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[Debate] What is ego-death?

pmoseman said:
Seems to be very disorganized rambling.
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behind all the rambling and repetition there is a highly coherent, structured and systematic theoretical framework for understanding exactly what happens in the ego death experience, and the wider significance of ego death.
 
pmoseman said:
It is not mindset they are taking about when the researchers talk about set.

Set is being informed what the drug will do.

If you do tell someone that LSD is a powerful hallucinogen and explain what the effects are or can be, then they have proper set.

It is like ready, set, go; not mind-set. You can believe that set is hugely important like you believe astrology is important for a horoscope or race is important for a vocation, but it is not based on science.

Mindset is just too complex.

Without proper set people can have a confusing experience that is rationally upsetting.
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I am still curious about whether anyone else agrees with your usage of the term "ego" to mean raw perception, but I can say definitively that no one, when they talk about set in relation to a psychedelic experience, means this. Set is what max laid out, and one of the core concepts of preparation for psychedelic trips is "set and setting", ie, your mindset going in, and the environment you're doing it in. These two factors are fundamentally and hugely important to the outcome of a trip more than (perhaps) any other.
 
max_freakout said:
behind all the rambling and repetition there is a highly coherent, structured and systematic theoretical framework for understanding exactly what happens in the ego death experience, and the wider significance of ego death.
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It seems a shame then. How far along must one read to see this structure?
 
pmoseman said:
It seems a shame then. How far along must one read to see this structure?
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the entire theory (everything you need to know about it to get the full basic understanding) is condensed into this neat simple little diagram:

4PuzzlePieces.jpg
 
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Xorkoth said:
your mindset going in, and the environment you're doing it in. These two factors are fundamentally and hugely important to the outcome of a trip more than (perhaps) any other.
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I've never really found that tho - I can go into trips feeling the most depressed I've ever felt and come out feeling great.
 
The clear answer is that you are just some sort of freak man. ;)

Really though, I have also gone into trips depressed and had great outcomes, but I will say that when I've gone into trips secretly thinking I shouldn't be tripping that's where the issue comes from. And when I am depressed and tripping to help depression then my mental set beforehand is one of being prepared to face my issues and hopefully resolve them. Or if something unexpected and intense comes up (like people coming over and the situation getting out of control), then that will really screw with my trip. Every trip is unique of course, many trips where it seemed to be going bad at first ended up wonderful. But are you really denying the importance of set and setting? That one should just trip wantonly without considering and arranging one's environment and mindset? When someone inexperienced is depressed and goes into a trip looking for fun, it's very common for them to have a very negative result. That's a great example of the importance of set and setting right there. Being so experienced with tripping now, it is rare that my set and setting are not taken care of, and the same is probably true for you.
 
Xorkoth said:
I believe that the same force of awareness, sentience, that fills me is the one that fills you and everything else too, and that by "plugging in" to a physical form that raw perception is shaped into an individual's perception, what I would call an "ego".
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I believe this as well, more or less.

I'm not sure I believe that our own ego consciousness can literally transcend the shell of our own body and brain, but I'm not discounting it completely either. I think it's highly likely that these transcendent ego-death experiences are just a delusion, but we just don't know enough about consciousness to say for sure one way or the other. It could very easily just be what pmoseman says:

And thus your whole experience becomes in that moment only experiencing the ego with no external element for the ego to say, "This is what I am and this is what I am not."
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...or it could be some escape from our shackles, and an expansion of our ego/perception to some kind of super-ego/god/universal conciousness. Maybe it's both, or neither.. or maybe, paradoxically, it's both and neither.

No harm in arguing about it, but this debate will go on indefinitely. Whatever your position is on this, it's a matter of faith.
 
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True that... we have no way of ever knowing for sure. Maybe until we die, but then "we" still won't know because we'll be dead.
 
Just tired and laying on the couch I was able to revisit large parts of my family life and childhood and integrate that with my current social environment. I imagined myself completely reborn as a separate individual and reflected on how things could have been different. Following this speculation, which brought with it a meaningful sense of appreciation and neglect, I feel refreshed and empowered to make positive changes in my son's life.

There is nothing you could have possibly done to predict this. Today started like any other day. Cleaning the house helped me feel in control. Laying down helped me concentrate on imagination.

