Spiritual/Religious Experience and Excessive Fantasizing/MD

[Bluejay Fire Agate]

I'm interested in any connections anybody has made between their spiritual/religious experiences and their experiences of excessive fantasizing/MD. 

I'm curious because I had a very religious upbringing and have always been interested in spirituality. I was raised a Pentecostal Christian and became passionate about my religious beliefs at 13 years old when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. I spent the rest of my youth aspiring to become a preacher. In my early 20s I began to explore neopaganism and now identify as a witch. 

Eretaia posted a very thoughtful, well-written post that explored the relationship between "flow" and EF/MD. I was reflecting on my experience of flow in EF and my experiences of flow within ecstatic religious experiences. Pentecostalism has a lot of ecstatic practices like dancing, speaking in tongues, very intense payer, worship, and preaching, faith healing, casting out demons, etc. I was very obsessed with my religious beliefs and getting into these ecstatic spiritual states. I remember the feeling of being in these ecstatic states and that it felt very similar to EF in terms of the pleasure I got from it. I engaged in EF before I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and became passionate about Pentecostal Christianity and, from what I recall, I engaged in EF less during the time when I was so focused on Christianity and felt that God was speaking to me a lot. 

Anyone relate to that? Do you ever feel like you're having a spiritual breakthrough when you're fantasizing? Do you have the feeling of making all these mind-blowing connections? Does it relate at all to the religious or spiritual for you? 

[Bee]

What you're describing sounds is an endorphin rush - it's common in Pentecostalism. It's not so much religious, as it is the brain responding to extreme and unusual stimuli.

So I'd say it's common in MD - DDing releases the same "happy" or "sad"chemicals into the brain.  It's similar to what happens if you take drugs like morphine...it's is just a natural high.

[Bluejay Fire Agate]

Yeah, I think you get an endorphin rush when you're in a flow state, which you can experience in all kinds of religious and nonreligious contexts. I was wondering if the high you get while DDing is part of an altered state of consciousness like you experience during religious ecstasy basically. 

Bee said:

What you're describing sounds is an endorphin rush - it's common in Pentecostalism. It's not so much religious, as it is the brain responding to extreme and unusual stimuli.

So I'd say it's common in MD - DDing releases the same "happy" or "sad"chemicals into the brain.  It's similar to what happens if you take drugs like morphine...it's is just a natural high.