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Science and Meditation

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/24/13 3:04 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Go for it, I might submit something to it sometime. I am finishing my PhD in math/computer science, but I thought I would shift into this area instead, as it is more attuned to my current interests.

I think this is the natural direction that pragmatic dharma leans to.

I'm not really in the field just yet, but I hereby step forward and volunteer for technical support in setting up an open access journal (which would require reading about it, and use some sort of freely-available software).

One thing that I think would get the field started is something along the lines of your "mind training terms," where phenomena that arise during mind training would be catalogued. Once that exists and is extensive and established and high-quality, you can do all sorts of interesting, measurable stuff, such as:

"Frequency of <phenomenon category XXX> in 10-20 day insight retreats, a comparison of Mahasi-style noting vs Goenka-style body scanning," could be carried out by simple daily or twice-daily questionares, or

"A methodology to bring about <meditative state XYZ>" could be described using a decision tree of some kind ("if practitioner reports that he still can not stay with the breath, then he can proceed by bla bla bla; if practitioner experiences <phenomenon ZZZ>, he should direct the mind thus: ..."

That kind of thing, which if done carefully and rigorously can be really deep and have real impact in practices, but doesn't even need fancy equipment like EEGs and fMRIs.

The major setback to this kind of thing that I can see is getting the data. In order to do these studies you need access to A LOT of practitioners, and practitioners that do specific practices in controlled settings with people who know what they are doing. In order to have such a setting you need (1) people who are highly trained and know what they are doing and are being paid to do it, and (2) people who are willing to meditate their ass off. This requires funding, and volunteers.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/24/13 5:20 PM as a reply to Bruno Loff.
Nice that so many people are interested in this, albeit in a very small, select community... ;)

A few more titles while they are in my brain:

"Re-Observation Restlessness and Restless Leg Syndrome: A Final Common Pathway?"

and the follow-up:

"Ropinirole (Requip) as a therapy for Re-Observation Induced Restlessness, A Randomized Controlled Trail"

and along the same lines:

"Pathways of Cogwheel Tremor in Parkinson's and Cause and Effect Compared: The Substantia Nigra and The Dopamine Connection"

"Altered Dopaminergic Receptor Response in the Third Ñana"

And some others more substance related:

"The Dark Night and Endorphin Withdrawal"

"A Comparison of the A&P Events of those on and off Entheogens and Implications for Practice"

"Entheogen Induced A&P Events: Does it Matter if it Happened While High? A Long-term Longitudinal Study"

"Benzodiazepines in the Dark Night: Do they Help or Harm?" (similar to one of those above)

And a topic much debated that just needs a scientific answer:

"Do Self-Induced Orgasms on Retreat Interfere with Progress? A Randomized, Controlled Trial"

So many questions! So much fun to be had for a researcher!

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/25/13 7:29 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:

And a topic much debated that just needs a scientific answer:

"Do Self-Induced Orgasms on Retreat Interfere with Progress? A Randomized, Controlled Trial"

So many questions! So much fun to be had for a researcher!


This has been definitively answered by myself. YES!

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/25/13 7:36 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
"Re-Observation Restlessness and Restless Leg Syndrome: A Final Common Pathway?"
"Pathways of Cogwheel Tremor in Parkinson's and Cause and Effect Compared: The Substantia Nigra and The Dopamine Connection"
Wow, I realized how intellectual my take on this was until I read these two. Yeah, I would personally love to see people have such studies and avenues of relief.

So to follow up on what everyone is saying about quality: it's well known pharma spends a lot of money on R&D and FDA approval cycles and re-patenting cycles as well as hiring medical doctors to transfer into new products a sense of historical and professional medical credibility. So if research on the meditation side is not well formed and well scrutinized (again, Cochrane-style), there are always interests that would benefit from easily punching holes in it.

There may also be collaborative aspects as well: does the efficacy of leva-dopa improve xyz over x-days of treating re-observation with...



Daniel, do you see yourself writing something like a diagnostic desk reference and key-outs in order that there be some standard by which a mental state is map-isolated and then meditatively treated? I am reminded of the very lengthy and detailed Lam Rim Chenmo by Tsongkapa.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/25/13 3:01 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
While I like the spirit of the project, I have concerns over the "scientific" nature of this.

