Esoteric [Ego-Death Subthread] How to achieve it

[tyrael]

It seems that the general consensus is not to seek ego death (but let it come). However if one were too, how would you describe it in the sense of "good" or "bad". I release these are relative words, but generally would you say that it is fun/good/pleasing/positive/blah blah or the contrary?

 

[slimvictor]

I have experienced ego death on LSD, mushrooms, and ayahuasca (DMT).
My understanding is that ego death is possible to achieve on a more permanent basis through practices such as meditation and yoga.
I am very interested in understanding what this means, and I practice meditation and yoga regularly (though I am reluctant to set permanent ego-death as my goal).

 

[swilow]

^I think the meditation trance-state is probably more effective, as it is not determ,ined by how much of XxXx drug you've consumed. It takes a lot of effort, which is offputting and seems to absorb those who seek its lives. What I would think it means is a permanent knowledge that you are indeed nothing but what you think you are, and when you stop thinking you are something, your free.

It seems that the general consensus is not to seek ego death (but let it come). However if one were too, how would you describe it in the sense of "good" or "bad". I release these are relative words, but generally would you say that it is fun/good/pleasing/positive/blah blah or the contrary?

Well, you can certainly seek it- but, fact is, it doesn't really happen to the You we are referring to. It happens to a component of you; a facade that we all seem to have.

To be honest, when one approaches the state of utter Nothing (or Everything...) it can be terryfying, but the actual experience is so hard to quanitify that good/bad are meaningless. The only way to describe it is to say that it Is. You, or the voice of your thoughts, is gone- there is no real values placed on "things" and hence there is a pure state of knowing/experiencing/being which is utter bliss- known throughout the world as ecstasy, samadhi, satori, nirvana, heaven; but not something that occurrs to the person you think you are. Thus, a lot of ego-death/dissolution experiences- what takes place at least- may not be remembered, but the feeling of joy and bliss which has no perceivable origin is profound.

I will say that, upon returning from a DPT trance after voyaging the Innerverse, the sensation is utterly astouding; frightening, yet euphoric- strange and unsettling, yet also familiar and more "real" then what we consider real. The benefits are in the knowing that You went somewhere where you can't go, and you came back with a whole pocket of gold, or a brain filled with stars :D

 

[tanman1212]

is ego death a good think? i dont get it

 

[nearjat]

is ego death a good think? i dont get it

It isn't "good" or "bad". Good and bad are labels people put on things based on how they effect their well being, an ego death strips you of any "labeling". It's pure "being". Not floating, not sinking, not dying, not living. Just awareness without name, origin, or possession.

You can either be scared shitless by it and assume the fetal position, or be amazed by it, and assume the fetal position, lol. If you're the thinking type, it'll likely be infinitely interesting. If you don't care about strange abstract concepts that hippies ramble about, you have a lesser chance of gaining from it.

 

[Max Power]

Can anyone tell me what a person who is experiencing ego death looks like?

Are they just lying on the floor with their eyes closed? Are they walking around with their mouth open staring into space?

I've done LSD many times, but alas have never experienced ego death. I've had many beautiful experiences though.

 

[dread]

Ego death is the death of ego. Ego is the house your self builds to live in. But after a while, living comfortably in it's ego-house, the self gets attached to the house and forgets that the house was built by the self and it can be destroyed and built again at will.

When you experience ego death, you are reminded that we are all one. We build different houses for our comfort but in ego death, the walls we build collapse and we all return to the oneness.

Take a good blast of DMT (like I just did) and you will understand...

 

[swilow]

Can anyone tell me what a person who is experiencing ego death looks like?

Are they just lying on the floor with their eyes closed? Are they walking around with their mouth open staring into space?

I've done LSD many times, but alas have never experienced ego death. I've had many beautiful experiences though.

It can vary depending on drug. Ketamine induced ego-dissolution is usually accompanied by a prone and comatose appearing body; DMT/salvia/DPT/mushrooms, being more stimulating, may still "allow" normal appearing functioning, but there is a definte space behind peoples eyes- kinda zombies. Generally though, when I seek the ego-less state, I make sure to be on my bed/lying down- its realtively easy to get swept up in euphoria and charge around like a madman, disrobing and drooling and speaking gibberish- but if you keep the idea "I must lie down" in mind, it seems to work. That said, with both k and DMT I've found my body doing the oddest things; ketamine in particualr, I find I start acting very grandiose and referring to myself as It....

