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LSD egodeath, Feedback would be awesome!

C

Codystoke

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 24, 2012
Messages
63
Hello all,
about 6 months ago i experienced LSD for the first time, and loved it. I took 2 hits and had a very positive trip, so i waited a few weeks and i tripped again. i waited a month or two then tripped another time. This pattern continued for a few weeks and now here i am 6 months since my first trip and i've tripped a total of 10-15, maybe 20 times(typically taking 2 hits a trip, but have taken as many as 7(once)). I never experienced anything super negative until my most recent trip, which was two days ago. I am pretty sure i experienced ego death, and told myself during the trip i would stay away from drugs, especially LSD, and get some things in my life straightened out and focus on family, friends, and school. I realized if i continue down the path i'm on i will end up living a life full of regret. since that last trip i have felt a little off, and i truly do believe it is in my best interest, mental health wise, to stay away from LSD. Is it possible i caused permanent brain damage? Basically what i am wondering is, if i stay true to my gut instinct, and stay away from psychedelics, will i recover from this ego death? It really has made me reevaluate my life and decisions i have been making. I am 20 years young and would really appreciate some feedback. I am terrified of the thought of this feeling being permanent. That being said, i am aware my use would be considered by most very irresponsible, and i still believe LSD is a great Substance, if used with care.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about the "egodeath" stuff - there's no such thing. It only exists in the imagination of people who've read tattered copies of Tim Leary. And Tim Leary only made up the term in the first place because he thought it sounded better than saying "I was stoned off my tits". "Yes your honour, I had an ego death..and a buddhist satori..".

If you had an uncomfortable experience - what you need to do, like you would with any uncomfortable experience in your life, is keep busy, keep fit and occupy your time well. Time will take care of the rest.
 
Hey Cody I'd definitely lay off psychedelics for a very long while, especially drugs like LSD and ecstacy as they tend to flood your brain with seratonin. Seven hits at once I'm sure you can imagine could cause some serious damage, especially if like some people continue using frequent or high doses. It sounds like your brain chemistry is temporarily imbalanced, but if you give your brain a chance to recouperate, you'll probably bounce back. Take care not to overdue it, I've known of people to be stuck feeling in a state of permanent depression from too much too often. Why go there? Get plenty of vitamin C, rest, and walk in the sun a half hour every day. It will help you feel better. Take care.
 
a healthy diet and exercise always helps, I think using too much of any serotoninergic drug too often can make you feel the way you're feeling. It's not permanent.
 
Is it possible i caused permanent brain damage?
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less likely than winning a lottery.

Basically what i am wondering is, if i stay true to my gut instinct, and stay away from psychedelics, will i recover from this ego death?
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avoidance can be useful;
most therapeutic is to focus on healthy habits with body mind family and school

Traditionally teenage years and young adulthood are the times of huge existential angst, attempting to fit the world into some sensible model.
In the modern changing world, this angst is now common in all people (except the most stagnant)

Anyway, what I mean to say is that simply avoiding psychedelics is not likely to produce an excellent life, but your other priorities and values are excellent, and letting yourself be beyond drugs for a while can also be useful.
 
TJ5 said:
Seven hits at once I'm sure you can imagine could cause some serious damage, especially if like some people continue using frequent or high doses.
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I think OP is just a little messed up from a difficult experience rather actually having damaged anything in his brain. Seven hits can scare you really bad, but you probably won't damage yourself. LSD is safe, whether you can handle it is another question. He might have some emotional "damage" but he likely will be just fine.
I join in chorus though of advising him not to take LSD and lay off the weed for long time though.
 
I think when you stop using is when you start to experience some of the consequences. I am curious to learn more about what it is you are experiencing.
 
Don't worry, you don't have brain damage. It's pretty common to have an experience like you had.
Take a break and address some of those issues that came up during your trip. LSD didn't tell you to do those things about your life, you told yourself at a moment when you would be receptive to the message. In a way it does sound like ego death -- your ego is something you make up to protect the real you from getting hurt. Egos are kind of like sunglasses, they defend you from the world but at the same time obscure it.
 
