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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Rhizoid]
    #1784249 -

How can one be concious of perceptions but not use some form of self model?


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Always Smi2le

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Phencyclidine]
    #1784255 -

Quote:
Correct, but you can't have an experience which doesn't occur to something. As long as you are experiencing, your brain is still constructing the experience as occuring to something. Ego is a functional necessity of experience, thus ego loss requires unconsciousness.


The experience is experienced by some consciousness and a recording of the experience is stored in my brain, to be recalled and reflected upon by some later consciousness.

I don't agree that ego is a functional necessity of experience. Consciousness and memory is all that's needed.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: GazzBut]
    #1784266 -

Quote:
How can one be concious of perceptions but not use some form of self model?


Perceptions are still available unless you're unconscious. And the perceptions include various self models. But the ego is no longer in the driver's seat. It's asleep on the back seat, but will answer simple questions if needed. :smile:
 

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Rhizoid]
    #1784310 -

I have had experiences on mushrooms and acid which some may classify as "ego-loss". I think ego transformation better describes what happens to me. Although one experience I had whilst merely stoned on pot seemed to see me merge with several identities and then all of these identies began to fall away. I somehow managed to pull out of the experience before going any further, like a chicken! That feeling had a real sense of potential ego loss to it.
Anyway, I think we could do with discarding the term ego. Like "god" or "spiritual" it means so many different things to different people.

Peace


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Always Smi2le

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Rhizoid]
    #1784319 -

> this helps me recall some portions of it.

I have found that the more effort I spend trying to recall, the more dilute (tainted) the experience becomes... Granted, the experience hasn't changed, but the memory or impression of the feel of it becomes muddled.

> think what is brought back is a sort of imprint, or a kind of projection of the experience.

Very well said.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Seuss]
    #1784324 -

> I have had experiences on mushrooms and acid which some may classify as "ego-loss".

Most of the time when I read reports from people talking about a level-5 trip, they are not describing what I tihink of as ego-loss.  They typically go something like,  "I took 30g dry and was so out of it that I was talking to the doorknob.  Talk about ego-loss... whew, was it scarry...".  I am not impling that this is the case with your experiences!

> Anyway, I think we could do with discarding the term ego.

That is the problem with written/verbal communication in general.  The meaning of the words are defined in the mind of the listener regardless of the intent of the teller.  This is why I never understood 'dirty' or vulgar words.  If I cuss in a language that somebody understands, they get upset.  If I cuss in a language that the somebody doesn't understand, they do not.  It is not my cussing that upsets this person, but rather their own interpretation of what I am saying.

For me, the term ego-loss simply implies that the world is seen without judgement... or perhaps that experiences are accepted without judgement.

> I somehow managed to pull out of the experience before going any further

That sounds very familiar.  :smile:


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Seuss]
    #1784422 -

Quote:
Most of the time when I read reports from people talking about a level-5 trip, they are not describing what I tihink of as ego-loss. They typically go something like, "I took 30g dry and was so out of it that I was talking to the doorknob.


I think there are many cases of ego-loss which are never reported or remembered because nothing is brought back. The immediate memory is just a blank, or maybe a few confusing fragments of experiencing things in a depersonalized state without realizing the implications.

In the memory of my first ego-death experience there is a blank part between the last things I remember from peaking, and the first things I remember from the period of ego-loss. The transition is missing. I didn't look at the clock so I don't know if the transition took 0.1 seconds or 10 minutes, but that part is missing from my memory.

I wonder if there is an optimal dose for producing ego-death and bringing as much as possible back from it? A dose that's too low will not alter brain function enough, and a dose that's too high will just add more confusion and discomfort to the experience.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Seuss]
    #1784446 -

Quote:
They typically go something like, "I took 30g dry and was so out of it that I was talking to the doorknob.



No thats no what I meant. I have only had the experiences like the ones I think you and Rhizoid have described when on my own, in the dark etc. But I have had a few moments where I could have chatted away to a doorknob too! :smile:

Anyway, I see the ego as the software that interprets the data which represents the objective world. Kind of like our operating system. When I have an experience which could be described as ego-loss I see it as an update (sometimes temporary) to my o/s(ego) but my hard drive does not get formatted! Always some portion of the original O/s remains! Does this explain why I dont agree with the term ego loss?