Its a great feeling, but probably the term "death" makes it seem more frightening then what it is. One will always return from the ego-death/dissolution state.

 

[IGNVS]

ego death is the easiest thing youll ever do.

yeah, youll think its hard at first. the key is to not think about it

feel it out, beleive it or not if you just listen to your heart things just start to flowwwww

 

[randombeans]

yah i agree the only way to truly know a psychidelic besides what tv show u shud watch whille on it is to do it alone,with no distractions, and than u really get a sense of the drug and urself, for example, drugs such as DMT can be done with a tv on or whatever, it wont bother you, psychidelic phase out everything else at the right dose and thats where ego death is, but u can reach it at much lower doses through isolation, isolation tanks are basically a guarantee btw but expensive

Idk about this... obviously these types of things are different for every person. But I found that being alone... particularly on acid, allows for only a portion of the potential experience to shine through. When tripping with people the entire experience is thrust upon you because of the way you are picking up on peoples vibes, facial expressions, inflection of their voice... to me this is a huuuge part of the lsd experience that you just wont ever discover if you've never tripped with other people.

However... being alone allows for extremely deep meditation which can bring about this so called 'ego-death'...

I personally have never totally forgotten who i was, or where i was from or anything like that... but I am able to disconnect myself from these things and instead of being caught up on my to-do list I am finally free to do nothing but exist...


ehh i don't think i added anything to this thread hah

 

[randombeans]

I've experienced ego death a number of times on a number of substances.

First time was DXM. somewhere between 700-800mg.

I was laying on the floor of my friends closet, with my head phone wire coming under the door, listening to third eye by tool. I think it was this song that actually pushed me as far as I went, because as soon as it was over i jumped up and kind of freaked out, falling out of the closet in my dxm stupor.

Anyway, it was pitch black in the closet, I was looking up at the celine. Then I was slowly falling face up/back down, through the canopy of a rainforest, i saw the sky, then i saw the tops of the trees move in, then it got thicker and thicker and slowly the light was dimming, I could freakin hear the animals, birds and monkeys. My perspective continued dropping through the trees until I was laying down on the forest floor looking up at everything I had just passed by...

I consider this ego death because I had no sense of self during this experience. It was only a sense of perception. As if I was nothing more than a point in space... an invisible camera of sorts. It was incredible.

I never experienced complete ego death on mushrooms, but I've come close... something along the lines of "we're not trippin on mushrooms maann, the mushrooms are trippin on humans" which is weird, i think naturally occuring psychedelics all have their own energy, uh or entity which views the world through our eyes when we use them.

Salvia brings me ego death each and everytime I fucking do it. It doesn't even matter if I take one tiny hit of LEAVES... i'll go there even if only for 5 seconds. for whatever reason i'm incredibly sensitive to the effects of it. When I ripped two back to back 30x extract hits out of my bong (the last time i did it, like 3 years ago ha) I was completely fucked for about 30 minutes... by far the most intense sensation of ego death i've ever experienced.

I ripped the bong. Held it in... started to feel my legs shifting away from me... released the smoke... ripped again. Looked up at my room mate playing halo.

Got sucked into a worm hole almost instantly. Left my body behind. hell. I left me behind. I had no idea where i was, what i was doing, that i had even taken a drug, or anything of the sort. all i could see was a black silhouette of a stair case with a white background and there was this constant grinding sound goin on in the back ground. then my family was packing bags to go to disney land, except they weren't MY family, it was like i was in someone elses family and i was someone else entirely...

after that i just remember coming too and my buddy laughing his ass off at me, his girlfriends shoe laces did some weird shit where they covered her entire body for about 20 seconds... i had spilled gatorade all over the place... my room mate who was playing halo apparently took a rip right after me so he was sitting on the floor repeating to himself "never again, never again, never again"

it wass fuuucked up.

uhhhhhhh you're welcome for the book.

