While there is no universally accepted definition of meditation, more traditional uses of the word refer to it as a spontaneous state of communion with the inner self that is impossible to define in concrete terms (also known as dhyana or samadhi) (Satyananda 1980; Satyananda 1981). Meditation practices are used to help induce this state.
In more contemporary conceptualizations, “meditation” also refers both to (a) a family of attentional and emotional self-regulation practices aimed at cultivating mental clarity, emotional balance, and well-being and (b) the resultant mental states those practices seek to evoke (Lutz et al., 2008; Tang et al., 2015). Under this umbrella fall mindfulness practices, mantra repetition, loving-kindness/compassion exercises, body-scan techniques, and movement-based forms such as yoga, tai chi, and qigong (Ospina et al., 2007). From this perspective, the scientific literature examines both training mechanisms (e.g., attention regulation, metacognitive monitoring, emotion regulation) and the state-level outcomes that follow from sustained practice.
Historically rooted in contemplative traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and almost all major religions, meditation has, in recent decades, been adapted into secular contexts, where it is increasingly employed as a therapeutic and preventive health intervention (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006). Contemporary frameworks emphasize its role as a set of self-regulatory techniques involving sustained attention, metacognitive monitoring, and emotion regulation, which together foster psychological resilience and enhance well-being (Sedlmeier et al., 2012).
Meditation techniques are often classified according to their attentional focus. A widely cited framework distinguishes focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) (Lutz et al., 2008). FA involves sustaining attention on a specific object (e.g., the breath, a mantra, or a visual stimulus) while monitoring and minimizing distractions. OM emphasizes a non-reactive awareness of ongoing experience (including thoughts, sensations, and emotions) without attachment or judgment.
Additional typologies have been proposed. Classical sources distinguish passive techniques (typically seated, minimal movement) from active techniques that can be practiced during movement or daily activities (Satyananda, 1974). Automatic self-transcending has been described as involving minimal explicit cognitive control, differing phenomenologically from both FA and OM (Travis & Shear, 2010). Loving-kindness and compassion practices aim to cultivate prosocial emotions toward self and others (Hofmann et al., 2011). Other widely used approaches include movement-based practices (e.g., yoga, tai chi) (Ospina et al., 2007) and the body scan, which sequentially directs attention to bodily regions to enhance interoceptive awareness (Kabat-Zinn, 2013).
Across methods, meta-analyses associate meditation with improvements in psychological well-being, reduced stress and anxiety, and enhancements in aspects of cognition; however, effects vary by technique, practitioner experience, and delivery context (Goyal et al., 2014; Khoury et al., 2013). This heterogeneity underscores the value of matching techniques to learner needs and settings.
Conceptually, meditation practices can be organized along a continuum of complexity that can reflect increasing demands on attentional control, metacognitive monitoring, and cognitive–motor integration:
However, while these categories are useful, the principal distinction between novices and advanced practitioners is often depth rather than the technique employed. By depth we refer to the strength, continuity, and generalization of the same underlying skills over time. Thus, breath awareness practiced for 5–10 minutes is typically recommended for beginners, whereas continuous breath awareness sustained across many hours (e.g., retreat conditions) constitutes advanced practice. The technique label is unchanged, but the required stability of attention, non-reactivity, and metacognitive monitoring is markedly higher.
Importantly, several attentional practices that serve as beginner foundations can also function as advanced pathways: in many traditions, intensifying the duration and fidelity of simple attentional anchors (e.g., breath, mantra) is precisely how practitioners aim to cultivate some of the deepest meditative states. This two-axis view (technique class x depth), better captures progression: learners may remain within one technique class while advancing primarily through greater depth, and interventions (e.g., VR-delivered formats) can be tailored to scaffold depth-appropriate demands.
Historically, innumerable techniques and methods have been devised to help people achieve the state of meditation (or dhyana).
Satyananda (1980) says that “when machines and synthetic products of our society are used with meditation and spiritual life they become mechanical aids to higher consciousness. In this perspective they can be used on the inner voyage to help establish the process, to aid in the breaking down of our old concepts and conditioning.”
He warns however, “they must always remain in the context of the meditative disciplines if they are not to degenerate. Only meditation can offer a slow but safe and sure path inward, one free from the potential hazards of the sudden release of excessive subconscious and unconscious forces.”
