Hi all, I'm a Ph.D. student at California Institute of Integral Studies conducting dissertation research on awakening.  I'm looking at specific Western psychology constructs that might be conflated with awakening, and I'm testing several misconceptions, including some published by other researchers who used very small or questionable participant samples. 

It is an anonymous survey that takes between 30 and 75 minutes (more if you opt to leave comments).  I will share a summary of the results with this group, and there is an option at the end to provide your email address if you would like a summary of the results sent directly to you.   
The survey is not written for a specific practice or tradition and is being sent to a very small number of groups that are focused on awakening in a meaningful way, not general meditation or spiritual groups.  It includes some standard psychological measures that were not designed to test awakening, so some of the questions might seem strange.  I'm asking participants to make their best estimate, since no single question or participant response will be scrutined, instead aggregated with other responses and tested for statistical significance, etc.  

If you are interested to participate, I would be most grateful for the data you provide! 
Thank you!

The survey can be found here: 
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NQZ78HW  

Love and metta,
Liz

Hi, Elizabeth.

Can you explain how your study is different from others we may have participated in? I'm thinking especially of the work of Dr. Jeffery Martin.

Thanks!

I'm gonna retweet the link...

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NQZ78HW



looks like fun to me, my oil and your water no doubt will make a splendid emulsion...

harvard ba, nice to see such minds turned to what is truly important...

terry


"I will be data!"
~richard alpert

   no doubt she is using six sigmas, and dr jeff only a couple...

Touche!

Hi Chris and Liz

I really enjoyed that survey. It helped get at a lot of the ways to describe changes that occur along one's practice journey. I hope lots of people do it to help Liz gather some meaningful data. 

Chris, what other studies are you referring to? Are the results here on DhO or somewhere else that we can visit to check them out?

Thanks

Thanks Terry and Peter!   20+ years ago I did my undergrad thesis on states of consciousness in the Upanishads, then I spent many years as an accountant, so it's good to get back to what matters!

Hi Chris!  The two biggest differences here are that I'm testing ~5 groups instead of one, and I'll be contrasting claimants vs non-claimants rather than pre- vs post-program.   Some of the traits I'm testing are ones that Jeffery identified during his qualitative research phase but never tested using measures.  My survey only includes one measure that Jeffery has used before, the "nondual" scale.  

I am super excited to share my rationale and results with you all!  I don't want to share too much just yet, until my survey closes in about a week.  

I do apologize for the "qualities" grid of doom.  A few other people in my field have written dissertations on awake folks and reported loads of ambigious qualities for which no measures exist, and I wanted to attempt to test them in a quick, numerical way. 

Thank you so much for your data!! 

Btw, Jeffery's data has finally been submitted for publication to a peer-reviewed journal.  

I'm a co-author on that paper, and you can find a pre-print here: http://www.nonsymbolic.org/PrePrintDraft--Effects-of-Two-Online-Positive-Psychology-and-Meditation-Programs-on-Persistent-Self-Transcendence.pdf

Interesting that Daniel Ingram is having enormous trouble talking about Jeffrey Martin and his work at 37.20 in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgYjLxM4VMc

Both he and michael taft make interesting criticism.

Makes me suspicious... 

Sounds like jealousy to me. Only $250 for a 65% chance of awakening in 45 days. The guy's clearly got the secret sauce. 

Well I imagine this has been discussed plenty of times here, but here goes...

That does seem like , how to say it, "embellishment" and excessive advertisment.........

However ... in fact that's not so expansive compared to a lot of retreats, and compared to what the mindfulness people are offering, so all in all, who knows... For instance, these guys in Strasbourg have managed to concoct a university 1 week residential program teaching mindfulness for the modicum of 3000 euros or something..... which does NOT qualify you to be a teacher !

But Daniel's very strange reaction is ... very strange.

I shouldn't be too critical cuz I'm actually thinking of perhaps doing something like that some day, making people pay for time spent teaching and all ! :p I'm doubtful about it though...

There is something to be said about being able to live off of teachings... Different time different place and all, but those guys used to live on Dana, right...

Interesting questionnaire, though !

Previous DhO conversation about Jeffery Martin:

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/6494586#_19_message_6458099

Awakenetwork/KFD discussion about Jeffery Martin:

http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-public/13494-flaws-in-jeffery-martin-s-model?limitstart=0

I see...

I also got to the part of this survey which asks about memory loss, lack of emotions, sense of disconnection from body, etc., and now get where this is coming from...

Hi Olivier,
Yes-- also, the first page of the survey explains exactly what I am trying to do.  I will share the specifics after the survey closes on Nov. 30th. 
Thanks for participating!  

Hi Elizabeth,
Have you read Daniel Ingram's book mastering the core teachings of the buddha ?

Can I ask something: are you working with Jeffrey Martins because you are convinced his work is the real deal, OR, is it that you wanted to do a PhD on awakening and didn't find another place that would allow you work on the topic within an academic context ?

Elizabeth said:


This first paragraph of the original post is instructive. I assume, until Elizabeth says otherwise, that things like lack of emotional responses, disembodiment, and the like are the "specific Western psychology constructs that might be conflated with awakening." she mentions. Thus the nature of the questions in the survey. Also, it appears Elizabeth is getting her Ph.D. from the same institution where Jefferey Martin studied. I have a friend who also studied there, Abre Fornier, a meditation teacher to some folks on DhO.

If what I'm assuming is true, it could be helpful to sort out the differences between certain psychological conditions and the claims made by people who say things like "I don't have any thoughts" and "I have no negative emotions," and claim those as attainments due to their spiritual practice. This occurred to me as I took the survey.

Another possibility is that my assumption is way off base  

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in my dissertation research study!  I successfully defended it last spring, and here it is:

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2543424989/X7Nrl0vbDMYRA

The Results section starts on p. 109 of the manuscript (which is p. 124 of the PDF) 

I don't often visit this group, so if I miss anyone's questions, you can email me at elizabeth.pande@gmail.com

Love and metta,
Liz

Dr. Elizabeth Stephens, PhD, CPA, CDFA
www.LifeBalancing.com