Just a minute meditation: Rapid voluntary conscious state shifts in long term meditators

•Long term meditators reliably shifted between rest and meditation within one minute.•Short term meditators had limited state shifts with slightly longer timeframes.•Active controls were unable to achieve any state shifts.•State shifts for long term group were indexed by theta and short term by alpha power.•Test conditions included open and closed eyes, before and after an engaging task.

Meditation induces a modified state of consciousness that remains under voluntary control. Can meditators rapidly and reversibly bring about mental state changes on demand? To check, we carried out 128 channel EEG recordings on Brahma Kumaris Rajayoga meditators (36 long term: median 14240 h meditation; 25 short term: 1095 h) and controls (25) while they tried to switch every minute between rest and meditation states in different conditions (eyes open and closed; before and after an engaging task). Long term meditators robustly shifted states with enhanced theta power (4-8 Hz) during meditation. Short term meditators had limited ability to shift between states and showed increased lower alpha power (8-10 Hz) during eyes closed meditation only when pre and post task data were combined. Controls could not shift states. Thus trained beginners can reliably meditate but it takes long term practice to exercise more refined control over meditative states.