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ChiefKeef
The Doors of Reality


Registered: 02/25/13
Posts: 14
Last seen: 10 years, 11 days
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Can someone explain the "ego death" to me?
#19101218 - 11/07/13 03:15 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I've tripped a handful of times, although 2 have really really taken me out there.
Both those 2 experiences my eyes were truly opened, in terms of how I affect others and how I need to repair my relationship with my family. Both times I had that whole "I'm going to hell" thought in my head. It came from me not making the grade, or cut to get into heaven, and the whole trip is me learning about myself and how I must improve, deep thoughts followed and many revelations occurred.
My question is, the whole "I'm going to hell" mindset, is that the "ego death"?
Truthfully I can admit I was an still are in some ways an asshole, but I'm improving and that's what matters.
I also embraced the whole "I'm going to hell mentality" as to prepare to learn about myself, like I wanted to die, to kill the bad and negativity off my personality.
Yes? No?
This amazing drug gave me such clarity.
-------------------- I now understand what the meaning of the band "The Doors" mean... Opening the doors of reality
my dad used to be a doorman or something i don’t know but when children would hang on doors he would say “Don’t play with the doors, Jim Morrison played with the doors and he’s dead.” and parents would lose their shit.
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theRAPeutic
Hueman


Registered: 07/22/13
Posts: 8,702
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: ChiefKeef]
#19101268 - 11/07/13 03:23 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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No, that just sounds like bad thoughts. Ego death from what I hear is forgetting who you are, even taking a drug, maybe even feel like you died.
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shroomy stan
Grass Smoker




Registered: 09/17/13
Posts: 158
Loc: The Forest
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: theRAPeutic]
#19101330 - 11/07/13 03:31 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Bad trip, please try again.
As for Ego death, haven't been there yet... Yet.
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Soon after falling into a deeper psychedelic state to escape the prison of our reality. Our hero becomes trapped in his own peaceful place which immediately becomes his sanctuary. A place filled with his wildest dreams. This, is his new home.
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mutantmushroom
The Mutant



Registered: 10/01/13
Posts: 416
Loc: Daytona
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: shroomy stan]
#19101346 - 11/07/13 03:34 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ego death is like eternal bliss and oneness with the universe. Its very hard to understand until you'v had one. On my ego death experiences I usually am laying down in a dark room and loose my sense of self. Every sensation, sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound all become one energy that fills your soul.
-------------------- When you put the best effort you can into something, you’re bound to get something good out of it
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Aldebaran
Psilo-Scribe



Registered: 11/26/09
Posts: 1,322
Loc: Altered States of Europe
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: ChiefKeef] 1
#19101549 - 11/07/13 04:20 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
My question is, the whole "I'm going to hell" mindset, is that the "ego death"?
It might be part of an ego death experience, I've certainly had trips which started out with that kind of feeling and then intensified into some kind of ego-death type trip. There is a quote by Stan Grof where he describes this kind of scenario:
Quote:
Sometimes, we not only experience the sense of personal annihilation, but also the destruction of the world as we know it.....we have a sense of all-pervading anxiety and impending catastrophe of enormous proportions. The impression of imminent doom can be very convincing and overwhelming. The predominant feeling is that we are losing all that we know and that we are. At the same time, we have no idea what is on the other side, or even if there is anything there at all. ....we experience total annihilation on all imaginable levels. It involves physical destruction, emotional disaster, intellectual and philosophical defeat, ultimate moral failure, and even spiritual damnation. During this experience, all reference points, everything that is important and meaningful in our life, seems to be mercilessly destroyed.
Ego death is a complicated topic because it's based on Buddhist ideas which are not always easy to comprehend. In terms of an actual ego death trip, I think one characteristic is that the intensity of the trip gets to the point where there just isn't room for you to exist within the trip, as though the trip is sweeping everything away within your mind.
It's the feeling that if you 'let go' you won't exist anymore; imagine that instead of fighting to stay awake you are fighting to continue your existence. There is an abyss in the middle of the trip, and you feel that if you fall into it you won't come back. You are resisting your own death, and the trip can feel like hell.
The "ego death" itself is when you drop into this abyss and discover that there is something beyond it. You continue to exist as a form of awareness even without any real awareness of yourself. You might actually start to believe that you've reached the state beyond death. You gradually become more aware and return to something closer to normal, just tripping very hard. The moment of ego death can be a kind of ecstatic realization that your consciousness is not something individual that you needed to cling on to, but something oceanic that is part of the universe itself. All the details of your life seem trivial in comparison; for a moment your perspective shifts and you feel as though you have become the entire universe.
Or something like that, anyway....
-------------------- I wrote that, but I meant something else
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Yogi1
Squatchin
Registered: 04/01/13
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Last seen: 4 years, 2 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: mutantmushroom]
#19101612 - 11/07/13 04:33 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ego death is a blanket term for a number or experiences than involve partial to complete dissolution of the ego. On Nitrous I did this and it was simply experiencing a repeating void and I always feared I would never return to reality, like I experienced the end of existence.
On LSD it came while peaking during sex. I was in the early stage of a completely loving relationship that felt like connecting our energy bodies into 1. We were peaking and I remember I closed my eyes and became like a DMT god along with her and we laughed at the top of our lungs in a crazy loving transformative energy. We were some god for a few minutes.
On DMT it happens every time you break through.
On mushrooms its never happened for me.
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SgtPepperNo9
Stranger


Registered: 10/30/13
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1]
#19102765 - 11/07/13 08:33 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ego death from what I have interpreted it as is the complete loss of self. Just experiencing and being, not knowing you are a human. You aren't looking through your eyes at visuals because you have no eyes. You aren't really thinking with your brain because it is just happening.
I could be completely 100% wrong but that's what I have always thought.
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Yogi1
Squatchin
Registered: 04/01/13
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: SgtPepperNo9]
#19102780 - 11/07/13 08:36 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Have you actually experienced one?
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SgtPepperNo9
Stranger


