Introduction:

Nurses narrated a number of paranormal experiences consisting in deathbed visions and other anomalous phenomena. The aim of this study was to determine the degree of occurrence of certain unusual perceptual experiences in hospital environments, the so-called anomalous/paranormal experiences frequently reported by physicians and nurses in the hospital environment.

Materials and Methods:

This was a cross-sectional and analytic study. Five scales were administered, Survey of Anomalous/Paranormal Experiences for Nurses, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Tellegen Absorption Scale, Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, and Affective Cognitive Empathy Test on 344 nurses from 36 hospitals and health center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Results:

The most common experiences reported by nurses are sensation of presence and/or apparitions, hearing noises, voices or dialogs, crying or wailing, intuitive and extrasensory experiences in relation to their patients, or the reception of said experiences by their own patients, such as near-death experiences, prayer practices or religious interventions with spontaneous healing, and other anomalous experiences related to children.

Discussion:

Nurses with experiences also tended to higher absorption, which was confirmed by a tendency to schizotypy and greater cognitive empathy and emotional understanding than nurses without experiences.

Conclusions:

Although the hypothesis was not confirmed, according to which nurses with experiences tend to undergo greater labor stress, it was found that nurses with experiences obtained a higher score in the depersonalization factor than nurses without experiences.

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