[jwdunne]

I remember when I first took it. I got a profound feeling of "oh, I get it now" about the universe - that ultimately we are all connect, as one.

Afterwards, I couldn't work out what it was. For many years, 5 or so to be exact, I've worked backwards from there with much though, research into religion and spirituality, meditation and mindfulness. This also includes several other doses of LSD between then.

The last dose was profound and shared with my soulmate. We lay on our bed, with soothing, space-like/new age/dreamscape music in the background, this was a perfect soundtrack for the experience. The feeling of closeness was immense. Everything melted away, it was as if we had direct access to each other's minds and emotions as though there was no body to separate us. I remember crying genuine, gushing tears of joy at the overwhelming sense of love for her. I don't see anything metaphysical about it but that last experience offered insight into the realisation during my first time and is also an event I look back on positively.

From what I've worked out, I explain the realisation that we are all connected as one like this:

The universe is a beautiful, immense whole composed of vast celestial bodies and ourselves, as part of that. Everything we see on earth is the universe. What is most interestng and profound is the idea that we are a part of the universe than can observe itself in it's wonderful entirety. From this, you realise the folly of violence, wars and how our world currently works. By hurting others of allowing them to get hurt, we are hurting ourselves.

From my study of religions, I can fit this idea in quite well. This includes new thought, Buddhism and even Christianity. With Christianity in particular, seeing Jesus as someone who got this but had to explain it in terms of the framework of understanding of his day masked sense. It also shows how modern Christianity has moved far and away from this idea.

I don't really share this as it's an untestable and perhaps laughable idea but it has bed a profound spiritual journey for me that has provided a lot of inner value.

[nota_bene]

I don't practice religion anymore, but understand 100% of your experience and fully agree (before my experience, this would have been some sort of "ridiculous new age blah blah" to me).

[jwdunne]

That is exactly why I don't share it. It's next to impossible to understand without the experience and deep thought and resserch, before and after. Although I'm in no way religious, I do have an interest in studying them as a intellectual activity, even before my experience, so I had seen ideas from many religions from history.

[Retra]

The objection is, for all those experiences, you can't actually do anything that you couldn't have done without them. The things you are saying are not untrue, but they're fairly trivial, and your emotional attachment to them doesn't actually change how important they are.

To others, it comes off as another kind of immature selfishness. Like obsessively doting on a lover. It's not a bad thing, but it's not going to transfer to others, and you can't expect others to tolerate it when there are important things to do.

[dwiel]

I don't think the lessons from these experiences are really meant to transfer like that, they are so personal. That doesn't make them trivial though, just hard to communicate.

[jwdunne]

I think that is quite a negative response to a benign comment. Your response sums up why I don't share it often - I simply do not wish to preach.

I also think you have assumed a bit too much about me and how I treat other people. I said I don't share it. That does not mean I have tried and failed. I have shared my experiences with close family members. I have never preached and never will.

The emotional connection and understanding connected to these ideas are exactly what makes them important. To dismiss emotional insights as unimportant is to make emotion a second-class citizen in a world that is actually driven in a big way by emotion.

For example, the phrase "the dog is running across the main road" is a trivial fact when you see a dog run across a main road. If you're the owner, the emotions are what differentiate it from mere triviality. For the owner, the panic of their dog running across a road off leash is not emotionally trivial.

Back to my comment, I merely stated that the emotional value of these ideas is hard to convey without such experiences.

I'd beg to differ about the abilities enabled by my experiences. For one, I can relate to them ok an emotional level, which I cannot have done before. Second, it is clear to me that this particular journey has encouraged exploration and insight into my thoughts and emotions on a deep level. Before hand, I would not have bothered.

Could I have achieved this with a different set of experiences? It's probably. Does that discount the emotional value of those experiences to me? No.

What you are doing is trying to discount the emotional value I place on my own experiences, which is all I have talked about plus the difficulty of discussing the emotional insights from my experiences with those who haven't had them. There isn't really anything to object there.

[Retra]

>To dismiss emotional insights as unimportant is to make emotion a second-class citizen in a world that is actually driven in a big way by emotion.

Maybe you should first demonstrate that that the world should be driven by emotion before you object to that kind of dismissal.

>What you are doing is trying to discount the emotional value I place on my own experiences

No, I'm explaining why other people don't value your experiences. Just because you have an emotional experience doesn't mean anybody else is obligated to respect that. They have an obligation to make good decisions. If you want people to listen, you have an obligation to demonstrate that taking LSD is a good decision, not simply that you felt good about it.

[jwdunne]

I'm sorry but I think there is a clear misunderstanding here.

I never said that the world should be driven by emotions, just that emotions, in some way or form, drive a lot of people.

I'm not sure why you are explaining why people don't value my experiences? I shared my experiences in a discussion about experiences. I'm not asking anybody to value then? How can they when they haven't had them? This thread might show you that others who have had similar experiences do value them and that is who I am conversing with.

If you don't value my experiences, that isn't a problem to me? I don't preach or try to force the beliefs shaped by my experiences on anybody that don't want to hear them. I'm not sure why you would believe otherwise?

I'm not obligated to explain why one of my experiences was a good decision to you. I feel it was a good decision and I don't have regrets. Why do I need to explain it?

[nota_bene]

> That is exactly why I don't share it.

I think the best way to handle this dilemma is to try to sense which of your friends and family members are most open-minded and to start with those. (Personally, I feel like once you've experienced it, it becomes some sort of responsibility to create awareness about it, because the benefit for everybody is just to big to keep quiet.)

[jwdunne]

This is something I do amongst very close friends and family. It's still difficult without making their eyes gloss over but I do think that this insight could bring major positive changes to them and even the world as a whole.

[selimthegrim]

What would it fix about the world?