Registered: 10/30/13
Posts: 364
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1]
#19102849 - 11/07/13 08:50 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I took a pretty high dose of DXM once and had the super dissociative experience that was pretty close (at least I thought.)
On 2 blotters of DOB one time I got into a thought loop and convinced myself that if I discovered the meaning of life I would just disappear in thin air. Then I did lol atleast in my head anyway. I almost have difficulty remembering what exactly happened but everything changed. My gf said at times while I was laying there my eyes were open and sometimes closed but I couldn't remember the difference. Normally I have OEV and CEV that change whether my eyes were open vs closed. I was just totally gone. Its weird because I can still picture how it felt but can't really describe it. Occasionally reality would come back and I remember seeing people I recognize (with weird looking features obviously) before poof they were gone again. Pretty much laid in bed for 14 hours then the next day was there and I was still feeling trippy and had no idea if I had slept or not.
Like I said I could be wrong and these could just be really strong trips but I don't know.
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ImFukNCLUELESS
I SPIT ON PEOPLE


Registered: 11/19/12
Posts: 1,580
Last seen: 9 years, 19 days
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: SgtPepperNo9]
#19102884 - 11/07/13 08:58 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ego death is the knowing of nothing
Not knowing who u are how to speak how to move and truly feeling as if u r dying but excepting it and fading into complete peacefullness with no visual connection with reality and possiblly waking up in a puddle of piss (at least i did) because you complelty let go of all worries or concerns and have faded into what could be described as eternial bliss
Then being reborn and having to learn who/what u are
It is the most wonderful feeling n the world but its not something u want to expernce very often and could be quite scary if you not experinced enough for it
If the most you have ever eaten dont just jump to 10gs going for it because it is toatlly different expernce and totally unexplainable
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how to pass a drug test FOO MAN'S WBS TEK damions5050's coir tek DONATE TO THE "IM FUCKING BROKE FUND" 1PtqhURaxtCpGpeUBNqeZi7XnmKwWe8WWf "my girl said it's OK to have a little penis I prefer she didnt have a penis at all"-prisoner#1
Edited by ImFukNCLUELESS (11/07/13 09:04 PM)
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Pianist
Stranger
Registered: 10/11/13
Posts: 3
Last seen: 10 years, 2 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: ImFukNCLUELESS] 1
#19108392 - 11/08/13 11:48 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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It's the dissolution of the mind-made ego, and the limits imposed by ordinary consciousness on your sense of self are removed. You're then aware of your "self" as, essentially, the entire universe. Illusions of separation completely break down.
It's worth mentioning that you definitely do not need drugs to reach this state of consciousness, but they have a way of forcing you into it. Someone said ego death is related to Buddhist ideas and they're right, ego death and Nirvana are essentially one and the same. Generally Buddhists don't use drugs to reach that state, they use meditation.
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flipsidetrue




Registered: 05/26/13
Posts: 364
Loc: Earth
Last seen: 7 years, 10 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Pianist]
#19108415 - 11/08/13 11:52 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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ego death from my experience i forgot who i was how i acted i lost all sense of material needs and i was just existing along with the cycle of life, i was no longer an individual with a certain perspective/upbringing/attitude/influence and i was just existing energy i was one with everything and i was part of everything.
Edited by flipsidetrue (11/09/13 09:51 AM)
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Deathcore
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/13
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: flipsidetrue]
#19108706 - 11/09/13 01:21 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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refer to most of my posts...
I thought I died and was stuck in hell... Prior to that I was in heaven than purgatory, than hell.. very surreal event of my life that happened over a year ago but the effects wont end until I physically die and learn the truth... If its hell its hell, what can I do?
Just be the best you can be and hope and pray..everyday..
You had a bad trip but look at the positives, now you know what to improve..
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Yogi1
Squatchin
Registered: 04/01/13
Posts: 1,015
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Deathcore]
#19109204 - 11/09/13 06:26 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Your brain has a physical ego core in the hippocampus, mushrooms will physically turn this down to allow your brain to function without it.
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lessismore
Registered: 02/10/13
Posts: 6,268
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1] 1
#19109213 - 11/09/13 06:31 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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egodeath , one with everything you see, no concept of self, unconscious
its what happens afterwards that is interesting, the realizations also egodeath usually only happen on high doses/when ready to let go
I am not my body, not these thoughts, nor am I my brain  you are me
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Bill_Oreilly
ANIMALS (the RAINBOW SERPENT)


Registered: 11/12/11
Posts: 26,370
Loc: Boston
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: ChiefKeef] 1
#19109232 - 11/09/13 06:45 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ego-death= Understanding that nothing is indeed, something. Ego0death is when you force yourself into a corner to see what you are truly made of. Ego-death is the main aspect of our training here on earth. Ego death has occurred when humbleness is present.
To me, ego-death looks a lot like opportunity and hard work. Its not always so easy letting go of what tells us we matter....
-------------------- Something there is mysteriously formed, Existing before Heaven and Earth, Silent, still, standing alone, unchanging, All-pervading, unfailing, I do not know its name; I call it tao. If forced to give it a name, I call it Great (ta). Being great, it flows out; Flowing out means far-reaching; Being far-reaching, it is said to return. It's just a shot away..
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
Posts: 33,241
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: ChiefKeef]
#19109275 - 11/09/13 07:23 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I wouldn't go about trying to match the experiences of other people. Psychedelics are all about experiencing yourself. What is ego death? It's bullshit. Don't worry about it. It's psychedelic elitists way of saying they got higher than you did.
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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Agentchewy
Pantheism.


Registered: 12/12/12
Posts: 3,960
Loc: vietnam
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Deathcore] 1
#19109292 - 11/09/13 07:29 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Deathcore said: refer to most of my posts...
I thought I died and was stuck in hell... Prior to that I was in heaven than purgatory, than hell.. very surreal event of my life that happened over a year ago but the effects wont end until I physically die and learn the truth... If its hell its hell, what can I do?
Just be the best you can be and hope and pray..everyday..
You had a bad trip but look at the positives, now you know what to improve..
Couldn't have said it any better,
I advise you to blindly follow scripture and what you've been fed as a child.
Don't make decisions or thoughts for yourself. Jesus didn't want any of that you sinner
Quote:
Deathcore said: refer to most of my posts...
I thought I died and was stuck in hell... Prior to that I was in heaven than purgatory, than hell.. very surreal event of my life that happened over a year ago but the effects wont end until I physically die and learn the truth... If its hell its hell, what can I do?
Just be the best you can be and hope and pray..everyday..
You had a bad trip but look at the positives, now you know what to improve..
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If I knew the way, I would take you home.
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Yogi1
Squatchin
Registered: 04/01/13
Posts: 1,015
Last seen: 4 years, 2 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman]
#19109315 - 11/09/13 07:38 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
nicechrisman said: I wouldn't go about trying to match the experiences of other people. Psychedelics are all about experiencing yourself. What is ego death? It's bullshit. Don't worry about it. It's psychedelic elitists way of saying they got higher than you did.
Bullshit. Mushrooms physically shut down parts of the hippocampus associated with sense of self, hence dissolving into oneness.
The more I learn about this shit the more I think terence was right about aquatic apes evolving via a major swamp food source of mushrooms.
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
Posts: 33,241
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1]
#19109316 - 11/09/13 07:39 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Has your ego ever died? Mine always comes back. What comes back is not dead.
Seems to me by the tone of your post that yours is quite intact still. Did you buy a new one after your old one died?
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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Deathcore
Stranger


