Meditating in virtual reality: Proof-of-concept intervention for posttraumatic stress.

Abstract

We investigate the potential therapeutic application of virtual reality (VR) technology as an aid to meditation practice among persons varying in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Method: In this within-group mixed-methods study, 96 young adults practiced both VR-and non-VRguided meditations and reported on their experience of positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), other meditative experiences and perceived satisfaction-credibility of each meditation. Results: Participants reported more PA and greater perceived satisfaction-credibility following the VR as compared to non-VR-guided meditations primarily when the VR meditation was practiced first, before the non-VR meditation, as opposed to vice versa. The experience of NA during meditation practice was infrequent, although persons with increased PTSD symptoms reported increased distress during both VR and non-VR meditation. Conclusions: Further study of therapeutic applications of VR as an aid to meditation practice among people with PTSD symptoms is warranted. Clinical Impact StatementWe explored the therapeutic potential of pairing virtual reality (VR) technology with guided meditation and found that people responded to VR meditations with increased positive affect when VR meditation was practiced before non-VR meditation. Also, those who reported experiencing greater posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in the past month also reported experiencing greater distress during both VR and non-VR meditation. We advocate for a trauma-informed care approach to meditation practice when conducted in VR among persons with PTSD symptoms.

Meditating in Virtual Reality 3: 360° Video of Perceptual Presence of Instructor

“…We note at the outset that responses to post-meditation surveys were always scored at the item level rather than as various sub-scale or total-scale summary scores as is more conventional in the literature. This approach, following previous methods (e.g., Mistry et al, 2020), is preferred to allow a more nuanced investigation of self-reported meditative experiences.…”

“…Finally, the study involved six groups of dependent variables assessed by numeric ratings, specifically, positive affect (mDES-PA), negative affect (mDES-NA), Buddhist affective states (BASS), normative meditative experiences (MEQ), meditation breath attention scores (MBAS), and a general satisfaction survey first used by that was in turn modeled after the questionnaire developed by Devilly and Borkovec (2000). Taken together, this is the very same experimental model and set of dependent measures as was undertaken by Mistry et al (2020), with the addition of MBAS, and thus constituted a comparison study whereby the previous publication utilized the display of computer simulated environments, whereas the current study depicted 360°videos of pre-recorded instructor-guided meditations. Also following the methods undertaken in the previous study (Mistry et al, 2020), we surveyed responses to the VR and non-VR meditations at the item level using multivariate ANOVA to control for multiple comparisons with two-tailed statistical significance determined at p < .05 for analyses of variance and post-hoc tests of means (2-tailed).…”

“…demonstrating the efficacy of conducting meditation practices within these graphical virtual environments, especially for improving positive affect and wellbeing (e.g., relaxation; Frewen et al, 2020;Mistry et al, 2020;Navarro-Haro et al, 2017. For example, Mistry et al (2020) showed that, as compared to closely matched non-VR meditations, VR meditation was associated with heightened experiences of certain positive emotions, most notably awe, particularly when the VR meditation preceded rather than followed practice of the non-VR meditation in a repeated measures design. This emerging program of research demonstrates the potential for guided meditation, when conducted in graphical virtual environments, to evoke salient experiences of positive affect when compared to practicing meditation outside the context of VR.…”

“…This emerging program of research demonstrates the potential for guided meditation, when conducted in graphical virtual environments, to evoke salient experiences of positive affect when compared to practicing meditation outside the context of VR. Further, VR meditations were regarded as credible interventions for mental health problems including for trauma-and stress-related disorders (e.g., PTSD, depression, anxiety, and dissociative disorders; Mistry et al, 2020).…”

“…The current research therefore compares the immediate affective impact of delivering instructor-guided meditation practices via three methods: (1) traditional face-to-face (in vivo [IV] method), (2) pre-recorded 360°video viewed by standard laptop computer monitor (2D format), and (3) pre-recorded 360°video viewed through a HMD (VR condition; 3D format). We also evaluated individual differences in response to the meditations in terms of participants' self-reported PTSD symptoms due to previous findings that the presence of PTSD symptoms at baseline represents a risk factor for experiencing distress during meditation both outside (Zhu et al, 2019) and inside (Mistry et al, 2020) the context of VR. In this context, the psychological significance of instructor-guided meditation practices may be of particular relevance to persons who have experienced interpersonal trauma (e.g., being the victim of physical or sexual assault) who consequently tend to be less trusting within relationships (Williams et al, 2014), possibly lowering their ability to benefit from instruction in meditation.…”