Abstract
This paper reports on research on "ego-experience," that is, questions about "I" such as "Why am I 'I'?," "Why do I exist?," and "Why was I born at this particular time rather than at a different point in time?," along with the feeling that one's appearance is strange. The purpose of the study was to examine when ego-experience appears, the percentages of people who reported their own ego-experience, feelings about ego-experience, and whether participants told others about their experience. Participants (N=881) were in the age range between junior high school and college. 379 of the participants reported having an ego-experience, mainly between 9 and 12 years of age. These results suggested that ego-experience is a common but not universal phenomenon.
