Research Department, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, United States of America.
Department of Neurology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Nov 7;13(11):e0205740. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205740. eCollection 2018.
The science of meditation has grown tremendously in the last two decades. Most studies have focused on evaluating the clinical effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions, neural and other physiological correlates of meditation, and individual cognitive and emotional aspects of meditation. Far less research has been conducted on more challenging domains to measure, such as group and relational, transpersonal and mystical, and difficult aspects of meditation; anomalous or extraordinary phenomena related to meditation; and post-conventional stages of development associated with meditation. However, these components of meditation may be crucial to people's psychological and spiritual development, could represent important mediators and/or mechanisms by which meditation confers benefits, and could themselves be important outcomes of meditation practices. In addition, since large numbers of novices are being introduced to meditation, it is helpful to investigate experiences they may encounter that are not well understood. Over the last four years, a task force of meditation researchers and teachers met regularly to develop recommendations for expanding the current meditation research field to include these important yet often neglected topics. These meetings led to a cross-sectional online survey to investigate the prevalence of a wide range of experiences in 1120 meditators. Results show that the majority of respondents report having had many of these anomalous and extraordinary experiences. While some of the topics are potentially controversial, they can be subjected to rigorous scientific investigation. These arenas represent largely uncharted scientific terrain and provide excellent opportunities for both new and experienced researchers. We provide suggestions for future directions, with accompanying online materials to encourage such research.
冥想科学在过去二十年中得到了极大的发展。大多数研究都集中在评估正念干预的临床效果、冥想的神经和其他生理相关性以及冥想的个体认知和情感方面。相比之下，对更具挑战性的领域的研究却很少，例如团体和人际关系、超越个人和神秘主义，以及冥想的困难方面；与冥想相关的异常或特殊现象；以及与冥想相关的后常规发展阶段。然而，这些冥想成分可能对人们的心理和精神发展至关重要，可能是冥想带来益处的重要中介和/或机制，并且本身可能是冥想实践的重要结果。此外，由于大量的新手正在接触冥想，因此研究他们可能遇到的不被理解的经验是有帮助的。在过去的四年中，一个由冥想研究人员和教师组成的工作组定期开会，为扩大当前的冥想研究领域提出建议，将这些重要但往往被忽视的主题纳入其中。这些会议导致了一项横断面在线调查，以调查 1120 名冥想者中广泛的各种经验的流行程度。结果表明，大多数受访者报告说他们有过许多这样的异常和特殊的经历。虽然其中一些主题可能存在争议，但它们可以进行严格的科学研究。这些领域代表了大部分未开发的科学领域，为新老研究人员提供了极好的机会。我们提供了未来方向的建议，并提供了相应的在线材料，以鼓励此类研究。
