Ego and Ego Loss

[GodricNightfall]

Hey everyone, I was wondering what the definition of ego is and what you guys feel it is to you. Also The reason I am wondering is because I dont think I have an ego, Does everyone have an ego to some degree? I have never thought of myself as better or worse than others. I never really understood some things in social society that people do to boost ego like winning sports and banging chicks. Of course I like to win but I never look down on someone who loses. What does ego death feel like and what do you feel like afterwards?

Also I just feel like saying I am enjoying some hydrocodone right now listening to pink floyds "dogs"

 

[iChelsea]

Yes, you have an ego. Your ego is your sense of self. Everything you know about yourself, all your memories, relationships with other people, likes and dislikes.
Your personality.

Ego death is " characterized as the perceived loss of boundaries between self and environment, a sense of the loss of 'control,'" Basically you realize that you ARE the universe.

 

[Scheduled]

Ego death, imo, occurs when one no longer knows one is thinking, but just thinks uninhibited.

 

[skullgrid]

There is a difference between the everyday meaning of the word "ego," as you seem to be using it, and its meaning with respect to psychology, consciousness, and drug use. When we speak of ego-death in terms of drug use, we aren't talking about the "That guy is a total ego maniac, he's so full of himself" meaning. Rather, we are speaking of ego as our sense of Identity. When one experiences ego-death, there is no "I," there is no self.

 

[allium]

PD has The Big & Dandy Ego Death Thread, which might be useful for you.

I don't know much on this topic, and I never experienced ego loss(although I experienced some other "ego distortions"), so I just quote a wiki:

Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean a sense of self, but later revised it to mean a set of psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality-testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory

As you can see, ego(aka "I") is essential for your life and being. Ego isn't a bad thing, and you clearly have it.
"Having ego" not equals to "egoism" or "selfishness".

I have never thought of myself as better or worse than others. I never really understood some things in social society that people do to boost ego like winning sports and banging chicks. Of course I like to win but I never look down on someone who loses.

You seem to be altruistic person, which is a good thing IMO

 

[Project Will]

Yes, you have an ego. Your ego is your sense of self. Everything you know about yourself, all your memories, relationships with other people, likes and dislikes.
Your personality.

Ego death is " characterized as the perceived loss of boundaries between self and environment, a sense of the loss of 'control,'" Basically you realize that you ARE the universe.

This sums it up very well.

The term "ego" as described by Freud is a whole debate unto itself. The term "ego death" as it relates to psychedelics (and perhaps dissociative) is basically losing, as chelsea said, the sense of self. In the middle of a heavy trip the mind can lose the concept of self - so that existence is experienced not as you but as everything. Words don't do justice to ego death. If you have experienced it you would know it.

Trying salvia extract will most likely give you ego death at the proper dose. It can be very frightening and cause serious mental distress even after the trip is over, so be careful.

 

[GodricNightfall]

This is actually really good that I learned this. What I always thought it meant was people who are full of themselves realize how they are bad they are living and how insignificant they truly are in terms of the universe. Now that that is out of the way, do you feel more enlightned after an ego death. Do you feel you are better of in life knowing this?

Hahahah Read thread Living another life completley project will

 

[BodyHereMindGone]

This is actually really good that I learned this. What I always thought it meant was people who are full of themselves realize how they are bad they are living and how insignificant they truly are in terms of the universe. Now that that is out of the way, do you feel more enlightned after an ego death. Do you feel you are better of in life knowing this?

Hahahah Read thread Living another life completley project will

it all depends on you in all honesty...

If you have no fear about leaving this world, leaving everything behind, your mum, your dad, your brothers n sisters and all the people you have met before, Then i guess ego death will not be all that bad..

 

[Project Will]

This is actually really good that I learned this. What I always thought it meant was people who are full of themselves realize how they are bad they are living and how insignificant they truly are in terms of the universe. Now that that is out of the way, do you feel more enlightned after an ego death. Do you feel you are better of in life knowing this?