First, it seems that this project is largely focused on examining the various insight stages that arise in the progress of insight. Where is the hard data coming out of an fMRI machine or EEG or some other device showing distinctly different states can be identified compared to various baselines (I'm not sure what the various basic controls would be... sleeping? basic waking/conversing? etc).

I'm not saying I don't think there is serious merit to the progress of insight model (as I'm slowly becoming convinced through my own meditation practice that the technical aspects of the stages as described in MCTB seem to present themselves without scripting... as opposed to a few months ago when I could divide progress vaguely into pre-A&P, A&P, dukkha nanas and then EQ) - however, to push this into a more formal setup, I'd like to see data coming off machines that show that these states are somehow objectively measurable, otherwise my scientist friends will just say we're all scripting our experiences.

This assumes that the current measurement devices/machines we have are capable of measuring brain activity with enough precision... the reality may be that we simply have to wait a few more years for better instrumentation to be developed.

Once there is enough data showing that the insight stages are an objectively verifiable phenomenon that occurs, then it's possible to pursue work such as: "Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi, and 3rd Ñana: Which Helps it More?" (you have to first convincingly demonstrate the objectively measurable state of 3rd Nana)

I would be curious to hear how Daniel and others would structure the initial groundwork experiments that objectively measure the insight stages. What types of measurement instruments would you use?*** What are your controls? How will you structure the experimental trials? If you're serious about this, lets turn this conversation towards serious details. I'll gladly spending my evenings helping with the data analysis and statistics (I'm from a CS/Math background).

*** It looks to me like EEG and MEG are the way to go for measuring A&P and Fruition events (high time-resolution)? I imagine getting time with those setups or purchasing them is much more doable than fMRI machine time...

PS: I would also be interested in seeing similar data for jhanas at various levels of "hardness" to see the correlation in the data between the insight stages and the jhanas...

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/25/13 4:48 PM as a reply to super fox.
super fox:
Once there is enough data showing that the insight stages are an objectively verifiable phenomenon that occurs, then it's possible to pursue work such as: "Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi, and 3rd Ñana: Which Helps it More?" (you have to first convincingly demonstrate the objectively measurable state of 3rd Nana)


Regarding Tai Chi at least, you don't need an fMRI machine or EEG to track symptoms. Have a look at the chart below on Zhan Zhuang (standing postures like "Primordial Void Posture" of Yiquan), a practice that have as a goal to deactive conscious control of muscles and "active the backup nervous system" (that's how it's presented), that is "switching from mobilizing to stabilising muscles". Actually, it's not that difficult to map in this ZZ practice the 1-4 ñanas, and then a general DÑ + EQ. Spontaneous thoughts are generally kept at bay as this is an active visualization practice too. Off the record, practitioners may comment on A&P and other High EQ experiences (not my experience), but in Taoism and martial circles that's kept as secret advanced practices.


.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/25/13 10:03 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
I think it's a great idea, especially if helmed by able practitioners in both meditation and research.

A psychologist recently told me, "mindfulness is taking over" the field of psychology. What interests me in the connection between science and meditation is the question of how such effective technology (meditation) was founded in a pre-scientific world. What are the epistemological ramifications? How long would it have taken science to invent Vipassana if it hadn't been invented already? Does it point to a way of knowing that is outside of scientific methodology? These are more philosophical questions than scientific per se. But maybe there is a niche in there for someone with skill in both meditation and philosophical inquiry.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/26/13 3:34 AM as a reply to super fox.
super fox:
*** It looks to me like EEG and MEG are the way to go for measuring A&P and Fruition events (high time-resolution)? I imagine getting time with those setups or purchasing them is much more doable than fMRI machine time...


Coincidentally, I just got myself an EMOTIV headset. My goal is to replicate the results in the following paper: Lost in thoughts: neural markers of low alertness during mind wandering.

Maybe the DhO could decide to do some research as a group... if each of us buys a device like this, with some suitable software we could get those measurements across the internet.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/27/13 1:41 PM as a reply to Bruno Loff.
Maybe the DhO could decide to do some research as a group...

Well, I've thinking about this this week and just thinking about disregarding any journal structure at the moment: that structure adds can easily add a hardened tone that defies curiosity and fun and exploration, i.e, buying into "publish or perish" model when there is no need here for that.

So a playful way to start this would be something like Sugata Mitra's SOLE or problem-based learning.