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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman]
#19109322 - 11/09/13 07:41 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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My phone dies then I charge it to bring it back to life, then it dies again.
Ego death is temporary..until you release the dmt from your brain at death... Good luck.
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Yogi1
Squatchin
Registered: 04/01/13
Posts: 1,015
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman]
#19109360 - 11/09/13 07:52 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
nicechrisman said: Has your ego ever died? Mine always comes back. What comes back is not dead.
Seems to me by the tone of your post that yours is quite intact still. Did you buy a new one after your old one died?
You know the intended meaning of the terminology is a temporary halting of the sense of self. Nothing particularly difficult about that.
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
Posts: 33,241
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1]
#19109363 - 11/09/13 07:53 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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You guys are totally missing my point. My post was directed to OP.
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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lessismore
Registered: 02/10/13
Posts: 6,268
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman]
#19109374 - 11/09/13 07:58 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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format the brain :-) thats egodeath
happens by "accident", or for the people who really need it due to personal reasons
its intense, you might find out it was egodeath after it, or maybe not sometimes not probably just unconscious...
changes a lot of stuff, unless you already are yourself
still processing the trip 2 years or so later
some people regret some people wish they did it long time ago
any psychedelic experience can be as valuable, egodeath is usually a bit unpleasant but also bliss no need to format your brain if you feel fine and dont live your life in fear/worry/carelessness
you might become the next john lennon he did lsd 1000 times+ had egodeath once or how many times
changes will be inevitable
but nothing to fear, it will happen in time if you do psychedelics enough and are ready listen to trance + let go of thoughts, accept death, look right at your fear happened to hofmann too iirc, many people ...
for me only 1 word suffices.. spiritual rebirth, come to terms with exactly who you are, you might have forgotten your inner being for long, but for some its much different 100% acceptance too, that part wasnt too bad, bliss everyday , just no concept of self so hard to interact with others at times it will force you to make lots of changes in your life likely.. much hard work, often unpleasant
I view psychedelics as consciousness expansion tools... one has to be ready to expand not just expand fully, we must be ready in life, or all sorts of trouble can happen you are on wavelength with everyone you know - if you change you wont be anymore as much, or maybe more the ego defines a lot in our lives... job, clothes, appearance, friends,... everything can potentially change with egoloss/death it isnt to be taken lightly
its funny.. when you havent had egodeath you want to go there but when you have had one, you dont want to go there too often :-) , seems to be how it often is
egodeath destroys your current identity likely, unless you are already 100% yourself
know a buddhist who says it happens everytime he closes his eyes could imagine it might be true if you have meditated for 30+ years, you can stop thoughts and time at any time, and feel reborn when you experience again you can with meditation/nature see yourself in everybody too often, because awareness can increase often, awareness that we are not very unique, same problems in life we all face often and if you have overcome one problem yourself and feel happy due to it, you feel like you have to bring that happiness to others too sometimes
I feel reborn everytime I walk/sit in nature now after the initial death, stops all thoughts and time, that is what egodeath is to me :-) can experience it everyday now when I walk in nature... all problems/worries leave
just a quick writeout.. nobody can decide for you.. and its very different for everyone
ego gets rebuilt, so nothing to fear.. but you can chose not to let it rebuild if you want, if you put in a lot of hard work everyday
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
Posts: 33,241
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: lessismore]
#19109396 - 11/09/13 08:05 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Good post. It seems my post rustled some jimmies. I figured it probably would because people find pain in having their opinions and assumptions challenged. The point of my post was to tell OP to quit trying to match the experiences of other people, and instead to just experience.
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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Yogi1
Squatchin
Registered: 04/01/13
Posts: 1,015
Last seen: 4 years, 2 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman]
#19109410 - 11/09/13 08:08 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
nicechrisman said: Good post. It seems my post rustled some jimmies. I figured it probably would because people find pain in having their opinions and assumptions challenged. The point of my post was to tell OP to quit trying to match the experiences of other people, and instead to just experience.
When ego fading can be researched and mapped phisiologically I don't see an assumption. I see science. It's like telling people fight or flight is a way adventure junkies stroke their ego...
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
Posts: 33,241
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1]
#19109445 - 11/09/13 08:18 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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You wanna fight about it? I'll see you at the gathering bro
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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Agentchewy
Pantheism.


Registered: 12/12/12
Posts: 3,960
Loc: vietnam
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1]
#19109455 - 11/09/13 08:20 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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The entire hippocampus region is not responsible for the loss of the sense of self. its a specific region called the mPFC; brain activity is in fact diminished. The most astonishing thing is that it mimics what happens to stroke victims and some cases of schizophrenia which are highly misunderstood.
Enjoy this TED talk ya'll
--------------------
If I knew the way, I would take you home.
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mindgnome
Wanderer


Registered: 10/30/13
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman]
#19109456 - 11/09/13 08:21 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ego death is not knowing your personal identity. It also is coupled with no connection to time or reality. It is only knowing you are within the universe and unaware of your role as a human being.
-------------------- "As I walk on through troubled times my spirit gets so downhearted sometimes so where are the strong and who are the trusted? And where is the harmony? Sweet harmony. Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry. What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?" - Nick Lowe "Psychedelic drugs don't change you - they don't change your character - unless you want to be changed. They enable change; they can't impose it...” - Sasha Shulgin
Edited by mindgnome (11/09/13 08:23 AM)
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lessismore
Registered: 02/10/13
Posts: 6,268
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: lessismore]
#19109463 - 11/09/13 08:23 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I was really ill when it happened to me, pretty depressed too
impossible to get depressed in my life ever again now , it reconnected me with nature and myself/ what I love
somehow something made me trip when I was very sick...
had already tried weed everyday, it only made my depression much worse...
would only recommend it to others, but it will also force you to change your life likely the day after egodeath the ego is back, stronger than ever :-)
but this time you can see that it is not you, thoughts have no control of you frustration,worrying never makes sense , judging others does neither yourself nor anyone else any good , let it pass
it can all be achieved with meditation too, and it might be a healthier way too
it did bring a lot of emotional trouble for many many months, you have to process your whole life and all your bad karma ;-) and physical problems too... psychical issues too for many months afterwards you can feel happier than ever though, when you stop doing what makes you unhappy, thats the hard work
all the work is after egodeath, without hard work it hardly does anything
everything I do has changed, everything I dont do has changed too (what makes me unhappy, smoking weed everyday, eating junk food everyday, living by my desires i.e.)
but its all a continious process... have to work for it everyday or I fall right back to start
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Bill_Oreilly
ANIMALS (the RAINBOW SERPENT)


