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InvisiblebodhisattaMDiscordReddit
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Believing psychedelics have anything to do with * 4
    #26382749 - 12/15/19 06:30 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

"ego death" is profoundly stupid.

Not a single person in the history of humanity has had ego death because of any psychedelic drug. They may have temporarily felt that way while high. In many ways the people who talk about ego death are really just showing how their psychedelic lessons strengthened their ego.

That's all.


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InvisiblefeeversM
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta] * 1
    #26382792 - 12/15/19 06:59 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

bodhisatta said:
In many ways the people who talk about ego death are really just showing how their psychedelic lessons strengthened their ego.




Typically my exact thought when I've watched any psychedelic youtube channel. Idk that the lessons themselves affected the ego, but I think a lot of people have some sort of feeling of superiority after having such profound experiences, and would rather talk about it than actually put in the work of integrating it.

Ego dissolution while on psychedelics can be pretty easy, it mostly just seems to come down to letting go completelty for me. I also think extreme focus, flow states and ecstatic behavior can bring it on. If you're experienced with meditation it can take only a very small amount to get you to that point, or even none at all.  But yea it's no permanent thing at all, sometimes the ego even seems to come back stronger after.

It's a pretty subjective thing I guess, but I think the fMRI studies showing the rerouting of info around the DMN are showing some physiological correlations. If I remember correctly a recent study correlated the time spent in these specific "ego-less/flow" states with better long outcomes, but I don't remember the specifics.


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Invisiblelarry.fisherman
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26382800 - 12/15/19 07:09 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

THANK YOU!


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InvisiblebodhisattaMDiscordReddit
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: larry.fisherman]
    #26382805 - 12/15/19 07:15 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

You can't correlate fMRI to ego. Because ego isn't defined in terms of brain activity yet. It's loosely defined as a psychological influence. It's part of a model for consciousness and that model may be completely wrong.

Quote:

larry.fisherman said:
THANK YOU!



Other day heard some kids talking about ego death again...
PROtip: if you mention ego death after a trip it definitely didn't happen


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OfflineLoaded Shaman
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26382819 - 12/15/19 07:30 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

ACTUALLY...

...I can't really argue against this point.


--------------------



"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius


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Offlineigorcarajo
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Loaded Shaman]
    #26382894 - 12/15/19 08:27 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

What is “ego death”?


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InvisibleThe lurker
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: igorcarajo] * 2
    #26382926 - 12/15/19 08:54 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Cool. So is this post. It’s more a way of describing something that’s hard to describe

I smoked 60mg of dmt one time when I was 17, there was no “me” left at all, everything I knew as myself (Ego) literally shattered and exploded. I’d say I was convinced I died but there was no me to be convinced I died

What’s the big deal with people describing that as an “ego death” experience? Or lack of experience lol

I think the dude so butthurt about people using a specific word is the one who could use an ego death :lol::rofl:

P.s. I don’t even use this word anymore you guys just sound like angry 10 year olds about it


Edited by The lurker (12/15/19 09:03 AM)


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Offlineigorcarajo
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: The lurker] * 1
    #26382986 - 12/15/19 09:21 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Maybe bodhisatta can explain what he understands “ego death” to be.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26383254 - 12/15/19 12:13 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

agreed, psychedelics reconfigure perception with less absolute certainty and less knee-jerk associative response (habituated behavior)

this frequently enables experiences that can roll into spiritual states such as ego death, or other experiential syntheses such as where all is one, where timelessness pervades, or having direct cognition of the wheel of life - etc.


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OfflineSocrateshroom
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: The lurker] * 1
    #26383296 - 12/15/19 12:36 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

The lurker said:
Cool. So is this post. It’s more a way of describing something that’s hard to describe

I smoked 60mg of dmt one time when I was 17, there was no “me” left at all, everything I knew as myself (Ego) literally shattered and exploded. I’d say I was convinced I died but there was no me to be convinced I died

What’s the big deal with people describing that as an “ego death” experience? Or lack of experience lol

I think the dude so butthurt about people using a specific word is the one who could use an ego death :lol::rofl:

P.s. I don’t even use this word anymore you guys just sound like angry 10 year olds about it




I don’t have a horse in this race because I don’t care either way but what I believe that Bod is implying is that “death” describes something permanent thus “ego death” would be a permanent loss of ones ego which, as Bod correctly points out, has never happened. One may lose their sense and orientation of ego during a trip and have profound changes to it thereafter but it returns as soon as you come down.

A true ego death would be permanent and there would be no you to come back and describe ego death. And if something did come back it would be a different ego so it couldn’t describe the death of the previous ego.

Also I don’t think people here are butthurt, some people just have strong feelings towards certain topics, not a bad thing. I think it’s an interesting topic either way.

I’ve never experienced something as intense as what many describe their “ego death” experiences as but I definitely can say that my ego is quieter during every trip. It’s there just less neurotic and in the way than when I’m sober.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.


--------------------


Edited by Socrateshroom (12/15/19 12:38 PM)


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OfflineLoaded Shaman
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Socrateshroom] * 1
    #26383317 - 12/15/19 12:54 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I was almost going to call it "temporary ego disassociation".


--------------------



"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Loaded Shaman] * 2
    #26383369 - 12/15/19 01:41 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Imo some people are so 'ego' driven and centered that when they take a drug and experience 'ego loss' they can only see it as a death because ego is so much apart of who they think they are.

A persons mannerism is a good way to gauge this.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta] * 2
    #26383445 - 12/15/19 02:28 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Ego death has nothing to do with "ego" as in "egotistical" it has to do with the Freudian version of the word referring to the conscious self.  Egodeath just means the destruction of the sense of self, for example losing control of one's own mind and having your sense of self, identity, and control be replaced with uncontrollable mindfuck. It's a temporary state caused by the effects of psychedelics, not a permanent state.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: feevers] * 1
    #26383670 - 12/15/19 04:37 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

nooneman said:
Ego death has nothing to do with "ego" as in "egotistical" it has to do with the Freudian version of the word referring to the conscious self.  Egodeath just means the destruction of the sense of self, for example losing control of one's own mind and having your sense of self, identity, and control be replaced with uncontrollable mindfuck. It's a temporary state caused by the effects of psychedelics, not a permanent state.





:werd:


As much as I can't stand the term "ego death" :rolleyes: , ^ that's basically what comes to mind and the sort of stuff I'm referring to when I have used the term "ego death" in the past.

But it's a term, just like the term "break-through", that has become a bit cringe to me in ways for a long time now lol....From how it's thrown around so much to how people feel like it's something that must be achieved or some goal they're trying to reach, to how some folks feel like they've had an "ego death" experience and have an inflated ego because of it...there are all sorts of reasons I don't like the term lol.


...but psychedelics can certainly catalyze one's self/identity to dissolve (during the trip), and have a lasting impact on one's self/"ego" (no doubt most of us would agree psychedelics can have quite an impact on one's self)....That's what comes to my mind when I hear someone say those two words. I've never considered it to be something that is "permanent", as if one is walking around in their day to day life no longer with an "ego" after having "ego death" during a trip.






Quote:

feevers said:
Ego dissolution while on psychedelics can be pretty easy, it mostly just seems to come down to letting go completelty for me. I also think extreme focus, flow states and ecstatic behavior can bring it on. If you're experienced with meditation it can take only a very small amount to get you to that point, or even none at all.  But yea it's no permanent thing at all, sometimes the ego even seems to come back stronger after.






Same here.

And I share the same sentiment.


Mushrooms specifically tend to nudge me into states like extreme focus and flow.






-OM

.


--------------------


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: openmind]
    #26383815 - 12/15/19 05:58 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

time for a line of ket and must share the feels onboard with you that its been a mission to not post anything and feeling very disconnected.

:feelsgoodman: :wave:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Cujllickduo]
    #26383834 - 12/15/19 06:09 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

got beer bought to open n just relaxing is very difficult when im me


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26383854 - 12/15/19 06:24 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

bodhisatta said:
"ego death" is profoundly stupid.

Not a single person in the history of humanity has had ego death because of any psychedelic drug. They may have temporarily felt that way while high. In many ways the people who talk about ego death are really just showing how their psychedelic lessons strengthened their ego.

That's all.





:ohmygod: :hereyougo:  :yeahgoodadvice:  :fistbump:  :snoopyes:  :yess:  :sexymeow:  :yougoodjob:  :manofapproval:  :yeahthatsright:  :noargument:  :solidnod:  :nodofunderstanding:  :seriousthumbsup:  :fuckinawesome:


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OfflineAldebaran
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta] * 1
    #26384171 - 12/15/19 09:22 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

It seems a bit pointless to get outraged by the use of the term "ego death" in relation to psychedelics, it's hardly a new thing and you can usually tell what people mean by the context or the description they give of an experience. If they don't give a context the term becomes fairly meaningless due to the variety of ways it is used.

Quote:

They may have temporarily felt that way while high




I think when people ask about ego death in this forum that is usually what they are talking about, "ego death" as a temporary experience while they are high on mushrooms. Occasionally someone might ask "is it permanent?" but I think most people would understand there is a big difference between a lifelong spiritual quest involving meditation with some kind of permanent enlightenment as the goal, and a mushroom trip with "ego death" as a goal.

The underlying problem is that there is a lack of available terms or concepts to describe psychedelic experiences, so over time terms from Buddhism e.t.c. get co-opted because they seem to express the same feelings and ideas in some way.

From a couple of other threads:

Quote:

Aldebaran wrote: I always try to remember that 'ego death' is in many ways a spiritual ideal that you are not going to experience in a perfect way on psychedelics. You are tripping, not becoming a Buddha. You are not dying and entering nirvana. The effect is temporary, a glimpse, not a shortcut to permanent enlightenment.

It is more to the point that you get a taste of there being something beyond your usual sense of self, whether you think of it as an encounter with your unconscious, a fundamental state of existence that lies beyond death, or whatever. This feels like an awakening and is a very powerful transcendent experience.




Quote:

Aldebaran wrote: I don't take all this too literally - I think the whole exercise of comparing psychedelics to esoteric versions of Buddhism has to be taken with a pinch of salt - it's fun as an intellectual 'game' but I can understand why it annoys people (not that it stops me posting about it) :lol:

Ultimately, the trips speak for themselves and if you delve into the mushroom experience you will find all kinds of things down there...




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


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OfflineWhoManBeing
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26384183 - 12/15/19 09:33 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Relativity, using words. As with any science biased opinion can sway results. Use of words able communicate to each other. How people communicate, let it roll however may.