[jwdunne]

If every one truly believed that what affects others is actually affecting themselves, I couldn't describe the all of benefits. One is a massive reduction of wars, violence and suffering.

It is a process though. I get angry, upset and do, on occasion, cause suffering in response to those emotions. What I am able to do is realise that I can observe this emotions as I do the universe, as it's all the same. By disconnecting from thoughts and emotions and observing them, they have much less effect. I can then use my thoughts as tool to analyse the situation and choose the appropriate path that will lead to a peaceful, beneficial resolution for me and others.

This does not happen every time, I still fall and slip. With repeated application, it will become a solid habit.

It's obvious and 'trivial' that negatively responding to negative emotional states will produce a negative outcome for myself, increasing my own suffering. This obvious fact fits within my insights, which is most important to me.

[eli_gottlieb]

And what do you have to say to those of us who feel overwhelming love for our significant others, or who understand the basic nature of causality and how it relates to human life, without taking drugs?

[dave_sullivan]

I've never taken LSD but have taken mushrooms several times. I've heard the nature of the hallucinations are different.

A memorable moment: I'm walking on the beach (in real life) and the sand is bubbling up with skeletons (clear as day). Then I look at this huge cliff wall to my left (the cliff wall is real), and a huge totem pole head emerges from the cliff face (as part of the cliff, it is the cliff).

This totem pole head then proceeds to tell me that it's seen millennia of people walk along this beach and the universe is very old and etc. And I look up (and it was really sunset) to a crazy universe explosion of activity in the sky. This went on for another few hours. In the end, I'm left with this feeling of connectedness and awe that I can kind of hold on to.

Logically, I learned nothing new. I got a feeling based on... my self's inner interpretation of a unique drug enduced brain state? I'm not sure I could get there without drugs, the brain is unable to produce the proper chemical composition and set of signals unaided.

Now to be fair, I didn't go home that night, sit down, and produce a treatise on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. But I certainly don't regret it either.

[slfnflctd]

> I'm not sure I could get there without drugs

This is the biggest issue, to me.

I've heard some fantastic claims about meditation, but it seems to require a lot of work (and even then doesn't 'work' for everyone)-- also, it's never going to be exactly like the experience of ecstasy, shrooms, LSD, various herbs, etcetera.

Each of the more mind-altering substances has a unique way of interacting with the brain, and I wouldn't trade my experiences with them for anything. They're one of the greatest things I value in life, honestly, as I'm not entirely sure I understood what being fully alive even really meant until after they crossed my path.

[selimthegrim]

> I'm not entirely sure I understood what being fully alive even really meant until after they crossed my path

I don't want to pry, but what makes you say this?

[jwdunne]

That firstly it's fantastic that you have such a great relationship. I felt this way before the experience too. Love is a wonderful thing.

I'm not saying that my love got my partner is because of taking drugs. It just allowed us to express it in a novel way.

I'm not saying that you should take drugs, especially not for marital purposes. LSD has the unfortunate effect of turning negative emotions and creating a nasty experience out of them.

The love already needs to be there to experience what we experienced. That and a whole lot of trust, in the very least.

[WalterSear]

That one doesn't diminish that other, and that only people who have experienced both are in a position to compare the too.

Furthermore, and with absolute respect, the majority of people who have expressed similar views to me were doing so because they were afraid of drugs, whether or not they professed of that, rather than due to having any specially inherent depth of experience.

[mercer]

My view on this is that if one can find these kinds of meaning and understanding without using any drugs, so much the better. Drugs, for both good and bad, can provide shortcuts (in the broadest sense).

Personally I am a bit suspicious of shortcuts, in general. If I had to choose between drug use on the one hand and meditation and other approaches to 'enlightenment' (in an admittedly vague, broad, rather personal sense), I'd choose the latter any day.

But with my limited experience of the former, I consider it quite valuable, albeit sometimes risky.

EDIT: to name one example. I remember reading about a guy who had severe trouble connecting with others and making friends. After using MDMA once, and having the 'forced' experience of loving everybody around him, it was as if this unlocked his ability to make and maintain friendships. My personal experiences are similar.

[lolive]

My belief is that most connections ends with a disconnection. Any discourse that focuses on the connection and does not detail the question of the disconnection is, imho, missing the point completely.

[humanrebar]

> With Christianity in particular, seeing Jesus as someone who got this but had to explain it in terms of the framework of understanding of his day masked sense. It also shows how modern Christianity has moved far and away from this idea.

It's a poetic thought, but why should your personal take on Jesus's philosophy be given more weight than the Bible's?

[jwdunne]

Entirely in relation to my own experiences, which naturally hold more weight than the Bible.

I'm not trying to say that my personal view should be everybody's view or the canonical view. I'm just giving an example of how my view was shaped by certain experiences. I also highly value opinions on my experiences and views - it allows me to see things from alternate perspectives.

Sorry if I wasn't clear!

[humanrebar]

Yeah, that does clear things up a bit.

It sounds like you're interested in Christian philosophy about The Universe and Everything. It is believed that the apostle John wrote his gospel as an answer to questions revolving around the nature of Christ and His theology.

It's a little dense, but read up a bit on the concept of "logos" in Greek philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

Then read John 1 (at least to verse 18), substituting "the Word" with "logos", as that was the word used in the original Greek: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1&version=...

It's clear reading John in the context of contemporary Greek philosophy that God is the point of everything, including everything in the universe. With all that in mind, the Biblical view is that if you want to know about the nature of the universe, ask Him. God likes to work in personal spiritual experiences and He might choose to talk to you through one. Also read through the Bible (again?), but not like you'd read a novel. Read through it like you're trying to find out about its Author... the way you'd try to understand Churchill or Lincoln by reading their writing and letters.

Keep at it!