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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Dark_Star]
    #25843834 -

Dark_Star said:
The peak of a true ego death is not something that described in terms of beautiful, wonderful or dark. It can't be described at all, because there is no you. There is no observer & there is no observed. There's no memory of it. If you actually remember the pinnacle of an "ego death" experience, it wasn't really ego death.



Haha, well if you all want to decide on what the definition of ego death is I'll let you know what I think of the experience. Most say it's when you have lost track of the idea that you are a human, so a molecule spread across space counts there, but I guess to you that doesn't count because I remember being a molecule. FWIW, I've completely blacked out on DMT a bunch of times, but since I have no recollection of anything I don't count those. I generally come back really blissful, so maybe. Any jnani yogi worth his salt will tell you self realization is pure bliss.

This is my favorite trip report on shroomery. Because he remembers it, it doesn't count? OK, I guess if you say so.

https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/1270450

Quote:
The parts you remember & attempt to describe are the journey there, and the journey back. What happens in between is a mystery.



That's easy, that is dose related. More DMT will get you there, every time.

Quote:
Certainly very misguided...



Sure sure, you're old, you're one up.

Quote:
As Northerner has stated, moderate doses are much more beneficial than excessive ones IME.



I don't think anyone is saying excessive is better. At least until now, with your apparent definition of ego death being a complete blackout. I call that a "blast past" myself, but maybe it's not. Ramakrishna says nirvikalpa samadhi is like a salt doll going into the ocean to measure it's depth. Obviously not much comes out, except a sense of knowing, and/or a knowing you knew, so I wouldn't say there's nothing to that either.

Quote:
Once you learn to work with the experience it gets a lot easier. And eating 10 strips, or handfuls of dried shrooms isn't learning to work with the experience. It's just taking a ton of drugs. Been there, done that many, many times....with nothing to show for it.



Maybe what you have to show for it is your ability to get more out of less now, for having been there before.

Quote:
As fascinating as shattering one's self, and the crazy visuals, etc are, that strong of an experience is just not that conducive to really working through one's shit.



Sure they are. The psilocybin and quit smoking research indicates that it was only, or at least more, effective if it was accompanied by a "full mystical experience." I suppose you can argue about whether a full mystical experience is ego death or not, but it sure as hell isn't microdosing.

Quote:
Less is more, intent is important, set & setting are key.



That's at least half bullshit. FWIW, I never go in with intention, and it (or my true self or Shiva) almost always knows what I need. Dzogchen is pretty big on not having intention either if you want to experience your "primordial state" and "self arising wisdom."

Quote:
Even breaking through on DMT. Haven't done so in years, and while I feel the time has come to re-enter that space, I'm definitely not in a rush.



If you truly thought less was more, why break through on DMT at all?

Quote:
For youngsters & newbs among us, you're obviously not at that point, and are gonna keep chasing it. If & when it happens isn't something you can will, and it's not necessarily dose dependent either.



I wouldn't go so far as to say "your definition" of ego death is absolutely dose depended, but it's damn close for most people.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Northerner]
    #25843853 -

Northerner said:
Did you actually die?



Did you?

Quote:
If you answered no to any of these questions you did not experience ego death, merely dissolution.



Looks like none of us have been there now. This discussion is getting retarded fast, and it's not on the side of the newbs.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: kabel] * 1
    #25844063 -

kabel said:
Northerner said:
Did you actually die?



Did you?




For all intents and purposes yes.

kabel said:
Looks like none of us have been there now. This discussion is getting retarded fast, and it's not on the side of the newbs.



I know several people who have experienced it also. Just because you don't identify does not make it retarded.


--------------------
We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: kabel] * 4
    #25844075 -

:lol: spoken like a true newb. Not sure why pointing out that there are different levels to the experience is something that perturbs folks. And while strong level 4s are obviously overwhelming & profound, and ego dissolving....they aren't the same as the classic ego death. Which has been clearly defined for a long time. Only folks here making up definitions are those that haven't hit that point yet, but think they did. This isn't a cock comparing contest though.....spreading knowledge.

It's amusing that you find this offensive. Only reason they you do, is because you seem to have a true need to have experienced ego death. For what purpose other than to bolster your ego, who knows. But if you take a step back & read what we are saying objectively, you'll see that we're not knocking the profundity of your experience. Experiencing being a molecule is a mind blowing & profound experience. Of course it counts. All we're saying is the fact that you had self-awareness, means that there was an "I" there. Aka not true ego death. But, from my perspective & that, I'd wager,  of others here, that  is frankly a more overall useful experience than wiping yourself away entirely.