Say, a question is posed to a group of people who joined the group for their interest in the question.
For example, a webpage is opened: www.does4jhanareduceparkinsonsfreeze.com
See who responds and how over each month for one year.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
2/27/13 6:21 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Anatta and mental imagery (e.g. visual mental images and auditory mental images) - An investigation of the ways mental imagery can contribute to a sense of "self" or an "inner world" before anatta realization and the ways mental imagery manifests after anatta realization. This could shed some light on the mystery of how mental imagery works, what networks its connected to/where it actually happens, and what its function is.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/1/13 7:08 AM as a reply to Bruno Loff.
Here is a new technology from MIT that uses amplified motion and color in video to detect and monitor changes in the body: http://nyti.ms/13kFiyv

Star Trek diagnostics emoticon

Apparently, they've made the source code open for all to use... http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/amplifying-invisible-video-0622.html

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/1/13 8:42 AM as a reply to katy steger.
Wow! That's really neat emoticon Thanks for sharing!

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/8/13 10:31 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Great idea.

Personally in such a magazine Id love to see a section dealing with theory of everything. Physics, consciousness, meditation correlation...

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/9/13 10:19 AM as a reply to katy steger.
katy steger:
Here is a new technology from MIT that uses amplified motion and color in video to detect and monitor changes in the body: http://nyti.ms/13kFiyv

Star Trek diagnostics emoticon

Apparently, they've made the source code open for all to use... http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/amplifying-invisible-video-0622.html


Interesting stuff.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/9/13 7:48 PM as a reply to Change A..
one recently on my mind "The effects of febrile illnesses on meditative ability"

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/11/13 2:23 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
In theory, this is an excellent, exciting idea. In practice, there are significant scientific hurdles. The quality and rigor of scientific publication is, like our other institutions, in crisis and in biomedicine it is near tragic. There are some estimates that up to 50% of neuroscientifiic publications have significant or even critical statistical errors in the data analysis. This is consistent with my own limited observations during a brief foray into the analysis of fMRI and EEG data. I have not examined the literature dealing with studies of meditation but John Horgan recently wrote this critical piece in Scientific American:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/03/08/research-has-not-shown-that-meditation-beats-a-placebo/

I'm convinced that some of the research is rock solid (e.g. Alan Wallace collaborates with high quality scientists) and I'm also convinced this is VERY much worth doing. But don't underestimate the difficulty. Phenomenological studies would be equally as valuable (or more) but involve their own unique problems.

aac

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/11/13 7:02 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
I started to wonder if any of this kind of research actually existed.

This sounds like one of your titles
"EEG Power and Coherence Analysis of an Expert Meditator in the
Eight Jhanas"
http://www.wisebrain.org/EEGofJhanas.pdf

On the whole though it looks like there is very little on vipassana style meditation and sub-states within it

This paper review some of the few studies
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2009.0362

This person has some papers:
http://www.labome.org/expert/cahn/b-rael-cahn-1402034.html

I found some interesting articles comparing different practices (which included some summary of research on vipassana):

http://www.pmalinowski.de/downloads/chiesa%26malinowski2011.pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12671-010-0016-3?LI=true#page-2
9

But such a journal does actually (kinda) exist - due to the explosion in mindfullness research a new journal was created in 2010 called Mindfulness.
http://www.springer.com/psychology/cognitive+psychology/journal/12671

If you check out the titles of papers some aren't massively removed from what you were suggesting. Here is one of interest:

Meditation-Induced Changes in Perception: An Interview Study with Expert Meditators (Sotapannas) in Burma

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-012-0173-7

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
3/22/13 6:17 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
"Do Increased Serum Ketones from Skipping Dinner Improve Concentration? A Randomized Controlled Trial"

My guess is that it would be due to ghrelin increase.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
8/17/13 3:36 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
This journal idea is a fantastic one, sorely needed--and it has crossed my mind a couple of times too (I'm a science editor of peer-reviewed journals). I'd love to be a developmental editor for something like this.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
6/2/14 6:23 PM as a reply to tom moylan.
tom moylan:
Daniel M. Ingram:

And a topic much debated that just needs a scientific answer:

"Do Self-Induced Orgasms on Retreat Interfere with Progress? A Randomized, Controlled Trial"

So many questions! So much fun to be had for a researcher!


This has been definitively answered by myself. YES!
How? Would you elaborate? This is something I was wondering regarding upcoming retreats.