Hello everyone, I am a 20 year old male, signed up here because I could use your expertise.
I am very fond of psychedelic drugs, specifically LSD. Over the past year and the half, I have had 20 trips in which I learned so much about myself, the world, cured my anxiety and OCD, and generally enhanced my perception and my mind to become the optimal person I want to be. I was also building up a framework about the ego dead state after 2 intense experiences with it, how sight is like, how sound is like, how thought is like...etc. Until I had developed an entire model of it. 2 weeks ago, I took half a blotter with a friend, and it turned out to be some bizarre chemical that is not LSD. I did not bother checking because all my previous times were pretty decent ones and I was simply confident of myself and my stuff. The effects of this bizarre chemical were complete ego death, no trace to the self whatsoever. I remember describing it to my friend as "As if everything is there except for us". What accompanied the ego dead state was definitely a loss of sense of agency, a loss of internal personality that is independent from the physical body, and the loss of abilities to think ahead or get outside of the moment into our insides, because there was no inside, there was nothing but everything around. It was generally an awesome trip, and the fact that I had a friend with me made it easier to let go.
But what happened is that all the framework I had been constructing using LSD for the past year all fell into place in that trip. I would say things like "There is no person inside, it is just an illusion", and unlike daily life, when I said it it turned out true. Same with all the perceptual aspects, I would say them and they would be true. I wouldn't have to bring them into life using my mind. I remember in the trip I completely merged into that reality of things, thinking to myself that this is what I have been after all this time, and this is the best chance for me to learn the most about the entire framework I have been constructing. How i merged is by letting go of all thoughts, all sense of self, and all extra explanations to what is going on and just accepted what was going on.
Later that night, my friend left, and I went home and started bad tripping. I started wanting myself back, feeling odd at not being able to remember the most basic things about myself, but at the same time completely in awe and acceptance of my new existence as this free being, free of all internal turmoil and free of the illusion of the ego. I continued to bad trip on extremely existential ideas and myself and thinking whether I want to stay like this forever or not. I eventually decided to sleep, and I did fall asleep after a while of internally fighting for my own existence back. I thought I'll wake up and everything will be fine.
I wake up the next day completely ego dead still, and start freaking out. The same ideas surface back and I find myself completely depersonalized/derealized for the next week. I came back home after a week of this torment and torture, having suicidal thoughts for the first time in my life, and decide that if anything is gonna get me out of this is what I have been learning for the past year. So i sat down and meditated for 3 hours until I started having thoughts that I could relate to and could find myself in. But that plunged me into another state of mind. I did recognize the thoughts I am having as mine, but I was still ego dead again. At this point I told myself "better ego dead than depersonalized". And I completely rid myself of the depersonalization thought patterns that were causing all that mess. That was last wednesday, and up until saturday I had to bear with this ego dead state of mind. It felt like my ego was diluted into the experiences I am having, and not an independent entity of its own. By Saturday, I started rejecting everything I learned for the past year, saying things like "If this is enlightenment I do not want it anymore", "I want to be a full fledged ego again, I cannot live my life like this". Saturday up till today, I have been experiencing a verbal ego in my head, but it seems like it is only verbal. I am still tormented by the fact that I cannot see things the way I used to before, I cannot see the beauty and magnificence I once used to see just by looking at a tree or by contemplating something that happened to me or remembering a memory of something. I still have all of my memories, I can still imagine things and remember the images, but I cannot conceptualize things like I used to before. It is as if I am stuck in a first person perspective all the time, with the inability to form an image of myself inside my head, an inability to perceive situations and happenings from a third person perspective, myself being an integral component of the image. I do not have an internal space in which I can summon ideas and people and visualizations. It even feels forceful and not spontaneous whenever I try, and I just get even more frustrated by the fact that I have to forcefully bring them into life and not have them automatically. I was someone who can visualize anything and everything, create an imaginary model of any idea and any situation, in the most eloquent and fascinating of ways. This was also the trait that made me major in mathematics and physics, since I could automatically visualize all that I am studying internally, and I would remember it using that internal model. I used to be a really intelligent human being, and I could honestly say this pursuit to enlightenment completely destroyed my being.
