Fire Kasina advanced meditation produces experiences comparable to psychedelic and near-death experiences: A pilot study.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy studies suggest that the induction of "mystical experiences" combined with psycho-therapy is a possible intervention for psychiatric illness. Advanced meditation may induce powerful experiences comparable to psychedelics. We investigated effects of an intensive meditation practice called Fire Kasina. Six individuals completed a retreat, and participated in an interview in which they described their experiences. They also completed the Revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), Hood Mystical Experience Scale (HME), and Cole's Spiritual Transformation Scale. Mean MEQ scores were 85 %, similar to prior observations of high-dose psilocybin and were stronger than moderate-dose psilocybin (t(5) = 4.41, p = 0.007, d = 1.80; W(5) = 21, p = 0.031). Mean HME scores were 93 %, exceeding levels reported for NDEs (mean 74 %) and high-dose psilocybin (mean 77 %). In qualitative analysis, experiences were described as the most intense of the individual's life, while subsequent transformational effects included substantial shifts in worldview.

Documenting and defining emergent phenomenology: theoretical foundations for an extensive research strategy.

Meditation, psychedelics, and other similar practices or induction methods that can modulate conscious experience, are becoming increasingly popular in clinical and non-clinical settings. The phenomenology associated with such practices or modalities is vast. Many similar effects and experiences are also reported to occur spontaneously. We argue that this experiential range is still not fully described or understood in the contemporary literature, and that there is an ethical mandate to research it more extensively, starting with comprehensive documentation and definition. We review 50 recent clinical or scientific publications to assess the range of phenomena, experiences, effects, after-effects, and impacts associated with a broad variety of psychoactive compounds, meditative practices, and other modalities or events. This results in a large inventory synthesizing the reports of over 30,000 individual subjects. We then critically discuss various terms and concepts that have been used in recent literature to designate all or parts of the range this inventory covers. We make the case that specialized terminologies are needed to ground the nascent research field that is forming around this experiential domain. As a step in this direction, we propose the notion of "emergence" and some of its derivatives, such as "emergent phenomenology," as possibly foundational candidates.

Neurophenomenological Investigation of Mindfulness Meditation "Cessation" Experiences Using EEG Network Analysis in an Intensively Sampled Adept Meditator.

Mindfulness meditation is a contemplative practice that is informed by Buddhism. It has been proven effective for improving mental and physical health in clinical and non-clinical contexts. To date, mainstream dialogue and scientific research on mindfulness has focused primarily on short-term mindfulness training and applications of mindfulness for reducing stress. Understanding advanced mindfulness practice has important implications for mental health and general wellbeing. According to Theravada Buddhist meditation, a "cessation" event is a dramatic experience of profound clarity and equanimity that involves a complete discontinuation in experience, and is evidence of mastery of mindfulness meditation. Thirty-seven cessation events were captured in a single intensively sampled advanced meditator (over 6,000 h of retreat mindfulness meditation training) while recording electroencephalography (EEG) in 29 sessions between November 12, 2019 and March 11, 2020. Functional connectivity and network integration were assessed from 40 s prior to cessations to 40 s after cessations. From 21 s prior to cessations there was a linear decrease in large-scale functional interactions at the whole-brain level in the alpha band. In the 40 s following cessations these interactions linearly returned to prior levels. No modulation of network integration was observed. The decrease in whole-brain functional connectivity was underlain by frontal to left temporal and to more posterior decreases in connectivity, while the increase was underlain by wide-spread increases in connectivity. These results provide neuroscientific evidence of large-scale modulation of brain activity related to cessation events that provides a foundation for future studies of advanced meditation.

Investigation of advanced mindfulness meditation "cessation" experiences using EEG spectral analysis in an intensively sampled case study.

Mindfulness meditation is a contemplative practice informed by Buddhism that targets the development of present-focused awareness and non-judgment of experience. Interest in mindfulness is burgeoning, and it has been shown to be effective in improving mental and physical health in clinical and non-clinical contexts. In this report, for the first time, we used electroencephalography (EEG) combined with a neurophenomenological approach to examine the neural signature of "cessation" events, which are dramatic experiences of complete discontinuation in awareness similar to the loss of consciousness, which are reported to be experienced by very experienced meditators, and are proposed to be evidence of mastery of mindfulness meditation. We intensively sampled these cessations as experienced by a single advanced meditator (with over 23,000 h of meditation training) and analyzed 37 cessation events collected in 29 EEG sessions between November 12, 2019, and March 11, 2020. Spectral analyses of the EEG data surrounding cessations showed that these events were marked by a large-scale alpha-power decrease starting around 40 s before their onset, and that this alpha-power was lowest immediately following a cessation. Region-of-interest (ROI) based examination of this finding revealed that this alpha-suppression showed a linear decrease in the occipital and parietal regions of the brain during the pre-cessation time period. Additionally, there were modest increases in theta power for the central, parietal, and right temporal ROIs during the pre-cessation timeframe, whereas power in the Delta and Beta frequency bands were not significantly different surrounding cessations. By relating cessations to objective and intrinsic measures of brain activity (i.e., EEG power) that are related to consciousness and high-level psychological functioning, these results provide evidence for the ability of experienced meditators to voluntarily modulate their state of consciousness and lay the foundation for studying these unique states using a neuroscientific approach.

Ingestion of a denture cleanser: did it cause gastric perforation?

INTRODUCTION: Human ingestion of denture cleansers leading to gastric perforation has not previously been described. CASE REPORT: A 27-year-old male ingested three denture cleanser tablets in water over two days in an attempt to cause a false negative result on a workplace urine drug screen. Seven days later he presented to an emergency department with a perforated gastric ulcer. DISCUSSION: A literature review of cases and the chemistry of the components of his ingestion was conducted to determine the possible relationship between these events. Ingestion of intact fragments of the tablets would be likely to result in significant gastric toxicity, but ingestion of dissolved tablets would be unlikely to have caused his illness.