The Big & Dandy Ego Death Thread

[ebola?]

Do you question the distinction between memory encoding and memory recall and that they are fairly distinct processes?

In this case, you're entirely correct, and physiological research supports you. I'd just change your strategy to drawing from what supports you rather than from what doesn't apply.

How could a person learn a complex task like chess without repeated engagement of explicit memory systems, even the anterograde amnesiac?

Accounts of patients like HM suggest that the answer is, "Very slowly and unsystematically". This suggests that explicit short term memories may directly influence encoding of implicit memories via circuits moving through the cerebellum and basal ganglia w/o running through the hippocampus (the latter being key for encoding explicit long-term memories).
...
It seems that people have resorted to quoting the dictionary. That marks pretty reliably when hope for good discussion has exited.

ebola

 

[swilow]

You're claiming you have no "ego" yet are still experiencing - doesn't to experience require an experiencer?

Why?

 

[Ismene]

How do you give anything a name? That's how. How did you not infer that from my last post? You're right, it is a damn simple question that makes me wonder why I bother with you.

I've never heard anything so stupid. Of course it matters how you attach a label to something - if you follow the wrong process then you end up with the wrong label.

If a native in the South American jungle sees a meteor flash through the sky and later attaches the label "Flying God" to it then by your reasoning that is as accurate as calling it a meteorite.

They are not my definitions

But they are the definitions the rest of mankind uses. Your unpleasant and sarcastic remark was meant to imply I was confusing the terms when clearly I'm not - I'm using the terms exactly as the rest of humanity understands them.

During ego death there is no experiencer, there is just experience.

In your earlier post you claimed memory was still working and and you can remember the experience. If your memory is remembering the experience then how can you not be experiencing it? What is your memory remembering?


Of course I'm in the minority. The vast majority of people haven't experienced this, or even given it one thought in their entire life. Does this mean I should submit to common ignorance and shut up? FUCK NO!

No-ones asking you to shut up. They are asking you to have a little basic humility and think that maybe, just maybe, you don't know everything.

I don't need others to tell me what I know myself.

I don't think I've ever heard a clearer definition of a closed mind.

 

[B9]

I've been following this thread with some disinterest - Ismene - would you say that during some psychedelic experiences that part of the mind commonly called the ego may have a lesser influence than it can do during non psychedelic states?

 

[Ismene]

Yeah definately - I've felt that one-ness with everything lots of times.

 

[B9]

thought so - so essentially the disagreement is about wording the definition of this state - insofar as i can see ?

 

[Pegasus]

^Appears that way to me...

IME, ego-loss is just when you can't deny realizations about yourself. Anything that is a misconception typically gets exposed as one, while only the truths that can withstand a battery of reason sink in as true. I've had experiences of this on marijuana back when I was first introduced to it, and thus I don't believe a very high level of intoxication is truly needed.

 

[Shakti]

I've never heard anything so stupid. Of course it matters how you attach a label to something - if you follow the wrong process then you end up with the wrong label.

If a native in the South American jungle sees a meteor flash through the sky and later attaches the label "Flying God" to it then by your reasoning that is as accurate as calling it a meteorite.

The label doesn't matter. The label in and of itself reveals nothing. It's only the meaning behind the label that matters and that's a constant inter-subjective negotiation. Again, you're confusing references for referents. In the context of the S. American jungle calling the meteorite a god is more accurate than calling it a meteorite. What the fuck is a meteorite to someone in the jungle? The label perfectly matches the context and the understanding of the community.

In your earlier post you claimed memory was still working and and you can remember the experience. If your memory is remembering the experience then how can you not be experiencing it? What is your memory remembering?

Read what I wrote again. I never said there is no experience. I said there is no experiencer. The experiencer has become the experience itself.

No-ones asking you to shut up. They are asking you to have a little basic humility and think that maybe, just maybe, you don't know everything.

Gee, I don't know everything. What a difficult admission. 8) I do however know The Everything. I'm quite familiar with that. On this topic, you'll get nowhere until you realize you know nothing about it. You're one to speak of humility. You denigrated transcendence by attempting to reduce it to 'a brainfart'. I have little patience for such arrogance and disrespect. I know it's been thoughtlessly brainwashed in your thick scientific materialistic skull behave in such a manner, but seriously have you no tact?