Registered: 11/12/11
Posts: 26,370
Loc: Boston
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman]
#19109708 - 11/09/13 09:45 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
nicechrisman said: I wouldn't go about trying to match the experiences of other people. Psychedelics are all about experiencing yourself. What is ego death? It's bullshit. Don't worry about it. It's psychedelic elitists way of saying they got higher than you did.
Exactly. It kind of ties back into the monty python philosophy
"For another man to try to gain enlightenment from one another is like a grain of sand trying to achieve enlightenment from another grain of sand"- Terence Mckenna
-------------------- Something there is mysteriously formed, Existing before Heaven and Earth, Silent, still, standing alone, unchanging, All-pervading, unfailing, I do not know its name; I call it tao. If forced to give it a name, I call it Great (ta). Being great, it flows out; Flowing out means far-reaching; Being far-reaching, it is said to return. It's just a shot away..
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
Posts: 33,241
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Bill_Oreilly]
#19109721 - 11/09/13 09:52 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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wolf8312
Pennywise


Registered: 10/01/12
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: lessismore]
#19109753 - 11/09/13 10:01 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I think it's being overcomplicated a bit! I've found it to be exactly as the phrase ego death implies, the dissolution of the self, personality, identity and ones own humanity.
By that I just mean that you suddenly discover your personality and day to day conception and sense of yourself is nothing more than an illusion. I think the concept is closely related to humans/animals, language/time, and it's like devolving back into a more primitive state in which you are more like a beast who can not, no matter how hard he tries, understand simple human concepts like who what and where you are, how to read a watch, or how to communicate! In short, human and man made concepts simply evaporate!
I always found that with DMT, even when utterly consumed by the machine, there was still a sense of my own human self that was observing everything and saying holy shit just please let me survive this! I think Terrance M once too said DMT leaves the ego intact and its certainly been my experience as well!
Salvia I would say was the ultimate ego death experience in that it can for a short time turn a human being into a door nob who dimly senses it has been an inanimate object for all eternity! That is pretty damned ego-less!
-------------------- "I'm every nightmare you ever had. I am your worst dreams come true. I am everything you ever were afraid of." Pennywise the dancing clown
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allseeingike



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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: wolf8312]
#19109761 - 11/09/13 10:05 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ego death in my opinion is when you
- forget who you are
- forget what you are
- forget you are
- die
- realize that you never existed and you are nothing more than a thought or a point of view eternally floating through and endless void and creating the universe out of boredom
It can be any combination of these or even all
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rikuni

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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: nicechrisman] 1
#19109762 - 11/09/13 10:05 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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braw thats easy as shit
You die!, its for real!, you will be scared!
but know that this death is necessary for something new to emerge what it will exactly be like... well thats the surprise
Edited by rikuni (11/09/13 10:06 AM)
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SnowDaze
Probably Relapsing on Heroin


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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: rikuni]
#19109791 - 11/09/13 10:13 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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smoke some DMT and find out
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If you get confused, listen to the music play
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rikuni

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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: SnowDaze]
#19109800 - 11/09/13 10:16 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
SnowDaze said: smoke some DMT and find out
or eat 1200mic of CID
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SnowDaze
Probably Relapsing on Heroin


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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: rikuni]
#19109806 - 11/09/13 10:19 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
rikuni said:
Quote:
SnowDaze said: smoke some DMT and find out
or eat 1200mic of CID
that is too long of an ego death for me
--------------------
If you get confused, listen to the music play
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rikuni

Registered: 04/06/10
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: SnowDaze]
#19109811 - 11/09/13 10:21 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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maybe, it could last a few minutes more
Edited by rikuni (11/09/13 10:22 AM)
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flipsidetrue




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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: rikuni]
#19110020 - 11/09/13 11:29 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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dmt has only really worked for after eating 10 stips, and everything was groooovvyyy
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Aldebaran
Psilo-Scribe



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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: allseeingike] 1
#19111234 - 11/09/13 05:17 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
allseeinglike wrote: Ego death in my opinion is when you
- forget who you are
- forget what you are
- forget you are
- die
- realize that you never existed and you are nothing more than a thought or a point of view eternally floating through and endless void and creating the universe out of boredom
That sounds like what I understand by an "ego death" trip.
I did make the effort to read through both Timothy Leary's "The Psychedelic Experience" and the Tibetan Book of the Dead which it is based on. Neither are particularly easy to get your head around, but the basic idea is that Leary is saying that the Tibetans' descriptions of the mental states at the time of death are comparable to mental states that occur during the psychedelic experience.
For example, this is quoted from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, explaining the "Intermediate State of Reality"
Quote:
It is during this third phase that the bewildering apparations, which are the result of past actions, emerge....
"Alas now, as the intermediate state of reality arises before me, renouncing the merest thought of awe, terror or fear, I will recognize all that arises to be awareness, manifesting naturally of itself. Knowing such [sounds, lights and rays] to be visionary phenomena of the intermediate state, at this moment, having reached this critical point, I must not fear the assembly of peaceful and wrathful deities, which manifest naturally."
What the Tibetan's say about navigating the states after death is actually fairly useful advice about how to handle a heavy trip. Part of their understanding is that all the things produced by the mind during these states are illusory, and that whatever weirdness is conjured up is just visionary phenomena. They constantly try and advise the dying person to be aware that they are experiencing an illusory state, and to let themselves be liberated by sinking into the mind's natural state of "pristine cognition" (or various other terms for the kind of ultimate state of mind that will allow the dead person to reach nirvana and 'get off the wheel' of death and rebirth).
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At this moment, abandon your fear, and recognize the red light, bright and dazzling, radiant and clear, to be pristine cognition. Let your awareness relax and abide directly within it, resting in a state of non-actuality
This "state of non-actuality" would be the ideal state that people try and achieve through meditation, a state of perfect awareness of the ultimate nature of mind, without any thoughts related to the self. To the Tibetans, being able to achieve this state of consciousness during the time between dying and being reborn (when all this weird illusory shit is happening) was critical for achieving "nirvana" and a release from the cycle of death and rebirth. In effect, it's about as close as the Buddhist's seem to get to the idea of going to heaven.
This is all getting to sound a bit airy fairy, but it's close to the idea mentioned earlier that was given earlier as an explanation of ego death:
Quote:
allseeinglike wrote: - realize that you never existed and you are nothing more than a thought or a point of view eternally floating through and endless void and creating the universe out of boredom
The Buddhist idea is that once you achieve the full realization of this emptiness, there is no longer the attachment to the pain and grind of daily life, there is an end to suffering because the mind is freed from the limits of the self, of the body, of attachments to things and people.