Let hope be limitless for all. And let each find hope as best he may. Robert Frost said to his high school class graduation.


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OfflinePrimalSoup
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26384186 - 12/15/19 09:35 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

bodhisatta said:
"ego death" is profoundly stupid.

Not a single person in the history of humanity has had ego death because of any psychedelic drug. They may have temporarily felt that way while high. In many ways the people who talk about ego death are really just showing how their psychedelic lessons strengthened their ego.

That's all.




Probably because there's really no such thing as "ego death" - it's just a modern term signifying some sort of loss of self identity.

If by this post you're contrasting it to the enlightenment that can result from Buddhist practice, it's really not a contest.  :laugh2:

But that has little to do with "ego" dying, it's a state beyond any discrimination or attachment to mental states.  Completely different sort of thing.  :yinyang2:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: openmind]
    #26384207 - 12/15/19 09:49 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

openmind said:
Quote:

nooneman said:
Ego death has nothing to do with "ego" as in "egotistical" it has to do with the Freudian version of the word referring to the conscious self.  Egodeath just means the destruction of the sense of self, for example losing control of one's own mind and having your sense of self, identity, and control be replaced with uncontrollable mindfuck. It's a temporary state caused by the effects of psychedelics, not a permanent state.





:werd:


As much as I can't stand the term "ego death" :rolleyes: , ^ that's basically what comes to mind and the sort of stuff I'm referring to when I have used the term "ego death" in the past.

But it's a term, just like the term "break-through", that has become a bit cringe to me in ways for a long time now lol....From how it's thrown around so much to how people feel like it's something that must be achieved or some goal they're trying to reach, to how some folks feel like they've had an "ego death" experience and have an inflated ego because of it...there are all sorts of reasons I don't like the term lol.


...but psychedelics can certainly catalyze one's self/identity to dissolve (during the trip), and have a lasting impact on one's self/"ego" (no doubt most of us would agree psychedelics can have quite an impact on one's self)....That's what comes to my mind when I hear someone say those two words. I've never considered it to be something that is "permanent", as if one is walking around in their day to day life no longer with an "ego" after having "ego death" during a trip.






Quote:

feevers said:
Ego dissolution while on psychedelics can be pretty easy, it mostly just seems to come down to letting go completelty for me. I also think extreme focus, flow states and ecstatic behavior can bring it on. If you're experienced with meditation it can take only a very small amount to get you to that point, or even none at all.  But yea it's no permanent thing at all, sometimes the ego even seems to come back stronger after.






Same here.

And I share the same sentiment.


Mushrooms specifically tend to nudge me into states like extreme focus and flow.






-OM

.



All of this stuff right here^^^


--------------------
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26384211 - 12/15/19 09:51 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I think the death of the ego is related to the death of fear, hate, and all non shareable thoughts. Think deep. Heart or brain ?

The ego will never be defined in a society that hides the truths which are being hidden. We live in an information war.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: nooneman]
    #26384379 - 12/16/19 01:18 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

nooneman said:
Ego death has nothing to do with "ego" as in "egotistical" it has to do with the Freudian version of the word referring to the conscious self.  Egodeath just means the destruction of the sense of self, for example losing control of one's own mind and having your sense of self, identity, and control be replaced with uncontrollable mindfuck. It's a temporary state caused by the effects of psychedelics, not a permanent state.




Exactly.

The only difference is "death" implies a permanent state change, where as we're all still here, so that was absolutely a temporary disassociation. I think the argument is we all know its temporary but keep labeling it a permanent lol.


--------------------



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OfflineCajun love
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Loaded Shaman]
    #26384388 - 12/16/19 01:44 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I have died in trips. I guess that's ego death. Scariest shit ever but I benefited greatly.


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OfflineHolyBolete
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Cajun love]
    #26384456 - 12/16/19 03:22 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

If you implement the changes of said "Ego Death"/old strongly embedded beliefs being obliterated, then you stand a chance of actually being able to say that it was a true change.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: HolyBolete]
    #26384584 - 12/16/19 07:24 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I don't understand all your problems with the term ego-death? I mean if you want, you can call it temporary "ego-death" lol xD
or maybe temporary "identity-death" ^^

the first time I came back from that "place" of pure freedome, peace and love. I fully understood what everyone was talking about when they say "ego-death".
Its actually a pretty good description I think because, when you are there you still ARE but the ego is gone and sometimes it can feel like dying before it happens.

probably no person in history of humans has ever had a permanent ego death, some people manage to stop identifying with the ego permanently but they still have it.

After an ego-death its common that the spiritual ego gets stronger and I think thats necessary if you want to go further. But way more than this the experience will humble you. :smile:
thats only my experience.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: acidgoofy]
    #26384608 - 12/16/19 07:41 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

nirvana


is imaginary


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OfflineSocrateshroom
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: mushboy] * 2
    #26384646 - 12/16/19 08:05 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I'm probably wrong but maybe the reason Bod and/or other people have an issue with the term "ego-death"is as mushboy states:

Quote:

mushboy said:
Imo some people are so 'ego' driven and centered that when they take a drug and experience 'ego loss' they can only see it as a death because ego is so much apart of who they think they are.

A persons mannerism is a good way to gauge this.




It seems to be THE term for "comparing dick sizes" so to speak. Some people seem to use it as a way of expressing their superiority. In turn that way of using the word just inflates their ego.



BUT not everyone uses it that way. Actually, most people I've encountered on this site simply use it because it seems like the quickest way to describe the indescribable and because others who have experienced this state can relate. It is a way to spark conversation and to say "I've had this experience known as "ego-death" have you had something similar we can discuss?". I've seen a few people use it as a "status" symbol but so far that has been the minority.

Either way, "ego-death" or not, all we can do is experience the substance in our way and hope to have learned something at the end of it all.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Socrateshroom] * 1
    #26384657 - 12/16/19 08:17 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

So basically this thread is arguing semantics. So if instead of calling something “ego death” they would have called it “temporary dissociation” or “weird as fuck” then the OP wouldn’t have posted his/her angry rant. Is that it?


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta] * 2
    #26384674 - 12/16/19 08:31 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

bodhisatta said:
"ego death" is profoundly stupid.

Not a single person in the history of humanity has had ego death because of any psychedelic drug. They may have temporarily felt that way while high. In many ways the people who talk about ego death are really just showing how their psychedelic lessons strengthened their ego.

That's all.





THANK YOU. I have been saying this for years. i hate everything about the term 'ego death' and when i hear it, i cant  help but think itscoming from a noob. its a blanket term that has no meaning thats used to flex your entheo-cock


--------------------
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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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Bill_Oreilly] * 1
    #26384782 - 12/16/19 09:48 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

No one is saying ego death is permanent. if they are they don't have even a surface level understanding of what an ego is.
there is obviously always a ressurrection of the ego after the peak, thats a given. 'Ego loss' might be a more accurate term for you guys  but to me it misses the death process feeling that happens. and I think its good for people in the throes of ego death to be assured that this absolute death feeling is normal & part of the process.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Bill_Oreilly] * 3
    #26384797 - 12/16/19 09:55 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

It's a similar thing to the "Entities" discussion.

People (mostly those new to psychedelics and reading what others have written, not yet having their own index of experience to articulate their experiences) have a tendency-- a totally understandable one, by the way-- to use these sweeping, broad labels like "Ego Death" "Break Through" as slang for all kinds of experiences. They do it to fit in, and to try and frame what these new experiences are to them.

The problem is, as others have pointed out, that people are genuinely limited in communication by terminology-- the language used shapes a certain interpretation.
This language matters, especially with new people that are trying to wade into the immense mindscapes of psychedelia.

While the more experienced in this thread have chimed in to explain how the language of "ego death" has established and relevant meaning for them (and have defended it quite well), they are veteran users with a big map on which to draw these impressions.

But when a teenager posts-- as they always do-- that they just had ego death from 3.5g of shrooms, I all too often see "Ego Death" translated to "Whoa Man!", As though it's more an expression of what was, to them, an "extreme state" than a description of one-- a shorthand for "I was fucked up and don't know how to say it".

Well, I can say that my first 2g shroom experience was extreme to me 15 years ago. But since then, it's been absolutely eclipsed-- trivialized into a caffeine high-- compared to the depths of exploration I have known since! Without context and experience, any new state can be felt as extreme.

These kids think "Ego Death" means "The Most Mindfucked"... but it does not mean that.

Worse though, is that by accepting the use of such abstract terms without doing the inward work required over time to process those experiences-- often times the user is permanently confused into thinking they are in a state of ultimate ego dissolution when in fact, when we are able to parse their general description that comes with their story, sounds more like a classic psychedelic disorientative state-- profound as psychedelics are, but distinct from the meaning the "ego death" implies.

I hate to reference Orwell because of political connotations, but the masterful telling of how language used is a tool to confine/direct thinking is no better expressed than in his book 1984.
The guiding principle of Newspeak was to narrow down thinking to plus and minus abstractions-- purposely entrenching vague "good" and "ungood" graduations into all things.
Here's a review of that.

When most people here use the term "Ego Death" in the Newspeak context it could be seen as "DoublePlusTrip". It's not a definition, but an emotional interpretation of intensity.


Here's another (more conventional) article to maybe better enunciate what's going on when we use specific terms and frame things a certain way:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-biolinguistic-turn/201702/how-the-language-we-speak-affects-the-way-we-think
A short excerpt:
Quote:

As I teach linguistics, one of the most intriguing questions for my students is whether all human beings think in a similar way—regardless of the language they use to convey their thoughts—or if the language we speak affects the way we think. This question has entertained philosophers, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, and many others for centuries. And everyone has strong opinions about it.

At present, we still lack a definitive answer to this question, but we have gathered evidence (mostly derived from typological analyses of languages and psycholinguistic studies) that can give us a good understanding of the problem. As I will try to show, the evidence argues in favor of a universal groundwork for perception and thought in all human beings, while language is a filter, enhancer, or framer of perception and thought.





I get why people bristle when we kind of attack people for the terms they use, because sure, we know what they're trying to say. The problem with encouraging or accepting those terms without deeper conversation is that we may well be doing them a disservice in their journey, because, based on their own descriptions that go along with their "ego death" experience, often it appears they do not actually know what they're trying to say themselves.


--------------------
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination--  John Keats

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OfflineAldebaran
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: igorcarajo] * 1
    #26384830 - 12/16/19 10:19 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

So basically this thread is arguing semantics. So if instead of calling something “ego death” they would have called it “temporary dissociation” or “weird as fuck” then the OP wouldn’t have posted his/her angry rant. Is that it?




