Asklemmy

Only on acid - my buddies and I got lost in a maelstrom and clung to a raft to survive. Two of us woke up on a serene island and made a beautiful community with the indigenous peoples of the island.

The other two found another island and created a futuristic industrialized society.

The ideological differences eventually formed physically into a great barrier called The Schism. They began polluting our lands and forced us into a hundred year war and many lives were lost.

Peace was found when emissaries from both tribes travelled to the caldera of the great volcano at the center of our island and met with the Keeper of the Scrolls who revealed to us that The Schism was invisible - we took that to mean that the only thing truly separating our people was our perceived differences.

But we were really, really trippin

I was in college, it was night, and several friends and acquaintances of mine had lugged a case of beer to a giant empty wire spool that sat next to our campus at the time. The spool on it's side made for a good table.

Having completed an entire class about world religions, we were set to debate whether Buddhism or Taoism was a more reasonable philosophy.

The girl to my right was definitely engaged in the conversation, but she hadn't said anything yet. I asked her "so what do you think about all of this?" She looked at me, crossed her arms, and fell backwards into the ground. I immediately said, "holy shit, did you guys just see that?" Nobody else saw the girl. As it happened, the wire spool was on the lawn between the campus and a graveyard.

Maybe I'm nuts or maybe I saw that. Never saw anything like that again though.

Sort of. I was trying to get a medical issue more under control and was using cannabis, but worried the CBD was contraindicated with one of the meds so I dropped that out and did straight THC oil.

After a few days of that I was playing a video game and got a strong sense of a divine interaction (which was weird given I was Agnostic) and that a Yes/No popup selection would occur but that what it would really be asking was if I consented to learning the mysteries of the universe and everything that would entail.

Indeed, a popup appeared (FFXIV: Shadowbringer main quest - not exactly unexpected), and I selected Yes.

I later learned (a) that CBD is an effective antipsychotic, and (b) a lot about the literal mysteries of antiquity.

I’ve had experiences with religious people trying to force me to have a spiritual experience. Would not recommend.

I was raised in a religious house. I went to church every Sunday until I was about 20. I played guitar for the church. Everyone else always talked about "feeling" the holy spirit, especially when I specifically played the music for the church.

I tried so, so hard, but never once in my life did I feel a damn thing. I prayed and prayed and prayed, but nothing. I was good friends with the pastor, and he would give me tips on listening for what God was telling me, but I never heard anything.

And eventually I gave up.

No.

I was very sick, and praying for relief, and I felt the hand of God heavy upon me, and my body flooded with warmth and peace. The next morning I was fully recovered.

A few times on psychedelics I did. On mushrooms I had a strong sense that I was in harmony with nature, on lsd felt more in harmony with myself, and on mdma in harmony with the people around me. Haven't touched the stuff in years but I do feel like my experiences shaped my outlook on life in some ways I never would have thought of before.

Closest I can think of is sitting in an onsen (hot spring) in Arima, Japan, and suddenly feeling like I am one with the world - totally relaxed, without a single worry in my mind and feeling that everything will be ok. Can't say how long it lasted, 5-15 minutes? Haven't experienced that sort of peace ever since.

I have felt a sense of awe, I have felt a sense of smallness in the universe, I have felt a sense of connection. Staring at a starscape, or across a vast landscape, being in a still and quiet serene moment of zen.

Nothing I have experienced have I classified as a spiritual experience, and I certainly won't allow organised religion to prostitute my sense of wonder for their own ends.

Not sure if this is what you’re looking for but sure, there have been times when I’m in nature and I see a view or a tree or a river or whatever and things seem so beautiful and so connected and so awe inspiring that it gives me an overwhelming sense that there is more to all this than I’ll ever understand or comprehend.

One cannot have a "spiritual" experience without having a shared definition of spiritual that isn't just a deepity.

I would urge anyone who wants to share their "spiritual" experience to give a solid definition for the term first.

I'm the opposite of spiritual so the closest I've experienced is that euphoric feeling you get when you see unparalleled beauty in nature. Places like the Grand Canyon, Grand Tetons, Yukon, Alaska, volcano in Guatemala, and some waterfalls in Mexico are a few that spring to mind.

I'm an atheist

Find yourself some mescaline (peyote or San Pedro extract)

Trust

Yes - I feel it sometimes when I'm in church. A feeling of being connected to the others. And I felt it when my wife and I lost an unborn daughter - that was actually the time I became religious again :)

TL;DR at the bottom.

