British Journal of Psychology
May 1, 2004
Rense Lange, Bruce Greyson, James Houran
98 citations
A Rasch analysis of the Greyson Near-Death Experience (NDE) Scale shows that it measures a single, interval-level dimension in people reporting true NDEs. As NDE intensity increases, the experiences progress from peace and joy to mystical insights, and finally to awareness of events in other places or times. This pattern is consistent regardless of gender, age, or when the NDE occurred. True NDEs differ qualitatively and quantitatively from other groups' responses, particularly in the emphasis on paranormal or mystical elements. The findings suggest that some people may misinterpret other psychological states as NDEs, and that religious background may influence how these experiences are reported.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
November 1, 2000
James Houran
62 citations
The text provides only an author affiliation and does not contain a coherent summary of a study, argument, or findings.
Psychology of Consciousness Theory Research and Practice
January 19, 2015
Rense Lange, Bruce Greyson, James Houran
18 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) have a consistent structure that appears in both standardized scales and people's own verbal accounts. Analyzing a large dataset of NDE narratives with latent semantic analysis, researchers found that accounts from people who scored above the median on Greyson's NDE Scale contained seven distinct linguistic clusters. Four of these clusters involved transcendent or paranormal themes, while three focused on physiological or environmental details. The results confirm that the intensity of an NDE correlates with the content of the verbal report, supporting the concurrent validity of Greyson's NDE Scale. This approach demonstrates how computational text analysis can reveal structure in qualitative data relevant to consciousness studies.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
August 29, 2023
James Houran, Brian Laythe
4 citations
ChatGPT-3.5-generated narratives of mystical, supernatural, or anomalous entity encounters approximate but do not fully match the phenomenology of real-life accounts. The AI descriptions covered each encounter type, mapped to a Rasch hierarchy of anomalous perceptions, showed below-average scores on the Survey of Strange Events, and referenced at least one recognition pattern of Haunted People Syndrome. Inter-rater reliability was fair, and correlations among narratives were low but generally positive. The findings suggest that prototypical depictions based on popular source material can mimic core features of these experiences, yet they lack the full depth of spontaneous reports.
Spiritual Psychology and Counseling
June 1, 2025
Neil Dagnall, Kenneth Drinkwater, Giovanni Caputo et al.
1 citation
A single case study of a 36-year-old man in France who reported ghostly encounters after playing the horror game Doki Doki Literature Club! tested the Haunted People Syndrome model, which describes such episodes as arising from people with heightened sensitivities, paranormal belief, and perceptual contagion. The participant showed slightly below-average haunt intensity, above-average recognition patterns for the syndrome, and scores indicating high transliminality, paranormal belief, and stress. His narrative aligned with the proposed process, and he experienced depersonalization, derealization, and dissociated identity, with aftereffects of situational enchantment. His understanding of the experiences evolved through active sense-making.
Journal of Scientific Exploration
March 31, 2025
Ciarán O’keeffe, Brandon Massullo, Brian Laythe et al.
1 citation
A reanalysis of a case study by Auerbach et al. (2023) on a poltergeist-like disturbance investigated with virtual technology during the COVID-19 pandemic finds that the case strongly aligns with the Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) model. HP-S conceptualizes ghostly episodes as an interactionist phenomenon arising from individuals with heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities, stirred by dis-ease states, contextualized with paranormal belief, and reinforced via perceptual contagion and threat-agency detection. Content analysis by an independent researcher showed the case had below-average 'haunt intensity' and a pattern resembling embellished or false testimony, yet it displayed most HP-S recognition patterns. The findings imply that ghostly episodes are best understood through a biopsychosocial lens, regardless of potential psi contributions.
Consciousness and cognition
January 18, 2026
Marieta Pehlivanova, Rense Lange, Bruce Greyson et al.
Two scales measuring the phenomenology of near-death experiences—the 16-item NDE Scale and the 20-item NDE-C—were compared in 705 self-identified experiencers. The scales correlate nearly perfectly (r = 0.98), indicating they measure the same underlying construct. However, Rasch analysis revealed problems with the NDE-C's category structure and five novel items. The original NDE Scale's item hierarchy replicated across samples, showing long-term stability. Based on parsimony and psychometric evidence, the original NDE Scale with Rasch scoring and a validated cut-off of 7 (out of 32) is recommended for future research.
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
September 24, 2025
James Houran
Anomalous 'dimensional-slip' experiences reported by a woman named Nell closely match the 'Spirit World' of shamanic and indigenous traditions, a space marked by vivid encounters with spirits, ancestral memory, and moral-emotional reckoning. A content analysis using ChatGPT-4o compared four of Nell's written accounts to 32 classic transcendental realms from spiritual and psychological traditions. The strongest alignment was with realms containing symbolic-archetypal contents that serve integrative, transformative, and revelatory functions. Nell's own post-hoc assessment under masked conditions partially supported this interpretation. The study demonstrates how large language models can enrich spirituality research and offers a replicable framework for investigating certain consciousness states.
Journal of anomalistics
July 24, 2025
James Houran, Debra Katz, J C Williamson et al.
A case study of a woman called Nell, who reported four experiences of being physically transported to other realms, was analyzed using AI-assisted content analysis and expert evaluation. The experiences were compared against explanations including kundalini awakenings, physical mediumship, bilocation, and electromagnetic field (EMF) effects. The findings aligned most strongly with EMF-related activity and, to some extent, bilocation phenomena. Post-hoc accounts from family members in the same area suggested possible environmental influences or behavioral contagion. The authors introduce a continuum model of bilocation integrating psychology, neuroscience, and parapsychology. No evidence was found that Nell physically moved, pointing instead to an interplay of boundary-thinness, altered states, and environmental factors in her anomalous cognitions.