What I Learned as a Meditating Lab Rat at the Center for Healthy Minds

In 2018, I had the unique opportunity to participate in a well-being study for long-term meditators at Richard Davidson’s Center for Healthy Minds in Madison, Wisconsin. I visited three times, each for three full days of intensive testing. The experience was part science, part retreat, and part reminder that even monks and meditators can be glorified lab rats.

Into the fMRI: Shocks, Clocks, and Compassion for Lab Animals

Each visit included a 90-minute session inside an fMRI machine. In one test, I was hooked up to a small electrical shock device on my finger. Watching a screen through a mirror (metal is a no-go in an fMRI), I saw a stopwatch countdown. I was told if the clock was orange, there would be no shock. If it was purple, I might be shocked.

The shock wasn’t going to leave a scar but it wasn’t fun either. My heart rate would rise in anticipation of the purple clock and stay calm when orange. After the fMRI testing and on the way to the next testing station I asked my lab assistant escort what she did for the lab, she told me she analyzed all the data from the shock tests. Knowing that Richard Davidson has connections with the Dalai Lama and has hosted high-level Tibetan monks in his lab, I asked her whether everyone reacted to the shock in the same way. She said:

“It doesn’t matter who you are…everyone anticipates the shock. But you long-term meditators are different...your systems settle down much more quickly after the shock than the average person.”

That stuck with me. I’ve seen a similar effect in spiritually awake people when it comes to emotional triggers. Many say they still get triggered, but the emotion falls away as quickly as it arises.

Self-Retreats and Seeing with Kindness

On the last day of my second and third visits, I did an eight-hour solo meditation retreat. On the first solo retreat I was instructed to practice any form of mindfulness I knew, the second time I was to practice any form of metta (loving-kindness meditation) I knew. Before and after both retreats I took computerized tests. One involved rating whether the people in black-and-white portraits appeared friendly or not.

On the mindfullness day and before the full day of metta practice people appeared mostly friendly but a few I characterized as appearing unfriendly. But after a full day of metta practice, everyone appeared friendly! The test drove how how our mind influences what we perceive and feel. The first few lines of the Dhammapada come to mind.

1. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

2. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.

Imagine if more of us practiced loving-kindness for just one day. It might be the vaccine we need for our divided political climate.

The Blink Test: Speeding Up Awareness

Another memorable test involved two sets of rapidly flashing random letters on a screen. Like shuffling a deck of cards. Within the rapidly changing letters were two numbers. I had to identify the numbers after each round and type them into a PC. On my first visit I’ll admit I was mostly guessing. But after the self-retreats on my second and third visits something shifted.

I could see the numbers clearly. Probably more than 80% of the time regardless of whether I’d practiced mindfulness or metta. This was a tangible boost in cognitive clarity and processing speed.

Ajahn Buddhadasa once said the Buddha described mindfulness as needing to be "as fast as an arrow". Today we might say, "as fast as a laser." He believed that with enough training we could be aware at the moment of contact (phassa), even before feeling (vedana) arises. That’s controversial but this test made me feel that Buddhadasa was right and we can train the mind to perceive and respond at lightning speed.

EEGs, Dreams, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Later in the study, I was hooked up to an EEG net (that’s where that photo of me came from). Three lab assistants were affixing and checking the sensors when I playfully asked them whether they thought the hard problem of consciousness (why and how we have subjective experiences) would ever be solved.

One said yes. I joked, “Don’t hold your breath.” Another replied, “It may never be solved, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. We’ll learn a lot along the way.” I loved that answer!

Dream Recall and Awareness in Sleep

One of the final tests was a dream study. As I drifted off to sleep, a lab assistant would gently wake me through a speaker by the bed and ask if I had been dreaming and what I could remember.

The first time visiting the lab I knew I had been dreaming but couldn’t recall the dream. It was on the tip of my tongue but just out of reach. However, after my mindfulness and metta self-retreats I could recall over 50% of the dreams that had just started before I was awoken.

This showed me something powerful: increased awareness (sati) from meditation wasn't just showing up in the waking state it was seeping into the dream state. I wasn’t just more awake during the day; I was more awake at night too.

Conscious Power, Faster Mindfulness, and Disrupting Suffering

These experiences gave me a deeper appreciation and I understood another aspect of what Culadasa in The Mind Illuminated calls conscious power…not just being aware of more, but being aware faster. I’ve been reflecting on how this might relate to dependent origination, especially the stages of contact, feeling (vedana), and craving.

If the mind is fast enough to catch reactivity at these earlier stages, maybe we really can disrupt the habitual cycle of suffering the Buddha described. And that, to me, is one of the deeper reasons we cultivate samadhi.

Final Thoughts

The work being done at the Center for Healthy Minds is truly inspiring. I’m not a “neuro-dharmist” but I fully support what they’re doing. We have so much to learn from bridging ancient contemplative practices with modern science.

If you're curious, check out the Center’s published research and see for yourself. And if you know of similar research centers, I’d love to hear about them, please drop them in the comments.

Thanks for reading. May your awareness be sharp, your heart open, and your clocks always orange.