I don't think I've ever heard a clearer definition of a closed mind.

Do you need someone else to tell you what you see? Do you need someone else to tell you that you exist, that you are? This is what you're saying, that I need someone else to legitimize my own nature and my own existence.

I AM AND I DON'T NEED EXTERNAL VERIFICATION TO KNOW THIS!!!

Again, the hypocrisy is ridiculous. You flat out deny and denigrate a commonly reported experience because it doesn't fit with your narrow worldview. Yet, you would call me closed minded?

Oh, B9. Ego-death is not 'feeling' one with everything. Not even close. The differences here are more than semantic.

 

[B9]

Oh, B9. Ego-death is not 'feeling' one with everything.

Don't recall saying that it was - i asked a direct question of another poster - for reasons which are my own.

I have already stated my postion on ego death - that is that I prefer the term ego dissolution as the ego returns

I have my own - impossible to accurately word - feelings on ego dissolution & yes I do believe that what is going on here is a matter of semantics - amongst other things.

 

[Shakti]

I know you didn't say it was, but you did equate them implicitly.

To me ego dissolution describes a state right before ego-death. To translate into another vernacular, ego dissolution occurs in the high subtle states and the formless causal. While ego-death occurs in the non-dual pure light being state. Some of the states salvia has brought me to (i.e. being an ocean of waves of light) I think could very adequately be called ego dissolution. But, what I call ego-death (i.e. complete collapse of individuated self and total union with/as god) I dont think can be adequately termed ego dissolution. It is interesting though, every time i've experienced ego-death I did pass through a state I'd call ego-dissolution for the sake of this conversation. It's the gateway to what I'm describing. If you collapse all of the energy of the ego dissolution state into an singular infinitesimal point infinite pure energy will be released (opening of the crown chakra) and thus ego death.

If what's going is a matter of semantics and other things, I'm interested in the other things.

 

[B9]

I'm also interested in other things - I don't buy your differentiation between ego death & dissolution - I prefer my interpretation and as such we can surely agree that we understand each others nomemenclature without perpetually returning the same point ad infinitum.
To a degree it certainly is semantics & to a degree it's personal interpretatiion of the state as experienced - it's well known that people may observe the "same" event yet they describe that event with varying degrees of correlation. When they start squabbling over which truth is which it pays to remind them that truth is a relative observation. Wording of truth is also relative - I wager we've all experienced identical psychedelic states ( the majority of us anyway) the interpretation of those states is of course relative to the individual - their internal vocabulary, their world view, their internal pictorial world, internal geography all make a unique viewpoint - commonly there's consensus between people - only for it later to be discovered that one interpretation of the same word or phrase differs considerably from the others & vice versa.


Example - you say ego death - I concur - however actually I can't buy into the phrase ego death as the ego returns - it's simply easier for me to agree because the differentiation is simply relative nomemclature IMO.

 

[Shakti]

No doubt there is variation in interpretation and understand built after the fact. No doubt the interpretation is relative. Should we dismiss any attempt to build understanding based on superficial differences?

I'm not attached to the terms. The terms mean nothing. It's what they point to that matters. Let's build consensus. Otherwise we're just shouting in the dark.

All that being said, I'm not even near ready to dismiss the argument with ismene as a merely a product of semantical mismatch.

Why don't you buy my differentiation of dissolution and death?

What you're creating is dissociated relativism, when the point and promise of the perspective is unity.

 

[B9]

i haven't read 98% of the words in this thread - mainly because i've read them all before - I just watch the posts go up with ever incresing quotations & rebuffals sometimes descending into insults worthy of the playground which frankly can become tedious in the extreme.Sometimes something different is needed than a typical "logical" debating/arguing style.
I don't understand why it's so important to win others over to a way of wording something, especially when it seems to degenerate at some points into the antithesis of what ( & I am using your term here) ego death ought to teach one.


dissolution = complete disappearance of the ego into the "light" as you call it followed by precipitation

Death as above minus the precipitation - my logic says your interpretation of death means if you've experienced it then you oughtn't be posting - however we both know what you & I mean are one & then same called in a different tongue perhaps.

Ego dissolution can be experienced with no recall - and at other times with complete recall - and anything inbetween this is my experience.

I'm not even near ready to dismiss the argument with ismene as a merely a product of semantical mismatch.

