How dangerous is ego-death?

[Xorkoth]

I'd never want to experience ego death in public, but in private is another story. I've had it happen a few times. On my first trip it was a gentle experience that was utterly life-changing and not difficult, for some reason. Every other time it's been terrifying on the way to it because I truly believed I was dying, but of course I did not, and they are experiences I now count among my greatest.

 

[thelastclubkid]

I experienced ego-death, in fact everything death, on high does ketamine (400mg insufflated, no tolerance). Basically all meaning and knowledge was erased. I didn't know I existed, that there were people, or things, didn't know that the world existed, or that there was even a thing called existence. I came out of what was probably a near anaesthetic state to what I now think was pure visual perception, a swirling chaos of raw, unparsed visual data. I didn't know it was perception, or that I was perceiving it. The entirety of the universe was a swirling void which, as far as I was concerned, was both me and everything.

Slowly very basic things returned, a sense that consciousness was continuous and persistent, so with it a very primitive sense of time, which recurred like a deja vu of a deja vu or a deja vu..., etc. The idea, or facility, came that I was experiencing what I perceived, and that such experience might be good or bad; some basic pain/pleasure instinct kicking in perhaps. Later the idea of life and death, that I was alive (though I had know idea of what I was) but wouldn't always be, that I had a lifespan.

Later still I became aware that there was a thing called people, and that I was one of them. Shortly after (perhaps, time was undone) that there was a normal world that I was not in, but did exist, but I didn't know where, or why I was not in it. My friends' names returned before my own. I think the return of the knowledge that I had taken a drug was the kick back to some sense of order and reality. Shortly after I realised I was in a physical space (my living room), and out of the k-hole.

Quite where my ego died and when it returned I'm not sure; the sense of self was a slow build from a primitive perceiving, through a thing that could separate that which perceives from that which is being perceived, to a sense of enduring one's own existence, then knowledge of oneself as one of many beings of the same type, etc.

Dangers? Even though the trip was not scary (or pleasurable, just neutral), afterwards I felt like I had taken a serious psychological beating, though a recoverable one. A week's derealisation and some hypnogogic flashbacks and back to baseline psychology after that, but I think that something profound has been learned, and some space created where the world is known as it was within the k-hole.

this pretty much perfectly mirrors what I experienced.... the understanding of baseline psychology was by far the most profound change that I took away from the experience and it continues to this day as an overwhelming positive force in my life.

 

[yepyepwoah]

The last time I just remembwr thinking "this is it, youve done it, the world is ending, there you go, everything js slipping away." Then plooop. Nothing. I wasnt on my bed in the dark. I could t get up and turn on a lightm because they were all gone. I was the universe trapped in nothing. Waitomg for eternity to reset itself.

I finally statrted mentally beggimg for help. . "Help, me, I am lost, save me, my name is.... ..... .... i am. i am .i exist. Help me exist."

Eventually it all came back slowly and I just lay there like "fuck"

 

[Xorkoth]

It can be alternately beautiful and terrifying. Often the path there at least is fraught with mortal terror. But it can be extremely revealing about the nature of existence and personal subjective consciousness, if you aren't the type of person who will be totally traumatized by the greatest lack of feeling in control that you will probably ever experience. The last time it happened to me, I was convinced I had poisoned myself and overdosed, and it progressed to believing that because of my actions, the entire universe was going to end and restart anew. In the process of that experience (which was horrifying at the time), I learned a lot, and of course the universe didn't really end, I came down and everything was fine. I count it among my most significant and beautiful psychedelic experiences, even though during it I felt a tremendous amount of fear and guilt.

 

[CosmicG]

Ego-death, for me, is an experience you want have alone or with maybe one other person that you fully trust. I have experienced ego-death in group settings, but it has never been what I would consider my more positive experiences as I am usually trying to hold on to myself and reality too much because I become obsessed with what others are thinking or feeling. This is usually when paranoia sets in for me.

Ego-death can be scary if you are not fully willing to embrace the oneness and completely let go. It certainly is not for the weak hearted. It can become a very traumatic experience for those not ready, and that is speaking from experience. I wouldn't personally want to experience full-on ego-death in a festival atmosphere, but I am sure it has happened to many with positive results.

I have noticed that once you experience ego-death one time from a higher dose of say LSD, it takes much less to have that similar experience. Once you open that door, it really does permanently become part of your experience, impossible to close again.

Not all of my ego-death experiences have been good, but I have found that you learn the most about yourself from difficult trips. You just have to find what it means in regard to self. Create your own perception.