Its fun to build these mental sandcastles as long as we dont mind when they get washed away eh?!!

Peace

 


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Always Smi2le

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Rhizoid]
    #1784778 -

Strange... don't rate a user while you are in the middle of posting or you will get a double post...



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Just another spore in the wind.

Edited by Seuss (08/06/03 11:31 AM)

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Rhizoid]
    #1784801 -

>  In the memory of my first ego-death experience there is a blank part between the last things I remember from peaking, and the first things I remember from the period of ego-loss.

Kind of like when I wake up from a dream.  I have some idea of what the dream was about, but the longer I am awake, the more distant those memories get.

> The transition is missing.

Yep.  I still remember the beginning and ending of my first time very clearly.  I got lost while looking at the patterns swirling in the carpet.  I had been trying to figure out the mathmatics behind the patterns so that I could write a screen saver using the effect when I suddenly realized that I was no longer in Kansas... kind of like waking up underwater.  A moment of pure panic as I shot to the surface.

> I wonder if there is an optimal dose for producing ego-death

For me a low level 3 (about 3.5g dry) is the best.  It is enough of a dose that my mind is flexible to getting lost, but not so much of a dose that I cannot focus or concentrate.  I have to couple the dose with meditation, or nothing happens, which I find very difficult at higher doses.  The higher doses leave me talking to doorknobs as well.  :grin:

I used to keep a journal of what little stayed with me when I came back from these states.  There are some very interesting entries in there...

Riding the waves of reality.
That which is, is not.
Illusions of illusions.

... and one of my all time favorites:

Two is one.
One is one.
Three is ten thousand.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Seuss]
    #1784875 -

Here is a passage that made a lot more sense to me when I re-read it after my experience, than it did before. It's from the book "The Psychedelic Experience", the part where they interpret the Chikhai Bardo or first stage in the Tibetan Book of the Dead:

The first radiance knows no self, no concepts. The secondary experience involves a certain state of conceptual lucidity. The knowing self hovers within that transcendent terrain from which it is usually barred. If the instructions are remembered, external reality will not intrude. But the flashing in and out between pure ego-less unity, and lucid, non-game selfhood, produces an intellectual ecstasy and understanding that defies description. Previous philosophic reading will suddenly take on living meaning.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Seuss]
    #1784896 -

Quote:
Seuss said: When I daydream, I loose all connection with what is happening around me, yet I am not unconscious. In the same respect, egoloss does not require unconsciousness.


When you daydream are you imagining events that occur to you or to nothing at all?

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Phencyclidine]
    #1784971 -

> When you daydream are you imagining events that occur to you or to nothing at all?

I have to think on this one. Since I started meditating years ago I really haven't noticed myself daydreaming anymore.

From what I can remember, my daydreams were more like lucid dreams where pretty much anything could happen.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Seuss]
    #1784988 -

hmm yeah, maybe there are trip reports about the ego death, when it hasnt actualy occured. 

I had one trip, it wasnt the ego death. at first I thought I was being taken back to our mother planet, or home, our true home. Later that turned into me dying, byt that did not matter as I knew I would carry on after I left my body behind.  Anyway, the further I got into it, the more I lost myself and merged with "the all" (if you wanna call it that) the closer i got the more it pounded at my head and the more confused I was, yet I was close to having the truth about my exsistence revealed to me.

I also felt very strong instincts about what was happening to me, I felt an insticnt to prepare my body, as a gift, but I began to worry that I had not looked after my body eneough and I wasn not in the right psycial psotion to give it up, so i assumed the lotus position :smile:

anyway, I imagine if I had gone deeper into the expereince I would have totaly lost MYSELF. there would have been no sence of me, as in the human me who goes to work etc.  but I would have been something. 


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get it all together get like birds of a feather

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: HagbardCeline]
    #1785028 -

I didn't have an ego "death" but i had it broken down for a few hours on a shroom trip once. I realized that the ego is just like a gun. You use it to protect yourself, however alot of times it creates more problems than it solves.
When it came back it made me cry because i didn't want it anymore, but its like alchohol. Just knowing that i have a problem is the first step.
The ego is what makes us think we are an individual and not part of a whole. It makes us look out for ourselves and not think of others.
anyways i found it quite inlightening being knocked off my high horse for allitle while.