Despite robust evidence for the benefits of meditation, many individuals, particularly novices, struggle to engage with traditional practices due to difficulties sustaining attention, discomfort with stillness, and the abstract nature of introspective exercises (Anderson et al., 2019). Most people are also habituated to an extroverted frame of mind and their perceptions have been dulled by repeated gross sensory input (Satyananda 1980). Such barriers can reduce adherence,blunt the therapeutic potential of conventional methods and create obstacles in achieving deeper meditative states.
In this context, Virtual Reality Meditation (VRM), defined as the delivery of meditative content within immersive virtual environments, has emerged as a promising alternative. By leveraging multisensory simulation and a strong sense of presence, nowadays VRM can provide salient attentional anchors, reduce extraneous cognitive load, and facilitate emotional absorption during practice (Navarro-Haro et al., 2017; Seabrook et al., 2020). In addition, VR affords standardized delivery and environmental control, helping to minimize external distractors that commonly disrupt early meditation training, including ambient noise, interpersonal interruptions, and technology/social-media–related distractions. As the ecosystem evolves (e.g., adaptive content or expanded olfactory/haptic interfaces), future studies and applications may reveal additional benefits of VRM that extend beyond current evidence.
An emerging empirical literature, including randomized controlled trials, pilot studies, and systematic reviews, suggests that VRM can reduce anxiety, enhance attentional control, and increase positive affect, even after brief sessions and among meditation-naïve individuals (Chandrasiri et al., 2020; Tarrant et al., 2018). VR platforms may also be particularly well suited for populations such as university students, veterans/military personnel, and individuals with high trait anxiety, offering aesthetically pleasing, structured environments that do not require extensive prior experience with contemplative practices.
Presence, the subjective sense of “being there” in a virtual environment, is a core mechanism underlying VR’s psychological effects (Alsina-Jurnet et al., 2011). In VRM, presence is amplified by multisensory stimulation (e.g., visual stimuli, spatialized audio, and, in some projects, olfactory or haptic cues), which creates richly embodied scenes that capture and sustain attention. Because attentional stability is foundational to focused attention meditative practices yet easily disrupted by distraction and mental fatigue, especially in novices, these multisensory immersive cues provide salient attentional anchors that support sustained engagement (Lutz et al., 2008).
Notably, VR can invite a re-examination of common assumptions about meditation (particularly the idea that practice must occur with eyes closed). While many traditional meditation techniques emphasize internal focus by closing the eyes, VR-based practices typically involve open-eyed engagement with the immersive environment. This may benefit users by stabilizing attention through visual anchoring, especially for those who find internal eyes-closed introspection overwhelming or distracting. In this context, VR may be especially well suited for active meditations, which involve movement, interaction, or guided attentional shifts, though passive meditations (e.g., breath-focused) are also commonly adapted to immersive formats.
While future research may help clarify how visual involvement in VR mediates attentional, emotional, and contemplative outcomes compared to traditional eyes-closed approaches, research studies report better outcomes with VRM compared with less immersive formats, including video-based meditation (Gentile & Kim, 2024; Kaplan-Rakowski et al., 2021), traditional concentration meditation or control conditions (Kim et al., 2024), audio-guided meditation (Gentile & Kim, 2024; Tarrant et al., 2022), and imagery-based practice (Jo et al., 2024; Perhakaran et al., 2016).
User engagement is a critical determinant of adherence and therapeutic efficacy in psychological interventions. Traditional meditation programs, particularly in self-guided formats, often exhibit high dropout and low adherence, driven by perceived difficulty, boredom, and limited immediate reinforcement (Crane et al., 2014). VRM addresses these barriers by providing immersive, aesthetically appealing, and interactive environments that increase intrinsic motivation to practice.
In a home-practice follow-up, participants assigned to an embodied-VR condition meditated approximately twice as long as those who used standard audio-guided meditation (Navarrete et al., 2021). Complementary studies report higher ratings of interest and enjoyment during VR-delivered meditation compared with video or audio formats, suggesting a motivational advantage that may translate into greater practice dose (Gentile & Kim, 2024).
A persistent practical challenge for traditional seated focused attention meditation practices for beginners is securing a quiet, uninterrupted space conducive to practice. Environmental noise, interpersonal interruptions, and ambient discomfort can disrupt meditative focus, particularly in institutional or high-stress settings. VRM helps circumvent these barriers by delivering a standardized, multisensory environment that is largely independent of the external context.
