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The Big & Dandy Ego Death Thread

alasdairm said:

if i understand the position of some posters in this thread correctly, there's no way of knowing ego loss has occurred.
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One doesn't know ego loss has occurred until it is over and you realize the past (however long of a period of time the loss of ego occurred over) was missing. In my own experience, I will quote from a trip report of mine in which ego loss occurred to try to describe what one goes through after ego loss. It was with 10 milligrams of 5-MeO-DMT.

>I remember NOTHING of what happened next...I eventually became
>aware of myself again and found myself lying on the ground a few feet
>from where I originally was sitting. The song was over.

>At first I had no clue as to what had happened. The world around me
>was distorted beyond recognition but slowly coming back together. It
>seemed as though I had been teleported from somewhere else…like I
>had been spit out from one dimension to the next. Then ‘San Tropez’ (the
>next song) started to play and I suddenly remembered that I’d just
>smoked 5-MeO-DMT.

In the end as Crimson Cloud pointed out; if it hasn't happened to you, you are not going to understand what it is like. Even if it has happened, it is difficult to understand. But for many (including myself), the death of the ego results in the feeling of being "reborn" and it is a valuable and life-changing event to undergo. I am grateful for the few times it has happened. In fact, the only drugs I have taken that have caused ego loss are LSD, 5-MeO-DMT, and ketamine. Ego loss to me is a rare and blessed event.
 
^^^
People who smoke good strong doses of NN-DMT usually experience ego loss (forced ego loss) and people can describe 90% of that experience...even though afterwords the memory fades rather quickly and people tend to forget what happened, and what it felt like.

If you guys say complete ego loss is something your NEVER aware of and that you have a chunk of time missing out of your tripping experience then ego loss ISN'T an experience it's a psychedelic black out.

I don't see the point of tripping so hard that you black out and can't remember this extreme event. But then again I've never experienced it so what do I know right?
 
oh and in addition....

since the only thing that you actually experience is the rebirth of your ego why even discuss ego death if you can't even remember it, people should just toss out that term because no one will be able to talk about it....but ego rebirth is a totally different story since it is an experience that can be felt and comprehended.
 
The loss of ego is not the most rewarding part. It is being reborn. It is the after-effects that are where the gold in the ego-loss experience resides. I've done DMT too. Didn't experience ego-loss with it, but I also only took 40 milligrams.

Anyway, I stand by what I say. If you can remember the experience vividly, then it wasn't true ego loss because some part of the self remained aware enough to remember. Ego-loss can be a sort of black out if you will, but a black out of religious/mystical/spiritual proportions (provided one is in a supportive environment.)

In my 5-MeO-DMT ego-loss experiences, looking back I'd call it more of a white out than a black out. It is not what I seek in 5-MeO-DMT. My preferred dose is 8 milligrams, which is a dose in which I can retain just enough awareness of the whole experience to make some meaning (and carry some memory) of it all. 10 milligrams is just a tad too much for me. I can't imagine smoking 20 or 30 milligrams like some people say they do. That just sounds insane! 8o Not for me.
 
morninggloryseed said:
The loss of ego is not the most rewarding part. It is being reborn. It is the after-effects that are where the gold in the ego-loss experience resides.
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that makes sense. thanks. kind of like gravity i guess - we can't witness it - only its effects.

alasdair
 
Dan1584 said:
^^^
I don't see the point of tripping so hard that you black out and can't remember this extreme event. But then again I've never experienced it so what do I know right?
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Like I said,
The importance of ego loss (to me) is not the actual experience of being stripped of my ego. During ego loss, there is nothingness, you cease to exsist, and it's hard to recall anything at all from this time. And you're right this is kind of useless. The important part (to me) is the ego being pieced back together, and it's my opinion that THIS is what most "psychonauts" are after in an ego loss experience.
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AlphaOdure said:
"complete ego loss" is not what most psychonauts are after since they wont be able to recall anything, makes the whole experience useless.

Instead, the more commonly sought after ego dissociation i believe occurs right before the level of anesthesia. Where reality is experienced in its raw, uprocessed form and all borders and safeways in one's personality are by-passed. Leaving one completely stripped of their "masques." I believe some sort of sense or feeling is retained--maybe not a sense of location or self... but defentely some sort of ability to experience remains. W/o this ability to experience, then you've simply reached anesthesia.

At least thats how i see it...
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During a very heavy dose of peruvian syrup Prob in the realms of over 1000mg.

In fact it even ended up for my wife anyway over OD level.

She suffered complete ego loss. She can not remember a thing and for me it was extremely worrying. She was completed incoherent eyes rolling and with little body control. She made no real sense and was no longer herself anymore. This lasted for 8 hours.