What is brain damage.
Is a truamatic experience (PTSD) brain damage?
Brain damage is a malfunction caused by something harming the brain. You do not have to physically cause a lesion in the brain to experience pain. You can cause changes in the brain functioning that causes it cognitive impairment, and you have damaged it. Just take the electrolyte out of a battery and replace it with water. It won't work. You can correct it, and if you correct it early on then you haven't done any physical damage, but people who are unable to get out of bed due to a bad depression have nothing physically wrong with them either.
 
Even Shulgin noted that some experiences left his cognitive function distinctly "changed" despite this he was a brilliant man. Perhaps by change he was inferring to something like memory capacity may being reduced/altered in some way? Perhaps some other neurological functionality was impaired or altered to some extent??

Ego death as in feeling like you have addressed life issues or are more aware of them? Or ego death as in I have attained oneness bullshit. Or ego death as in I'm not aware of where I am/what I am/ were the boundaries between myself and the external world end merge because I'm tripping that hard, possibly OD'd more than just a little.
 
Codystoke said:
Hello all,
about 6 months ago i experienced LSD for the first time, and loved it. I took 2 hits and had a very positive trip, so i waited a few weeks and i tripped again. i waited a month or two then tripped another time. This pattern continued for a few weeks and now here i am 6 months since my first trip and i've tripped a total of 10-15, maybe 20 times(typically taking 2 hits a trip, but have taken as many as 7(once)). I never experienced anything super negative until my most recent trip, which was two days ago. I am pretty sure i experienced ego death, and told myself during the trip i would stay away from drugs, especially LSD, and get some things in my life straightened out and focus on family, friends, and school. I realized if i continue down the path i'm on i will end up living a life full of regret. since that last trip i have felt a little off, and i truly do believe it is in my best interest, mental health wise, to stay away from LSD. Is it possible i caused permanent brain damage? Basically what i am wondering is, if i stay true to my gut instinct, and stay away from psychedelics, will i recover from this ego death? It really has made me reevaluate my life and decisions i have been making. I am 20 years young and would really appreciate some feedback. I am terrified of the thought of this feeling being permanent. That being said, i am aware my use would be considered by most very irresponsible, and i still believe LSD is a great Substance, if used with care.
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You probably didn't experience "ego-death", just extreme ego-loss. Don't get too caught up on the term "ego-death". Your ego never truly fully dies. You don't have brain damage, it doesn't cause brain damage. You don't recover from ego-loss. You recover from your distortion of reality. That's the thing about psychedelics, they distort your reality. If you've done psychedelics enough the distortion seems minimal each time you trip going forward. If you don't feel you should do psychedelics again then don't do it. But judging by the fact you've done it 20 times, it seems like you really like it like me and you'll probably be back hehehe. Just after a long break. Your distortion of reality is permanent but I'm a guy who doesn't stress it. My perception has increased because of my worst LSD trip and I embrace it although maybe some wouldn't. Know the risks before you take the drug. Some might not want to perceive the world the way an acid-head does but I do...so yeah.

I feel everyone eventually gains awareness of the world the way an LSD user does though, psychedelics just leads you down the path a little, a lot faster. Hope this helps. Peace.
 
This actually sounds exactly like my experience with the drug. When I first tried LSD, I told myself it would only be a 1 or 2 time thing, but after the first experience with it, I convinced myself I would do it maybe once every month. Before I knew it, 6 months had passed and I had already been on over 10 trips. The last 2 were actually terrible, though.

The first, I experienced what I would consider ego death. Things from that trip seem very blurry due to the amount I took and I remember when I was coming back down, that all of the sudden I just had no idea who I was or what I was doing. I was sitting in this chair while my friends were playing youtube videos on my xbox, and every time I was addressed by my friends, I would literally just stare at them because I had no idea what to reply back. They started asking if I was okay and I would just quietly reply yes and continue sitting in silence with a blank mind. Over the next few days, I finally started to feel like myself again, but I definitely felt off for awhile.