As for an actual trip, for me the classic ego-death experience is where something approaching this state of transcendence is reached (perhaps briefly and incompletely). The effects of the drug are sufficiently strong to pulverize your awareness of self to the point where you almost seem to be flitting in and out of existence. The trip is experienced in a detached way where it just flows through the emptiness of your mind, almost as though you are no longer around to experience it, but the brain is still aware and consciousness continues beyond the cessation of your internal train of thought. The self is submerged but the trip continues.
There is a gradual shift of awareness from the me / myself / I perspective to the underlying flow of the trip, something oceanic, as though you are now part of the universe itself. There is a feeling of release, of transcendence. As someone mentioned at the beginning of the thread:
Quote:
mutantmushroom wrote: Ego death is like eternal bliss and oneness with the universe.
At this point you are about as close as you are going to get to the buddhist ideal of transcendence, a state of "non-actuality" or "pristine cognition" or whatever. The contrast between this feeling of rapture, release, revelation, transcendence, compared to the absolute meat grinder of a trip that may have brought you here, is astonishing.
There is a feeling of 'coming back', the feelings of oneness and transcendence remain but there are more and more thoughts, and an attempt to understand and categorize what has happened.
As Leary describes:
Quote:
The first ecstasy usually ends with a momentary flashback to the ego condition. This return can be happy or sad, loving or suspicious, fearful or courageous, depending on the personality, the preparation, and the setting. This flashback to the ego-game is accompanied by a concern with identity. "Who am I now? Am I dead or not dead? What is happening?" You cannot determine. You see the surroundings and your companions as you had been used to seeing them before. There is a penetrating sensitivity. But you are on a different level. Your ego grasp is not quite as sure as it was.
I find that a decent dose often produces a feeling at this point that I have in fact died and that the trip is the continuation of life beyond death. Someone mentioned above:
Quote:
rikuni wrote: You die!, its for real!, you will be scared!
Maybe that was a joke, but the trip can feel that way. A journey into death and beyond death.
Somewhere in my notes on all this stuff I wrote down a few points of what the experience boils down to:
1) Collapse of self 2) Awareness of pure mind (not the self) as true form of reality 3) Shift to a universal perspective (oneness, oceanic feeling) 4) Bliss, release from suffering 5) Journey into death and beyond Feeling of RAPTURE, REVELATION, TRANSCENDENCE
And if that's too complicated, I think the underlying thing is the theme of death. It's a death trip where you part company with yourself and journey beyond death. It's the realization that the conscious awareness you have of "yourself" is only a small part of what is going on in your brain, and the vertigo and rapture produced when your sense of self slips away and is replaced by another awareness underlying it, something that seems to be the size of the sun in comparison. It's not the loss of self that is important here, it's what it reveals by its absence.
Quote:
When you understand that you are dead. When you believe that you are dead. When you believe that you are God. Then you took too many drugs
-------------------- I wrote that, but I meant something else
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ChiefKeef
The Doors of Reality


Registered: 02/25/13
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Aldebaran]
#19114025 - 11/10/13 09:58 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Thank you so much
-------------------- I now understand what the meaning of the band "The Doors" mean... Opening the doors of reality
my dad used to be a doorman or something i don’t know but when children would hang on doors he would say “Don’t play with the doors, Jim Morrison played with the doors and he’s dead.” and parents would lose their shit.
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Bill_Oreilly
ANIMALS (the RAINBOW SERPENT)


Registered: 11/12/11
Posts: 26,370
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: ChiefKeef]
#19114036 - 11/10/13 10:01 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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So if we are nothing how can we be a point of view floating through the universe, aldebaran33, ithat sounds like something to me
-------------------- Something there is mysteriously formed, Existing before Heaven and Earth, Silent, still, standing alone, unchanging, All-pervading, unfailing, I do not know its name; I call it tao. If forced to give it a name, I call it Great (ta). Being great, it flows out; Flowing out means far-reaching; Being far-reaching, it is said to return. It's just a shot away..
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Yogi1
Squatchin
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: ChiefKeef]
#19114047 - 11/10/13 10:02 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I am sorry to inform you that upon realising emptiness and accepting it I wasn't freed from the daily grind because I have to survive, and the mere fact that this forces me in to work that is not all that beneficial to mankind is a new source of suffering.
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Aldebaran
Psilo-Scribe



