creative commons dissertation

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Fair use, copyright, patent, and publishing options.

• Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?
• Embargo of online copies
• Creative Commons license
• Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?
• Register for copyright?
• Supplementary materials
• Make your work discoverable on search engines?
• Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

1. Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?

You are responsible for acknowledging any facts, ideas, or materials of others that you include in your work. You must follow the guidelines for acknowledging the work of others in the “Code of Academic Integrity and Acknowledging the Work of Others” (published in the Policy Notebook for the Cornell Community ) .

If you use any copyrighted material in the dissertation or thesis, it is your responsibility to give full credit to the author and publisher of work quoted. The acknowledgment should be placed in a footnote at the bottom of the first page of the paper or chapter. Additionally, you must determine whether use of the material can be classified as a “fair use” by performing an analysis of your use of each copyrighted item. The Cornell Copyright Information Center’s Fair Use Checklist ) is a helpful tool for performing this analysis. (See also, Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities , published by ProQuest, or The Chicago Manual of Style , published by the University of Chicago Press.)

If your use of material is not considered a “fair use,” you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner. Two copies of each permission letter must be submitted with the dissertation or thesis. ProQuest has specific requirements for the content of the permission letter. For these guidelines, consult the ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Agreement form (published by ProQuest).

If you have already published or had accepted for publication part of your own dissertation or thesis material in a journal, depending on the terms of your publication agreement, it may be necessary to write to that journal and obtain written authorization to use the material in your dissertation.

2. Embargo of online copies

The value of your dissertation extends well beyond your graduation requirements. It’s important that you make an informed decision about providing online access, via ProQuest and eCommons, to your work. This decision can expand the visibility and impact of your work, but it can also shape the options available to you for publishing subsequent works based on your dissertation.

ProQuest’s ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) database indexes almost all dissertations published in the U.S. and provides subscription access online to the full text of more recent dissertations. ProQuest also sells print copies of dissertations, paying royalties to authors, when they exceed a minimum threshold. Authors retain copyright in the works they submit to ProQuest.

eCommons is a service of the Cornell University Library that provides long-term, online access to Cornell-related content of enduring value. Electronic theses and dissertations deposited in eCommons, unless subject to embargo, are freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. When submitting to eCommons, you retain copyright in your work. Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses submitted to ProQuest are automatically submitted to eCommons, subject to the same embargo you select for ProQuest.

Electronic copies of dissertations in PQDT or eCommons may be made accessible immediately upon submission or after an embargo period of six months, one year, or two years. You may wish to consider an embargo period which helps address publishers’ interests in being the first to publish scholarly books or articles, while also ensuring that scholarship is accessible to the general public within a reasonable period of time. Your decision should be made in consultation with your special committee.

3. Creative Commons license

Creative Commons licenses provide authors with a straightforward and standardized means of prospectively granting certain permissions to potential users of the author’s material. Authors may request proper attribution, permit copying and the creation of derivative works, request that others share derivative works under the same terms, and allow or disallow commercial uses. Authors may even choose to place their works directly into the public domain. You will have the option of selecting a Creative Commons license when you upload your dissertation or thesis to ProQuest, and your choice will automatically be applied to the copy of your work in eCommons.

4. Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?

Cornell University Policy 1.5 governs inventions and related property rights. Inventions made by faculty, staff, and students must be disclosed to the Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University (CTL). Theses and dissertations describing patentable research should be withheld from publication, in order to avoid premature public disclosure.

Use the delayed release (embargo) option if a patent application is or will be in process, noting the reason for the delay as “patent pending.” If you have any questions, please contact Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing at 607-254-4698 or [email protected] .

5. Register for copyright?

Copyright law involves many complex issues that are relevant to you as a graduate student, both in protecting your own work and in referencing the work of others. Discussion of copyright in this publication is not meant to substitute for the legal advice of qualified attorneys. A more detailed discussion of copyright law can be found in the publication from ProQuest entitled Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities by Kenneth D. Crews.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form and the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author. Registration with the United States Copyright Office is not required to secure copyright; rather it is a legal formality to place on public record the basic facts of a particular copyright. Although not a condition of copyright protection itself, registering the copyright is ordinarily necessary before any infringement suits can be filed in court.

To register a copyright for your dissertation or thesis, register online or download printable forms . You may also request forms by mail from the Information Section, U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20559, or contact them by telephone at 202-707-3000.

Doctoral candidates: You may authorize ProQuest to file, on your behalf, an application for copyright registration. This option will be presented to you as part of the submission process.

6. Supplementary materials

If supplementary materials (audio, video, datasets, etc., up to 2GB per file) are part of your thesis or dissertation, you may submit them as supplementary files during the online submission process. For help selecting long-lived file formats, note ProQuest’s guidance in their document, “Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission (Including Supplemental Files).” File formats for which ProQuest does not guarantee migration may still have a high likelihood of preservation in Cornell’s digital repository; please see the eCommons help page for further guidance.

Do not embed media files in the PDF version of your thesis or dissertation, as this can significantly increase the size of the file and make it difficult to download and access. Include a description of each supplementary file in the abstract of your thesis or dissertation. You may include an additional supplementary file containing more detailed information about the supplementary materials as a “readme” file or other form of documentation; this is particularly advisable for data sets or code. The Research Data Management Service Group ( [email protected] ) offers assistance in preparing and documenting data sets for online distribution.

7. Make your work discoverable on search engines?

ProQuest offers authors the option of making their graduate work discoverable through major search engines including Yahoo, Google, Google Scholar, and Google Books. If you chose the Search Engine option on their dissertation “paper” publishing agreement or within ProQuest’s PROQUEST ETD Administrator (electronic submission service), you can expect to have your work appear in the major search engines.

If you change your mind and do not want your work to be made available through search engines, you can contact customer service at [email protected] or 800-521-0600 ext. 77020. In addition, if you did not initially adopt this option but now want your works made available through this service, contact the customer service group to change your selection.

Please note that search engines index content in eCommons, regardless of the choice you make for ProQuest.

8. Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

When creating a PDF version of your thesis or dissertation it is important to keep in mind that readers may use assistive technology such as screen readers to access your document.  Follow best practices to ensure that your thesis or dissertation is accessible to everyone.  These resources may be helpful:

• Cornell CIT’s guidance for creating accessible PDFs
• Checking accessibility using Acrobat Pro
• Embedding alternative text for images in Word
• Save a Word doc as an accessible PDF

• KU Libraries
• Subject & Course Guides
• Copyright Resources
• Copyright for Dissertations and Theses

Copyright Resources: Copyright for Dissertations and Theses

• Getting Started
• Using Copyrighted Works in Scholarship
• Copyright and Teaching
• Copyright Considerations for Authors
• Public Performance Rights for Screening Media

Copyright Considerations for Theses and Dissertations

Copyright affects the author of a thesis or dissertation in two ways:  1) As a user of copyrighted material within the thesis or dissertation and 2) As the copyright owner of the thesis or dissertation. 

In addition to the general resources for all authors on the Getting Started , Using Copyrighted Works in Scholarship and Copyright Considerations for Authors tabs on this guide, this page includes information and resources that address common copyright concerns of authors of theses and dissertations. 

KU Libraries’ Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright is happy to assist KU faculty, staff, and students with questions concerning copyright and fair use of copyrighted materials, in consultation with the KU Office of the General Counsel as needed. Contact us at [email protected] for assistance.

There are guides for graduate scholars from other institutions that you might find helpful, though they will not have a KU perspective:

• Theses and Copyright (MIT)
• Copyright on Campus:  Copyright Concerns of Graduate Researchers (University of Florida)
• Copyright and Fair Use: Copyright Concerns of Students (ATLA)

Using Previously-Published Materials as Chapters

In some disciplines, it's common to include entire articles that were published previously solely by the author or sometimes with co-authors as chapters in the thesis or dissertation.  In the case of co-authored material, each co-author has full copyrights to the entire work, unless there are contractual reasons why this is not the case, such as when an author is an employee of a project that claims copyright in any publications resulting from the research funded by the project.  The issue is that most article publication agreements transfer the author's copyrights to the publisher.  This gives the publisher control over how the work is used and distributed.  This means that authors may not have the rights to include their previously-published work as chapters in their thesis or dissertation without asking permission from the publisher first.

There's a handy list of publishers and their default policies at the bottom of the University of Florida's Copyright Concerns of Graduate Researchers resource. 

KUMC Graduate Students :  Graduate Studies at KUMC has posted instructions about how to cite previously published work and how to submit copyright permissions.   See page 18 of the KUMC Formatting Guidelines for more information.

How do you know if you can include your previously-published work?

Does the article have a creative commons license.

• Authors can include the work as long as they use the work in accordance with the Creative Commons license.

Don't have the publication contract or aren't sure what the contract terms mean?  Try this first: 

• Find the article on the journal web site and click on the Permissions link.
• On the resulting screen, the requestor will usually be asked if they are the author of the article and how they intend to use it. 
• Select "Reuse in a thesis/dissertation"  and complete the rest of the information requested.
• Read the resulting screens carefully to see if the article can be used in the thesis or dissertation. 
• If not, see Asking for Permission , below, for some tips.

Did the publication contract include language that allows the author to use the work after it's published in a new work or specifically in a thesis or dissertation? 

• This is often the case in disciplines where articles are included in theses/dissertations, but not always.  If the contract allows, the author can include the work as long as it is used in accordance with the terms of the publication contract.

Publication agreement doesn't allow the author to use their article in a new publication?  

The author will need to ask the publisher for permission to reuse the article.  See Asking for Permission , below, for some tips.

Asking for Permission

Getting permission takes time; do this as soon as you know you want to use the article.

• Find the Contact information for the journal.  This is often found on the journal website in an About... , Contact or Permissions menu.
• Your name and when you are planning on graduating.
• Indicate that you are the author of the article and that you want to include it in your thesis or dissertation.
• Ask what you need to do to obtain permission.
• Send an email with the subject "Permissions Needed" and include the information above in the email message. 
• If you are very close to graduation, contact the publisher's Permissions department by phone rather than email. 

Author as Copyright Owner

One of the graduation requirements at KU is the completion of the Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) Release Form .  In the Copyright section of that form, you will certify that your work does not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon copyrights owned by someone else, through, but not limited to plagiarism, unapproved reproduction of materials or improper citation.

Generally, an author has the copyrights to their thesis or dissertation from the moment that it is fixed in a tangible format, such as a Microsoft Word file, or a printed copy. 

• According to the KU Intellectual Property Policy , the University of Kansas does not claim copyright in theses or dissertations produced by KU students, except for those special circumstances defined in the policy.
• Authors don’t have to include a copyright statement--e.g. Copyright 2019 Jane Smythe-- in the work, though it’s sometimes helpful because it makes it clear who has the copyrights to the work. 
• As the copyright owner of your thesis or dissertation, you need to decide whether you are going to register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office.  See the section below:  Registering Your Copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office

Registering Your Copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office

How to register.

As part of the ProQuest submission process, authors can choose to register their copyright with the U.S.Copyright Office. We generally suggest that people register their copyrights if they can afford to do so.  

• The cost is $75 if ProQuest registers the copyright for the student.  Many students choose this because of the convenience.
• The cost is $ 45 if the author registers themselves by going to the U.S. Copyright Office website and registers the copyright using the Standard form.

Why register?

According to the U.S. Copyright Office publication Copyright Circular #1 , pg. 7, there are several reasons why authors should register their copyright:

• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
• Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.
• If made before or within five years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U.S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies. For additional information, go to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website at https://www.cbp.gov/.

Embargoes of Theses and Dissertations

One of the decisions that the author of a thesis or dissertation must make as they prepare to graduate is whether to delay the release of the thesis or dissertation for a period of time after graduation.  This decision is often a balance between the need to make the work as visible as possible , and the desire to protect the work because the author wants to publish that research in journal articles or books, because of pending patents, or because the research is sensitive.

If an embargo is needed, KU's Embargo Policy for Theses and Dissertations spells out the circumstances under which an embargo may be requested and the process for doing so.

• First, the student must submit the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) Release Form to the school/College office. Embargo requests need to be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies in the author's department, the Department Chair, or the Committee Chair.  If an embargo is approved, this form will ensure that the thesis or dissertation file is protected from public view.  Keep in mind that the title, abstract, and keywords entered during the ProQuest submission will be visible, even if the file is protected.
• Second, during the online submission process to ProQuest/UMI , in the Publishing Options section, the student must select I want my work to be available in ProQuest as soon as it is published > No, I have patents pending, or another reason why I need to delay access to the full text of my work , then select the embargo term.  If an embargo has been approved, this step will ensure that public view of the work is temporarily restricted in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.

Embargoes may be renewed before the expiration date by filling out the Embargo Renewal form for the KU ScholarWorks copy AND , for the ProQuest copy, by contacting ProQuest at [email protected] or by phone at 1-800-521-0600 at least one month before the embargo expires .

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• URL: https://guides.lib.ku.edu/copyright

University Library

Copyright for Graduate Students: Theses and Dissertations

• Public Domain

Creative Commons Licensing

• Obtaining Copyright Permission
• International Materials
• State and Federal Governmental Materials
• University Policies on Copyright
• Depositing Your Dissertation/Thesis in IDEALS

Copyright Questions?

Copyright law can be difficult and confusing. This webpage is meant to provide you with guidance, but not legal advice.

Should you have further questions, please do not hesitate to ask Sara Benson, the Copyright Librarian, for assistance. Sara can be reached at 217-333-4200 or [email protected]

Scholarly Communication and Publishing

You might be wondering why I've copied and pasted an image of a UFO here from OpenClipArt.org . This image is free to be used, remixed, and shared because it is licensed under Creative Commons. Creative Commons licenses helps content creators to share their work more freely than copyright allows. Because the UFO is a Creative Commons image, it is acceptable to edit and remix it to create and share new images (note that it contains no restrictions on use).

Copyright law protects a work the moment it is put into a fixed form (so the moment the words are written, the video is recorded, or a picture is snapped) and states that there are certain rights with regards to the work that only the creator holds. For example only the creator may reproduce the work (but see fair use and the other copyright exceptions, like face-to-face teaching).  Fortunately, some authors and creators are happy and willing to share their work more freely than U.S. copyright law currently allows. In order to make their wishes clear to both you and the law, they often license their work. A license details the terms and conditions the author has established with regards to using his or her works. There are many different types of licenses but some of the most common and useful in an academic setting are Creative Commons Licenses.

When using materials for your courses or even for academic research and publication, you may see work designated with at Creative Commons License. What does it mean?

A creative commons license is a grant of permission from the author to the public (or a segment of the public) to use portions of work otherwise protected by copyright without first obtaining permission from the author (within certain established guidelines).

This may be a good way for educators, as well, to share their work freely if they wish to do so. Just remember, though, that if you put a creative commons license on your work you permitting others to use the work under the conditions designated in the license.

The creative commons website contains a great description of the  types of licenses . Depending on the specification in the license, the user may be permitted to do only certain things with the work (for instance a CC-NC license designates that only non commercial uses are permitted).

If you are considering adding a creative commons license to your work, please remember that once you put the license on the work, it is irrevocable.  

Types of Licenses

Shaddim; "Creative Commons License Spectrum,"  CC-BY 4.0

Find and Use Creative Commons Work

• Finding Creative Commons Works
• Search Openverse for Creative Commons Works
• Search Google Images
• More Creative Commons Resources

Using Creative Commons works for your projects is a great way to support universal access and to simplify your own creative process. Visit  CreativeCommons.org  for an in-depth explanation of what Creative Commons is. Once you understand and are ready to start finding Creative Commons licensed works, explore the rest of this page to find step-by-step instructions on how to do so.

Many search engines and websites that house creative materials will let you limit your search to only licensed materials. Below are a few examples, but be sure to check out the list of  more resources  as well as the advanced search options of any website you are browsing when looking for images, sounds, videos, or other works.

Creative Commons offers a search engine that can be found at  https://wordpress.org/openverse/ . Before searching for anything, be sure to select a resource to search in the middle of the page. These resources all allow users to mark a Creative Commons work when it is uploaded, making it particularly easy to search for such materials. Also note that below the name of the resource is a description of the type of materials it houses (e.g., Flikr searches images, YouTube searches videos, etc.)

Once you have chosen a resource to search, double check that the boxes labeled "I want something that I can ..." are checked based on what your needs are. This is particularly important if you are looking for a work that you can use commercially as not all creators want their works used for financial profit.

Once you have completed the above steps, go ahead and enter your search term. Your search will then take you out to the website you selected (in the example below this is Flickr) and displays your results. Each of these results has been given a Creative Commons license by its creator.

To view the specific license that has been used for a work, look for a link that says "Some rights reserved" or "Creative Commons."

Clicking on that will take you to the legal page for the license being used, allowing you to see if the work can be adapted, shared, or used commercially.

Google's  Advanced Image Search  offers the option to search for Creative Commons works as well. On the top half of the page, fill in as much or as little information as you would like for your search.

At the bottom of the page you will find a drop-down box that allows you to indicate that Google should only search for licensed works. Notice that the choices listed here are not actually Creative Commons licenses but instead are broad categories. This is because there are licenses other than Creative Commons and Google is able to search many of them. After choosing one of the options, go ahead and complete your search.

The following websites have the option to search for Creative Commons works or are largely devoted to freely useable works.

