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

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.