Ayahuasca, LSD, meditation etc - to ask if you or anyone you know tried and what’s it like

Ah it's never too busy, I used to do walking meditation just walking around the streets of london! But if you can find a park near you that can help. Having music playing in your headphones can help you focus too.

Basically you go for a walk, and focus your attention on the feeling of each foot, as the ball of the foot strikes the floor, your foot weight rolls over the floor, and your big toe lifts off the floor. Focus on what it feels like on the sole of your foot against the ground. Start by walking very slowly until you get the hang of it, then after a while you'll be able to do it at full speed walking.

Each time you notice your mind has drifted to thinking of other things, don't be frustrated with yourself because it usually does and that's the practice, just shift your attention back to your feet again :)

Motte: "commonality"
Bailey: "equated"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Ironically, the person who petulantly told OP to go back to her maths homework came across as incredibly puerile.

I don’t do any of them.
I’m disabled and on too many legal drugs to risk nasty interactions with illegal ones.

my DS however is a Buddhist monk. He does meditation and has done so daily for going on five years now.

however there is a very definite path to the teaching of meditation and while it can lead to some very positive spiritual experiences it can also be very disconcerting. Some of the deeper practices are only introduced on week long retreats with a supportive community around you.

your local Buddhist group will run meditations and will be able to guide you to the most suitable level for you.

Yes, I understand the commonality, and I'm vaguely aware of Be Here Now as a counter-cultural bible, and RD's Timothy Leary connections and research into psychedelics -- you asked why people thought you sounded like a child. The fact that you equated them made people think that.

Meditation can't create the same effects as psychedelic drugs 😆
I've tried magic mushrooms and have been given some 2cb to try which is like synthetic mescaline. I can't say I have ever had a spiritual experience but I'm not a believer in that stuff to start with so whatever I saw and experienced was not perceived within that lens.

I smoke weed.

It relaxes me.

Did LSD twice in my youth - teenager in the 70's. -

I don't even take a paracetamol and hardly taken an antiobiotic, unless necessary. Maybe twice in my life. I'm 70.

Ayahuasca is a quick method to achieve what with meditation might take years. It can be pretty dangerous, conscious awareness overload etc with the person possibly not ready for it leading to serious mental health problems or alternatively issues with the people who sell "the experience". The slow meditative path is recommended.

There's a really interesting book about it where he discusses all this (and other plants such as tobacco) called Plant Teachers by Jeremy Narby.

My autistic, adult DD tried DMT, she found it interesting, but said she prefers her brain how it is. No-one can say if she felt NT, but that's what some people claim.
I had time to spare and my local classes were offering meditation with crystals. I already meditated, had done Reiki etc and thought crystals were ridiculous. But they changed my meditation. We did walking/pathways and it was unsettling because it was as though I had less control and was being taken deeper into the meditation. I'm particularly attracted to Morganite.

Ram Dass mentions in some of his talks how one of his teachers told him that (I'm paraphrasing) psychedelics, if done in a cool place, alone, while your mind is turned to God, they can be helpful, but they are a poor substitute for the real thing, because you can never stay in that place - you always come back to where you began after the trip is over. And that the only way to actually get aligned with God consciousness is via the more sustainable methods like kriya yoga/ prayer/ meditation/ these kinds of things

And especially if you don't like being out of control, I'd think there's a high risk of having a bad trip with psychedelics, whereas meditation/kriya etc is much much safer, and for me sustained meditation actually gave me much more expansion into "God consciousness"/ "the flow"/ universe than psychedelics ever did! It takes much more effort (ie practice) to see effects, but it really does work if you stick at it!

What are your experiences OP?

I love Ram Dass too! I tried psychedelics a couple of times when younger but had too much "uncleared" trauma so had horrible trips and will never try again.

But love to meditate, especially loving kindness meditation and walking meditation. Have had a couple of totally consciousness-expanding experiences back when I did a couple of hours of meditation a day - found Ram Dass later and those meditation experiences really aligned with what he describes (though I'm by no way anywhere near as "evolved" down the path as Ram Dass was.) Do you listen to the Ram Dass podcasts on Spotify? I've been listening to them falling asleep for a couple of years and they've totally changed my perspective on life and God.

And found kriya yoga is especially powerful if you're looking for a "natural" safe alternative to psychedelics!

I took LSD on several occasions, magic mushrooms and and have also done deep meditation. This was all around twenty-five years ago and I don't even drink now. But my experience, since you asked...

LSD: Although looking back, I can't believe I used to take it, I have no regrets. For me it definitely did open my mind to different ways of thinking and having tripped pretty hard, I am left with the irrefutable knowledge that there 'is more' - whether that means there is more to our brains, our universe or different dimensional ways of experiencing things, I am not sure. But I am glad to have had the experiences I did. Some of my trips were just 'fun' - mild and often shared hallucinations (riddle me that!) and laughing that was definitely extreme and hysterical, but no less good for the soul for it. I have had more introverted trips where I felt more solitary and wanted to look at things, think, listen to music and allow the trip to take me wherever it will and I have had a couple of less pleasant trips where I understood the dark side of taking acid. Luckily I was able to bring myself back round though grounding myself (it will pass), listening to music and sharing my feelings in real time with people who understood and could help me back.

MUSHROOMS: Similar levels and variety of hallucination and visualisations. I remember feeling like I had experienced what it must be like to have synthesia and also experiencing the most beautiful and magical colours, lights, shapes and sensations of warmth and safety whilst in a forest after a night out. I definitely felt as though a door opened in my brain and has never fully shut - not in a scary way - I feel completely normal and grounded - but more of a 'once you've seen it, you can't unsee it' kind of way.

Deep meditation. I have mildly felt the euphoria from meditation but not on the level that I felt it on drugs and I didn't ever visualise. It was more akin to taking ecstasy than a hallucinogenic.

FWIW I don't think I am 'cool' for taking drugs in the past, I wouldn't advocate and I am the most boring square now, but I am glad that I experienced the things I did as it has given me more empathy and a more open mind to the possibilities of what could be going on in other peoples minds. It also makes me a bit excited for what we might discover our minds are capable of in the future.

FWIW, I learned much more about consciousness from a handful of ketamine experiences than from many shroom and LSD experiences.

A friend had to go and get her son from Argentina after he was hospitalised in Argentina after taking ayahuasca in what he had thought was a safe and controlled environment. He had had it recommended for low mood, what he recognises now was a mild, situational, depression but Individual reaction to it is unpredictable and it cost him his job and nearly his relationship. It took 6 months back in England to get him back on an even keel and start rebuilding his life.

I've heard people who are well-practiced at meditation and also have experience of psychedelics say that the latter can be a useful glimpse of what can be achieved through the former.

I've tripped plenty but never got any better at meditation.

I had a weird experience meditating once, I was concentrating on not coughing and then I remember thinking “I feel like a marshmallow”. Afterwards I’ve heard other people describing feeling like they have a massive head or hands and it’s similar.

Also had some weird experiences with breath work but think that’s more a feeling of dread brought on by messing with your oxygen levels.

So you can have trippy experiences without drugs but it’s hard to replicate.

Because your title asks if people have tried ‘ayahuasca, LSD or meditation’ as if they’re much of a muchness?

I've never done it - I'm too much of a control freak - but I used to be on a sports team with a woman who credited Ayahuasca with her recovery from PTSD after a serious sexual assault. She'd travelled to South America to take it more than once.