Making sense of the extraordinary – An investigation of the content and prevalence of appraisals of nonordinary experiences

Individuals around the world report nonordinary experiences that stand out to them compared to their day-to-day or ordinary experiences. Yet, they can be appraised in very different ways, resulting in wellbeing and personal growth, or in marginalization and mental health problems. One challenge is that there are relatively few systematic efforts to explore possible appraisal processes and the overall contextual features of these experiences. In study 1, we report a validation and extension of a previously designed set of appraisal and contextual questions to the Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences, with a sample of Brazilian participants (N = 160). The study successfully validated all original appraisal categories with minor modifications and added nine new context and appraisal categories. In study 2, we conducted a prevalence study by administering these questions in a general population sample (N = 5,117) in which individuals reported on one of 38 nonordinary experiences. Most contextual features and appraisals followed a unimodal distribution approximating a normal distribution. This suggests that nonordinary experiences, however heterogeneous they may be, appear to be interpreted within the same set of beliefs and appraisals, in addition to sharing similar temporal characteristics. Furthermore, although 20% of participants reported an immediate negative impact and 25% reported some degree of suffering or discomfort from experiences, 51% evaluated experiences as promoting overall positive long-term life effects. These findings highlight the potential of human resilience and the complex role of nonordinary experiences vis-a-vis protective factors in promoting health. Our results provide new insights into consciousness states and their mental health and wellbeing implications.