Abstract
Experiences that are unusual, transcendental or nonordinary have fascinated philosophers and the general public alike since antiquity. However, these experiences are often interpreted in very different ways, ranging from spiritual gifts to psychopathological syndromes. We use a new inventory that focuses on the phenomenological features of a wide range of experiences and link them to personality traits within the Big Five tradition. Using an online panel sample designed to approximate the general population (N = 424), we observed weak to moderate associations with personality facets and weaker associations with personality domains. Given the nature and varying frequencies of these experiences, the reported associations demonstrate the real-world relevance of personality traits for understanding which individuals may report unusual or nonordinary experiences. Individuals who are more sociable and outgoing, interested in arts and culture, and lower in responsibility report more experiences. We identify three clusters that vary in their association with personality facets. At the same time, our results show some surprising findings, which suggest clinical research that frames some of these experiences as pathological may miss some important nuances about human experiences.
Our conscious life is a never-ending stream of experiences, involving sensations and reflection on information coming from internal and external worlds. Historically and across cultures, how we experience the world has varied and continues to vary widely. Some remarkable or outstanding experiences such as feeling connected to the universe, feeling a deep sense of love or hearing voices might be interpreted as spiritual or religious manifestations, could be seen as a gift or special ability, or, alternatively, as psychopathological symptoms (Luhrmann et al., 2015; McCauley & Graham, 2020; Taves, 2020; Taves & Barlev, 2022). Irrespective of the specific labeling or evaluation of these experiences, there are commonalities to many of such experiences that stand out in people’s memories. These shared characteristics may be linked to personality traits. We explore whether we can identify personality patterns considering experiences that are more likely to be reported by some individuals compared to others, taking the well-established Big Five framework as an organizing principle of individual differences (Bainbridge et al., 2022). We also test whether broad personality domains or more specific personality facets are more strongly linked to a diverse set of nonordinary, unusual or transcendental experiences, contributing both to (a) recent discussions of the relevance of broader traits vs more specific facets for understanding individual differences (Irwing et al., 2024; Mõttus et al., 2019) and (b) the interpretation of the ontological status of nonordinary experiences that have been interpreted in widely different terms in previous research (Taves, 2020; Taves & Barlev, 2022).
The Diversity and Complexity of Nonordinary Experiences
Individuals the world over report experiences that fall outside their usual or day-to-day lived reality, such as suddenly hearing voices when nobody is around, feeling a strong connection to the world or nature, or a sudden insight that appears to explain the workings of the universe. These experiences individually may seem rare, but a number of population surveys have suggested that such experiences are surprisingly common (Andrade & Wang, 2012; Baumeister et al., 2017; Hartle et al., 2023; Maraldi & Krippner, 2019; McGrath et al., 2015; Nuevo et al., 2012; Pechey & Halligan, 2012; Wahbeh & Radin, 2017). These experiences have been documented across cultures and history and have been well documented in humanity’s earliest recorded narratives (Van de Mieroop, 2017; Wood, 2021), which highlights their pervasiveness and importance within human psychology. Yet, various interpretations exist for such experiences because they could be categorized as religious, spiritual, anomalous, paranormal, and/or pathological, depending on cultural backgrounds and individual characteristics (McCauley & Graham, 2020). To date, most attempts to capture such experiences empirically had conflated the phenomenological features of the experience (what was being experienced) with the subsequent personal appraisal (e.g., whether the experience indicated some psychopathology or being regarded as a gift by a specific individual or the community within which the person was living) (Maraldi et al., 2024; Taves & Barlev, 2022).
To advance, Taves et al. (2023) developed the Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences (INOE), which distinguishes between the phenomenological aspects of experiences themselves and their appraisals. The focus of the inventory is on subjectively recognizable features of experiences: items were formulated using generic language to enhance cross-cultural comprehension of what an individual may have felt or sensed. By doing so, it aims to separate the phenomenological features of experiences from culturally infused appraisals of experiences. To do so, the inventory adopts a subject-dependent definition of what is deemed nonordinary. Taves et al. (2023) stated “nonordinary” refers to experiences that stand out to individuals and are marked by them as special, contrasting with what they would consider everyday or usual experiences. Therefore, the responsibility for defining what is noteworthy or different from everyday life shifts from the researcher to the participant, allowing for a subject-driven, bottom-up reporting of non-ordinary experiences. The term “nonordinary” therefore focuses not so much on the frequency or prevalence of the experience, but rather the features and attributes that are used by participants to mark the experience as qualitatively distinct or noteworthy.
There is no consensus on what types of experiences may fall within this category. Taves and colleagues focused on three main criteria in order to select possible experience items: (a) the experiences had to be open to conflicting interpretations, (b) published claims on these experiences had to be broad and controversial, ranging from psychopathological to unusual abilities to supernatural or spiritual and (c) the experiences have been documented to have substantial effects on people’s lives, whether positive or negative. Items were adapted from existing instruments measuring religious, paranormal, or psychotic experiences, while additional items were included to capture experiences appraised as religious or spiritual in certain cultural contexts. This inventory extends previous work that has catalogued only clinically relevant or paranormally interesting experiences (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Irwin et al., 2014; Kelly, 2014; World Health Organization, 1993). This feature-based approach does not imply the existence of stable clusters that may allow experiences to be grouped into distinct categories that form psychologically meaningful constructs. However, it simultaneously does not preclude the existence of such clustering structures, which may also be interpretable through the association of individual experiences with personality features.