• Openverse (Creative Commons Works) Search creative commons works on Openverse, formerly Creative Commons Search.
• Wikimedia Commons A vast, largely free to use collection of media
• Europeana Digital media provided largely by the museums, libraries, and archives of Europe
• Internet Archive Provides access to videos, images, sounds, and more from all over the web. Not everything is Creative Commons but much is free to use under a variety of licenses

Find Images

• Flickr A huge collection of images uploaded by users. Not all are Creative Commons
• Open Clip Art Library A large collection of clip art images
• Pixabay A collection of public domain (not Creative Commons) images
• Creativity103 Backgrounds and textures that can be reused

Find Video, Music, and Sounds

• YouTube Use YouTube's advanced search to find licensed works
• ccMixter A community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses
• Jamendo Collection of Creative Commons licensed music from all genres
• Freesound Creative Commons sound effects created by users and uploaded
• Tribe of Noise This site is not just dedicated to Creative Commons music but does have some licensed works available

Create Creative Commons Works

If you are considering licensing works that you create under Creative Commons, be sure to browse through CreativeCommons.org's  FAQ page . This page addresses questions regarding international rights, dual licensing, print works, and more. Once you have decided that a Creative Commons license is right for you, adding one to your work is actually very simple. You simply have to decide what rights to your work you would like to grant to users. Do you want them to be able to remix your work? Share it? Use it commercially? CreativeCommons.org provides a license chooser tool that walks you through these decisions. For more information about each, look through the  About the Licenses  page on CreativeCommons.org.

*Where can I find more information on Creative Commons?

Visit  CreativeCommons.org  for a basic overview. If you're looking for in-depth information or have a specific question, visit the  Creative Commons FAQ page .

*What types of works use Creative Commons licenses?

Any work that can be copyrighted can be licensed under Creative Commons. However, there are a few types of works that might be better served by a different type of license (e.g., computer software). For more information, see the  General License Information .

*What are the parts of a Creative Commons license?

When you use  choose a license  using the Creative Commons website, the resulting license is made up of three layers. The first layer is legal language; it is the legal description of the permissions you are granting to users of your work. Typically, people can access this layer by clicking on a Creative Commons image located within your work. The second layer is an image with symbols and letters that are easily recognizable by users. Here is an example of an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike image:

The final layer is not visible to the user, only to computers. This machine-readable portion of the license allows your image to be categorized as Creative Commons by search engines like Google. That way, when someone searches for images that are licensed, your work is quickly recognized and returned in that search. To read a more complete explanation, visit the  About the Licenses  page on the Creative Commons website.

*Can Creative Commons licenses be revoked?

No. Creative commons licenses are irrevocable, so you make sure that you select the license that best suits your needs.

*What constitutes a derivative work?

It largely depends on which local copyright laws apply to the work. Under US law, a derivative work is defined in  Section 101  of copyright law. In general, if you have changed a work so much that it would warrant its own copyright privileges, it is considered an adaptation or derivative work, which would generally require permission of the original author (note, however, that if the cc license does not contain a "no derivatives" prohibition, derivative works are permissible).

*How does Creative Commons work internationally?

There are two general types of Creative Commons licenses: unported and ported. Unported licenses are broad and considered acceptable for international use. The Creative Commons organization has worked with a variety of jurisdictions and examined international agreements regarding copyright to ensure that these licenses allow creators to grant permission to use their works. Unported licenses are great for granting use privileges to as many people as possible all over the world.

*What about public domain?

Works that are in the public domain are not copyrightable and therefore cannot be covered by Creative Commons licenses. Should you find a work that is in the public domain and want to make sure others know, Creative Commons has created a  public domain mark  that can be applied to the work. However, this mark is not intended for works that are under copyright that you wish to waive your rights to.

When you apply a Creative Commons license to your work, some of your rights are reserved. If you wish to give up all of your rights and place your work directly into the public domain, Creative Commons offers a public domain license, known as a  CC0 .

Related Library Guide

• Finding and Using Creative Commons Works This library guide provides information on finding, using, and citing materials that have Creative Commons licenses.
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• Next: Obtaining Copyright Permission >>
• Last Updated: Aug 26, 2024 1:39 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/copyrightforgradstudents

Copyright and Dissertations, Theses, and Master's Reports

• Can I use this in my paper?

How do I license a paper with 3rd party content?

Licensing on proquest, licensing options in digital commons @ michigan tech, creative commons licenses.

• Should I file for copyright?
• Additional Resources

Additional Help

Need more help with licensing options? Contact the Graduate School at [email protected] 

Creative Commons License Chooser (beta)

Don't know what license you need? The Creative Commons License Chooser tool (beta version) is here to help. Follow the steps to select the appropriate license for your work. This site does not store any information.

The original License Chooser is also available here.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges. 

Part of the Creative Commons mission is to provide  Creative Commons licenses  that give every person and organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works

Librarians are available to answer your questions. Click on the Ask Us bubble for FAQs and contact options (chat, email, text, phone).

The information presented in this guide is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice.

The type of access and licensing option you choose (explained below) must be consistent with the permissions you have received from the copyright holders of all 3rd party content in your paper. Be sure to also mark 3rd party content with the appropriate copyright statements.

If you have not received permission to use someone else's content (images, figures, etc.), or if you are not sure you have permission to allow you choose certain access or licensing options, contact the Graduate School at [email protected]

When you deposit a master's thesis or dissertation on ProQuest, you will have the option to make the work available open access or traditional access through that platform. There is a fee associated with open access, but you are not required to make your work available in this manner even if you have selected open access on Digital Commons.

When you deposit your work in Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech , you will choose one of two access options:  

• Campus Access -  restrict access to your work to only those on Michigan Tech's campus
• Open Access -  distribute your work openly to the world

Your copyright is not impacted by your access option. No matter which option you choose, you still hold the copyright to your report, thesis, or dissertation and others must seek your permission to reuse it.

Do you want others to be able to reuse your work?

If the answer to this question is " Yes!" then make sure you choose the Open Access option. This means you may then choose a  Creative Commons license  (listed below). These optional, free licenses allow copyright holders to easily convey to others how their works may be shared or altered. Choosing one of the more restrictive Creative Commons licenses does not prevent you from providing additional permissions to others upon request.

What about my advisor?

After you submit your work to Digital Commons, your advisor will be able to review the work and the licensing options you have selected. Your advisor may request changes.

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Thesis / dissertation formatting manual (2024).

• Filing Fees and Student Status
• Submission Process Overview
• Electronic Thesis Submission
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• Formatting Overview
• Fonts/Typeface
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• Paper Thesis Formatting
• Preliminary Pages Overview
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures (etc.)
• Acknowledgments
• Text and References Overview
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• Using Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Using Copyrighted Materials by Another Author
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Securing your copyright

As the author of your thesis or dissertation, only you are legally entitled to authorize publication or reproduction of your intellectual property, although you may assign your rights to others.  Copyright is secured automatically when a work is created,  which is when it is fixed in a tangible form for the first time. Under present U.S. copyright law, the term of the copyright is the author's life plus 70 years.

Registering your copyright

Registering your copyright is optional, as your work is automatically copyrighted when it is published. If you wish to further protect your rights in a copyright dispute and to be eligible for damages caused by infringement, you may choose to register your copyright. You are eligible to register your copyright at any time within the term (author's life plus 70 years). You may register your copyright yourself through the U.S. Copyright Office's online registration portal . 

ProQuest provides an optional copyright registration service for a fee ($75 in 2024) at the time of submission only. If you pay for this service, ProQuest will register your copyright and submit your manuscript to the Library of Congress. 

Creative Commons

U.S. Copyright is a collection of rights about how a work fixed in a tangible medium or expression can be used.  By applying a Creative Commons badge you let readers know which features of the document can be used/reused/recited with attribution and if there are limits . Application of the Creative Commons badge through Proquest is optional.

• The CC-BY license allows for use/reuse with attribution.
• Addition of NC states you are requesting no commercial reselling of the work without permission of the author (you).
• The ND badge is no derivative work, which might be a graphic version or language translation, without formal permission. For example, if a print version is the original version, then an electronic version would need permission from the author to create and distribute. Journal articles may use CC-BY-NC-ND to allow the original PDF to be viewed but not commercially resold or derived works created.
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Your thesis and creative commons.

The University requires that a CC BY-NC-ND licence be applied when you deposit your thesis in Pure. This will happen automatically. 

What are Creative Commons licences?

Creative Commons licences are a series of easy-to-use copyright licences designed to encourage the creation of content that can be copied, distributed, and re-used, without infringing the creator’s copyright.  Each licence has three parts: legal code defining the licence terms, a translation of the legal code into easy-to-understand layman’s terms, and a machine-readable version which search engines and other software systems can understand.

Types of Creative Commons licence

There are six different Creative Commons licences, permitting different types of reuse. 

The basic Creative Commons licence is the Creative Commons Attribution licence, or CC-BY licence.  Under a CC-BY licence, users are free to copy, redistribute, and reuse the work for any purpose, including commercial purposes, but must attribute the creator of the work.  The remaining licences are made up of the basic Creative Commons Attribution licence, and one or more of the following elements:

Users can only use the work for non-commercial purposes .

Users cannot share adaptations or derivatives of the work.

Users can share adaptations of the work but must use the same licence terms.

These elements can be combined; for example, the most restrictive Creative Commons licence is CC BY-NC-ND under which users can copy and redistribute the work but cannot alter it in any way, or use it commercially.

What if I want to apply a different Creative Commons licence to my work ?

The University requires that a CC BY-NC-ND licence be applied when you deposit your thesis in Pure. This will happen automatically. If you wish to make your thesis availble elsewhere under a different licence you are free to do so. You could use the Creative Commons licence chooser to help you pick an appropriate licence.  It will also generate the relevant licence icons and descriptive text for you.

What do I do if my work has third-party content ?

You must have permission to reuse the third-party content. This permission might be granted by a licence on the third-party content: for example, if the third-party work itself uses a CC BY licence you can reproduce it in your own work as long as you attribute it properly.  See our guide for information on other ways to obtain permission to use third-party content.

If you have permission to reuse the third-party content, you can apply a Creative Commons licence to your work but you must clearly mark the third party content within your work and indicate the terms of use for these elements.

• For the overall work: “Except otherwise noted, this blog is © 2009 Greg Grossmeier, under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ .”
• For the third-party content: “The photo X is © 2009 Jane Park, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ .”

If the content you wish to use is not covered by a Creative Commons license see our guide to copyright .

Office of Scholarly Communication

University of California

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Creative Commons Licenses

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Home » Scholarly Communication Topics » Creative Commons Licenses

On this page:

• Overview of Creative Commons licenses

Depositing an article for the UC open access policies

Publishing an article open access with a publisher, sharing preprints.

Creative Commons (CC) licenses are a way for creators to encourage broad dissemination of their work by indicating to readers that the work can be reused and by specifying the conditions for that reuse. In the 20 years since CC licenses were first released, they have been used to license over 2 billion copyrighted works. Popular websites and services using CC licenses include Wikipedia, Flickr, Khan Academy, and OpenStreetMap. Open access scholarly publications also frequently use CC licenses.

CC licenses mix and match a few different elements that specify the terms under which works can be reused. None of the licenses restrict typical reuse of a work that would normally be allowed by law without a license, e.g. redistributing parts of a work that aren’t protected by copyright or engaging in fair use by translating a work for personal study. Below is a list of the elements that may be incorporated into a CC license:

Since all the licenses require attribution, and the ND and SA options are mutually exclusive, combining these elements can only result in six different possible CC licenses. 

• CC BY . Either the original work or a derivative work can be shared, with appropriate attribution, for commercial or noncommercial purposes. This the most open of the six licenses, permitting the broadest sharing and reuse.
• CC BY-NC . Either the original work or a derivative work can be shared with appropriate attribution, but only for noncommercial purposes.
• CC BY-ND . The original work can be shared with appropriate attribution, for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If someone creates a derivative work, like a translation, the license does not permit them to share that derivative work.
• CC BY-NC-ND . The original work can be shared with appropriate attribution, but only for noncommercial purposes. No derivative works can be shared. 
• CC BY-SA . The original work or derivative works can be shared, with appropriate attribution, for commercial or noncommercial purposes. Any derivative works must also use a CC BY-SA license.
• CC BY-NC-SA . The original work or derivative works can be shared with appropriate attribution, but only for noncommercial purposes. Any derivative works must also use a CC BY-NC-SA license.

CC licenses cannot be revoked. Authors can re-share their work with a different license, but anyone who downloaded the work with the previous license can still use it under the terms of that earlier license. If a user wants to use a work in a way that goes beyond what the CC license allows or what the law otherwise allows (e.g. fair use), they must contact the copyright holder for separate permission.

Note: CC0 is a Creative Commons tool that designates Public Domain Dedication, or “no rights reserved.” Rather than a license, CC0 is a complete waiver of the author’s copyright ownership and any related rights, including the right to require attribution. As with the licenses, this dedication to the public domain cannot be revoked. The use of CC0 is often recommended for data sharing because it reduces barriers to data reuse that might be caused by the attribution requirement of a license like CC BY. You can read more about this in our blog post, CC BY and data: Not always a good fit .

When authors participate in the UC OA policies by uploading their articles to eScholarship (UC’s institutional repository and publishing platform), they are asked to choose a CC license. Authors can choose any of the six CC licenses above, or they can choose not to apply a license. If authors opt out of a CC license, the default rules of copyright law control how an article can be used. In the United States, that means the full text of the article usually cannot be shared on another website, nor can translations of the article, but some uses are allowed under exceptions like fair use.

The UC Academic Senate strongly encourages choosing a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license when depositing a scholarly article, to encourage maximum dissemination and use of UC scholarship. Articles shared with a CC BY license can be:

• Shared on course, conference, lab, news, and other websites;
• Reproduced in print coursepacks, even when they are sold by commercial copy shops;
• Translated into other languages, and shared by their translators;
• Excerpted and combined with publications that use a different CC license (without implying the original author’s endorsement of the new work). 

Articles that are published open access on a journal’s website are often published under a Creative Commons license. For journals that are fully open access, the publisher typically chooses a license that applies to all the articles in the journal. In PLOS journals, for example, all articles are published under a CC BY license. In other journals, particularly journals where only some articles are available open access, an author may be able to choose the license. The license choices that are available vary depending on the publisher, but CC BY is usually one of the options.

When an author can choose which license the publisher uses to publish their article, the UC Academic Senate recommends choosing a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license , which encourages maximum sharing and reuse . Articles published with a CC BY license can be:

• Excerpted and combined with publications that use a different CC license (without implying the original author’s endorsement of the new work).

UC authors retain broad rights to reuse the full text of their articles through UC’s open access policies . Authors at other institutions, however, may be granting exclusive rights to control commercial or other use of their articles to their publishers if they choose a license more restrictive like CC BY-NC. To learn more about how this works for authors at institutions that do not have an institutional OA policy, you can read the blog post “ Exclusive licence to publish – now here’s a thing ” at the Coalition S website.

Preprints are journal articles that have not yet gone through peer review. Authors commonly share their preprints on preprint servers designed for this purpose, most of which are discipline-specific. arXiv , bioRxiv , EarthArXiv , and EcoEvoRxiv are all examples of preprint servers, and there are many more . Authors share their preprints for a variety of reasons, including to speed up dissemination of their work and to get early feedback prior to publication. 

Authors sharing their preprints can often choose among a variety of CC licenses, or can choose not to apply a CC license at all. Authors should understand the policies of the journals they are likely to publish with and the policies of their research funders before depositing a preprint. 

Many funders do not explicitly address preprints, but some do. For example, the Gates Foundation and the NIH encourage (but do not require) sharing preprints with a CC BY license.

Publisher policies also vary. Springer Nature encourages authors to share their preprints, and adds that authors may choose “any license of their choice for the preprint including Creative Commons licenses.” The preprint policies of Elsevier , Taylor & Francis , and Wiley allow sharing, and are silent about CC licenses. SAGE , on the other hand, notes that while they do not have a policy against preprint sharing generally, “some journals do not allow submissions from papers that are already available on a preprint server,” and advises authors to check the policies of individual journals. Preprint sharing policies can typically be found on journal websites, and are collected in Sherpa Romeo as well. 

Assuming there are no conflicts with relevant funder or publisher policies, an author may choose to share their preprint under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to encourage maximum dissemination and reuse. Articles shared with a CC BY license can be:

If an author chooses to share their preprint without a CC license, or with a more restrictive license like CC BY-NC-ND, they will have later opportunities to share their work more openly. For example, as described above:

• Authors may publish the final version of the article open access with their publisher under a CC BY license; or
• If the author is a University of California employee, they can participate in UC’s open access policies by sharing the accepted manuscript version of their article with the license of their choice in eScholarship after peer review.

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Publishing your dissertation open access.

IUScholarWorks  is our repository, intended for anyone affiliated with IU to share their research openly so that it’s  available for anyone in the world to read . It’s important to remember that this includes graduate students! Graduate students can share papers, data, posters, and even their dissertation in IUScholarWorks.

Sharing a dissertation in IUScholarWorks (sometimes called IUSW) has many benefits for authors, including:

• increased discoverability of the dissertation, as it will become indexed in Google Scholar
• long-term preservation, ensuring scholars can access it in several decades and beyond
• the agency to decide how the dissertation should be licensed. Authors can choose one of several  Creative Commons licenses  based on how they would like others to use their work (this is optional)
• the ability to embargo (or limit access) to the dissertation for up to five years
• a free mechanism for sharing–there is never an additional cost for authors

Sharing Your Dissertation

When a dissertation or thesis has reached its final stage, all graduate students must submit an electronic version of their thesis or dissertation to ProQuest via the Graduate School Website instructions.

