Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

095. Which physiological sensor devices will be successful for the meditation research project of the MRIS on the long term?

The MRIS reviews since several years devices for meditation research which are low-cost high-quality.

  1. We are against smartwatches for this purpose, since no one has proven to this date that these deliver reproducable data for our application to use those for scientific studies:

2. We are against choosing the Texas Instruments ADS1299 EEG chip

  • Since after what we experienced in recent years for instance with the Dreem 2 headband, we do not know if there are marketing trusts and stock market speculations which are done with these devcies.

3. We prefer devices based on InfluxDB and single electronic components for our project and suggest those who are interested in our project to use such as well:

4. We are against YouTube video makers who want to maximize profit out of our project

  • We experienced in recent years, that as soon as we show interest in a product, it arrives on YouTube. And with some products we experienced that if we give positive feedback, costs for those are increased. And where is the limit for this development?

As you can see in this video: olympic champions in mind training are for instance Tibetan Buddhist monks:

Should we not learn from the best, the world champions?

But according to the rules of the Buddha, and therefore also according to the rules of the world champions in mind training, monks are not allowed to have money.

  • Buddhist monk Ajahn Amaro has no money since 1978, and this because these are the rules of the Buddha, which say that monks are not allowed to have money.
  • Ajahn Amaro says he never suffered from not having something to eat since 1978:

Also if you look at the situation of the Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS):

Devices which we use for our project so that it can be successful need to be optimized for low-cost high-quality, else we suppose the project will fail.

  • Many YouTube video makers seem not to have the same goal as we, but instead they seem to have the goal to maximize profit out of devices, as for instance in the example of the Dreem 2 headband has shown.

5. We therefore prefer journals as the “The Journal of Meditation Research (JMR)”:

Which does not have any confict of interests over journals and platforms which do have such a conflict.