Partly semantics, yes, but also a desire to reserve the term for ultra-serious spiritual pursuits.

'Ego death' is sometimes used as a kind of gratuitous 'badge of honour' which annoys people. It doesn't really add anything to a description of a trip, and sometimes gets plonked on top as a cherry, as if to say, "just so you know, it was a really profound experience."

To be honest, I think some people don't like the term or what it implies because it gives them a "fear of missing out" and they cannot relate to the experience whatever language you use to describe it. Less experienced users feel obliged to reach this 'goal' and naturally ask questions which keep the term in constant use even if it is not especially helpful.

I don't the term is as mysterious as all that. Used in relation to psychedelics it seems to come mainly from Leary's "The Psychedelic Experience" (where he calls it ego loss and compares it to Tibetan Buddhism) or from Stanislav Grof.

Although their writings on the subject are a bit florid and slightly insane (Leary lays it on pretty thick like a crazed cult leader and Grof has some strange ideas) I think you can pick out the gist of what aspect of "The Psychedelic Experience" they are talking about.

You can think of it as a state of pseudo-religious ecstasy as you are overtaken by dissociation, delusion and mania, it doesn't really matter what you call it and you don't have to 'buy in' to any spiritual beliefs to have this kind of trip; new beliefs will be temporarily provided. Ultimately I think it boils down to a certain kind of trip - whether you think it is truly 'deep and profound' is a personal thing, but the point is that a trip can put you in a state which overflows with awe at the same time as it is disrupting and heavily altering your conscious experience, something like this:

Quote:

the physical realm no longer seems to be the primary reality. There seems to be a core of consciousness that can survive anything. You are heading into an oblivion that is something conscious and alive, and you get the sense that although you might die, there is a world beyond death where your consciousness will be transformed and combined into something greater, something unfathomably powerful, the true engine of creation at the heart of the multiverse. And it's this realisation, or something like it, which hits you as you go under, not as a verbal construction but as something you directly experience at a very deep level below the everyday thoughts which have shut down on you.




Trips are messy and a description of the experience is going to end up sounding more neat and tidy than the experience itself. What happens at the precise moment of 'ego death' is not especially important (in my trip journals I rarely mention the term and sometimes refer to this part of the trip as 'falling asleep') but these feelings of awe and rapture will hit you like a freight train as you wake up, and you can carry on tripping into a whole series of grandiose delusions that feel like a revelation of the secrets of the universe.

It's just a trip. It's sometimes hard to tell whether people just don't like the term 'ego death' or they think those kind of trips are a myth.

People use the term in slightly different ways to refer to slightly different aspects of their trips, but they all seem to have a common thread and usually these discussions are fairly amicable even if everybody has their own personal sense of what the term means. To insist that people use or don't use a widespread term in a certain way is just a form of gatekeeping.


--------------------
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Offlinefootpath
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26384901 - 12/16/19 11:00 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Ralph Waldo Emerson said:
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.




I agree with you, bod, in that it has nothing specifically to do with psychedelics. But I don't think psychedelics are excused from the rule.

Ultimately, the term is just an unnecessary and not even very artful flourish.
Like using zigzags to underline chicken scratch.
For whatever reason, people need something more romantic than just, 'my perception was totally changed.'
But they settled on something that just sounds like some sort of corny ritual initiation.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: coAsTal] * 2
    #26384929 - 12/16/19 11:12 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

coAsTal said:
It's a similar thing to the "Entities" discussion.

People (mostly those new to psychedelics and reading what others have written, not yet having their own index of experience to articulate their experiences) have a tendency-- a totally understandable one, by the way-- to use these sweeping, broad labels like "Ego Death" "Break Through" as slang for all kinds of experiences. They do it to fit in, and to try and frame what these new experiences are to them.

The problem is, as others have pointed out, that people are genuinely limited in communication by terminology-- the language used shapes a certain interpretation.
This language matters, especially with new people that are trying to wade into the immense mindscapes of psychedelia.

While the more experienced in this thread have chimed in to explain how the language of "ego death" has established and relevant meaning for them (and have defended it quite well), they are veteran users with a big map on which to draw these impressions.

But when a teenager posts-- as they always do-- that they just had ego death from 3.5g of shrooms, I all too often see "Ego Death" translated to "Whoa Man!", As though it's more an expression of what was, to them, an "extreme state" than a description of one-- a shorthand for "I was fucked up and don't know how to say it".

Well, I can say that my first 2g shroom experience was extreme to me 15 years ago. But since then, it's been absolutely eclipsed-- trivialized into a caffeine high-- compared to the depths of exploration I have known since! Without context and experience, any new state can be felt as extreme.

These kids think "Ego Death" means "The Most Mindfucked"... but it does not mean that.

Worse though, is that by accepting the use of such abstract terms without doing the inward work required over time to process those experiences-- often times the user is permanently confused into thinking they are in a state of ultimate ego dissolution when in fact, when we are able to parse their general description that comes with their story, sounds more like a classic psychedelic disorientative state-- profound as psychedelics are, but distinct from the meaning the "ego death" implies.

I hate to reference Orwell because of political connotations, but the masterful telling of how language used is a tool to confine/direct thinking is no better expressed than in his book 1984.
The guiding principle of Newspeak was to narrow down thinking to plus and minus abstractions-- purposely entrenching vague "good" and "ungood" graduations into all things.
Here's a review of that.

When most people here use the term "Ego Death" in the Newspeak context it could be seen as "DoublePlusTrip". It's not a definition, but an emotional interpretation of intensity.


Here's another (more conventional) article to maybe better enunciate what's going on when we use specific terms and frame things a certain way:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-biolinguistic-turn/201702/how-the-language-we-speak-affects-the-way-we-think
A short excerpt:
Quote:

As I teach linguistics, one of the most intriguing questions for my students is whether all human beings think in a similar way—regardless of the language they use to convey their thoughts—or if the language we speak affects the way we think. This question has entertained philosophers, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, and many others for centuries. And everyone has strong opinions about it.

At present, we still lack a definitive answer to this question, but we have gathered evidence (mostly derived from typological analyses of languages and psycholinguistic studies) that can give us a good understanding of the problem. As I will try to show, the evidence argues in favor of a universal groundwork for perception and thought in all human beings, while language is a filter, enhancer, or framer of perception and thought.





I get why people bristle when we kind of attack people for the terms they use, because sure, we know what they're trying to say. The problem with encouraging or accepting those terms without deeper conversation is that we may well be doing them a disservice in their journey, because, based on their own descriptions that go along with their "ego death" experience, often it appears they do not actually know what they're trying to say themselves.





💯 best post of the thread 💯


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Shr00mEater]
    #26384941 - 12/16/19 11:22 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

entities == mara
ego death == nirvana
it's all imaginary


--------------------
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath]
    #26384949 - 12/16/19 11:30 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Timothy Leary was all about reimprinting your mind.  As I understand, your ego very much seen as one could say, “there egos (he goes) again.”  Now, how another perceived you, gives you a role to play acting out comfortable position to that specific being. You play that role specifically detailed to each individual you meet.  As in flux through life, “hey, let go me ego (waffle).”

At best, other individuals will gladly hold your positioning to presence to the best of being. Some can put weight onto your shoulder, a spell, holding to as specific personification.  For example, a father and son figures where father has expectations to his offspring, has greatly imprinted the mind of child as raised him to best of his capability.  Now, fathers best raising may not be of best raising for there infinite number of role to be of service to throughout ones life. “There egos again!” Says the father.

Now, psychedelic drugs have at best been used for progressive studies. Further the understanding of what is of life. 

As Timothy Leary showed years ago doing study of prison inmates given magic mushroom therapy prior to release, he dropped the return rate down drastically as reimprinted the minds of cold, hard criminals. He killed the egos of what was causing discomfort to those individual life’s where reoffending convictions were of not. 

As the multi faced jewel encrusted beings wear masks changing faster than rolling dice, a well shot to some of those faces can aid the self.

Early Canadian studies showed that substance abuse has been corrected by psychedelic therapy. A death to a ego for reincarnate like effect.

“To fathom hell or soar angelic, take a pinch of psychedelic.” Dr. Humphrey Osmond wrote to Aldous Huxley. 

The ego nothing to trip on. It’s just something Freud used to help him converse what it was he saw needed to use describing what he partook to reality. 

A personal hang up. You got the message. You hung up the phone. A hang up. Get out of that telephone booth. Carry on.

BuddhaSutra.com


--------------------
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Eye was thinking the other day...  ahh, thinking never done me no good.



Edited by WhoManBeing (12/16/19 11:32 AM)


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: WhoManBeing]
    #26385118 - 12/16/19 01:07 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Are we arguing semantics? Do people actually associate ego death as a literal thing? As in you'll have no ego after? All it is, is the quieting of the irrational brain


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: acidgoofy] * 1
    #26385175 - 12/16/19 01:35 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Great post Coastal :thumbup:...Aldebaran too :thumbup:







Quote:

acidgoofy said:
....I fully understood what everyone was talking about when they say "ego-death".
Its actually a pretty good description I think because, when you are there you still ARE but the ego is gone and sometimes it can feel like dying before it happens.






The first time I had such an experience it absolutely felt like death :yesnod: .

It was my 3rd or 4th trip with any psychedelic, and the dose was 5g, 10+ years ago....I was laid out and wiped out about 45 minutes after dosing and remained "out" for around 4 hours before I moved at all.

I've always described it as..."becoming nothing more than a point of awareness with out self, nothing more than a point of awareness within a void of caressing vibrations."

"I" was still "aware", awareness is all that "I" was...but there was no "I" involved (for there to be an "I" there needs to be an identity/self/ego, and there was none of that intact)...There was no self or identity or body or anything to go along with the "awareness", there was no memory of ever existing, no memory of ever being a human...everything was wiped away...and while having that experience, the point of awareness that "I" was was immersed in a void with intense vibrations, there was nothing there but vibrations, my entire existence was just awareness in a field of vibration.

...coming back down was really bizarre, slowly remembering what "I" was (a human), then slowly piecing back together things like my name, remembering aspects of my life, friends & family, coming back in touch with my body and physical surroundings.


It really was like a "death" type experience. Having one's self/identity and everything they've ever known completely wiped away & gone, and not even knowing that there was ever anything that existed.





-OM

.