ProQuest provides multiple services and options for publishing a dissertation. Traditional publication with ProQuest means that the dissertation will be included in the ProQuest Dissertation and Theses database. This option is free for the author but in order to access the  thesis or dissertation, readers will either need to be affiliated with a library or pay a fee. The 25 most-accessed ProQuest theses and dissertations for last month cost around $38 each  to download for those not affiliated with a library or organization with access. However, this model does provide  authors with other other add-on services, including the ability to print a physical copy and the option of copyright registration for a $55 fee.  

ProQuest offers an additional option: authors can publish their dissertation or thesis open access in their database PQDT Open for an additional fee, shifting the cost from the reader to the author. Making a dissertation open gives anyone, regardless of affiliation or socioeconomic status  the ability to access it.  There are a few important considerations for authors interested in this option.  ProQuest charges authors a $95 fee for this option, which might be a challenge for some authors. Additionally, while PQDT Open dissertations are free for all to read, it’s unclear if authors can select a Creative Commons License for their work, which enables authors to explicitly tell others how they can use the dissertation or thesis.

The University of Chicago has a useful summary of the difference between traditional ProQuest dissertation publication, PQDT Open publishing, and publishing in a repository (like IUScholarWorks).

Will making my work open access mean I can’t rework it into an article or book?

Some students worry that publishers will not publish a book or article that is based on a dissertation. First and foremost, you should consult with publishers (or published authors/ mentors) in your field if you have ideas about developing your work further and are concerned about this.

It’s important to remember that when a dissertation goes through the publication process, a lot of the information changes in some shape or form. In other words, it’s unlikely that a dissertation can be republished without major edits.   Dee Mortensen, Senior Sponsoring Editor at the IU Press , compares the relationship between a dissertation and a book to that of a chrysalis and a butterfly.

Because of the substantial alteration involved in the transformation of book to dissertation, it is often not an issue to make the original dissertation available. The study “Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities?” supports this claim, finding that most publishers (93% of university presses) do not consider a dissertation a prior publication that would disqualify the revised version from publication.

If you’re still concerned, remember that you can embargo your dissertation for up to five years in IUScholarWorks. An embargo would mean that readers can find information (sometimes called metadata) about your dissertation on the web but they would not be able to read the full-text of the work until a specified date.

IUSW staff are happy to discuss this option with you in more detail if you’re interested. Staff can also consult with authors about Creative Commons licensing and selecting the best license based on your goals for your work.

You can submit your thesis or dissertation  to IUSW here. A staff member will deposit it and respond to you with the link–it’s that simple!

You can also view all of this information in detail in a handy slide deck by our very own Sarah Hare (PDF link). If you are an advisor or faculty member and would like us to come to your class or event to talk to your students about dissertations, please e-mail us at [email protected]. 

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Public Domain and Creative Commons: A Guide to Works You Can Use Freely

• Introduction
• Definitions
• Is it a Public Domain work?
• Is it a Creative Commons work?
• Sources for Public Domain Works
• Sources for Creative Commons Works
• Beware of These Problem Areas
• Sources for Learning More

Public Domain Definition

Public Domain works are not protected by copyright law and are, therefore, freely available for everyone to use.  Works may not be protected by copyright for a number of reasons:  

• Ideas, common facts, hypotheses, theories
• Names, short phrases
• Discoveries, processes, systems
• Caveat lector : although ideas, facts, discoveries, hypotheses, theories, processes and systems may not be protected by copyright law, any expression of them could be protected.  For instance, the prose describing a scientific hypothesis in a journal article would be protected by copyright law, but the facts and data surrounding the hypothesis would be in the public domain.   
• Due to changes in copyright law and treaties, determining the duration of copyright on a work can be very tricky.  In more complicated cases, it may be necessary to consult an attorney or copyright expert. 
• The tab, "Is it a Public Domain Work?" in this tutorial gives charts and links that could be of some assistance.
• Works published in the United States prior to January 1st, 1928 are in the public domain. 
• Copyright owner dedicated the work to the public domain.   Yes, these creations do exist!  Check out these photos posted on Flickr.com tagged with a cc0--or public domain--license.  
• Work was created by the U.S. Government .

What this means for your academic projects is that you can use as much of the work as you would like to support your instruction, research, publication, creative work, etc. without needing permission from the original copyright owner.  Here are some examples of what you can do with public domain works:

• You are an MFA candidate in Media Arts or Theatre and want to create your own adaptation, play script, or screenplay of Willa Cather's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, One of Ours -- originally published in 1922. 
• You are an English Literatures student analyzing some poems written by American poet, Elinor Wylie, from the collection of poetry, Nets to Catch the Wind , published in 1921 and would need to reprint the entire poems in your project.  
• You are a Music student who would like to publicly perform Beethoven's Cello Sonatas in a recital. 
• You are a faculty member in Art publishing a book about World War II posters created by U.S. Government agencies and want to reprint them in your book. 
• You are a Ph.D candidate in one of the sciences and would like to challenge a scientific hypothesis made by another scientist for part of your dissertation.   

Creative Commons Definition

Creative Commons works are works that are still protected by copyright.  However, its authors have chosen to allow certain kinds of uses-- such as being able to copy the work or to share it with others-- without the need to seek permission through Creative Commons license agreements.  

The best description about the Creative Commons is--of course-- from its own web site, "What is CC?": http://creativecommons.org/about/what-is-cc Here is a summary of the basic kinds of Creative Commons licenses and the uses that they allow.  These definitions are from the "Licenses" page from Creative Commons.  1. Attribution (Abbreviation: BY): This license allows the most kinds of uses.  Users may copy, create derivative works, perform, distribute, or display the work without permission; however, users must attribute you as the author in the way that you desire.    2. Non-Commercial (Abbreviation: NC) : An author can use this license to ensure that others may use their work, but not make money from using it.  3. No Derivative Works (Abbreviation: ND) : This license will allow a user to copy, perform, distribute, or display a work, but they may not create a derivative work.  For instance a user may not create a movie based on a book covered under this kind of license.  4. Share Alike (Abbreviation: SA) : If you use a work with this kind of license, any derivative work you create must also be covered by the same license. These four kinds of licenses can be mixed and matched to create a set of use conditions customized to the author's desires.  * Public Domain (Abbreviation: CC0): It is also possible for an author to release their work into the public domain by using this kind of CC license.  Creative Commons licensed works can apply to all formats of works. 

Disclaimer: This tutorial on using public domain materials, Creative Commons licensed materials, and copyright law is provided for informational purposes only!  I am not a lawyer and cannot provide legal advice.  None of what you read in this tutorial should be construed as legal advice.  Should you require legal advice, please contact an attorney.   

• << Previous: Introduction
• Next: Is it a Public Domain work? >>
• Last Updated: Mar 14, 2024 12:06 PM
• URL: https://libguides.lib.umt.edu/PublicDomainCC

Dissertations and Theses

When you prepare your dissertation/thesis, you are both an author and copyright holder of the original work as well as a user of other people's copyrighted works.

When you use other people's works or incorporate third party content into your work, your use must be authorized under the fair use exception or permission has been granted for the use.

Purdue graduate students are required to submit their dissertation to the Graduate School’s open access repository called HammerRR . Unless the author of the dissertation chooses to have an embargo, then the dissertation is publically and freely available to the world. It is important that any content not created by the author of the dissertation which is known as “third party content” is used in accordance with the fair use exception or with permission from the copyright holder.

For more information on thesis/dissertation requirements at Purdue, please contact the Graduate School Thesis/Dissertation Office .

Copyright Considerations for Dissertations and Theses

A chapter in your dissertation been previously published as a journal article.

Check the author agreement that you signed with the publisher to determine if you transferred your copyright to the publisher in exchange for having your article published. If you did, then you will need to contact the publisher to request permission to reproduce the article in your dissertation.

Hot Tip: Check the agreement to see if the publisher specified that you can use the article in your dissertation. There are some publishers that will specifically authorize that use in their author agreements.

There are third party images included in your dissertation.

If you determine that the use is not fair use then send a request in writing to the copyright holder to ask for permission to use the image in your dissertation.

Hot Tip: Use works that are in the public domain or find images that have Creative Commons licenses that would allow your use.

Pumerantz Library Research Guides

Research assistance, subject guides, & useful resources, theses and dissertations: reusing copyrighted material.

• Introduction
• Writing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• Reusing Copyrighted Material

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What Do I Need Permission For?

You generally DO need permission to:

• Reuse a survey or assessment instrument created by another person
• Reprint a table, figure, or image from a book or journal article
• Reprint a copyrighted image from the Internet (assume all images are copyrighted unless stated otherwise)
• Make modifications to a copyrighted image or an image released under a Creative Commons No Derivatives license
• Reprint copyrighted images or images released under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license in a book, journal, or other commercial venue

You generally DO NOT need permission to:

• Quote brief excerpts from a scholarly work
• Reprint images released under a Creative Commons license
• Make modifications to images released under Creative Commons licenses that do not contain " No Derivatives "
• Reprint images released under Creative Commons licenses that do not contain " Non-Commercial " in a book, journal, or other commercial venue
• Reuse any work that is in the public domain

Finding Permission-Free Images

Pumerantz Library's Medical Images & Videos research guide has a section dedicated to resources for finding public domain and Creative Commons-licensed images. 

You can also limit Google Images searches to images you can freely reuse or modify for commercial or noncommercial purposes:

Citing Images

A citation for an image or figure should have the following:

• Title of the image
• Author or creator of the image
• Source of the figure or image 
• Copyright or Creative Commons license
• "Reprinted with permission from [Copyright holder]' (if relevant)
• Description of any modifications to the image (if relevant)

Sample citations for Creative Commons images can be found here .

If the original source is a book or journal, include the full citation for the source, not just a URL (even if you originally retrieved the work online). More information about book and article citations can be found on the Pumerantz Library's Citation Style research guide .

If the original source is a website, embed the link to the title rather than typing out the full URL in the citation.

How Do I Request Permission to Reuse Material?

Who owns the copyright?

• Journal articles: The copyright owner is usually the journal (or the journal's publisher), not the author. 
• Books: The author usually retains the copyright, but the publisher generally handles reprint requests. 
• Websites: This can be tricky to determine. Some websites create all their own content, including images, and own the copyright on everything on the site. Other websites, like blogs or aggregator sites, may use images and other content from multiple sources. You can paste the image's URL into a reverse image search to track down the original copyright owner.

How do I contact the copyright owner?

• Journal articles: You can often find a link on the article's website that says something like "Get rights" or "Request permissions." This will take you directly to a page where you can request permission. If not, you can usually find a "Contact us" link on the journal's home page and submit the request that way.
• Books: You can contact the publisher using the mailing address listed on the copyright page of the book or look for a "Contact us" or "Request permissions" link on the publisher's website.
• Websites: If you are fairly sure the website is the original owner of the content you want, use the "Contact us" form or other contact information listed to submit your request. If the website is not the owner, try to find contact information for the original creator--a link to the owner's site is often embedded in their name, if it is listed.

How long does it take to hear back?

It depends! In some cases, you will hear back in a few days. Other times, you may hear back in weeks, months--or never. It is a good idea to give yourself at least a month or two if you can.

Will I be charged a fee to reuse material?

Again, it depends on the copyright owner. Many creators and publishers will allow students to reuse items in their theses or dissertations for free. Others may charge a nominal fee or fees ranging in the hundreds of dollars.

What are my options if permission is denied or too expensive--or if I just never hear back?

It is a good idea to have a backup plan, like another permission-free image or a brief written description of the desired figure (in your own words) to use instead. If only the original material will work, you can consider appealing (once, and politely) to the copyright owner. If this does not work, you may need to cut the material altogether.

Can I just redraw the figure myself? Then I'll have the rights to the image, right?

No. This is legally murky at best (if you redraw the image in a completely different way) and shady/illegal at worst. Use one of the solutions listed above instead.

Copyright and permissions can be difficult to navigate. If you need help, please email  Kelli Hines  or use the icons above to contact one of the reference librarians.

Even More Research Guides

• << Previous: Writing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• Next: Submitting Your Work >>
• Last Updated: Sep 17, 2024 1:37 PM

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Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

How can I find images to use in my thesis that are free/unrestricted by copyright?

I need to add some images to my thesis. I would strongly prefer that these are free (no cost) and not restricted by copyright. I have used Google Image to find images, I don't know how to determine what the copyright restrictions are, or what license types apply. I will not use them in any published paper, just for my unpublished thesis.

P.S. Here are the search options for Google Image:

• creative-commons

• 2 Depends on the license terms under which your thesis will be distributed and the laws of the country in which you're writing it. –  David Z Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 7:32
• 1 The easiest solution (if you had a budget for it) would be to commission an artist. –  emory Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 10:11
• 1 In addition to the helpful answers below, and the mention of Flickr, there are websites which specialise in copyright-free images. For example, I use Pixabay frequently - all the images there are under Creative Commons. You may be able to use Google to find a similar website which provides the pictures you want. –  Luna Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 10:17
• 3 @phresnel For my thesis, I had to inquire about the copyright for one single image; so this is not really something that comes up often. Degrees tell only a small fraction about overall ability, indeed. For example, I am not great at knitting. –  henning no longer feeds AI Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 14:01
• 2 Could you tell me why does your thesis need generic images (i.e. ones which can be found on the Internet, whether free or not)? –  Piotr Migdal Commented Jul 6, 2015 at 13:37

10 Answers 10

You can't rely on the options for Google Image search. Instead, you will have to do additional research for each of the images you find and intend to use.

First, you need to find the original author/creator of that image. It may or may not be the same as the owner/creator of the web site where you find the image. (They may have copied the image from somewhere else, with or without permission.) You can use Google Image search "search by image" option to find other copies of that same image on other sites.

Second, you need to find the copyright statement for that image on the site of the owner . In many cases, you'll find a copyright statement as part of the "Terms of Service" for the whole web site. In other cases, there will be a copyright statement for each and every image.

Third, when in doubt, you need to contact the author/owner and ask for permission to use the image.

If all this seems cumbersome and so non-digital, be aware that copyright law (and intellectual property rights law in general) still lives in the pre-digital age. Lawyers still send faxes to each other and to the courts. Think about that.

• Thanks @MrMeritology. From your comment I can assume that Google Image filters are totally useless. The idea was to use some images from others in order to save some time. If there is no straightforward way to find free scientific images, I might skip images in thesis. Only text in the introduction and discussion. For me is OK, lets see for the committee. –  biotech Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 9:54
• @biotech yes, google filters are completely useless. And also, you may have to cite the image author in your sources, depending on where you are. –  Mindwin Remember Monica Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 13:26
• 1 What is this thing you call "fax"...? (just kidding, but that is pretty ridiculous) –  user541686 Commented Jul 3, 2015 at 10:03

This depends highly on your countries laws and regulations.

For example: The German copyright laws has some limitations for the use of works in the area of teaching and research .

With the CC licenses you risk less mistakes. But you have to take care of the correct distribution.

• name the author and source if the license contains BY.
• don't change the file and only use it in the original composition when license contains ND (no derivate).
• don't use media with licenses containing NC (not commercial) in a thesis or paper that contributes to (pending) patents. That could be interpreted to be a commercial use.
• [changed:] according to the (IANAL-)comments one can use SA (share alike) licensed material without putting your thesis under the same license

In any case, pages that give information about the media-license are good sources, because you mostly have a clear licensing statement for any file. So you can easily decide whether and how to use it. I doubt that an author will change the license later on. You could use a web preservation repository service like WebCite to create evidence that the file had a specific license when you found and decided to use it.

Suggestions for search:

• Wikimedia Commons
• Flickr (thanks to Henning for the suggestion)

• 3 "be aware to put your thesis under the same license as the used media if their licenses contain SA (share alike)" - I wonder whether this is accurate. Just like a software package can contain single files whose license deviates from the license of the rest of the files in the package, can't a thesis document be subject to license X, with the exception of some graphics depicted in the thesis that are (both originally, and still in the thesis) subject to license Y? –  O. R. Mapper Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:47
• 1 @O. R. Mapper: That's a good point. The sentence I wrote is my understanding of the share alike (SA) property. Maybe someone else can provide a more detailed view on SA property as a comment. –  André Kleinschmidt Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:51
• 2 In particular, I could create a graphic on my own, include it in my thesis and declare that particular graphic to be licensed as CC-BY-SA, even though the entirety of my thesis is not. That sounds like it should work, as otherwise, non-CC-BY-SA-licensed "works" (books, websites, ...) could never publish CC-BY-SA-licensed graphics, which probably isn't the case (?) But if that is possible, it sounds reasonable to assume that CC-BY-SA-works that I took from elsewhere could just as well be integrated (and republished as CC-BY-SA) in non-CC-BY-SA-works. IANAL. Maybe warrants a new question. –  O. R. Mapper Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:54
• 2 Case in point: Websites such as Wikimedia Commons could never contain both images subject to the CC-BY-SA license and images subject to the CC-BY-NC-SA license at the same time. (Not to mention other share-alike-licenses with more incompatible other terms.) –  O. R. Mapper Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:58
• 3 Yes, you can use a CC-BY-SA image in eg. a book without it having to be CC-BY-SA itself. The bigger work is what is called an aggregation . Note that for instance Creative Commons considers that you can use sharealike images in a document without infecting the document. The FSF thinks the document would need to be under such license. Other people consider that in both cases you can include the images. And of course, for legal advice you should consult your lawyer about the specific license, IANAL. –  Ángel Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 13:07

I'm a strong supporter of Wikipedia and her sister projects. One of those projects is exactly what you're looking for. The Wikimedia Commons is a database of 26,536,356+ freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. There are millions of images (not just photographs) and thousands added each day. You can view all the licensing for every media file, although that might not be entirely necessary considering all of them are free to use.

