Your analogy of meditation being like riding into the woods is great. Its only flaw, however, is in the assertion that both meditation and psychedelic experience arrive at the same mental state. Minus that, likening meditation to progressive, incremental bicycle trips into the forest is accurate and sets a person up wonderfully to begin the discipline.
Psychedelic drugs provide an experience of absorption like a trance. When one is absorbed in such a state, it's the first direct experience of a sense of self that is immaterial (but finite). Buddhist meditation (samadhi or "right concentration" in the Noble Eightfold Path) goes very far beyond that and into very different states of consciousness.
Gil Fronsdal is a Stanford Ph.D who teaches clearly, logically, and in stepwise progression. You can learn here:
If you're interested in empirical studies of samadhi, Dr. James Austin published a book called "Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness" from MIT press.
I hope this helps alleviate your panic and brings you clarity and harmony of mind.
Psychedelic drugs provide an experience of absorption like a trance. When one is absorbed in such a state, it's the first direct experience of a sense of self that is immaterial (but finite). Buddhist meditation (samadhi or "right concentration" in the Noble Eightfold Path) goes very far beyond that and into very different states of consciousness.
Gil Fronsdal is a Stanford Ph.D who teaches clearly, logically, and in stepwise progression. You can learn here:
http://www.audiodharma.org/talks-intromed.html
If you're interested in empirical studies of samadhi, Dr. James Austin published a book called "Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness" from MIT press.
I hope this helps alleviate your panic and brings you clarity and harmony of mind.