Nirvana Road: Dissociative Experiences Predict “Eastern” Beliefs About Postmortem Existence

ABSTRACT

Three studies (N = 338) tested the idea that endorsement of postmortem beliefs most closely associated with Eastern religious traditions (that is, continuation of consciousness and the explicit dissolution of personal identity, possibly via reincarnation) would map onto a history of dissociative experiences. As hypothesized, a history of dissociative (including depersonalization/derealization) experiences, as well as altered experience of body/space/time during a discrete positive episode, predicted endorsement of “Eastern” postmortem beliefs among religiously heterogeneous (non-Buddhist, non-Hindu) participants. This relationship became stronger when dissociative tendencies were heightened following a traumatic loss (i.e., the suicide of a close other within the past year; Study 3). In contrast, dissociative tendencies did not predict belief in either annihilation or postmortem continuation without identity loss, most typically linked to atheism and Western religious traditions, respectively. These results suggest that some metaphysical beliefs may be embraced because they “make sense” in light of personal experience.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rebecca Leitch for assistance with data collection and to Geoff Navara for his comments.

Notes

¹ A reanalysis of data from Burris and Bailey’s (2009) large sample supports these characterizations. Specifically, an “Eastern religion” group was created by pooling all respondents who self-identified as either Hindu or Buddhist (n = 27) and a “Western religion” group was created by pooling all respondents who self-identified with either Islam or some branch of Christianity (n = 265). Self-identified atheists (n = 54), as well as those who labeled themselves agnostic/nonreligious (n = 131), were also included as distinct groups.As expected, the Eastern religion group (M = 4.57; SD = 1.18) was significantly (all ps < .001) more likely to endorse postmortem beliefs involving preservation of consciousness with identity loss compared to the Western religion (M = 2.86, SD = 1.22), agnostic/nonreligious (M = 2.94, SD = 1.24), and atheist (M = 2.00, SD = 1.04) groups. In contrast, the Western religion group (M = 3.56, SD = 1.14) was significantly (all ps < .02) more likely to endorse postmortem preservation of consciousness and identity compared to the Eastern religion (M = 3.05, SD = 1.10), agnostic/nonreligious (M = 2.48, SD = .95), and atheist (M = 1.50, SD = .63) groups. Finally, atheists (M = 6.05, SD = 1.14) were significantly (all ps < .001) more likely to endorse belief in annihilation compared to the agnostic/nonreligious (M = 4.23, SD = 1.58) Eastern religion (M = 3.89, SD = 1.45) and Western religion (M = 2.83, SD = 1.49) groups (see the appendix for items comprising the three scales).

² The pattern of results remained unchanged when controlling for self-reported anxiety and depression, as measured by Zigmond and Snaith’s (1983) 14-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Like dissociation, anxiety and depression were both significantly higher among those who had experienced a close suicide versus those who had not (both ps < .03), and anxiety and depression were correlated .55 and .59, respectively, with dissociation (both ps < .001). None of the main effects of anxiety and depression on postmortem beliefs approached significance, however (all ps > .16), nor were any of the interactions with the suicide/no-suicide grouping variable significant (all ps > .07).

³ In passing, it is worth noting that Study 2’s finding of a significant negative zero-order altered experience/annihilation correlation (see Table 2) could also be interpreted as being consistent with the experiential congruence hypothesis: To the extent that their intensely positive experiences lacked phenomenological features that challenged their usual experience of space, time, and the physical body, participants were more likely to affirm the belief that physical death signals the end of consciousness. In a very broad sense, this seems to parallel previous work suggesting that atheists and religiously identified individuals experience positively valenced events differently (see Burris & Petrican, 2011).