• I was going to suggest the same. Wikimedia Commons is awesome. –  Miguel Commented Jul 4, 2015 at 16:34

Flickr makes it very easy to find images that have a "free" license in the sense explained in Andrés answer . These also include beautiful images from public archives , such as the British Library. In contrast to a google image search (see MrMeritology's answer ), the author and copyright information on Flickr are reliable. However, one caveat is that the author might change the license and you have no way to prove that the work was "free" when you first used it.

If you are confused whether or not you can reuse a copyrighted image, this flowchart might help.

I wanted a very specific image for my dissertation, and found a simple solution - I drew it myself, and scanned the result. Since I created it, the copyright status was exactly the same as the words I was writing. It did not need any acknowledgement or reference. It cost me a few dollars for materials, and about an hour of my time.

• Are you kidding? The images I need are from the papers I cite in the introduction. –  biotech Commented Jul 6, 2015 at 17:28
• No, I'm not kidding. Whether draw-it-yourself works for a specific image depends on the situation. If you need images from existing papers, I don't see any alternative to contacting the copyright holders of those papers to request permission to use those images. –  Patricia Shanahan Commented Jul 6, 2015 at 18:17

There are a number of sites where you can download images. For certain sites, attribution isn't required (but usually appreciated). For example:

• https://picjumbo.com/
• https://pixabay.com/en/
• https://stocksnap.io/
• http://www.pexels.com/
• https://unsplash.com/grid

Flickr ( https://www.flickr.com ) also offers a great database of free images. You can use the search tool and then filter by copyright types:

• Images under "Commercial use & mods allowed" are free but attribution is required. This means you'll have to link to their author and to the License page. if you've modified the image, you also have to specify it
• Images under "No known copyright restrictions" are in the public domain or universal commons (CC0 1.0 Universal) and no attribution is required.

• May I add to the list of site: free-images.com imagefree.com/en freepik.com –  Imageree Commented Jul 27, 2022 at 23:04

In order to use images in your thesis you need to know who made them so that you can properly credit them, regardless of the issue of copyright. Proper accreditation is probably a more significant issue for your thesis than complying with copyright laws since failure to properly credit images including in your thesis is plagarism .

Since you will need to identify the original creator of each piece anyway, I would suggest you rely much more on what you learn through this route than anything Google tells you.

I think, if you guide yourself by the creative commons it could get easier but Im not aware of how your contry takes this online practices so you might want to check that

This is an article that helped me a lot some weeks ago with free photos and images ready to be used, some shared under the creative commons other freely shared by their owners

https://www.shopify.com/blog/17156388-22-awesome-websites-with-stunning-free-stock-images

There are a few sites which allows you to use images copyright free. Just note that you cannot re-sell those images.

Follow this

Another royalty free stock image site is: http://www.sxc.hu/

I would also suggest take pictures of your own. You can pose for yourself or ask family or friend.

• 2 I'm not sure OP would be interested in the "pose for yourself" option you mentioned; can you elaborate on how that helps them? –  Mad Jack Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 21:55
• Pose for yourself if a model is required. Your thesis will look much more credible if the pictures are also created by you. –  user3108698 Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 23:17
• 3 «royalty free» is not what the OP meant. also, this section of the legal information section looks fishy: «Freeimages cannot be held responsible for any copyright violations, and cannot guarantee the legality of the Images stored in its system. If you want to make sure, always contact the photographers.» –  henning no longer feeds AI Commented Jul 3, 2015 at 9:03

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• Graduate Thesis Submission Guidelines
• University Library

Questions concerning the University policy on graduate theses should be directed to the Office of Research Initiatives (408-551-7041). Questions concerning other aspects of these guidelines should be directed to the University Library Administrative Offices (408-554-6830).

University Policy

Theses completed in partial fulfillment of a graduate degree at Santa Clara University must be deposited electronically with the University Archives and made publicly available by the Santa Clara University Library.

To create the electronic manuscript, the student should convert the complete thesis to a single PDF document (see below regarding supplementary files). The electronic manuscript is then delivered to the department office in accordance with their submission requirements along with a completed Graduate Student Thesis Publication Agreement . Please do not include a scanned signature on the title page of the PDF, but do submit one additional printed title page with the thesis advisor's original signature. The department office will verify that the thesis meets format requirements.

Ph.D. candidates must also submit a copy of their thesis to ProQuest Information and Learning (formerly UMI) for inclusion in Dissertation & Theses Global, with a completed ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Agreement Form. At their option, Ph.D. candidates may have ProQuest register their copyright for the thesis with the Library of Congress Copyright Office and/or may order personal bound copies of their thesis from ProQuest; there are additional fees for these services.

At the end of each quarter, individual department offices will deposit electronic copies of all theses submitted that quarter to the University Library.

For Jesuit School of Theology (JST) degrees awarded by Santa Clara University, the SCU Library is responsible for making the electronic copy available. Because of its affiliation with the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), the JST may require that one or more physical copies of the thesis also be deposited in the GTU Library. For JST degrees awarded by the GTU, the thesis depository requirements of the GTU apply.

The University has the right to publish the title, author, and abstract of each thesis on the Internet. The thesis will be made available through a persistent URL embedded in the online catalog. Via the Graduate Student Thesis Publication Agreement , students grant the University a non-exclusive right to provide digital access to the thesis.

Authors may choose whether or not to embargo their complete thesis from being publicly available via the Internet for a period of six months, one year, or two years. Under an embargo, the thesis will be available to SCU-authenticated users, but not to readers outside the SCU community. The embargo option may be appropriate for a student who has a patent application in process or wants to delay access to the thesis for a limited amount of time to pursue commercial interests or other publication. Embargoes may be lifted early at the request of the author. If you have any questions about whether you should embargo your thesis, please consult with your advisor.

Format Requirements

Individual programs may establish their own style guidelines for theses, except that each thesis must include a title page and an abstract of 350 words or fewer. In addition to the above requirements, a thesis with accompanying files must include a list of submitted files indicating the file formats and software version used to create each file.

The thesis may be accompanied by supplementary materials. There is no limit on the number of supplemental files that can be submitted. The following table outlines preferred file formats for different content types. If you anticipate needing to submit a file in another format, please check with your department.

The University Library no longer requires or supports print copies of theses. Students, advisors, and departments wanting bound copies should order them from ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global.

For the reference for students wanting to seek other options for binding a print copy of their thesis, when the Library required a print copy of theses, it required that left margins not be less than 1.5 inches (to ensure readability when bound), that the thesis include a title page and an abstract of 350 words or less, and that print copies be printed or copied single sided onto white, acid-free 20 pound or heavier paper.

Bulletin Entry

All graduate programs that require or allow students the option of completing a thesis will include the following paragraph in their graduate bulletin, modified as appropriate to the program requirements (optional entries are in square brackets, except all Ph.D.-granting programs must include the final bracketed statement regarding ProQuest).

[Statement here about a thesis being required or being an option for the program.] Guidelines for the preparation of theses are available from [name of school or department]. At least XX month(s) prior to the date the degree is to be conferred, the candidate must submit a signed Graduate Student Thesis Publication Agreement and a PDF of their thesis [as well as XX printed copies of the final version of the thesis , including original approval pages], to [name of school or department]. The thesis will be made available, subject to an embargo, on the Internet by the University Library. [Candidates for the Ph.D. will also submit their thesis to ProQuest Information and Learning to be published in Dissertations & Theses Global. There is a charge for this service, which ProQuest will collect. At their option, Ph.D. candidates may have ProQuest register their copyright for the thesis with the Library of Congress Copyright Office. There is an additional fee for this service, which ProQuest will collect.]

Steps for Submitting a Graduate Thesis

• The student completes their thesis and obtains the required signatures, as determined by the student's department.
• The student downloads and completes the Graduate Student Thesis Publication Agreement and submits the completed form, along with the PDF of the actual thesis (with any accompanying files) to their department office.
• Ph.D. candidates must also  submit a PDF to ProQuest and pay any required fees ($25 for Traditional Publishing is the only fee required by Santa Clara University).
• The department office submits the PDF of the thesis (and files) to the University Library.
• Students, advisors, and departments wanting bound copies should order them from ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global .
• The Library will make the thesis (i.e. the PDF file) available through a persistent URL embedded in the online catalog record. If the thesis is under embargo, the pdf file will only be available to SCU-authenticated users, but not to readers outside the SCU network. Once the embargo is lifted, all users will have access to the electronic version of the thesis.

Updated December 28, 2017

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Continuous Traumatic Stress in Palestine

The psychological effects of the occupation and chronic warfare on palestinian children.

Farajallah, Iman

Adjunct Professor at Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley Psychologist, Hyde Street Community Services, San Francisco, California, US

Address for correspondence: Dr. Iman Farajallah, P.O. Box 3624, Santa Clara California, 95055, US. E-mail: [email protected]

Received June 29, 2022

Accepted June 30, 2022

Received in revised form June 29, 2022

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

For more than 70 years, the children of Palestine have experienced increasing levels of war trauma due to the ongoing conflicts with Israel. These children have been subjected to danger and violence to such an extent that it has created a societal underclass that has become the focus of research to determine the psychological impact of near-constant war. This article examines the growing body of literature devoted to analyzing how war and postwar trauma in children, specifically the children of Palestine, reveals a modern-day tragedy of epic proportions. The article presents the continuous traumatic stress in Palestine and the psychological effects of the occupation and chronic warfare on Palestinian children through the victims' war trauma experiences.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The word trauma originated from the Greek word for wound and was applied for physical injury before it became used for psychological injury by the end of the 19 th century.[ 1 ] By definition, trauma is a psychological wound, and a traumatic event is a major stressor, which suddenly overwhelms a person, threatens their life or personal integrity, leaves no escape, and triggers accompanying horror that overwhelms the individual's ability to understand and cope with the situation.[ 2 ] The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 (3) ) defines trauma as “exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence.”[ 3 ] Trauma is connected to the actual victim of threats, injury, or violence or witnesses of those threats, injuries, or violence.

Traumatic event

The DSM-5 (3) definition of traumatic event requires all of the following diagnostic criteria: Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence, in one or more of four ways: (a) directly experiencing the event; (b) witnessing, in person, the event occurring to others; (c) learning that such an event happened to a close family member or friend; and (d) experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to adverse details of the traumatic event(s).[ 3 ]

Lived experience

The term lived experience is used in phenomenological research to emphasize the importance of individual experiences of people as conscious human beings.[ 4 ] Lived experiences, as opposed to secondhand experiences, are experienced directly/.[ 5 ]

Children who survive man-made disasters such as war do not emerge unscathed and may pay a high price psychologically, emotionally, and/or behaviorally.[ 6 ] Studies of the psychological, emotional, and behavioral effects of war on children have compared those effects to child survivors of other forms of disaster that were not manmade, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods, and found noted similarities in symptoms and coping mechanisms. Despite the overwhelming history of these effects on children of war, there is still much ongoing research into the full impact war has on children, including the long-lasting psychological effects.[ 7 ] Children who are exposed to war, ethnic cleansing, political oppression, concomitant interpersonal violence, and flight from their homes exhibit long-lasting impacts. It is not currently known whether the long-lasting impact of these events can be more likened to single-episode traumas (which are associated with a greater degree of recovery) or child maltreatment involving physical and sexual abuse (which is associated with more complex, diverse, and enduring outcomes).[ 8 ] All over the world, there is a direct parallel between children who have been exposed to war and victims of other overwhelming, disastrous life events.[ 9 ] Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) studies indicate that children in all war-torn regions experience posttraumatic stress symptoms such as thoughts and sensory images that recur uncontrollably and certain behavior modifications that may not be obvious until they surface in a specific instance.[ 10 11 12 ] For example, the results of a child's exposure to war could lead to the child introducing a traumatic element to playtime, dreaming, storytelling, listening to music, and other activities. The results of a child's exposure to war may also manifest through avoidance of emotional expressions, such as a noted lack of interest in life and antisocial behavior; these have been a common concern since World War II.[ 9 ] There is a long history of descriptive reports of children's psychological reactions to wartime stress in many regions, including Cambodia, Afghanistan, South Africa, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Balkans, Kuwait, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq.[ 13 14 15 ]

After the Gulf War, 70% of Kuwaiti children reported moderate-to-severe posttraumatic stress reactions.[ 16 ] Depressed Bosnian adolescents who had moved to America during the Yugoslavian war were reported to exhibit PTSD and depression.[ 17 ] The National Institute of Mental Health (2015) defines psychological trauma as an emotionally painful, shocking, stressful, and sometimes life-threatening experience. The examples include natural disasters, physical or sexual abuse, and terrorism. Research must study the perceived impact of trauma from culture to culture to accurately assess its impact on children.[ 18 ] Specific coping mechanisms and protective factors appear to be independent of culture and societal structure. Long-term exposure to war and terrorism can undermine civil society, which can be very dangerous for children, as observed in Belfast, Mozambique, and many refugee camps in the late 20 th century. As observed in massive trauma, when all the aspects of a child's ecology collapse (as seen in both war and natural disasters), the lives of children may be profoundly affected indirectly by the effects of the terror on the embedded systems in which they live.[ 19 ] When the order has disintegrated into chaos, there is the potential danger that children will affiliate with terrorists, form gangs, or emulate violent behavior if that is what they perceive will help to protect them. If civil society breaks down, which it often does in bombings and large-scale attacks such as those that decimated Aleppo in Syria, the disintegration of their world may be more of a threat to children's mental health in the long term than the war trauma itself.

EXPERIENCE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Palestinians have experienced wars generation after generation since 1917, when the British occupied Palestine. While Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have experienced many years of conflict and adversity, the situation in Gaza has worsened dramatically over the past decade. The Israeli air, sea, and land blockade on Gaza has stifled economic growth, entrenched, widespread poverty, and chronic food insecurity, and has caused long-term mental anguish for many Palestinians, in particular the children. The children of Palestine are subject to continued trauma due to the presence of war as an accepted fact of their lives.[ 9 20 21 ] Children in the Gaza Strip have experienced one war after another. They had no break: from the First Intifada (1987–1993), the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000–2005), the Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 – January 2009), the Operation Pillar of Defense (November 2012), the Operation Protective Edge (July–August 2014), and finally to the most recent Israeli war on Gaza in May 2021, Operation Guardian of the Walls.[ 22 ]

The 2014 war was the most devastating round of hostilities since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967.[ 23 ] The 50-day attack left more than 2,200 Palestinian civilians, including 551 children, killed. At least 142 Palestinian families with three or more members were killed in an Israeli attack. Over 11,200 Palestinian civilians, including 3,436 children, were injured, with 10% suffering a permanent disability.[ 24 ] Near 18,000 homes, 82 hospitals and clinics, and 259 schools in Gaza were destroyed or damaged during the 2014 conflict.[ 11 ] At the height of hostilities, 500,000 Palestinians, or 28% of the Gaza population, were displaced and 17,700 still remained displaced in 2018.[ 25 ]

Since Palestinians began mass protests around the Israel–Gaza borders on March 30, 2018, the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorated further. Between 2018 and 2019, almost 29,000 Palestinians have been injured since the protests began and more than 194 killed during the Gaza border protests, the Great March of Return. Women and children make up more than one in four of those injured and killed. Four hundred and forty-five girls and 5,334 boys were among the injured. Among those killed was 15-year-old Youssef al-Daya, who was shot by the Israeli army.[ 26 ]

Palestinians were shot by live ammunition, shrapnel, and tear gas canisters by the Israeli army.[ 27 ]

The Palestinian News and Information Agency Wafa have documented [ Appendix 1 ] the killing of 2199 children at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces between 2000 and 2021. Furthermore, it recorded 28060 injuries among Palestinian children and 4280 arrests between the years 2008 and 2020 among Palestinian children by the Israeli forces. In response, the General Assembly of the United Nations deplored any excessive, disproportionate, or indiscriminate force by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians.[ 28 ]

Many children in Gaza are living in constant fear that at any moment their lives might be upturned once again. Maysaa, who was severely injured along with her sister, lost her mother and brother, who were killed by the Israeli bombing in 2014. She expressed her fear of another war to come: “When I remember what happened, I become obsessed with it. When I see someone on the street, I ask them, do you think the war is over? They would reply, there is a war coming that is going to be worse than what we have already been through. I think to myself, are we better off than the ones who got killed? I then think, we can manage because we are old enough, but what about the children, what will happen to them? How are we going to help the little ones escape and protect them? As I relate that, I can hear my little sister screaming and crying.”[ 29 ]

Sure enough, in May 2021, the war hit again and Palestinian children once again had to experience the ugly face of war. The United Nations reported that during the 11-day war on Gaza from May 10, to 21, 260 Palestinians, including at least 129 civilians, of whom 66 were children were killed by the Israeli military attacks on the Gaza strip and 1,948 Palestinians, including 610 children were injured.[ 30 ]

PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF WAR AND POSTWAR TRAUMA ON PALESTINIAN CHILDREN

War seriously erodes mental health in children and adults and can significantly change the lifestyle of an affected populace. The mental health of an entire nation is at risk in Palestine. In the past decade, several studies have reported high levels of mental health problems among children and adolescents, women, refugees, and prisoners in Palestine.[ 31 ] One study (Mousa and Madi, 2003) on Palestinian perceptions of their living conditions during the Second Intifada found that 46% of parents reported aggressive behavior among their children, 38% noted bad school results, 27% reported bedwetting, while 39% stated that their children suffered from nightmares. The study also claimed that more refugee (53%) than nonrefugee (41%) children behaved aggressively. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents said that shooting was the primary influence, 34% stated that it was violence on TV, 7% cited confinement at home, and 11% reported that it was the arrest and beating of relatives and neighbors. Seventy percent of nonrefugees and refugees indicated that they had not received any psychological support for the problems of their children.[ 32 ]

There are four ways to observe war that perpetuates the trauma: Watching someone else in that critical situation, a death threat to themselves, severe injury, and sexual harassment. People who experience any one of these categories can carry that memory for the rest of their lives every time they remember that traumatic event. In the Gaza Strip, children have experienced war trauma for more than three generations. Several studies suggest that, over time, the related effects of this trauma on the entire populace have contributed to a transformation of the Palestinian people into a traumatized nation.[ 33 34 35 ] Palestinian children have suffered greatly from the continued conflict that has consumed their territory for decades. Generations have grown up under the constant stress of war and its accompanying horrors. Research has increased, and studies document new atrocities that children suffer, while psychologists still measure and analyze the accumulated effects of earlier violence, death, and fear, daily on Palestinian children. The following content depicts a small portion of the attacks.

