The Index of Changes Resulting From Experiences questionnaire (see Appendix A) indicated increased interest and belief in spiritual matters and increased well-being.  As shown in Table 2, the most extreme changes were for spirituality-related items such as desire to achieve a higher consciousness, belief in life after death, and interest in spiritual or religious matters.  A preponderance of positive responses were also found on well-being items such as feelings of happiness and well-being, sense of connection to others, optimism about the future, purpose or meaning for life, and motivation to maintain health. Reciprocal responses were found on the negative well-being items: feelings of isolation or loneliness, feelings of depression  or anxiety, and worry and fears about the future.  

For all but two items the changes resulting from the experiences were not related to the degree that the person had the feeling or characteristic prior to the experiences.  The two exceptions were  



Table 2. Results from Index of Changes Resulting from Experiences


Feeling or Belief
Increase
No Change
Decrease
N          Factorsa
1        2        3        4        5
Desire to achieve a higher
  consciousness     80% 20% 0% 113 +
Interest in the paranormal 77% 23% 0% 113 +
Belief in life after death 68% 32% 0% 114 +
Interest in spiritual or religious matters   66% 32% 2% 111 +
Sense of connection to others 63% 33% 4% 112 +
Belief in a higher power   62% 35% 4% 112 +
Sense of purpose or meaning for my life 59% 39% 2% 113 +
Feelings of happiness and well being       55% 40% 5% 113 +
Motivation to maintain my health             53% 44% 2% 88 +
Optimism about the future 51% 42% 6% 111 +
Tolerance for others 46% 48% 6% 113 +
Focus on living in the present 45% 44% 10% 88
Ability to express love 45% 53% 2% 112
Desire to help others 42% 57% 2% 113 +
Desire to have a high standard of living   18% 69% 12% 114 +
Feeling that my life has no direction         14% 45% 41% 111
Frustration with incompetent people       12% 58% 30% 114 ─
Feelings of isolation or loneliness           11% 49% 40% 113 ─
Worry and fears about the future           10% 45% 45% 89 ─
Feelings of depression or anxiety             10% 43% 47% 111 ─
Fear of death                     7% 39% 54% 112
  aFactors are based on factor analysis.  + means positive loading and ─ means negative loading.


"depression or anxiety" and "worry and fears about the future," which had greater decreases associated with reported higher levels before the anomalous experiences (r=.31 and .28 respectively).

Various exploratory factor analyses gave mixed results.  Five factors are indicated in Table 2. The first factor includes key well-being measures and the third factor includes several items that may be related to spirituality.  These two factors and the fifth factor (desire to have a high standard of living) were relatively distinct.  The other two factors correlated with factor one and tended to vary with different rotations and numbers of retained factors.  The scree plot did not suggest a clear number of factors.  These results are probably not surprising because most items on the questionnaire were not intended to provide multiple indicators of underlying constructs.  The relatively low ratio of observations to variables also may be a factor in these results.