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Science and Meditation

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
6/3/14 12:10 AM as a reply to J C.
J C:
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.
There are threads about this already - http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5292599?_19_threadView=tree

Search google ---> site:http://www.dharmaoverground.org masturbation retreat

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
6/3/14 12:40 AM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Thanks for the link! I've read some threads on that subject, but Tom said he had answered the question "definitively" and I was curious about that.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
6/3/14 10:33 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
As a starting point, I think the mindfulness literature should put a lot more emphasis on looking at the comparisons between different techniques in terms of changes in brain states, treatment of conditions, etc., and a lot more emphasis on looking at the progress of more advanced meditators. From what I've seen, it seems to be obssessed with evaluating the effects of 8 week MBSR courses on (fill in the blank: anxiety, depression, test scores, OCD, compassion, flu, etc.). The problem is the first 8 weeks are often a honeymoon period and tell you very little about what to expect down the road.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
6/3/14 11:54 PM as a reply to Elijah Smith.
The degree to which some of the more skilled practitioners that we find in some of the better online fora are not being studied by scientists is freakish. How is this stuff not totally amazing and fascinating?

A few of us get to play with things like fMRI and EEG on occasion, as well as take some other tests, but nobody is really taking this stuff seriously, which is extremely weird from this POV.

Daniel

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
8/16/14 10:04 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
I was earlier seeing Sawfoot's playful suggestion about surveying 4th-Pathers. But, seriously, a scientifically designed survey of practitioners would actually yield interesting and helpful results--anything from whether people sensed "formations" in EQ, and how they characterize them, to number of "signs" of SE those with a certain long-term shift in perceptual threshold had (or didn't have). What others actually see, if anything, when the three doors present--I believe that results like these would offer much food for thought. While rereading MCTB, I often wonder whether your experience of, say, the three doors, is really like that for all others who have carefully noted fruitions repeatedly.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
8/17/14 2:31 AM as a reply to _.
There was this guy Jeffrey Martin who was going around surveying people, including me, and now they seem to have set up some sort of cooperative to help researchers network with people to research, but I don't know what has come of that.

RE: My Dream of a New Scientific Journal
Answer
10/3/14 2:28 AM as a reply to Elijah Smith.
it seems to be obssessed with evaluating the effects of 8 week MBSR courses on (fill in the blank: anxiety, depression, test scores, OCD, compassion, flu, etc.). The problem is the first 8 weeks are often a honeymoon period and tell you very little about what to expect down the road.
This is very true (and from the point of non-beginner practice, unfortunate). Though there are good reasons for that: MBSR is very much standardized and has a lot of academic research backing; you can compare with the studies already published; given its reputation in completely secular circles, it is easy to get people to participate.