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Offlinekraj
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Registered: 09/01/04
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Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
Ego-loss/death... What causes it? *DELETED*
    #4525258 - 08/12/05 02:09 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Post deleted by kraj

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OfflineLimelight
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Registered: 04/06/05
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: kraj]
    #4525521 - 08/12/05 04:14 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

I always wondered that too.. I'd also like to know how you can get SO fucked up (like on a thumbprint) that you pretty much lose your entire part of your brain for reasoning.. yet the part that controls heartbeat and everything else are only slightly affected.
Also.. there must be some "core" looking outwards at all the processes in your brain. I mean if it's one big jumbled mess of impulses, they must go feed to a acentral point so that wheny ou have ego loss, you ARE still there.. just messed up. It's not like you disappear completely, and you also return to normal. I'd like to know what this 'central part' is.. see what im saying? Hopefully :o


--------------------
"The worst mistake that you can make is to think you're alive when really you're asleep in life's waiting room."

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Offlinenycomyco
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Registered: 11/13/03
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Last seen: 8 months, 7 days
Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: kraj]
    #4526595 - 08/12/05 01:50 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

If you think about it, our thoughts exist in some other dimension- they take up no mass, cannot be measured in any way, yet they are definitely there. As advanced as some parts of neuroscience are, it is important to note that we have not pinpointed the most basic principle- where do thoughts originate? We know that action potentials can be correlated to thought-experience/sensation... and the same is true for the movement of neurotransmitters (chemicals), but does this mean that our thoughts are chemical or electrical?
Scientifically speaking, parts ouf your brain don't shut off during a trip (at least i haven't heard that)- ego death isn't a symptom of the mind filling in gaps caused by chemcial deactivation. It is a unique experience that I think proves our ability as living things to experience in our own way the state of the "non-living" universe. These chemicals have the strange ability to disconnect ourselves and our thoughts readily dissociate into a state more like that of the universe- I know this explanation sucks. In short, the ego is a strong power- it is what keeps us alive, but our minds have the ability to transcend the ego becuase the ego is limited- our egos are everything to us most of the time, and it is only when you strethc, break out of the ego that you even understand the concept of the ego. this can be scary as hell or as beautiful as heaven. I just thank the universe for allowing us 1) to live and 2) to experience the beyond within the context of life.

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Offlinenycomyco
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Registered: 11/13/03
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: nycomyco]
    #4526630 - 08/12/05 01:58 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Our ego is a limit. Punch through it and you experience the infinite and that cannot be explained.

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Invisibledblaney
Human Being

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: kraj]
    #4526663 - 08/12/05 02:05 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

In the 70s scientists were claiming that LSD and other hallucinogens actually cut off circulation to various regions of the brain. (These articles can be found in Scientific American...forget the volume and issue though).

However, I think that's just silly, b/c if circulation was cut off, that would mean that the cells in that region wouldn't receive life giving blood, and would subsequently die very quickly. However, since after you come down, you still have all parts of your brain intact and alive, that theory doesn't make sense.


--------------------
"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"

"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer

Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln

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Offlinescatmanrav
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Registered: 05/08/04
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: dblaney]
    #4526691 - 08/12/05 02:10 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

No way man, acid kills your brain cells. Everytime you drop, you kill off at least a few hundred.
:imslow:

Sorry I have nothing to add worth adding, good question though..something I've pondered..but I only have ponderings..more interested in seeing what others say..I may put in something of use later though :smile:


--------------------
"life is like a drop of rain getting closer and closer to falling into a lake, and then when you hit the lake there is no more rain drop, only the lake."

Growing with bags, start to finish (including my new grain and substrate prep)
Anyone looking to start bulk tubs/mono tubs/shotgun hybrids? Good tubs to use..
How I do grain (old still good tips)
Turn your closet into a fruiting chamber
Casing layer colonization and overlay

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Invisiblemecreateme
YoUisMEEMsiUoY
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Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 2,727
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: kraj]
    #4527962 - 08/12/05 08:16 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Or is it a sort of mind-loop that drives you into this state due to your inability to distinguish between hallucination and reality? This inability leading you to lose your own reality.




This is a very possible scenario, but it can happen in a million different ways, always different for each trip. However, it is more your realization that the reality we experience is the ultimate one. There is always a point in the ego death trip where you are so jumbled and scattered that you think there is no way you will ever get back, like you have expanded your mind so far like a balloon that it will only deflate all stretched out. That is when it is beginning.

Ego death, has little to do with physical things, IMO. It is completely a mind thing. It is also pretty dose independent as well i.e. you will get it when it is your time. When you are hit with ego death you realize that everything gets exactly what it needs how it needs it. You realize we are all unfolding in a perfect way. Ego death touches everything and is everything and shows your intimate connection to it. It is alien at first but will settle into the most fond good feeling you can remember. That is if you will let it. The poster who said the ego is a limit and once you pierce it is the infinite was right on.

What is it? You have to experience it for yourself. My own ideas of eternity involve self feeding loops, but every tripper sees something different beyond the veils of this world.


--------------------
No ONE wants to know the ultimate TRUTH, as soon as YOU find IT out, YOU want to forget IT.

You are everything's way of feeling itself.

Happy Schwag, everygodly!

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OfflineTheHook
GrEeN HeAd
Registered: 03/06/05
Posts: 256
Last seen: 17 years, 8 months
Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: mecreateme]
    #4528287 - 08/12/05 10:49 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

i think ego death happens because for many of us it is our greatest fear and must be conquered in order to be whole.


