Probing Consciousness · Research & Collaboration
Investigating human experience together.
Probing Consciousness is developing an international research and collaboration framework for the careful investigation of consciousness, self-experience, contemplative inquiry, meditation, fear and mortality, well-being, caregiving, and related dimensions of human experience.
We are creating opportunities through which universities,
independent researchers, healthcare organizations, hospice and
palliative-care organizations, contemplative and meditation
researchers, psychologists, and other institutions related to
or interested in Consciousness studies may develop and conduct
defined research projects in collaboration with us.
No prior belief is required.
Questions remain open to investigation, evidence,
critical examination and revision.
The Opportunity
Bring a question.
Bring research expertise.
Bring institutional knowledge.
Bring lived experience worthy of careful investigation.
Let us investigate together.
Probing Consciousness
What we are building
An experiential inquiry environment and digital platform
through which carefully defined research pathways may be created.
Existing or future Activities may become part of defined research
studies where they are appropriate to the research question,
methodology, ethics requirements and participant consent.
Their ordinary use within Probing Consciousness remains separate
from research.
The platform is being designed to support study-specific
participation, consent, governance and research relationships.
The infrastructure serves the research question—not the other way around.
Collaborating Institutions
What partners may bring
Research questions, disciplinary expertise,
investigators and established methodologies.
Partners may also bring established scientific or clinical tools, specialist researchers, methods of measurement and analysis, and the institutional and ethical oversight required for a particular study.
Different collaborators may contribute very different forms
of expertise depending upon the study.
Collaboration does not require agreement in advance. It requires a question worth investigating properly.
For Researchers & Institutions
How could collaboration work?
A project may originate with Probing Consciousness,
a collaborating institution, participant experience,
or a question developed together.
Question or Experience
Identify something worth investigating.
Study Design
Define methods, population, appropriate Activities
or instruments, and measures.
Ethics & Governance
Establish applicable approvals, consent and data rules.
Participation
Participants voluntarily choose whether to join.
Research & Analysis
Collect and examine study-specific evidence.
Findings & Knowledge
Report findings and allow new questions to emerge.
Collaboration
Different questions call for different partners.
We are creating opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration
across research, healthcare and the study of human experience.
International Collaboration Horizon
Research questions do not stop at national borders.
We are designing the framework so that future research collaborations
may operate across countries, cultures and institutions while respecting
the ethical, privacy, legal and institutional requirements applicable
to each individual project.
Canada
United States
United Kingdom
India
China
South Korea
Japan
Australia
New Zealand
France
Germany
Bhutan
Different countries. Different disciplines. A shared inquiry.
These countries represent an initial international collaboration
horizon rather than a claim of existing institutional partnerships.
We welcome the possibility of collaboration with appropriate
researchers and institutions in these and other jurisdictions
where meaningful questions about Consciousness and human experience
can be investigated responsibly.
Two Pathways Into Research
Research can begin from either direction.
Sometimes we begin with a question and investigate what follows.
At other times an experience has already occurred and becomes
the beginning of the question.
Pathway One
Inquiry → Experience
Begin with a question and investigate what participants experience.
A study may introduce an inquiry, Activity, meditation,
contemplation, intervention or other research procedure
and examine what is subsequently experienced, reported
or measured.
We ask a question and carefully investigate what happens.
Pathway Two
Experience → Inquiry
Begin with an experience and investigate it carefully.
An experience involving self, attention, fear, grief,
mortality, contemplation, caregiving or another dimension
of human life may itself generate a research question.
Something has happened. We ask what can responsibly be learned from it.
Sometimes one leads to the other.
An experience may generate a new research question.
A research question may reveal experiences we had not previously
considered. Probing Consciousness is being developed to support
both directions through research methods appropriate to the question.
Research Possibilities
What might we investigate in Consciousness Research?
Different questions require different disciplines, methods
and collaborators. These are research territories—not predetermined conclusions.
Consciousness & the Brain
Conscious states, perception, attention, sleep, anesthesia,
altered states and relationships between experience
and neural processes.
Self & Identity
The felt sense of “I,” memory, embodiment, narrative identity,
self-representation and changes in self-experience.
Meditation & Attention
Attention, contemplative practice, emotional regulation,
reported wellbeing and changes in experience.
Fear, Mortality & Dying
Fear, death anxiety, aging, grief, meaning,
end-of-life experience, hospice and palliative care.
Caregiving & Compassion
The lived experience of caregiving, family support,
healthcare relationships, compassion and human connection.
First-Person Experience
Phenomenology, introspection, subjective reports
and careful methods for describing lived experience.
Psychology & Wellbeing
Emotion, cognition, perception, behaviour, psychological
wellbeing and relationships between inquiry and everyday life.
Philosophy of Mind
Concepts and arguments concerning Consciousness,
subjectivity, mind, matter and the interpretation
of empirical findings.
Cross-Cultural Inquiry
How human experience, contemplative practices,
concepts of self and approaches to mortality may be understood
across different cultures and contexts.
The Research Position
Different forms of inquiry can meet without becoming the same thing.
