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There are several types of experience falling under the umbrella "exceptional experiences". We include many of them on this site. For each experience, we describe what these experiences are like and summarize existing research on them. We offer some different ideas about how to explain them and to make sense of them.
Exceptional experiences are experiences that seem to break the normal rules for how reality is supposed to work in terms of your sense of self and the physical world. For example, we usually experience our thoughts to be inside our minds rather than out in the world. Many people around the world and throughout history have reported experiences that seem to break the usual rules regarding the barriers between the internal and the physical world. We believe that these experiences should be studied and further understood, rather than ignored.
If you have an experience that is not listed here and want to ask us about it, please email Dr. Simmonds-Moore at csimmond@westga.edu. We would like to expand this site to allow more people to learn about many types of experiences.
Anomalous acquisition of knowledge or Extrasensory Perception (ESP, including premonitions, telepathy and clairvoyance experiences).
Experiencing separation from the body or "out of body" experiences.
Experiencing contact from a deceased loved one
Strange nocturnal experiences including sleep paralysis, frightening sense of presence experiences and buzzing in the body
Experiencing electricity or energy in the body including feelings that there is a burst of energy moving up the spine that seems to be associated with changes in the personality or feelings of meaning in life
Unusual physical experiences including objects moving without being touched
Synesthesia - where people experience an additional response to the usual response to a given inducer - e.g., a colour in addition to hearing the letter "K"
Experiences close to death - including feeling that one has left the body and experienced a range of phenomena when they were close to death or when they physically died.
ASMR - Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response or the "head tingles". This is a common experience occurring in response to a range of triggers.
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