Spiritual - What is Ego/Ego Death?

[roserjoe]

Ok, I have tried researching this on the net but can never understand what they are blabbering on about. Could someone please explain to me, in a very simple form, what ego actually is, what it means for it to die, and what happens when it dies?

I made sure I did a search beforehand and got no results.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Good question, I'm sure many people have wondered about that.

[wellhelm]

Well ego, as I understand it, is you! Who you are. The idea of yourself. Your self-image.
But then I found this.

"Problem is, the ego can be observed. It can be looked at, thought about, and manipulated. If this is the case, who is it that is doing the looking, the manipulating? Whoever that is, it must be something other than the ego. Is that you?"
With out confusing myself. Ego-death must then be the death or stoppage of the idea of ones self. The death of the thought's and idea's that are you. Its a seperation from one's self. A rebirth of consciousness.
Maybe I'm right maybe I'm way off I don't know. I'm sure others will reply with good idea's on this matter.

[Jatelka]

SWIJ has always understood "Ego" to be "Self":

Sense of self, self belief, self acceptance, self censorship, self understanding.

For her, Ego-Death is becoming separated from all of those things and floating free. No longer tethered/shackled. Separate. Re-created as something divorced from all previous experience, pre-conceptions and indeed everything that made "her" the way she is.

For her, the "Ego-Death" she has experienced (through LSD and DMT, never anything else) has been intimately connected with a sense of belonging to the universe, and being a part of something infinite, without any sense of "self" as being individual. Individual has no meaning in that state.

Ego-death, as she has experienced it, is initally a terrifying/bleak state of existence, and overwhelmingly lonely. With practice, it becomes a state to be embraced and welcomed.

Once again, words fail.

[wellhelm]

I think it's also seperation from enviornment. While one maybe aware they are not aware of self. The classic sense of reality is lost as well. Its completely in the head. For me nothing external is involved. No vision though you may see things but not through your eyes. Same with the other senses. At this point anything can happen. Feeling infinity, such as I have as well, I must say that was completely spiritual. Really I do not believe there is a limit. This is where we use that extra brain percentage we don't normally use. All should expierence it at least once. It could change your perception on everything. It can humble, scare, enlighten.
Has anyone ever expirenced ego-death while in "this" world? Is that really ego-death? To not be self aware I do not think you could be here because this world is just as much a part of self as personality traits are.

[Nagognog2]

A state is isness - beyond personal identity. Terrifying to what's left of personality - at first as Jatelka points out.

"To describe the ineffable is impossible." - Aldous Huxley

[Alicia]

As one is completly disconnected from 1 self a sense of great freedom for some while a a great sense of panic for others.. a personnel choice. Swia loves this feeling and so does boyo still very difficult to put into words down to host to describe. find out for oneself. You are born Alone ,You will die Alone. in the ego sense .. seek and u shall find...

[roserjoe]

Wow, it sounds amazing. I understand it alot better now, thankyou. Is it something a first-timer should be trying to reach? Or should I wait until I have at least tried it once before I try and reach an ego death. I am reading the Timothy Leary Psychedelic Experience book which gives instructions on how to reach ego death, or how to handle the other things that happen.

[Nicaine]

The ego is the sense of "me" ... also the dichotomy of self/other, me/you. Flip sides of the same coin.

Ego death would be the disappearance of a separate sense of "I" or "me." Said by some to be that which cuts us off from the universe, makes us mortal and and encloses us in a shell of desires, fears, appetites, etc.

[MrG]

According to Wikipedia:

The id, ego, and super-ego are the divisions of the psyche according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's "structural theory". The id contains "primitive desires" (hunger, rage and sex), the super-ego contains internalized norms, morality and taboos, and the ego mediates between the two and may include or give rise to the sense of self and the well being of humans.

You could argue that the above states of consciousness are merely by-products of evolution and that they do not continue after death. I am finding it hard to disprove this.

E.g. Alzheimer's patients are often referred to as "no longer being who they were" but can still occasionally have moments of lucidity. So if they are no longer who they were, then where did they go? Heaven? Some other dimension. Wishful thinking.

A logical concept is that your brain in all its evolutionary glory is merely basically programmed to keep you alive as long as possible in order to procreate and thus ensure survival of your DNA.

In that it is incredibly complex in structure, we may actually be walking, living, breathing proof of "artificial intelligence" - Nature created us through design default, but we, as in our Ego and ID, are simply another layer of brain function who's purpose only serves the base DNA instinct of survival.

Stimulus/Response to the nth degree.