"Any jnani yogi worth his salt will tell you self realization is pure bliss."

A lot of things are blissful. Heroin is blissful, and that's the opposite of self-realization...that's an illusion, an escape from & destruction of one's self. I've had many self-realizations, and trust me...not all were blissful. There's a lot that haven't been. The bliss comes if & when I address those things in a healthy manner & overcome them. Which takes time.

"Quote:

The parts you remember & attempt to describe are the journey there, and the journey back. What happens in between is a mystery.



That's easy, that is dose related. More DMT will get you there, every time."

You've obviously misunderstood what I was saying there. It has nothing to do with the dose, or even the substance. For ego death, what you can kind of recall is the experience of coming up & breaking apart, until there is no you. Then the process of coming back....regaining awareness, slowly coming back together. The actual point where the ego is dead is a mystery because there is no you left to form a memory. So the memories are of coming up & coming back, not of the portion where your ego was "dead".


"Quote:

Even breaking through on DMT. Haven't done so in years, and while I feel the time has come to re-enter that space, I'm definitely not in a rush.


If you truly thought less was more, why break through on DMT at all?"

Because that's a whole other ballgame. That's not about self-realization & growth. That's about blasting into hyperspace which is a fascinating experience, and one that I desire from time to time.

"Quote:

Certainly very misguided...


Sure sure, you're old, you're one up. "

And again, you misunderstand. I was speaking of myself at that time, and I was most certainly very misguided, and wound up very lost. And I'm a whole hell of a lot more than "one up" on the 20-something version of myself. As you will be on the current version of yourself in time. And as I will be on the current version of myself in time.

"Quote:

Once you learn to work with the experience it gets a lot easier. And eating 10 strips, or handfuls of dried shrooms isn't learning to work with the experience. It's just taking a ton of drugs. Been there, done that many, many times....with nothing to show for it.


Maybe what you have to show for it is your ability to get more out of less now, for having been there before. "

That's an interesting thought, but I don't think that's the case. Though maybe it does play a role. I certainly flow through it easier having gone so deep in the past. But the reasons I get more out of the experiences now is because I treat in a very different manner than I did when I was younger. Even though I was trying to be spiritual & grow as an individual when I was younger, I didn't put the same kind of effort into it. And didn't really have much of an intention or plan on what I was going to address. Nor did I come up with, or follow through consistently on any plans to address the things that came up.

I mean having the experience is something, so there's that. But what I didn't get from them....and what I mean by having anything to show for them is personal growth. The kind that I get now from a whole lot less.

"Quote:

As fascinating as shattering one's self, and the crazy visuals, etc are, that strong of an experience is just not that conducive to really working through one's shit.


Sure they are. The psilocybin and quit smoking research indicates that it was only, or at least more, effective if it was accompanied by a "full mystical experience." I suppose you can argue about whether a full mystical experience is ego death or not, but it sure as hell isn't microdosing. "

A full mystical experience most certainly doesn't mean ego death. A mystical experience is just that; mystical. Doesn't have to be an overwhelming experience. Just be tapped into that type of energy & thinking. Don't even need drugs for that either, though they certainly are a more dramatic & consistent method for sure. I don't personally microdose. My idea of an moderate dose is ~200mics of LSD, sometimes a bit less a few times of year. Strong, fully psychedelic, but leaves me with a clarity & an "I" to observe & learn.

There's things to learn about yourself via a complete shattering.....but that's not quite the same thing as working through your shit. Again, you have to be present to do that. If you're no longer present, than something else entirely is happening. You need to be able to see yourself, your life, and how the way you think, feel, and go about your life is affecting the outcomes & relationships to work through unraveling those threads. Can't do that if you don't even know you're human, let alone remember what life is.

What happened with ego-death & ego-dissolving experiences previously for me was that yeah, I felt reborn. Had a blank slate. But the thing is....it's not permanent. Never will be. Life is constantly moving, evolving. I may have temporarily destroyed my ego, but that doesn't mean I wiped out my personality, my traits..good or bad. Just temporarily during the peak of my experience. It all comes back. And I hadn't worked through my shit...just checked out for a bit. So as time would pass, all that shit would come back & leave me at square one. It still comes back. But now I work through myself with each experience, so when life inevitably drags me back to reality & gums up the works, I can maintain that perspective for longer, and maintain at least a little bit of it for even longer. But this is why I returned to psychedelics, and have my periodic sessions; to regain that connection within, and continue to evolve in positive ways vs reverting back to negative thought patterns & habits.

