurate to say humans are prediction machines: "devices that constantly try to stay one step ahead of the breaking waves of sensory stimulation, by actively predicting the incoming flow." (Clark, 2016) To use another metaphor: signals are clues in a mystery novel, where the mystery lies in the future.
What do these thoughts have to do with "Openness to Experience", the personality trait associated with meditators and paranormal beliefs? Only to suggest that you can't be open without being open to something and you can't be open to something without being closed to something else.
So whatever it is that personality tests measure with their "Openness to Experience" questions, it's not a "domain-general" characteristic. No one is equally welcoming to all comers in the ongoing progression of stimuli (from simple sensory to complex cognitive). Those who score high on Openness to Experience remain discriminating signal enhancing prediction machines. They may roam a broad terrain but there are still plenty of places they don't go.
Next: getting down to the nitty-gritty: the connection between Open and Closed.
Reference:
Andy Clark (2016) Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind Oxford Scholarship Online ISBN-13: 9780190217013. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190217013.001.0001