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OfflinePrimalSoup
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: LosTresOjos] * 5
    #26385207 - 12/16/19 01:53 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

LosTresOjos said:
Are we arguing semantics? Do people actually associate ego death as a literal thing? As in you'll have no ego after? All it is, is the quieting of the irrational brain




It just appears to be the temporary cessation of executive function, which is visible in fMRI scans of human brains that are tripping.  It's a real thing obviously and it affects perception in what always feels like a profound way.  So people want to call it something, which isn't wrong.  But there's far more available in trips than just the sort of confusion of identity that arises from that effect, yet it serves as a sort of marker, much like OEVs do, that the trip is actually taking effect.

But compare "temporary cessation of executive function" or "temporary ego dissolution effect" to "ego death" and you'll see why the latter wins in popular usage, good or bad.

What I think people object to is the blurring of meaning that results from indiscriminate labeling, and more than that I expect, the common usage as a noun rather than a verb.  "Ego death" is a process, not a thing.  You can say "I had a HUGE ego death!" but you don't hear "I had a really LONG ego death - it was awesome!"  But the latter is correct usage referring to the process extent in time, not the magnitude of the change.  After all, if something fucking dead, you can't kill it anymore. :laugh2:

The first usage raises hackles because it implies some sort of comparison - "my ego death was bigger/better/harder/purer than yours".  And of course that basically sucks.

Whether people identify wholly with their executive function as "conscious" entities is another discussion, but possibly more fruitful.  We've all met people like that I'm sure, and we think of them (rightly I think) as being ego-bound and/or narcissistic.  And of course those are the kind that, if ever drawn to drugs that dissipate their sense of self-identity, have a very hard time with tripping.


--------------------

if you stand too close to the machine it'll start to eat you
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Edited by PrimalSoup (12/16/19 02:06 PM)


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: openmind]
    #26385221 - 12/16/19 02:06 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

If you could recall the moment you realized that could manipulate objects in space,
Would you say that something of you died?
I'm sure not.
But I'm sure the awesomeness of it was nothing short of that of a dissociative hallucinogenic experience.
I'm sure it changed the parameters of your mind.

So, yes, of course this is an issue of semantics, because leaving words unrefined would obscure their meaning.
And, quite frankly, the words used to describe this meaning could use refinement.

edit: I suppose you could then say that 'ego death' is the narcissistic translation of 'change of perspective.' Because, sure, I suppose that's what you would say if you truly feel that having new ideas means that part of you has died.
That sounds to me like terminology associated with a disorder. Again, not having anything to do with psychedelics.


Edited by footpath (12/16/19 02:17 PM)


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OfflineWhoManBeing
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: LosTresOjos]
    #26385388 - 12/16/19 03:34 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

LosTresOjos said:
Are we arguing semantics? Do people actually associate ego death as a literal thing? As in you'll have no ego after? All it is, is the quieting of the irrational brain



 

Irrational brain. Well said.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: WhoManBeing] * 2
    #26385421 - 12/16/19 03:59 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Some people are all irrational brain:lol::tinfoil:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: mushboy] * 1
    #26386312 - 12/17/19 01:42 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Most people are incredibly irrational regarding their foundational axioms, of which, they're mostly unconscious.

"Ego Death" is like the "keto diet" for trippers; everyone THINKS they know what it means, and they think they've got it down, and their method is the best.

It's not that straightforward.

Neither is the mind.


--------------------



"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: coAsTal] * 3
    #26386701 - 12/17/19 09:23 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

It's a similar thing to the "Entities" discussion.




Compare the opening posts to that thread and this one:

Quote:

coAsTal wrote: "Entity Contact". Nobody in history has ever made a legit case that it is not your brain talking to itself. Prove me wrong. Respectfully yours, Reason and common sense
:cheers:





Quote:


bodhisatta wrote: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with "ego death" is profoundly stupid. Not a single person in the history of humanity has had ego death because of any psychedelic drug. They may have temporarily felt that way while high. In many ways the people who talk about ego death are really just showing how their psychedelic lessons strengthened their ego.
That's all.





One is inviting a discussion. The other asserts that anyone who disagrees with the OP is "profoundly stupid" and signs off with the lordly and arrogant "That's all" as if the poster is some kind of ultimate divine authority, whose majestic splendor renders him far too superior to respond to the lowly pond-scum who may have a different opinion. :rolleyes:

That said, it is good to inject a bit of skepticism into discussions about ego death and question whether it really refers to anything specific or "real" in a psychedelic context, or whether it is a "blanket term that has no meaning" as Bill_Oreilly says in his characteristically surly post.

How much common ground is there between different peoples' experiences to speak of 'ego death' as if it were a concrete 'thing' you can call up at will with the right dose? Are descriptions of the experience realistic or fanciful embellishments of a confused state of mind? How much can you really bring back from a state of "no self"? Is there even a coherent description of such a state? And so on...

:filosoraptor:

When Leary based The Psychedelic Experience on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it posed some interesting comparisons with the psychedelic realm. There are undoubted parallels between certain psychedelic states and descriptions of "inner radiance" and so on, but you have to question how much actual correspondence there can be between states experienced during sober meditation by experienced monks in the Buddhist tradition, and states experienced during a heavy trip by the average user. And how realistic it is to expect any long-term personality shift away from the "ego" just by using psychedelics? Leary certainly doesn't come across as someone humbled by his experiences.

In addition to this, what Leary writes is fairly impenetrable to anyone coming to psychedelics for the first time, so if someone asks about ego death / ego loss you can't just point them to Leary's book and expect them to do anything except read some of it and say "what the fuck?"

In my own own posts I'm trying to give some kind of definition of ego death (in relation to psychedelics) based on my own experiences and what has been written on the subject before, and to give a sense of what the experience is like for me. It can only ever be a personal view and an expression of personal beliefs; I don't really expect anyone to just uncritically "swallow" what I am saying or agree with my specific interpretation.

I think a broad conception of psychedelic 'ego death' which includes various states of ego dissolution is probably a good thing, it avoids trying to pin a nebulous term down into anything which is unrealistically specific, gives room for the wide divergence of personal experience, and avoids the "my ego death was bigger/better/harder/purer than yours" arguments that Primal mentions. If you dig back into really old threads about ego death, they always seemed to descend into arguments like that.

:sunstone:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26386798 - 12/17/19 10:18 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

It isn’t a hard question to demonstrate proficiency in in any case


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26387088 - 12/17/19 01:27 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)


Try Psilocybin™ today, for Ego Death so profound you'll keep coming back for more!


--------------------

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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: PrimalSoup] * 1
    #26387171 - 12/17/19 02:23 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Ego death : psychedelic perception distortion :: hysteria : premenstrual syndrome.
It's archaic. It was a shot in the dark to begin with. And we should really have moved on by now.

As for it reducing the swinging of dicks, it doesn't.
It's still something to gauge your experience vs someone else's, and people absolutely get high on themselves about how 'heroic' they are.
It's more pitiful than it is stupid.
Why should people take pride in needing to chemically induce a profound state of altered awareness?

Gauging perception distortion isn't so provoking as recounting how many times you died and heroically returned with stronger tethers. But it holds more truth.
It's just jabberwocky that we take as holy script because of a few white dudes who 'pioneered' the use of psychedelics for modern Western civilizations.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath]
    #26387218 - 12/17/19 02:47 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

footpath said:
It's just jabberwocky that we take as holy script because of a few white dudes who 'pioneered' the use of psychedelics for modern Western civilizations.




word


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: mushboy]
    #26387348 - 12/17/19 03:51 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

i deffintley dont believe in drugs being an answer to self-destruction that does harm your ego


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26387826 - 12/17/19 09:01 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I think you very well could point someone to Leary’s books and give a good basis for psychedelic experiences.

Ego death?  Whatever man.

The Psychedelic Experience Book very far from the detail of Tibetan Book of the Dead. And really does hit some well points to a psychedelic trip.

As for ego death, I to kill a lot of own doings here to this site. Too much nonsensical wish wash portraying whatever try to.

Plus, I may not like the look in your eyes and wouldn’t be talking to you anyways.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: WhoManBeing]
    #26387906 - 12/17/19 11:02 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Well 'ego death' is surely not supposed to be taken literally right so...

LSD, LSA, Mushrooms and DMT, do not cause the ego to completely evaporate (or die), but I still understand what the term is getting at. It definitely breaks down (language time, sense of self etc) and diminishes in direct proportion to the amounts consumed.

And to be honest one of the striking things about DMT in comparison to LSD/LSA was always how intact my ego was while it was all happening.

But Salvia, that's another thing...

I didn't know where, when, what, or why I was. There had never been a before, and would never be an after, and I had been an inanimate 'thing' with no identity whatsoever, for all eternity...

My terror in itself might suggest some unconscious sliver of an ego or identity back there, but pretty much Salvia divinorum was a temporary ego death.

That is all! :lol:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: wolf8312]
    #26388073 - 12/18/19 03:58 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Being disengaged from body and people call it "ego death" is all. I guess in a lot of defense, there's really no words to describe the experience. And we get these chopped up half meaning terms that get thrown around.

But, then again.. trying to explain the unexplained so:shrug:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: WhoManBeing]
    #26388385 - 12/18/19 09:25 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I think you very well could point someone to Leary’s books and give a good basis for psychedelic experiences.




I think it The Psychedelic Experience would work as a guide for some people but alienate others - it depends on your background and how open you are to ideas that might seem a bit 'far out' at first glance. If somebody just wants a coherent explanation of 'ego death' there's a bit of a "Confused? You will be!" element to it.

It made a lot more sense when it read through it again recently.

Quote:

Plus, I may not like the look in your eyes and wouldn’t be talking to you anyways.




I'm not that scary! :wink: :peace:

:nyan:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath]
    #26388434 - 12/18/19 09:58 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

It's just jabberwocky that we take as holy script because of a few white dudes who 'pioneered' the use of psychedelics for modern Western civilizations.




I like that :lol:

Some good points in your post, footpath

I think there is a middle ground between dismissing out of hand the ideas of Leary or whoever, and treating them as 'holy script'. You can engage with these ideas, and take them seriously, without literally 100% "believing" in them as such.

I think 'ego death' is really a conceptual framework for interpreting trips, but it does relate to actual things that happen in a trip. In other words, I think of 'ego death' as a way of trying to understand a trip you already had, not as empty theory searching for an experience to match it.

In the end I don't subscribe to religion or spirituality at all, so a question such as "is the supposed ego death from psychedelics as real as the ego death from Buddhism" is not really a meaningful question for me. But that's, just, like, my opinion man. I think one of the good things about psychedelics is that it can lead you to take more of an interest in other people's ideas even when they do not match your own.