"Quote:


Less is more, intent is important, set & setting are key.


That's at least half bullshit. FWIW, I never go in with intention, and it (or my true self or Shiva) almost always knows what I need. Dzogchen is pretty big on not having intention either if you want to experience your "primordial state" and "self arising wisdom." "

That comment reeks of inexperience. Set & setting is equally important to....if not even more than the dose itself when it comes to the overall experience. This is psychedelia 101... and intent is very important. I never used intent, then I kinda half-assed an intent, and oscillated for years in this manner. Never got anything lasting out of those experiences. Just having had the experience itself. Always went back to my old self though. A pendulum really, going from one extreme to the other. Of course back then you couldn't tell me that I wasn't getting anything from the experiences. I would argue that until everyone turned blue. But hindsight is 20/20. The testament to how something is working is something that happens over a period of months or a couple years, but down the road. Talk to me in 10 years, and we'll see if these things you've gleaned have had any real lasting impact. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Mine didn't. I had to relearn, and then learn how to utilize that in my daily life. Which took a while, and is always an ongoing process.

"Quote:


For youngsters & newbs among us, you're obviously not at that point, and are gonna keep chasing it. If & when it happens isn't something you can will, and it's not necessarily dose dependent either.


I wouldn't go so far as to say "your definition" of ego death is absolutely dose depended, but it's damn close for most people."

Nah, sometimes you're just due. And preparations can make it a lot more likely. It's possible to take a large dose of psychedelics & not get it. And it's equally possible to take a more moderate dose of psychedelics & get it.


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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Northerner]
    #25844174 -

Northerner said:
Did you?




For all intents and purposes yes.



Bullshit, you didn't. You have not experienced ego death, per your own criteria.

kabel said:
Looks like none of us have been there now. This discussion is getting retarded fast, and it's not on the side of the newbs.



I know several people who have experienced it also. Just because you don't identify does not make it retarded.



No, I identify with almost every experience everyone is saying. I just think it's bullshit when all the high post count guys try and pretend they're the only one's who have had ego death, and the newbs are "one down" for trying or wondering. Feel free to criticize and one up yourself, but in doing so I think you should at least be logically sound. Just sayin'

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Dark_Star]
    #25844188 -

Dark_Star said:
And while strong level 4s are obviously overwhelming & profound, and ego dissolving....they aren't the same as the classic ego death. Which has been clearly defined for a long time.



What's this clear definition of a "classic ego death" that some majority, or respected minority of trippers/Buddhists/yogis/whatever agrees with? Please site your source.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: kabel] * 1
    #25844210 -

It's not that we're the only ones that have it, it's that what we're seeing people call ego-death just isn't it. And also that it really isn't the pinnacle or be all/end all of psychedelia. Can also be dangerous. I've personally witnessed experienced trippers....long time friends flip the fuck out. In a way that could've ended really badly, had the rest of us recognized what was happening & handled the situation. One of these friends is a stronger individual for it. The other one not so much....that experience precipitated some shit that's ongoing, even years later. And that's a dude that ate a half ounce of shrooms in college, had a terrible trip...but maintained. Years later real shit down. :shrug: Ya really gotta be careful.

One of the things that those of us who've been here for years definitely do have on you newer folks is perspective on the community. Used to be a really tight knit community. We all kinda came up together via this place. And sad to say, a whole lot of those people are dead now. Overdoses & suicides being the number one culprit. A whole lot of folks that posted about searching for the ultimate psychedelic experience here in TPE when they were new have wound up strung out on hard drugs, there's a lot that went looney. Shit happens man. So when we try to educate folks, even if it comes off as harsh, it's out of a place of love. I don't want to see you posting in WCA with a CA of heroin, cocaine & benzos in a couple years.


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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Asante] * 3
    #25844228 -

Asante said:
Ego Death is the sequence of mind reboots that follows having worked through your life issues and your birth traumas.

Almost all trippers avoid dealing with life issues and lettuing the nuclear fire of bad trips rage out, and because of this they will never have their Ego death run that propels them into the transpersonal realm.

Any report that doesnt includes the experiences of LITERALLY DYING and LITERALLY BEING BORN in the most profound sense is not Ego death.

