Barbara Jachs
PhD student
In my research I try to develop an understanding for the relationship between the structures of subjective experience and what we have dubbed the 'neural correlates of consciousness'.
Despite the ineffability of conscious experience, some structural and experiential attributes of consciousness appear to be consistently altered when people employ specific meditation techniques. I have been working with people with a daily practice of meditation, recruiting in Cambridge and London, from the London Buddhist Society, and the Jamyang Buddhist Center. To understand how individuals lived experience translates into measurable states, I am studying participants for continuous periods of time, measuring each meditation using portable EEG devices provided by Dreem and using continuous experience reports and behavioural tasks. Additionally, in collaboration with Manuel Camino Garcia, we are currently running meditation research retreats near Valencia. The next retreat will take place between the 26th-28th of April 2019, in the beautiful setting of Siete Aguas. If you would like to find out more about the research, contact me! |
Funding
Because there never seems enough of it, I think it's important to share the funding opportunities. So here is where I got lucky:
- An ESRC DTP studentship is supporting my PhD studies for three years.
- I was additionally granted the Mind and Life Europe Varela Award for the research project entitled
"The Neurophenomenology of Meditative States: Integrating neural markersof consciousness with dimensions of subjective experience"