Background People who have suffered the loss of a loved one may subsequently report sensory experiences of the deceased (termed ‘after-death communications’, or ADCs). Such encounters are common and can be a source of comfort to the bereaved. Nevertheless, there has been limited empirical investigation of this phenomenon, and consequently mental health professionals feel ill-equipped to support those who disclose them. Aims To map the phenomenology of ADCs, and identify covariates and effects upon the recipient. Method We conducted an online mixed-methods survey comprising 194 items about all aspects of ADCs. A purposive sample of 1004 respondents across three language groups (English, French and Spanish) completed the survey. Results The most common form of ADC was during sleep, but large numbers of cases involved sensory modalities of touch, sight, hearing, smell and sense of presence that externalised the phenomenon for the recipient. Variations in incidence with participant gender and language group suggest a psychosocial component. ADCs were typically regarded by the participant as deeply meaningful and comforting. Respondents reported significant increases in their sense of spirituality, but not religiosity. Conclusions ADCs are a common feature of bereavement that occur unexpectedly, and are independent of any underlying pathology or psychological need. For the person experiencing the hallucination, they are important and meaningful events that they interpret in terms of continuing bonds with the deceased. This adaptive outcome may be stymied where mental health professionals trivialise or pathologise disclosures about ADCs.

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Recent research by the lead author has sought to incorporate ganzfeld stimulation as part of a remote viewing protocol. An initial exploratory experiment (Roe & Flint, 2007) suggested that novice participants can successfully describe a randomly selected target location while in the ganzfeld context but did not make a direct comparison with performance in a waking state. This paper describes a series of three subsequent experiments that compared performance at a remote viewing task in a waking condition with a ganzfeld stimulation condition using a counterbalanced repeated measures design. There were only minor variations in design across the three experiments to enable combination of data in a summary analysis. In total, 110 participants produced 43 hits in the ganzfeld stimulation condition (39%), giving a highly significant positive deviation from chance expectation (sum of ranks = 225, p = .000012), whereas in the waking RV condition they achieved 30 hits (27.5%), which is marginally better than chance expectation (sum of ranks = 253, p = .034). The difference in z scores for target ratings in the two conditions approached significance (t[39] = 1.86, p = .065). In experiment 1, individual difference measures identified as predictors of psi performance were unrelated to target ratings. Participants completed Pekala's (1991) Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI) in order to gauge their responsiveness to the ganzfeld protocol and of the 12 sub-dimensions tested, ganzfeld performance correlated significantly with greater absorption in their subjective experience, lower arousal, and less internal dialogue. In experiments 2 and 3 individual differences measure were replaced by measures of transliminality, openness to experience, and dissociative experiences, but these were unrelated to task success. Data from experiment 2 did not confirm the findings using the PCI from experiment 1, though a significant association was found with the time sense dimension. In experiment 3 no PCI dimensions correlated with task performance, a pattern that was confirmed when data were combined across all three experiments. Remote viewing (RV) can be defined as "the ability to perceive and to be able to describe what would be experienced if one were at some specified distant location" (after Hansel, 1989, p. 160). Al-1 We should like to thank the Perrott-Warrick Fund, the Society for Psychical Research Research Grants Committee and the Parapsychological Association Research Endowment (PARE) Fund for their kind financial support of the experiments included in this series.

After death communications(ADCs) are defined as perceived spontaneous contacts with living individuals by the deceased. This research presents on a subset of data from a recent large international survey of individuals who experienced ADCs and provided systematic information regarding these experiences. In our research we explore the impact of having an ADC on reported spirituality, religiosity, beliefs and attitudes about death and dying and also explore the moderating factors of this impact. We found that having an ADC was perceived as a positive life experience and that it was associated with a reduction in fear of death, belief in life after death and that the deceased could communicate with the living, and increased reported spirituality. Moderating factors include aspects of having or desiring physical contact with the deceased as well as perceiving some emotional reaction to the ADCs. Future directions for research exploration are also provided based on our findings.

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