A study of the correlations between subjective psychic experiences and dissociative experiences

Avariety of subjective "psychic " experiences, such as telepathy, clair-voyance, and out-of-body experiences, are often reported in conjunction with dissociative experiences. This study looked at the relationship between the Dissociative Experiences.Scale (DES) and a variety of psychic experiences in a non-clinical adult population with a high levelofpsychic experiences. TheDES was carrelated moderately (Pearson 's r from. 3 to.4) with most but not all of the experiences. The mean DES score was 17.2 (SD = 12.5), and the median was 14.1, sub-stantially above the norm fn. adults. The correlations with a mea-sure ofaffect, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedules (PANAS), were low for both positive and negative affect, and the means for affect were similar to the means for the general population. Eighty-one point jive percent of the subjects felt that their psychic experi-ences had had a positive or inspirational effect on their lives. When taken in conjunction with other surveys of the general population, this study confirms that psychic experiences are a common occur-rence in non-clinical populations, and that, although they are cor-related with dissociation, they are not necessarily associated with pathology