I have more of a science / philosophy outlook but I've found it interesting to look at more esoteric ideas from Buddhism e.t.c and take them seriously in a way I wouldn't have before.

Quote:

It's archaic. It was a shot in the dark to begin with. And we should really have moved on by now.




But moved on to what? (Answers on a postcard...)

:loveheart: :chesire:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran] * 1
    #26388510 - 12/18/19 10:45 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I do see their merit, those men I speak of. And I certainly don't dismiss everything they say.
Leary, I'm a little weary of - he really amplified the fanaticism of it all in an almost prophetic manner that has me turn off, tune out, and... drop in?

I also see the merit in many of the spiritual/religious texts/traditions.
All of them have something of worth to offer, else we wouldn't see them persist into the now. And all of them played their part in laying out the foundation to much of our understanding of science/philosophy/morality/etc.

But, we, as a culture of thinkers and explorers who have an unquenchable thirst for better explanations, have moved on from every bit of mysticism we could.
So, too, have we from our Pavlovs and Freuds and Eriksons.
In both fields, we don't actually leave them behind, but we carry on the necessary or unarguable bits while shedding away the superfluous.

I guess because psychedelics are a field of counter or sub culture, things move a whole lot slower.
And, what with the nature of the effect of psychedelics, it's really very easy to fall into that stagnant fanaticism; to bathe in the superfluous.

So yeah, that is the question... what next? I think we may soon find something more suited, now that we're seeing growth in the general interest.
In the meantime, I have no objection to more mundane terms like perception distortion or psychic disorientation.
It puts a gauge on it without attaching grandiosity.
Saying, 'my perception was heavily distorted,' or, 'my psyche was fully disoriented,' isn't really giving way to any of those weird psychedelic accolades.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath]
    #26388545 - 12/18/19 11:08 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

The only profoundly stupid thing here is asserting something with such certainty. To imply one knows in its entirety not just their own experience, (which no brain can compute in entirety..) but also the experience of every human to have lived, and who will have lived throughout history.

This isn't just a statement or a claim, this is some kind of Godly prediction, judgement, and historical recollection beyond what any man is capable of. OP's ego is likely impregnable, so there is no sense forming discussion here. Words will fall on deaf ears before they reach that pedestal OP has climbed upon. The lack of any genuine responses and the fact his initial claim was baseless and not supported by anything other then personal opinion proves just that.

You'd think a grown individual in such a position would be able to compose a post on a discussion board to express his ideas or opinions more fluently and less offensively to those who may oppose... I personally haven't experienced ego death but I certainly won't toot my horn so loud as to drowned out all the voices who believe they have.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: ackuric]
    #26388620 - 12/18/19 12:01 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

On my breakthrough trip I wouldn't say I experienced "ego death" but my consciousness very much merged with something...else.  Something that was not me.  Something that was higher, more Godlike.  I could easily have convinced myself in those moments that I was, in fact, God.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: individualist]
    #26388825 - 12/18/19 02:06 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Best example of ego-death, would that be when producer Quentin Tarantino kills himself off in his feature films?


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: nooneman]
    #26388938 - 12/18/19 03:06 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

uncontrollable mindfuck-- is this a medical term? Did freud coin this phrase? Also, great band name!


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: tyrannicalrex] * 1
    #26389103 - 12/18/19 04:34 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I think that psychedelics can dismantle and/or destabilize the identity / personality structures of people with relatively poorly developed egos. This dismantling can persist following the trip. I have observed this first hand. This is certainly not the norm for most trippers. I suppose this is distinct from ego death, which a lot of people in the psychedelic community assume any breakdown of everyday perception of time and space must be ego death. Also seems to be a shiny ego badge of sorts, having “been there.”

Without any ego, we would not be able to navigate the world. So ego death I suppose is a bit of a misnomer. I think that dissolution, or even simply perturbation, which occurs in gradations, may be a better term.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: CountHTML]
    #26389187 - 12/18/19 05:15 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I'd say something that sort of fits as a definition does happen. However people throwing it around is super annoying and likely many haven't reached that point or want to sound cool. I've never used the words personally and never will but.....

Also don't give two shits what most people say. :shrug:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath] * 1
    #26390385 - 12/19/19 09:53 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

footpath wrote: But, we, as a culture of thinkers and explorers who have an unquenchable thirst for better explanations, have moved on from every bit of mysticism we could.




Personally, I am not really interested in using mystical states to explain anything, I am more interested in how science attempts to explain mystical states. Far from having 'moved on' from mysticism, it is only very recently that neuroscience has developed any techniques that could investigate this type of conscious experience and see how it correlates with physical states in the brain.

:acidfire:

I think the term "mystical experience", as defined by William James in his The Varieties of Religious Experience may be a better candidate than 'ego death' to give a general definition of the kind of experiences we are talking about:

Quote:


From Wikipedia
James devotes two lectures to mysticism and in the lectures outlines four markers of mystical experience. These are:

    Ineffable: the experience is incapable of being described and must be directly experienced to be understood.
    Noetic: the experience is understood to be a state of knowledge through which divine truths can be learned.
    Transient: the experience is of limited duration.
    Passivity: the subject of the experience is passive, unable to control the arrival and departure of the experience.[10]

He believed that religious experiences can have "morbid origins" in brain pathology and can be irrational but nevertheless are largely positive.





'Ego death' is a type of mystical experience, but mystical experiences don't have to involve 'ego death'. I think one problem with the term 'ego death' is that it is either too broad (used in a general way to describe any kind of mystical or heavily dissociative state experienced on psychedelics) or too narrow (identifying it with bardo states of Tibetan Buddhism and very complicated conceptions of the state of 'no self').

As defined by James, you don't have to accept that these mystical states provide any 'authentic' religious experience, or link them to any particular religion, you are merely accepting that these states can be experienced.

Quote:

footpath wrote:
In the meantime, I have no objection to more mundane terms like perception distortion or psychic disorientation.
It puts a gauge on it without attaching grandiosity.
Saying, 'my perception was heavily distorted,' or, 'my psyche was fully disoriented,' isn't really giving way to any of those weird psychedelic accolades.




The problem with this is that the experience is not mundane or merely disorienting; people will happily use the term 'mindfuck' to express this. The states I am talking about are frequently grandiose and can be experienced as a very extreme state of mystical rapture and revelation. I think there are specific brain states coming into play which have a perceived effect as though someone was turning up a bunch of dials to eleven marked "profound experience!" "mystical ecstasy!" "presence of God!" and so on.

:owl:

I have a hunch that the mind generates these feelings due to whatever underlying brain activity is going on, and then "fills in" some of the content to match - i.e. your thoughts suddenly seem incredibly profound and then snowball into delusion. Not so much during any state of 'ego death' itself, when your internal 'train of thought' is suspended in some way, but certainly in other stages of this type of  trip.

Personally I don't have a problem using terms like depersonalization, de-realization, dissociation, delusion, mania and psychosis to describe these states, and they are usually how I describe my own trips in my trip journals. But describing them this way and having a very materialist outlook doesn't do anything to prevent (sometimes unwanted) mystical experiences occurring, which I then go on to express in vague terms as experiences of "God" in some way - feeling the presence of God, 'becoming' God and so on. Also thinking of psychedelic states as literally psychotic creates its own set of problems which led to the discarding of the 'psychotomimetic' label.

:psychoactiveair:

I've been reading an interesting PHD thesis by Erik Davis called "High Weirdness: Visionary Experience in the Seventies Counterculture" - you can find a link to the PDF on the Teeming brain blog, which is itself worth reading and has a fair bit of content related to psychedelics, consciousness and spirituality.

The thesis has a lot of interesting stuff in it, including a section on psychedelics explaining the background to the psychedelic movement which talks about Huxley, Leary's The Psychedelic Experience and so on. In a discussion about the way psychedelic states came to be identified as being mystical / religious experiences, there is this interesting quote:

Quote:


In his 1957 book Mysticism, Sacred and Profane, the Catholic religious scholar R.C. Zaehner attacked Huxley’s perennialist drift by insisting on the wide variations within mystical experiences, texts, and underlying ontologies. Zaehner’s motivation was to immunize theophanic Christian mysticism from its less authentic rivals. As such, Zaehner restricts the vision vouchsafed by mescaline to “nature mysticism,” a profane experience of unity or depersonalized identification with the material cosmos. Zaehner also finds these visionary experiences, which he identified with the manic side of bi-polar psychosis, among poets and madmen.





I find that interesting, and I've said before that I think high-dose states, including mystical states and delusional states, have similarities with mania.

So... I think talking about 'mystical states' may be more helpful in a lot of contexts than using the term 'ego death'. If somebody wants to know what 'ego death' is supposed to mean in basic terms, it would be easier to explain what a mystical state is and work from there. Saying you experienced a 'mystical state' does not mean a lot by itself, it simply expresses how something was experienced by you, so there is more room for it to encompass a wider variety of different experiences which can then be described in a bit more detail without the feeling that they have to conform to someone else's ideal of 'ego death' to have any value.

:feelsshroomyman:


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Offlinefootpath
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26390724 - 12/19/19 01:24 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Mystical experience does make some sense, especially in regard to it being unknown.
The rising and falling of the sun from day to day was obviously a mystical experience for humans until they started to work out its function.

My only rebuttal with that classification is that it may not hold a traditional mysticism for all.
Many may see it as something akin to unlocking the potential of your perception - the senses unbound. That doesn't have to associate with god or delusion or psychosis... necessarily.
But maybe that take on it, too, is mystical. However rooted in current knowledge it may be.
I mean, fuck, who's to say our current knowledge isn't still riddled in mystic practices? We worked out a lot of complex systems trying to reach or appease the early gods.

So maybe I'm misspoken when I say 'disorientation' or 'distorted'. Maybe I mean something more along the lines of un- or super-orientation. I'm no linguist or scholar, so those were more so just my own examples to express the nature of the terminology that could be used.
And my use of grandiosity wasn't to say that these weren't grandiose experiences for the individual. I meant that, by taking away the eulogistic aspect of these experiences, you could better tame the pompous nature of those who report back.