Key Results Summary Table of the Binomial Regression Analysis
Note. Shows the list of significant predictors (p < .05) from each regression, + implies a positive association, − implies a negative association, empty cell implies no significant association; R2 values are the overall explained variance in each regression, the R 2 difference column shows the difference between the facet vs domain level analysis. Items marked with an asterisk (*) were newly developed and validated in the Brazilian local context. All other items are adapted and validated items from the original measure (Taves et al., 2023).
Across these groups, perceived presence experiences, alterations in the sense of self as well as sensory and bodily experiences may align or overlap with dissociative, schizotypy or psychosis-like symptoms. Experiences in the emotion group may align or be part of individual differences in affect regulation. Experiences within the ability item group might be associated with cognitive irregularities and possibly some dissociative symptoms. Exploring correlations of life-time prevalence of these experiences with personality traits may help in grounding our understanding of the underlying structure and organization of these experiences (Bainbridge et al., 2022; Kotov et al., 2017; Widiger et al., 2018, 2019).
The Big Five Hierarchical Structure
The Big Five model has emerged as the dominant model for explaining personality, proposing Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability (Negative Emotionality or Neuroticism) and Open-mindedness (or Openness to experience) as broad personality domains that capture significant behavioral variation (DeYoung, 2015; Fischer, 2017; Goldberg, 1993; Zhu et al., 2025). Within each of these broad trait domains, more specific personality facets can be differentiated, with variant number and qualities of the specific facets within each domain. Here, we use the BFI-2 (Soto & John, 2017b) which differentiates three facets within each of the domains. These personality facets are possibly important for understanding unusual experiences. For example, previous research has suggested that facets similar to Creative Imagination within Open-mindedness, Energy level within Extraversion and Anxiety(R), Depression(R) and Emotional Volatility(R) within Emotional Stability may be important correlates for nonordinary experiences (Kajonius et al., 2025; Kwapil et al., 2002). The ability to separate out broader domains vs more specific facets is important within the context of recent discussions about the relative utility in predicting a diverse set of outcomes from either broader domain representations of personality or more specific facets or nuances of personality (Henry & Mõttus, 2025; Irwing et al., 2024; Mõttus et al., 2019; Stephan et al., 2025). Conceptually, the more focused content captured by specific personality facets may be more relevant for understanding and mapping nonordinary experiences within an individual difference framework (Henry & Mõttus, 2025; Irwing et al., 2024). Finally, a validated short version of the inventory is available that makes it suitable for large-scale surveys with non-student general population level samples (Soto & John, 2017a).
Possible Associations Between Nonordinary Experiences and Personality
Nonordinary experiences (NOEs) may be more likely experienced by some individuals compared to others. Altered sense of self experiences have been associated with increased Negative Emotionality (or decreased Emotional Stability) and decreased Conscientiousness in both student and psychiatric outpatients (Kwapil et al., 2002; Ruiz et al., 1999; Wise et al., 2000). Agreeableness and Extraversion as socially focused personality domains may also be lower for individuals with altered sense of self experiences, but these associations were only found in student samples (Kwapil et al., 2002; Ruiz et al., 1999). Open-mindedness and especially fantasy proneness or creative imagination have been linked to altered sense of self, sensory and bodily experiences, near-death experiences, as well as perceived presences (Bicego et al., 2023; Kwapil et al., 2002; Langston et al., 2020; Ruiz et al., 1999), but these associations are not always consistent and might be sample or population specific (Alvarado et al., 1999; Knežević et al., 2016). Hallucinatory experiences (associated with positive symptoms of psychosis proneness) tend to be more frequent in individuals with high Negative Emotionality and possibly Open-mindedness, and less frequent for individuals high on Extraversion and Conscientiousness (Knežević et al., 2016; Langston et al., 2020). Negative emotional experiences, including anhedonia within psychosis-like symptoms, are more likely to be associated with higher levels of Negative Emotionality and lower levels of Extraversion and Conscientiousness (Anglim et al., 2020; Knežević et al., 2016).
One of the major caveats with interpreting these previous studies is that the measurement of experiences was often via a psychopathology lens, which may bias the interpretation of the experiences towards the clinical end (Maraldi et al., 2024). To the extent that some of these experience are relevant as possible symptoms within diagnostic clinical frameworks, the exploration of their association with personality variables has much potential to connect clinical research with general psychological research and to ground a common understanding of the psychopathology in psychological principles (Watson & Clark, 2020; Watson et al., 1994; Widiger et al., 2018). However, much of the existing literature on personality correlates of nonordinary experiences has been driven by student samples in English speaking countries, making it less clear how associations may play out in general population samples in non-English speaking countries (Thalmayer et al., 2021).
