Ego death/Depersonalization and psychedelics!!!

[ovenbakedskittles]

Hey Bluelight,

So i have a few questions having to do with ego death and depersonalization. First of all, are they the same??? I have heard these terms mentioned a lot when people are talking about psychedelics.

Can you guys clarify if people experience ego death/dp after the effects of psychedelics have worn off??? because i know people experience it at high doses DURING the trip but do people still kinda have those feelings even after the drug has worn off???

I ask this because the last time i took shrooms i feel like i experienced a very mild but unsettling depersonalization feeling but it wasnt until a week or so after i took the shrooms so i dont know if it was the psychs that caused it or if it was all in my head.

I feel it kinda fading away now but i am thinking about taking higher doses of shrooms in the future. So i wanna know if at higher doses does the dp still fade away after some time or is there a chance that it can be permanent if i take a high enough dose???

I was gonna take an eighth next time and wait a couple months for any feelings of ego loss to reside and then try 5 grams.

 

[Xorkoth]

Ego death (or ego dissolution) is an experience directly from the drug in which you experience something along the lines of:

- Believing you are dying and going through a mental process of coming to terms with that... this can be quite traumatic depending on how you handle it but can also lead to the most profound of trips.
- Experiencing the ego shrinking to the point of insignificance and becoming aware of your role in a greater level of being independent from your ordinary self-ness

Depersonalization is a mental side effect that can happen from a trip, actually it can happen from any traumatic experience. This is the thing that can persist after the drug but it's your own mind unable to come to terms with what you experienced. It's important with psychedelics to accept whatever is happening or whatever has happened and allow yourself to feel it and not to repress or deny any of it. Repressing or denying can lead to derealization/depersonalization, depression, confusion, etc, after the trip wears off.

 

[Ismene]

No it can't be permanent "ego-death" is a side-effect of the high combined with reading posts from people on the internet saying they've had it too.

I've taken 15 dried grams of mushrooms every week for about 2 years and never had an ego-death and never came remotely close to one so I think it's a load of bullshit Tim Leary made up.

 

[max_freakout]

are they the same???

There is some overlap between ego death and depersonalisation, but they are not the same thing and they need to be carefully distinguished from each other.

Ego death is a specific kind of psychedelic trip where the tripper feels as if he has died or ceased to exist during the course of the trip. For a typical description of ego death, read this - http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=6409 - "I began to experience powerful feelings of regret, mourning, and despair, because of the realization of my premature death due to occur shortly"

Depersonalisation on the other hand is a general feeling of dissociation from oneself, it's like watching yourself from a separate perspective instead of being firmly fixed within yourself.

Depersonalisation might be experienced as part of an ego death trip, but they are two separate things

Can you guys clarify if people experience ego death/dp after the effects of psychedelics have worn off???

people quite commonly experience depersonalisation that has nothing to do with taking drugs, it can be experienced either sober or during a trip.

With ego death it is less common to experience the effects when you arent actually tripping, but it might happen especially if there was some kind of psychiatric condition.

because i know people experience it at high doses DURING the trip but do people still kinda have those feelings even after the drug has worn off???

Psychedelic drugs can cause major, permanent changes to a person's mind. But that isnt the same thing as permanently tripping, it's never as intense during the sober state of consciousness as it is in the middle of a trip, unless there is a psychiatric condition like schizophrenia.

I ask this because the last time i took shrooms i feel like i experienced a very mild but unsettling depersonalization feeling but it wasnt until a week or so after i took the shrooms so i dont know if it was the psychs that caused it or if it was all in my head.

if you had never experienced this kind of dp before that time, then it is probably quite likely that the shroom trip had something to do with it, - psychedelics do cause mental changes that are powerful and unpredictable, and which last beyond the end of the trip.

I feel it kinda fading away now but i am thinking about taking higher doses of shrooms in the future. So i wanna know if at higher doses does the dp still fade away after some time or is there a chance that it can be permanent if i take a high enough dose???

as the dose increases, the intensity of the effect increases. The higher the intensity, the more crazy and weird it all gets, and it can get crazy enough to break a mind, anyone can discover that they had a latent psychosis that they were previously unaware of. At high doses, psychedelics are 'enter at your own risk', the deeper you go, the more unpredictable, and this can include lasting feelings of de-personalisation and de-realisation.