IMMINENT TOTAL ANNIHILATION ON ALL LEVELS followed by a PSYCHOSPIRITUAL REBIRTH.



Yeah it's all that.  The idea that a novice can consume some "large" dose and "experience" ego death seems to be a commonality in a lot of recent threads about so-called "ego death".  Like many complex things it's not that simple.

And oh yeah they really take offense at being called out.  But at least they're searching, guess that counts for something.  :shrug:


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if you stand too close to the machine it'll start to eat you
Primal's simple tested teks and projects: :awesomenod: Wheat Prep 2.0  Acidic Tea Tek  Potency Project! 

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: kabel]
    #25844229 -

kabel said:
Dark_Star said:
And while strong level 4s are obviously overwhelming & profound, and ego dissolving....they aren't the same as the classic ego death. Which has been clearly defined for a long time.



What's this clear definition of a "classic ego death" that some majority, or respected minority of trippers/Buddhists/yogis/whatever agrees with? Please site your source.



No more "I". You no longer exist. Hence the no memory. Far as sources go, do your own homework. Start with the 50s, and work from there. It's  a fascinating study, and one that anyone that's seriously interested in psychedelics should do.


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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Dark_Star]
    #25844279 -

Dark_Star said:
No more "I". You no longer exist. Hence the no memory. Far as sources go, do your own homework. Start with the 50s, and work from there. It's  a fascinating study, and one that anyone that's seriously interested in psychedelics should do.



I'm sorry I don't believe you that this is the "clearly defined" definition of a "classic ego death." Just no "I" and no memory? Is that it? I don't remember being asleep last night. Was that ego death? 

If you made it up, just admit it. If you just heard it somewhere, admit it. If the term is not all that clearly defined you can admit you were wrong when you said otherwise. It's always popular to feign indignance and quietly slink away. Or you can PROVIDE A CITE.  I'm sorry to call you out, but...

I'm calling you out.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Dark_Star]
    #25844286 -

Ok WHAT THE FUCK IS EGO DEATH?!

I made a thread about my own quest for ego death and then finally had an experience like no experience I'd ever had that largely matched with the descriptions people were providing.

Up to that point I'd always had a lot of ego dissolution on high doses of mushrooms and had experienced infinity; endlessness in all directions of space and time.

Then I had around 10g penis envy uncut just the other week and dissolved into a soup of pixels. A soup that spread out and was reality. And at some point during the experience the most important things in my life became clear to me, the things most important to my happiness, which shows I still had some memory intact.

It was an incredibly profound experience that was unlike any I'd ever had on psychedelics before.

But now I'm reading because I had memory then this wasn't ego death?! Yet I don't know at what point I was having these memories. Like I can't say with any certainty where in the timeline. Initially I was just dissolved infinite pixels. I couldn't see the room I was in. I was just  infinite pixels. That had never, ever happened to me before.

Every time I think I've experienced ego death somebody comes along and tells me I haven't.


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Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back

Edited by MrCraggles (02/28/19 05:46 PM)

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: MrCraggles] * 4
    #25844316 -

There are people on here with a wealth of experience with these things and honestly it is incredibly generous of them to share it. I can say from experience, pride is a one-way ticket to taking “way too much” or going farther than intended. If it happens, it happens. We all have our own paths.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: MrCraggles]
    #25844404 -

MrCraggles said:
Ok WHAT THE FUCK IS EGO DEATH?!

I made a thread about my own quest for ego death and then finally had an experience like no experience I'd ever had that largely matched with the descriptions people were providing.

Up to that point I'd always had a lot of ego dissolution on high doses of mushrooms and had experienced infinity; endlessness in all directions of space and time.

Then I had around 10g penis envy uncut just the other week and dissolved into a soup of pixels. A soup that spread out and was reality. And at some point during the experience the most important things in my life became clear to me, the things most important to my happiness, which shows I still had some memory intact.

It was an incredibly profound experience that was unlike any I'd ever had on psychedelics before.

But now I'm reading because I had memory then this wasn't ego death?! Yet I don't know at what point I was having these memories. Like I can't say with any certainty where in the timeline. Initially I was just dissolved infinite pixels. I couldn't see the room I was in. I was just  infinite pixels. That had never, ever happened to me before.

Every time I think I've experienced ego death somebody comes along and tells me I haven't.



When there is no "I" or "my" left in that part of the experience, that's ego death. I think as a whole though it's a process of losing everything, hitting that place where there is nothing and then coming back.