The final trip I went on couldn't have been much worse. I took 3 hits and smoked a few bowls of weed and things just slowly went down hill from there. I could tell my mental state just felt totally wrong from how much LSD I had been doing and my senses started getting very fucked up. My eye sight went almost completely haywire. One eye was seeing things very elongated, while the other was seeing things very condensed. On top of that, the prioritizing of my hearing was also messed up. Instead of paying attention to the louder noises, all it would focus on were the background noises like the cars in the distance or the filter of a fish tank that was in the room (even when I would try to focus it on things like the TV). Near the end, I began hearing voices. I was so freaked out, I told myself I would never do drugs ever again.

These weird symptoms didn't totally subside until a couple days later (other than the voices, they went away completely after the trip). Even onto the next couple months though, I felt totally different, and not in a good way. I felt like a complete zombie. It was like my emotions had been severely toned down, and the things I ended up thinking about all day were very weird, trivial details about life that I ordinarily wouldn't even pay attention to. And I honestly believed I was going insane at one point. I would find myself just staring at walls with absolutely no thought in my mind or any kind of emotion, and the world around me would just start warping and stuff, almost like I was still high. It's been about 6 months since my last trip and my mental health almost feels completely back to normal, however, my mind still feels somewhat unstable like it did after my last trip if I ever smoke a very large amount of weed. But I immediately go back to normal after a couple hours and it doesn't really feel like my mind is in danger.

Still, I refuse to use any kind of psychedelics. It's kind of strange, but until you damage your mental health in such a way like I did, you really can't get a sense of how your mental health stands. Getting a second reference point makes it easier to really just feel whether or not you're ready to use psychedelics again, and in my case, I can tell it will be at least a few more years until I feel comfortable ever using LSD again. I believe I've gotten the experience out of it that I've wanted and unfortunately may have not used it responsibly enough, and from what it sounds like, you didn't either. Just lay off of the stuff and I promise things will start to feel normal again. There's definitely a point of no return, but there's no way you've reached that point, yet. It's just scary because it can be a slippery slope, but I'm sure you're fine.
 
really intense psychedelic experiences can be very profound, and will affect the way your brain thinks and works on an everyday level. you need to take some time to integrate the experiences that you have had. if you wait it out and really start to synthesize all of the things you went through and learned you have the opportunity to grow as a person, and if you wind up tripping again you will be able to go from there, instead of having the same issues and experiences happen again.
 
Some great points brought up in this thread regarding the term 'ego death'. It's just a term. There's something in it which describes part of the experience well, but as people said you don't need to get hung up on it because your ego isn't going anywhere you don't want it to. Cody, I think you know already that you're fundamentally fine, you just needed some outside reassurance to help you believe it. You're fine.

Maybe you feel a bit off, but you've done exactly the right thing, IMO, in abstaining from LSD And stimulants (and weed if you're inclined that way, as that can bring it all back in an instant if you're still on the mend). You've got a good head on your shoulders and it's serving you well. You're most definitely fine!


Yah mon nut to worry nah mean take a Likle break and treat your body right you'll be singin and dancin again (I don't speak in a Jamaican accent in real life)
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LOL, what happened mushroom?! I think he experienced 'ego-transferral'; a state in which one temporarily taps in to an alternate rasta aspect of thier psyche. I hear it isn't permanent, and is actually best treated by putting on a Marley record and singing along until satisfied.
 
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BenzosBudOrBooty said:
.I feel everyone eventually gains awareness of the world the way an LSD user does though, psychedelics just leads you down the path a little, a lot faster. Hope this helps. Peace.
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I used to think like that before. Having that same effect on both of us is quite remarkable. LSD changes how you perceive what you think you know.
 
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