Day 5

Thursday blog

On Thursday I finally had to catch up on sleep and miss morning practices :(

The first morning presentation was from Amrishi Jha who studies working memory (WM). I like that she opened with a statement about the paradigms used to index enlightenment and noted that they do not all need to fall into the realm of executive control (the cognitive functions most commonly studied in the neuroscienctific world, including WM). However, this is her area of research and although it's a very common psychological construct to study, she takes a fairly novel approach to the use of mindfulness training by studying is capacity to promote resilience in a population under considerable stress--pre-deployment military trainees. Military members who logged more personal practice time during the eight week course had improved WM capacities, whereas those with less practice time had decreased WM much like the control group. Is it some magic threshold of practice time or is it some other propensity that explains the difference? An interesting study but the most powerful moment of the presentation was when she discussed ahimsa and her personal struggle with the question of whether it ethical for her to engage in this kind of research ("helping" the military). Obviously she came to the decision that it was, and that is controversial for some but I appreciated hearing about her thoughtful consideration. Not your typical conference, eh?

The next presentation was the most talked-about of the week. Willoughby Britton presented preliminary research on adverse effects of meditation. She collected anecdotal evidence from prevalent meditation teachers all over the country including Jack Kornfield and Alan Wallace about the number of retreatants they estimated to have had psychotic episodes or long-lasting psychological problems. The number of suicides that seem to be related to meditation experiences was low (although still a frightening potential outcome). The number of psychiatric problems leading to hospitalizations was slightly higher. And the biggest category of all were people who had long-lasting impairments in life responsibilities (because of a different perception of reality). She interviewed 18 of these people and categorized their reports into 5 types of symptoms. 

Cognitive 
   Perceptual/sensory: pixilated, constable reality, hallucinations, distortions in time or space. Disorientation, confusion

Affective
   Anxiety, panic, rage, euphoric mania, agitated mania, emotional flattening, depression, de-repression of psychological materials (trauma). 

Dissolution of self-structures
   Loss of sense of self, narrative identity, temporal disintegration, body awareness, boundary between self and others

Somatic
   Agitation, tachycardia, "voltage" feelings, insomnia, decreased appetite, fatigue, pain, vibration, pressure, tingling, tics, flapping, twisting, 

"Other" category
   Worldview confusion, validity of conventional life, inability to meditate, and a lack of a framework of interpretation for things like feeling kundalini rising up spine

What was particularly interesting is not just the severity of the symptoms but the duration (1-3 years). Also the lack of significant comorbidities, meaning that most of the participants had no previous trauma or mental diagnoses. Those that did have more trauma in their pasts had longer lasting problems though. Also interesting, the fact that even though these people might have been on long retreats, most developed symptoms within the first two weeks. one similarity amongst the subjects was that they all reported being "ptty hardcore" pointing to the dangers of overzealousness, even in the positive an important work of understanding (no)self and (the fluidity of) reality. 

 So are these experiences progress on the path to enlightenment or pathology? While there was some disagreement amongst scholars and practitioners it is interesting to note that many of them considered these symptoms to be part of the path toward enlightenment, that these correspond to steps along the path in the Theravadan tradition amongst others, and that even the APA manual has a special note that these self-induced symptoms are not to be diagnosed as schizophrenia or other serious disorders. 

When the presenter asked people in the audience to raises their hand if they knew someone with these symptoms over half raised their hands! Anecdotally i can not even tell you how many conversations i had over meals over the next couple of days where new friends would tell me about their own experiences with anxiety, losing sense of self, or distorted sense of reality brought on by meditation. The take-away msg I got was that as researchers and practitioners we need to be talking about these possibilities and providing a support network and context for people who have these experiences. On a personal level it made me ask the question of whether these "extreme sports"-type conditions of long silent retreats are necessary/positive/healthy. 

In the afternoon I went to a talk by Richie Davidson about the emergence of contemplative neuroscience. I will not write about that here, even though it was interesting because I've been at this screen for too long already! Would be glad to talk about it in person though. 

Later in the afternoon I went to a breakout session with one of the Geshes where we listened to his wisdom about the nature of reality. He used all kinds of funny metaphors about pizza, dreams, and policemen. One section from my notes that I particularly liked was:

Mdflns is like a policeman. Introspection is like a spy. If spy finds info that police don't care about, the spy will get lazy, rigor will disappear over time.  So what do we work on? Laxity and excitement are two forms of mind, what spy and policemen are on the lookout for. 

In the evening there was another poster session where i once again sought out the education-related researchers there and spent time talking with a school psychology PhD student researching a program called Soles of the Feet. Have to look it up but I'm happy to see this research from school psych people, as they are one of the best bridging disciplines between research and practice.