Where awareness itself becomes the object

O'Fallon's MetAware tier — 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 — and the three crossings between, set beside Cook-Greuter, Torbert, the contemplative traditions, Jung, and the small empirical literature on what this territory is like to live in. Every claim carries its evidence status. Nothing here scores anyone.

Built 28 September 2026. General knowledge from the literature, reconstructed rather than re-read; see the sourcing note under Caveats.

    Compare the three stages

    One question at a time — how does this change from 5.0 to 5.5 to 6.0? Open a dimension below to see the three answers side by side. Each stage keeps its colour throughout.

    Established agreed across authors, with data Plausible coherent, some data, not replicated Thin few or no protocols Inference my reading, to be checked

    Optional: read the three stages through one lens

    Pick an author or tradition and a row is added at the top showing how that lens describes 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0. "All lenses" removes it.

    What this map can and cannot do

    Read these before treating anything here as more than a well-organised description.

    Stage versus state. The single most contested point in the whole area. Sentence-completion scoring at 5.5 and above relies on language that meditative states also produce. O'Fallon says trained scorers separate them by structural consistency across a protocol; that claim has not been tested independently. Martin's data on persistent non-symbolic experience suggests the shift in self-experience can occur at very different developmental positions, which, if right, undercuts the stage claim for 6.0 entirely.

    Self-placement

    Every author in the field notes that the wish to be at a later stage is itself a signature of 4.0–4.5, and that people who locate themselves at 5.0+ are disproportionately not there. The models predict that at each transition the prior self-understanding becomes object, so the person is usually the last to have vocabulary for it. Retrospective recognition is the norm.

    Ranking versus occurrence

    The models are built as hierarchies and inherit the problems of hierarchy. The usable reading is about how the world occurs differently to different people and what follows from that — not about who is further along. Kegan, Cook-Greuter and Stein all warn that ranking the person in front of you breaks the work.

    Sample sizes

    O'Fallon's 2020 validation paper (Heliyon) is driven by the crowded middle of the distribution. Cook-Greuter's Construct-Aware and Unitive samples were small. Above 5.5 there are a handful of protocols; 6.5 is a theoretical slot; 7.0 is the repeating pattern's prediction with no data.

    Practitioner consensus is not validation

    Much of what reads as agreement across STAGES, Cook-Greuter and Torbert is shared lineage — the same instrument, the same training, the same conferences. Convergence with the contemplative traditions is more independent but is convergence of description, not of measurement.

    Where the empirical work actually is

    Britton's Varieties of Contemplative Experience study and Martin's PNSE work are the only substantial data on what this territory is like to live in. Both are modest in size, both have methodological limits, and both describe difficulties the developmental models tend to soften.

    Sources drawn on
    1. O'Fallon, T. (2010). The evolution of the human soul: developmental practices in spiritual guidance. Dissertation, CIIS. The origin of the STAGES tier and four-step pattern.
    2. O'Fallon, T., Polissar, N., Neradilek, M.B., Murray, T. (2020). The validation of a new scoring method for assessing ego development based on three dimensions of language. Heliyon 6(3).
    3. Cook-Greuter, S. (1999/2013). Postautonomous ego development; and the later "Nine levels of increasing embrace" summary. Source for Construct-Aware and Unitive descriptions.
    4. Torbert, W. and Rooke, D. (2005). Seven transformations of leadership. Harvard Business Review. Strategist/Alchemist descriptions and distribution figures.
    5. Kegan, R. (1994). In Over Our Heads. Order 5 and the limits of the subject–object sequence.
    6. Wilber, K. (2006). Integral Spirituality. State-stages and the Wilber–Combs lattice.
    7. Lindahl, J., Fisher, N., Cooper, D., Rosen, R., Britton, W. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience. PLoS ONE 12(5).
    8. Martin, J. (2010–2019). Persistent non-symbolic experience research; the "Locations" framework. Contested methodology.
    9. Jung, C.G. Aion; Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Ego–Self axis and inflation.
    10. Stein, Z. (2016). Social Justice and Educational Measurement; essays on developmental hype and the ethics of stage claims.
    11. Contemplative sources: the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures; Longchenpa and the Dzogchen presentation of rigpa; Underhill (1911) Mysticism; Adyashanti, The End of Your World.

    Sourcing note: every substantive claim is general knowledge from the literature above, reconstructed from memory rather than re-read for this build; verify citations before external use. Nothing is drawn from stored files or from conversation, with one exception: the ranking-versus-occurrence framing is yours.