Join us this Wednesday for the 2026 Science of Advanced Meditation Conference!

Here I announce a major milestone for our Meditation Research Program and for the science of advanced meditation more broadly: Publication of our new article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, the leading journal in cognitive science.

What does years of meditation practice do to one’s mental health: Are there benefits? Perhaps also risks? What is still unknown?

Can advanced meditation transform human suffering? We address this question in our new paper, now published in #Mindfulness, titled: “Mental Health, Well-Being, and Meditative Development: A Phenomenological Study of Advanced Meditators”

Can a single mathematical principle help explain how advanced meditation changes brain activity, computation, and conscious experience altogether?

Delighted and honored to announce our speakers for the 2026 Science of Advanced Meditation Conference!

Can nonlinear dynamical-systems and complexity science help us understand the radical potential of the human mind, and perhaps even enlightenment?

How does meditation improve mental health? The answer may lie not in a single pathway, but in coordinated changes across the brain and body.

There is a lot of hype around neurofeedback for meditation. Does it work? Neurofeedback is a tool for real-time monitoring and modulation of mental states using feedback from one's own neural activity.

What is advanced meditation? ⤵️ This question has driven me since early childhood. After many years of effort, including with Terje Sparby over the last six, we now propose a formal scientific definition.

I’m delighted to announce 2026 Science of Advanced Meditation Conference, a free, one-day virtual conference hosted by our Meditation Research Program in affiliation with Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

What if the same depths of meditation that can transform a mind can also destabilize it? ⤵️

Announcing our new review paper in which we evaluate how far meditation can go toward improving well-being, interpersonal relationships, and emotion regulation. ⤵️

Bodily awareness during advanced meditation: what happens and how should we study it? Announcing our new preprint: "Bodily Awareness in Advanced Meditation: A Three-Level Model of Interoceptive, Schematic, and Pacificatory Changes," now available on PsyArXiv. ⤵️

We need to rethink meditation-related challenging and adverse experiences. It’s easy to assume that challenging experiences in meditation fit a simple binary: they are either spiritually transformative altered states or the emergence of underlying psychopathology or trauma. ⤵️

Can Sufi and mystical islamic meditation help us understand consciousness? ⤵️

What can the interface of sleep, consciousness, and advanced meditation teach us? Announcing the publication of “Advanced Meditation, Sleep, and Consciousness Science: An Emerging Frontier,” in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. ⤵️

I am delighted to welcome Shawn Prest @shawnprest.bsky.social as an incoming postdoctoral researcher at the Meditation Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School! 🎉🧠⤵️

We have now mapped the most robust whole-brain characterization of meditation to date.

I’m delighted to welcome Dr. Jonathan Lieberman as a new postdoctoral researcher at the Meditation Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School! 🎉🧠⤵️

I’m delighted to congratulate Dr. Puneet Kumar on his appointment as Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar! 🎉🧠⤵️

Following up on the announcement of our recent Neuron article, here we offer a deeper look at what this work means for the future of meditation research and for science more broadly. ⤵️

What if sleep and advanced meditation reveal that consciousness is not something we simply have or lose, but something that can be trained, refined, reorganized, and perhaps even momentarily suspended? ⤵️

Can computer algorithms, without human input, learn to read and identify the neural signatures of deep meditative absorption? ⤵️

This is a major milestone for our Meditation Research Program, and a notable development for the field of contemplative science, and particularly the subfield of the science of advanced meditation. ⤵️

Meditation can be profoundly beneficial—but it can also bring challenges that science still struggles to explain. ⤵️

What happens in the brain when consciousness is voluntarily suspended in advanced meditation and then returns with radical clarity, equanimity, and relief? ⤵️

What if the root of suffering isn't what actually happens to us, but a fundamental mismatch between how the world is and how we expect it to be? ⤵️

The Harvard Gazette has published a quiz on advanced meditation: “Your brain on advanced meditation: Where do science and ancient wisdom align? Take our quiz to find out.” Check it out through the link in the comments below! ⤵️

How can psychedelic-assisted therapy be most useful? Given the clinical momentum of psychedelics, this question has never been more urgent. ⤵️