Two studies of literary reading described the effects of loss, trauma, and traumatic loss on moments of disclosure during expressive engagement with the text. Study 1 compared readers who had experienced recent loss, recent trauma or neither recent loss nor trauma. Study 2 extended this paradigm to include traumatic loss. Dependent variables included an index of sublime disquietude, specifically, the interactive combination of perceived discord, self-perceptual depth, and inexpressible realizations. Across both studies, (1) a combination of traumatic distress and separation distress predicted sublime disquietude; (2) dissociation (depersonalization, amnesia) predicted sublime disquietude; and (3) distress in response to loss, trauma, or traumatic loss motivated reading at the limits of expressibility. This pattern of results is described in relation to Heidegger’s (1962) characterization of how, within being-toward-death, an uncanny not-at-homeness (Unheimlichkeit) is the context within which an experiential process provides an unsettling and yet elevating disclosure of finitude.

Biculturally competent individuals may adopt flexible forms of emotional expression that help them address not only acculturation stress but also the forms of distress that affect bicultural and monocultural individuals alike. In a sample of 174 bicultural undergraduates, level of bicultural competence moderated the effects of an “existential” aspect of depression (i.e., the sense of a foreshortened future) in predicting both expressive flexibility during wakefulness and emotional flux within the content of impactful dreams. Among individuals high in bicultural competence, those who sensed a foreshortened future following loss or trauma were more likely to report: (1) feeling exploration through direct self-reflection; (2) feeling exploration through aesthetic response; and (3) spontaneous emotional flux within impactful dreams. These findings suggest that expressive flexibility among biculturally competent individuals becomes evident in their manner of identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions during a stressful life event.