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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Bill_Oreilly] 1
#19117311 - 11/10/13 09:10 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
So if we are nothing how can we be a point of view floating through the universe, aldebaran33, ithat sounds like something to me
Good point. 
The Tibetans' talk about 3 different stages of "inner radiance" (also referred to as the "clear light"). Not all of them are a state of nothingness / emptiness. I didn't particularly try and distinguish between them because the subject is pretty complicated already. Also I'd forgotten some of this stuff since I read the book. Anyway, here goes:
Quote:
From the Glossary to the 'Tibetan Book of the Dead' Sometimes also translated as 'clear light'...'inner radiance' refers in the context of the perfection stage of meditation to the sublest level of mind, i.e the fundamental, essential nature of all our cognitive events. Though ever present within all sentient beings, this inner radiance becomes manifest only when the gross mind has ceased to function. Such a dissolution is experienced by ordinary beings,, naturally, at the time of death, but it can also be experientially cultivated through the practices of unsurpassed yogatantra.
1)The first of these 3 stages is the "inner radiance of the ground" (primary inner radiance):
Quote:
The essence of your own conscious awareness is emptiness. Yet, this is not a vacuous or nihilistic emptiness; this, your very own conscious awareness, is unimpededly radiant, brilliant and vibrant.
Another interesting statement is that
Quote:
Ordinary people describe this state as 'loss of consciousness'
2) The secondary inner radiance is the "inner radiance of the ground"
Quote:
consciousness achieves an instant of clarity, even though the deceased may not know whether or not they are dead.
The glossary at the back of the book explains that this secondary inner radiance consists of an awareness of the primary inner radiance, which is the 'ultimate nature of mind'. Combining the two states is the way to achieve buddhahood; the 'ultimate state of mind' on its own may not be accompanied by an awareness of its nature; the secondary inner radiance allows some level of reflection and understanding of the first.
3) The tertiary inner radiance (intermediate state of reality) is where the famous 'peaceful and wrathful deities' appear.
Quote:
The pure luminous apparitions of reality itself, will arise: subtle and clear, radiant and dazzling, naturally bright and awesome, shimmering like a mirage on a plain in summer. Do not fear them! Do not be terrified! Do not be awed! They are the natural luminosities of your own actual reality. Therefore recognize them as they are...
You will be overwhelmed by fear, by awe and by terror at the sight of all the blood-drinking deities; and you will faint. Those visionary appearances, which are natural manifestations of actual reality, will seem to have become demons, and you will continue to roam in cyclic existence.

The point I am trying to make is that there is a graduation from a fairly hardcore state of emptiness / non-conceptual awareness (which is sought during some types of meditation), down through a level of clarity that allows some understanding of this state, and further down into visionary states, luminous apparations and so on. The whole point of the Tibetan Book of the Dead is to cultivate a thorough understanding of all this stuff during life, so that when these states occur during death the person is able to recognize what is happening. "Recognition and liberation will occur simultaneously." Once these states are realized to be something to be embraced rather than resisted, the dying person can achieve buddhahood and be freed from 'cyclic existence' (i.e they won't be reborn into another life of suffering). They won't have to work on Maggies' farm no more 
Personally I wouldn't get too hung up on the concept of whether ego death is something or nothing, experience or non-experience, consciousness or unconsciousness. Even if the primary inner radiance is supposed to be something close to unconsciousness, it is only one of the three states we are talking about. Unless you are experienced in meditation (I'm not), it's unlikely you would spend long in this state anyway. To me, it seems clear that they cannot be talking about a complete state of blackout, otherwise we would all be drinking cheap vodka instead of using psychedelics in order to achieve ego death. The term "inner radiance" sounds to me to be the opposite of "blackout". Ego death is not about waking up in a ditch with no memory of how you got there, or taking such a huge quantity of drugs that you become totally unconscious of anything. What's the point of that?
It's also worth remembering that the Tibetan Book of the Dead is based on a very "esoteric" version of Buddhism, which is a polite way of saying that it contains a lot of mad stuff. Reading out passages of the book to dead people. Trying to extract energies through their head. Blood-drinking deities. It's not something to be taken completely literally, even by most buddhists. If parts of it seem inconsistent, confusing, contradictory or improbable, that's because they are.
What is interesting about the book, and about Leary's interpretation of it in relation to psychedelics, is the concept of the "intermediate state" and its relation to the nature of mind. The Tibetans' believed that there is an intermediate state at the time of death (intermediate between death and rebirth) in the same way that dreams are an intermediate state between wakefulness and deep sleep.
Whatever the psychedelic experience is, it does seem to be a kind of "intermediate state" somewhere between waking, dreaming, sleeping. The Tibetan's description of the contents of the mind as being essentially illusory is also highly applicable to a trip. Experiencing "luminosities" which are manifestations of your own "actual reality". The constant warnings not to be fooled by the illusions of the intermediate state. The instruction to not fear the visions but to embrace them as manifestations of your own mind, the recognition that reality itself is in some way a creation of your own mind. All very trippy stuff, which Leary obviously realized.

If anyone is still reading, I'd like to forget all the buddhist stuff and go back to trying to describe an actual trip. My previous post was maybe a bit too theoretical in terms of trying to describe an ego death trip. Actual trips are messy and weird, they don't conform neatly to any high-flying concepts of transcendence. It's also difficult to fully recall what happens.
I was thinking about this, and trying to remember what made some of my trips so revelatory. It wasn't the drifting out of consciousness so much or losing the sense of self, that just seems to be a part of tripping hard. It was partly the sensation that I was actually dying. The core thing, when I think about it carefully, is that the suppression of the sense of self, the state of tripping hard and becoming dissociated to the point of feeling barely connected to reality, of drifting into death, allowed a very powerful dawning awareness that my entire existence had been illusory.
I do wonder if this initial flash of "insight" is partly what the Tibetans' were on about. If I had to sum up their message in modern terms, they almost seem to be saying that we are living in some kind of virtual reality which we need to wake up from.
There was something massive and all-encompassing present in the trip, and I began to identify more with this entity than as a self, or a person with a life. It was as if my previous existence was just a fragment of a new whole. The feeling of becoming everyone and everything, of being the universe itself. Of being Godlike. Waves of euphoria, rapture, a feeling of release, that there would be no need to return to my former existence, that all that is could just be accepted as it is, that from the point of view of the universe everything was perfect, creating something out of nothing for its own amusement, the unreality at the heart of everything. The experience of uncovering the mystery at the heart of reality. Complete revelation. Drowning in the turmoil of a heavy trip and coming back from a state of nothingness into this revelatory wonderland. The feeling of power in the universe, that reality is contained in the mind, that matter is a form of mind and not vice versa. A feeling that I had been dead for centuries and that this was my new existence, that I was no longer an individual but part of some fantastical machine that could create its own reality and exist within it. Mania. Euphoria. Madness. Life beyond death....
If anyone asks what kind of trip I mean when I talk about "ego death" - that is what I mean. You can argue about which part of that constitutes the actual "ego death" but for pure awesomeness I think it's the combination of tripping so hard that you seem to "die" within your trip, and sinking into an oblivion which then has this kind of revelatory experience as you come out of it.
My only caution is that I would say you don't come out of it with the clarity you experienced in the middle of the trip. Like the Tibetans, you are doomed to end up back in cyclic existence, mired in everyday life. As the trip continues, the nature of a psychedelic trip means that you over-think the whole thing and come up with elaborate nonsense that makes no sense when you think about it later. Like the Tibetans' advised, it is better to try and recognize that whatever the fuck is happening is part of how your mind functions, that the experience itself is largely illusory. Chill out. Experience the rapture as a new reality unfolds before your closed eyes, and smile.
-------------------- I wrote that, but I meant something else
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thormaxim
Stranger