What it is it you are trying to achieve then ?

 

[swilow]

i haven't read 98% of the words in this thread - mainly because i've read them all before - I just watch the posts go up with ever incresing quotations & rebuffals sometimes descending into insults worthy of the playground which frankly can become tedious in the extreme

:D We're all grown-up little shits

 

[B9]

^ That's very true - especially you swilow - absolutely not me ever!

 

[Shakti]

What it is it you are trying to achieve then ?

I don't care what terms people use to describe phenomena, as long as the meaning is effectively transmitted. Like with you and me, it seems the only disagreement is with terms. The content is very similar. I have no interest in debating the relative validity or usefulness of which terms we attach to the same content. That's missing the point.

Frankly, I find Ismene's posts insulting. He's acting unconsciously out of a modernist view that denies any reality beyond the material. I see such assaults on authentic experience and insight into the nature of Self and reality as antithetical to Truth and even Reason. As well as inhibiting the evolution and development of human consciousness. It's often ironically as dogmatic and self-righteous as that which they believe they are defending against. If you read more of the past posts, I expect you might feel similar. I expect that I will fight against materialists for most of my life, just as hard as they fight against the irrational religious they mistakenly lump me in with.

 

[B9]

OK that's alright with me - battle away with ismene - I'm completely ok with both points of view & suspect that your point & his point are possibly much more convergent than meets the eye


Anyway I shall bow out of this thread my ego is old & needs its rest


oh & I'm sorry for coming on like a pretentious twat in some of my posts - it's fucking infectious tho - that's aimed at everyone BTW just in case anyones gotta touch of paranoia

 

[swilow]

oh & I'm sorry for coming on like a pretentious twat in some of my posts - it's fucking infectious tho - that's aimed at everyone BTW just in case anyones gotta touch of paranoia

The fuck you just say about me, fool?

:D

This is defntely the most egoic thread on BL. Thing is, I'm the one who's right

 

[jackie jones]

Bump

 

[Dr Fool]

My ego dissolution report!

Many years ago I had bought ,legally in those days,2cb,very strong indica weed,Beefit mushroom honey,english and hawaiian mushrooms.
I had taken already a dose of 20/25 mgs of 2-cb.
My best friend took 2 of the 4 2-cb pills but had to puke so I took the remaining two pills consisting of 10/12,5 mgs.
That's a dose of 30/37,5 of 2-cb in total!
We went to a snackbar to eat a snack on which i poured the honey!absurd combination of taste btw.
I remember seeing an old lady looking at me with wundering eyes and looking back at myself in the mirror seeing very big glowing pupils and...
My friend went home because he felt sick so I went to an other friend of mine!
I was eating the mushrooms one after another while offering my friend some!
He refused because he had to work the day after!
I ate them all,being used to fresh ones that were bigger in size!
So I didn;t realize what I had done until I walked down the stairs and started to experience a hissing sensation in my ears and black dots in my vision field,not once but 3 or 4 times.I saw the walls bubbling in and out,persian carpet visuals,necks expanding ren and stimpy cartoon-alike!
I was laughing hysterically.
Later my state became more and more depressed thinking about all the people I let down I started crying!
This friend sitting next to me felt uncomfortable and put his arm around me in a comforting kind of way!I thought it was pretty gay and bursted into laughter!
I don't remember details that much but I remember that language was slipping out of my hands,including the "Me" consisting of language!
Inside I felt like a washing machine at full speed,seeing for example a painting but couldn't associate it with any particular word because many words passed by in a whirling chaos!I kept on struggling for a while trying to keep myself together but that was impossible so I gave up and surrendered!Bad trip exit!!!
There was a simple state of pure being left,of deep silence that reminded me of early childhood!
There is not much to remember only that I looked at the clock(analog Model)and knew the time without thinking about it just by looking at it!
at 2.00/3.00 at midnight I was still mildly tripping but was back in ego-awareness!So the trip lasted from 11.00 in the morning or so till past midnight!
This was my only real ego-death under the influence of substance(s).
I would experience gradually deepening almost Ego-death 6/12 months later
without the aid of drugs!But instead of letting totally go the little bit of "Me" left became scared as hell and resisted/contracted and stopped the process of the merging of so called inner and outer worldawareness!With the help of big amounts of liquor!Oblivion here I come was the theme of that period!
End of this story