Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: use LSD with caution on December 04, 2012, 04:25 am
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I recently had an experience in which I lost the illusion of controllership over my self. I watched myself go about my daily business "automatically", as if from the third person perspective. My very thoughts were not under my control. I immediately recognised that I as the creature don't have any freedom of the will, and whoever it is that witnesses everything has an existence that is independent of the creature. I saw this witness as an unchanging, timeless, spaceless, eternal, and immaterial subject in which all phenomena arise. This witness is not something perceived - as in a hallucination or in sensory experience - but is rather a state of being. It did not produce a sense of bliss, but a sense of hopelessness, entrapment, and cosmic annihilation. I attained this state with 400 ug of acid.
I am wondering if anyone here has experienced ego death and how do they explain it and deal with it. (Many people who experience depersonalisation seem to confuse this with ego death. Ego death involves a total loss of any sense of control, accompanied by a sense of unity and eternity.)
I find what I experienced to be very disturbing. I want to explain it away as a subjective illusion, but I can't, so I would be interested in the opinion of any one else who may have experienced this state of consciousness. I am particularly interested in its implications regarding the existence of God (which people would naturally tend to identify with the witness) and of free will.
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Isn't this basically existentialism, or an existential crisis? Or are you asking about something more?
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yup.. its the ID. the ego. and super ego...
i had the ego death. but i broke down hard. and started crying man.. i never cried. and this was like a good thing..
i had to embrace it. cuz i was wanting to smile and cry.. at the same time. man super .. re newing life changing..
u might even see yourself do things and be like is that me.. but thats a good thing..
children who learn morals need to lose thier egocentrisim
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I pretty much lost everything in mine - environment, self, and time. The last was the kicker, because the experience seemed to last for an eternity. I was pretty sure that "I" had dreamed my life, that there had only ever really been this blackness, and that's all there would ever be.
What you describe sounds like a state of dissociation - what I call "being in the room" (but outside of myself), a step removed from "being in the body" (but not of the body). Both sitting at some remove, aware of inhabiting the machinery instead of the machinery being an extension of self. I like it! I try to visit that state often. At the same time, I am wary of the "truth" of observations made in this way. Think of religious zealots and deluded persons (yeah, I'll treat those as two separate categories) - firmly convinced that to have experienced something means it is real, and understood. Well it just ain't so. I laugh at the idea that our brains and senses have adapted to some kind of *optimal* reality-perceiving state, and that a little tweaking couldn't bring things into sharper focus, but "sharper" implies knowing which perception more closely approximates reality. That's a hard call to make.
OTOH ;D I'm a determinist, so sure, maybe you're catching a glimpse of the true state of things. I mean, modern neurological research demonstrates quite clearly that the part of you that thinks you're in control is not the part of you doing the decision-making. "You" get notice of your decisions an instant later, and rationalize them. This sounds a lot like your realization. Who knows; maybe you perceived something usually filtered out. But if that's the true state of things then that's what it is, and it's taken you through sad times and happy times, hopeless times and optimistic times. Learning that the earth travelled around the sun threatened people's sense of importance. Learning (some of) the functions and import of the subconscious threatened their sense of self and self-control. Let it go. Even if everything is determined down to the last blade of grass on the wind, it's unpredictable, and that keeps things interesting.
How do I cope with what I experienced? I don't. Not all experience is truth. The pencil glimpsed behind a glass of water has not suddenly become warped. I used to like seeing what resulted from jamming game console cartridges in half-way. Well, when I became a man, I didn't put away childish things (I have a BETTER console now!), but I sure like to do the same thing with my brain.
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The ego is the part of our consciousness that helps us define and compare our perception of separateness. So we can move around, have a relative experience in this relative universe, and know ourselves within our experience of being an individuation of all consciousness. god if you will. Life if you prefer. We are only in the illusion of separateness from being All that is. That's the game :) We can be a part of the all, or see ourselves as the all, but we are here having a relative experience. Definition of ego and god and such words can vary. Our acid trips can be perceived differently based upon our environment, circumstances, personally and unique challenges and obstacles, upbringing........ etc... or intuition and gifts to our creation.
So "death of the ego" imo is when a human ceases to need the ego to function, sees constantly and at all times the collective unity and wholeness that all consciousness is and encompasses. Nothing is separate, all are one. This would be a truly enlightened state one of which very few humans in their lifetime attain a state of. There are a few spiritual teachers in the main stream that seem very close to this state, and fewer still that actually are. You will know when you see someone in this state if you are open and ready to recognize it.