[TheFonz]

I believe this site has everything one would hope to know about Ego death as it relates to LSD...

http://www.egodeath.com/lsd.htm

-Happy Reading kids


*SWIM'll say this, it will make one aware of things they could never imagine about themselves. Where one goes from there is up to them.....

[Demonslayer]

Ego-death on shrooms and acid can be a very beautiful experience if you don't fight it. Many people are very attached to their egos and feel totally lost without them. When the ego dissapears you may initially feel somewhat lost. SWIM has several times been afraid that he might be dead since he isn't aware of his body and does not feel himself breathing or hear his heartbeat. But SWIM always merges with a collective consiousness and that way actually feels less alone than he otherwise does. Strange thoughts and feelings often invade SWIM's mind as if he is experiencing the world through the consiousness of someone else, or alternativly, everyone else.

SWIM has also experienced precognition, not through the veiwing of future events in an objectve way, but through the subjective veiw of a person or thing experiencing that future event.
SWIM had his first shroom induced premonition two days before the tsunami in Indonesia. SWIM saw himself grabbing an Indonesian Demon by the hair just off the coast of Sumatra (SWIM has always had a great intrest in geography) and flying at great speed just above sea-level along the coast of Thailand, Burma and up into the Bengal Gulf, passing beaches and temples, and into India were he turned into a lumninous fractal panther and dove feet first into the earth. The meaning of this vision was not clear to SWIM until he saw the news coverage of the event. I have never been so personally touched by a natural disaster as I was then, it really ruined the whole Christmas for me.
SWIM also had a later vision on shrooms of a person standing on the north shore of the island Timor in Indonesia. He heard a deep rumble from an earthquake and thought; "No God, not again". One week later there was a 6.6(Richter scale) earthquake 300 km north of Timor. Thankfully this undersea earthquake did little harm.
These visions always occur when SWIM is in his bed with the lights off and nothing distracts him like music or OEV's. The CEV's on high doses of shrooms and acid are always imensely detailed and complex and SWIM has several times visited his own subconsiousness to fight battles with parts of his personality he finds unaceptable, they are often represented as individuals as if SWIM had a spilt personality.

Ego-loss on salvia is another matter. It is extremely unpleasent and disturbing because you can't remember doing any drug and you don't get any connection with the collective consiousness. Maybe this is a deeper level of reality where you go to the core of existance? In any case, salvia scares the shit out of SWIM though the implications of the experience are philosophically mindblowing. Beware, here be the gnomes that make reality. The machine elves as McKenna calls them. They are hard at work trying to make a reality that is so convincing that we will believe in it, and they don't like visitors.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Interesting and beautifully written post. You capture it perfectly. Thanks for sharing

[FrankenChrist]

Well, you have to experience it. It happens when you are not afraid to let go and you're "out". Waaay out.

[PingoTango]

Can anybody give me a brief definition of the term ego death?

A profound loss of sense of self? A distinct yet ineffable feeling of returning to the void? Something else?

I ask on behalf of my typist, who got his hands on some pretty potent blotter recently at Boom festival (300 mics each apparently, he and some others took 3 each over the course of a couple of hours, taking one then the other two as the first was peaking)

He experienced such a state at the peak of this experience. He closed his eyes and at once he was no more - the highly personal web of memories, experience and opinion that over the years have come to define and shape him as an individual was temporarily shattered, and he quite literally became the music, the lights, and the storm of energy kicked up by everybody dancing together. He was everything and nothing, all at the same time.

He has always had a close relationship with LSD, but this was one of the most profound experiences of his life, and it has inspired him to begin seriously researching the philosophical and spiritual aspects to this wonderful drug.

Any opinions?

[Metomni]

I think it's a little different for everyone. For SWIM, he sees it as a sort of humbling split with not just this reality, but every reality. Within this life we have our beliefs, tendencies, morals, ingrained opinions, experiences, and just about everything else you can possibly think of. It's hard to explain, so SWIM will recount his experiences.

He has experienced what he believes to be ego death 3 times.

The first time was on a gram (A GRAM on his FIRST experience) of pure DXM powder. He sat in his bed and turned on Sigur Ros's album entitled "()" (which by the way, is one of the best tripping albums out there for those interested). He then began to meditate. Before he knew it he was on an invisible mine cart driving through a space, complete with stars and galaxies and comets and blackholes and everything else you can imagine. Though, it was not /this/ universe. Then, he went through several "tests" to get back to reality, but at the time he thought that he was in reality. He had lost all conscious thought regarding anything in the "real world".

He not only forgot he was on drugs, but he had no notions that this mine cart ride through space wasn't the only reality. Much like many people think the world we participate in is the only world or reality.

