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UniverseOfTheMind8
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Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like?
#23542670 - 08/15/16 12:39 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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If that's the case and we just absorb back into the unified consciousness at death does that mean our actions good or bad really have no meaning because at death they would no longer be our own? Would that mean every person experiences the same exact afterlife, and we all experience what every other persons life was like so that we have an understanding of our new unified self? Would reincarnation even be possible? How would our souls become it's own individual again in order to reincarnate when it's now everything not just itself anymore. Would the soul be the same soul it was? Also, what would be the point of reincarnation, if you are now everything what would be the need to be an individual again? Sorry about all the random questions haha, just some random stuff ive been thinking about and thought itd be interesting to hear what sort of thoughts other people have on the subject.
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Electric Wizard21
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: UniverseOfTheMind8]
#23542977 - 08/15/16 05:46 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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Stay off drugs....
To answer one question. No, I don't think ego death is like death. If the ego was to die we would die and vice versa. As for the afterlife, there is no proof that it exists let alone the experience would be the same for everyone.
-------------------- I'm sick of all you hypocrites Holding me at bay And I don't need your sympathy To get me through the day Seasons change and so can I Hold on boy, no time to cry Untie these strings, I'm climbing down I won't let them push me away
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IjuzWWa4N
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: Electric Wizard21]
#23543026 - 08/15/16 06:28 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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From my experience there are certainly different levels of ego death tripping. The most extreme is when you lose concept of who what when where or why. I can only comment on this state in retrospect obviously. It is the most profound experience I have ever had in this life. I wouldn't be surprised if death is similar. The next step lower you might remember all of the above but you're still currently in another realm and usually unsure if you will return (in my experience the more you've gone past and return to this state here the more likely you can return). There is also the sense of this reality you can bring back with you in sobriety, like accumulative knowledge. Even when you're sober you still have that experience to (whichever parts you can actually remember) reflect on.
The constant in all of these states is change. I think this is the most likely answer to the nature of reality because it never really seems to stay the same. Uncertainty is the only constant. Many people experience a feeling that life is one big farce or some sort of sick joke while in deep altered states. When you start thinking in absolutes like an eternity in Nirvana or Heaven and Hell or an absolute death, this is the beginning of mental illness IMO. Why? If you can arrive somewhere then by all the evidence in this reality there is also a way to leave. Most likely everything is actually coexisting the same way empty space exists and wave travel through it, but we cannot see waves or empty space in the material world. Even if all life energy in this as we experience it through matter was destroyed it stands to reason that it could manifest again, because it does exist. If it didn't there would be no I to make that observation.
There is 0 evidence that death is the end of what we experience. There's also 0 evidence that it isn't.
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IjuzWWa4N
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: IjuzWWa4N]
#23543054 - 08/15/16 06:48 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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If that's the case and we just absorb back into the unified consciousness at death does that mean our actions good or bad really have no meaning because at death they would no longer be our own?
I think it matters now and that is what is important. In my experience in altered states you are much more vulnerable and unexperienced in dealing with the vast amount of "negative entities". I think a moral person is in a better place to deal with entities in general.
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Would that mean every person experiences the same exact afterlife, and we all experience what every other persons life was like so that we have an understanding of our new unified self?
Its not an impossibility. That experience in it self would last to infinity when you consider that there are infinite progressions and outcomes. Logically that doesn't make much sense in terms of duality. If you're not one you're the other, or just glimpsing into the other. Its likely that reality is all one moment with all possibilities coexisting, getting glimpses of one another. The glipmses are the reality and you're the illusion.
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Would reincarnation even be possible? How would our souls become it's own individual again in order to reincarnate when it's now everything not just itself anymore. Would the soul be the same soul it was? Also, what would be the point of reincarnation, if you are now everything what would be the need to be an individual again?
It has to be a possibility, but nothing is certain. If there's an infinite number of possibilities for instance the possibility of True unified state and also the possibility of existing where we don't experience the other part of souls it is reasonable that they are separate and overlapping realities. There is a duality to every experience. The duality to a unified soul would be absolute nothingness. By definition you can't describe one without the other. I think you may get some enjoyment listening to Alan Watts
Cheers mate, enjoy the ride.
Who is it that knows there is no Ego
Edited by IjuzWWa4N (08/15/16 06:58 AM)
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healing
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: IjuzWWa4N]
#23544204 - 08/15/16 02:02 PM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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It's likely that as the brain ceases to function, it's ability to differentiate the self from the surrounding environment would be one of the functions that degrades before death, such that it's possible for one to have an ego death experience if the process of death were to take place over a long enough timespan.
So if you were vaporized by a nuclear explosion, no you probably wouldn't experience ego death before you die. But if your heart stopped and your brain slowly drained of oxygen and ceased to function, yes it's likely that you would experience ego death before you die.
Now whether or not this is the same thing as what you originally asked is debatable. Death and the process of dying are two different things.
Yes, it is possible to experience ego death during the process of dying, but whether or not that means that death itself is similar to an ego death experience is not knowable. There are some who believe in consciousness beyond that of our physical being, and some of them may believe that the experience of ego death that is possible during the process of death could extend into that consciousness beyond our physical consciousness. There isn't any evidence of this, however.
There are others who believe that death is in fact the end of a human's consciousness, and they have a great deal of evidence to support this, but they still have no way of proving whether or not they are correct, because again this is unknowable.
Even if they are correct, the matter is of little consequence because of the experience of time dilation. A person's experience of time during ego death is not the same as that of a person in a normal state of mind. During ego death a person is unable to perceive time. Moments can last for what appears to the person experiencing ego death to seem like an eternity. So it is possible to experience quite a number of eternities during an experience of ego death.
This means that if one were to die in a manner that allows the gradual degradation of cognitive function, that one could possibly experience a state of ego death which would perceptually stretch on for an infinite amount of time, though to an outside observer the amount of time which has passed is finite.
If this were the case, then to the person dying, there would be no difference and the perceptions of the people who are not dying would be of no consequence. So even if consciousness does not extend beyond physical reality, it is possible that physical death is like an experience of ego death that lasts forever.
-------------------- Open mind, open heart, open book.
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FractalMind
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: healing]
#23544667 - 08/15/16 05:07 PM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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Our actions matter in this physical reality because they determine the ultimate destination of our soul in the next. I try to have positive karma because Earth is tiring, and one cannot join the cosmic consciousness with an impure soul.
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ruaware