Beyond psychopathology, previous work suggested that the Big Five could be used as an organizing principle for any psychological difference measure or trait (Bainbridge et al., 2022). We believe that this argument could be pushed further and applied to the understanding and organization of experiences more broadly. The associations of NOEs phenomenological features, captured without valence or appraisals by the INOE, with big five domain and facet scores can help in organizing and interpreting NOEs within a common psychological framework.
The Current Study
These broad sets of experiences have been discussed in highly conflicting terms and appear to be more common than indicated by clinical diagnoses. It remains unclear how these experiences may relate to broader psychological processes. The INOE was developed to provide a more neutral assessment of the phenomenological features of experiences, and the Big Five framework has emerged as a foundation for organizing psychological constructs in both the clinical and nonclinical domain (Bainbridge et al., 2022; Widiger et al., 2018). Exploring the association of the lifetime prevalence of NOEs can help in grounding them in a common framework. We report data from a quota-based online panel sample drawn to approximate the general population in Brazil, which is the seventh most populous country in the world and belongs to an underrepresented group in psychological research (Thalmayer et al., 2021). We explore whether broad personality domains versus more specific personality facets are more strongly associated with these experiences, followed by an exploration of the possible clustering of these experiences along personality associations.
Methods
Participants
We recruited participants from an online panel sample designed to approximate the general population according to the last published census at the time of the study (www.netquest.com). Our inclusion criteria were that (a) participants are over 18 years of age, (b) they agreed to participate and electronically signed the informed consent form, (c) they did not fail any of the attention checks and (d) they completed the survey. Our exclusion criteria were (a) failure to sign the consent form and (b) at least one error on embedded attention checks. After excluding 24 participants who failed the attention check, the final sample consisted of 424 participants (49% female, mean age = 51.8, SD +- 12.5). The sample approximated the census distribution for age, gender and geographical region of the country, but our sample included a higher proportion of participants from the Southeast region than census data. The more detailed sociodemographic profile of the participants, based on information provided by the panel company, is provided in the supplement (Table S1).
Transparency, Openness, and Reproducibility
Our analyses were exploratory and we pre-registered them as exploratory within the context of a larger study (https://osf.io/pa3ut). The data and codes to reproduce the results of this article are available at https://osf.io/x42nt/. The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Research Committee of the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR, CAAE: 85708425.3.0000.5249). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study.
Personality Measure
We measured personality with a 30-item short version of the BFI-2 inventory (Soto & John, 2017a). It consists of 6 items per personality domain, with two items per personality facet. To control response sets, one item in each facet is phrased in the affirmative, the other item is phrased in reverse. For example, the Energy level facet of the Extraversion domain is measured with the positively phrased “is full of energy” and negatively phrased “is less active than other people”. Participants were asked to rate whether the characteristics described in each item are applicable to them or not and recorded agreement or disagreement on a 5-point Likert type scale (1 = disagree strongly, 5 = agree strongly). We selected the BFI-2 because (a) it has emerged as the predominant research instrument for measuring broad personality domains, as indicated by the large number of citations (e.g., more than 2,300 citations according to Google Scholar as of Feb 25, 2025), (b) the facet structure provides good coverage of personality facets studied in the literature and (c) a validated short version of the inventory is available that makes it suitable for large-scale surveys with non-student general population level samples (Soto & John, 2017a).
We used the Brazilian Portuguese version available through the Riverside Situation Project (Funder, 2024). The internal consistency estimates ranged from .77 for Emotional Stability to .59 for Open-mindedness, with an average of .69. Only Open-mindedness (α = .69) and Agreeableness (α = .62) showed consistency estimates below .70. At the facet level, the average internal consistency was .48, ranging from a low of α = .15 (Intellectual Curiosity within Open-mindedness) to a high of α = .73 (Organization within Conscientiousness). These internal consistency estimates are somewhat lower than the ones reported in the original validation study, where the average consistency estimate was .60 at the facet level and ranged from .39 to .79 (Soto & John, 2017a). We believe that the lower estimates were due to our broader sampling strategy compared to the highly educated college student sample as well as responses on a personality website (see Fischer, 2017; Laajaj et al., 2019 for further challenges of personality measures in broader samples). Table S2 presents the overall BFI means and standard deviations.
Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences
We used the translated and validated Brazilian version of the Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences (Taves et al., 2023; Fischer et al., 2024) and additional dissociation and mediumship items which were developed and validated for the Brazilian cultural context (Maraldi et al., 2025). Our measure included a total of 37 items, of which 31 were from the original inventory (see Table 1 for all items, with items developed by Maraldi et al. indicated by *). Items describe specific experiences using neutral, non-interpretative wording.
