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WISER is one of the first research programs to study super experiencers with the rigor and respect these experiences deserve.
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The Survey

The WISER survey is the first phase of a global research effort to better understand individuals who have had multiple types of anomalous or noetic experiences. These may include:

  • Expanded self
  • Mystical
  • Near-death experiences (NDEs)
  • Noetic dreams
  • Nonhuman intelligence (NHI) / Nonphysical human (NPH) encounters
  • Out-of-body experiences (OBEs)
  • Paranormal
  • Permeable self
  • Psychic
  • Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) / Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) encounters

Click here for an expanded definition of these experience types.

Who Can Participate

You must be 18 or older, fluent in English, and willing to share your experiences.

What to Expect

The survey typically takes 2–4 hours to complete (sometimes longer if you have many experiences or prefer to elaborate) and must be done in one sitting. Please set aside a quiet space and enough time to be fully present with your experiences. You’ll be guided through questions about your early experiences, how they have unfolded across your lifetime, and detailed reflections on specific events. The survey also includes background questions to help us better understand the diversity of super experiencers. You can request a copy of your responses when you finish.

To help you prepare, you can download this reflection sheet — a simple guide to help you recall and organize your experiences before you begin.

Your Privacy

Responses are confidential and handled with care. Personal identifiers will not be published, and any quotes used will be anonymized unless permission is given.

Why It Matters

By participating, you are helping to destigmatize extraordinary experiences and contributing to research that honors the complexity of human consciousness.

Completing the survey is both a contribution to science and an invitation to reflection. Many participants find that the process of describing and revisiting their experiences brings new insight and coherence—a meaningful step in integrating the extraordinary into everyday life.

Take the Survey

INSIGHTS FROM THE PILOT SURVEY

Before launching the full study, we conducted a pilot survey with nearly 400 participants to get clearer and smarter about how to steward this research well. Here are a few things we learned: 

  • Extraordinary experiences are more common—and more layered—than expected. The majority of respondents reported seven or more distinct types of phenomena. This finding confirmed our focus on multi-type experiencers and shaped the design of the study to explore how different phenomena cluster and unfold across a person’s life. 
  • These experiences often start in childhood. Many people report first experiences before age 10. This helped us redesign our timeline and background questions to better trace developmental patterns.
  • The whole person matters. The pilot emphasized the need for more holistic profiling—not just what people have experienced, but how they relate to those experiences, how they integrate them, and how those experiences shape their lives.
  • People want to be heard, not diagnosed. Participants expressed a strong appreciation for being invited to share their experiences in a safe, curious, and nonjudgmental context. This reinforced our commitment to designing the study with experiencers, not just about them.

     

These findings directly informed the language, structure, and approach of the full WISER study. We sincerely thank all participants in the pilot survey for sharing their experiences and insights.