Registered: 06/30/16
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Edited by ruaware (12/05/16 05:57 PM)
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IjuzWWa4N
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: ruaware]
#23546189 - 08/16/16 07:39 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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ruaware said: You're separating consciousness and the brain
By definition plants and inorganic matter are not conscious or self-aware, but it is impossible to prove there aren't states beyond matter that simply exist and are self aware beyond the laws of matter. cause, effect, action, reaction all these are aspects of a material constructed reality in which things are interconnected. Quantum mechanics goes beyond the laws of physical matter, beyond the need for cause, effect, action, reaction. In fact, anything is possible and to narrow it all down to the "brain and consciousness" only accounts for the material world working @ the level of large particle physics. Given the quantum rules in which "pretty much anything is possible", it is safe to assume that the quantum world actually operates in a larger space(edit: realm of possibilities is probably a better wording?) than the particle physics reality.
I'm no scientist. Its just my opinion but we will see what Science says in the future. cheers,
Edited by IjuzWWa4N (08/16/16 07:43 AM)
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Epistrophy



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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: UniverseOfTheMind8]
#23546213 - 08/16/16 07:52 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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Ego death does seem like the 'debriefing' of human consciousness, doesn't it?
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Aldebaran
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: UniverseOfTheMind8]
#23546274 - 08/16/16 08:25 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like?
Start with the easy questions why don't you....
Well, the answer would depend on the nature of reality. The concept of ego death is linked to buddhist ideas, where the 'true nature of reality' is different to the typical scientific, materialist one.
The general idea in the "Tibetan book of the dead" was that mental states such as meditation were a kind of 'intermediate state' that had enough in common with the process of dying (another 'intermediate state') that you could prepare yourself for death by practicing certain rituals. When the time of actual death came, you would be able to recognise the true nature of reality (instead of being frightened by it) and achieve nirvana, a release from the cycle of death and rebirth.
In this scheme, your good or bad actions would have a meaning because they would be subject to karma, if you behaved like a shit you wouldn't be able to achieve nirvana, you might come back as a goat or something.
I'm not sure if the idea was that you would be completely absorbed into a unified consciousness after death (it's a while since I read this stuff) but it sounded like you would achieve awareness of the true reality and the oneness of all things. I think there might have been gradations where there was a kind of 'godlike' level of enlightenment, and then another level of complete absorption into this unified consciousness.

