Documenting and defining emergent phenomenology: theoretical foundations for an extensive research strategy
Frontiers in Psychology July 10, 2024 Olivier Sandilands, Daniel M. Ingram 6 citations
Meditation, psychedelics, and similar practices that alter conscious experience are increasingly used in clinical and non-clinical settings, yet the full range of associated phenomena remains poorly described and understood. There is an ethical mandate to research this domain more extensively, starting with comprehensive documentation. A review of 50 recent clinical or scientific publications, synthesizing reports from over 30,000 individual subjects, produced a large inventory of experiences, effects, after-effects, and impacts across a broad variety of psychoactive compounds, meditative practices, and other modalities. The authors critically discuss existing terminology and argue that specialized vocabularies are needed to ground this nascent research field, proposing the notion of 'emergence' and 'emergent phenomenology' as foundational concepts.