Processes of embodied sense-making and integration in challenging experiences of advanced meditation – A reflexive thematic analysis of destabilization, rigidification, and social negotiation
Oliver Andersson Hugemark, Terje Sparby, Andrea Grabovac, Matthew D. Sacchet
PsyArXiv May 28, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/8pgb7_v1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Qualitative study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 25 |
| Population | Advanced meditators |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | The authors argue that challenging experiences in advanced meditation are not solely caused by the intensity or non-ordinary nature of meditative states, but emerge through dynamic, embodied, and contextually shaped processes of sense-making and integration. They propose these experiences may be better understood as relational and embodied processes shaped by interpretive and sociocultural dynamics, rather than always purely individual, intrapsychic, or pathological. |
Abstract
While meditation has been increasingly associated with challenging and adverse experiences, especially in more advanced and high-density practices, little is known about how advanced practitioners experience, make sense of, and integrate non-ordinary experiences that may disrupt their sense of self, reality, embodiment, and meaning. Building on recent advances in the scientific study of advanced meditation and work in cultural and phenomenological psychiatry, this first-of-its-kind study sought to better understand challenging experiences that advanced practitioners themselves understood in non-clinical terms as broader psychological, embodied, and meaning-making processes. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 25 advanced meditators, the study used a semantically grounded, inductive approach to reflexive thematic analysis to identify shared patterns in how advanced meditators made sense of challenging experiences in the context of intense and altered experiential states and transformative shifts. The analysis developed three main themes: (1) Destabilization of self, body, and reality: when meditative experiences exceed integrative and regulatory capacity; (2) Inflated and constraining modes of engagement: when practice becomes rigidly organized; and (3) Breakdown and negotiation of social intelligibility: when meditation cannot be integrated into relationships. Across themes, advanced meditators made sense of challenging experiences not as arising solely from the intensity or non-ordinary nature of certain meditative states, stages, or transformations, but as emerging through dynamic, deeply embodied, and contextually shaped processes of sense-making and integration. These findings suggest that challenging experiences in advanced meditation may, in some cases, be better understood as relational and embodied processes shaped by interpretative and sociocultural dynamics, rather than always purely individual, intrapsychic, or pathological experiences, and that these meaningfully shape how meditators’ practice trajectories and broader lives unfold.
Comparable studies
Other qualitative studies on meditation, most cited first.