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Would that mean every person experiences the same exact afterlife
I suppose ultimately they would experience the true nature of reality where everything is literally 'one' and there are no 'separate people'. That would be part of the realization that allows you to reach nirvana e.t.c in the first place.
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and we all experience what every other persons life was like so that we have an understanding of our new unified self?
Quite possibly - it would all be part of the same thing
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Would reincarnation even be possible?
The whole buddhist position is that reincarnation is not desirable, life is suffering, you are trying to reach a point where you can be released from this cycle. So no, reincarnation would not be part of the plan.
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How would our souls become it's own individual again in order to reincarnate when it's now everything not just itself anymore.
The only 'souls' that would re-incarnate would be those that failed to achieve the state of nirvana at death (i.e most of them).
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Would the soul be the same soul it was?
Yes, due to karma e.t.c
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Also, what would be the point of reincarnation, if you are now everything what would be the need to be an individual again?
There wouldn't be a point, you are actively trying to avoid being re-incarnated.

I mean that's a *very* rough idea of some of the buddhist ideas I was reading about, some of it is probably a bit poorly understood on my part, some of it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.....
A big difference between the buddhist position and the scientific position is that in the buddhist scheme the underlying reality is mind, consciousness, rather than physical 'stuff'.
healing mentions some possibilities of reaching "ego death" type states during the physical process of dying. There's an interesting book by a neuroscientist called Jill Bolte Taylor where she describes how a stroke caused similar oceanic feelings of oneness comparable to psychedelic experiences. There's more in this post plus a link to a video.

In terms of the psychedelic 'revelations' that come with these kind of trips (i.e with nothing to back them up beyond a kind of mystical "I just know!") I've had many trips where I get a sudden 'realization' that physical reality isn't the primary reality. The real thing is the consciousness itself, and you experience this consciousness as something vast, universal and interconnected (that you have lived all lives and are in fact some kind of unified godlike entity).
I suppose the 'ego death' trip is the process of dissolving your normal 'self' via the dissocation produced by the drug, and re-unifying yourself into this much bigger background universal consciousness, then coming back to your senses with your personality returned but still having the awareness of this much bigger reality behind everything.
I frequently feel in these trips that I am already beyond death, I am just re-experiencing certain aspects of this vast universal consciousness like an godlike explorer visiting realms created for my own amusement.
In this scenario there is no "physical reality" as such beyond the creations of this universal mind; it's a kind of infinitely mutable virtual reality, a game, a puzzle box.
In philosophical terms, the only connection we have to physical reality is through our consciousness, and it's not impossible that physical reality is a property of what we think of as consciousness, and not the other way around. After all physics does suggest there is something at least slightly strange about the nature of reality... we could be investigating what is basically a virtual world.

I probably wouldn't go that far in terms of what I actually believe, I do think there is a real external physical reality..... but there is some truth to the idea, in that we each basically inhabit our own hallucination created by our brains, and call that physical reality when it's only an internal model of it. That is why trips can be so mind-blowingly amazing - they can change your reality very profoundly precisely because that 'reality' is actually being created by the brain in the first place.
The only difference is that most of the time the brain is trying to model a real physical reality 'out there' and during a trip it can say "fuck it" and just dump random parts of this model of reality into your trip. I think part of the awe of an "ego death" trip is the feeling of finding a vast space inside your mind where your everyday reality is created.......that what you thought of as the the universe "out there" is in fact a creation "in here". Like one of the space odyssey films where the astronaut exclaims "my God, it's full of stars!"
-------------------- I wrote that, but I meant something else
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AuroraBorealis88
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: UniverseOfTheMind8]
#23546337 - 08/16/16 09:00 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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UniverseOfTheMind8 said: If that's the case and we just absorb back into the unified consciousness at death does that mean our actions good or bad really have no meaning because at death they would no longer be our own?
Once you have ego death there is no longer good or bad.
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Epistrophy