Participants were asked whether they had ever had each experience with responses recorded on a binary yes (coded as 1) versus no (coded as 0). The time frame for participants to consider in their responses was their whole life, reflecting a lifetime occurrence format. Each item had been validated using mixed-method survey validation procedures to ensure clarity and cultural appropriateness (Fischer & Rudnev, 2024; Wolf et al., 2021, 2025). In line with recent recommendations (Maraldi et al., 2024; Maraldi & Krippner, 2019; Taves, 2020; Taves & Barlev, 2022), we focus on the specific items because they capture diverse, phenomenologically distinct experiences that may show differential associations with other individual differences and may not form internally consistent latent constructs than can be represented by a single total score. Therefore, internal consistency estimates (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha) are not informative and were not calculated. Instead, using state-of-the-art mixed-method approaches, the validity of the individual items has been iteratively tested with population-level samples (N > 1,800) (Fischer et al., 2025; Maraldi et al., 2025; Taves et al., 2023).
Data Analysis
Analyses were conducted in three steps to progressively examine the associations between personality and nonordinary experiences (NOEs), moving from descriptive associations to multivariate prediction and, finally, exploratory pattern identification.
First, we report point-biserial correlations between the presence of each experience (binary response scoring) and the personality scores to provide an initial overview of the magnitude and direction of associations.
Second, to explore the associations between personality domain and facet scores and the life-time prevalence, we performed logistic regressions with the glm function and specified a binomial model in the stats package in R 4.4.0 (R Core Team, 2021). Each experience was modeled as a binary outcome, with personality traits entered as predictors. Models were estimated separately for the domain and facet level predictors. In all models, predictors (domain or facet mean scores) were entered simultaneously (i.e., all domains or all facets), allowing estimation of unique effects while controlling for the remaining variables. Age and gender were not included. Supplementary analyses showed qualitatively identical results when including demographic covariates. The fit of these regression models was evaluated using pseudo R 2 values (e.g., McFadden’s R2) to quantify the amount of variation explained by personality at either domain or facet level in predicting the likelihood of having had each experience.
Finally, we examined possible personality patterns among the experiences. Experiences were grouped according to similarity in their correlations with personality facets rather than based on their co-occurrence. This approach is consistent with the personality-centered aim of the study, namely, to examine how nonordinary experiences align with established personality dimensions. We created a correlation matrix using point-biserial correlations personality facet and the life-time prevalence. We then subjected the correlation pattern of experience-by-facet associations to a hierarchical cluster analysis using complete linkage and Euclidean distance (Yim & Ramdeen, 2015) via the stats package (R Core Team & contributors worldwide, 2025). This allows us to identify the relative clustering of experiences via their association with personality facets. Therefore, the focus is not whether some experiences are more or less likely to co-occur with each other, but rather if individuals with certain personality features (measured at the facet level) are more or less likely to report certain experiences. The number of clusters was guided by elbow and silhouette diagnostics from exploratory k-means analyses (Kaufman & Rousseeuw, 1991; Rousseeuw, 1987) 1 .
Results
Frequencies of Experiences
To provide an overview of the distribution of nonordinary experiences (NOEs) in the sample, Figure 1 presents the frequencies of endorsement (0 = No, 1 = Yes) for each of the 37 experiences. Emotional experiences were the most common, with between 60% and 75% of the participants reporting one of these experiences. Visual sensory experiences and elements commonly associated with dissociation were the least common, with approximately 20% of people reporting having sensed another self in their body, seeing lights without obvious source, reporting visions or auras. Frequencies of non-ordinary experiences
Correlations
A first question concerns the relative effect size, that is, how much variance is shared between experiences and personality at the domain or at the facet level. Examining the point-biserial correlations (Table S3 and the OSF for the correlations, facet level correlations are presented in Figure 2), the raw mean correlation is .03 (SD = .08), varying between r = −.21 (Compassion facet of Agreeableness x near death experiences) and r = .25 (Creative Imagination facet of Open-mindedness x awe). As there are both positive and negative correlations, it is more informative to examine the absolute correlations. The mean absolute biserial correlation is .07 (SD = .05). We found four experiences (awe, pleasure, love, near-death) and twelve personality constructs had absolute correlations above .20 (correlations with the E: Sociability, A: Compassion and O: Creative Imagination facet, as well as Extraversion and Open-Mindedness domains).
2
A heatmap showing the correlations between each BFI2 facet with the individual experience items. Note: Row clustering was performed using hierarchical clustering with the complete linkage method and Euclidean distance as the metric for assessing dissimilarity. E – Extraversion, A – Agreeableness, C – Conscientiousness, ES – Emotional Stability, O – Open-Mindedness
Regressing Experiences on Personality Domains and Facets
Running a binomial regression with each experience item as outcome and including either all domains or facets as predictors (see Table 1), the big five domains explain on average 3.47% of the variance (median = 3.23%, R 2 values ranging from 0.008 to 0.082), whereas at the facet level the explained variance averages 5.89% (median = 5.78%, R 2 values ranging from .022 to .113). In all cases, the facets together explain more variance than the domains, with an average additional 2.41% of variance in experiences explained by facets compared to domains. Age and gender were not included as covariates in these models because supplementary analyses showed that controlling for these demographic variables did not materially alter the personality–experience associations (see footnote and OSF).