Probing Consciousness takes scientific research,
philosophical analysis and disciplined first-person
investigation seriously.
Science can measure, compare, model and test relationships.
Philosophy can examine concepts, assumptions, arguments and implications.
First-person inquiry can investigate experience as it is lived.
Each may illuminate something important.
None should be asked to establish more than its methods allow.
Evidence should be allowed to say what it says—and no more.
Keep Distinctions Clear
A contemplative insight does not automatically become
scientific evidence.
A scientific correlation does not automatically settle
a metaphysical question.
A powerful personal experience does not automatically establish
a universal claim about reality.
Experience, evidence, interpretation and conclusion
should remain distinguishable.
Research Governance
One framework. Three layers of responsibility.
International collaboration requires principles that remain constant
while allowing each study and jurisdiction to apply the governance
appropriate to the research being conducted.
Layer One
Universal Principles
These principles remain constant across Probing Consciousness research.
Voluntary participation.
Informed consent.
Participant dignity and autonomy.
Scientific and intellectual independence.
Transparency about what is being investigated.
Separation of research participation from ordinary platform use.
Appropriate privacy and data minimization.
No required philosophical, spiritual or metaphysical belief—and
willingness to report findings even when they do not support
an initial hypothesis.
Layer Two
Study-Specific Governance
Every research project has its own defined protocol.
This may include the research question, investigators
and institutional partners, participant population,
inclusion or exclusion criteria where appropriate,
methodology, Activities or instruments, consent,
data collected and retention.
Analysis, withdrawal provisions, risks and benefits,
and publication or data-sharing arrangements are defined
for the particular study.
Layer Three
Jurisdictional & Institutional Governance
Research requirements differ across institutions,
countries and participant populations.
The platform is therefore being designed so that
individual projects can carry the appropriate ethics approvals,
consent documents, privacy requirements, data rules
and participating institutions.
One country’s research system is not imposed on every project.
Your Data · Your Choice
Your Journey remains yours.
MY JOURNEY DATA ≠ RESEARCH DATA
Using Probing Consciousness does not automatically make
your private responses available for research.
Research use requires explicit, informed consent
appropriate to the particular research project.
Consent for one Activity is not consent for another Activity—and
it is not consent for the rest of your Journey.
You may choose later.
Where an approved research protocol permits it,
a participant may later choose to contribute eligible
information from My Journey to a defined research project.
That authorization should specify what information
may be used and for what research purpose.
Nothing outside the consent given should be treated
as authorized research data.
Data Purpose
Personal use, product improvement and research remain distinct.
Personal Data
Private reflections, Activity responses, Journey information
and other information used for the individual’s own inquiry.
Personal benefit—not research by default.
Aggregated Product Data
Appropriately handled information may help identify
usability patterns, confusing Activities and opportunities
to improve the platform.
Product improvement is not automatically research.
Research Data
Data used within a defined research project
according to its consent, protocol, governance
and applicable ethical requirements.
Research participation is separate and voluntary.
Research Studies
A doorway for future research projects.
As research collaborations develop, this area will provide
clear access to defined studies and their public information.
Recruiting Studies
Studies currently inviting eligible participants.
Studies in Development
Research questions and collaborations being developed.
Completed Studies
Research projects that have completed data collection.
Findings & Publications
Research findings, publications and further questions.
Enter the Research Doorway
Different ways to participate.
Participants
Explore Research
Learn about defined studies and decide whether
you wish to participate.
Research study access will appear here as projects develop.
Researchers & Institutions
Research With Us
Explore opportunities to develop research questions
and collaborative projects with Probing Consciousness.
Collaboration pathways are being developed.
Principles & Governance
How Research Is Protected
Understand our approach to consent, participant autonomy,
privacy, research integrity and study governance.
Detailed governance resources will be added as the framework develops.
Why Research Matters
Toward deeper understanding and a more compassionate world.
Research matters when knowledge helps us understand human life
more carefully—how we experience ourselves, how we relate to one another,
how we meet fear and uncertainty, how we care for people,
and how we live in the presence of mortality.
Through responsible inquiry and collaboration, we hope to contribute
to deeper understanding of Consciousness and human experience;
encourage meaningful investigation across cultures and disciplines;
support better approaches to contemplation, wellbeing and care
where evidence warrants them; and deepen understanding around
fear, aging, dying, grief and caregiving.
Knowledge alone does not guarantee compassion.
But deeper understanding may help create conditions in which
we can meet ourselves and one another with greater wisdom and care.
The Standard
Ask good questions. Use appropriate methods. Follow the findings.
The purpose of research is not to make evidence prove
Probing Consciousness.
Findings can support an idea, challenge it, complicate it,
reveal limitations or generate entirely new questions.
Evidence can be examined. Arguments can be challenged.
Experience can be investigated. Methods can improve.
Interpretations can change.
Intellectual honesty is more important than obtaining
a preferred result.
The Working Principle
No authority.
No required belief.
No promised destination.
Do not believe. Investigate.
Created September 20, 2026 · Dharmendra Singh · Probing Consciousness