Has anybody been able to replicate the feeling of mdma through meditation or willpower?

Not necessarily, but there's something I do that I feel gets me similar feelings going on as a mdma high has, although not as intense.

I struggle to convey this to people, but one of the biggest things I realized about myself in life is that my psychology is much, much more based in what I call affect than in my thinking mind. Affect is a term they use in psychology to describe the tone of someone's emotions. Well, to me, what I realized is that my intellect is only like a tip on the iceberg of affect, like my intellect only guides, directs, and verbalizes, but the "stuff" of what I really am is much more rooted in this concept called affect.

You notice this on mdma, when you feel so warm and vibrant and connect with people so deeply. That is purely 100% affect. On the other hand, depression is when the affect-system's state is very low. The phenomenon of confidence seems to be almost fully rooted in affect rather than intellect, and this was like a really big revelation to me.

I have to show you the way I model a human being. It consists of mutliple different systems that operate somewhat independently, but are also very intertwined with eachother. It looks like this:

Intellect.
Affect.
Body [Movement].
Body [Biology].

They are systems that are stacked in this order. The ones that are directly mext to each other effect each other more than when they are farther away. It also is to where each thing is sort of rooted in the one below it. And intellect, at the top, is mainly for guidance and more complex executive action/decisions, as well as exploration in the human mind. The tone of the intellect is charged by the state of the affect. I think most people think of their whole being as being intellect, but they make a mistake and fail to see how huge the function of the affect is for the overall functioning of the machine. Indeed, I think it's the most important part for everyday functioning.

So, just knowing this improved the way I often felt. Then I also noticed that there where certain things that consistently improve the state of my affect. It pretty much involves exercise, breathing, etc. It's much more tied to movement than anything else, I think. Also, meditation seems to pretty consistently improve it, although sometimes it paradoxically puts it into a lower state too.

But movement changes it. It affects it quite easily, and quite powerfully too. I'm not talking like the kind of monotone rhythmic exercise that people usually do though. In my experience, it has to be exercise that is kind of explosive, to where you are just bursting out a movement. It has to be kind of emotional, to work well. Basically, what I do is literally jump around and behave like a monkey for a minute or two.

It sounds silly, but this literally sort of supercharges my feeling tone, and the effect can last for many hours, even after just doing it for like 2 minutes. The feeling tone then, proves to me throughout the day how much of what I am is based in this affect system.

I also meditate each morning, and on the days when I have a good meditation, and then do this, it actually feels quite similar to a low level mdma trip.

Oh, and also, the exercises that Joseph Pilates designed are good for this too. They are based around strength in the core, but also really around the depth and strength of your breath. I've noticed that breathing is very, very tied into the state of your affect system, as is posture. If you can find it, read Joseph's description of how to do his exercise called "the 100", and really try to master it as he describes. If you read his work, he also understood just how much breath snd body affects the state of the mind, and he was actually attempting for his method to be something that develops the whole being of a person like a form of yoga.

I wish I could describe this better, as I really feel like I am losing something in translation of what these concepts represent in my own experience to the words I put here to convey them. But search for this sort of thing in your own experience. See if what I say holds up to something similar in your own internal terrain. I can only hope this is as helpful to somebody else as it was for me.

/r/Psychonaut Thread