Embargoed until:
Publicly released:
2024-07-18 04:00
Mindfulness-based meditation programs could lead to altered states of consciousness up to a year later, including feeling that everything is connected, and feeling detached from your body. The Australian and international researchers found that people who went through an 8-week mindfulness-based meditation program were more likely to report feelings of unity (that everything seemed to come together as one), and disembodiment (the feeling of not having a body anymore). They also found evidence of a link between mindfulness practice and feelings of bliss. The researchers say that if these links are confirmed, then people starting mindfulness meditation need to be told about the possibility of these experiences and more work should be done to help meditation teachers anticipate and manage them.
Journal/conference: PLOS ONE
Link to research (DOI): 10.1371/journal.pone.0305928
Organisation/s: The University of Melbourne, University of Cambridge, UK
Funder: This is a summary of research funded by the University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor’s Endowment Fund, the University Counselling Service and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East of England (ARC EoE) programme. All research at the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Cambridge is supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014) and NIHR Applied Research Centre. JM-M has a Miguel Servet contract from the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII; CP21/00080). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the University of Cambridge, NHS, NIHR or Department of Health and Social Care. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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