I’ve had several. I think the most recent and one of the most profound was during and after the deepest meditation I’ve ever done.

I used to meditate quite a bit during covid and after, but fell out of practice a couple years ago. Fast forward, I have a new job, moved across the country, bought a house, and I am about to get married (this was a couple months ago). I didn’t realize that I had been depressed for a few months. So I decided to take some shrooms up in the mountains in the snow.

That gave me the headspace to really think about my life and what marriage means and to connect with nature away from distractions. I was finally able to find a level of peace and clarity.

That was on a Saturday. On the following Monday is when I had the meditation.

I did a quick home workout and it just kind of struck me that I should meditate and set some time aside to just be and feel and process after the experience I had over the weekend.

So I laid down on my back in the dark and put on some ambient relaxing music. I’ll try and summarize how I got to this spiritual place as best I can (highly recommend reading the untethered soul, it was the inspiration for this).

Basically, I think that the voice in our head, even the one that logically thinks about how we are feeling and logically reasons and thinks through things isn’t really who we are. That voice is just a product of all of our experiences. Who we are, at our core, is truly the being and presence that created that voice. So I told the voice that kept popping up to shhh.

That’s it, just shhhh. And eventually it stopped.

What happened next was a feeling of connection and being and grounding. There were any thoughts there was just this core being a part of this amazing, huge universe, and I felt a part of it. I felt what I can only describe as pure love. I will say I do believe in a higher power and that is the form the sense of universe took for me, but it was equally feeling connected and a part of everything in this world.

I sat with that and just felt until the timer I set went off.

I slowly opened my eyes, took a few breaths, and just came back to awareness. This was what was wild, I could feel every fiber of the carpet I was laying on, the individual strands of my hair, the fabric of my shirt, the way the light shone through the crack in the door. I took a shower and water the light reflect on the water and felt every rain drop on my head. It was the most intense feeling of connection I’ve ever had and that includes during any trip.

For me, it solidified that at the end of the day we are beings of love. Deep down beneath it all. And it’s a choice to lean into that and to not close off. To feel. The positives and the negatives. To love everyone and everything around us even when we don’t agree. To give and spread love.

TL;DR Depression sucks, our voice in our head is not who we are, we are a part of something larger, we are at a core, love.

Kind of? I was in college walking on campus in broad daylight. I pass under this skywalk, with nobody in my general vicinity. As I do, I feel what feels like someone was walking past me coming from the opposite, locking their arm into mine. I got pulled back enough to stumble.

Sure enough, nobody nearby, no objects right near me or anything I could have accidentally gotten caught up on. Still have no idea what happened there. And for the record, this was before I ever had tried alcohol and I don’t really do drugs, so I can’t blame those.

Mine was pretty spontaneous. I was studying psychedelics at the time (just because they're fascinating) but I've never done any before or since.

It was... hard to describe. It lasted several days at least, but my sense of time was greatly altered and it's hard to say how long exactly. I remember feeling like my mind wasn't fighting against itself the way it usually did. It felt like everything I did, my whole brain was all working/pulling in the same direction. Pretty much all I wanted to do was meditate for hours on end, and doing so was a wild experience with some very interesting visuals. I also came to some revelations about the nature of reality. (Though looking back, those revelations were the logical conclusion of several beliefs I had held before this experience. I think this experience just brought those multiple unrelated beliefs together and crystalized them into one cohesive worldview.) I did experience some synesthesia during the experience as well. The kind wherein seeing somebody else experience something, you feel it in your own body. I was watching a dancer on TV and feeling the proprioceptive feelings I imagined she was feeling.

Edit: I should add that it never really "ended." It tapered off over time until I was (in some ways) back to normal, but I couldn't identify really when I was back to normal. It was more like asymptotically approaching normal. And, I'll also say that in other ways, I'm still changed by that experience. And only for the better.

I have schizoaffective disorder, so I've had a lot of "spiritual" experiences, some I still can't totally shake off how real they felt despite being well medicated for years.

I once met a god in my dreams. He never spoke to me, but I could sense what he wanted to say. He told me I was actually two people, one was destined to destroy the world, the other was me, who was actually the creator of the world. Apparently I was asleep and all of reality was just my dream, and this other person inside of me was destined to wake me up, ending existence as we know it.

