I experimented on myself plenty back in the day. Lots of my experiments had to do with pain—refusing pain medication when it was available to me, prodding places that pained, using more medication than helpful and so on. I remember one instance when I found myself in immence pain and some words came to mind from a Wikipedia article on a Buddhist mantra I had heard long ago. I read that the prescription for this branch of Buddhism was the mere repetition of the line: I take refuge in Amida Budda. Later, I found that the mantra is longer but it was an amazing altered state to find tranquility in that unlike any other purposeful altered state I had experimented with to cope with the pain (e.g. mindfulness, gratitude, imagery....)
I experimented on myself plenty back in the day. Lots of my experiments had to do with pain—refusing pain medication when it was available to me, prodding places that pained, using more medication than helpful and so on. I remember one instance when I found myself in immence pain and some words came to mind from a Wikipedia article on a Buddhist mantra I had heard long ago. I read that the prescription for this branch of Buddhism was the mere repetition of the line: I take refuge in Amida Budda. Later, I found that the mantra is longer but it was an amazing altered state to find tranquility in that unlike any other purposeful altered state I had experimented with to cope with the pain (e.g. mindfulness, gratitude, imagery....)