"Here's a mechanism that brings these results"

"How can I have these results without loading on the mechanism?"

I can understand drug aversion but what's the aversion to breathwork, which is cheaper and shouldn't carry stigma?

Everyone is saying meditation etc, I would disagree. A major part is the ability to put this experience in motion/action which I find counterintuitive to meditation. Quite frankly no, I do not think it is replicable to be able to turn off the filters in which are responsible for keeping the raw data to a manageable level, that is much different than increasing your sensitivity through deprivation. Alteration of brain chemistry may be simulated in the future, but there is no replacement today.

>> they allow the mind to think unimpeded by usual thought patterns, and simply accept raw data as it comes in

> Is there a way to induce this feeling without the aid of psychedelics or breathwork?

Depends on what you means by "induce". (Usually) many, many years of practice (if ever)... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensh%C5%8D

I just did a 10 day silent meditation retreat and there were points where the feeling had definite similarities to psychedelics. Hard work but worth it. I have a feeling that the meditation retreat went deeper than psychedelics did for me personally.

Through certain yogic practices and breathing techniques. But honestly nothing compares to a psychedelic trip imo.

Meditation is said to be able to give similar experiences. But of course require a lot more work.

Some years ago I wanted to give it a shot so I tried one of those meditation exercises, where the goal is to have your mind calm to the point of not having any conscious thoughts and only experiencing sensations. Was stubborn about it and did it for maybe 3? hours continuously until I actually started having some success.

I can definitely report reaching an altered-state experience afterward that mirrors some of the things described here. The intensity of everything was dialed way, way up, in a way I had kind of forgotten was possible but I'm pretty sure I experienced as a kid. I don't think there's a way to put it in words that's comparable to experiencing it but it was not a subtle effect at all.

Abstractly, say everything has an "interestingness" value, and certain things would be near the top like a great movie or book. It was like there was a dial for this value that just scaled everything, and it was dialed up high enough where just the way light & shadow interacted on some things was as interesting as a great movie. Everything was super interesting. Kind of like a reverse burnout state, where maybe nothing is interesting. The effect lasted the rest of the day.

Anyway it wasn't easy at all to get in that state and I don't think I made a serious effort again. But I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot to anyone who's curious. It wasn't like there was any complex technique, it was basically just close your eyes, focus attention on breath and let go of all conscious thoughts. Personally the last part was the hard part.

I wonder if it gets easier with time so you can reach that state in 30 min or something instead of struggling hard for 3 hours. If that's the case maybe I should try seriously practicing it since having control of that dial would be pretty useful.

all thing yoga or meditation related adviced above are mainly focused on breathing basically, so any advice in that sense require at least breathing in some specific ways. Maybe electroinduction in the brain can achieve similar conditions. You aid to brain phisiological alterations, so it's quite difficult play with it without touching the ways it works from external eg with drugs, sugar levels, oxygen levels, electromagnetic induction (I'd consider co2 levels a drug for example)

Sam Harris states that you can achieve this enhanced selflessness via meditation (where we think of the "self" or "the ego" as that sort of "conductor" that the psychedelics turn off). However, while meditation is like a sailboat, psychedelics are like a rocket: both will take you places, but one much more quickly and with much more risk.

In my limited experience (2 trips) there was no negative aspect to psychedelics. There were things that were already negatively valenced, like riding in a car or visiting a friend's messy house briefly, however I had no inkling of a bad trip or any scary/demonic/overwhelming sensations.

Sam Harris & Yuval Noah Harari answer a question about "peak" meditative experiences, and set them in context with psychedelic experiences in the segment starting at 1:27:20:

https://samharris.org/podcasts/138-edge-humanity/

Take a look at Kundalini Yoga