Table 7.
Rewarding emotional responses and the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ).
| Coded units, themes, and questionnaire items | Documented in experience, n (%) | |
|---|---|---|
| All experiences (n = 3778) | Experiences with no reported concomitant psychoactive substance use (n = 3242) | |
| Rewarding responses | ||
| Familiarity | 482 (12.8) | 423 (13.0) |
| Familiar | 428 (11.3) | 369 (11.4) |
| Feels like "home" or sense of belonging | 55 (1.5) | 47 (1.4) |
| Tearful and tears of joy | 111 (2.9) | 90 (2.8) |
| Euphoria | 93 (2.5) | 79 (2.4) |
| Accepting death or removed fear of dying | 59 (1.6) | 48 (1.5) |
| Rebirth | 53 (1.4) | 40 (1.2) |
| Sexual or intimate energy or experience | 33 (0.9) | 33 (1.0) |
| Feels real or more real than everyday reality | 22 (0.6) | 22 (0.7) |
| Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) | ||
| Mystical | 1188 (31.4) | 980 (30.2) |
| Freedom from the limitations of your personal self and feeling a unity or bond with what was felt to be greater than personal self | 331 (8.8) | 270 (8.3) |
| Experience of pure being and pure awareness (beyond the world of sense impressions) | 133 (3.5) | 105 (3.2) |
| Experience of oneness in relation to an “inner world” within | 141 (3.7) | 111 (3.4) |
| Experience of the fusion of your personal self into a larger whole | 184 (4.9) | 147 (4.5) |
| Experience of unity with ultimate reality | 258 (6.8) | 211 (6.5) |
| Feeling that [the author] experienced eternity or infinity | 266 (7.0) | 212 (6.5) |
| Experience of oneness or unity with objects and/or persons perceived in your surroundings | 159 (4.2) | 125 (3.9) |
| Experience of the insight that “all is One” | 116 (3.1) | 92 (2.8) |
| Awareness of the life or living presence in all things | 93 (2.5) | 77 (2.4) |
| Gain of insightful knowledge experienced at an intuitive level | 717 (19.0) | 593 (18.3) |
| Certainty of encounter with ultimate reality (in the sense of being able to “know” and “see” what is really real at some point during your experience | 335 (8.9) | 270 (8.3) |
| Convinced now that [the author] encountered ultimate reality (i.e., that you “knew” and “saw” what was really real) | 328 (8.7) | 267 (8.2) |
| Sense of being at a spiritual height | 295 (7.8) | 254 (7.8) |
| Sense of reverence | 924 (24.5) | 755 (23.3) |
| Feeling that [the author] experienced something profoundly sacred and holy | 204 (5.4) | 168 (5.2) |
| Positive mood | 2984 (79.0) | 2524 (77.9) |
| Experience of amazement | 2715 (71.9) | 2297 (70.9) |
| Feelings of tenderness and gentleness | 1078 (28.5) | 910 (28.1) |
| Feelings of peace and tranquility | 1058 (28.0) | 892 (27.5) |
| Experience of ecstasy | 239 (6.3) | 186 (5.7) |
| Sense of awe or awesomeness | 2671 (70.7) | 2253 (69.5) |
| Feelings of joy | 2136 (56.5) | 1805 (55.7) |
| Transcendence of space or time | 2746 (72.7) | 2320 (71.6) |
| Loss of usual sense of time | 362 (9.6) | 287 (8.9) |
| Loss of usual sense of space | 2710 (71.7) | 2289 (70.6) |
| Loss of usual awareness of where you were | 1884 (49.9) | 1577 (48.6) |
| Sense of being “outside of” time, beyond past and future | 174 (4.6) | 137 (4.2) |
| Being in a realm with no space boundaries | 828 (21.9) | 665 (20.5) |
| Experience of timelessness | 151 (4.0) | 116 (3.6) |
| Ineffability | 543 (14.4) | 448 (13.8) |
| Sense that the experience cannot be described adequately in words | 534 (14.1) | 439 (13.5) |
| Feeling that [the author] could not do justice to experience by describing it in words | 512 (13.6) | 423 (13.0) |
| Feeling that it would be difficult to communicate [author’s] own experience to others who have not had similar experiences | 80 (2.1) | 65 (2.0) |