Focusing on the significant domain level predictors, controlling for all domain effects simultaneously, Extraversion was a significant predictor for 22 experiences, followed by Open-mindedness for 16 experiences, Conscientiousness for 8 experiences, Emotional stability for 7 experiences and Agreeableness for 6 experiences. Higher levels of Extraversion and Open-mindedness, and lower levels of Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness were associated with a greater likelihood of reporting experiences. For Agreeableness, the pattern was mixed, with some experiences more likely among those higher in Agreeableness (e.g., mind connection) and others among those lower in Agreeableness (e.g., misfortune, near-death experiences).
Focusing on the facet level effects (controlling all other facet effects simultaneously), the overall Extraversion effects appear to be primarily driven by Sociability (22 significant effects), with only one significant effect for Energy levels and none for Assertiveness. The Open-mindedness domain effects appear to be primarily driven by the Aesthetic Sensitivity facet (9 significant effects), Creative Imagination (5 significant effects) and two significant effects for Intellectual Curiosity. Conscientiousness domain effects at the facet level were found for Responsibility (9 significant effects, of which 8 were negative). Concerning Emotional stability, the main significant facet controlling for all other facets was Depression (7 significant effects) and only one significant facet effect each for Anxiety and Emotional Volatility. For Agreeableness facets, the main significant facet predictor was Compassion (5 significant effects) and one significant effect for Trust.
Focusing on the experiences side of the equation, when using either the facets or domains as predictors, the five experiences that shared most variance with personality were near death experiences, awe, love, pleasure and out-of-body experiences (R 2 for facet analysis is above .075, for domains above .055). The only experience that was not significantly associated with personality traits in the binomial regression was the experience of paralysis.
Clustering of Experiences and Personality Correlation Patterns
Given these results, we were interested in examining whether certain experiences were systematically associated with specific personality traits or facets. In other words, are some experiences more common for individuals with specific personality traits compared to others? Given the stronger associations and explained variance, we conducted this analysis with the trait facet scores. We computed point-biserial correlations followed by a hierarchical cluster analysis (complete linkage, using Euclidean distance as default). The highest silhouette value to identify reliable cluster solutions was observed for a three-cluster solution (see supplemental materials for further details). Figure 2 displays the clustering structure and correlation patterns across non-ordinary experiences and personality facets. The complete correlation matrix is available in the OSF repository.
The first cluster was the largest and featured a wide variety of experiences, involving all abilities items, all items but one each from the presence, sensory/body and sense of self item groups, the meaning in life item as well as compassion, devotion to objects, loss and pain from the emotion group. The Cronbach’s alpha for this group was .90 (average r = .27). The second group featured fear, hopelessness, misfortune, and devotion to people from the emotion category, objects animated (presence group), diminished self (sense of self group), near death (sickness group) and auras, another self in body and sounds from the sensory/body group. The alpha was .75 (average r = .24). The third cluster was the smallest, including only the four positive emotion items. The internal consistency was .72 (average r = .39).
Regressing the three cluster scores on the big five domains (Figure 3; Table S4 for full results), the first observation is that the third cluster was somewhat better predicted overall (R2 = .129) compared to the second and third (R2 for each = .080). The pattern was similar for the first and third cluster, with both Extraversion and Open-Mindedness contributing positively, with the overall observation that these two factor domains predicted more variability in the experiences of the third cluster. The second cluster showed a somewhat different pattern. Open-mindedness and Extraversion were again positive predictors, but greater emotional stability and conscientiousness were associated with lower scores on the second cluster. Predictors of NOE clusters for domains (upper panel) and facets (lower panel) of BFI2. Note: E – Extraversion, A – Agreeableness, C – Conscientiousness, ES – Emotional Stability, O – Open-Mindedness, ns – non significant
When running the equivalent analysis with the trait facets (Figure 3; Table S5 for full results), the overall pattern was similar. Again, the third cluster was better predicted statistically (R 2 = .158) compared to the second (R 2 = .117) and first (R 2 = .105). Higher scores on the first cluster were best predicted by higher Sociability (Extraversion facet), lower Compassion (Agreeableness facet), and greater Aesthetic Sensitivity (Open-Mindedness facet). The second cluster scores were most strongly statistically associated with Sociability (Extraversion facet), lower Compassion (Agreeableness facet), lower Responsibility (Consciousness facet), and higher Depression(R) (note the reversed scoring of the depression facet from the Emotional Stability domain). The third cluster was significantly predicted by Sociability (Extraversion facet), Creative Imagination (Open-Mindedness facet), and lack of Emotional Volatility (R, Emotional Stability facet). The common predictor was Sociability (Extraversion facet) for all three clusters and lack of Compassion (Agreeableness facet) for clusters two and three.
In the supplement, we provide additional information on personality means for domains and facets as well as Cohen’s d effect sizes measures comparing the personality scores for individuals with and without reported experiences, which are provided for transparency and comparability. We also report network analyses as an alternative method for identifying linkages between experiences and personality facets. The results converge around the same personality facets for understanding personality-experience relationships.
