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741,t&g,e.re" This study systematically evaluated the psychological reactions of a non-clinical population to the October 1989 Bay Area earthquake. Within a week of the earthquake, a checklist of anxiety and dissociative symptoms was administered to a representative sample of approximately 100 graduate students and faculty members from two different institutions in the Bay Area. A follow-up study was conducted 4 months afterwards. Analyses of variance for time of testing showed that during or shortly after the earthquake respondents experienced sigr-ficantly greater number and frequency of time distortions, alterations in cognition, memory and somatic sensation, derealization, depersonalization, and, to a lesse: degree, anxiety symptoms and Schneiderian first-rank symptoms. These results suggest that among non-clinical populations extreme distres