I was also at OD level and just managed to keep it together for her. Though she had no sense of me.

This was complete ego loss and was NOT A GOOD THING.

However at times I was drifting off but still had some sense of reality and this is where it can be good.

So after a real heavy experience only this weekend I fully agreewith what has been said above.

Wodin
 
I had a pretty powerful experience of ego loss I can remember.

It was at schoolies week down the Gold Coast, Aust. I was shrooming off my dial, and I was in the middle of a huge crowd of people, I was pretty tired as well. All I can remember of it s coming out of it, I remember seeing a woman's face who was sitting at a table across from me, and she was looking straight at me (because in my ego loss state I had unknowingly been staring, totally absorbed, straight at her), I remember coming out of something like a blank trance (that's all I can describe it as), and she saying to me with an amused grin on my face "You're an idiot." I imagine my egoless absorption of just watching her must have looked to her like some mindless fool just looking at her without any presence of mind. She would have been completely accurate in thinking that too. Becuase that's exactly what you are in an egoless state, you reacquire your 'infant-sight'. Nothing stays in your mind, not for a second, you just look, and nothing else. You become a complete idiot, unable to interpret the world. I imagine realising the vulverability of egoloss could make you pretty afraid afterwards, and possibly strengthen the ego as a result.
 
The importance of ego loss (to me) is not the actual experience of being stripped of my ego. During ego loss, there is nothingness, you cease to exsist, and it's hard to recall anything at all from this time. And you're right this is kind of useless. The important part (to me) is the ego being pieced back together, and it's my opinion that THIS is what most "psychonauts" are after in an ego loss experience.
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Strange. How is, say, unconciousness different from this experience then?

I wonder why this reconstruction doesn't occur after one awakens from a dreamless sleep...
 
^ that's what i'm trying to understand. perhaps i need to bust out the 5meoDMT and really go for it...

alasdair
 
Motherslug said:
Strange. How is, say, unconciousness different from this experience then?

I wonder why this reconstruction doesn't occur after one awakens from a dreamless sleep...
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There is no such thing as a dreamless state. Dreams are constantly going on during one's sleep, its just that one rarely remembers them unless lucky.

Technically, the only thing that differs 'ego loss' (a very BAD name for it, might I add) from unconsciousness is the fact that you are still taking in sensory input, but you're just not analyzing any of it. It makes me wonder if ego loss is a state where the left side of the brain (the side that controls analysis, etc) is nearly disabled. Who knows, them crazy drugs.
 
It seems to me that ego loss is more of a misnomer. Ego loss implies losing yourself, which would be more like unconsciousness. The ego loss psychedelics seem to bring on is more of an ego dismantling, disseminating everything that is the waking consciousness into its fundamental parts, before conscious interpretation has gotten a chance to organize them into thoughts.
 
morninggloryseed said:
Ego = self

Ego loss = loss of sense of self

.
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No. Nearly.
Ego is a sense of self an awareness that helps (and often hinders) our way through 'normal' waking consciousness (day to day life).
Loss of ego is certainly not unconsciousness.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned ketamine, salvia - the disassociatives.
I used to take a fair bit of LSD, searching for what I thought was ego loss. LSD is not ego loss. Alteration, yes, but those perceptions are still being filtered through an ego. Its why we sometimes get scared on acid.
You can't get scared without an ego.
Which is where ketamine comes in. Or more precisely, the dose that leads to K-hole.
To me, K-hole is ego loss. K-hole is another world that I cannot explain with words that apply to normal waking consciousness. K-hole is another time, another space, a redundant useless one to some (who wish to explain and filter everything through their ego), a mystical experience to others (like me, who view it as ego death, a portal into what our own death may be like).
With k-hole there is no emotion, no perception, no yin no yang, everything is . And that's ego loss.
 
Ego Loss, one should get into meditation.

Having seen the void, it is bliss beyond description.
In the void there is nothing. There are no opposing forces to keep everything in check. The void is without poles sides , or anything. Just a vast infinite NOTHING.

Have you ever been to the city ? Lots of people running this way and that. Rush rush rush, so much activity, so much stress ! It could make you want to go crazy ! Now compare that to how peaceful the ocean is , imagine yourself on a deserted island. No rush hour, no people, no stress. Nothing. Strip away man's stress , and you begin to see his peace. Meditate, deprive the senses you spend all day feeding. By depriving your senses , you force your brain to think in ways it normally doesn't. Ever felt your heart beat in your entire body , all at the same time ? I've never felt my heart beat in my legs or arms, that is , until I meditated.