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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Aldebaran]
#19117800 - 11/10/13 10:35 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Aldebaran said:
Quote:
My question is, the whole "I'm going to hell" mindset, is that the "ego death"?
It might be part of an ego death experience, I've certainly had trips which started out with that kind of feeling and then intensified into some kind of ego-death type trip. There is a quote by Stan Grof where he describes this kind of scenario:
Quote:
Sometimes, we not only experience the sense of personal annihilation, but also the destruction of the world as we know it.....we have a sense of all-pervading anxiety and impending catastrophe of enormous proportions. The impression of imminent doom can be very convincing and overwhelming. The predominant feeling is that we are losing all that we know and that we are. At the same time, we have no idea what is on the other side, or even if there is anything there at all. ....we experience total annihilation on all imaginable levels. It involves physical destruction, emotional disaster, intellectual and philosophical defeat, ultimate moral failure, and even spiritual damnation. During this experience, all reference points, everything that is important and meaningful in our life, seems to be mercilessly destroyed.
Ego death is a complicated topic because it's based on Buddhist ideas which are not always easy to comprehend. In terms of an actual ego death trip, I think one characteristic is that the intensity of the trip gets to the point where there just isn't room for you to exist within the trip, as though the trip is sweeping everything away within your mind.
It's the feeling that if you 'let go' you won't exist anymore; imagine that instead of fighting to stay awake you are fighting to continue your existence. There is an abyss in the middle of the trip, and you feel that if you fall into it you won't come back. You are resisting your own death, and the trip can feel like hell.
The "ego death" itself is when you drop into this abyss and discover that there is something beyond it. You continue to exist as a form of awareness even without any real awareness of yourself. You might actually start to believe that you've reached the state beyond death. You gradually become more aware and return to something closer to normal, just tripping very hard. The moment of ego death can be a kind of ecstatic realization that your consciousness is not something individual that you needed to cling on to, but something oceanic that is part of the universe itself. All the details of your life seem trivial in comparison; for a moment your perspective shifts and you feel as though you have become the entire universe.
Or something like that, anyway....
This. A great description.
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Eywa_devotee
Goddess Worshiper


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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: thormaxim]
#19117995 - 11/10/13 11:25 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Read my last trip report for an idea of what ego death is like. In short, you experience ego death, you cannot explain it. It is absolutely ineffable, and is the epitome of surrender, the great let go of everything. It isn't physical death, but might as well be.
-------------------- "Love one another." "To Love is to know me." "Love is the Law, Love under Will." "In Compassion, all sorrows end." Regardless of the Master, the message is the same- Choose love and you shall live, Choose Fear and you shall die. Help bring peace to this Earth: Love one another, and serve others before yourself.
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Bill_Oreilly
ANIMALS (the RAINBOW SERPENT)


Registered: 11/12/11
Posts: 26,370
Loc: Boston
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Eywa_devotee]
#19119234 - 11/11/13 06:50 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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aldebaran, thank you tons for sacrificing your time in order to help a fellow shroomerite understand a concept. Im going to get stoned and read your argument. im excited
-------------------- Something there is mysteriously formed, Existing before Heaven and Earth, Silent, still, standing alone, unchanging, All-pervading, unfailing, I do not know its name; I call it tao. If forced to give it a name, I call it Great (ta). Being great, it flows out; Flowing out means far-reaching; Being far-reaching, it is said to return. It's just a shot away..
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Aldebaran
Psilo-Scribe



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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Eywa_devotee]
#19119599 - 11/11/13 09:37 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Eywa_devotee wrote: Read my last trip report for an idea of what ego death is like.
OK, this is part of that trip report:
Quote:
Eywa_devotee wrote: After this revelation, i started tripping Balls. At once i was abruptly being sent, without warning, into DMT hyperspace as if i hit the pipe hard! It felt like I died over, and over, and over, again and again being tortured like Prometheus and somehow didn't care this torture was happening to me. I felt, in a word, DAMNED. Imprisoned, inside a prison without bars or walls, alone, helpless. Forever lost without even a hope of a possibility to ever be free from it. No release, no parole, or second chance ever, or ever again for me. Then I thought- So what if I am now dead, it's just this body, and the illusion of physical death that died with it. Quite a strange feeling of knowing you are dead and damned.
So be it- I OD'd due to the Syrian rue causing a serotonin crisis that blew out a vessel in my head. My God, i'm having a stroke! I can't move anymore, and my whole body feels numb. Not this way, what have I done to deserve this! Family, friends, everything GONE, no turning back I am dead. No, worse, I am in Hell! I saw beings that looked a lot like very colorful Chinese dragons. They kept telling me i'm having a stroke and am dying, just let go and accept your fate. I knew if i somehow survived, i would be a vegetable at best. I'd rather die completely, let go of my body, and simply cease to exist entirely than have this fate. I just let them devour me. During this, the heat was incredible. It felt like I was on fire being burned as if crucified upon a detonating atomic bomb, yet just didn't care what happened to me anymore. It felt as if i was watching it happen in a movie observing it, yet at the same time something inside was screaming in unspeakable agony. It finally stopped screaming. No longer in my body, i noticed i was one of them, I am a Dragon, a very colorful, beautiful dragon. What else i saw, I cannot describe. It is as it is, all that is is so.

