Combustion instabilities are an important concern associated with lean premixed combustion. Laboratory-scale dump combustor was used to understand the underlying mechanisms causing combustion instabilities. Experiments were conducted at atmospheric pressure and sound level meter was used to track the pressure fluctuations inside the combustor. Instability maps and phase-resolved OH chemiluminescence images were obtained at several conditions to investigate the mechanism of combustion instability and relations between pressure wave and heat release rate. It showed that combustion instability was susceptible to occur at higher value of equivalence ratio (>0.6) as the mean velocity was decreased. Instabilities exhibited a longitudinal mode with a dominant frequency of ∼341.8 Hz, which corresponded to a quarter wave mode of combustor. Heat release and pressure waves were in-phase when instabilities occurred. Rayleigh index distribution gave a hint about the location where the strong coherence of pressure and heat release existed. These results also give an insight to the control scheme of combustion instabilities. Emission test revealed that NOx emissions were affected by not only equivalence ratio but also combustion instability.