Ghost Encounters Among Traumatized Cambodian Refugees: Severity, Relationship to PTSD, and Phenomenology.

Among Cambodian refugees at a psychiatric clinic, ghost encounters are a central part of how trauma is experienced and expressed. Fifty-four percent of patients had been bothered by ghost encounters in the past month. The severity of being bothered by ghosts was strongly correlated with PTSD severity. Among those bothered by ghosts, 85.2% had PTSD, compared to 15.4% of those not bothered, an odds ratio of 31.8. Ghost visitations occurred in three states of consciousness: during full sleep (dreams), hypnagogia (sleep paralysis or hallucinations while falling asleep or waking), and full waking (hallucinations, visual aura, chills, or leg cramps).

Study at a glance

Abstract

Ghost encounters were found to be a key part of the trauma ontology among Cambodian refugees at a psychiatric clinic, a key idiom of distress. Fifty-four percent of patients had been bothered by ghost encounters in the last month. The severity of being bothered by ghosts in the last month was highly correlated to PTSD severity (r = .8), and among patients bothered by ghosts in the last month, 85.2% had PTSD, versus among those not so bothered, 15.4%, odds ratio of 31.8 (95% confidence level 11.3-89.3), Chi square = 55.0, p < .001. Ghost visitations occurred in multiple experiential modalities that could be classified into three states of consciousness: full sleep (viz., in dream), hypnagogia, that is, upon falling asleep or awakening (viz., in sleep paralysis [SP] and in non-SP hallucinations), and full waking (viz., in hallucinations, visual aura, somatic sensations [chills or goosebumps], and leg cramps). These ghost visitations gave rise to multiple concerns-for example, of being frightened to death or of having the soul called away-as part of an elaborate cosmology. Several heuristic models are presented including a biocultural model of the interaction of trauma and ghost visitation. An extended case illustrates the article's findings.