This capacity for environmental standardization is advantageous in clinical workflows, where uniform delivery supports treatment fidelity and reproducibility. Moreover, VR enables meditation practices in settings where traditional contemplative environments are often unavailable, such as hospitals or military deployments (Riches & Williams, 2025; Vianez et al., 2025). For example, among intensive care unit patients, VRM has been associated with improved sleep quality (Lee & Kang, 2020). In healthcare workers, studies report benefits relative to concentration meditation or control conditions, including better subjective sleep, reduced wake after sleep onset, higher sleep efficiency, improved deep sleep, lower subjective and objective stress, and more balanced autonomic indices (Kim et al., 2024; Tarrant et al., 2022).
For individuals unfamiliar with meditation, the introspective nature of traditional practice can be intimidating or cognitively overwhelming. VRM offers scaffolded support by externally guiding attention and reducing the metacognitive burden often associated with meditation training. This is particularly relevant for people with high anxiety, trauma-related symptoms, or cognitive difficulties, for whom inward-directed focus may initially provoke discomfort or rumination (Baer, 2003).
Consistent with this rationale, VRM has been explored across a range of populations and clinical/non-clinical contexts, with promising outcomes reported in: homelessness (Chaves et al., 2020); veterans (Liu et al., 2023); older adults (Sadowski et al., 2025) and older adults with knee osteoarthritis (Sarkar et al., 2022); individuals with depression and/or anxiety (Lee et al., 2024; Ma et al., 2025); rheumatoid arthritis–related fatigue (Dreesmann et al., 2023); patients with opioid tolerance or opioid use disorders, where VR-guided meditation has been associated with statistically significant reductions in patient-reported pain (Hargett et al., 2022); cancer-related anxiety, stress, and fatigue (Franklin et al., 2023) and students with test anxiety, where VR meditation outperformed video-based meditation (Kaplan-Rakowski et al., 2021).
Most VRM studies enroll VR-naïve, meditation-naïve participants and implement brief, low-complexity practices (e.g., relaxation, breath-focused, or guided mindfulness), typically delivered in single or few sessions. Across randomized trials and pilot studies, VRM shows superior outcomes in comparison to less immersive comparators (e.g., video, audio, imagery, or waitlist/control). Those studies support the feasibility and short-term benefits under these novice-oriented conditions.
Taken together, current evidence supports positioning VRM as an entry-and-progression tool for lower-complexity meditation skills, particularly for novice meditators, who appear to benefit from VR’s presence-driven attentional anchoring, environmental control, and motivational pull (Jo et al. 2024).
By contrast, the efficacy of VRM for experienced meditators engaging in higher-complexity, metacognitive practices (e.g., open monitoring, compassion) remains under-studied. The clearest expert-sample report is a pilot study in which mindfulness experts completed a VR-assisted Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) mindfulness exercise. The participants rated VR mindfulness as acceptable/feasible and showed increased state mindfulness and reduced negative affect after a single session; however, there was no control group and only immediate outcomes were assessed (Navarro-Haro et al., 2017). Complementing this study, a comparative research study found that VR advantages were stronger for novices than for experienced meditators, suggesting that the incremental benefit of immersion may diminish as expertise increases (Jo et al., 2024).
Emerging work suggests that immersive VR can support meditation by reliably eliciting awe and self-transcendent experiences (STEs), providing experiential access to sacred places and rituals for instructional purposes, and enabling symbolic/visual practices (e.g., mandalas, sacred geometry) in interactive form.
Despite these promising early findings, more rigorously designed and adequately powered studies are required to assess whether VR-evoked transcendental experiences lead to lasting contemplative skills or enhanced educational outcomes.
Meditation reliably improves psychological well-being, emotion regulation, and stress outcomes, yet practical barriers can constrain its impact. VRM can mitigate some of these constraints by leveraging multisensorial experiences to stabilize attention, heighten motivation, and standardize delivery across settings.
Current studies suggest that the most consistent benefits occur for novice practitioners and lower-complexity techniques (e.g., relaxation). In these conditions, VRM outperforms video, audio, or imagery techniques on short-term outcomes and adherence. Accordingly, VRM can be best positioned as an entry-and-progression tool that lowers barriers to initial practice and supports stepwise skill development. By contrast, evidence for experienced meditators and higher-complexity meditation practices remains limited.
Overall, VRM can complement, rather than replace, traditional approaches: it lowers entry barriers and accelerates early learning, while its role in advanced practice is a promising target for rigorous evaluation.
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