I appreciate your perspectives on this. You're very clearly much more well-read than I :lol:
I appreciate, too, where you draw influence from. Thanks for quoting and referencing. I really don't read enough and I'm starting to feel like a dunce about it. These things should prove to be quite the kindling.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath]
    #26390832 - 12/19/19 02:49 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

This thread has been fascinating, people ✊🏻

Really fascinating. And very thought-provoking. But just sitting reading Aldebaran’s post and footpath’s reply, I can’t help but get the feeling, what the heck are we even discussing, people? The big selling point behind psychedelics is the oneness, the acceptance, the feeling of the tribe. Look out for each other. The we are all as one; yet here we are, arguing about a term that everybody understands, and from OP’s tone, showing a little disdain for each other. Does it matter? I don’t want to stem intellectual debate, trip team, but where’s the love, where’s the understanding, where’s the acceptance? Are we, as a race, doomed? Even the psychedelic community is bickering....

Sorry for the rant, but if there’s no solidarity, how can we expect to persuade the world?

Can we talk more about:-

  • sure-fire ways to achieve “ego death”
  • benefits of the ego death
  • is it real, in any sense
  • is there anything beyond ego death
  • how to integrate an ego death into your normal reality


Mush love, trip team,
DJ Ed


--------------------
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: DJ Ed]
    #26391064 - 12/19/19 05:04 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

DJ Ed said:

Can we talk more about:-

  • sure-fire ways to achieve “ego death”
  • benefits of the ego death
  • is it real, in any sense
  • is there anything beyond ego death
  • how to integrate an ego death into your normal reality


Mush love, trip team,
DJ Ed




I think that’s a perfect example of what bod was complaining about, tho.

It’s a loaded and outdated term, it is also not very descriptive. It’s seen as something like saying “I have attained enlightenment.” Leading to a multitude of problems. One example, is general communication of the psychedelic experience; look thru this thread, there are people voicing pro and con....you said it yourself “what are we even talking about here?”, it seems people can have entire conversations about ego death and have absolutely no idea what the other person means when they use the word. Another issue could be that it is easy to confuse “ego death” , however you interpret that word, with the entirety of experience, or even a particular goal within a persons psychedelic journey. Another interesting point is the second question in the list is : is ego death even real? the rest of the items on the list are all presumed upon the fact that “ego death” is in fact real, attainable and desirable to bring into ordinary life. I think this betrays a kind of “magical thinking”. For better or worse.


Totally agree on the love and acceptance stuff.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: DJ Ed]
    #26391173 - 12/19/19 05:49 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

DJ Ed said:
Even the psychedelic community is bickering....





That always happens.  :aliceshocker:


Quote:

DJ Ed said:
is there anything beyond ego death?





So-called "ego death" is just this fairly trivial milepost of sorts along the continuum.  Unfortunately it's mostly impossible - for very good reasons - to discuss the depths of the experience beyond the point of giving up rational thought, because it's, not rational.  Intensely interesting, worthy of study, but when you start trying to describe it - even here in what ought to be some sort of open minded forum - mostly what you get is just flat out disbelief.  But as Lao Tzu said, if foolish people did not laugh out loud when hearing of the Tao, it wouldn't be the Tao (or words to that effect).

tl;dr  It's just impossible to get it across unless you've been there yourself - in which case words are hardly necessary.


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Edited by PrimalSoup (12/19/19 05:56 PM)


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Offlinefootpath
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Shr00mEater]
    #26391182 - 12/19/19 05:54 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Well, I see bod's point through the brashness of his delivery. I think.
The whole 'ego death' concept and the abuse of the term in the psychedelic community is pretty tiresome and rather contrary to the concept in the first place.
Many of those touting their psychedelic ego death are really just very high on themselves; of an inflated ego. I think that abuse of the term and the attitude that it takes to think that way creates more of a rift than bod calling people profoundly stupid.
If we are to persuade the world, what kind of flagship is one that doesn't know east from west?
If we are to persuade the world, we have to work with worldly concepts.
And why should we persuade the world when we could just find a place in it?
Not everyone likes milk, and there's no persuading them otherwise. But it still finds an acceptance and a it does so without cramming cheese down peoples' throats.

Both persuading the world and ego death were very much so driven by Leary and, personally, I think that had a fair amount of detriment to the cause of finding acceptance of this time-honored human tradition.

Language and conduct are important.

Quote:

Shr00mEater said:
Totally agree on the love and acceptance stuff.



^ absolutely.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath]
    #26391446 - 12/19/19 08:22 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I think there is also a safety issue as well that he is concerned about since this is a harm reduction site.

Asking how many grams it takes one to achieve ego death or the other term breakthrough is like asking the other person how many bowls of mashed potatoes does it takes for him get full.

All I personally know is there is no magic dosage to guarantee anything other than you just trip balls, trip balls and it was profound or you trip balls and go through profound hell or you black out.
The higher the dose, the higher the consequences whether good or bad.
Only 5 times in the last two years from weekly dosing with a couple months of breaks have I experienced things mystical and only one of the times have I felt out of body not looking through my eyeballs feeling complete. 
The kicker is the out of body experience was off a lower dose than normal, hours after the peak.:justdontknow:
After enough experiences I have found mind set is more of a determining factor of what kind of reward or punishment one may achieve and I no longer hold expectations with psychedelics anymore than I do of another human being; lest I become disappointed.
I no longer want to chase another persons dreams.

I seriously question the dosage aspect lately since no two trips are ever the same when the dose is the same range.

According to Micheal Pollan, researches do say they are a bit disappointed in Leary not just because he allowed them to escape the lab and glorified them back in the day but also all the trip reports. "It has muddied the water on the research". It also makes finding untainted subjects hard to find.
Once you read or hear of these reports, they become embedded in our conscience and bring about expectations that may be just a fabrication of someones else's experience or inflated ego.

This psychedelic romanticism may also be one of the reasons Bod has spoken up on the subject but along the lines of what I said before; I don't know what mashed potatoes tastes like for him which leaves the statement open for interpretation.
:jackiechanofapproval:


--------------------
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-"Like a Blind man In an orgy you gotta feel things out.".-
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-If you defy authority because your told to, that's no better than blindly trusting authority.-

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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: R.I.P.Zappa]
    #26391603 - 12/19/19 09:48 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

It's kind of a fucked up thread when the OP just shouts out some shit and never comes back to clarify or justify it.  IMHO.  :laugh2:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: PrimalSoup]
    #26391643 - 12/19/19 10:30 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

PrimalSoup said:
It's kind of a fucked up thread when the OP just shouts out some shit and never comes back to clarify or justify it.  IMHO.  :laugh2:





Think of this: ol cranky pants posts this up, then for like a week now, it’s been going strong. Amazing! Everyone and his second cousin giving their opinion and explaining the secrets of ego death, or dispelling it’s myth. maybe even becoming offended over the way the subject was presented.

Even if there are good arguments being made, or rational sensibilities being offended...

... Clearly, everyone here has a fully functional ego. 👍

I think it’s a kinda funny thread. 😊


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Shr00mEater]
    #26391650 - 12/19/19 10:38 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Yeah but it's mostly a lot of guessing about what the OP was actually talking about.  Funny, yes, as is all talk about "ego death" and other misconceptions about psychedelics.  By most definitions everybody everywhere has a fully functional ego, it's just part of the normal brain.  You don't really need it but most people kind of like feeling that they're in charge of something.  It insulates them against the vast uncaring universe.

:okthatsfunny:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26391655 - 12/19/19 10:40 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I keep hearing about this famous "ego death" and I keep thinking that it sounds like bullshit. It just sounds like the type of intensity of experience that a 30+ g trip would require.

BUT...

what the fuck

do I

actually know.

If people are having "ego death," let them have it. If they are full of shit, let it be.

And yes, as a post scriptum of sorts, TECHNICALLY SPEAKING an ego death is impossible without going into a coma... however, again, we come to a however, when you read about what Amanita Muscaria can do to people, I bet it sure feels real while you are going through it


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: CountHTML]
    #26391665 - 12/19/19 10:52 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

CountHTML said:
Without any ego, we would not be able to navigate the world. So ego death I suppose is a bit of a misnomer. I think that dissolution, or even simply perturbation, which occurs in gradations, may be a better term.




I think you are EXACTLY on the money here, so to speak.

Ego just gets waken up, and the complicated mystery of that what Carl Jung called Self takes over. I am guessing that if you, as Ego-Consciousness, is hell-bent on staying in pathological degrees of control (which is something that we are culturally conditioned to be), then you actually warrant a nice fucking ass-whooping by the dragon that you actually are. But most people, I believe, have enough natural wisdom and healthy correct psychological structuring to avoid such a massive confrontation with consciousness.

This is all, again, me speculating on what is happening to those people having never went through a wild experience like that.

I'm sure if I took 40 grams, I'll be in a lot of trouble myself. Thresholds vary, I suppose


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Azoth] * 1
    #26391686 - 12/19/19 11:21 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I think this all comes from the common idea that "fighting the trip" is an ego-driven reaction, whereas going along with the flow takes you much further and results in dissolution or whatever you want to call it.  But until you trip heavily you don't have much idea about what actually happens, and it's really hard to explain to somebody who hasn't been through it, even though they might love hearing about it second hand.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: PrimalSoup]
    #26391705 - 12/19/19 11:46 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

PrimalSoup said:
I think this all comes from the common idea that "fighting the trip" is an ego-driven reaction, whereas going along with the flow takes you much further and results in dissolution or whatever you want to call it.  But until you trip heavily you don't have much idea about what actually happens, and it's really hard to explain to somebody who hasn't been through it, even though they might love hearing about it second hand.




I think that for a lot of people, they "fight the trip" unconsciously. It's kind of a mindfuck. Developmental, but resolvable. Through a bad trip, lol.

Also, define trip heavily.

10+

20+

30+ ?


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Azoth]
    #26391769 - 12/20/19 01:03 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Tons of completely unnecessary insecurity being projected in this thread.

In a way, OP kind of served a purpose; there are several people set on figuring out what he meant, as if you should honestly care because...

...you should have built some level of confidence via the knowledge from your direct experience, if you were paying attention, from your various trips.

A single thread about semantics shouldn't be enough to make people doubt their experiences/argue endlessly; I thought that was the advantage of psychs?

Just my :twocents:.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Shr00mEater]
    #26391986 - 12/20/19 06:29 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Thanks, trip team. Your responses have really cheered me up (long week!). I’ve had some correspondence recently with Aldebaran, amongst others, who have really shone light on what might have happened 32 years ago when I had a full blown.........”ego death”. I’ve been trying to understand ever since.

