Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations
PLoS One May 9, 2019 Marco Schlosser, T. Sparby, S. Vörös et al.
About one in four regular meditators (25.6%) report having had particularly unpleasant experiences they attribute to their meditation practice. A survey of 1,232 regular meditators found that women and religious participants were less likely to report such experiences, while those with higher repetitive negative thinking, those practicing deconstructive meditation types (e.g., vipassana/insight meditation), and those who had attended a meditation retreat were more likely to report them. The findings suggest that unpleasant experiences are common and that meditation should not be viewed solely as a health-promoting technique; understanding when these experiences are constitutive elements of practice rather than mere negative effects could advance the field.