Hahahah Read thread Living another life completley project will

Haha it sounds like you are referring to "egotistical." I would imagine that the egotistical type would probably not enjoy ego death.

Whether you are full of yourself or not, ego death is an intense experience. However the more egotistical you are, the more you have to lose

 

[Ismene]

The "ego" is a term that Freud dreamed up over a 100 years ago. With the advent of neuroscience it has long since been discredited as have most of his ideas. As someone once said "No-one in human history has been more wrong about his subject than Freud".

Unfortunately people like Tim Leary picked up on the term in the 60's and applied it to psychedelics using bullshit terms like "ego-death". How can something that doesn't exist die?

 

[thomas2laylum]

i always figured the ego is the idea you have of yourself

so to lose your ego is to reject what you think you should be like, and just to go with who you are

this means not doing things just because they make you look good, or feed your image and your idea of who you are

if that makes sense

 

[GodricNightfall]

thats why I thought thomas but I think the way the word is being used is basically "you" as a whole dies as in all your memories and thoughts and this happens because you are not in your body and you see that this life is merely an illusion, That it has no meaning is the grand scheme of things, and in this alternate universive you have much more important things to worry about. thats what im getting from the other posts anyway.

 

[Wise420]

Ego loss and ego death are two different things as I see it. When your have ego loss you lose your sense of self/personality, but overall you are still in control of everything that's happening. Ego death is were you lose that control, along with your personality and lose complete sense of reality and what's going on at that moment.

 

[iChelsea]

The "ego" is a term that Freud dreamed up over a 100 years ago. With the advent of neuroscience it has long since been discredited as have most of his ideas. As someone once said "No-one in human history has been more wrong about his subject than Freud".

Unfortunately people like Tim Leary picked up on the term in the 60's and applied it to psychedelics using bullshit terms like "ego-death". How can something that doesn't exist die?

Wrong.

Researchers are increasingly applying the tools of modern neuroscience to try to understand how the brain represents self and other aspects of ego as popularly defined -- they just don't call it ego. Brain-imaging studies have used self-reference experiments to investigate the neurobiology of self.

Our personality -- who we are in totality -- is represented in the brain as a complex pattern of synaptic connectivity, because synapses underlie everything the brain does.

So if you want to get technical, neuroscience doesn't use the term "ego."

But that doesn't mean that your sense of self and feeling of separation from the universe doesn't exist.

When you lose that feeling of separation and believe that you are "one with everything" that is the concept of "egodeath."

If you don't want to use the exact terms, fine, but that doesn't mean that the concept and experience do not exist.

 

[killtheego]

Hey everyone, I was wondering what the definition of ego is and what you guys feel it is to you. Also The reason I am wondering is because I dont think I have an ego, Does everyone have an ego to some degree? I have never thought of myself as better or worse than others. I never really understood some things in social society that people do to boost ego like winning sports and banging chicks. Of course I like to win but I never look down on someone who loses. What does ego death feel like and what do you feel like afterwards?

Also I just feel like saying I am enjoying some hydrocodone right now listening to pink floyds "dogs"

The ego as you've described it here is an extremely tricky beast. I felt the same way as you do for the vast majority of my life, however I was actually trying to subdue my ego at most points, it didn't come naturally to me.

Only a few months ago though, I had smoked some really good weed (just 2 days after I did 4gs of shrooms), and realized that my ego (as you describe it) had evolved or changed into something else to survive.

Since I was a kid I've had an extremely active imagination. My mom used to tell me stories while I was eating, and I have continued telling myself stories in my head when I eat. These stories are always about myself making lots of money, helping people with the money, starting different kinds of businesses, ending war etc. I was literally feeding my ego through my imagination. Since then I have tried to stop this, but its even harder to eat for me when I'm not imagining myself as some great saviour of the people.

 

[Ismene]

Wrong.

Come again?

So you think Freud was right?

But that doesn't mean that your sense of self and feeling of separation from the universe doesn't exist. When you lose that feeling of separation and believe that you are "one with everything"

What does any of this actually mean tho? Other than being a set of meaningless words?

