Ego death experience. need to share.

[HeavilySedated]

Hello to all the good people out there. I have been coming here for quite a while, but only recently was inspired to write something.

Anyways, let's jump right to the issue I want to bring up.
I was always attracted to the mind altering field, initially exploring the realm of lucid dreaming, moving on to cannabis, and finally to the world of the so called 'a-typical' psychedelics. Maybe I skipped a few crucial steps in the process, but ehh.

I always considered myself a misunderstood intellectual, one of them tragic\philosophical artistic types. I denounced my parent's faith and became a hardcore Atheist at the tender age of fifteen, and adopted a deterministic philosophy later on. Yet I must say, as strongly as I stand by my believes, I always pitted myself inside for not being able to join in the general vibe. And why, do you ask? Well, being an atheist is all good and nice, but religion is just a natural part of our lives, pretty much like having sex. It's not necessarily a positive or constructive thing to life, and you can well live with out it, but religion does add a lot a of pepper to an otherwise rather plain existence. Don't you agree?

Enough blabber though. Several months ago I had my first psychedelic experience. By that time I was well acquainted with the likes of cannabis and other mild drugs.
I spent a weekend at a friend's house. After getting fed up of nothing but increasingly banal cannabis sessions, we decided to move up the ladder. The friend dug up a bag of some old 20x Salvia Divinorum that was lying around.
Having already had a go at it, my friend suggested that I smoke and he sits me. I loaded up a bowl in my home made bong, lit the torch light, and inhaled deeply. I held the smoke for roughly 30 seconds, and released. Nothing I ever knew or experienced could prepare me what was about to happen.

I started feeling an intense cannabis-like light headedness that kept gaining more and more momentum. I was seated on the bed, but suddenly an invisible force pinned me down, and I rolled around and giggled uncontrollably. I tried to make coherent sentences, but the only words that escaped my mouth were those syllable stressed 'wooooooow's. My mind kept shooting at an increasing speed, and then I felt like I broke some 'reality barrier'.

The trip suddenly turned in a very different direction. My surroundings became distorted and flattened, and yet everything felt so hyper-realistic (think Plato's cave allegory). It was like my mind's RAM capacity was suddenly increased from 65k to an infinite number of petabytes. I no longer saw the world through the constraints of my vision field. I saw the whole universe from every possible angle, all at once. And it was terrifying. It felt like I stumbled onto a secret humans were never supposed to find out about. I thought I would be stuck in this state for ever, so I started crying, 'Oh shit, my life is ruined!'. I was on the verge of completely losing it. It was then when my friend calmed me down and said that it's all going to go away in a few minutes, and that I should use the trip as a guide in to my inner self. I nerved down a bit, and before I knew it I found myself back on earth.

As profound as this experience was, I was just not ready for it. It felt like my mind was left raped and bleeding by some mystical cosmic force. During the coming days and weeks, I fell into a deep depression. Life became stale and meaningless for me. I became suicidal and expirienced panic attacks and bouts of depersonalization (and always after naps for some reason). Every nerve in me was shaken and torn and I was utterly dysfunctional. During that time I wrote this pretty deranged text (if you're interested):

Human personality was developed hand in hand with the development of intelligence and consciousness as a mean of protecting Homo sapiens from the realization that their lives cannot be any more significant than an ant's. The fact that our intellect allows us to rise above our basic animal instinct poses a deadly threat to our survival, and that's why we evolved into complex psychological beings. Life cannot have any intrinsic or divine meaning. When we die, the body stops functioning biologically, and our consciousness ceases to exist entirely. Such an realization makes life seem entirely pointless. This is why we developed a unique mental ability to personalize ourselfs and our surroundings, thus creating the illusion of seperation between the physical body and the 'actual' person within. This mechanism allows us to feel emotions and find value to life.

A long time has passed since then, and I am happy to say I re-stabilized my life. I went through many hours of psychotherapy and managed to reshape several issues in my past life. Today I'm much healthier and happier. I made some very good friends and started a whole new path in my life. And you know what? I don't regret having used Salvia even for a second. Having processed the experience over and over again, I now have come to realize the meaning of this experience. I'm still hit by those small aftershock waves every time I reminisce about that pure sense of existence.

Having recovered, I feel that the experience fueled me to continue living life to the fullest, and to further explore this enigmatic force that resides within the mind. For some reason I found that no one around me has the slightest idea what I'm talking about. They think I was just hallucinating badly.

Has anyone else felt the same way? How do you deal with your lives after having experienced something like this? Anyone has any insights to share with me? (Sorry for how long this is. Hope someone gets to read this )

 

[adrian89987]

I went through a similar mental crisis around 15-16 years of age. Thoughts of the pointlessness of life and the possible endless nothing that lies in wait after death plagued my thoughts throughout most of the day. These thoughts in part arose after my first true breakthrough psychedelic experience (was some DOx that I thought was LSD) as well as heavy cannabis use.

These thoughts began in the spring and by summer I felt that all was pointless. However later on in the summer I began to experiment even more with psychedelics (shrooms, LSD, and MDMA) as well as meditation practices and began to fully appreciate the beauty of the universe that I found myself in. Quickly I found myself out of my mental rut and have since been happier than I ever remember being at any point in my life.