The research found that every child in Palestine had been exposed to at least three traumatic events.[ 33 34 35 ] The most prevalent types of trauma exposure for Palestinian children were as follows: 99% of children had suffered humiliation (either to themselves or a family member); 97% had been exposed to the sound of explosions/bombs; 85% had witnessed a martyr's funeral; and 84% had witnessed shelling by tanks, artillery, or military planes. Importantly, 41% of children suffer from PTSD. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that one million children live in Gaza Strip, and the fate of these children is determined by the area they live in, to witness death firsthand between wars. UNICEF also reported that about 250 thousand children in the Gaza strip are suffering from psychological problems and need help and support. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, 11 Palestinian children, out of 60 children who died as a result of the recent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in May 2021, were participating in a program of the Council, which aims to help them cope with the psychological effects of the tragedies they experienced during wars. The council described that the children died in their homes located in a densely populated area. A number of their relatives were killed and injured. Children's ages ranged from 5 to 15 years. The council reported that it works with 118 schools in the Gaza Strip, and it reaches more than 75 thousand students, through psychological and social intervention, within its program called “Better Learning Program.”[ 30 ]

In 2016, I conducted a research study titled “Children of War: Psychological Impacts of War and Postwar Trauma on the Palestinian Children in the Gaza Strip”[ 29 ] that provides evidence regarding how the ongoing war of Palestine has impacted the children of Gaza. The study shed light upon the children's narratives and their war trauma. While in Gaza, I interviewed children and their families to explore how the prolonged war has impacted the Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip mentally and physically.

Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip do not live typical lives. They observe their family members, neighbors, and friends being killed. Watching the murder of a close family member due to the Israeli bombing creates anger and frustration in children. They tend to be more aggressive and angrier. These children suffer from depression, anxiety, and continuous traumatic stress disorder. Save the children found that 95% of Palestinian children show symptoms of depression, hyperactivity, a preference for being alone, and aggression. They cannot even regularly attend school because of the bombing of school buildings and are prohibited from accessing essential school supplies. Even when they are able to go to school, their lives are extremely agonizing, with constant drones overhead preventing them from concentrating. Children become depressed when they return to school, and the friends who used to sit right next to them have been killed or have lost a body part due to severe injury. Some of the children interviewed stated that they had anger issues which they had to release by screaming. Some of them have nightmares, and some of them often wet their beds because of the nightmares. The fear of the war remains within them continuously. They are trapped with nowhere to go daily reliving their trauma to make matters worse.[ 29 ]

PALESTINIAN CHILDREN'S VOICES

During the course of this research, I wanted to explore and elevate the voices of Gazan children who have survived the violence of war and who continue to suffer today, all while trying to understand and accept what happened to them. Wa'ad, a 16-year-old girl from Beit Lahia, suffers from depression and has become an introvert and socially withdrawn. She shared her thoughts and feelings about the war: “War is horrifying and terrible on every level. I found myself psychologically trapped and scared. I found myself with nowhere to be safe, not even my own home. Psychologically, I am tired of war. We are children, and there is no safe place for us. I am getting tired of hearing the word war. I am living in a place where I am not safe and not comfortable. All my dreams suddenly crumbled to ashes.”[ 29 ]

They were forced to flee their homes: “We escaped to the schools in Camp Jabalia, and we shared rooms with other families. We divided the rooms by a piece of cloth, where the men could sit outside and the women inside. For 24 h, you have to wear a headscarf. If I need to go to the bathroom, I have to go with a friend. Psychologically, I do not feel comfortable living there. This place is not suitable to be in, but you can say this is our destiny.”[ 29 ]

Another participant, Asmaa, has her own severe problems. She was badly wounded, along with her own children, but grieves for her lost family: “I cannot see with my eye anymore. My body is full of shells and bomb shrapnel. However, the most difficult thing is that my sister, my daughter, and my sister-in-law were killed. I saw my brother-in-law's kids on fire after the shelling in front of my eyes. I tried to come closer to them, the steam was coming out of their bodies, and all of them burned. I thank the Lord, they are better now. Their dad lost his limbs. Their mother was killed, and the children received treatment in Turkey.”[ 12 ]

Young Wael and his son Sharif were severely impacted physically and psychologically after the car their car was shelled by the Israeli army: “I feel a lot scared. Fear of the future. I will not remain what I was.” “Really sometimes, if I think about the future, I will have a nervous outburst at anyone in front of me. My nervousness and stress have increased. I easily get nervous and lonely and introverted, always worried and thinking about the future. I mean, if my friend called me out the door of the house, I get angry. I stayed outside the house for one, 2, or 3h because if I stay in the house, I will make problems with everyone.”[ 29 ]

Yazan is another child whose experience of being attacked has led to fear in his daily life. When he was asked if he gets afraid when he hears the sound of tanks and drones. He replied, “Yes.” When he was asked if he escapes from it or if he gets afraid of the F16s, and why he is afraid, he replied: “I flee because they will shoot me.[ 29 ]

The bombing and killing were widespread, leaving survivors with serious physical injuries, and often, not enough medical and financial resources to adequately treat the wounded, as in the cases of the following victims interviewed in this study. Asmaa, a Palestinian mother, lost 12 family members as she fled the bombing with her youngest daughter, unable to protect all of her other children. Asmaa stated: “I, my two children, and my husband were injured. My husband was injured in the eyes and head. I was injured in the eyes and my body. My back was open from the injury and I have bomb fragments in my entire body. My son was injured in the eyes. My daughter was injured in her chest. She has no nipple in her breast anymore (and began to reveal her daughter's breast) and shrapnel in her body and legs. I suffered a serious injury in my back and my eye. My entire body is full of shells and bomb shrapnel. Look and see, some of it still in my hand and my eye. My eye also has fragments in it and is injured from the inside. My entire body is full of shells and bomb shrapnel.[ 29 ]

Dr. Qadih, Ph. D. in Psychology, summarizes what Palestinians and their children face when the world fails to respond to the tragedy in Gaza: “The children of the war in 2014 have so far not received any help from the international community, or other social care, largely because the international community does not pay attention to the needs of the children, and the suffering of the Palestinian people. The international community seems to consider the impact to be temporary: They see physical trauma but not emotional scars. The international community needs to see the impact of suffering on people's emotions and passions, and their impact on future potential. The international community ignores the psychological needs and wounds of Palestinian children. I can assure you that 90%–95% of Palestinian children need comprehensive psychological care. Comprehensive psychological care does not come overnight, much less a short-term therapy lasting 3 to 6 months. Holistic psychological care requires long-term therapy lasting 3 to 5 years to restore a child's mental health. During my work with Palestinian children who visit our clinic, I have noticed that these children have behavioral, psychological, mental, and emotional disorders. With our limited resources, we try to provide as much psychological support as possible to our clients, but it inevitably falls short. The population in Gaza, young and old, need psychological support or treatment. Our limited resources with a few trained therapists are not enough to provide the specialized treatment and services needed for these children to heal.[ 29 ]

Dr. Owaida, who works for the World Health Organization in the Gaza Strip asked the question: “What are we required to do as psychologists in the Gaza Strip? Can we feel helpless and do nothing?” His answer is: “No. With the little resources we have, we will do our best but the world needs to understand that the solution to all of our suffering, including mental health, is for the occupation to end and for the wars to end…the solution is a political solution not only a psychological one. If I am treating a child for PTSD and he asks me, “can you prevent the death of my parents if a war hits?” My answer is: I simply cannot.”[ 29 ]

The drawings by Palestinian children participating in this study reflect the violence and trauma in their daily lives. Pictures of where they lived depicted bombed houses, tanks, drones, and warplanes, and children being shot by Israeli soldiers. One drawing shows a real house bombed with the little girl's pet cat inside it, and the little girl watches helplessly, unable to save it.

Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip showed symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD. However, each child experienced different mental illnesses and their experiences with illnesses varied. Some of the children interviewed stated that they had anger issues which they had to release by screaming. Some of them have nightmares, and some of them often wet their beds because of the nightmares. The fear of the war remains within them continuously. This fear and anxiety are psychological problems resulting from exposure to war and conflict, and it is a feeling of distress resulting from fear of the coming danger. In this situation, it is war. This fear and anxiety can affect these children's ability to perform daily tasks such as going to school or even the restroom alone. Other symptoms such as muscle pain and sleep problems, difficulty concentrating, feeling tired after little effort, irritability, and anger occur among these children. Although these children share similar struggles, they experience vastly different mental illnesses from one another. Their own experiences with mental health are unique, and their trials in life and their mental health journey will not be comparable to others. Therefore, these children need comprehensive psychological care and specialized treatment, emphasizing the importance of treating every child's unique needs. Comprehensive psychological care does not come overnight, much less during a short-term therapy lasting 3 to 6 months. Holistic psychological care requires long-term treatment lasting 3 to 5 years to restore a child's mental health.[ 29 ] Palestinian children living in the war until now suffer from enormous psychological consequences due to the Israeli war. They are greatly affected by this protracted conflict's psychological and emotional trauma. The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is still alive, painful, violent, and chronic, and there is no place to be a child under the Israeli bombs. With the recent war on Gaza in May 2021, it is evident that an insidious national tragedy is unfolding before our eyes, as Palestinian children are subjected to ongoing trauma due to the presence of war and violence in their lives. This serious psychological damage suffered by Palestinian children and the Palestinian people need concrete effort from the global community to combat the destruction of an entire culture and the accumulation of irreparable psychological damage resulting from the Israeli continued wars. It is essential to create programs that provide support, teach these children how to cope, and advocate for their psychological well-being. More importantly, eradicating both the sources of suffering and trauma and alleviating the suffering of Gazan children should be the highest priority. The vicious cycle of war and violence must end, and human dignity and rights must be respected.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

It is essential to create programs that provide support, teach Gazan children how to cope, and advocate for their psychological well-being. More importantly, eradicating both the sources of suffering and trauma and alleviating the suffering of Gazan children should be the highest priority. The vicious cycle of war and violence must end, and human dignity and rights must be respected.

Citizens of the world have a responsibility: We cannot watch the murder of Palestinian children funded with military aid. We have the responsibility to ask our representatives to stop the aid, especially the sale of American weapons to Israel.

To help, we can also:

• Share news on social media, and talk to family and friends about what is happening in Gaza, Palestine, and the dire need for help in every aspect of life.
• Support research and development of mental health training programs in Gaza.
• Support programs that focus on trauma, emergency mental health care, mental and psychosocial services related to war trauma, and COVID-19.

As mental health professionals, we have a responsibility to support and advocate for the rights of Palestinians to have access to resources and mental health support. Furthermore, we need to demand that our Palestinian colleagues should be allowed to practice their profession without losing their lives or getting murdered like what happened to Dr. Mooein Ahmad al-Aloul, a 66-year-old psychiatric neurologist, who was killed in his home without any warning during the Israeli war on Gaza in May 2021.[ 36 ] The injustices taking place in Palestine for over 70 years should not make us normalize it or give up hope. We have to continue our support of the Palestinian cause until we bring change and no more people are murdered for no reason other than for being born Palestinian. We as human beings have a responsibility toward our fellow human beings. We have to stand up for justice and demand from our politicians that action must be taken now, to stop the daily bombing of Palestinians, end the murder of Palestinians, end the illegal settlements on Palestinian lands, end the confiscation of Palestinian homes, to respect Palestinian places of worship, to end the siege of the Gaza Strip, and to end the illegal occupation of Israel on Palestinian land. During my visit to the Gaza Strip for this research project, I observed that Palestinians are resilient people who do not give hope easily; love life and believe in their right to live in peace and dignity. As Palestinian men, women, and children told me, “Our only dream is to live in safety and peace.”[ 13 ]

Declaration of patient consent

The authors certify that they have obtained all appropriate patient consent forms. In the form the patient (s) has/have given his/her/their consent for his/her/their images and other clinical information to be reported in the journal. The patients understand that their names and initial s will not be published and due efforts will be made to conceal their identity, but anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

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Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Future directions in meditation research: Recommendations for expanding the field of contemplative science

Contributed equally to this work with: Cassandra Vieten, Helané Wahbeh, B. Rael Cahn, Arnaud Delorme

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Research Department, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Research Department, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, United States of America, Department of Neurology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Resources, Validation, Writing – review & editing

¶ ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Center for Optimal Living, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Institute for Health and Aging, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America

Affiliation Center for Theory and Research, Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Psychology, New York University and Nonduality Institute, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – review & editing

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Randall Children’s Hospital, Portland, Oregon, United States of America

Affiliation Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America

Affiliation Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, United States of America

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, California, United States of America

•  [ ... ],

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Research Department, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, United States of America, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America

• [ view all ]
• [ view less ]
• Cassandra Vieten, 
• Helané Wahbeh, 
• B. Rael Cahn, 
• Katherine MacLean, 
• Mica Estrada, 
• Paul Mills, 
• Michael Murphy, 
• Shauna Shapiro, 
• Dean Radin, 

• Published: November 7, 2018
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740
• Reader Comments

The science of meditation has grown tremendously in the last two decades. Most studies have focused on evaluating the clinical effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions, neural and other physiological correlates of meditation, and individual cognitive and emotional aspects of meditation. Far less research has been conducted on more challenging domains to measure, such as group and relational, transpersonal and mystical, and difficult aspects of meditation; anomalous or extraordinary phenomena related to meditation; and post-conventional stages of development associated with meditation. However, these components of meditation may be crucial to people’s psychological and spiritual development, could represent important mediators and/or mechanisms by which meditation confers benefits, and could themselves be important outcomes of meditation practices. In addition, since large numbers of novices are being introduced to meditation, it is helpful to investigate experiences they may encounter that are not well understood. Over the last four years, a task force of meditation researchers and teachers met regularly to develop recommendations for expanding the current meditation research field to include these important yet often neglected topics. These meetings led to a cross-sectional online survey to investigate the prevalence of a wide range of experiences in 1120 meditators. Results show that the majority of respondents report having had many of these anomalous and extraordinary experiences. While some of the topics are potentially controversial, they can be subjected to rigorous scientific investigation. These arenas represent largely uncharted scientific terrain and provide excellent opportunities for both new and experienced researchers. We provide suggestions for future directions, with accompanying online materials to encourage such research.

Citation: Vieten C, Wahbeh H, Cahn BR, MacLean K, Estrada M, Mills P, et al. (2018) Future directions in meditation research: Recommendations for expanding the field of contemplative science. PLoS ONE 13(11): e0205740. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740

Editor: Cosimo Urgesi, Universita degli Studi di Udine, ITALY

Received: January 9, 2018; Accepted: October 1, 2018; Published: November 7, 2018

Copyright: © 2018 Vieten et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Anonymized raw data and codebook files are publicly available at the Open Science Framework platform ( https://osf.io/wubza/ ).

Funding: We appreciate the support of the Mental Insight Foundation ( https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943256579 ) and the Social Relations of Knowledge Institute ( http://www.nonprofitfacts.com/CA/Social-Relations-Of-Knowledge-Institute.html ) for their financial support of this project. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The field of meditation research has grown exponentially in the past two decades. A total of about 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the science of meditation existed in 1990. Today, there are over 4,000 (US National Library of Medicine, pubmed.com). About 25 papers were published per year in the 1990’s, whereas over 400 were published in 2016. This rapid expansion of the field is commendable and has led to a large increase in the knowledge of cognitive, psychological, and neurophysiological changes associated with meditative practices, as well as making important contributions to the current psychotherapeutic armamentarium.

Careful efforts by clinicians, theorists, and researchers to understand meditation have led to a slow but steady shift towards translating meditative practices into clinically relevant interventions, and examining their effects on biological outcomes [ 1 – 7 ]. For example, secularized mindfulness interventions such as MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) and MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) have shown therapeutic benefit for managing pain [ 8 – 10 ] improving mental and emotional health [ 11 , 12 ], and addressing health behaviors such as overeating [ 13 ] and substance dependence [ 14 – 17 ]. Large systematic reviews show that contemplative practices infused into 8-week interventions can reduce stress and increase well-being in comparison to active psychotherapeutic control interventions [ 11 , 18 , 19 ]. Mindfulness has also been linked to increased creativity [ 20 ], offsetting age-related cognitive decline [ 21 ], and improved behavior and attention in youth educational settings [ 22 , 23 ].