Something triggered those underlying reasons and small differences in what I did today may have had an effect, the coffee I drank, the cigarette I didn't smoke, a shower first thing in the morning, but there is no way to replicate what lay in myself, let alone lay that in anyone else. The "set"as you call it will never return and if it does my reaction may totally change depending on the choices I make.

Who knows what may happen now. It is to complex, chaotic. Perhaps my mood will shift and why will it shift? Perhaps I am about to go completely insane. Perhaps I will feel thirsty.

Now if you had slipped LSD in my coffee and when I opened my eyes I saw my chandelier was a pile of fractals I would have no way to explain it, perhaps I was poisoned, that would make me feel angry or fearful, then that might increase the risk of a bad reaction to LSD.

My believing in God and praying real good beforehand, maybe that will improve my chances, but I strongly doubt it. Perhaps whatever emotion I am feeling now is actually less likely to be there in 45 minutes when the drug sets in.
 
I have no ideas to get this back on topic. I will say a silent meditation before any activity does help with the result.
 
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I'm glad to hear you had such a positive experience. :) I've had those before too, where I have a profound mental/emotional experience suddenly without substances involved.

Ego death should be possible without substances too, it's just most people use psychedelics as a facilitator of that kind of experience due to not having enough discipline to achieve such states through meditation or other natural means... myself included. But if it's available, why not use it?
 
Xorkoth said:
That's a great example of the importance of set and setting right there. Being so experienced with tripping now, it is rare that my set and setting are not taken care of, and the same is probably true for you.
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True it's different now. I actually first started tripping to try and find some consolation after a sudden death in the family so I was probably in the worst set imaginable. Still worked great tho and made life worth living again.
 
Xorkoth said:
I'm glad to hear you had such a positive experience. :) I've had those before too, where I have a profound mental/emotional experience suddenly without substances involved.

Ego death should be possible without substances too, it's just most people use psychedelics as a facilitator of that kind of experience due to not having enough discipline to achieve such states through meditation or other natural means... myself included. But if it's available, why not use it?
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Because sobriety is what gives me positive experiences.

I was never in such an interesting social network until trying LSD. In short, it was a blast, but making irrational choices, having distorted memories, and saying stupid things. These new difficulties evolved in me and being unsure what I was being propelled toward, with my drug use, pushed to see what was there and found out it was insanity. Now that thinking, and I suppose the people as well, are in my past.
 
Did you start taking it too young tho pmose? I didn't start until I was pretty old and knew all about sobriety.
 
lovepsychadelics said:
I have NO DOUBT pisspotnrock's DMT was fucking good. Aya and DMT is one drug Ozzies actually have in abundance and of exceptional quality. Everything from "changa" DMT and Syrian rue laced carrier herbs and aya through to yellow DMT crystal and high purity white 99% NN-DMT. Thing is IV 25-30 mg of 4 aco dmt...
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we sure mate are we couldnt be more grateful for the abundance and quality of our DMT containing flora :)

thanks for the compliment but yes, nearly every extraction (besides the first, missed the de-fat and created emulsions results in some jungle spice with what we could retrieve) was beautiful success.. once we started doin a de-fat before every non polar wash, snow-white NN-DMT crystals were our reward although my one regret (which was unbeknownst to me at the time) was that I didnt harvest during bloom.. could a increased our yield 4-5 fold if I knew that but hey, I was just a young dumb 18yo who just wanted to try n make something myself without anyone else in the picture.. and I enjoyed doin it :)

my dimi days are over.. havnt seen the stuff in over 12 months and am too worried about entering hyperspace with my high blood pressure..

DMT is probably the most least understood/hard to understand substance on this whole earth IMO, next to mushroom ;)

EDIT: 18/19 is a great age to start dabbling with phychs, IMO, if your head is in the right gear so to speak.. high doses of DMT on the other hand, maybe a decade down the track
 
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Ego death is when you have been absorbing the influence from various CIA assets (pretty much all the "gurus") and have reached the final stage of the cleansing of the mind. Now your thoughts and mindset is exactly the same as every other fully initiated hippy, and your life will turn to dust.
 
My understanding is that ego death is a hallucination caused by activation of the psychological mechanisms involved in dissociative disorders. Ordinarily, traumatic stress is necessary to precipitate these dissociative experiences, but they can also be induced by drugs which recruit the same pathways. Acute stress largely increases excitatory neurotransmission in the prefrontal cortex, the primary site of action of psychedelic drugs.
 
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