That's a very vivid description, I like it 
It reminds me of a trip I had where I wrote:
Quote:
There are dragons in here, crawling their way up the insides of everything
Another thing you mention:
Quote:
Eywa_devotee wrote:It is absolutely ineffable, and is the epitome of surrender, the great let go of everything.
Yes, I think this concept of surrender is very important, I didn't mention that at all in my previous posts. Your trip report describes the experience of being damned, trapped in the trip, dying, with strange dragonlike beings. It's when you are able (or forced) to surrender to this that you experience this incredible feeling of letting go, almost of dying, of being devoured by the trip, but still retaining some level of awareness (or inner radiance or whatever) and then becoming part of the inferno that is destroying you - becoming one of the dragons.
Like I say, I think ego death is the transition between the kind of hell or dissolution you describe, and the kind of revelatory experience I was trying to describe earlier. From being devoured by dragons, to becoming the dragons.
There's a limit to what can be described, and just because I describe it one way doesn't mean that other people would necessarily see things in those terms, use the terms in exactly the same way, or experience an ego death trip in the same way. As you say, it's a rather ineffable experience, a good word to sum everything up.
-------------------- I wrote that, but I meant something else
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Global_Roaming
purity of essence



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Posts: 300
Loc: over the fucking rainbow....
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Aldebaran]
#19123947 - 11/11/13 10:54 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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My own understanding of ego death is the loss of sense of self - who I am, what I am etc. Basically shedding all your history, memories etc and just existing as a stream of unsullied consciousness. Like the moment before birth but with a developed intellect.
The worst thing is partial-ego loss. I've had a DMT trip where I was stuck on the brink of breaking through - could feel my ego trying to detach itself and lost some elements of my ego but not the whole thing. Eg. I knew my girlfriend was laying in bed beside me, but couldn't remember who she was; couldn't figure out if my eyes were open or closed, lost my proprioception etc. That one was nasty.
-------------------- /peace out brothers and sisters

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Godfather1376
Psychedelic Aventurer



Registered: 07/07/13
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Global_Roaming]
#19124124 - 11/11/13 11:42 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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OP, the sad fact is that you can never fully describe a moment of ego-dissolution. There are many generalizations that happen. Before having a large experience of my own, I always would think introspectively about how everything isn't as it seems, how we as people aren't necessarily as we actually are. As a physics student (changing to chemistry , but it's still fun) I was well versed in information about quantum mechanics and such and I'd try to incorporate all of this into my experience. Trying to do this, I came upon many personal revelations, but nothing known as the general ego-dissolution.
Basically what brought such an experience for me was my first time tripping in the dark. I have a trip report on this in the forum. In short, using an 8th of shrooms and complete darkness, I had the most intense experience. During this, my entire sense of time and existence were dissolved. There was no difference between my eyes open or shut, and I was completely without thought or cares. Then I had a sudden flash of light, almost enlightening, then came back and opened my eyes, coming down back to my bed. I could not explain what I had experienced, but after quite some research, I think it might have been an out-of-body experience.
The best description of ego-dissolution I can give is the simple disappearance of bodily/mental cares. Every judgement you have, every thing you see as reality is questioned by yourself, and the mind has to make sense of all the irrationality. In my opinion, this causes a "reset", reorganizing your perception (hopefully in a positive way) so that you can learn from your past ego, and generated a refined one.
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kneesocks
Divineress



Registered: 12/25/11
Posts: 870
Loc: Puget Sound/PNW
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: Yogi1]
#19124128 - 11/11/13 11:44 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yogi1 said:I always feared I would never return to reality, like I experienced the end of existence.
But with actual ego death, that fear isn't there. It doesn't even matter, because...
-------------------- "An ignorant man is lost, faithless, and filled with self-doubt; A soul that harbors doubt has no joy, not in this world or the next." -Bhagavad-gita 4:40
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lessismore
Registered: 02/10/13
Posts: 6,268
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: kneesocks]
#19124160 - 11/11/13 11:55 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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nothing can describe the state
except it will probably change your life, cant imagine coming back the same as before
if you are ready to be changed, take the red pill
changed more for me than 100 LSD trips, in one trip
it made me believe :-) before I was atheist for a few years, now I got a buddhistic/shamanistic/christian/hinduistic view on everything - funny how they can all be brought together somehow, they all fit the experience and the integration part to some degree
also all my problems vanished since the death
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kneesocks
Divineress



Registered: 12/25/11
Posts: 870
Loc: Puget Sound/PNW
Last seen: 1 year, 10 months
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: lessismore]
#19124353 - 11/12/13 12:52 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
mio said: it made me believe :-) before I was atheist for a few years, now I got a buddhistic/shamanistic/christian/hinduistic view on everything - funny how they can all be brought together somehow, they all fit the experience and the integration part to some degree
also all my problems vanished since the death
I just believe in nature. It's always been there, unlike 'holy books' or silly names given to benevolent heavenly deities.
And yay for you!
-------------------- "An ignorant man is lost, faithless, and filled with self-doubt; A soul that harbors doubt has no joy, not in this world or the next." -Bhagavad-gita 4:40
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LysergicX7
Lunatic



Registered: 11/11/12
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Loc: Montana, USA
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: kneesocks]
#19124367 - 11/12/13 12:57 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Straight from wikipedia. This is the most accurate defintion of ego death:
Ego death is an experience that makes known the illusory aspect of the ego, undergone by mystics, shamans, monks, psychonauts and other adepts of the mind. The occultic practice of ego death as "mystical experience" variously overlap with, but is distinct from, traditions concerning Buddhist enlightenment and Nirvana (in Buddhism); Or, Moksha (in Hinduism and Jainism). These latter concepts are understood as transcendence of the notion of non-illusory ego with which to experience death.
edit: ill add another definition. Ego death means an irreversible end to one's philosophical identification with what Alan Watts called skin-encapsulated ego.
-------------------- “Everybody is fundamentally, the ultimate reality. Not god in the political kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self – the deep down basic whatever there is. And you’re all that… only you’re pretending you’re not.” -Alan Watts I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD. It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be.” ― Albert Hofmann
Edited by LysergicX7 (11/12/13 01:13 AM)
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lessismore
Registered: 02/10/13
Posts: 6,268
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Re: Can someone explain the "ego death" to me? [Re: kneesocks]
#19125334 - 11/12/13 08:10 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
kneesocks said:
Quote:
mio said: it made me believe :-) before I was atheist for a few years, now I got a buddhistic/shamanistic/christian/hinduistic view on everything - funny how they can all be brought together somehow, they all fit the experience and the integration part to some degree
also all my problems vanished since the death
I just believe in nature. It's always been there, unlike 'holy books' or silly names given to benevolent heavenly deities.
And yay for you!
Reconnect with nature, myself and everyone I meet
and the realization that there is more than matter to this reality I dont read holy books, I just fell over it by "coincidence", they all have some value as stories
the buddhist story, the jesus story etc. :-) they all have something in common which is the interesting part... and it was interesting they did fit my experience well
and often nature too, nature is sacred
its natural to be happy most of the time, else we must not be ourselves/living against ourselves somehow
Edited by lessismore (11/12/13 08:27 AM)
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