Ego is a tool. It is not YOU. Your mind is a tool. It too is not YOU. You are the observer. You are the space of which pure potentiality comes from and manifests from....nowhere. That is consciousness. Pure awareness. Your mind allows you to think about all this and experience and explore every possible option you choose to use to define your self. Your ego works to help us define who we are in this
individuation. But we are not simply a set of characteristics, a personality, even a human. We are god selves... simply having an experience in relative space and we have all the things to compare ourselves to so we can create whatever we decide to.
If you connect with the space between the thoughts, find yourself merged and as pure observer, this should be a grand fulfilling experience. One that has you feeling higher and more connected that ever before. This I feel cannot happen the same on lsd. The amount of thoughts and energies you become open to are so vast and extreme that a deep and thought less state of peaceful being is likely difficult if not impossible to experience. There are many many tools for growth with so much merit. But I have a feeling that a true loss of ego would not come out of a direct psychedelic experience, but perhaps something similar or close is experienced. I believe meditation and a focus on stillness is a shorter path to total enlightenment. And most people who are completely enlightened in human form, generally become exactly opposite of the rest of society, having no needs, no attachments, no complaints, only total constant and immeasurably profound existence, awareness, joy, and love for all things, each moment, and each breath.
But that's just my opinion :)
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I think everyone first's ego death is their greatest rebirth, and most people spend it crying like you. I cried for almost a week man, would crawl up in the foetel position. Dont worry, i swear things will get better. Start to think about it, and slowly you will realize things that you want to implement in your life, and when you begin to do that you will start on the path to greater understanding and true nirvana. You are not your ego. But you still need an ego. You must learn to use him like your shadow, but always remember he is not you and you are his master
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GENIUSES 8)
thanks yall.. +1 for everyone
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ego death is one of my favorite aspects of psychedelics. occurs most easily on tryptamines (like mushrooms and dmt) even at low doses. i enjoy it because it allows me to view things more objectively. i always find the experience comforting and rejuvenating, like i'm being reborn.
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If we could somehow ninja-dose every politician, military leader and corporate CEO... then we'd be on to something with this whole civilization business.
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Good readings.
However, I have issue with this whole "Ego death". Can't really explain it atm, but to me it sounds as though people try so hard to "fight their ego". I mean, you are your ego. Your wants, your desires, etc. In order to succeed at your life goals and embark on the path of "self-actualizing", you need to be in touch with your "inner-self". Perhaps I have this whole thing wrong.
I have heard countless people say "You are not your mind", which is clearly false. Our realities are a construct created by our brains... minds, whatever you wish to call it.
Too many focus too hard on losing something, as if it is a stranger. Rather, they ought to learn to work with it. Like anything in nature, and clearly we are nature, live with a balance.
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When Ego death is experienced you don't have a perception of self. It is as if you merge into eternity, the boundaries that separate you from everything else break apart and the self becomes the everything. Many people literally feel as if they are dying and it can indeed cause intense fear and panic especially if you fight it. If you just let it happen it causes the most intense euphoria imaginable, not like a dopamine rush euphoria but the euphoria that comes from knowing you cannot possibly have any problems or fears because there is literally no you to be having them. I read this poem in username poems thread and I think it is a perfect description of ego death:
Once released,
I rose up and decayed into little pieces
then everything blew away
leaving infinite peace
revealing everywhere through space and time
unveiling the concealing by my human mind of what's whole
many bodies and kinds yet one soul
in my vision our division had appeared clearly separated
when it faded away, it alleviated my fear and pain
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ego death is one of my favorite aspects of psychedelics. occurs most easily on tryptamines (like mushrooms and dmt) even at low doses. i enjoy it because it allows me to view things more objectively. i always find the experience comforting and rejuvenating, like i'm being reborn.
If your self died who viewed anything objectively?
Please, someone explain how their ego died. There's ego at every level, a different perspective isn't ego-death it's translation.
the ego is not the self, more like a mask worn to protect and preserve the self. ego death simply reveals the illusory aspect of the ego. this doesn't mean that you don't exist--though, you might be unaware of your own existence at the time.