 

[TRPC5]

How does one go about experiencing ego death if all one gets is a panic attack reaction after only 2 measly hits? Damn anxiety disorder and damn you McKenna for suggesting to take 5 dried grams which permenantly changed my already disturbed brain chemistry!

randombeans: it's funny you mention "family" when tripping on salvia, I've experienced this same thing after strapping myself to the angry chair for a solo 25x extract, took 2 hits, chickened out on the 3rd but I blasted off nonetheless.. and lost all sensation, as if my whole body was in some kind of cold liquid, no visuals but i had this notion that my family, my REAL family was waiting for me on the other side and only if I had taken that 3rd toke, I would have been able to "cross over."

 

[medical_meccanica]

It isn't "good" or "bad". Good and bad are labels people put on things based on how they effect their well being, an ego death strips you of any "labeling". It's pure "being". Not floating, not sinking, not dying, not living. Just awareness without name, origin, or possession.

Riotous, nearjat!

Yeah, you really just have to be able to let go

 

[slimvictor]

How does one go about experiencing ego death if all one gets is a panic attack reaction after only 2 measly hits?

My understanding is that bad trips / panic attacks are LESS likely to occur at very high doses, because the intensity of the experience overrides your ego's defense mechanisms.
Essentially, "you" are gone, so how can "you" have a bad trip?

 

[rpm]

There is much more to it and I have to prep for the day but I'll outline some occurances that happened previous to my last trial with 2C-E 3 nights ago which gave me a severe sense of ego loss, and peaking an ego death.
*I had to lay down because everything seemed to be happening all too quickly.
*The body began to go numb.
*Severe case of deja vu...this has all happened before??
*Everthing appears to be alligning up to some grand moment.
*It feels as though the entire universe was manifested to create this moment.
then...

it happens

I don't believe there are any real words that can be used to describe an ego death. I'm still coming to terms with what happened and such, so I still am in the afterglow/confusion state,as it were.

Same happened to me some years ago after injesting a bottle of acid by mistake. Unfortunatly I was not ready and tried to fight it. I became everything, everyone else was me. But instead of just experiencing it I lost control and did some stupid things I have posted elsewhere on this board.

Basicaly I want to do it again, but am scared of the consequences.

 

[nativenick]

you cant really induce ego death it just sort of happens. i remember one time i ate a quarter of mushrooms. at first it was a very dysphoric experience i remember feeling like i was gonna die. i remember desperatley trying to grasp any sense of self to confirm i was a living breathing person. i felt like i was gonna go to hell or something. the last thing i remember was thinking if i make it out of this alive ill be good i promise. at that point almost all sense of self was gone the only way i could describe it was that i felt like just a soul and nothing else like i lost my body from that point on everything is just nothingness when i finally come too an hour has passed im slowly realearning everything about me and eventually i remember i took mushrooms. coming out of it is very humbeling and just incredible feeling almost as if your destroyed and then rebuilt resulting in a euphoric feeling

 

[ebola?]

I think Tim Leary argued that EVERYONE would experience ego loss during a psychedelic trip, but those who are too comfortable and used to playing karmic games will only experience it for maybe a fraction of a second, some might enjoy it for as long as it takes to eat a meal and others might embrace it and enjoy it for their whole trip.

Tim Leary mad a bunch of random shit up.

 

[tuksalp]

old thread is old, but nothing for me defines ego death as well as the following lines from Pink Floyd's Echoes:

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me

 

[Tunnelfission]

The physical animal body/mind still experiences everything.... why i've found in times of ego death that my memory is INCREASED.... the ego isn't what experiences things its the living bodice, so ego death is like a reduction of the structures that are in place.

 

[Tunnelfission]

Leary was explaining his own trip with his own jargon, he didn;t realize that he should have named and explained his theories in many ways instead of just his own interpretation, I get what he means, but I also get how other people wouldn't get alot of it.

people tend to explain psychedellia in heavily artistic metaphors which makes it vague to those who aren't attached to the exact same pillar of experience, even though they may be witnessing the same phenomenon

a friend explains LSD trips in this way : people who arent on LSD see the world as a circle, it keeps to itself and has only one looping path, but those on LSD are the square to their circles, the square has several points but can fit the same space that the circle does, superimposing itself over it. the LSD mind sees the point of interest from several perspectives, whereas the circle normal mind may only interpret one meaning from a subject.

it's vague, but I understand it per se. But myself choose more objective explainations for things of this type because I humour the fact that everyone is very different in their view of the world.