I’m currently reading Michael Pollan; How To Change Your Mind. His overview of the history of psychedelics leading up to his decision to take the plunge is fascinating. But yes, I can fully understand people reading the old case notes and information, then expecting similar results in their own trips. I have been guilty of this, but with recent disciplined regular trips, I am building up my own experiences and understanding. The 2006 Johns Hopkins study, which I thought I knew everything about, is explained differently by Pollan: the 3 main guys setting up the trial were all aiming to prove psilocybin can occasion a mystical experience. So the sessions were all geared around creating an environment where a mystical experience was possible. And guess what, loads of the participants did have a mystical experience. Psilocybin studies since then in Europe have been more, “scientific”, by which I mean The sessions were more neutrally biased; just conduct the session and monitor the brain. In these trials, guess what: there were much fewer mystical experiences...

Take care, all.

And thanks for not flaming me, my comments were meant with good intentions.

DJ Ed


--------------------
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: DJ Ed] * 2
    #26392396 - 12/20/19 12:41 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I don't know that I am qualified to even post on this thread, because there are some
amazing insights here from people who can articulate them very well...but here it
goes..

RIPZappa says "only one of the times have I felt out of body not looking through my eyeballs"

This is almost every trip I have. The normal chit chat in my head goes away completely.
I am no longer observing the world as if my consciousness is behind my eyeballs. The experience
becomes very non-dualistic. The boundary between my mind and the outside world seems to
disappear. It is very much like being awake but in a dream. My mind feels
like it is on the outside of my head. I can open my eyes or close them, but I am in the same place
so it doesn't matter. I am no longer experiencing the world as "me" and "everything else".

That's as distilled as I can get it. And as I type this, I find I don't really need or
want to have a term that succinctly describes it. Also, I don't even know if ya'll are
talking about states even beyond this tbh.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Asura]
    #26392557 - 12/20/19 02:19 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Asura said:
I don't know that I am qualified to even post on this thread, because there are some
amazing insights here from people who can articulate them very well...but here it
goes..

RIPZappa says "only one of the times have I felt out of body not looking through my eyeballs"

This is almost every trip I have. The normal chit chat in my head goes away completely.
I am no longer observing the world as if my consciousness is behind my eyeballs. The experience
becomes very non-dualistic. The boundary between my mind and the outside world seems to
disappear. It is very much like being awake but in a dream. My mind feels
like it is on the outside of my head. I can open my eyes or close them, but I am in the same place
so it doesn't matter. I am no longer experiencing the world as "me" and "everything else".

That's as distilled as I can get it. And as I type this, I find I don't really need or
want to have a term that succinctly describes it. Also, I don't even know if ya'll are
talking about states even beyond this tbh.




That’s a fairly good description of an experience that many would consider an “ego death”, however, others will reduce  it to “mere ego dissolution” or“merging with Christ Consciousness, but not full on Bodhi-Mode” or a thousand other descriptors. (Pun intended)

I am not against using the word “ego death”. It seems to me that there is “something” that people are trying to describe when they talk about it. I tend to think it is like a shortcut, or a heuristic, for describing something inherently hard to describe, as you even demonstrate in your post.

The terms meaning is fuzzy, it has been used for quite awhile and people will use it in a variety of different ways. That’s helpful and unhelpful. Helpful that it allows for a broader communication that doesn’t require details and can be open to interpretation. Unhelpful because of how much connotation is attached to both words. “Ego” and “death” are loaded words by themselves, then “ego death” adds on all the cultural and personal meanings that get people twisted up.

.... minutes later


Ok, I just talked myself out of it, I’m against using the term. It is cumbersome and prone to misuse. It clutters up communication. I will try not to use it going forward. I don’t personally know what people actually mean when they say it, I don’t think my ego ever died, or that I had an ego to begin with. So, obviously I don’t know what I mean when I say it, except to use it mostly as a vague reference point to mean “that awesome feeling experience you were expecting when you decided to eat those drugs”

Quote:

That's as distilled as I can get it. And as I type this, I find I don't really need or
want to have a term that succinctly describes it.




Really like this part. 👍


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Azoth]
    #26392679 - 12/20/19 03:53 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Azoth said:
Quote:

PrimalSoup said:
I think this all comes from the common idea that "fighting the trip" is an ego-driven reaction, whereas going along with the flow takes you much further and results in dissolution or whatever you want to call it.  But until you trip heavily you don't have much idea about what actually happens, and it's really hard to explain to somebody who hasn't been through it, even though they might love hearing about it second hand.




I think that for a lot of people, they "fight the trip" unconsciously. It's kind of a mindfuck. Developmental, but resolvable. Through a bad trip, lol.

Also, define trip heavily.

10+

20+

30+ ?





"Trip heavily" has little enough to do with exact dosage as that varies person to person, species to species, strain to strain, and consumption method.  You can find a sweet spot through experimentation that lets you have recall of the trip afterwards, for the most part.  Although it can be fun to go beyond that as well, there's a sort of plateau that kicks in after a while, and more is not really more, just longer. 

It's OEVs and lies just this side of blackouts, for me.  Blackouts suck because although I come out of it I don't recall what happened there.  You go to places that are not accessible with normal consciousness and you can do things that violate normal models of reality.  And you can laugh while it's happening because it's just so damn fucking cool - and until you do it you've no idea that that's even possible at all.

As Asura said the merging with godhead and the cessation of the boundaries between self and other.  Same thing you can obtain with meditation if you're really dedicated.  But the "beyond that" part, well it doesn't seem to be a part of ordinary meditative practice at all.  It's like taking the hinges off the doors of reality and blasting them wide open. :awesomenod:

The fighting of a trip is not an unconscious thing since you can control it (or let it go).  Fighting the trip never leads to good outcomes. :shrug:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: PrimalSoup]
    #26392968 - 12/20/19 07:04 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

when you can't react - ego death (coma, or asleep, or really trashed)

when you could react normally but refrain due to being very present with and honest inspiration to be other than usual - ego death (people get this wiggy mental flow state from psychedelics often when approaching life with a 'yogic' outlook)

by dosing heavy you can pretty well assure the former.

the latter happens from time to time with the right set and setting, the dose can be medium low to very high, no matter. like the weather, or fishing.


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: footpath]
    #26394600 - 12/21/19 08:08 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I appreciate your perspectives on this. You're very clearly much more well-read than I




Thanks, although I must admit I haven't read the book by William James - I've seen references to it and looked at the Wikipedia page :lol:

Talking of William James, I love this quote related to something he wrote:

Quote:

“William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was: "A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.




I must admit, this is something I can identify with when I look through my trip journals...

:chesire:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: DJ Ed]
    #26394624 - 12/21/19 08:42 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:


what the heck are we even discussing, people?

Even the psychedelic community is bickering....





More of a lively discussion, I think!

I was a bit miffed by the tone of the opening post but there's no harm in a bit of debate with a range of opinions as long as people respect each other. joemolloy used to start threads with titles like "DMT is bullshit" and they were quite fun - they made you think, even if you didn't agree with what he said.

Quote:

The big selling point behind psychedelics is the oneness, the acceptance, the feeling of the tribe. Look out for each other. The we are all as one




They tried selling that to mainstream society in the 60s, and not enough people were buying

:awepreciation:

Quote:

how can we expect to persuade the world?




I'm not sure, but I'd avoid mentioning ego death in the Powerpoint presentation...

:wonka:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26394718 - 12/21/19 10:09 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I think the term "mystical experience", as defined by William James in his The Varieties of Religious Experience may be a better candidate than 'ego death' to give a general definition of the kind of experiences we are talking about:


although I must admit I haven't read the book by William James - I've seen references to it and looked at the Wikipedia page :lol:




:aliceshocker:  You've not read James' "Varieties"?  Get it, do it.  Not only is it classic it's got loads of weird shit in it that you'd probably find really interesting.  It earned a place on my bookshelf decades ago. :awesomenod:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Azoth] * 1
    #26394788 - 12/21/19 11:08 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I keep hearing about this famous "ego death" and I keep thinking that it sounds like bullshit. It just sounds like the type of intensity of experience that a 30+ g trip would require.




Leary gave some specific dosage instructions in The Psychedelic Experience:

Quote:


The dosage to be taken depends, of course, on the goal of the session. Two figures are therefore given. The first column indicates a dosage which should be sufficient for an inexperienced person to enter the transcendental worlds described in this manual. The second column gives a smaller dosage figure, which may be used by more experienced persons or by participants in a group session.

    LSD-25 (lysergic acid diethylamide) 200-500 micrograms 100-200 micrograms
    Mescaline 600-800 mg 300-500 mg
    Psilocybin 40-60 mg 20-30 mg





I have a note from somewhere (don't know the source and can't be sure of the accuracy) which gives an average figure equivalent to 6.3mg of psilocybin in 1g of cubes, so Leary is perhaps talking about a 6-10g range for the larger figure, and 3-5g for the smaller.

I don't think we are talking about 'massive' doses here - if you take very large amounts you will get a lot of dissociation but not necessarily anything corresponding to the more mystical aspects of 'ego death'. My strongest trips (all under 10g or it's equivalent in sclerotia) just felt like being 'eaten' by the trip and transitioning between nightmarish states of dream and wakefulness; harsh but nothing especially amazing, a kind of 'less is more' lesson.

To me, trying to understand what Leary was saying, the term expresses a type of experience which would be a heavy 'level 4' kind of trip with some event corresponding to ego loss / ego death for a brief period at the peak.

:raptorJesus:

Quote:

I am guessing that if you, as Ego-Consciousness, is hell-bent on staying in pathological degrees of control (which is something that we are culturally conditioned to be), then you actually warrant a nice fucking ass-whooping by the dragon that you actually are. But most people, I believe, have enough natural wisdom and healthy correct psychological structuring to avoid such a massive confrontation with consciousness.




The way this kind of trip can play out (I'm talking about my own experiences / opinions) it is very easy to lose your nerve and think something is horribly wrong; you have 'broken' reality, there is some presence in the trip which is freaking you out, an oppressive sense of wrongness, maybe panic... maybe you start to wonder if you are actually dying. A powerful experience, but you are still lucid, the trip is just creeping up on you remorselessly with a very heavy intensity and the trip is leaving you less and less room to 'exist' in, as it were.

I think when you succumb / surrender to this, there is a brief period which is dissociative with mystical overtones. I think your 'executive functions' are asleep, more or less, but some part of you is still conscious, and there is something there which rises up into your awareness, something which feels huge, as if your unconscious suddenly loomed into view and was the size of an aircraft carrier in comparison to your 'self'. There is some weird feeling of connection to everything, a sense of peace and bliss, an oceanic feeling of connection to the universe.

