Stimulus Grid: Comparing Jhānas and 5-MeO-DMT Levels at a Glance

Interactive catalogue of animations that include submissions to the QRI Jhāna Visualization Contest 2026, as well as animations generated by Taru, Eliade and Andrés using the Oscilleditor, the Tactile Visualizer, and custom dynamical systems with a variety of network topologies and coupling kernels. The X and Y axis can be set with the drop down menus in order to compare how meditation retreat participants and 5-MeO-DMT week participants rated each of these animations by their similarity to different Jhānas and dose ranges of 5-MeO-DMT. You can notice qualitative patterns (such as J1 looking more turbulent relative to J3, which in turn looks more like a diffusion process; and the qualitative similarity between J2 and low-dose 5-MeO-DMT). The Stimulus Grid captures at a glance the fruits of applying the Parametrized Dynamic Phenomenology paradigm we have developed at QRI, which seeks to identify precise dynamical systems and corresponding parameters that replicate the quality of specific exotic states of consciousness. Error bars represent standard errors. ‘Mean’ represents the animation’s raw mean scores, whereas ‘Centered’ represents the mean of the normalized participant’s judgements.

See full screen here.