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I often come to many challenges and intimidations, but then I remember that you only live life once, one single time through, with no reruns or rehearsals. So just live the way you want and the best you can. Its easy.

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Offlinealsey
meet me in thedreamtimewater...

Registered: 02/17/05
Posts: 1,203
Last seen: 15 years, 2 days
Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: kraj]
    #4529002 - 08/13/05 02:47 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

this is my theory, which is probably wrong in many ways, but at the moment it makes sense to me:

i don't know the exact mechanism (i don't think anyone does) but the drug is messing with the part of your brain that is responsible for ego. this process may be aided by certain thought patterns, such as some forms of meditation, or 'letting go'.

as the ego dissolves, the natural reaction is fear: ego is essential for survival, and the mind will try to fight the loss of it. since ego is also the sense of 'self', the process will seem as if the person is dying or somehow being erased from existence.

but as i see it, it is primarily a brain chemistry thing; the drug is essentially damaging (temporarily) part of the brain. the 'bad trip' phenomena, the sense of dying etc, are psychological reactions to this damage (i call it damage because to the 'natural' mind, loss of ego is a bad thing).

thought patterns (mindset) are almost as important as the drug in this process. the thought patterns of someone fighting the ego-loss may be enough to keep the ego intact, even if the dose is high. someone who puts up less, or no, resistance will allow the drug to dissasemble the ego with less hinderance. this would explain why level 5 phenomena do not always show up on high doses; it is very much a mindset thing. with a very high dose (e.g. >1000mcg LSD), even if the tripper resists, the drug will probably 'win' and ego will be lost anyway.


--------------------
"Gently return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again, and again, and again. Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels." - ven. henepola gunaratana

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Offlinenycomyco
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Registered: 11/13/03
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: alsey]
    #4543559 - 08/16/05 07:09 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

It's incorrect to call the neurochemical action of psychedelics "damaging." The effects do not come about because of any damage to the brain. Having your ego torn away can be psychologically damaging, but that is a result of the individual reaction to the event, and is never the end of the world even if it feels like it must be. We have the habit of projecting fear upon the unknown, and one can project all the fear they know upon a psychedelic event because of the state you are in. The state can be terrifying, numbing, or amazing, but the amazing experiences are always the best and ring with the most truth.

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OfflineGuerrilla0726
Bringer ofChange
Registered: 06/26/05
Posts: 123
Last seen: 16 years, 9 months
Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: nycomyco]
    #4981717 - 11/25/05 10:35 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

i'm trippin now and here is my take on it.

It is just what the experience is. You can't be like, "oh here comes ego loss! its been like 10min. since i ate hte mushies" or anything like that. itj ust happens. You see thigns for what they are with NOTHING to interfere. its hard to explain but chaaa

I am not at a loss for an ego.

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Offlinestemmer
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Registered: 09/08/05
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: Guerrilla0726]
    #4981902 - 11/25/05 11:22 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Good point. I find "ego-loss" to make most sense when applied to the "self". The further it goes, the further the term is defined.

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Invisiblekoppie
astral projectile
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Registered: 07/23/04
Posts: 2,653
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: Limelight]
    #4982353 - 11/26/05 06:44 AM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Limelight said:
I always wondered that too.. I'd also like to know how you can get SO fucked up (like on a thumbprint) that you pretty much lose your entire part of your brain for reasoning.. yet the part that controls heartbeat and everything else are only slightly affected.
Also.. there must be some "core" looking outwards at all the processes in your brain. I mean if it's one big jumbled mess of impulses, they must go feed to a acentral point so that wheny ou have ego loss, you ARE still there.. just messed up. It's not like you disappear completely, and you also return to normal. I'd like to know what this 'central part' is.. see what im saying? Hopefully :o




Now I'm not a professional neurologist, so I may be talking out of my ass on this point and if you know better please correct me on the facts, but as far as I understand it, most autonomic functions are regulated by the brain-stem, which is evolutionary the oldest part of the brain, and apparently hardly affected by psychedelics.

Our sense impressions are processed in the cortex which is present in all? vertebrate animals and our conscious thoughts are formed in the frontal lobes which are most evolved in humans.

Chemically disrupting the cortex would give rise to distortions to perception, as the brain frantically tries to fill in for the dropped information, and altering activity in the frontal lobes could stop the conscious thought process and constant reinterpreting to fit sense data into our models of the world, which is similar to what meditators aim for. This state is called by various names depending on tradition, like Samadhi and  Satori. A state where all thought stops and all sense information streams into awareness unfiltered by our models of the world. This is commonly described as a timeless state of boundless bliss, and is the soft dissolving of ego, also known as boundary dissolution.

The biggest problem now is that nobody knows the seat of awareness in the body, nor the nature of awareness, and there is where I dive shamelessly into a sea of complete unfounded speculation. Taking on faith the buddhist idea of awareness leaving the brain at death, and moving on to the next body, you could speculate that disrupting the brain enough so as to sever the connection to awareness,  could lead to a state that feels similar to dying. The awareness remembers this state from previous deaths and concludes that this is the moment of death. If thought and ego aren't completely suppressed when this happens,  the tripper experiences intense existential panic. When all bonds to the world are temporarily severed, there is nothing but eternity.

...or something like that  :grin:

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Offlinedr0mni
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Re: Ego-loss/death... What causes it? [Re: koppie]
    #4982548 - 11/26/05 09:25 AM (18 years, 4 months ago)

"Or is it all simply a strong, strong hallucination that itself is your loss of reality?"

that's what I would bet on

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