This burgeoning body of research has shed significant light on the effects of meditation practices on basic mechanisms of attention, perception, emotion and cognition [ 24 – 26 ]. A robust new field of contemplative neuroscience has emerged from studies of changes in brain function and structure associated with long-term meditation practice [ 3 , 24 ] and short-term mindfulness interventions [ 27 – 30 ]. A growing body of literature has been exploring the biological and physiological mechanisms of meditation, including modulation of inflammation, cell-mediated immunity, self-related processing, inhibitory control and protective factors in biological markers of aging [ 31 – 33 ].

While these efforts in meditation science are deeply insightful, there are many outcomes, as well as phenomenological states of conscious and non-conscious processing, that have rarely been examined in the scientific literature to date.

Numerous non-ordinary experiences during or as a result of meditation are described in the texts and teachings of contemplative traditions [ 34 – 41 ]. Some examples of these include: “awakening” or “enlightenment” experiences marked by profound alterations of self-identity, self-narrative and clarity of perception; transcendence of the physical body or out of body experiences; experiences of oneness and interconnectedness; spiritual transmission from teacher to student; dyadic, group, and relational experiences; experiences of non-physical energies (e.g. chi, qi, shakti); mind to mind communication, precognition, veridical perceptions at a distance or extra-sensory perception; past-life recall and reincarnation experiences; synchronicities; experiences of God, deities, and other non-physical entities; and difficult stages of meditation, and periods of disorientation and depersonalization.

With some notable exceptions, most empirical research on meditation does not address these kinds of experiences as components, outcomes, or mechanisms of meditation, in part because these non-ordinary states can be difficult to capture and investigate in laboratory settings. However, anecdotal, survey, and interview data indicate that these aspects of meditation may be more prevalent than is commonly recognized, could represent important mediators or mechanisms by which meditation leads to beneficial cognitive, behavioral, and physiological outcomes [ 42 – 44 ], and could themselves be salient outcomes of meditation practice.

It is generally accepted that meditative practices engender a “witnessing awareness” [ 35 ] or meta-awareness of internal and external stimuli that is distinct from ordinary consciousness. Researchers have investigated this and similar constructs as important mediators of the benefits of mindfulness training, including decentering (the ability to observe one’s thoughts and feelings as temporary, objective events in the mind, as opposed to reflections of the self that are necessarily true) [ 45 , 46 ], metacognitive awareness (in which negative thoughts/feelings are experienced as mental events, rather than as the self) [ 47 ], and re-perceiving (being able to disidentify from the contents of consciousness such as thoughts and view moment-by-moment experience with greater clarity and objectivity) [ 48 ]. But there are subjectively reported states of awareness that occur during or as a result of meditation that go beyond metacognition.

A small body of research has been conducted into mystical, transcendent, nonlocal or nondual aspects of meditation practice. Tart [ 49 ] pioneered scholarly examination of altered states of consciousness produced by meditation practices and their effect on psychological well-being. Goleman [ 50 ] surveyed several types of meditation philosophy and practice, which at the time had received scarce attention in psychology or empirical research, noting that most of them focused on changing consciousness and fostering an awakened state or a hypothesized “fifth state of consciousness” [ 51 ] characterized by an experience of “pure awareness” in waking life. Transpersonal psychology has explored mystical experiences in depth, relying primarily on theory and qualitative rather than experimental research [ 52 – 54 ]. William James [ 40 ], Carl Jung [ 55 , 56 ], and Abraham Maslow [ 57 ] explored these areas as well, although the spiritual or transcendent aspects of their contributions do not often surface in the modern psychotherapeutic or scientific milieu.

More recently, both theoretical descriptions [ 58 ] and empirical investigations [ 59 , 60 ] of subjective experiences of non-duality (a sense of oneness, or a perceived dissolution of the distinction between the observer and the contents of observation) have emerged. These states are thought to occur when the silent background awareness encountered in meditation becomes sufficiently stabilized and integrated with the daily waking experience, so that the habitual reified dualities between subject and object, self and other, in-group and out-group dissipate. These states are hypothesized to lead to a more spacious, compassionate and authentic way of being [ 61 ], and appear to have a distinct neurophysiology [ 60 , 62 ].

A large body of research exists on Transcendental Meditation (TM), a popular mantra-based contemplative practice that is being utilized in secular settings such as schools, hospitals, and business settings. TM is explicitly designed to access and maintain transcendent states (as opposed to other forms of secularized meditation that are designed to reduce stress through meta-cognition, for example) [ 63 ]. TM proponents posit that a reduction in mental and physical activity through mantra repetition engenders an experience of “transcendental consciousness,” described as “self-awareness isolated from the processes and objects of experience…characterized by the absence of the very framework (time, space, and body sense) and content (qualities of inner and outer perception) that define waking experiences” (p. 77) [ 64 ]. The practice is theorized to normalize various systems in the body, particularly those that engage the sympathetic nervous system and associated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in adapting to environmental stressors [ 65 ]. Empirical evidence indicates that the transcendent state is neurologically distinct from usual waking, dreaming, or sleep states [ 66 , 67 ], and it is hypothesized to be responsible for the demonstrated benefits of TM.

There have also been empirical studies of what have been termed “nonlocal” aspects of human consciousness associated with meditation practice. During or as a result of meditation, people report experiences of perceiving information that does not appear limited to the typical five senses or seems to extend across space and time, such as precognition, clairvoyance, and mind-matter interactions (described as “siddhis” in the Hindu yogic traditions) [ 68 ]. While controversial, these studies suggest that a history of meditation practice increases the likelihood that laboratory measures of these extended forms of perception will be observed [ 69 – 71 ], indicating that there may be veridical elements of the subjective reports by meditators of timelessness, boundarilessness, and inexplicable perceptual phenomena.

It is possible that these experiences of self-transcendence (defined as the extent to which individuals conceive themselves as integral parts of the universe as a whole [ 72 ]), are active ingredients in contemplative practices. Philosophers have proposed that meditation might engender a transformation from a body/ego-based self-identity to a world/universe-centered experience of self not tied to the local body or limited to the self-narrative of the individual practitioner [ 73 ]. Some empirical evidence is beginning to emerge supporting this idea. For example, Bormann et al. [ 59 ] specifically investigated the spiritual component of a mantram-repetition meditation intervention in veterans, showing that existential spiritual well-being mediated improvement in PTSD symptoms. Another study showed that transcendental meditation decreased anxiety, improved mood, and doubled acute pain tolerance in comparison with secular forms of meditation [ 74 ].

Vago and Silbersweig [ 75 ] propose a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of meditation called S-ART—referring to self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence. Their definition of self-transcendence, “a positive relationship between self and other that transcends self-focused needs and increases prosocial characteristics” (p. 1) is a more psychological definition, but comes close to the forms of transcendence we are proposing might bear further investigation. While there has been an understandable and careful emphasis on secularizing meditation practices for clinical use, it is possible that the mystical, transpersonal, or transcendent aspects of contemplative practices are not only epiphenomena, but could be important outcomes of meditation practice, or mechanisms of action that are in part responsible for positive outcomes such as reduced stress and improved mood.

Between 2013 and 2016, a task force of meditation researchers and teachers met in a series of four three-day working meetings to identify the state of the current literature on this topic and discuss how to broaden the types of constructs being investigated in meditation research. The group ultimately identified several candidate domains that future research can fruitfully pursue. Before moving forward to recommend these domains, a cross-sectional survey was conducted to investigate prevalence and perceived significance of these under-studied experiences among meditation practitioners. The results of this survey were used to guide recommendations for domains of experience most frequently encountered by real-world practitioners.

Materials and methods

Participants.

Participants were recruited through social media and email distribution, academic list-servs, and online directories of meditation teachers and practitioners. Recruitment was not random, but a wide net was cast to achieve as broad and diverse a sample as possible. In recruitment materials no mention was made of extraordinary, transcendent, or unusual aspects of meditation, to reduce the likelihood of interest in the topic biasing respondents. Instead, participants were told that the survey was designed to assess the prevalence of “personal experiences” during or related to meditation. The only inclusion criterion was having a current or past meditation practice. If participants responded “no” to the survey question “Have you ever practiced meditation?” or if they were below 18 years of age, they were excluded.

Online survey

Development of the online survey occurred during the third of four 2–3 day working group meetings. We conducted a comprehensive literature review prior to the meetings, to explore whether the domains of meditation research we suspected were understudied had received any substantive research attention. At the first two meetings, we engaged in a collaborative process of mapping the field to determine what domains of meditation research were experiencing growth in funding, interest, and publications as compared to aspects of meditation experiences and outcomes that had received less interest. We engaged in a process of consensus building regarding which categories remained to be pursued with academic rigor. Several categories of under-studied but potentially important domains of meditation experience were identified, and our next step was to determine whether experiences and outcomes associated with those domains were actually experienced by people practicing meditation. Terms were defined, existing measures identified, and items created for constructs without adequate measures to assess the prevalence of such experiences during, after, or related to meditation.

Mystical and transcendent experiences were measured with an adapted version of the Revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30). The MEQ30 is a thirty-item questionnaire originally used to measure mystical aspects of psilocybin and other psychedelic compounds’ effects in laboratory studies [ 76 , 77 ]. The scale has excellent internal consistency for the total score (alpha = .93), and good internal consistency for the four subscales: (1) Mystical, alpha = .93; (2) Positive Mood, alpha = .83; (3) Transcendence of Time and Space, alpha = .81; and (4) Ineffability, alpha = .80. The revised measure asked, “Have you had any of these experiences while meditating?” with respect to 30 experiences such as “Loss of your usual sense of time,” “Sense of awe or awesomeness,” “Experience of amazement and ecstasy,” or “Sense that the experience cannot be described adequately in words.” Response options were 1 = This has never happened to me; 2 = This has happened once; 3 = This has happened 2–5 times; 4 = This has happened many times; or 5 = This almost always happens to me. The maximum mean score for each subscale is 5, and the minimum is 1. Mean scale scores with standard deviations and percentage of total possible were calculated as recommended, and. percentages of respondents endorsing each item are also presented.

Extraordinary experiences.

To assess the prevalence of and response to other extraordinary experiences, the survey asked about other domains of interest that emerged during the working meetings. Social/Relational items included items such as feeling a strong connection to a meditation teacher, experiencing a sense of collective energy in group meditation, and whether the meditation practice happened in a group, during a retreat, or in a sacred place. Anomalous Physical and Perceptual items included sensations in the body not apparently caused by the physical environment (e.g. heat, cold, tingling), altered sense of vision, hearing, body sensations, smell or taste and breathing, an altered sense of time or space, an altered sense of awareness or identity, increased synchronicities (unlikely coincidences perceived as meaningful), and perception of nonphysical entities (such as a God presence, higher powers, divine beings or angels, demons or negative figures, guides, or other visitors). Experiences related to subjective experiences of extended perception included external physical phenomena (objects moving without apparent physical force), and clairvoyance/telepathy (perceiving information that could not have been known to you by any known physical means, but later turned out to be true)). Difficult States included items such as disturbing feelings of fear, and dread or terror during or after meditation.

Participants were also asked if they communicated any of those experiences to a meditation teacher, and if so 1) whether the teacher was interested or willing to discuss the experiences, 2) how important the teacher thought the experience was, and 3) whether the teacher gave any advice or insight into the experience, and the setting in which the experience happened. To assess perceived importance and valence of the extended perception experiences, because these experiences have been more frequently considered distractions or non-meaningful side-effects of meditation, participants were also asked if those experiences were meaningful to them, how pleasant/unpleasant they found those experiences.

Data were also collected on demographics, current and past religious/spiritual beliefs and practices, meditation experience, and self-reported history of psychological disorders. The survey was administered with the SurveyMonkey platform ( http://www.surveymonkey.com ) and took approximately 45 minutes to complete. Surveys were administered between November 10, 2014 and February 3, 2015. All research activities were approved by the Institute of Noetic Sciences Institutional Review Board (IRB) and were conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki . Written informed consent was obtained from all research participants. The survey instrument and codebook can be found in the S1 and S2 Files supporting information.

Statistical analysis

Data were retrieved from SurveyMonkey and each entry checked for appropriate values. Since we were primarily interested in prevalence, descriptive statistics were calculated, including means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages depending on data type. Data were analyzed in Microsoft Excel 10.0 (Microsoft, Redmond, WA) and STATA/IC 12.1 (Stata Corp, College Station, TX).

Demographics

1,856 participants began the survey. 1,793 responded “yes” to having ever practiced meditation and were over 18 years old (those who responded “no” were not asked to continue). Of those, 1,130 participants completed the entire survey. Only data from completers are reported here. Participants were 59% female, and 41% male with an average age of 47 ± 16 (range 18–91). Most participants had some college education (8% high school or equivalent; 20% college/technical school; 33% bachelor’s degree; 24% master’s degree; 15% doctoral degree/professional degree). Meditators from 66 countries around the world participated in the survey. The most represented countries included the United States (57%), Canada (8%), United Kingdom (8%), Australia (4%), India (2%), Portugal (2%), Germany (2%), and New Zealand, Norway, and Mexico (1%), with the remainder (14%) from countries with less than 1% of participants. Twenty-five percent of participants said “Yes” to having ever been formally diagnosed with a psychological disorder, with depression and anxiety being the most prevalent disorders endorsed (Depression- 19%, Anxiety- 14%, Obsessive compulsive- 6%, Eating- 2%, Psychosis- 1%, Impulse control- 1%, Personality- 1%).

Religion/Spirituality

Participants were asked to indicate their childhood spiritual or religious affiliation. Christianity was the most endorsed affiliation for all participants (73%) with the next highest being None (11%) (see Table 1 ). Most had a single religious influence growing up, with 7% of participants endorsing multiple religions in childhood. Participants were asked how much this childhood religion or spirituality influenced their upbringing or how much it was part of their family life growing up, with a Likert scale ranging from 0—Not at All to 5- Deeply. The responses were generally evenly distributed. (Not at all- 14%; 1–18%; 2–14%; 3–21%; 5–16%; Deeply- 17%). “ Spiritual but not religious ” was the most endorsed current spiritual or religious affiliation for all participants ( Table 1 ). Religious and spiritual practice was quite important in participants’ current lives, in comparison to in childhood. In response to the question, “How important is your religious or spiritual practice to you now?” 69% of participants rated their practice Very Important, with 17% responding Somewhat Important, 6% A Little Bit Important, and 9% Not Important.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740.t001

Meditation practice

The average number of years participants engaged in regular (at least once per week) meditation practice was 14.7 ± 13.5 (range 0–75). In the last six months, 71% of participants engaged in “daily” or “more than weekly” meditation practice (Not at all—2%, Less than monthly—4%, Less than weekly, more than monthly—12%, Weekly- 11%, Less than daily, more than weekly—30%, Daily—41%). The most common type of meditation practice was breath-focused followed by open awareness/mindfulness/vipassana (participants could select more than one: Transcendental Meditation—28%, breath-focused—67%, body scan—34%, contemplative prayer—20%, mantra repetition—31%, open awareness/mindfulness—50%, visualization—38%). The most common physical posture was sitting (Sitting- 74%, Laying down- 20%, Walking- 2%, Other- 4%). Most people practiced meditation at least daily or weekly, and more than half of the participants (56%) had completed a multiple-day meditation retreat.

Mystical experiences

The Revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) subscale scores are detailed in Table 2 . The mean frequencies for all 4 subdomains (Mystical (MYS), Positive Mood (PM), Transcendence of Time and Space (TTS), and Ineffability (IN)) were in the 3.26–3.71 range, indicating frequencies between “2–5 times” (3) and “many times” (4). The Positive Mood domain was most frequently experienced, followed by Ineffability, Transcendence, and Mystical experiences.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740.t002

Frequencies for each item in the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire are shown in Fig 1 . Over 40% of respondents reported experiencing all items except one (experience of ecstasy) “many times” or “almost always.”

MEQ Subscales: PM = Positive Mood, TTS = Transcendence of Time and Space, INF = Ineffability, MYS = Mystical (Facets of Mystical: MYS-NQ = Noetic Quality, MYS-SA = Sacredness, MYS-IU = Internal Unity, MYS-EU = External Unity). Some items have been truncated due to space. MEQ full items and MEQ subscale scores are available in the supplemental materials.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740.g001

Extraordinary experiences

Extraordinary experiences were measured by items newly developed for this study by the working group, arranged into categories including 1) extraordinary physical experiences, 2) spatial-temporal, 3) cognitive-psychological, 4) relational, and 5) extended phenomena. Categories were not combined into subscales, but were used for assessing prevalence of each individual item, and therefore no factor analysis or internal consistency analysis was performed.

The frequencies of these experiences are displayed in Table 3 . Altered breathing and sensations in the body that were not apparently caused by the physical environment (such as heat, cold, pressure, tingling or other body sensations) were the most common physical experiences, with 88% and 85% of participants respectively reporting experiencing these at least once, and of those 75% and 73% of people reporting that they had experienced this many times or almost always. Altered sense of time and increased synchronicities were the most common spatio-temporal experiences, with 86% and 82% respectively reporting these and of those, 62% and 65% experiencing them many times or almost always. Altered awareness and aha! moments were the most common cognitive/psychological experiences, with 91% and 89% respectively reporting these experiences, and of those 67% and 62% many times or almost always. Sensing the collective energy of the group was the most common relational experience, reported at least once by 76% of respondents, and many times or always by 47%. Clairvoyance and/or telepathy was the most common extended perception experience, with 56% reporting experiencing this at least once and 30% many times or always The least common, but still quite prevalent, experiences overall were external physical phenomena (objects moving or changing without apparent physical cause) (31%), and disturbing emotions (32%).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740.t003

Salience and valence of experiences

To control the length of the survey, and because these experiences have been often pointed to as distractions or non-meaningful side effects, we asked follow-up questions regarding valence and salience of only the two extended perception items (data not shown in table). Participants who had clairvoyant or telepathic experiences (56%) rated the experience as “quite meaningful or important” (mean = 4.01, SD = 1.11; Response Scale: 1 = Not at all, 2 = A little bit, 3 = Somewhat, 4 = Quite a bit, 5 = Very much) and “somewhat pleasant” (mean = 4.10, SD = 1.10; Response scale: 1 = Very Unpleasant, 2 = Somewhat Unpleasant, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Somewhat Pleasant, 5 = Very Pleasant). Participants who had experienced external physical phenomena (31%) rated the experience as “quite meaningful or important” (mean = 4.01, SD = 1.11) and “somewhat pleasant” (mean = 4.07, SD = 1.07).