So a psychedelic experience brought me to my mental knees leaving me to believe that all that was happening was ultimately futile and pointless. But then psychedelic experiences just as quickly brought me out and helped me to attain a level of happiness even greater than before I began experimenting with mind-altering substances.

These experiences can catalyze all sorts of different realizations both negative and positive.

 

[HeavilySedated]

I went through a similar mental crisis around 15-16 years of age. Thoughts of the pointlessness of life and the possible endless nothing that lies in wait after death plagued my thoughts throughout most of the day. These thoughts in part arose after my first true breakthrough psychedelic experience (was some DOx that I thought was LSD) as well as heavy cannabis use.

These thoughts began in the spring and by summer I felt that all was pointless. However later on in the summer I began to experiment even more with psychedelics (shrooms, LSD, and MDMA) as well as meditation practices and began to fully appreciate the beauty of the universe that I found myself in. Quickly I found myself out of my mental rut and have since been happier than I ever remember being at any point in my life.

So a psychedelic experience brought me to my mental knees leaving me to believe that all that was happening was ultimately futile and pointless. But then psychedelic experiences just as quickly brought me out and helped me to attain a level of happiness even greater than before I began experimenting with mind-altering substances.

These experiences can catalyze all sorts of different realizations both negative and positive.

My conclusion as well. I realize now that for a long time I over intellectualized my life, and it's so easy to fall into depressions that way. Now I understand the meaning of the saying 'a sound mind in a sound body'. Meditating, physical activity and good friends around you are the best formula for an inner sense of accomplishment.

 

[adrian89987]

True that, I feel like getting enough exercise is one of the best things you can do for yourself mentally and completely underrated by most people in its ability to help.

 

[stumblestoprepeat]

^Completely agreed on the exercise thought. I used to be in great shape, and then started to..well, slip, once I began college. I noticed a correlation between the times I did exercise, and a bettered mood/overall increase in energy/contentment with life. It's kind of a cycle though- when I don't exercise, my energy levels/contentment go down, and my apathy/depressive tendencies rise. Once that apathy reaches a certain level, it can be pretty damn difficult to work up the motivation to go move around.

My new years resolution this year was to begin exercising again (regularly) and I've noticed an unmissable positive change in my overall outlook. Great stuff, endorphins are. I'm pretty amazed at the difference it can make.

 

[moe.ron]

Has anyone else felt the same way? How do you deal with your lives after having experienced something like this? Anyone has any insights to share with me? (Sorry for how long this is. Hope someone gets to read this )

First I just wanted to say, thank you for writing that, I really enjoyed reading it.

Next I want to mention that *most* psychedelics facilitate existential crisis, especially in free thinkers such as yourself. It is what they do. Thats what we know for sure.

Why do they do this? Well I feel like some psychedelics act as a truth syrum, almost. Anything just under the surface in your subconscious will be coming out. And if you're a free thinker or an intellectual, well then your subconscious is probably drowning in existential crisis whether you realize or not.

Why? As krishnamuriti said "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Nothing can be kept from yourself while you're on a psychedelic. Anything you've ever thought or believed or imagined becomes fair game. This is why we can see that what somebody feels on a psychedelic is most likely an inner-reflection to themselves. I dont care what anybody may tell you because I have experienced this over and over and over again for myself. On the good psychedelics you are not just merely getting high, you are taking a serious drug with serious implications.

Serious psychedelics will force you to see the skeletons in your closet as they are. And it is not an easy thing, it is also not fun or recreational. In fact it can completely destroy you. I've been destroyed many times..... And now heres the kicker

Being destroyed as I have described it (ego death+underlying existential crisis) can be one of the most healing experiences known to man. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever been a part of. Because once your destroyed you realize whats important and whats not. Its not about the mistakes we make, the things we own, the jobs we work, our social status, who we are, whether life has meaning or not.... Its not about the things we distract ourselves with, hell its not even about my main passion in life, philosophy.

Those things don't matter!!! Lifes just a ride! Sure the twists and turns can keep you entertained, but they don't matter. What matters is hope, and love, the fact that the dawn will rise tomorrow and it will be a new day, the relationships we have people, the good times we share with those we love while we can, those are things that are forever, and whether you realize it or not, theyre hell of a lot more powerful then fear, hatred, or greed will ever be.

.....(summing up)

It took me several months of once or twice weekly 5 gram mushroom sessions to get past the underlying problems I had in my subconscious, but I had years of shit to deal with, serious shit too. I spent many, many hours bawling my eyes out on mushrooms, doing serious work to determine just how I really felt about life. And you know what? I'm more filled with joy, love, compassion, and openmindedness then I have ever been before, and none of these feelings are founded on falsehoods like the peace of mind somebody gets from believing in god. Its just the rational feelings one gets once they stop questioning what everybody else has to say, and question themselves. Its just the rational feelings you get when you finally stop focusing on the ugly or the beauty, but simply see the universe for what it is.

Its the rational feeling one gets when they finally stop demanding to know the meaning of life, and instead decide to live.

Anyways sorry for rambling!