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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: AuroraBorealis88]
#23546343 - 08/16/16 09:04 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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AuroraBorealis88 said:
Quote:
UniverseOfTheMind8 said: If that's the case and we just absorb back into the unified consciousness at death does that mean our actions good or bad really have no meaning because at death they would no longer be our own?
Once you have ego death there is no longer good or bad.
bhagavad gita/10
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AuroraBorealis88
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: Electric Wizard21]
#23546348 - 08/16/16 09:08 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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Electric Wizard21 said: Stay off drugs....
To answer one question. No, I don't think ego death is like death. If the ego was to die we would die and vice versa. As for the afterlife, there is no proof that it exists let alone the experience would be the same for everyone.
I think for practical and rational biological reasons we can assume that it will be pretty much the same for everyone else.
And no if the ego dies that doesn't mean we die. That's completely wrong, it has nothing to do with the physical. Once the ego dies there is still awareness underneath that ego, people say you will always be this point of awareness. It's not permanently killing your ego either it's temporary hence why "ego death" is a symbolic term.
I would also argue that there is no proof of an afterlife simply for biological and survival reasons. If human beings found out for sure that there was a God or an afterlife we wouldn't be able to evolve. Not knowing is kind of the fudge factor that holds the whole thing together and makes life that much more special. Life and what will come next was meant to be a mystery for survival reasons. We're supposed to be here in the now focused on this life.
IMO psychedelics like mushrooms exist to either remind us or show us that this is simply all for biology and survival and things like fear of death is just a normal biological function and that's all it is... a biological function just like all other fear. It's not actually real.
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Libbz
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: IjuzWWa4N]
#23546422 - 08/16/16 09:44 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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I liked something psyched substance pointed out in a video, we live in a world full of patterns and we know that before we were alive there was perceived nothing, then there's life, then afterwords there's perceived nothing, and another thing we know is that THIS life is the only one were currently aware of, he basically hypothesized that that could mean that since we live in a world full of patterns maybe our consciousness finds another body to inhabit and we experience life again but our body's are sort of just memory cards and consciousness is a ps2 you might plugin another memory card but it won't hold all the saved memory has the other because that was a different memory card and is gone forever,idk just a thought, after hearing this it lead to some profound trips
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Libbz
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: Libbz]
#23546431 - 08/16/16 09:50 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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Oh and another thing, has anyone ever wondered if dark matter/energy has something to do with consciousness? Who's to say that the two most mysterious things in our universe aren't related in some way. Just a thought, a friend and I were discussing dark matter as being some sort of floating consciousness
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Eclipse3130
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: Libbz]
#23546477 - 08/16/16 10:07 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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You'll never know
-------------------- "In The Material World One seeks retirement and grows Old In The Magical World One seeks Enlightenment and grows Wiser In The Miraculous World One seeks nothing and grows Lighter As we all tread the Homeward Path we will explore many Realms And one day... we will all Realize that all experiences are Simply Different ways in which The All-That Is Perceives Itself"
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Electric Wizard21
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Re: Is ego death possibly what actual death will be like? [Re: AuroraBorealis88]
#23546660 - 08/16/16 11:49 AM (7 years, 5 months ago) |
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okay, nice reply.
I think I will still disagree with the afterlife experience being the same. Although this life experience is the same for everyone, once the barriers come down and whatever is left flourishes, it is hard to see it not producing different effects. Chaos.
-------------------- I'm sick of all you hypocrites Holding me at bay And I don't need your sympathy To get me through the day Seasons change and so can I Hold on boy, no time to cry Untie these strings, I'm climbing down I won't let them push me away
Edited by Electric Wizard21 (08/16/16 11:49 AM)
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