Sharing experiences with teachers

Participants were asked “Of the meditation experiences you reported on this survey, which did you mention to a mediation and/or spiritual teacher?” Participants could endorse sharing more than one experience. Six-hundred and one, or just over half of participants reported sharing the following experiences with teachers Mystical/Transcendent n = 414; Unusual Body n = 331; Spatial/Temporal n = 352; Cognitive/psychological n = 426; Relational n = 358; Extended Perception n = 272. The other 519 participants did not report any experiences to a teacher. Teachers were mostly willing to discuss the experiences with the student (11% Not at all, 8% A little bit, 20% Somewhat, 22% Quite a bit, 40% Very much). Many teachers gave the impression that such experiences were important to address and reflect upon (15% Not at all, 10% A little bit, 22% Somewhat, 20% Quite a bit, 33% Very much). Also, many teachers provided insight and/or advice to help integrate and understand the practitioners’ experience(s) (14% Not at all, 12% A little bit, 22% Somewhat, 24% Quite a bit, 28% Very much).

Context of extraordinary experiences

For each extraordinary experience, participants were asked in what setting the experience occurred. Most extraordinary experiences happened when the meditators were alone ( Table 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740.t004

Relationship of experiences to length of meditation practice

To explore whether length of meditation experience was related to the frequency with which respondents endorsed items, we conducted Pearson correlations between the self-reported number of months of lifetime meditation practice and reported frequency of mystical and extraordinary experiences. There were small but significant correlations ( p <.01— p < .05, two-tailed, max r = .30, max R 2 = .09) for all but 7 of the 50 items, excluding “feeling of peace and tranquility,” “feelings of joy,” “an altered sense of your body,” “altered breathing,: “disturbing feelings of fear, dread or terror,” and the importance or valence (pleasantness) of the extended perception items. None of the items were significantly negatively correlated with length of meditation practice. The highest correlations ( p < .01) between self-reported length of meditation practice and mystical or extraordinary experience items was “clairvoyance or telepathy” ( r = .30), “feeling that you experienced eternity or infinity” ( r = .30), and “connection with a teacher or guru who was not physically present, or did not interact with you in any physical way at the time” ( r = .29).

The results of this survey indicate that mystical and extraordinary experiences are prevalent enough among meditators, and salient enough to those who have them, to warrant further scientific inquiry.

Limitations of this study were that the sample was not randomly selected, and this could limit generalizability to a general sample of meditators. To address this concern, in addition to the masking of the topic of the survey in recruitment materials and recruiting from generalized lists of meditators rather than those known to have a special interest in these domains, we explored whether our sample was different from the general population of modern meditators in their demographics, history of psychiatric disorders, and religious/spiritual background and beliefs. Participants were generally middle-aged, gender-balanced (with slightly more females), and well-educated. Though we are aware of no global population-based surveys of meditation practitioners, these demographics are similar to general survey populations who report meditating [ 78 ] and who utilize complementary and alternative medicine in the U.S. [ 79 ]. Seventy-five percent of our respondents were from the United States, the UK, and Canada, although participants came from 66 countries around the world. Our participants also represented a broad range of amount of meditation experience and types of practice, which may increase the global generalizability of our findings.

Participants reported slightly higher lifetime prevalence of depression than the general population in the United States (16.6% [ 80 ] vs. 19% in this sample) and higher rates of lifetime anxiety disorders (11.8% [ 81 ] vs. 14% for anxiety in this sample). There have been few formal studies of anxiety and depression prevalence in a general population of meditators. One large cross-sectional study examined depression and anxiety levels in meditators from Germany and Spain. They found similar levels of depression (19.9%) and anxiety (13.6%) to ours in the German sample, but levels lower than ours in the Spanish sample (depression (6.5%) and anxiety (7.1%)) [ 82 ].

There were differences between our respondents and the general population in terms of religious affiliation. Respondents endorsed “spiritual but not religious” (36%) as their current affiliation than any other organized religion, whereas global rates are 16%. Only 15% endorsed Christianity, whereas global surveys list Christianity at 32% [ 83 ]. In general, we speculate that our sample was similar enough to a general sample of meditators to make our results likely generalizable, though limited by the lack of population-based random sampling.

Another limitation of our sample is that only 63% of eligible participants who started the survey completed it. This could have led to selection bias. There may also be inherent bias in those who complete a lengthy questionnaire without compensation. A randomly selected population-based survey of meditators would be valuable for future research, as well as replication of this survey. Other limitations include the self-report and retrospective nature of the survey. Future studies could include a prospective study of meditators using daily experience sampling or ecological momentary assessment to capture experiences in real-time.

Since the results of this survey show that experiences associated with the domains identified in our working group are prevalent and frequent, and there is little to no empirical research on them in the literature, the following section provides more robust recommendations and future directions for scientifically pursuing these lines of inquiry.

Readers interested in pursuing any of these domains should refer to the Future of Meditation Research (FOMR) ( http://noetic.org/fomr ) website for links to papers which provide methods, measures, and protocols for studying these experiences.

I. Mystical and transcendent experiences in meditation

Experiences that transcend ordinary perception are a common component of religious and spiritual traditions across human history. They can occur spontaneously [ 84 ] or can be elicited by a variety of rituals, such as meditation, prayer, fasting, and dance, as well as ingestion of naturally occurring substances (e.g. plants with psychoactive properties) [ 77 , 85 – 87 ]. These experiences are not as rare as they might seem. In the general public, 30–50% of people report having had what they would consider a mystical experience [ 88 , 89 ]. Both historical and modern descriptions of mystical experiences reveal common themes, including feelings of unity and interconnectedness with all people and things, a sense of sacredness, feelings of peace and joy, a sense of transcending normal time and space, ineffability, or an intuitive belief that the experience is a source of objective truth about the nature of reality [ 89 , 90 ].

Our respondents reported a high frequency of mystical experiences during or related to their meditation practice, the vast majority reporting having them “2–5 times” or “many times” for almost all items. Increased scientific investigations of these experiences may be important to understanding the full range of human potential and well-being.

As reviewed earlier, a common component of many contemplative practices is the recognition of the difference between awareness and the contents of awareness (thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc.). In fact, an “altered sense of awareness, such as awareness going beyond the physical senses, an increased intensity of awareness, or awareness of awareness,” was the most endorsed overall experience (91%) among our participants. Some traditional contemplative theories propose that these experiences spring from awareness recognizing itself [ 91 ], or the presence of a background non-conceptual awareness which cognizes without subject-object dichotomy (i.e. “nondual”), and are thought to under certain circumstances be brought into the foreground of experience through the practice of meditation [ 92 ]. In this mode, perceptions, emotions, cognitions, and the global states of arousal appear to this awareness as contents, whereas awareness is experienced as a contextual space (like weather patterns appear in the sky). While neuroscience research in this area is still in its very early stages, studies conducted so far indicate that such unitary states are accompanied by increased large scale synchronization and connectivity in the brain [ 93 – 95 ].

Past experiments carried out with split brain patients indicate that the distinction between thoughts and awareness might have a biological basis [ 96 ]. Recently, studies have focused on moments when meditators realize that they have lost track of their meditation and are mind wandering, followed by re-orienting of attention on the meditation task [ 97 , 98 ]. Meta-cognitive or meta-conscious processes are arguably related but different from the awareness responsible for mystical experiences.

In addition, sacred texts in contemplative traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism claim that meditative practices can result in states of mind that have not been adequately explored or differentiated phenomenologically in the scientific literature. For example, the yoga tradition describes multiple kinds of samadhi (states of intense concentration, absorption, calm and equanimity), differentiating between for example, nirvikalpa samadhi of pure awareness, and sahaj samadhi in which awareness and daily experience both co-arise but are perceived as inseparable, nondual, or coessential [ 99 ]. Investigation of these states may offer us new insights about cognition and perception that can only be reached through expanding contemplative science.

Mystical or transcendent aspects of meditation can be challenging to measure, and difficult to predict or produce in a laboratory. With rare exceptions, current research on mystical and transcendent experiences to date rely almost completely on retrospective self-reports using face-valid measures, and are therefore highly open to recall bias and demand characteristics. Future research should focus on better conceptualization and measurement of mystical or transcendent experiences, including objective, implicit, and first, second, and third-person measures. In addition, methods of reliable induction of mystical experiences, and further investigations of those able to produce such experiences at will, may allow for more controlled investigations.

Given the frequency and salience of mystical and transcendent experiences related to meditation practice, we recommend this as a fruitful area for future research. In particular, we suggest conducting studies that 1) investigate the subjective nature and salience of mystical and transcendent experiences, 2) develop improved methods and measures for investigating them, 3) explore the effects of these experiences on health, psychological and prosocial outcomes, 3) examine psychophysiological moderators and mechanisms of such experiences (when, why and how do they happen?), and 4) determine acute and long-term physiological correlates of such experiences. For example, prospective studies of novice meditators could include a measure of mystical or transcendent experiences, examine the predictive value of the occurrence or type of such experiences on outcomes of interest, explore them as potential mechanisms of other psychological or physical changes, or correlate the occurrence and intensity of such experiences with mood data from experience sampling or biomarkers.

II. Social and relational aspects of meditation

To date, most experimental studies of meditation have focused on cognitive, emotional, and physical correlates of meditation practice within individual subjects. However, meditation has traditionally been taught in a relational manner, from a teacher to a student or in a group of students. There are numerous meditation approaches that encourage meditators to come together to practice, and individuals often find that that meditating in the presence of others can deepen concentration, focus and the overall meditation experience.

Practitioners from a wide variety of spiritual traditions have reported strong psychophysiological responses when they are in the presence of a spiritual teacher who has achieved some level of mastery, particularly when the teacher directs attention or intention toward the practitioner. These reports are common across spiritual traditions, being described most frequently in those that are based in Hinduism and Buddhism. In these traditions, the phenomenon is thought to reflect a “transmission” of a state of consciousness or a form of energy from teacher to student. Recipients also report subjective experiences of receiving such transmissions at a distance, or by listening to a recording or simply looking at a picture of the spiritual teacher. Sensing a collective energy “many times” or “almost always” during meditation practice was endorsed by nearly half of our survey respondents, and three-quarters reported this happening at least once. Connection with a teacher who was not physically present was endorsed “many times” or “almost always” by 28% of respondents, and 45% experienced this at least twice.

Research on social norms and social influence suggests that the mere presence of other people changes the nature of an individual’s experience such that his or her motivations and behavioral choices occur in response to the normative behaviors [ 100 ]. Simple examples of this can be found in the social conformity and social facilitation literature [ 101 – 103 ]. The social aspects of meditation practice have just begun to be studied, such as comparing meditation programs taught in groups versus individually [ 104 ], and long-term meditation retreats [ 60 , 105 ]. Interestingly, our sample of meditators reported that mystical/transcendent and extraordinary experiences happened more frequently when meditating alone (35–46% depending on the category of experience) vs. meditating in a group (16–29%) or on retreat (10–16%).

Some questions for future research on the social and relational aspects of meditation include: 1) to what extent does meditating alone vs. meditating in a group of people influence outcomes from biomarkers to mood to behavior? 2) does meditating in a group affect one’s practice positively, negatively, or does it depend on the outcome? 3) do group effects require proximity, or is it enough to know others are meditating at the same time (or asynchronously) in different locations? 4) do group meditation effects depend on personality (such an introversion/extroversion) or other baseline or contextual elements? 5) what is the role of the teacher-student relationship in meditation? 6) are there reliable means of measuring group “energy” or spiritual transmission from teacher to student? 7) what is the impact of meditating with all women or all men, vs. co-ed meditation? and 8) what is the impact of meditating with a significant other? These are intriguing research questions that have only barely been explored. There are also opportunities to study dyadic or group outcomes of meditation practice, such as effects on intimate relationships, work groups, classrooms, or organizations. Multiple simultaneous measures of biomarkers such as heart rate variability or EEG in groups could also be used investigate whether dyadic or group synchrony is detectable, and whether it enhances benefits of meditation.

Furthermore, many goals of meditation practice are specifically oriented toward developing pro-social emotions and behaviors. These include emotions such as love and joy, attitudes such as ethics and altruism, relational skills such as empathy and compassion, virtues such as patience and humility, as well as insights and wisdom about the self and the world [ 106 , 107 ]. Contemplative science is growing rapidly in studying these prosocial emotions and behaviors related both to meditation practices [ 108 – 112 ] as well as clinical outcomes of compassion and lovingkindness practices [ 113 ], but the mechanisms by and extent to which meditation cultivates them are just beginning to be investigated. There remains an enormous opportunity for more work in this promising area.

III. Physical and perceptual phenomena

Body-based meditation practices are some of the most commonly disseminated techniques in the West. Awareness of the body, particularly awareness of breathing, is a foundational practice across many contemplative traditions. It is not surprising that an “altered sense of breathing” was the body sensation most endorsed by respondents in our survey (88% ever, and 33% almost always).

A large and growing amount of studies have been conducted on physiological correlates of meditation. A variety of research and clinical studies have focused on physical and perceptual outcomes following meditation training, such as changes in autonomic measures [ 114 , 115 ], tactile and pain perception [ 116 – 118 ], visual and auditory perception [ 119 – 122 ] and even increasing body temperature at will in freezing conditions [ 123 , 124 ]. In some meditation traditions, practitioners intentionally attempt to control basic physiology, such as respiration rate [ 125 ] and heart rate [ 126 ].

Physical and perceptual sensations not apparently caused by the physical environment were experienced by the vast majority of our survey respondents, including: heat, cold, pressure, or tingling; seeing lights, visions, or images; lightness or heaviness, floating, out of body experiences, body parts disappearing, or feeling like the body changed in shape or size; hearing buzzing sounds, humming, or voices or music that were not in the physical environment. These are experiences that have rarely been examined in a scientific context, but were endorsed by 60–90% of our respondents. Smelling or tasting things that were not physically there was the least endorsed item, though still reported by 35% of those surveyed.

Some meditation practices focus attention on “energy” flowing through the body. Contemplative traditions each have their own understanding of what this subjectively experienced “energy” is, such as kundalini, chi, or subtle energy, and others describe in detail energy pathways (such as meridians) or nodes (such as chakras) in the body. Many moving meditations such as yoga, qi gong, tai chi, and martial arts are designed for moving or balancing energy in the body, and were at times used to prepare the body for, or used in conjunction with, sitting meditation. These physical phenomena associated with meditation have just barely been addressed by the scientific community, and future studies on these topics could not only help us learn more about the correlates and outcomes of meditation, but also more about the connection between mind and body, and potentially more about what has come to be known as the “biofield” and its role in our well-being [ 127 ].

Other outcomes of meditation practice have to do with a visceral sense of greater embodiment, or feeling comfortable, awake, and aware in one’s body. Repeatedly directing attention toward what are typically implicit or automatic body sensations may increase the sense of embodied presence—in other words, experiencing oneself to be fully one’s body in the present moment. Interoceptive awareness (awareness of signals from inside the body) is also an area of increasing interest [ 128 ]. While a number of early studies showed that meditators are no better at accurately assessing heart rate than non-meditators [ 129 , 130 ], other researchers have found increased breath awareness [ 131 ], increased heartbeat detection accompanied by increased emotional awareness [ 132 ], and increased coherence between subjective assessment of emotion and heart period in trained vipassana meditators [ 133 ]. The increasing evidence that humans can become aware of what were previously purely non-conscious processes has profound implications, and provides a large and potentially valuable sphere of scientific inquiry.

Once again, these phenomena certainly provide challenges in terms of measurement and methodology, but so do other areas of inquiry that require ingenuity to operationalize. Future directions for rigorous research on anomalous physical and perceptual phenomena during or as a result of meditation could include 1) qualitative measures to better understand the nature of these experiences; 2) development of quantitative measures to assess subjective experiences of embodiment/physicality, heat, cold, tingling and prickling of the skin, “energy” surges, etc.; 3) objectively measuring physiological correlates of subjective physical, perceptual, or energy experiences; 4) investigations of whether meditative activities can result in functional physical improvements (e.g. strength, balance) or extraordinary capacities for physical performance; or 5) exploring how embodied presence due to meditation practices influence human interactions with virtual or augmented reality (see [ 134 ]).

These and other areas of body sensations and perceptual phenomena that occur naturally in meditation provide a rich open field for new research. These lines of inquiry not only provide an opportunity to learn more about the effects of meditation, but also to learn more about mind-body interactions in the context of the special training that meditation practices provide. Just as we learn more about the potential of the human body through Olympic level sports, we might learn more about how the mind and body work together by investigating those with extensive mental training through meditation.

