The Varieties of Contemplative Experience Project

Record summary

The Varieties of Contemplative Experience project at Brown University collected detailed accounts of challenging, unusual, and sometimes destabilizing meditation-related experiences from practitioners and teachers. It is identifiable through researchers Jared Lindahl, Willoughby Britton, and colleagues. The project matters for comparing altered-state narratives with religious, psychiatric, and psi interpretations because it preserves phenomenological distinctions while documenting uncertainty and harm. It is qualitative and interview-based, not a test of supernatural claims, and participants’ reports should not be treated as diagnostic or representative of all meditators.