It gave him much to think about, as could be assumed, but surely not everyone would experience ego death in this same way.

Then, on his next experience...

He smoked 8x salvia and lost all connection to other humans. For weeks afterward, he felt like he was unlike everyone else, and was more similar to dogs, wolves, and even plants. He had at least temporarily split with his "human" ego. This is part of why he believes in reincarnation, it was with this experience that he realized he has more than one ego. Death of one ego, newly found different ego.

And on his last, and most recent experience...

He dosed on an eighth of mushrooms. The experience wasn't quite as enveloping as the other two, but the revelations were just as profound. Music started playing and the wonderful synaesthesia that accompanies mushrooms came in and made the music physical; he could smell it, touch it, sense it. He split with his human sensations and realized that there was more than simply the five senses that we've been taught we own. While you may be able to smell food, there is more to it than what you smell, or see, or taste. It has an essence that it shares with us. Everything does. This was the death of the ego that says "We are unique".

Certainly, we have unique characteristics, but everything is intertwined, everything is related, and everything should be respected because of this.

These are SWIM's experiences, sorry he couldn't be more "educational" about the actual meaning, but these are his interpretations of what it means to go through ego death.

[PingoTango]

Interesting experiences - my typist says that he can definitely relate to the more naturalistic, animalistic view of the world imparted by S. Divinorum (also, LSA has similar long-lasting effects, he says)

It's interesting that you mention having these experiences whilst under the influence of DXM (a drug my typist is as yet unfamiliar with) - I wonder, would these phenomena be similar, or even remotely comparable, if induced by different drugs, or are they substance related - ie, would it be possible to, for example, invoke DXM/Ketamine type ego loss (I assume the two would be similar) with LSD or Psilocybes, or does each drug add it's own twist to the experience? Is "ego death" even an objective phenomenon?

I suspect the latter to be untrue, but more research is definitely needed

[Songcycle67]

Ego death on DXM I believe is more comparable to catatonia or extreme dissociation. With LSD it's as your typist described, Pingo. Everything you see and are is seen as some form of oneness: some people see energy dancing, some people see a blinding white everything. It all depends mostly on set, I would assume. For SWIM, ego death is seeing himself as the whole. The border of skin between his muscles, nerves and blood becomes a border which joins him to the outer universe instead of separating him from it. He may not be able to physically see anything except a bright white light, but the revelations going on in his mind are showing him wave after wave of insight into the natural world, the natural order. It's only when you've separated your intellect from your ego that you can think about things like this in a fairly non-subjective way.

The most important realization SWIM has ever had in this mindstate, and i believe this pretty well sums up the experience, is: he saw himself as nothing more than one of the many holes through which the universe utilizes to "look in on itself." So essentially for SWIM it's a realization that he IS the universe, but at the same time he's only a tiny, tiny part of it.

Hard to explain, in short.

[wizey]

Originally Posted by Demonslayer

Ego-death on shrooms and acid can be a very beautiful experience if you don't fight it. Many people are very attached to their egos and feel totally lost without them. When the ego dissapears you may initially feel somewhat lost. SWIM has several times been afraid that he might be dead since he isn't aware of his body and does not feel himself breathing or hear his heartbeat. But SWIM always merges with a collective consiousness and that way actually feels less alone than he otherwise does. Strange thoughts and feelings often invade SWIM's mind as if he is experiencing the world through the consiousness of someone else, or alternativly, everyone else.

SWIM has also experienced precognition, not through the veiwing of future events in an objectve way, but through the subjective veiw of a person or thing experiencing that future event.
SWIM had his first shroom induced premonition two days before the tsunami in Indonesia. SWIM saw himself grabbing an Indonesian Demon by the hair just off the coast of Sumatra (SWIM has always had a great intrest in geography) and flying at great speed just above sea-level along the coast of Thailand, Burma and up into the Bengal Gulf, passing beaches and temples, and into India were he turned into a lumninous fractal panther and dove feet first into the earth. The meaning of this vision was not clear to SWIM until he saw the news coverage of the event. I have never been so personally touched by a natural disaster as I was then, it really ruined the whole Christmas for me.
SWIM also had a later vision on shrooms of a person standing on the north shore of the island Timor in Indonesia. He heard a deep rumble from an earthquake and thought; "No God, not again". One week later there was a 6.6(Richter scale) earthquake 300 km north of Timor. Thankfully this undersea earthquake did little harm.
These visions always occur when SWIM is in his bed with the lights off and nothing distracts him like music or OEV's. The CEV's on high doses of shrooms and acid are always imensely detailed and complex and SWIM has several times visited his own subconsiousness to fight battles with parts of his personality he finds unaceptable, they are often represented as individuals as if SWIM had a spilt personality.