But in general, psychedelics are pretty safe and have a very low casualty rate, you are very unlikely to get "permanent" dp from a few mushroom trips.

 

[Xorkoth]

No it can't be permanent "ego-death" is a side-effect of the high combined with reading posts from people on the internet saying they've had it too.

I've taken 15 dried grams of mushrooms every week for about 2 years and never had an ego-death and never came remotely close to one so I think it's a load of bullshit Tim Leary made up.

You can keep saying that but there are still many people like who have experienced it. It seems a bit foolish to dismiss the experiences of many people just because you haven't experienced it. Everyone is different, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not actually interested in having this debate in this thread I just wanted to say what I said.

But yeah ego death is not permanent, it couldn't be.

 

[roi]

Experiencing the ego shrinking to the point of insignificance and becoming aware of your role in a greater level of being independent from your ordinary self-ness

I had two of those experiences, once on ~30mg 2C-E and once on ~500ug LSD. Both times I "left" my physical body to become part of something bigger. I didn't know who or where I am, I just *was*. They lasted around 1-2 hours (I think, was alone both times and time was the last thing that came to my mind back then, even a simple sound was overwhelming), then the process of being "reborn" began. Incredible intense.

 

[Ismene]

You can keep saying that but there are still many people like who have experienced it.

Not that many. And even the ones that claim to have experienced one describe a completely different thing every time. No alleged ego-death is ever the same as another persons ego-death.

It seems a bit foolish to dismiss the experiences of many people just because you haven't experienced it.

Not really - I dismiss the experience of billions of muslims all the time and unless you're a muslim, so do you. I couldn't give a shit how many muslims think they've seen Allah. I'm going to trust my own vast, direct experience of psychedelics rather than a strangers claims - particularly when the claims are so weak.

I'm not actually interested in having this debate in this thread

Neither am I but I always think it's worth at least one person pointing out there's an alternative to believing the same hoary old Tim Leary bullshit that's been fed to us for decades.

But yeah ego death is not permanent, it couldn't be.

Could have a permanent negative effect tho - if you think you've had one you automatically buy into the "religion" of it instead of thinking for yourself.

 

[Xorkoth]

It baffles me how much you assume about the experience without having had the experience yourself. I had the experience without ever having heard of Timothy Leary. When someone tells me they've had an experience with psychedelics that I haven't had, I don't just tell them they must be mistaken and they're just buying into propaganda. People have different experiences all the time. An ego death is type of experience, it's not the same exact experience for everyone, it just has one thing in common: believing in the moment hat you are in fact dying, and dealing with that realization. How that happens is unique to the experience/individual, and how it develops from there depends upon how you react to it. It is what it is. Maybe you're just a really strong-minded person and people who think they're dying from a psychedelic are simple and weak. But it's still an experience some people have and it just bothers me to hear it minimized and be told it's just because we've been brainwashed. Is it that hard to accept that people have different experiences from one another? Just because you have not personally experienced something does not mean it's not real, and someone having the experience does not mean they're buying into the "religion" and no longer thinking for themselves. My thoughts on the subject are entirely my own, developed in reaction to having the experience which was bewildering and awe-inspiring and unrelated to anything I had read or been told.

It's a weird standpoint to take: I haven't had this experience, therefore everyone who claims to have must have read Timothy Leary and stopped thinking for themselves and just been mistaken/misguided.

 

[max_freakout]

I couldn't give a shit how many muslims think they've seen Allah.

Zero muslims think they've seen Allah, not even the muslim prophet Mohammed saw Allah.

 

[Xorkoth]

Sorry to derail the thread, I'm just running on a half hour or sleep and have been in a weird funk all day due to being sad. I just shouldn't engage, we've all said everything about this already to each other in thread where it was the point (and in other thread where it wasn't).

 

[Yeetbeat]

You can keep saying that but there are still many people like who have experienced it. It seems a bit foolish to dismiss the experiences of many people just because you haven't experienced it. Everyone is different, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not actually interested in having this debate in this thread I just wanted to say what I said.

But yeah ego death is not permanent, it couldn't be.

This.

Even on a lower dose of mushrooms (~3.5g dried cubes), not enough completely dissolve the ego, I still get reminded of what ego death was and what it felt like. The kind of understanding you can only really relive while tripping. For myself at least, it's hard to fathom what ego death felt like while I'm sober.