Discussion
We report the first systematic exploration of personality associations with phenomenological features of nonordinary experiences that do not imply psychopathology or spiritual interpretation. The patterns suggested mainly weak associations, which are nevertheless of substantive importance given that many people may have only one or very few of some of these experiences in their lifetime and therefore such correlations of personality traits with rare occurrences are important to consider (Funder & Ozer, 2019).
Overall Effect Sizes of Personality Traits With Nonordinary Experiences
Determining what are meaningful effect sizes for real-world events remains a challenge. Focusing on the absolute correlation effects, we found an average effect size of .07. Considering that these experiences vary in their prevalence, with even those experiences that are reported by 2 out of 3 participants in their lifetime may only occur infrequently (the modal frequency across all experiences within a life time was 2 to 3 times, see Fortes et al., 2025), it is remarkable to find any meaningful associations with broad personality features at all. The observed effect sizes are within the range that Funder and Ozer (2019) considered very small but consequential. For some of these experiences, we found substantively stronger associations. For example, experiences of love, awe and pleasure were associated with personality differences in Extraversion and Open-Mindedness at the domain and facet levels with correlations above |.20|. Specific experiences may show associations with personality traits at both the domain and facet level that approach medium to large effect sizes for individual differences research (Funder & Ozer, 2019; Gignac & Szodorai, 2016). Therefore, returning to our main research questions, personality is relevant for understanding which individuals may report certain types of experiences that are beyond the routine explanatory frameworks used in day-to-day life.
Experience Clusters According to Personality Traits
We utilized the Big Five framework as an organizing principle for understanding individual difference patterns. Using correlations with personality facets as input, we identified three experience clusters in our data, which provide further detail and nuance to previous explorations of associations in the literature using more limited sets of experiences (Bicego et al., 2023; Kwapil et al., 2002; Langston et al., 2020; Ruiz et al., 1999; Wise et al., 2000). The internally most coherent cluster given the high average correlation consisted of the four positive emotional experiences. This cluster was the best predicted by personality both at the domain and facet level. At the domain level, higher levels of Open-Mindedness and Extraversion were associated with greater positive emotion lifetime prevalence. At the facet level, individuals with higher levels of E:Sociability, O: Creative Imagination and lack of ES: Emotional Volatility (R) reported higher prevalence of these positive emotion experiences. The patterns linking Extraversion and Open-Mindedness domains and the specific Sociability and Creative Imagination facets within them suggest it is the social aspect of being integrated into social networks and being creative and imaginative that is associated with more positive emotion experiences. The association with (lack of) ES:Emotional Volatility(R) within the Emotional Stability domain also suggested that even-temperedness and ability to regulate emotions is important, and not so much the absence of negative emotions (as indicated by the other facets within the Emotional stability domain). This emotion-regulation aspect is interesting from a theoretical perspective, because models of emotion regulation emphasize that adaptive regulation capacities may shape how individuals experience life and facilitate positive emotional experiences (Kneeland et al., 2020; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2007). Notably, these experiences have not been extensively explored, even though they may be central for strong spiritual and religious experiences (Critchley, 2024; Taves, 2020).
The second cluster featured some of the experiences that may form part of dissociation and schizotypy like dimensions (feeling another self in one’s body, hearing voices, seeing auras, feeling the presence of forces in objects, feeling a diminished sense of self). At the same time, this cluster also featured some negative emotional experiences (fear, hopelessness, misfortune, near death experiences). The association between negative emotion experiences and altered sense of reality is aligned with the observation that depressive symptoms and altered sense of reality can occur together (Etchecopar-Etchart et al., 2020; Hartley et al., 2013; Krynicki et al., 2018; Upthegrove et al., 2017) and may share some common neural architecture (Alexandros Lalousis et al., 2023; Gallucci et al., 2024). The location of a strong feeling of devotion to other people (typically leaders) together with the diminished-self experiences may also suggest associations with self-esteem regulation. Not surprisingly, these experiences were negatively related with Emotional stability and Conscientiousness. Surprisingly, they were also positively related with Extraversion and Open-Mindedness. The Open-Mindedness connections may be understandable when considered from a fantasy proneness perspective (Merckelbach et al., 2001; Tan et al., 2019). At the facet level, the experiences showed associations with higher levels of E:Sociability, and lower levels for A: Compassion, C: Responsibility and higher levels of ES: Depression (R). What is common to these experiences and brings them together in this cluster is a combination of E:Sociability that is self-centered (low A:Compassion), acting irresponsibly (low C: Responsibility) and feelings of depression and sadness (ES: Depression (R)). We are not in a position to state how these experiences may have clustered together beyond noting that the correlations with personality facets and domains suggest a certain family resemblance to individual differences. It may be possible to position some of the experiences as more central in a causal sequence that links them together with personality, but this obviously needs further empirical research. The clustering of experiences related to negative mood and altered sense of reality and association with this specific combination of personality traits certainly aligns with previous observations in the clinical literature (Etchecopar-Etchart et al., 2020; Hartley et al., 2013; Krynicki et al., 2018; Upthegrove et al., 2017). Our work therefore implies that such associations may already be observable within non-clinical populations and can be linked to personality dynamics. It also highlights the necessity in future research to use broader sets of experiences, instead of focusing on specific experiences in isolation that may be of particular clinical interest (e.g., hearing voices, near-death-experiences, specific dissociative experiences).
