If so, what triggered it and what was it like?
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.
I am glad you are in a better place now, my friend.
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.
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.
Please try this again now that FFXVI is out and report back. For science!
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.
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.
I absolutely love how you summarized the different types of harmony you were able to experience. Thanks for sharing!
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.
The funny thing is, for all it’s descriptions in Yoga literature, if I tell you I had a partial kundalini awakening you still won’t know what I mean unless you experienced it yourself.
So no, a definition does not help to get a shared understanding.
… you are correct that if I’m unfamiliar with your terminology, I will not know what you mean.
You are incorrect that if I understand the definition of a “partial Kundalini awakening” I will not have a shared understanding. I can’t imagine why that would be true.
Just as an experiment, try to describe the taste of honey to someone who doesn’t know the sweetness, but be sure to demarcate against sugar.
And then imagine how much shared understanding there’d be.
You absolutely need experience at least in some limited ways to understand definitions or descriptions.
Does it feel spiritual? Then it was.
If by spiritual you mean “hurt my teeth” then sometimes eating ice cream is spiritual for me.
Otherwise, I’m not sure what spiritual means, as I said.
I upvoted you but I totally disagree - the idea that one can’t share their own “spiritual” experience without defining and agreeing (with others) on the definition doesn’t hold water for me.
Spirituality is inherently subjective - my wife feels it when she gives gratitude…my comment above is for sure more stupid but still valid
Do you mean “spiritual” as actually feeling a connection with the rest of all life, or understanding that each person is a tiny speck in an incomprehensibly vast universe, or imagining a connection with a personal deity, or imagining a connection with the dominant deity of the area, or feeling a peaceful satisfaction of connecting with yourself?
Religious people are likely to experience a different interpretation of the word spiritual than non-religious people. The use of the word spiritual at all will likely turn off a large part of the audience.
So I’m taking issue with the attempt to box in the word spiritual in one of your definitions.
If the post was asking about “happiness” instead of spirituality, nobody would be commenting “well hold on, before we begin discussion we’ll need to agree on what happiness means”
I’m not religious whatsoever btw.
To answer your question directly, I guess for me it’s the sense that something else is going on that is bigger than me. I’d personally also get this type of feeling by staring at the ocean.
I also agree, because we all pretty much understand what “happy” means.
No one seems to understand what “spiritual” means with any definition, and hence we shouldn’t just be using it like we do, in my opinion.
Apparently for you it means “gives you perspective into your own insignificance”, when I think for many people it, instead, means, “offers evidence for God or at least for the supernatural, in a non-spooky way”.
So… it’s a good way to get a group of people all talking about different things and feeling like they’re agreeing about things they don’t necessary agree by means of an equivocation fallacy.
I agree with your last statement!
Appreciate the discourse btw. Lemmy has been a positive place for it for me so far so thanks for continuing that.
I agree with you that if the OP had used the word happiness instead of spiritual there wouldn’t be any confusion.
Perhaps it comes from the difference in whether one believes in a soul or not? I’m not sure. Honest question, not trying to fight or argue, could you clarify for me what you’re taking issue with?
For sure, I sincerely don’t understand why anyone on a mostly anonymous Internet forum would need to define their own version of spirituality to talk about their personal experiences they think were spiritual
I’m not trying to be obtuse, super promise, but spirituality is inherently a pretty subjective subject. We’re not all going to align. We don’t need to.
There is a definition of spirituality, but it’s meaning to folks will differ.
Again, I am not really spiritual (in my own meaning of the word) but I take issue with a proposed need to define but because it almost feels idk gatekeepy?
You and I probably have a different understanding of the meaning of spiritual. We don’t need to align those meanings for me to share my dumbass acid story that I found spiritual.
I understand what you’re saying. Thanks for answering.
Thanks. Respectfully, though, it sounds like you are saying it’s OK to take an event that happened to you and arbitrarily decide that it’s going to be called “spiritual” without knowing what that means?
And then other people can take their own definitions that might be different, and read your story and be like, “Oh, I understand what this person means,” without actually knowing… potentially adding or removing their own meanings to it (the implication of the existence of a dirty, say) when that wasn’t part of the original person’s construct?
Because if that’s right, I don’t think I can go for that.
I’ve had experiences with religious people trying to force me to have a spiritual experience. Would not recommend.
Was this at a Linux user convention?
Gotta dim the lights, light the candles, and play some soft guitar.
Jesus is in the room with you right now, can’t you feel him breathing down your neck?!?
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.
Tripping acid at a dead show during drums > space. I felt one with the universe.
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.
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.
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 have never been to any of those places. It’s pretty cool that you were able to tap into that sensation so many times!
I think I rattle off the fancy places because they’re the big ones that stick out in my mind, but I’ve also had that feeling just being out in nature close to home. Feeling the stillness of the forest can be just as powerful in your backyard.
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.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have access to such a deep sense of peace for more than a few minutes per a lifetime?
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.
That’s what it’s like if you are honest with yourself. I had the same youth (except I played trumpet in the church band). They try so so hard to convince you it’s happening. I think some people want it so badly, they make themselves believe all sorts of things. When you want it, but don’t want it to just be you telling yourself it’s happening. It just doesn’t. I of course only speak for myself and my experiences but I watched it happen so many times, and wanted it so badly when I was young. Not to mention the people who I connected up with again years later that seemed like they had all those experience tell me it was all just going through the motions, faking it until you make it. I actually had a pastor tell me that one time. He knew I was struggling to have a genuine super natural experience.
I find it fascinating that you were able to help others feel a spiritual connection through your music all the while it was eluding you. Thank you for sharing.
I am truly grateful that church wasn’t my first experience with live music. Music is powerful, and the churches around me tried to co-opt that by convincing you that the experience you just had was Jesus when it was actually just live music and group energy.
That’s how I felt growing up in the church until about last year. You can’t feel the holy spirit unless you give up all of the sin in your life to Jesus.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1 John 1:9-10
People can be born in the church, but Jesus said you must be born again. Only then will the Holy Spirit live inside you.
I’m an atheist
Find yourself some mescaline (peyote or San Pedro extract)
Trust
I would not even know where to start looking. So many people here are sharing experiences on Mushrooms, LSD, MDMA, etc. How are ya’ll getting your hands on it lol.
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I want to genuinely thank you for taking the time to write this comprehensive list.
I have always been interested in psychedelics although I am a little hesitant because even moderate amounts of THC have had profound effects on me. One of the first THC edibles that I tried led to a psychedelic-like spiritual experience (which I know isn’t typical so makes me a little concerned about potentially having some pre-existing mental conditions).
I have always been a goody two shoes with rigid beliefs about the world. Never had done drugs. Drank very little and only during celebrations. The THC experience shattered many of the most rigid constructs in my mind.
I then attempted, with no luck, to recreate that experience for a very long time. This often resulted in me laying alone in bed stuck in thought loops. Precisely why your mention of walks in nature makes a ton of sense, by the way!
Edit: removing my glorious list, DM if ya got questions