The fact that my psychology has been developing and changing rapidly over the past 2 weeks, from a suicidal depersonalized depressed person, to an ego dead outraged resentful person, to a deficient and dysfunctional verbal ego, comforts me because it seems like time is sorting things out, and my brain is just sorting itself from scratch. But I am deeply disturbed and agitated by the idea that I may never have my capabilities again, and that I may never regain my visual mastery and vast inner universe that I once had, with all the ambitions and dreams and wonders and movies and ideas. It just kills me that I may have really damaged myself for good, and that I may never be the person I once was, having to stay image dead for the rest of my life.
I am wondering if anybody went through something similar, and all thoughts and advices would be appreciated. What I am basically doing is resting and engaging myself in external activities so that I would no longer zoom back inwards and start panicking again. But the same actions of engaging externally are causing me to panic because I would not experience the same person in these activities as before. What do you think? Could all of this be just trauma? Could I have really achieved what I wanted to achieve and really destroyed my ego? Could I be still depersonalized? I also understand that I am certainly not ego dead given the times I use the words "I", "Myself", and the entire fact that I was able to write all of this down and seek help. But it isn't about this ego, it is about the affective ego, my sincere dear self inside that holds all my memories, personality, associations, dreams, and internal movies. I want to feel that person, not just verbal sounds inside my skull. I don't want this first person perspective anymore. All help is appreciated. Thank you.
Note: Do you think taking good lsd again would be a good idea for my situation. What if i regain all the visual aspects of my mind, and rewrite a really bad experience? What if I would familiarize myself again with the feelings of joy and happiness and serenity that I always had, and would bring me back the experience of myself? I know it could all go to shit again with my ego getting destroyed again, but what do you think?
I am very fond of psychedelic drugs, specifically LSD. Over the past year and the half, I have had 20 trips in which I learned so much about myself, the world, cured my anxiety and OCD, and generally enhanced my perception and my mind to become the optimal person I want to be. I was also building up a framework about the ego dead state after 2 intense experiences with it, how sight is like, how sound is like, how thought is like...etc. Until I had developed an entire model of it. 2 weeks ago, I took half a blotter with a friend, and it turned out to be some bizarre chemical that is not LSD. I did not bother checking because all my previous times were pretty decent ones and I was simply confident of myself and my stuff. The effects of this bizarre chemical were complete ego death, no trace to the self whatsoever. I remember describing it to my friend as "As if everything is there except for us". What accompanied the ego dead state was definitely a loss of sense of agency, a loss of internal personality that is independent from the physical body, and the loss of abilities to think ahead or get outside of the moment into our insides, because there was no inside, there was nothing but everything around. It was generally an awesome trip, and the fact that I had a friend with me made it easier to let go.
But what happened is that all the framework I had been constructing using LSD for the past year all fell into place in that trip. I would say things like "There is no person inside, it is just an illusion", and unlike daily life, when I said it it turned out true. Same with all the perceptual aspects, I would say them and they would be true. I wouldn't have to bring them into life using my mind. I remember in the trip I completely merged into that reality of things, thinking to myself that this is what I have been after all this time, and this is the best chance for me to learn the most about the entire framework I have been constructing. How i merged is by letting go of all thoughts, all sense of self, and all extra explanations to what is going on and just accepted what was going on.
Later that night, my friend left, and I went home and started bad tripping. I started wanting myself back, feeling odd at not being able to remember the most basic things about myself, but at the same time completely in awe and acceptance of my new existence as this free being, free of all internal turmoil and free of the illusion of the ego. I continued to bad trip on extremely existential ideas and myself and thinking whether I want to stay like this forever or not. I eventually decided to sleep, and I did fall asleep after a while of internally fighting for my own existence back. I thought I'll wake up and everything will be fine.