Ego-loss on salvia is another matter. It is extremely unpleasent and disturbing because you can't remember doing any drug and you don't get any connection with the collective consiousness. Maybe this is a deeper level of reality where you go to the core of existance? In any case, salvia scares the shit out of SWIM though the implications of the experience are philosophically mindblowing. Beware, here be the gnomes that make reality. The machine elves as McKenna calls them. They are hard at work trying to make a reality that is so convincing that we will believe in it, and they don't like visitors.

jesus christ swim was thinking about ego loss while blazed and came to read this crazu salvia flashback...just reminded me of what ego loss is astually like and holy shit it sucks. i guess maybe it would be better if i could remember i actually did a drug but as im thinking about it high while high it definitely seems very scary. i guess the point of buddhist meditation is to make it mentally easier to make this tramnsition when and if the time comes naturally

[KBLSD]

sometimes swim starts to feel like he is dead especially on his last few acid trips this really started to happen after he ate a 10 strip and thought he had died now all his trips seem to take him back to that scary place.forgetting who you are can be a really scary,just remember its all in ur head, swim needs to get back to having really fun/good acid trips before he goes to see phish or that could be a real bad trip cuz there will be no escaping that noise

[Phungushead]

Your ego wants to protect you... it filters the truth to a level that we can handle, forming the reality that we know...

Upon ego-death, all these filters are stripped away, and you are enveloped by the truth... you lose touch of your body, and vision goes white...

They say that the manifestation of true enlightenment is pure white light... close your eyes and imagine a red rose, a blue ocean. a green leaf, or the multitude of colors in a psychedelic vision - you can see the colors, it's your inner light. The whole color spectrum gives off white light...so basically, you are perceiving nothing because you are perceiving everything.

Above post mentions that it is all in your head. SWIM's said it before, and will say it again - it is all in your head... we already know all their is to know, it is just a matter of realizing it...

Just don't fight it. And fly toward the sun...

Reputation Comments on this post:

Perfect explanation (such that the state can be explained!)

[Jatelka]

Can the flamingo reiterate, that, although it can frightening and bleak when first experienced, ego-death (for her, at least) is a state to be welcomed and embraced and utterly subsumed by. It doesn't happen often, but that is surely a good thing.

She honestly believes that she was never truly free until this happened. The feeling of liberation and joy is...

Who knows? All-encompassing? Overwhelming? Indescribable? All of these, certainly

As for noise? No. A feeling of utter peace, silence and timelessness. Just being. Suspended. But still connected

Funny, Phungus: The flamingo has never experienced the white light. It's always been glorious technicolour. A Paradox, maybe

[Phungushead]

Indeed... just to be enveloped in the glow of the white light and becoming one with all. There is no way to describe the experience as all words negate it...

Perhaps some variation of this is what happens when we die.

[Songcycle67]

It's very important to note here that there are many definitions of ego.

The word itself means "self." The part of you which creates your identity. Without it you would be a small twinkle on a very large twinkling blanket of singularity. An endless oneness (something that is very hard to imagine) inseperable from the universe around you.

Then there is the term ego which is used negatively, which sort of means "arrogant" or "snobbish"--egotistical. Thinking that one is the center of the universe.

The ego loss experienced on LSD, in SWIM's opinion, is meant to be experienced but not incorporated. That is to say that the goal of an "ego-loss" LSD experience is not to stay in that state perpetually after the drug wears off, but to sort of experience the truth that SWIY is one small twinkle on an infinite singular etc. for the duration of the trip. Many people get caught up in trying to "destroy the ego" and end up destroying themselves, because the ego is what gives you an identity. I once heard a good piece of advice: "man is not a tree." Which basically means that it is man's natural state to have desires and an ego and a self. But the point in losing the ego is to experience and understand that there is more beyond the self. That SWIY isn't the center of the universe. Learning to sympathize with your fellow human beings and other creations in the universe.

As to whether this would be good on a first trip? Depends on what SWIY is looking for. If they just want to have a good time and use caution then SWIM'd suggest not dosing too high and staying away from ego loss. SWIM thinks it's always good advice to dose low and get used to the drug before jumping into the deep end.

Hope that helps.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent balanced viewpoint on how to view the experience of Ego death, quite right.