The largest cluster contained a diversity of experiences, including all the items from the ability group as well as sense of presence items. This cluster of experiences was relatively more weakly associated with personality traits. The main associations at the domain level were elevated scores for Extraversion and Open-Mindedness. At the facet level, significant predictors were E: Sociability, lack of A: Compassion and heightened O: Aesthetic Sensitivity. This suggests that a combination of self-centered and aloof E: Sociability with an interest in arts and culture may be associated with increased number of experiences that involve some alterations in attention, self-perception and emotion-regulation. It is noteworthy that these associations were among the weaker ones overall and therefore, these experiences may be marginally related to stable interindividual differences in behavior, emotion and cognition as captured by the Big Five.
Personality Features Associated With Nonordinary Experiences
We found stronger effects at the facet level compared to the domain level. This pattern is in line with recent discussions indicating that lower levels within the personality hierarchy may show stronger associations with specific behaviors (Henry & Mõttus, 2025; Irwing et al., 2024; Mõttus et al., 2014, 2017, 2019; Stephan et al., 2025), or in our case with specific experiences. Using narrower personality characteristics may be more useful for predicting specific experiences given the greater contextualization of behavioral characteristics. Our explicit comparison of explained variance across a larger set of experiences also adds further detail and nuance to earlier explorations with dissociative experiences only (Kwapil et al., 2002).
Focusing on the specific facets, the most consistent associations while controlling all other facets were identified for Sociability within the Extraversion domain. In total, 22 out of 37 correlations were significant and positive. In other words, experiences that stand out and are memorable are more likely reported by individuals that are highly sociable and outgoing. This high activity level may make individuals more likely to encounter different situations that expose them to new and unusual experiences.
The second most frequent association was observed for O: Aesthetic Sensitivity (positive) and for C: Responsibility (primarily negative). This suggests that individuals interested in arts and culture may be more likely to seek out unusual or novel experiences. At the same time, this behavior seems to involve some level of carelessness and irresponsibility. These two facets correlated with 9 of the 37 experiences. Within Open-Mindedness, we also identified some unique associations with Creative Imagination. Being inventive and creative is likely to be associated with novel and unusual experiences, as has been reported in relation to fantasy proneness and other associated personality traits in relation to selected types of experiences, typically of dissociative qualities (Kwapil et al., 2002; Merckelbach et al., 2001; Sánchez-Bernardos & Avia, 2004). However, the relatively weaker associations are interesting given the previous interest in this facet of personality.
Among the Emotional Stability domain, the most frequent association was with Depression(R). As might be expected, individuals with higher levels of depressive mood were more likely to report experiences of diminished self, hopelessness, loss and pain, but also experiences of feeling guided, hearing voices or having visited places with extraordinary power or force. Hopelessness in particular has been long discussed as a marker of depression (Liu et al., 2015). At the same time, the associations of depressive mood with unusual experiences such as feeling guided or hearing voices is also in line with observations within clinical contexts (Etchecopar-Etchart et al., 2020; Hartley et al., 2013; Krynicki et al., 2018; Upthegrove et al., 2017). Again, these observations suggest that associations between personality traits and even relatively rare and infrequent experiences within general population samples demonstrate (a) that these associations lie on a continuum which can be observed within non-clinical populations, and (b) personality traits within the Big Five tradition can help organize different experiences within a common explanatory framework.
We also observed negative associations between A:Compassion and five different experiences: individuals reporting to be less attuned to the suffering of others and being more egoistical and self-centered were more likely to report unusual experiences, such as having out of body experiences, seeing lights or having visited places that contain some force or power. Contrary to popular arguments that unusual experiences are associated with greater interpersonal sensitivity (Jawer & Simmonds-Moore, 2020), the associations observed in our study may imply some self-centered inner focus. Clinical research with conceptually similar scales has already pointed in that self-centered direction (Alminhana et al., 2016; Komasi et al., 2022). It would be useful to explore these divergent explanations for self- vs other-focus and compassion-related constructs in greater detail, given the philosophical arguments grounding nonordinary experiences within a empathy and other-focused context (Critchley, 2024; Jawer & Simmonds-Moore, 2020). It is important to highlight that our study was the first to explore these associations empirically in a large sample, therefore, these patterns need to be replicated.
Revisiting the Nonordinary Nature of These Experiences
One consistent challenge is to examine the relative prevalence of these nonordinary experiences. In order to contextualize our findings in terms of the overall prevalence rates, we compared the reported life-time prevalence with the largest comparable data currently available (see the report by Hartle et al., 2023). Among items that are conceptually similar, experiences of past life and near-death experiences were reported with comparable frequencies (e.g., 30% vs 28%, 19% vs 25% in the previous vs current sample). Importantly, the current study used an inventory that focuses on the phenomenological features of experiences independent of their interpretation, whereas in the previous study the questionnaire embedded interpretive frameworks within the question wording, potentially confounding interpretations and responses. Other experience items in the previous study were not directly comparable to the more phenomenologically neutral items used in the present study. These relatively less prevalent experiences contrasted with experiences that are reported by over half of the respondents, particularly both positively and negatively valenced experiences from the emotion-group. In other words, our results are in line with previous studies but also point out that the nonordinay nature of these experiences is not their relative prevalence or frequency, but rather their phenomenological features that mark them as distinct from everyday or ordinary explanatory frameworks (see Taves et al., 2023).
