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Questions about EGO DEATH

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0382774

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 11, 2015
Messages
30
Hi guys, i have three questions to ask.

1.) What is ego death?

2.) What do you experience in ego death?

3.) Do you think that someone who doses 230ug on LSD can achieve ego death?

And another thing, if anyone here who decides to comment has experienced ego death, may you please share your story if you don't mind?
 
0382774 said:
Hi guys, i have three questions to ask.

1.) What is ego death?

2.) What do you experience in ego death?

3.) Do you think that someone who doses 230ug on LSD can achieve ego death?

And another thing, if anyone here who decides to comment has experienced ego death, may you please share your story if you don't mind?
Click to expand...

Can't answer #3 because I've never tried LSD; but I can't tell you how I experience it on mushrooms..

I can always tell when it's coming because my whole observational field diminishes and then disappears. The person who is me can't see or hear (normally), The concept of taste, smell and touch slowly vanish and become a memory. I have a body, but don't know what it is. And then the body becomes a memory, which also fades. At this moment I am pure thought, but remember that I was once physical. That too, goes away and I am thought that always has been. And then I think about things for quite a while, sometimes reaching an epiphany and usually failing to bring it back to the real world. It is like switching off every aspect of my personality and becoming a processing unit.

And then you can start to switch things in reverse, generally, until I am back to 'normal'. Normal in this case, means still tripping, but I know I am me. In other words now repossessing self awareness.

eh, hope this helps.

Tom
 
I have some grasp of the concept of ego death, but I'd like to know if the experience is enjoyable, if you gain something from it and if it's something you want to experience again afterwards.
 
0382774 said:
1.) What is ego death?

2.) What do you experience in ego death?
Click to expand...


Psychedelic drugs alter the nature of perception by loosening the mind's association networks, ego death is generally understood as being the most extreme degree of mental loosening, ie the most intense powerful altered state, the most fucked up extreme drug trip.

At the extreme deep-end of the psychedelic altered state, the mind (ie the mental association network) completely dissolves and this is where ego death occurs.

the term 'ego death' specifically refers to the tendency to mentally self-terminate during an extreme trip, by thinking to oneself something along the lines of "im tripping so hard i can never be normal again, i've snapped, I've died, I don't exist etc.". Ego death means temporarily losing the feeling of personal reality during a trip.



0382774 said:
3.) Do you think that someone who doses 230ug on LSD can achieve ego death?
Click to expand...


230ug of LSD is a very high dose, a fairly high dose of any psychedelic can cause ego death.

But dosage is not the only important factor, the *setting* of a trip experience can intensify and focus the trip-effect to increase the chance of experiencing ego death. Per Mckenna, tripping alone on a high dose whilst meditating silently in a dark room is probably the optimal way to have a strong trip where ego death is likely to occur.

0382774 said:
And another thing, if anyone here who decides to comment has experienced ego death, may you please share your story if you don't mind?
Click to expand...

There are many articulate descriptions of people's ego death experiences in previous threads on bluelight, and elsewhere on the internet. Erowid has hundreds of trip reports that demonstrate what ego death is all about, for example the following: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=60646, http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=6409, and http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=43800
 
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HZTB said:
I have some grasp of the concept of ego death, but I'd like to know if the experience is enjoyable, if you gain something from it and if it's something you want to experience again afterwards.
Click to expand...

My first time with it, it was incredibly enjoyable, peaceful, and zen. I did not feel like I was dying, but like I had woken up into the oneness. I didn't forget my life, I just saw it as an infinitely small spack in the sea of my existence, which had become everything that exists.

The second time it happened, and the third, it was quite terrifying during the experience because I came to truly believe I was dying and that my death would reset the universe to its infancy. It was difficult to live through but I found the experiences incredibly beautiful and monumental in my life and I'm glad I had them. When I came back I knew I would want to experience it again someday, but not for a long time, and not something to be undertaken lightly.
 
ego death put simply changed my life... what it really is (in the simplest terms) is that the part of your brain that interprets things in the context of me and how I relate to the world gets shut down. Under normal circumstances this never happens as the brain and ego are really intertwined. its only through specific psychedelics that this can be achieved. My ego death experience was with Ketamine. I took a huge dose accidentally: roughly 3x what would put an experienced user into a K-hole and I was a novice user at the time. it happened so fast that I didn't even really have a time to be scared, rather it was just acceptance of the new existence that I inhabited. After when I finally came back to normal reality I was literally changed from that moment on. Now I have the ability to imagine and interpret everything from a perspective where ego is not a factor and this allows me to view the world completely differently, solve problems in unique ways, etc.
 
That's very interesting. Could you give an example of the type of problem or thinking you're talking about?
 
Ah, this old beauty. Already populated by the usual suspects....:)
 
I think therefore i am...

I don't think therefore i am...everything (and/or nothing)

Ego is separation (i am this, you are that) - ego death/loss is reuniting (we are one)
 
^ that summarizes it beautifully Vurtual.

It can happen to anyone, anytime and on any dose (including no dose), but the reality is you gotta get to know yourself well enough to face the fear of losing your ego. They call it death for a reason — even the death of an illusion can cause fear and confusion. When you realize the futility and hopelessness of fighting it loses its hold. What replaces it is always closer to the truth of who you are.
 
Ismene said:
That's still a tiny dose compared to the dose they use medically, even with little kids.
Click to expand...

oh I realize that... I know guys that do 100 mg lines and can function quite mormally due to tolerance issues.. nevertheless this was enough for me (at that time) to really do the trick.
 
HZTB said:
That's very interesting. Could you give an example of the type of problem or thinking you're talking about?
Click to expand...

it can literally be anything from complex science (I am an engineer) to relationship problems to just understanding human behavior... for me everything can be simplified down to component parts that can be solved individually and simply.. so for instance when I would deal with a large problem; how to write a huge block of code to accomplish a complex task, now my mind automatically breaks that down into the simplest components of code and I can easily concentrate on getting those done. With things like intrapersonal problems that people have I can really get in another persons mind easily and understand what is holding them back or bothering them and express that to them or others.

I have a very shamanistic or spiritual view on life now with the irony being that I was the guy that always kinda laughed at other people who were like that. I was always like "oh boy here we go with all that third eye crap.. this is what happens when you do too much drugs" and now of course I've become that guy... and the humor is not lost on me. The other inside joke I have with other people who have become this way (and it always seems to be through ego death) is we call it being "being in the club" when I am out socially interacting with people I can tell pretty quickly who is in the club or not.. I think it has something to do with the personality change.
 
Thank you for your input. This all sounds like valuable skills and insight.

I kinda know what you mean about your newfound spiritual view on life. I'm an atheist and a very rational person, and although I've always been interested in for instance the interconnectedness of all things (in a scientific way, ie "we are all made of star stuff"), after my first trip I came to appreciate this in a more intrinsic way. It also made me less of a cynic.
 
Ego death to me:

When you cant remember anything. Like if you were born 5 seconds ago. Its a little bit scary at first but if you let go it'll be all right.
 
^Its impermanent too, just like pretty much everything. :) You always return, but you can take something with you...
 
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