Phenomenological Reality and Post-Death Contact

Abstract

Individual realities of persons claiming to have had encounters with others known to be dead often mark the experiencing individual as pathological. Nonetheless, a survey of the available literature shows that the experience is common both in preliterate communities and among the recently bereaved; some authors have indicated that it is more common among contemporary Americans than is normally presumed. The present study queried 434 respondents in Greater Los Angeles, divided approximately equally among black, Japanese, Mexican and European origins, whether they had experienced such an encounter. Approximately 44 percent responded positively, with over 25 percent of these persons indicating that the dead person actually visited or was seen at a seance, while over 60 percent of the incidents involved a dream. A sufficiently large proportion of all population categories have experienced the presence of a dead person to make this phenomenon worthy of further investigation as being subjectively important.