Sebastian Ehmann
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sebastianehmann.bsky.social
Sebastian Ehmann
@sebastianehmann.bsky.social
15 followers 39 following 2 posts
Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student, University of Arizona.

Researching meditative development and advanced meditation, and novel treatment modalities including transcranial-focused ultrasound and psychedelics.
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Sebastian Ehmann @sebastianehmann.bsky.social · Oct 20
This was a delight to work on. Thank you to everyone involved in bringing this to fruition.
matthewsacchet.bsky.social Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · Oct 20
Can meditation be understood as systematic mental training?

Despite the obvious appeal of thinking of meditation training like a workout for the mind, as the gym is for muscles, and its wide usage across communities practicing and researching meditation...
Reposted by Sebastian Ehmann
shawnprest.bsky.social
Consider participating in this study by if you're starting to meditate (<4 months) and from Australia, New Zealand, UK, or USA!

psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/CSC/research...
Tracking meditation: A longitudinal study
Tracking meditation: A longitudinal study
psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au
November 17, 2025 at 7:54 AM
sebastianehmann.bsky.social
This was such a joy to work on. Thank you to everyone involved.
matthewsacchet.bsky.social Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 28d
Have you ever wondered whether you’ll be able to access advanced and transformative meditation?

Or do you doubt whether the science of advanced meditation will ever extend beyond the laboratory, or beyond the rare achievements of a handful of very accomplished practitioners?

⤵️
October 29, 2025 at 4:53 PM
sebastianehmann.bsky.social
This was a delight to work on. Thank you to everyone involved in bringing this to fruition.
matthewsacchet.bsky.social Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · Oct 20
Can meditation be understood as systematic mental training?

Despite the obvious appeal of thinking of meditation training like a workout for the mind, as the gym is for muscles, and its wide usage across communities practicing and researching meditation...
October 20, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Sebastian Ehmann
matthewsacchet.bsky.social
Long-term meditators (LTMs) and cognitive processing

What do we know?

Delighted to share our new preprint titled:

Mindfulness, cognition, and long-term meditators: Toward a science of advanced meditation.

doi.org/10.31219/osf...

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Fig. 2. The ten circles graphically depict the pattern theory of self, where each self-process dynamically relates to all other processes, creating an overarching dynamical gestalt (Gallagher, 2021). The central part of the figure provides a non-comprehensive description of the dynamical gestalt of long-term meditators. We propose a skill-based comprehensive model of mindfulness as a suitable way to describe changes in the gestalt and, consequently, the self-pattern, with less transparency in the three factors of mindfulness indicating enhanced robustness of evidence (Young, 2016). The dynamical gestalt does not causally influence the pattern; rather, the pattern itself embodies the gestalt through its processes and relations (e.g., rational decision-making as a behavioral expression of equanimity). The dynamical gestalt and the evidence for different self-processes are limited by the scope of the review and do not represent an absolute depiction of long-term meditators. The boxes summarize the behavioral and neural results for individual constituents in the self-pattern. The arrows indicate the directionality of change, with grey arrows denoting preliminary support and dark arrows representing stronger evidence. Small arrows show the direction of connectivity or activation changes for neural findings. aMCC: anterior midcingulate cortex; dACC: dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; dmPFC: dorsomedial prefrontal cortex; dlPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; IFG: inferior frontal gyrus; mPFC: medial prefrontal cortex; mOFC: medial orbitofrontal cortex; PCC: posterior cingulate cortex; PCG: precentral gyrus; PHG: parahippocampal gyrus; Prc: precuneus; pSTC: posterior superior temporal cortex; pSTS: posterior superior temporal sulcus; TPJ: temporoparietal junction. Fig. 1. Five exemplary tasks used in the study: (a) Cardiac interoceptive awareness was assessed by having participants mark where they felt their heartbeat on a body map, generating proportional maps based on these responses (Khalsa et al., 2020). (b) Graded thermal stimulation induced moderate pain, which participants rated on a point scale (Lutz et al., 2013; Grant & Rainville, 2009; Grant et al., 2010, 2011; Perlman et al., 2010; Zorn et al., 2020). (c) Participants viewed emotional pictures and rated their subsequent emotional responses (Chen et al., 2018; Taylor et al., 2011). (d) The Ultimatum Game assessed economic decision-making, with participants deciding whether to accept or reject various offers from human and computer partners (Kirk et al., 2018). (e) In the time production task, participants pressed a button to match target durations, evaluating their time estimation ability with eyes closed (Berkovich-Ohana et al., 2011).
January 9, 2025 at 1:00 PM