Documenting and defining emergent phenomenology: theoretical foundations for an extensive research strategy
Olivier Sandilands, Daniel M. Ingram
Frontiers in Psychology July 10, 2024 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1340335 via OpenAlex
Summary
Meditation, psychedelics, and similar practices are increasingly popular in both clinical and non-clinical contexts, yet their phenomenology remains inadequately described. A review of 50 publications covering over 30,000 subjects highlights a wide range of experiences and effects associated with psychoactive compounds and meditative practices. The study advocates for more comprehensive documentation and the development of specialized terminology, proposing concepts like 'emergence' and 'emergent phenomenology' as foundational for this emerging research field.
Study at a glance
| Design | systematic review |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 30,000 |
| Population | individual subjects from various studies on psychoactive compounds and meditative practices |
| Key finding | A review of literature reveals a vast range of experiences related to meditation and psychedelics that is not fully understood or documented. |
Abstract
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.