[entheogensmurf]

Originally Posted by roserjoe

Ok, I have tried researching this on the net but can never understand what they are blabbering on about. Could someone please explain to me, in a very simple form, what ego actually is, what it means for it to die, and what happens when it dies?

I made sure I did a search beforehand and got no results.

The version that I use when throwing our prattle about ego diminishment /death goes something like this (This is the first time I've tried to actually explain this in written form):

The decrease or removal of the conscious and subconscious protective barriers that permit a person to deflect and/or suppress pondering and introspection that without the parsing, would bring either immense or at least some displeasure to the persons well-being and concepts of what they consider immoral.

So, in other words -- if you're a piece of shit, lets say an alcoholic who brings great discourse to "loved ones," the ego lets you be excessively self serving and indulgent while blocking out the repercussions that normally afflict a caring and compassionate person (towards at least people they care about).

Without the "ego," or reduction of the barrier, in this one variance of definition, the person experiences what a shit they know they are and from this they can taste the pain they cause OR gain at least some comprehension of the suffering they inflict by their actions.

Once this is experienced, there's a increased chance of seeking to end the inner conflict of knowing the harm they cause to themselves and others. This could even drive some people to tally up their naughty list and contacting people they have hurt and seeking forgiveness. Blah blah.

Hmm maybe a simpler version is to feel the guilt that you feel. Hopefully it's guilt you "deserve," and not some inane guilt trip gained from the indoctrination by something such as Catholism (born a sinner, always will be a sinner).

There may another word than ego, but I've been too lazy to locate it

[Frond]

Note: copious talking out of rear orifice follows. None of this is scientifically substantiated at all and is simply a summary of what Sir Tokesalot told me. Any reference to third parties and illegal activities is purely hypothetical.

Human brains work by template recognition. While growing up you build up a database of templates against which every new bit of information coming into the brain is compared. That database of templates becomes a concept-matrix through which you view your universe. A lens, if you will. The self is very closely tied and integrated into that concept matrix as well.

Psychedelics remove your ability to access this concept matrix, partially and temporarily. New bits of information coming into the brain have nothing against which to be compared, and simply stop making any sense. In desperation the brain seeks to make sense of its own internal feedback noise and will arrange everything into neat little patterns - visual, auditory, and tactile hallucinations, trains of thought and emotion devoid of conceptual content, and so on. Arranging into patterns and making sense out of them is what the processing machinery does, so it simply latches onto different bits of information when existing bits stop becoming available. Then, new thoughts and ideas will appear truly new, revolutionary, and remarkable, because instead of comparing them to existing templates and then filing them away you will instead re-make new templates since you can't access existing ones.

This is why you have the sense of wonder and discovery at new thoughts and ideas. This is why you feel that you've reverted to a childish state - since in effect you're temporarily removed the conceptual effects of growing up and are in fact forcing your mind to re-make its concept matrix all over again, as a child would normally do.

The loss of the self is simply a side-effect. The feelings of unity with the universe arise from not being able to make out the difference between the self and the rest of the universe. Indeed, the concept of self, being a part of the essential concept matrix, is temporarily not accessible. It has to be reassembled again, and is assembled from information that is available at the time - which can sometimes be just the brain's own internal feedback noise and nothing else.

This is why, whenever Sir Tokesalot went so far out as to leave himself behind, he was not only unable to make sense of the self (there really wasn't one to make sense of) but he wasn't able to make sense out of anything, period. Everything was wholly unusual and new. Then, complicated by the fact that the brain's own internal feedback noise was amplified and superimposed over the real world in neat little fractals, it wasn't surprising that he simply couldn't tell the difference between reality and his imagination. From one object or concept to the next. From himself and anything else around him. It was all the same, all new, unusual, wonderful, and terrifying. He was a newborn all over again.

He was the fractals.

This is also why with some entheogens like Salvia it is very common to become objects - the sense of self is first made inaccessible, then is reassembled from existing information, which can be as simple as an object in plain sight, or internal closed-eye-visual hallucinations.

Then, drugs will also induce schitzophrenia, and split the mind into several independently operating parts. The primary part will then perceive these split fragments as independent entities endowed with their own intelligence and sense of self - and you get alien contact, DMT elves, presence of God, and whatever other label you want to put onto the experience.

I don't think that expressing the ineffable is impossible. I think that communicating the experience of the ineffable to the uninitiated is impossible. That's why so very often I don't have a single bloody clue as to what Sir Tokesalot is talking about. But hopefully our drug laws will change, and someday I will know.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Interesting theory. Good to see you around again: Keep up the good work!
	good insight

[Raz]

How did Ego Death affect lives of SWIM's ?