The moderating role of mystical-type experiences on the relationship between existential isolation and meaning in life

Sielaff and colleagues frame the study around existential isolation (EI) — the sense that one’s subjective experience of reality is not shared or validated by others — and its established negative association with meaning in life (MIL). They note that EI is distinct from loneliness and objective social isolation, can be measured as a dispositional trait, and is linked to lower self-competence and social validation. The authors situate this question within broader debates about how meaning is socially constructed and how autonomy and relatedness both contribute to a sense of meaning. The paper tests whether having experienced a mystical-type experience (MTE) moderates the relationship between EI and MIL. MTEs are phenomenologically distinct events (comprising mystical unity, transcendence of time/space, positive mood, and ineffability) that many people report as highly meaningful; they can arise in various contexts including psychedelics, ritual, near-death experiences and meditation. The central hypothesis is that among people who have not had an MTE there will be the expected negative association between EI and MIL, whereas among people who have had an MTE there will be no such relationship — that is, prior MTEs may decouple EI from lower meaning rather than produce a positive association. The authors justify this moderator hypothesis by noting that MTEs often combine feelings of both existential isolation (ineffability, unique subjective content) and mystical connectedness (feeling "at one"), and thus may alter how individuals relate to their existential condition. The study uses two undergraduate samples to examine replication and generalisability within the population accessible to the investigators.

The study used two convenience samples of undergraduate psychology students recruited via a departmental mass survey; participants received course extra credit and completed the survey online via Qualtrics on personal devices. The extracted text does not clearly report the total sample size for each sample in the Methods section, but it does report counts and percentages of participants classified as having had an MTE (Sample 1: 115 participants, 13%; Sample 2: 195 participants, 16%). The second sample was collected to test replication of the initial findings. Measures were presented in the order: demographics, meaning in life (MIL), existential isolation (EI), and prior MTE. The Presence of Meaning subscale from the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) was used, with six items in Sample 1 and four items in Sample 2; both versions used a seven-point Likert scale and produced acceptable internal consistencies (Sample 1 α = 0.81; Sample 2 α = 0.86). Trait EI was assessed via a trait EI scale, with six items in Sample 1 and three items in Sample 2 (seven-point Likert scale; both α = 0.82). Higher scores indicate greater perceived meaning or higher trait EI respectively. Prior MTE was assessed using a single checklist item derived from the MEQ30, listing eight phenomena in Sample 1 and nine in Sample 2 (the ninth item was added in Sample 2). Participants could endorse multiple phenomena; the authors treated MTEs as a dichotomous variable using a 60% cutoff of the total possible score, classifying participants as yes-MTE if they endorsed ≥5 of 8 items in Sample 1 or ≥6 of 9 in Sample 2. The authors note the limitation of retrospective recall over the lifespan but argue for the memorability of MTEs. Participants also reported activities occurring during their MTE (multiple selections allowed), producing descriptive data on induction contexts (for those with MTEs, common contexts included social events, meditation/prayer, and under the influence of an ingested substance). Analytically, the study used multiple regression models in R Studio to test whether prior MTE (dummy coded 0 = no-MTE, 1 = yes-MTE) moderated the relationship between grand-mean-centred EI and MIL. An interaction term (MTE × EI) was included, and interactions were probed using follow-up tests and the PROCESS-equivalent probing (model 1) implemented in R. The authors report that dataset and R code are available in online supplementary materials.

Descriptive statistics and reliability: MLQ Presence of Meaning had means of M = 4.41 (SD = 1.13) in Sample 1 and M = 4.76 (SD = 1.35) in Sample 2; trait EI means were M = 3.77 (SD = 1.01) and M = 3.84 (SD = 1.17) respectively. Internal consistency for EI was α = 0.82 in both samples. In terms of prevalence, 13% of Sample 1 (115 participants) and 16% of Sample 2 (195 participants) met the study’s criterion for a prior MTE. Among the combined 310 participants classified as yes-MTE, induction contexts most commonly reported were being at an event surrounded by people/friends (n = 172), meditation or prayer (n = 150), and being under the influence of an ingested substance (n = 113). Sample 1 regression results showed a significant interaction between EI and MTE status predicting MIL, B = 0.32, SE = 0.09, p < .001, R2 = 0.10. Probing this interaction indicated that in the no-MTE group EI was negatively associated with MIL (B = -0.38, SE = 0.04, p < .001), whereas in the yes-MTE group there was no significant association (B = -0.06, SE = 0.08, p = .481). Further probing indicated a significant difference in MIL between MTE groups at low EI (1 SD below the mean), B = -0.47, p = .002, but not at high EI (1 SD above the mean), p = .160. Sample 2 produced a similar but weaker pattern: the interaction trended in the same direction, B = 0.16, SE = 0.09, p = .072, R2 = 0.10. In the no-MTE group EI again negatively predicted MIL (B = -0.28, SE = 0.04, p < .001), while in the yes-MTE group the association was non-significant (B = -0.12, SE = 0.08, p = .127). Probing showed no significant difference at low EI and a trending difference at high EI (p = .079). Analyses on the combined dataset yielded a significant interaction, B = 0.23, SE = 0.06, p < .001, R2 = 0.06. In the pooled data the no-MTE group showed a negative EI–MIL association (B = -0.31, SE = 0.03, p < .001) and the yes-MTE group showed no significant association (B = -0.08, SE = 0.06, p = .142). Probing the combined interaction indicated significant differences between MTE groups at both low EI (B = -0.25, p = .027) and high EI (B = 0.25, p = .010). The authors note that standard deviations of EI within MTE groups indicated sufficient variability to rule out restriction of range as an alternative explanation, and a post-hoc power check suggested the yes-MTE subgroup was adequately powered to detect an effect size reported in prior work if it were present.

Sielaff and colleagues interpret their findings as consistent with prior research showing a negative association between trait EI and MIL for the majority of people who have not experienced an MTE. The novel contribution is that this negative relation was absent in the minority (~13–16% across samples) who reported a prior MTE: after an MTE an individual may remain high in EI without reporting lower meaning, whereas among those without an MTE higher EI continues to track lower MIL. The authors offer several interpretations. One is that MTEs may change how people relate to their existential situation, fostering greater equanimity so that EI is less threatening to meaning. Alternatively, people with pre-existing equanimous perspectives toward existential matters may be more likely to seek experiences that produce MTEs; thus MTE status may be an indirect marker of pre-existing differences. The authors also propose that for low-EI individuals who report an MTE, cognitive dissonance or cultural trivialisation of MTEs could weaken meaning structures, potentially explaining why low-EI yes-MTE participants sometimes reported lower MIL than low-EI no-MTE participants. Several limitations are acknowledged. The data are cross-sectional and therefore cannot establish causal direction; the MTE measure was retrospective and dichotomous, raising concerns about memory fallibility and loss of nuance; and both samples were primarily White American undergraduates, limiting generalisability to other demographics and cultural contexts where MTEs may be interpreted differently or less isolating. The authors recommend future research to measure valence of EI (how people feel about being existentially isolated), to experimentally manipulate state EI with prior MTE as a moderator, and to investigate cultural and individual difference moderators. They also draw a cautious analogy between MTEs and acute traumatic experiences in that both singular events can produce lasting worldview changes, noting that individual reactions to the same event can vary widely. Finally, the authors suggest that as psychedelic research advances, linking existential-psychological constructs like EI to MTEs may illuminate both therapeutic mechanisms and how people cope with existential concerns.