IV. Spatial/Temporal phenomena

Contemplative practitioners anecdotally report experiencing time and space differently during or as a result of meditation practice. Indeed, an altered sense of time such as regular time seeming shorter or longer than usual, or experiencing awareness in the past or in the future was reported by 86% of our survey participants, with over 60% reporting this “many times” or “almost always.” Over half of our respondents experienced an altered sense of space such as feeling something crackling in the air, sensing something across a distance, or a sense of space being distorted from its usual mode, with over 30% reporting one of these “many times” or “almost always.” Increased synchronicities (meaningful coincidences, or events or information appearing at the same time or place for no apparent reason) were endorsed by 82% of the participants. Indeed, increased synchronicities was the sixth most common experience among all those surveyed (82% having experienced it at least once), even higher than the rate of experiences we might expect from meditation practice, such as altered body sensations.

Recommendations for future research in this domain include: 1) using qualitative research to assess more fully the subjective descriptive nature of meditators’ altered perceptions of time, space, or synchronicities in their lives; 2) using experience sampling, daily assessments, or questionnaires to evaluate the frequency and salience of such experiences; 3) exploring objective physiological correlates of the subjective experience of timelessness [ 69 ] or connections with others at a distance (see [ 135 ]), or the sense of spaciousness or timelessness (see [ 136 ]); 4) assessing the effects of these experiences on identity, decision-making, mood regulation, or other clinical outcomes; and 5) developing methods for reliable induction of these experiences under controlled conditions.

V. Extended perception

Extended perception refers to perceptions people may have naturally, or develop over the lifespan, that go beyond traditionally understood notions of how information can be perceived. Advanced meditators have demonstrated at least twelve perceptual capacities that scientists once dismissed as impossible [ 107 ]. These capacities include, for example, lucid dreaming, lucid nondream sleep, and heightened perceptual speed and sensitivity. What further capacities await recognition?

Over half of the meditators in our sample reported experiencing clairvoyance or telepathy (perceiving information that could not have been known to them by any known physical means, but later turned out to be true) at least once. Not only that, but the majority also found the experience “somewhat pleasant” and “quite meaningful or important.”

Discussions of the relationship between meditation practice and advanced capacities of meditators can be traced in written form back to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, published roughly two thousand years ago [ 36 ]. Claims such as precognition, clairvoyance, telepathy, and mind-matter interactions are still controversial, although a growing body of literature suggests that some such claims could be supported by data [ 137 – 139 ]. External physical phenomena, or objects moving by a non-physical force, physical objects appearing when they had not been there before, objects falling over, a light going out, psychokinesis (the supposed ability to move objects by mental attention or intention alone), or other physical manifestations that seemed to have no physical cause are also discussed in historical literature. Approximately one-third of the meditators in our sample endorsed having experienced something like this at least once.

People also reported sensing a connection with non-physical entities (defined as nonphysical entities in your awareness, vision, or hearing, such as a God presence, higher powers, divine beings or angels, demons or negative figures, guides, or other visitors) even more often than experiencing a connection with real-life meditation teachers, with 32% reporting this “many times” or “almost always”, and another 52% at least twice.

If new to this literature, scientists encountering these ideas for the first time might argue that if these experiences were prevalent, they would have heard more about them. However, the vast majority of clinicians and researchers do not ask about these experiences in their assessments of meditative practices, and given their controversial nature, modern meditators may be reluctant to share such experiences under non-anonymous conditions. However, many but not all respondents in our survey reported their extraordinary experiences to their meditation teachers. When they did share the experience, they perceived teachers as “somewhat” to “very much” willing to discuss the experience with them, and 75% of teachers gave the impression that they were important to reflect upon, 40% “very much” so.

It is important to note here again that there did not appear to be a substantially higher rate of psychological disorders in this sample than in the general population. While these experiences could be completely illusory, they also could point to aspects of human potential and reality that challenge prevailing paradigms. Western scientists may hesitate to entertain the possibility that one possible explanation for these perceptions of non-local aspects of consciousness are that they are ontologically real. In many meditative traditions, whether they are considered real or not, these experiences are discounted as potentially derailing. Patanjali and others have cautioned that focusing on such experiencing can be seductive, cause egocentricity, or become distractions [ 140 ].

At the same time, there are views within some contemplative traditions that such experiences can be utilized with wisdom and compassion by experienced masters, and some highly respected practitioners of contemplative traditions have encouraged more research on such domains. For example, Buddhist monk and collaborator on several neuroscience studies of meditation, Matthieu Ricard was asked at the Mind and Life Institute’s International Symposium on Contemplative Studies in 2012 what he thought would be important for scientists to study next. He responded that reincarnation/past lives and telepathy might be important frontiers to investigate [ 141 ], sharing his own personal experience of telepathy with a meditation teacher. Indeed, two of the strongest positive correlations between self-reported length of lifetime meditation practice were with “connection with a teacher or guru who was not physically present” ( r = .29, r 2 = .08, p < .01) and “clairvoyance or telepathy” ( r = .30, r 2 = .09 p < .01).

While respecting the concerns of both perspectives, it is possible that the time has arrived to cautiously move beyond earlier assumptions and for investigations to include some of these capacities. Methods currently exist that allow empirical evaluation in the areas described in this paper. Some empirical research already shows that those with a history of meditation practice demonstrate greater “psi” capacities [ 68 , 69 , 71 , 142 – 144 ]. Future directions that intrepid researchers may consider include 1) correlating different types, frequency, and length of meditation practice with a variety of rigorous tests for extraordinary capabilities [ 145 ]; 2) testing for extended human capacities such as precognition, clairvoyance, telepathy, or mind-matter interactions under controlled conditions during or just following meditation; 3) utilizing implicit measures (i.e. those that do not require conscious choice but examine physiological or reaction-time measures) to investigate extended human capacities during or related to meditation practice; or 4) including extended human capacities variables or questionnaire items in more traditional studies of meditation, to assess them as predictors, outcomes, or mediators, and 5) studies of people engaging in long-term or high intensity meditation practices who have been reported to exhibit exceptional capacities, virtues, states of consciousness, and postconventional stages of development.

VI. Other recommendations

Difficult experiences in meditation..

Meditation is usually considered a low risk intervention and adverse events are relatively rare. While reports of fear and terrors were the least commonly reported type of experience among respondents in our survey, this does not mean that such reports should be ignored. A full 32% of participants in our sample reported feeling disturbing feelings of fear, dread, or terror during or as a result of their meditation practice. A small but growing body of research on adverse effects from meditation practice exists, and there is opportunity to investigate this domain further.

For example, meditation practices have at times been associated with antisocial behavior, restlessness, reduction in emotional stability [ 146 ]. Even long term meditators have reported adverse effects [ 147 ]. There have been some reports of psychosis and mania triggered by meditation in the scientific literature [ 148 – 150 ] [ 151 ] and in lay publications [ 152 ]. Further examples include depersonalization [ 153 ], and case reports of brain activity correlated with seizures [ 154 , 155 ]. Generally these findings are consistent with the notion that meditative practices can have powerful effects on mind and body. Changes in self-image and worldview can be signs of psychospiritual progress, but can also be accompanied by significant anxiety. Like other active interventions, significant negative psychological side-effects may occur in a minority of individuals, especially those with a pre-disposition towards mania or psychosis.

Among researchers who are enthusiastic about the benefits of meditation being discovered in contemplative science, there may be hesitance to examine adverse events, negative side effects of meditation, for fear that this will engender fear, restrict research, or lessen enthusiasm for the practice. Most studies do not include any items asking about difficult states or struggles with meditation practice. However, it is possible that difficult and distressing experiences may be involved in one of the major challenges to clinical research on meditation: adherence.

As mentioned earlier, Lindahl and Britton [ 156 ] have addressed these questions by collecting data on challenging, difficult, or impairing experiences associated with meditation, the resulting taxonomy of which should aid in encouraging further research. Building and extending this research using a variety of methodologies will only strengthen the field of meditation research. In addition, distressing or difficult states can be viewed as natural aspects of the trajectory of spiritual or contemplative growth, and when properly supported can catalyze positive outcomes [ 157 , 158 ]. As one American Buddhist teacher, Shinzen Young [ 159 ] puts it:

It is certainly the case that almost everyone who gets anywhere with meditation will pass through periods of negative emotion, confusion, disorientation, and heightened sensitivity… for some duration of time, things may get worse before they get better…. This phenomenon, within the Buddhist tradition, is sometimes referred to as “falling into the Pit of the Void.” It entails an authentic and irreversible insight into Emptiness and No Self. … In a sense, it’s Enlightenment’s Evil Twin…In some cases it takes months or even years to fully metabolize, but in my experience the results are almost always highly positive.

Conducting more research on these difficult states and stages should help clinicians help their clients navigate and potentially leverage these experiences.

Though not included explicitly in our survey, we recommend that investigation of the role of the environmental context in which meditation practice occurs represents another essentially wide-open field for future researchers. The physical environment, and use of objects, icons, rituals and sacred places have traditionally been thought to enhance meditation practice. There are a potpourri of perceptual cues such as incense, candles, images, music, bells, and the wearing of special clothing, use of sacred foods, or fasting or avoiding certain foods that are routine parts of contemplative traditions and have yet to be investigated scientifically. In some cases, these contextual elements are thought to help “carry” a person into deeper meditative practice, and enhance its benefits.

Environmental cues such as color [ 160 ], odor [ 161 ], and images [ 162 ] have been demonstrated to affect emotion, cognitive processing, and behavior. This may account for the role that environmental cues play in meditation. However, some spiritual lore suggests that buildings, rooms, places, or objects in which many people have engaged in spiritual practices or long periods of meditation feel qualitatively/subjectively different than objects or places that have not been associated with such practices. For example, some talk about the “stillness” or “vibration” of a temple or old church—but objective measures of that subjectively perceived phenomenon are lacking. Only a small amount of research has been conducted on what has been termed “conditioned space [ 163 ],” in other words, space that has been purported to be imprinted by intentions alone, and this may warrant further exploration.

In addition, the cultural context, intentions, purpose, and values held by the meditator’s tradition or community (and within the practitioner) likely impact meditative experiences and outcomes. For example, a person who operates from a collectivist cultural orientation [ 164 ] might have different experiences of meditative benefit than those who come from more individualistic cultures. Many long term meditation practitioners hold rich worldviews, belief systems and ethical guidelines that inform their motivations for meditative practice and quite possibly the phenomenology of their experiences in meditation. However, the impact of worldview and ethical systems components has not been specifically measured in the bulk of the clinical and neurophysiologic research to date. The novices assayed in meditation research to date hold a broad range of worldviews, often poorly informed by the spiritual and/or religious foundations of the meditative practices in which they are engaging. For better or worse, in clinical settings these meditative practices have by and large been divorced from teachings about ethical guidelines or philosophical understanding about the nature of self and relation of self to world and/or the sacred. There are benefits and drawbacks to this. Secularizing these practices allows for much larger dissemination of them, as well as practices unburdened by dogmas that may or may not be supported by evidence. However, some of the “built-in” ethical protections in traditional settings and teachings have also been stripped away (such as, for example, a meditation student being assigned to clean the temple to learn humility and service while also experiencing transcendent states), and practices run the risk of becoming superficial when decontextualized.

The field of meditation studies is likely to benefit from assessing even in a rudimentary way some of these contextual elements of meditation practice, and how they might impact outcomes. For example, researchers could randomly assign participants to different contextual environments for practice and then collect subjective and objective measurements. One test might include having persons meditate in a room with an object randomly selected as one that is regarded to deepen practice versus a control object. Alternatively, repeated measures designs could also be used in which the same person meditates in various environments, and differences in neurophysiological correlates are measured.

Psychological development.

One of the most dramatic findings of developmental psychology and neurobiology is that, contrary to previous beliefs, development can continue throughout much of adulthood [ 165 , 166 ]. There are now more than 100 models of advanced or postconventional [ 167 ] stages of adult psychological development [ 168 , 169 ]. Preliminary maps have been offered over the centuries by contemplatives, but a growing body of empirical research suggests that for moral, cognitive, and many other capacities such as wisdom and self-transcendence, development can continue well into the elder years [ 170 – 177 ]. However, there have been very few studies of the effects of meditation on psychological development, even though accelerating such development may be one of the most important contributions the practice of meditation can make, and one of our contemporary world’s greatest needs.

Ethical issues.

As the scope of meditation research is broadened, and extraordinary experiences are the increasingly the focus of studies, it will be important to identify and address ethical issues that may arise. Indeed, a barrier to including these experiences and topics in the field of meditation research may have been a concern that too much emphasis on these experiences could encourage people to become distracted from the primary goals of meditation, foster experiences in meditation that could be iatrogenic for patients and clients, or bring to light experiences that clinicians were unequipped to address. However, simply ignoring such experiences does not make them go away, does not preserve the ethical foundations of meditation practice, nor is it an effective clinical approach [ 178 ]. Instead, we must create a set of clinical and ethical guidelines for helping clients, students and patients navigate and integrate these experiences to enhance, rather than detract from, their well-being. Educating clinicians and researchers about the potential for these experiences to occur, including questions to screen for distress, depersonalization, or changes in functioning related to meditation practice in assessments, and identifying a clinician with expertise in treating such issues for referrals or consultation are all possible components of an ethical approach.

Conclusions

The goal of this paper and the accompanying online materials is to share the findings and conclusions reached by the Future of Meditation Research working group. These include the findings of a survey investigating the prevalence of extraordinary meditative experiences and recommendations for expanding future research on meditation. The survey demonstrated that a number of experiences—mystical/transcendent, social/relational, physical/perceptual, and spatial/temporal experiences, and extended human capacities are prevalent and salient to those who experience them, and that meditation teachers are generally willing to discuss them with students.

One theoretical trajectory of psychological and spiritual development through meditation practice could be described in broad strokes as 1) participant comes in with distress or a desire for greater understanding or contentment, 2) through beginning mindfulness practices, the participant learns to stabilize attention, 3) the participant learns to de-center and observe the contents of their awareness or experience rather than being completely fused with their experiences, 4) the participant learns to volitionally make choices about how they wish to approach experiences (e.g. with acceptance, friendly investigation, with contemplation, with simple non-reactive awareness, with compassion), 5) through both subtle and profound insights, realizations, and experiences the participant begins to see themselves and reality as less fixed, is better able to understand context, shifts their sense of identity, and feels a sense of connectedness (less duality) between themselves and others, and 6) through these experiences becomes more compassionate for themselves and others, less reactive, less stressed, and observes improved relationships, less depression and anxiety, and more happiness. The premise of this paper is that in addition to experiences recognized in the contemplative literature as signs of spiritual progress, such as decentering from individual ego-based concerns, the kinds of extra-ordinary experiences we have entertained in this paper may also be important parts of this process.

We propose that these experiences are important to study. They hold the potential not only to shed light on effects of meditation in those who practice it, but may also illuminate new understandings about human potential and the nature of reality. Some of these experiences may be purely subjective or even illusory, but if this is the case, they remain worth investigating to learn more about their functional utility and transformative (or disruptive) potential. In addition, as meditation practice continues to increase in health care settings, it will be important for clinicians to be aware of potentially important, distressing or overwhelming experiences patients may have.

Researchers wishing to explore some of these domains may encounter reluctance, resistance or even ridicule from the scientific and academic community. Many aspects of meditation have been excluded from scientific dialogue to allow contemplative science to mature and be accepted as a field with scientific rigor. A focus on the cognitive and physiological outcomes of meditation, once itself a highly unconventional topic of study, assured that the field of contemplative science would be respected as “hard science,” rather than soft or pseudoscience. The field has understandably de-emphasized what may be essential aspects of meditation by focusing on component parts that are easier to operationalize and more palatable to scientists.

But as shown by our survey results, there are deeper and more mysterious aspects of meditation practice that are worth exploring. Our premise is that these important aspects of meditation are within the bounds of scientific investigation, can and should be studied with scientific rigor, and that their exclusion from scientific dialogue unnecessarily limits our knowledge. Our experience thus far, presenting this research to students and at professional meetings is that 1) researchers are fascinated by these topics, 2) that emerging findings often map on to their personal experiences and observations of students and research participants as well as the spiritual traditions from which many of these practices emerged, and 3) they are gratified to hear that there are intelligent, rigorous, and empirically sound methods to study them. Students and researchers who are interested in investigating these domains of meditation may find it useful to visit the Future of Meditation Research website to find a wealth of references and recommendations, an online course expanding on the topics reviewed in this paper, and a community of researchers who are pursuing these domains of inquiry.

The aim of this paper was to bring attention to some of the more controversial and less studied domains of meditation. We suggest that these aspects of meditation may be crucial to people’s psychological and spiritual development, and rather than being side-effects, could represent important outcomes of meditation practice, or serve as mediators and/or mechanisms by which meditation confers benefits. These arenas represent largely uncharted scientific terrain and provide excellent opportunities for new and experienced researchers. We hope this paper provided a foundation from which future research can expand. We believe it offers preliminary support to Maslow’s [ 179 ] provocative claim that “what we call ‘normal’ in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don’t even notice it ordinarily” (p. 16). The intention of this paper is to invite all of us to step into a new paradigm from which to explore one of the greatest of human quests—the understanding, healing, and enhancement of the human mind.

Supporting information

S1 file. meditation experiences survey..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740.s001

S2 File. Meditation experiences survey codebook.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205740.s002

Acknowledgments

Our grateful acknowledegements to colleagues who contributed feedback at various stages of this project include Willoughby Britton, Mark Coleman, Elissa Epel, Alfred Kaszniak, Edward Kelly, Jared Lindahl, Alan Pierce, Clifford Saron, Marilyn Schlitz, Jonathan Schooler, Frances Vaughan, and Fadel Zeidan. Thanks also to Learnist.com for collaborative tools.

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