Limitations
We reported first associations between an inventory that provides a broader list of unusual and nonordinary experiences in a phenomenologically neutral way within a non-student sample in an underrepresented population. For this reason, we had to rely on short scales, which may result in lower internal consistency and less precise estimation of trait effects. Our facet scores only included two items each, for example. Further research needs to explore these associations with full scales and using a broader set of individual difference measures. However, as the emerging work on nuances has shown, even item level associations can be reliable and valid (Henry & Mõttus, 2025; Mõttus et al., 2019). Also, the sample was recruited through an online panel using quota procedures. Although quotas were based on census data, the sample may not fully represent the general population. Nevertheless, the inclusion of non-student participants from a majority-world country represents an important strength. Future studies should test the robustness of these associations in probability-based and cross-cultural samples. The current study only examined lifetime prevalence and not relative frequency of these experiences. It might be interesting to explore whether more frequent experiences show a different association with personality traits compared to lifetime prevalence rates. For example, we observed a positive effect of having felt love that stood out. However, it might be conceivable that more frequent experiences of strong feelings of love may actually be counterproductive as it may indicate problems with attachment and emotional self-regulation (Eilert & Buchheim, 2023).
We also did not further investigate the subjective interpretations of these experiences by individuals. If individuals appraise these experiences as subjectively meaningful and believe that they have control over these experiences personality associations may be different from those by individuals who are feeling threatened by or not in control of these experiences. This is an area that needs urgent further research (Maraldi et al., 2024). Our work provides a descriptive exploration of general prevalence rates with personality, but these patterns need to be replicated and followed up with a more careful exploration of appraisal processes. We could speculate that examining the frequency, subjective valence and the perceived control over the experiences may help to differentiate better between the personality associations with the large number of experiences that formed part of the first cluster. In addition, the cluster analysis was exploratory in nature and should be interpreted as a preliminary organizational tool rather than a definitive taxonomy of experiences. It was somewhat reassuring that a supplementary exploration via network analyses suggested similar patterns. Future work needs to examine whether experiences structures based on co-occurrences of these experiences replicate the clusters that we identified based on correlations with personality facets.
Finally, our results are possibly open to alternative explanations such as social desirability and response style effects. We did not include social desirability scales to control such biases. Nevertheless, we do not believe that the overall pattern is due to social desirability in general, because our results implied associations with personality domains and facets (e.g., Extraversion, Open-Mindedness), which tended to be more weakly associated with social desirability compared to other personality domains that were less salient in our study (Havan & Kohut, 2019).
Summary and Outlook
We explored the association between personality traits within the Big Five tradition and the phenomenological features of unusual and nonordinary experiences. Overall, our findings indicates that there are small to medium associations between specific facts and experiences, which suggests that these experiences within a real-world context may be patterned by and associated with more stable individual personality differences. Examining personality can help to structure and understand experiences that individuals may have only a few times in their lives. The inventory of experiences that we used did not frame the experiences in a clinical perspective, but we found some consistent effects that are compatible with the idea that these experiences may extend along a continuum ranging from common variations to more clinically relevant states. These patterns need to be explored more carefully in the future, using additional information on appraisal processes to distinguish clinically relevant experiences from experiences that may be remarkable and emotionally more neutral. At the same time, the patterns showed some surprises given previous clinically oriented research as well as some of the spiritual and special abilities focused literature. This underscores the importance of conducting more systematic research on these experiences conducted in phenomenologically neutral ways in general population samples. Our research represents one step toward a deeper understanding of human experiences that have fascinated philosophers since antiquity.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Personality Facets Systematically Relate to Nonordinary Experiences
Supplemental Material for Personality Facets Systematically Relate to Nonordinary Experiences by Ronald Fischer, Larissa Hartle, Giovanna Bortolini, Tiago Bortolini, Everton O. Maraldi, Jorge Moll in Personality Science
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Personality Facets Systematically Relate to Nonordinary Experiences
Supplemental Material for Personality Facets Systematically Relate to Nonordinary Experiences by Ronald Fischer, Larissa Hartle, Giovanna Bortolini, Tiago Bortolini, Everton O. Maraldi, Jorge Moll in Personality Science
Footnotes
Author’s Note
Not applicable.
Author Contributions
RF developed the study concept, analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. LH analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript. GB collected the data and analyzed the data. All authors provided feedback, revised the manuscript and reviewed and approved the final manuscript for submission.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (Grant ID: 62651) to RF and JM, funding from the IDOR Pioneer Science Initiative to RF, LH, TB and JM, by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, process: 309085/2023-3) to RF and financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Notes
References
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