Atheists: have you ever had a religious experience and what did you make of it?

[Tonus]

Apologies to the drug users out there but;
I believe that my conscious mind is the product of uncounted generations of natural selection. It has sculpted my anatomy and physiology to provide me with an unbelievably complex series of chemical reactions self assembled in to neural networks whose end product is my unclouded mind. Whacking that system with an external chemical clearly powerful enough to seriously alter its operation and believing that it improves the system is akin to believing that hitting a Rolex with a pick-hammer will help it tell time.

I don't know about psychedelic drugs, but many athletes have used anything from ephedrine to amphetamines to cocaine because it can either sharpen their senses, make them feel more alert, or even just more confident. The latter can have serious downsides, as the many accidents caused by drunk drivers can attest. I think the more serious concern for many such drugs is the addictive property they can have; there is clearly a secondary effect going on that lasts longer than any benefit you get from those, and it can be disastrous over the long term.