Jhourney March 2023 data collection retreat
13 meditators and 7 staff recently finished the Jhourney March 2023 Jhana Data Collection Retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains. We were lucky to have the retreat taught by Jason Bartlett, one of a few teachers authorized by Leigh Brasington to teach the jhanas, and who’s excellent interviews and Q&A became a highlight of the retreat. We were also lucky to have an extraordinary line up of guest speakers: Shinzen Young answered practice questions and spoke about his work with transcranial focused ultrasound; Tucker Peck answered questions at the intersection of psychological and meditative development (and was asked if he had a background in standup comedy), and Shamil Chandaria gave a private version of his Meditation and the Bayesian Brain lecture.
We collected almost 40 hours of 64-channel EEG, ECG, and GSR data, along with dozens of hours of respiration, pulse oxygenation, thermal camera, and video data from 8 experts. We plan to increase the number of subjects soon. We decided not to collect data from our remaining 5 meditators, who were intermediate-level practitioners still sharpening their jhanas. We’ll eventually want intermediate and novice jhana meditator data to augment our expert set, but focused on expert data this retreat.
40 hours of meditative jhana data is extraordinarily rare and valuable. Opensource emotion recognition EEG datasets of similar size see ML classification rates of 85% or higher; if jhana detection proves analogous to emotion recognition, we may soon be able to detect jhanas with sufficient accuracy to design neurofeedback and other teaching interventions.
Tech aside, the retreat was also a profound meditation experience. Retreatants practiced Noble Silence for five days (with exceptions during data collection). Experts expressed that it was especially exciting to “literally meditate for the benefit of other beings.” The novelty of data collection also brought new opportunities for practice, and counterintuitively, sometimes led to deeper-than-usual retreat experiences. Several intermediate meditators reported their jhana practice came alive in a new way: “I can’t thank you enough for including me. The jhanas have never been so accessible!”
One new jhana meditator put together a guide for novices just getting started. A great idea! Often the best teachers are those who have most recently learned.
We’re just getting started on data analysis, a process we think will take a couple months, but we’re already seeing interesting things! Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date.
