Not sure if we had an ego death on acid, advice needed

[greenuser8]

Firstly, I'm 19 now and this trip was 8 months ago. I tripped with my friend and we both are debating whether we had ego death.

I'm going to list the symptoms felt and hopefully someone with more knowledge can help assess whether this was a true ego death, and if not, what it was.
I'm asking if this was an ego death, because at the time me and my friend popped 2 strong tabs and smoked weed, we had no idea what we were really getting into.

Anyways, what basically happened was we swallowed 2 tabs and smoked during the peak (not smart).

The second I finished the second blunt, I realized my trip was turning scary. I spent the whole trip basically curled up near my AC vents in my car, as I was panicking hard on a really hot summer day. It sucked.

My friend also began to panic in my car. During the trip, I remember a distinct feeling of getting so high, so blasted, I lost something I was gripping onto. Like I felt my reality slipping away, almost thought I went insane. And I was just a conscience. Lost sense of self pretty much. <-- I can't tell if this is disassociation due to intense fear, hence reality "slipping away", or literally "me" being killed. I didn't feel dead though as a being, It was more a feeling of losing my grip. Was my grip, my ego?

My friend described his experience as seeing what he was gripping onto slipping, getting smaller, smaller, then just vanishing.

However, the reason I ask if this was a full ego death, is because even when I "lost myself", that conscious part of me was still panicking.

Never during the trip did I think I had died, it's just that I felt blasted out of my body and disassociated.

I remember once I surrendered to the experience, I immediately remembered who I was, felt super relieved (most relief I've ever felt in my life), and said to my friend "it's just a panic attack!". I enjoyed the rest of my trip, and slept fine, didn't even really think about it for weeks after, I was just confused.

So trauma wise I think I did ok, maybe got very lucky.

During the time, I didn't even know what ego-death was. All I've stored the feeling as in my mind is a "detached, scary feeling". During it, I wasn't recording what I felt either, I was just terrified.

The last signs I want to give are:

When we smoke weed now, we both can get depersonalized/derealized. Where humans look foreign, the world looks foreign. And that dp/dr we feel, is like 20x less strong than in the actual trip, but it's a strong memorable feeling nonetheless.

Is dp/dr stemming from the trip a sure sign of ego death? Or perhaps just fear and getting disassociated during acid?

Does disassociation = ego death basically? And although we both swear we felt us "lose" some part of us, we don't remember quite thinking we died.

I also don't remember feeling "changed" after this experience, other than valuing the hell out of my sane, sober mind (a good lesson to be taught). If I had ego-death, my mind just marked it as "scary thing I couldn't comprehend". With this said, I am trying to integrate this experience better even to this day, hence why I'm posting this.

All advice appreciated, thanks for reading

 

[Achten]

]I remember once I surrendered to the experience, I immediately remembered who I was, felt super relieved (most relief I've ever felt in my life), and said to my friend "it's just a panic attack!". I enjoyed the rest of my trip, and slept fine, didn't even really think about it for weeks after, I was just confused.

I think you know.

Not to downplay your experience, but since you were panicking i'd say it wasn't ego death. Panic is an inherent part of it, but not so a consistent theme, IMO.
I'd say you were on the verge though but took your ego with you and couldn't let go. Happens to the best of us. Everybody falls the first time, right?

After my one and only ego death I was also thankful for my body, but also kinda bummed to leave that sacred and safe space behind. That's when the hard work started ?

Save the weed for the comedown

 

[nuube]

In my understanding the panic is you - the Ego, hanging on. When you surrender and the panic goes and 'you' as a single individual entity goes - to me that is the Ego or the vast majority of it, ( I look at the Ego as like windows - a whole heap of crap running in the background keeping me connected), 'dying'. For me past that there is an all encompassing ISness that 'I' am part of and all of. Well that's how I understand it anyway.

I found after a pretty far out trip that smoking cannabis brought me back into that spooky psychedelic head space. A bit of time and reflection and laying off cannabis eased all that. There is good learning in that trip!