It's easy to define if you break down the words:

ego = the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.
death = dies

Your identity dies.

That is what it is quite literally.

I personally think one can remember the point when you are there, but cannot tell how long it is as there is no reference to anything else. But ya know, your milage may vary. I really can't see into other people's trips.


--------------------
We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: MrCraggles]
    #25844613 -

MrCraggles said:
Every time I think I've experienced ego death somebody comes along and tells me I haven't.



You can recreate the self test from the bolded questions on page 3 of this paper and see what you get. Score by averaging each of your 8 answers on a 0-100 score between "No, not more than usually" and "Yes, entirely or completely." Forgetting everything wasn't one of the questions, nor was did you literally die.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4906025/pdf/fnhum-10-00269.pdf

I bet you score really high. The entire paper is a fascinating read. There was a very linear dose/score relationship between revealed on page 7. There was a positive correlation between ego dissolution and feeling of well being discussed on page 8. Generally the paper back up most if not all of the newbs positions.  And before any old-timers get their panties in a bunch about the paper being about dissolution not death, the refer to the experience being the same on page 2.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: kabel] * 1
    #25844640 -

Complete ego-disolution can be called ego-death. Sure.

Here's the reference from the paper. You can see it contains an actual death part or the cycle.



Which leads right back to my OP.

Quote:
Something I'm seeing about is a tendency for newer trippers to become fixated with the idea of ego death. I've seen the same thing before with newer DMT users becoming fixated with the idea of break through.

These terms don't seem to mean a great deal in the wide world of tripping. We know that if we take enough psychedelics we will see visions, whether or not we exist in those visions and to what extent doesn't seem to be important. Destroying your current perceived reality and moving into the void isn't something anyone else can tell you happened to you. You know if it happened. The question is pretty pointless. The level to which you journey is only comparable to your own normal state of mind anyway.

There's no merit badge for smearing your consciousness across the galaxy.





--------------------
We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams.

Edited by Northerner (02/28/19 08:56 PM)

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Northerner]
    #25844648 -

Northerner said:
That is because the study is on ego dissolution, not ego death. They are different things.



Read page two, like I said.

I'll make it even easier for you, paragraph two. According to psychedelic researchers, most of whom I bet trip themselves, it's a rose by any other name...

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: kabel]
    #25844655 -

Good, looks like you read it and changed your post. Sure yeah, now their the same, you thought so all along, lol

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: kabel]
    #25844671 -

No they are not the same, read the link I posted.

Feeling a bit out of sorts is also ego death if you want to use the terminology directly from the one single paper and call that fact. Therefore everyone who has ever had a cold has experienced ego death.

Logical fallacy, again.

(all cats have four legs, all dogs have four legs, therefore all cats are dogs)

I'm not going to respond to you anymore. I'm tired of the semantics and silly games. Go and tell everyone you've experienced 100 ego deaths if you want. Wear the badge.


--------------------
We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams.

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Northerner] * 3
    #25844679 -

Quote:
Something I'm seeing about is a tendency for newer trippers to become fixated with the idea of ego death. I've seen the same thing before with newer DMT users becoming fixated with the idea of break through.

These terms don't seem to mean a great deal in the wide world of tripping. We know that if we take enough psychedelics we will see visions, whether or not we exist in those visions and to what extent doesn't seem to be important. Destroying your current perceived reality and moving into the void isn't something anyone else can tell you happened to you. You know if it happened. The question is pretty pointless. The level to which you journey is only comparable to your own normal state of mind anyway.

There's no merit badge for smearing your consciousness across the galaxy.

Maybe I'm missing something here?



It's similar to the idea of a 'level 5' trip - if it gets mentioned a lot then people will start threads asking 'was this a level 5 trip?'

If 'ego death' is talked about as though it's an important goal then naturally people will want to reach that goal. There is so much confusion and argument around the exact meaning of 'ego death' that it's hardly surprising if these people can only form a vague idea of what it's supposed to be and start threads asking questions about it.

As far as I'm concerned, if you are talking about 'ego death' you are most likely either talking about something related to Grof's ideas of death and rebirth (quoted extensively in this post), or Leary's idea of 'ego loss' relating to the 'Bardo states' of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Leary's ideas are discussed in this post). Both ideas involve some sort of transcendent experience related to Buddhist ideas of inner radiance, nirvana e.t.c

So you've got Grof's psychospiritual death and rebirth via cosmic annihilation, and Leary's 'clear light', both involving some kind of transcendent experience. I assume most people asking about ego death are aiming for the 'transcendent spiritual experience' rather than the 'total annihilation' aspect, but at high doses you don't really get to choose!

