Revisiting the Unusual: Investigating the Prevalence and Validity of Nonordinary Experiences as a Window into Consciousness

Nonordinary experiences (NOEs), subjectively distinctive states such as feelings of boundlessness, perceived presences, or dissociative episodes, have long been associated primarily with clinical pathology, yet their actual prevalence in the general population has never been rigorously quantified using non-judgmental, descriptive measurement approaches. Across a series of pre-registered experiments involving a total of 11,629 participants, the authors validated a battery of 31 NOE items (N = 1,284 for validation) and estimated their lifetime prevalence rates consistently across general population samples, finding that many such experiences are far more common than clinical diagnosis rates for associated conditions — such as schizophrenia and dissociative disorders — would suggest. While relative prevalence estimates proved robust, absolute point estimates were sensitive to measurement conditions and study context, highlighting the methodological challenges inherent in quantifying experiences that lie at the boundaries of ordinary cognition. These findings challenge the pathologizing of NOEs as rare anomalies and argue for their integration into a broader empirical science of consciousness, opening new conceptual and clinical perspectives on the relationship between unusual mental states and psychological well-being.