The project aims to come to a more comprehensive understanding of the wide range of experiences that occur during various contemplative practices, especially those that are reported as being particularly unexpected, challenging or difficult.  Through qualitative data analysis and interdisciplinary scholarship cutting across the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and religious studies, the Varieties of Contemplative Experience project investigates underrepresented issues arising in the context of meditation, such as loss of sense of self, derepression of traumatic memories, involuntary body movements, and visual hallucinations.

 Willoughby Britton Willoughby Britton, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Brown Medical School. She has taught meditation to prisoners, the terminally ill, distressed adolescents, and anxious, depressed and stressed adults. She has studied the effects of meditation for more than 15 years and lectured internationally on the neurobiological and psychological effects.

Read more about:  Jared Lindahl, Warren Wilson College · Religious Studies