It's a dissociative experience but also an integrative one - as though turning off your sense of self allows a 'conscious experience of the unconscious' to come through. I think you want a dose which is sufficient to cause just enough 'psychic disruption' without mindfucking you into total oblivion.

:owl:

For me, that's about it, you literally 'wake up' into this with a mystical sense of 'awakening' - that you have become aware of something very important for the first time. The mystical feeling and the fact that you are extremely fucking high can combine into all sorts of grandiose feelings of becoming God, unlocking the secrets of the universe and so on. But you are lucid again and back in your room, it's a strong trip but not some dimension-hopping DMT-style visual extravaganza. But... you do think something along the lines of "Wow, I never knew a trip could turn out like this!" which is why people get so excitable when they try to communicate this.

I can read Leary, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead itself, and see the parallels which Leary obviously does, and Huxley before him. I think it's kind of nice that something written so long ago has advice in it which applies quite well to tripping, oddly enough, but I do think this comparison is a 'game' to some extent, a particular way of interpreting a trip which which is interesting but isn't particularly helpful when taken too far - Shr00mEater has pointed out some of the problems of equating this type of experience with 'enlightenment' which is probably what prompted the original post.

:sunstone:

I was curious to see what Wikipedia says about ego death - it seems like a surprisingly good summary. This quote in the "Criticisms of Ego Death" section expresses a similar sentiment to the one that started this thread:

Quote:


Sōtō-Zen teacher Brad Warner has repeatedly criticized the idea that psychedelic experiences lead to "enlightenment experiences". In response to The Psychedelic Experience he wrote:

    While I was at Starwood, I was getting mightily annoyed by all the people out there who were deluding themselves and others into believing that a cheap dose of acid, 'shrooms, peyote, "molly" or whatever was going to get them to a higher spiritual plane





I'm not sure I completely agree with that (I wouldn't necessarily agree that there was a 'real' higher spiritual plane to reach), but in any case most people would agree that temporarily becoming aware of a 'higher spiritual plane' and staying there are two different things. 

Another quote says this:

Quote:

Dan Merkur notes that the use of LSD in combination with Leary's manual often did not lead to ego-death, but to horrifying bad trips.




I would turn that around and say that a horrifying bad trip often leads to ego death. Ego. Death. Death of the self. You are going to die, briefly, in some sense, to be forced into accepting an oblivion which appears to offer no way back. An illusory death is hard to accept if you don't know it is illusory.

It doesn't particularly matter what you believe or what you wanted from the trip, these experiences happen anyway, you can call them whatever you want, but I'm not sure people would be so keen to seek them out if they knew what it can feel like as the trip closes in.

Quote:

If people are having "ego death," let them have it. If they are full of shit, let it be.




That is a sensible attitude. If I read my own posts twenty years ago I would have exactly the same doubts. :shrug:


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran]
    #26394914 - 12/22/19 02:47 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Aldebaran said:


Quote:

how can we expect to persuade the world?




I'm not sure, but I'd avoid mentioning ego death in the Powerpoint presentation...

:wonka:




Hahaha, wise words, Aldebaran.

For years I’ve kept drug use a closely guarded secret because of all the mainstream bias (and invariably mainstream bullshit) held in popular opinion. Like your parents. It is only in the last few years reading the research on psychedelics that my opinion has been changing. And this year I read David Nutt: Drugs Without The Hot Air. I have completely changed my views and am so angry I have been lied to all these years (and that I have believed the lies). My drug use has been more about me suspecting the drug laws were there to control us not to protect us, whereas nowadays I KNOW IT.

Take care,
DJ Ed

p.s. No fortnightly trip report this weekend. Bad week; problems with daughters boyfriend - police involved. Water damage in my car and a flat tyre thus missing two days earnings and garage costs nearly £2000. Then wife taken into hospital by ambulance on Friday. So postponed until yesterday, got the house to myself, then chickened out!! There were too many subconscious reasons swimming about in there that I just ha d a foreboding feeling about tripping. Last night was a long night filled with regrets for not tripping during the solstice. Ah well, there’s another in 6 months.....


--------------------
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“The problem is not to find the answer, it’s to face the answer.”
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: DJ Ed] * 1
    #26394941 - 12/22/19 03:26 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

After my intense 6g dried trip on solstice, I now understand directly why "belief" in general causes a huge schism in your consciousness that can be filled with all sorts of bullshit you can't discern the validity of.

Belief is insecurity relative to the absolute datum of reality. Direct experience is all there is. Belief is superfluous.


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"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius


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InvisiblefeeversM
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Loaded Shaman]
    #26394996 - 12/22/19 05:41 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Loaded Shaman said:
After my intense 6g dried trip on solstice, I now understand directly why "belief" in general causes a huge schism in your consciousness that can be filled with all sorts of bullshit you can't discern the validity of.

Belief is insecurity relative to the absolute datum of reality. Direct experience is all there is. Belief is superfluous.



So you're saying you believe this to be true?


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InvisibleShr00mEater
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: feevers]
    #26395005 - 12/22/19 05:53 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

feevers said:
Quote:

Loaded Shaman said:
After my intense 6g dried trip on solstice, I now understand directly why "belief" in general causes a huge schism in your consciousness that can be filled with all sorts of bullshit you can't discern the validity of.

Belief is insecurity relative to the absolute datum of reality. Direct experience is all there is. Belief is superfluous.



So you're saying you believe this to be true?




:mindblown:




Welcome back, Loaded Shaman! Looking forward to a trip report.


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OfflineIndicabuds420
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26395510 - 12/22/19 12:03 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Sounds a bit PC to me tbh. It's only a figure of speech.


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Invisiblegoatchild
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26396200 - 12/22/19 07:20 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

First time I took high dose of mushrooms I realized I was not me, there was no Thursday, everything is just conventions we use. Not real. I realized my sense of self who I identified with was also not real. It felt amazing, spacious and free. I don't know if that was ego death. Wasn't dramatic and there was no fear. It was quite unforgettable actually. That was the beginning of the trip. The rest of the trip was difficult.

I read somewhere about the possibility of the Ego being a product of a brain function. The Default Mode Network. And that some of this entheogenic substances diminish the activity in this areas which might be related to the sense of Ego death.


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"What stands in the way becomes the way."


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OfflineVibe_Enthusiast
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: goatchild]
    #26396278 - 12/22/19 08:09 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

goatchild said:
First time I took high dose of mushrooms I realized I was not me, there was no Thursday, everything is just conventions we use. Not real. I realized my sense of self who I identified with was also not real. It felt amazing, spacious and free. I don't know if that was ego death. Wasn't dramatic and there was no fear. It was quite unforgettable actually. That was the beginning of the trip. The rest of the trip was difficult.

I read somewhere about the possibility of the Ego being a product of a brain function. The Default Mode Network. And that some of this entheogenic substances diminish the activity in this areas which might be related to the sense of Ego death.



What made your trip difficult afterward? Most people have the issue of swallowing the pill if "time and days and you" doesn't really matter. I think about this sober and it fucks with me. Those pillow thoughts are a trip in itself.


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:greyalien:




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OfflineAldebaran
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Asura]
    #26396283 - 12/22/19 08:12 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I don't know that I am qualified to even post on this thread, because there are some
amazing insights here from people who can articulate them very well...but here it
goes..

RIPZappa says "only one of the times have I felt out of body not looking through my eyeballs"

This is almost every trip I have. The normal chit chat in my head goes away completely.
I am no longer observing the world as if my consciousness is behind my eyeballs. The experience
becomes very non-dualistic. The boundary between my mind and the outside world seems to
disappear. It is very much like being awake but in a dream. My mind feels
like it is on the outside of my head. I can open my eyes or close them, but I am in the same place
so it doesn't matter. I am no longer experiencing the world as "me" and "everything else".

That's as distilled as I can get it. And as I type this, I find I don't really need or
want to have a term that succinctly describes it. Also, I don't even know if ya'll are
talking about states even beyond this tbh.





I think that fits in with the concept of "ego death" or "ego loss" as Leary called it.

People describe the same kind of thing and seem to roughly agree what they are talking about.

I think one thing that makes the issue confusing is that this can occur in trips which, outside of this state, have widely differing characteristics, so there is no single type of "ego death trip" that you can pin down, you have a range of experiences that people talk about and you have to try and piece together the common thread.

It could happen at the peak of a very difficult trip after fighting to 'stay in control', or it could be more of a graceful sensation of 'letting go'. Leary gave two different dose ranges, with a higher amount required for inexperienced users before they would let go, so I think he was aware that there was more than one route to the same place :peace:


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I wrote that, but I meant something else


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OfflinePrimalSoup
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran] * 1
    #26396293 - 12/22/19 08:21 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Grof talks a lot about "resistant trippers" in regards to LSD IIRC.  Popping the cherry as it were, and after that it's a lot easier to get over the hump. 

Perhaps so-called "ego death" is just part and parcel of a substantive trip and it's silly to try to define it as something separate or different.  I've never seen it as something apart, I don't recall even hearing about it until the internet made these memes popular.


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Invisiblegoatchild
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Vibe_Enthusiast]
    #26396314 - 12/22/19 08:31 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I started tripping hard. I saw all kinds of crazy shit. I also did something stupid: I stared at the sun for too long. To this day the center of my vision is a tiny bit blurry but I adapted.


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"What stands in the way becomes the way."


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: PrimalSoup]
    #26396399 - 12/22/19 09:23 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Perhaps so-called "ego death" is just part and parcel of a substantive trip and it's silly to try to define it as something separate or different.




By a spooky coincidence I was just posting something similar on the other thread:

Quote:

Aldebaran wrote: Part of the problem is that defining 'ego death' is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - the wider discussion about how high-dose trips play out overall, and where they go, gets lost trying to define one specific aspect of them.




:hypnotoad:


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OfflinePrimalSoup
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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Aldebaran] * 1
    #26396485 - 12/22/19 10:09 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

At root it's weird shit. 



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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: Shr00mEater]
    #26397140 - 12/23/19 10:25 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Who gives a fuck about what other people believe?

Why does that bother you?


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Re: Believing psychedelics have anything to do with [Re: bodhisatta]
    #26397797 - 12/23/19 03:53 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Thanks Bodhi-
I have been reading and rereading your easy af teks for months, but his may be my favorite post yet.


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LAGM 2.024
Stoned Gummys tek (Gummies from sclerotia or mushrooms) *Not just for stones any more
How to succeed in mycology (and life) - know nothing, read everything, try something, and accept advice.
Don't Panic




Edited by ReverendMyc (12/23/19 03:54 PM)


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