I also had a shadow woman with glowing green eyes who would show up constantly (while I was awake this time.) I thought she was also a god, who was in love with me. That's been one of the harder ones to shake off. I met somebody who claimed to be psychic a few years ago who described the shadow woman exactly as I remembered her. He claimed she was protecting me. That was unsettling, because I'd not mentioned her to him even once.

Besides that I used to see ghosts a lot before I was on my meds. Most of those aren't very interesting though. Just a person or animal who wasn't supposed to be there and nobody else could see.

ITT: yes, using drugs.

I cant disagree though, ive theorized that when our consciousness is in the right “state” we become more sensitive for “things we have yet to understand”

Next to make you high, drugs (and meditation, strong emotional experiences) do alter the state of our consciousness.

Yes, several. I've never done drugs, I don't drink, I have no diagnosed mental disorders.

Can't really talk about it super openly here, but I would be happy to DM you. Both dark and good ones, mostly good.

The good ones were wonderful, made me feel more alive and aware than any other time in my life. Saw people healed seemingly miraculously, some other stuff that is really personal but very lovely.

The bad ones, especially the worst one was almost indescribably horrific. I'll just say I decided it would be interesting to try and contact beings that shouldn't be contacted, I was skeptical and didn't think it would actually work, and I was horribly wrong. They accepted my invitation, I wish they hadn't, terror followed.

DM me if you wanna know the details.

Mine was intense and vivid. I suffered from depression for as long as I could remember and I thought about killing myself every day. I had super intense anxiety that never calmed down too. I prayed and prayed about it to Jesus and it never went away and that caused me to leave the church for a few years. I rededicated my life to Jesus as a last ditch effort and because I thought it would help me a little bit and I started reading my bible more but nothing with my depression changed yet. It wasn’t until a restless night I had where I was ready to kill myself that I decided to open my bible one last time and I came across this.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭4‬-‭7‬ ‭

These verses made me realize that if I’m not able to have that peace of God, then I must be doing something wrong. So I just started praying and repenting of any sin I could dig up on myself and nothing was working until I asked God to forgive me for wanting to kill myself and I immediately felt the blood of Jesus wash over me and I have not struggled ever since. Every day to me now is like a vivid spiritual experience, like Jesus is with me every second. This is not a feeling, but a knowing. Its putting 100% of my faith in Jesus that allowed him to change my life.

My girlfriend has a lot in the past, she saw a lot of things and smeled perfumes of ppl already dead, later she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder

I had a weird revelatory experience when I was 14 or so about the nature of God, and how in order to define something you must include certain characteristics and exclude certain characteristics. From that I drew the conclusion that any definition of God must be woefully incomplete, as how can one exclude characteristics from the definition of a thing that is all things and entirely beyond comprehension. From there I decided that any way of acknowledging something greater than ourselves is as valid as any other way, and that's guided my spirituality since then.

Tripping acid at a dead show during drums > space. I felt one with the universe.

Sure. Shroms'll do that to ya.

Ive been "blessed" with many experiences i describe as spiritual.

Well, being around death was pretty cerebral for one. Felt sad obviously, but like a full awareness my life had suddenly changed. You sure appreciate things differently.

Psychedelics did (...or do?) the trick in my case, but your mileage may vary, what can i say. Buyer beware. I come away with profound insights that help me cultivate a sense of, or develop a "relationship" with, you know... the divine. It feels like a trip, man. And then afterwards life still seems to confirm its trippiness.

Magick is another thing i might say triggered a spiritual experience. My first real "spell" was a simple chaos magick sigil casting experiment, and it blew my mind. I had what felt like a full blown psychedelic experience from that, even though i wasn't on anything.

Also, at the rehab i went to (p m unrelated, but not not part of my experience), they offered "Holotropic Breathwork". The things i experienced in that state while totally sober were some of the most viscerally profound, and life-changing intensities I've gone thru. Far out.

Yoga & meditation are also good catalyst's. I got those as tools in rehab, too. Even with shoddy commitment to them, they seem to continue deepening the whole syndrome.

Shit can still suck but u learn to roll with it, cuz we're all one thing experiencing itself,... so i guess it's fine. 🤷

Visiting Makkah (Mecca) and/or Medinah for pilgrimage (hajj/Umrah). I wouldn't describe myself as a vibey/woo woo person but both cities feel either spiritually peaceful or intense due to the frenzied energy of the tens of thousands of worshippers there. Several of us on a visit began crying for no reason at various moments during the trip.