Abstract/Results:
| ABSTRACT:
Background
Some research indicates that meditation increases mindfulness as well as paranormal experiences of precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, and synchronicities. There is limited knowledge about the prevalence or impact of these experiences in meditators and the general population.
Aims
To explore self-reported wellbeing, mindfulness, connectedness, personality, paranormal experiences, beliefs, and performance on psi task in a meditation group versus an exercise control group to compare significant differences.
Method
We explored changes, including wellbeing, mindfulness, connectedness, psi, and extraordinary experiences, beliefs, and ability to impact a random number generator in those enrolled in randomized trial comparing a meditation vs exercise and the impact of such experiences or abilities. We collected data securely online with IRB approval.
Results
Data from 72 participants (N=45 meditation/N=27 exercise) demonstrated significant improvement in wellbeing for both. The meditation cohort endorsed significantly increased mindfulness, extroversion, connectedness, and reported paranormal experiences over time. Although no significant differences in psi ability as measured via a random number generator deviation score were observed, there were trends indicating variance and drift in cumulative deviations when compared to the exercise cohort.
Conclusions
The randomly selected meditation naïve cohort trained in brief structured meditation did demonstrate significant increases over time in mindfulness, connectedness, extraversion, and paranormal experiences and beliefs compared to an active control exercise cohort. Performance on the psi tasks did not improve in either group over time and these tasks may not be sensitive enough to detect significant changes.
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