Surely you can feel a "sense of self" and feel at one with everything at the same time without taking drugs can't you? I feel it every time I take the dogs for a walk in the countryside. Pretty much everyone I've ever met does too.

If you don't want to use the exact terms, fine, but that doesn't mean that the concept and experience do not exist.

Well, the OP was asking what the terms "ego" and "ego-death" actually mean. My opinion is that they mean absolutely fuck-all. Particularly in relation to the psychedelic experience.

I think a psychedelic experience is a vastly different thing to any redundant theories of the "ego" or "ego-death" and it's misleading to use such terms to try and describe it.

 

[Tunnelfission]

I think a broader yet still applicable definition can be put as such :

The ego is your current set way of functioning with the outside world, your expectations your habits, just the basis that your mind functions on including your beliefs. Ego death to me means you just reassert your humbility, you realize that what you know was just learned and thats it, it's not right it's not wrong. You gain an appreciation and understanding of "Is-ness" if one can fully integrate ego death.

On a signature ego death trip on LSD I find myself laying on sand or rocks or grass and kind of losing myself to them, I am what I feel so I feel or see the rocks and water and I AM the rocks and water, normal thoughts are gone such as perhaps obligations or having to meet someone and you simply are the animal body having a trip at that point.

I find I can still make normal conversation to folks on ego death trips but it's labored and unnatural all I can muster is some kind of recognition about the time of day or something .

You become one with your environment and stop acting per routine or per urge, you have an experience.

 

[TripTastik]

When I experience ego death I truly believe I am a super being entwined with all the energy and life in the universe, and occasionally in other planes of reality as well. I turn into a totally different person than who I actually am, like a separate spirit entity of myself, it is a truly incredible and rewarding experience, it really makes you change the way you look at different things in life, in my opinion for the better, and a lot of realizations I have during ego death carry on to my day to day life afterward.

And yeah, you are your ego.

 

[alantis360]

Ego death is intesne. I have had ego loss before but only had true ego death a few times. I was in a hotel room once with a bunch of close friends and when my peak hit I couldnt recognize any of them. My friends gf was sitting right next to me talking to me and all of a sudden i had no idea who she was or anyone else. I dunno if it was because she was drunk but it seemed like she was really mad at me.

 

[DwayneHoover]

Wrong.

Come again?

So you think Freud was right?

But that doesn't mean that your sense of self and feeling of separation from the universe doesn't exist. When you lose that feeling of separation and believe that you are "one with everything"

What does any of this actually mean tho? Other than being a set of meaningless words?

Surely you can feel a "sense of self" and feel at one with everything at the same time without taking drugs can't you? I feel it every time I take the dogs for a walk in the countryside. Pretty much everyone I've ever met does too.

If you don't want to use the exact terms, fine, but that doesn't mean that the concept and experience do not exist.

Well, the OP was asking what the terms "ego" and "ego-death" actually mean. My opinion is that they mean absolutely fuck-all. Particularly in relation to the psychedelic experience.

I think a psychedelic experience is a vastly different thing to any redundant theories of the "ego" or "ego-death" and it's misleading to use such terms to try and describe it.

Oh no not this again. Ismene, the experience of feeling like you leave your "self" behind and your mind becomes something bigger than you thought it could be, to the extent that the EXPERIENCE ITSELF seems "impossible", and yet despite the sensation of impossibility, here the mind's eye is having it... THIS EXPERIENCE EXISTS AND MANY PEOPLE HAVE HAD IT AND TALK ABOUT IT.

For you to insist that other peoples' attested-to experiences "do not exist" is asinine and arrogant and lunatic..

You simply disagree with the word being used to label the experience being described. Get over it. The experience exists. Who are you to get up on a soapbox and tell people "You are not having the experience you say you are having"???

Are you saying you are some kind of mindreader, able to peer inside other's subjective experiences, saying that all these people are telling a bunch of lies?