 

[Inzo]

I think ego death lies more in your mind set and how vulnerable you are at that particular time then anything else. Is the feeling of being disintegrated and dissolving when launching off into DMT land anything like ego death?

 

[Ismene]

I think ego death lies more in your mind set and how vulnerable you are at that particular time then anything else. Is the feeling of being disintegrated and dissolving when launching off into DMT land anything like ego death?

Wasn't for me no - it just felt like I'd taken too much DMT and was having an uncomfortable psychedelic experience. The ego never crossed my mind and neither did death because I knew DMT wasn't deadly.

 

[max_freakout]

Is the feeling of being disintegrated and dissolving when launching off into DMT land anything like ego death?

At the core it is basically the same experience, ie the typical psychedelic effect of cognitive dissociation/fragmentation. However the dmt flash from smoking dmt is far too short lasting to involve full ego death. A full ego death takes multiple hours to play out, such as on an lsd, ayahuasca or psilocybin trip.

A common analogy is to say that a 10 minute smoked dmt flash is like watching a movie trailer, but taking a psychedelic orally like eating a tab of lsd is like watching the full movie. This analogy partially applies to ego death experience.

 

[Ismene]

A common analogy is to say that a 10 minute smoked dmt flash

Smoked DMT doesn't last 10 minutes.

 

[lovepsychadelics]

No I agree Ismene smoked DMT lasts a tad longer then 10 minutes.WOW LSD and DMT: yawn. Ohhh Aya and shrooms... This tired old bullshit re: ego death/depersonalization. Believe what you want your mind, your body, your psychosis. There are substances that will take you so far beyond a DMT trip. Problem is 90% of the people who go there LOSE THEIR SHIT BIGTIME. As recent as last weekend... 3 meo pcp, 4 aco det, meth, amol and fuck knows what else my idiot mates had. Get a call at 11 pm to come and babysit a twit of a mate who had gone the piggy route and gobbled all kinds of shit. Best not to say were he got the 4 aco det and 3 meo pcp from.

Maybe if he and the other guy hadn't taken them on the tail end of a 3 day meth bender, plus the meth and amol. Well he may have been able to walk when I arrived, they may have been able to remember anything. Best of all the mutual friends place they had somehow (Thank Fuck) managed to crawl there way to said they had been praying to jesus and had "found the light". Ego death? Nah overt psychosis from WAY TO MANY DRUGS. Oh and yes they did take bulk doses of psychedelics and dissociatives plus stimulants and fucking amol. If you witnessed it it'd put you off drugs for life.

 

[Xorkoth]

Are you trying to say ego death doesn't exist because someone who took a stupid combination of drugs on a 3-day meth bender didn't experience it?

 

[max_freakout]

Smoked DMT doesn't last 10 minutes.

according to erowid smoked DMT lasts 6-20 minutes in total

the important point is that the full ego death drama takes hours to play out, not minutes, so a 6-20 minute DMT flash isnt long enough to contain ego death, smoked DMT is over far too quickly, you need to take drugs orally to experience ego death, like LSD, mushrooms or ayahuasca etc but not smoked DMT.

 

[lovepsychadelics]

Most Changa/DMT I've smoked lasts a good 20 minutes. Sometimes a bit longer. Salvia lasts just a few minutes IME. DMT smoked: Maybe I did inhale??? IDK. Just don't do what the fools I posted about were doing and everyone is golden! You could just keep smoking up the DMT!

 

[lovepsychadelics]

Are you trying to say ego death doesn't exist because someone who took a stupid combination of drugs on a 3-day meth bender didn't experience it?

Ohh nooo they went FAR beyond what this conversation is about and it wasn't just a "meth" bender. Seriously what do you think mixing 4 aco det, knowing them 60 mg's plus 3 meo pcp and having tweeked for 2 days prior will do to someone? Depersonalization?? They thought the second coming had arrived. They WERE god. Well at least that is what I was told when I collected semi comatose friend. Stupid amount of stupidity You bet Xorkoth but like I said your body, your beliefs, your mind, your delusion. Whatever you want to believe it's all good.

What I am saying is be careful when doing drugs. Also be careful if you want to "break through" and achieve ego death. Still remember that greenlighter that did 3 mg 25b NBOME to experience ego death and ended up in Emergency Department minus the last 8 hours of his life. That is all. Cheers.