Find yourself by losing yourself. Such is the nature of duality.
 
StoneHappyMonday said:

Which is where ketamine comes in. Or more precisely, the dose that leads to K-hole.
To me, K-hole is ego loss. K-hole is another world that I cannot explain with words that apply to normal waking consciousness. K-hole is another time, another space, a redundant useless one to some (who wish to explain and filter everything through their ego), a mystical experience to others (like me, who view it as ego death, a portal into what our own death may be like).
With k-hole there is no emotion, no perception, no yin no yang, everything is . And that's ego loss.
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Could not have said it better myself. The first time I did ketamine, I did a bump at a party. I really liked it! I didn't do anymore that night, just the one bump. But about a month later my friend scored about a gram of it, and me and 2 friends went back to his appartment to get "sticky".

Well my other 2 friends were real experianced with it, both had been in the K-Hole so they thought it would be fun to give me a full line. (I was very uninformed of what might happen in a k-hole, and they made it sound really fun).
I did my line, 5 minutes later I moved from the bedroom to the livingroom floor and there I stayed for what seemed to be 2 days. (probably really only 4-6 hours). I was totally transformed into another world. Not even a world, a world inside my mind. A mystical journey into the depths of the universe. I saw myself laying on the floor, I cringed at the fact I thought I had overdosed in my friends apartment. I saw myself dead on the floor and thought scary and deadly thoughts. The worst part was seeing and feeling my parents dissapointment at my drug use and the fact I overdosed. Then I was my friends. I became my friends. I remember my friends laying next to me, and I looked at my friend and said "hello, my name is larry" introducing myself to my friend of 2 years. Like I just met him.

I was a loss for words, I was a mess, I was flat out retarted.

What I just explained wasn't even half of the experiance. Words cannot describe what I felt in my friends apartment that day. I dont even think I could come close. Since that day I have been afraid to try it again... Although now I think, since I experianced it first hand, I might be able to grasp it better while in the hole... who knows.
 
i'll give it a try. (not sure it will help, but i've been wanting to try to explain what i've felt - from a k-hole experience)

have you ever been very suddenly woken up and had for a second absolutely no idea who you were or where you were? (i mean totally confused, for a second not even remembering you're a human).

imagine that at the very instant that you wake up and are still not aware of your surroundings or of who you are your brain is replaced by some computer-like device.

you don't see or hear things, you just receive information.
a computer receives 0s and 1s and interprets them, as an image for instance. but it has no idea of its action and of the result of its interpretation.

in the same way, your brain/device is witness of some sort of stimulation (that i can't describe because it has nothing to do with what our senses know) but has no more the capacity to know what this stimulation is than the computer is conscious of the fact that it's receiving 0s and 1s and making a picture out of them. some blank information is passing through your brain-device but you have no notion of what it's doing with it and certainly don't see the result.

it's not a black-out because there's some kind of activity in your brain/device. but there's no conscience of it. you're like the computer : you don't know what you are or where you are because you don't actually realize you are something, you're just a not self-conscious entity that receives information and doesn't know what its interpretation is.
 
i have only experianced so called "ego loss" on mushrooms , UK liberty caps at that..


The acutall ego lose i wouldn't tottally recall. but the melting into ones surroundings always happend to me..


from the outside world i appeared dead but alive if that makes anysense..


and it was also pure chance with what object i would become one with... on one occasion whilst v high on shroom when to the bathroom to have a piss... on way back the call in the corrir looked cool so i touched them..


i fely myself melt into the paint..(other people there testified i was stood by the wall for 2 hour just grunting in odd language..


in my mind i was a pigment of paint ink..

was that ego loss i don't know... but i had fun
 
Ego loss is such an inherently subjective experience I doubt we will ever all agree on what it really is.

I recently experienced my first clear-cut case of what I perceived to be ego loss, though, on 12mg of 5-MeO-DMT.

It was not unconsciousness or anesthesia, and I can in some sense "remember" the entire event. On the other hand, I did definitely "black out" for several seconds. In that period of time I was no longer in control of anything, nor did I have a mind to control. The mere act of continuing to breathe seemed to be a superhuman effort. I'm not sure I could even say I knew I was alive, although on some level I felt I didn't want to die -- but that was all.

I would characterize what I experienced as complete loss of thought and control over thought, rather than "loss of self". I continued to have a self, but only in the very limited sense that, say, an insect has a self. I was alive, I just didn't know it on a rational level. If you had punched me in the face during the depths of my experience, I would have reacted in some instinctive defensive way. But I would not have had the usual rational thought, "Who is punching me, and why, and what should I do about it?" There was no mind, just body and breath and a will to live.
 
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