Scientists from the Institute D'Or for Research and Education in Brazil have found that uncanny experiences like seeing ghosts or visions are surprisingly common.
The study surveyed 5,117 participants to understand where and when strange episodes happen, as well as how people interpret them. Results revealed that most people experience a non-ordinary event at some point in their lives, with most describing the encounters as neutral or positive.
Dr Ronald Fischer, lead author of the study, said that experiences like sensing a presence, having a vision, or observing oneself from outside the body are far more common than clinical diagnosis rates suggest. He noted that most participants who report them are not unwell and describe the moments positively both when they happen and when reflecting on them later.
The Institute D'Or for Research and Education is a major Brazilian non-profit science organization based in Rio de Janeiro, focusing on neuroscience, clinical research, and human cognitive health.
Surveying non-ordinary events
The research team quizzed participants on a wide range of non-ordinary occurrences. These included overwhelming feelings of joy, awe, or fear, seeing visions, hearing voices, out-of-body experiences, feeling the presence of the deceased, near-death experiences, and lucid dreams.
Out-of-body experiences involve a feeling of observing oneself from an external perspective, while lucid dreams occur when a sleeper becomes aware they are dreaming during sleep.
Participants who reported an event provided detailed context about their mental state, physical location, and how long the experience lasted. They also answered questions about whether they believed a specific entity was responsible, such as gods, angels, or spirits, and why they might have been chosen for the event.
Finally, respondents answered questions assessing how pleasant the experience was and whether it left a lasting impact on their lives.
The survey revealed that most people experience non-ordinary events while alone, though 10 per cent reported them in religious or spiritual settings. Most episodes are very quick, with more than a third of participants experiencing them two or three times.
Attribution of the events varied across the sample. While one third of respondents did not believe someone or something had caused the experience, 15 per cent attributed it to God or gods, and 11 per cent claimed the Holy Spirit was behind it.
Emotional impact and mental health
While such experiences are often considered daunting, the study findings showed that most people view them in a positive light. The researchers noted that non-ordinary events can be meaningful and lead to personal growth and insight.
Writing in their study, published in PLOS One, the researchers stated that an average of 49.68 per cent of participants reported feeling some degree of joy or well-being during the experiences. Meanwhile, 24.53 per cent perceived them as emotionally neutral, and 25.79 per cent felt some degree of suffering or discomfort.
PLOS One is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science, covering primary research across science, medicine, and behavioral studies.
Dr Fischer said highlighting positive outcomes is important to help people make sense of their experiences and to normalize them. He added that the team hopes the work helps remove stigma by focusing on diverse interpretations, while stressing that anyone whose daily activities are interfered with should seek help from a trusted professional.
Types of uncanny experiences
The survey mapped 38 distinct types of uncanny phenomena reported by participants, covering sensory perceptions, cognitive states, and emotional reactions.
The list includes absorption, another self in body, auras, threatening awe, positive awe, compassion, deja vu, devotion to objects, and devotion to people.
Deja vu describes the intense sensation that a current event or scene has been experienced before.
Participants also reported diminished self, extrasensory perception, faces, fear, guidance, hopelessness, joy, light, loss, love, and lucid dreams.
Further experiences named by respondents included meaning in life, misfortune, near death experience, animated objects, out of body experience, pain, paralysis, past life, animated places, special places, pleasure, presence of extraordinary forces, presence of the deceased, psychic vampirism, smells, sounds, touch, and visions.
Factors behind supernatural beliefs
The study follows research into the psychological and physiological factors that make paranormal experiences more likely. Professor Melissa Maffeo, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, identified three main drivers behind such encounters.
Wake Forest University is a private research university located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, known for research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
Professor Maffeo explained that environmental stimuli, neurological mix-ups, and certain personality traits can combine to prompt the human brain to create an experience of the supernatural by misinterpreting ordinary physical stimuli.
Writing on the academic commentary site The Conversation, Professor Maffeo said she often considers the subjectivity people use when interpreting experiences. She noted that a perfect storm of everyday factors can converge and trigger the sensation of a paranormal experience.