I have a lot of sympathy with Northerer's comment in another thread

Quote:
Full ego death isn't really very cool. It's more like being beat into submission with a psychedelic stick to the point you know it's all over.



:aliceshocker:

That does describe trips I've been in where you get to a point where it feels like you are going to have to die to get through the trip. It feels like 'you' as a conscious entity are being pushed into a smaller and smaller space as the pressure of the trip gets more and more intense. Until you aren't there anymore and you have to surrender to the trip.

From a trip journal:

Quote:
When you die and you come back. That's when it becomes frightening.



The feeling of death within a trip can be very literal. From another trip journal:

Quote:
Ego death = actual death. Get with the program



:owl:

As for rebirth - I would say it feels more like an 'awakening' than being born. You come back from nowhere feeling you are truly awake for the first time.

I've had quite a few trips where even after I'd returned to my senses I was convinced I was dead, or I ended up believing I was God.

I think the common factor in all this is the 'transcendent experience' that takes place as you transition through whatever state of death or non-being or void you are talking about. The 'point' of reaching this state of dissociation is that there is something there when 'you' are gone. That's the best I can try and describe it. It's like coming home, waking up, discovering that life and death is an illusion and there is something else beyond it all. Epiphany, revelation, transcendence, where you start to believe that the whole structure of reality is fundamentally different to what you thought before.

Now personally I don't believe in the reality of all this, but for sure these drugs are very very fucking strong and this is the kind of trip that makes you realize just how strong they are...

:aweoverdose:

If I had a template for what I personally mean by an classic 'ego death' trip on shrooms it would be the kind of trip that really puts you through the mill, some kind of apocalyptic breakdown of reality that crushes your sense of self and feels like approaching death, a trip that ultimately annihilates you until you are no longer conscious of yourself as a person. But something vast rises up within that void, another type of conscious experience, oceanic, transcendent, as though it is the consciousness of the universe itself, or that you have somehow become conscious of what is normally unconsciousness, and it is far vaster and more powerful than your waking state of mind.

And when you snap back to your senses you are still aware of this vast universe of consciousness, and it has an impact on you like a massive religious experience, an epiphany, the discovery of a profound secret. You may not be sure whether you are still alive. You may feel as though you are in direct contact with God, you have in some sense become God... and you spend the rest of the trip rising a massive wave of mania and euphoria as you try to figure out what happened, feeling as though you have unlocked the secrets of the universe. A fascinating but exhausting experience that can be as unpleasant on the way in as it is euphoric and delusional on the way out.

:scaryshroom:

Now which parts of that are really 'core' to the experience is hard to say, some of it is just weird shit that happens in my own trips. You can only really compare it back to the ideas mentioned earlier and relate it to those. In any case I've never really tripped with the aim of ego death; it's more like, wow, that was an utterly incredible trip, and then some time later I could relate it to the ideas of Grof or Leary or the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

I don't see the point in arguing too much about whether trip X is 'really' ego death or which one of us has figured out the true definition; there are several intersecting ideas in play and some of these talk about different levels of the same experience. It's more helpful to be specific about the details of a particular trip rather than simply label it as 'ego death' and then argue about what you mean by that.

Personally during my own period of 'pushing the envelope' with high doses I was less bothered about the concept of ego death and more curious as to why I had so many trip journals where I claimed to be God at some point. I had many experiences of 'dying and becoming God' and the specifics of a particular point of 'no self' inside the black hole of those trips would not have been particularly interesting to me; it was the feeling of revelation upon revelation that came pouring out when I 'woke up' or 'came back' that was amazing.

:awecid:


--------------------
I wrote that, but I meant something else

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Re: Why the obsession with ego death? [Re: Northerner]
    #25844685 -

Northerner said:
No they are not the same, read the link I posted.



Sure, the link you edited your post to show, after I caught you talking out both sides of your mouth?

Quote:
Feeling a bit out of sorts is also ego death if you want to use the terminology directly from the one single paper and call that fact. Therefore everyone who has ever had a cold has experienced ego death.



Really? Command-F reveals that neither you wiki entry nor my paper contain the words "feeling a bit out sorts" nor reference to the word "cold."

Quote:
I'm not going to respond to you anymore.



Good. Read the rest of that paper though.

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