I wake up the next day completely ego dead still, and start freaking out. The same ideas surface back and I find myself completely depersonalized/derealized for the next week. I came back home after a week of this torment and torture, having suicidal thoughts for the first time in my life, and decide that if anything is gonna get me out of this is what I have been learning for the past year. So i sat down and meditated for 3 hours until I started having thoughts that I could relate to and could find myself in. But that plunged me into another state of mind. I did recognize the thoughts I am having as mine, but I was still ego dead again. At this point I told myself "better ego dead than depersonalized". And I completely rid myself of the depersonalization thought patterns that were causing all that mess. That was last wednesday, and up until saturday I had to bear with this ego dead state of mind. It felt like my ego was diluted into the experiences I am having, and not an independent entity of its own. By Saturday, I started rejecting everything I learned for the past year, saying things like "If this is enlightenment I do not want it anymore", "I want to be a full fledged ego again, I cannot live my life like this". Saturday up till today, I have been experiencing a verbal ego in my head, but it seems like it is only verbal. I am still tormented by the fact that I cannot see things the way I used to before, I cannot see the beauty and magnificence I once used to see just by looking at a tree or by contemplating something that happened to me or remembering a memory of something. I still have all of my memories, I can still imagine things and remember the images, but I cannot conceptualize things like I used to before. It is as if I am stuck in a first person perspective all the time, with the inability to form an image of myself inside my head, an inability to perceive situations and happenings from a third person perspective, myself being an integral component of the image. I do not have an internal space in which I can summon ideas and people and visualizations. It even feels forceful and not spontaneous whenever I try, and I just get even more frustrated by the fact that I have to forcefully bring them into life and not have them automatically. I was someone who can visualize anything and everything, create an imaginary model of any idea and any situation, in the most eloquent and fascinating of ways. This was also the trait that made me major in mathematics and physics, since I could automatically visualize all that I am studying internally, and I would remember it using that internal model. I used to be a really intelligent human being, and I could honestly say this pursuit to enlightenment completely destroyed my being.
The fact that my psychology has been developing and changing rapidly over the past 2 weeks, from a suicidal depersonalized depressed person, to an ego dead outraged resentful person, to a deficient and dysfunctional verbal ego, comforts me because it seems like time is sorting things out, and my brain is just sorting itself from scratch. But I am deeply disturbed and agitated by the idea that I may never have my capabilities again, and that I may never regain my visual mastery and vast inner universe that I once had, with all the ambitions and dreams and wonders and movies and ideas. It just kills me that I may have really damaged myself for good, and that I may never be the person I once was, having to stay image dead for the rest of my life.
I am wondering if anybody went through something similar, and all thoughts and advices would be appreciated. What I am basically doing is resting and engaging myself in external activities so that I would no longer zoom back inwards and start panicking again. But the same actions of engaging externally are causing me to panic because I would not experience the same person in these activities as before. What do you think? Could all of this be just trauma? Could I have really achieved what I wanted to achieve and really destroyed my ego? Could I be still depersonalized? I also understand that I am certainly not ego dead given the times I use the words "I", "Myself", and the entire fact that I was able to write all of this down and seek help. But it isn't about this ego, it is about the affective ego, my sincere dear self inside that holds all my memories, personality, associations, dreams, and internal movies. I want to feel that person, not just verbal sounds inside my skull. I don't want this first person perspective anymore. All help is appreciated. Thank you.
Note: Do you think taking good lsd again would be a good idea for my situation. What if i regain all the visual aspects of my mind, and rewrite a really bad experience? What if I would familiarize myself again with the feelings of joy and happiness and serenity that I always had, and would bring me back the experience of myself? I know it could all go to shit again with my ego getting destroyed again, but what do you think?
Last edited:
