People who report religious experiences may also display enhanced temporal-lobe signs.

People who report intense religious experiences also show a range of behaviors linked to the temporal lobe, consistent with the hypothesis that such experiences arise from endogenous electrical stimulation in that brain region. Across two studies of first-year university students, those who reported religious experiences scored higher on questionnaire clusters containing temporal-lobe symptoms, regardless of church attendance in one study. They were also more likely to keep a diary and enjoy poetry. However, they did not score higher on clusters of mundane psychological or proprioceptive statements, odd sensations, or a modified MMPI Lie scale, indicating the effect is specific to temporal-lobe-related phenomena.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Religious and god-related experiences have been hypothesized to be a portion of the continuum of phenomena that are generated by endogenous, transient electrical stimulation within deep structures of the temporal lobe. According to this hypothesis, normal people, without psychiatric history, who report intense religious experiences should also demonstrate a wide range of temporal lobe-related private behaviors. To test this prediction, a self-report inventory that contained 140 temporal-lobe-relevant information, opinion-belief, and sampled MMPI statements was administered to two separate groups (n = 108; n = 41) of male and female first-year university students. In Study I, subjects who had reported religious experiences, particularly those who did not attend church regularly, scored significantly higher on a variety of statement clusters (n = 7 to 14 items) that contained temporal-lobe symptomology relative to groups who did not report religious experiences and did not attend church regularly. In Study II subjects, regardless of church attendance, who reported religious experiences scored significantly higher on the temporal-lobe clusters. People who reported religious experiences were more likely to have kept a dairy and to enjoy poetry reading or writing. However, religious experiments and churchgoers did not score higher (in either experiment) on clusters that contained mundane psychological or proprioceptive statements, descriptions of odd sensations, or modified portions of the Lie scale from the MMPI.