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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Dreamer987] * 1
    #1787709 -

Here are a few thoughts from the early days of Zen which directly relate to egoloss:

On Believing In Mind by Seng-t'san (died 612):

[snip]

The Perfect Way knows no difficulties except that it refuses to make preferences; Only when freed from hate and love does it reveal itself fully and without disguise.

[snip]

Ane when oneness is not thoroughly understood, in two ways loss is sustained; The denying of reality is the asserting of it, and the asserting of emptiness is the denying of it.

[snip]

Abide not with dualism, carefully avoid pursuing it; As soon as you have right and wrong, confusion ensues, and Mind (Emptyness) is lost.


Song of Enlightenment by Yoka Daishi (died 713):

[snip]

When Reality is attained, it is seen to be without an ego-substance and devoid of all forms of objectivity.

[snip]

Here one sees neither sin nor bliss, neither loss nor gain; In the midst of the Eternally Serene no idle questions are invited.

[snip]

All melts away and I find myself suddenly within the Unthinkable itself.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Seuss]
    #1787773 -

I read this a few days ago...

"On the other hand, it is by means of the universe that the individual is impelled to realise himself. Not only is it his foundation, his means, his field, the stuff of the divine work; but also since the concentration of the universal life which he is takes place within limits and is not like the intensive unity of Brahman free from all conception of bound and term, he must neccessarily universalise and impersonalise himself in order to manifest the divine All which is his reality. Yet is he called upon to preserve, even when he most extends himself in universality of conciousness, a mysterious transcendent something of which his sense of personality gives him an obscure and egoistic representation. Otherwise he has missed his goal, the problem set to him has not been solved, the divine work for which he accepted birth has not been done." - The Essential Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo.


I think here Aurobindo means that we must keep some of our ego intact during our moments of expanded conciousness. Perhaps otherwise we fail to bring back any meaningful data? This could relate to the "blank parts" or "transistions" you guys have mentioned.

Peace


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Always Smi2le

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: GazzBut]
    #1790104 -

This is all very interesting, but, unless I missed it while skimming over all of your posts, I think you all deem the ego as an inherent part of the human psyche. Now, I'm not a psychologist so please don't be too harsh if you don't agree :smile: , but perhaps the dissolution of th ego that occurs on high doses of psychadelics or in deep meditation is not a transcendance of some instinctive part of the mind, but a dissolution of an illusion? This is more than just speculation however; there is a book I glanced at earlier this summer; I forget the name of the author but the title is "The origins of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind". I only read the first few chapters of it, but the author appears to have made an extremely thorough argument that self-awareness is not inherent, but instead emerges from societal influences. I'm afraid I can't back this up any further without referring to the book (which I've already returned to the library), but some of the author's evidence came from analyzing the Iliad and noting that there is no concept of self-awareness or free will in the story; events and actions are attributed to the influence of dieties. The author also had a defense against the obvious retort that this is merely a poetic device; but again I'm sorry I don't remember what it was. Anyways, hope this gives some new insight on the subject.

I guess the best way to determine such would be to study the actions of a newborne infant, and to study an indigenous human culture that has not been influenced by the outside world (which i doubt is possible)

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: psylicon]
    #1794708 -

I don't equate consciousness with self-awareness or the ability to verbally express self-awareness, so I don't think such arguments lead anywhere. But since I'm inclined to believe that there is some truth in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I find it reasonable to think that our concepts of consciousness have changed whenever our language about consciousness has changed.

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Re: Reflections on ego-loss [Re: Phencyclidine]
    #28964403 -

Phencyclidine said:
Quote:
It [ego loss] is a state of not experiencing anything with respect to anything else. Each experience is taken for what it is, not for what it is compared to another experience.


Pretentious nonsense. 

Ego loss is not experiencing anything with respect to one's self, however, since ego is a functional necessity of experience, this can't occur.  Ego is a functional necessity of experience because experiences are not things that float around an accumulate, they occur to things.  Any experience requires some sort of identification with an experiencing entity.

I simply think that what you say about the experience being taken for what it is, is complete bullshit.  Or, at least, it's entirely based on faith and can't be verified.
 


This may a little late, but don't believe Phencyclidine to be correct here. One must only look to a baby, right? They have no functional ego but still experience.


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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