I have noticed during what I think of as particularly successful sessions, when I am feeling "blissed-out", that the sensation has felt very familiar. I recently realized it feels very similar to the state I achieve in the dentists office, during a prolonged procedure, when nitrous oxide is used. Have there been any studies on the brain changes experienced during the two, and are there in fact physiological similarities?

Curious,

It is probable that few people have had both experiences, so I highly doubt that there have been such studies. I've never even heard of studies of experiences during anesthesia in general.

Our first experiences of bliss during meditation happen while there are still lots of stresses stored in our nervous system, and the same is true of some kinds of "drug trips". It is as though we tiptoe past the stresses and enjoy certain aspects of a fully-functioning consciousness.

Unfortunately, drugs (including anesthesia) are not a useful means of gaining greater consciousness because they are temporary, only generate certain specific effects, and, instead of dissolving stress they usually create stress of their own. This is why smoking marijuana, for example, can interfere with transcending for hours, days, or even weeks afterward.

Drugs are also not very predictable. My own experience with nitrous oxide anesthesia during oral surgery when I was a child was extremely frightening and painful, like a lengthy nightmare.

There is no substitute for the enjoyment of living life with the entire range of the mind alert and fully available, functioning successfully in the world while experiencing unbounded bliss.

David Spector
Natural Stress Relief/USA

Curious,

I was at the Dentist this past Monday and had the Nitrous. I will agree with you that my deeper transensions indeed resemble my Nitrous experience.

Sometimes while meditating I feel as if my entire body is melodically vabriating at a deep, deep frequency (similar to nitrous). When this occurs I find it to be an incredibly marvelous expierience. I have only been meditating since last July but I believe this is what David and others refer to as Bliss (might be wrong on that but it is blissful to me).

Kevin