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:P Yeah... some of this sounds more like, just wanting to feel more... Wait, correction! When people claim they are "Not who they truly are", they are making claim that their so-called ego is not good enough. As if it is something to be ashamed of. Anyone agree?
Some even lay claim that meditation gives you glimpses of your real, nonphysical self, that is unbound by the thinking process. This belief is hypocritical, because if what you use to think, your mind/brain, cannot comprehend your real nature, then as long as you have a mind/brain (you use your mind/brain to meditate by the way) — you cannot comprehend your real nature. The whole idea is , no offense, silly. The whole idea alienates you from yourself. If you cannot accept and own your thoughts as being a part of you, then there is no ground to define what makes the “inside” you different from other people.
We are not so insignificant. While at the same time, we are. This whole thing , to me , screams "I am important!" Why be this way? Why not just say/know "I am".
You are an individual by virtue of being the human animal.
Wise-man, indeed. We need to rejoice, and not run.
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ego death is one of my favorite aspects of psychedelics. occurs most easily on tryptamines (like mushrooms and dmt) even at low doses. i enjoy it because it allows me to view things more objectively. i always find the experience comforting and rejuvenating, like i'm being reborn.
If your self died who viewed anything objectively?
Please, someone explain how their ego died. There's ego at every level (consciousness can hypothetically emerge from sufficiently complex structures in any dimension), a different perspective isn't ego-death it's translation.
Ego and body are not the same thing. You can have a functioning living brain and body and have your ego temporarily die. It is probably more of an emotion / feeling than anything. People who experience it for the first time sometimes panic thinking that they are actually dying because they so strongly associate their ego with their physical body / brain. When I had ego death everything including my body separated apart into grains of sand that expanded outwards from their initial solid state until there was nothing. There was nothing left for me to see, only infinite white everywhere. I felt as if I became one with the universe, time and space became meaningless, you and I became meaningless, all was I and therefor nothing was I as I had known myself, there was no more self to know there was only eternity and all within it and even it were only one thing. It is like a drop of rain that is distinctly formed as it falls from the sky and into the ocean, ego death is when your self the raindrop enters into the ocean, it still exists but it loses all form and merges into something much bigger than itself, the only reason this is not a perfect analogy is because with ego death you realize that there is NOTHING except the ocean and you stop thinking of yourself as a droplet of rain but rather as the ocean, and all the other droplets of rain are also not droplets of water they are all the ocean as well there is nothing else.
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When Ego death is experienced you don't have a perception of self. It is as if you merge into eternity, the boundaries that separate you from everything else break apart and the self becomes the everything. Many people literally feel as if they are dying and it can indeed cause intense fear and panic especially if you fight it. If you just let it happen it causes the most intense euphoria imaginable, not like a dopamine rush euphoria but the euphoria that comes from knowing you cannot possibly have any problems or fears because there is literally no you to be having them. I read this poem in username poems thread and I think it is a perfect description of ego death:
Exactly. It seems that a lot of people who think they've experienced ego death actually experienced ego loss, depersonalisation, or dissociation. The description of ego death certainly sounds very similar to these other states of consciousness, but true ego death is profoundly different and cannot be described. I've experienced these other states with the use of other psychedelic drugs, and assumed that I was experiencing 'ego death'. It's only with LSD that I now understand what ego death is really about. When one has genuinely experienced ego death, it seems to be compatible only with the following interpretations:
1.) Solipsism. It was you all along. You are God, and everything and everyone you know is just an illusion created inside your own mind. The mind rebels against this possibility for emotional reasons. At times I entertained this possibility, but I found it so terrifying that I had to reject it. Of course, I can't refute it, but I can't live my life if it is true.
2.) Pantheism. We are all God (or the One, if you want to use a term without supernatural overtones). My whole life is an exercise of getting my divine Self deliberately lost in its creation to the point that I forget who I am, and believe myself to be just an individual creature. Other people are in the same situation and exist only as masks of the One self. There is no freedom of the will.
3.) Anti-theism. There is a God, but we should reject him in order to live our lives. We have to have the illusion of free will. We have to have the illusion that we are separate creatures. We should pretend that there is no God and just live in the illusion that God has created for us. This is where I think Nietzsche was coming from.
Someone might say that another possibility is that ego death is just an illusion, but I don't think anyone who has experienced true ego death can entertain this as even a remote possibility.
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Sometimes it is hard to know if acid creates an illusion that distorts reality or if it inhibits mental filters that distort reality and shows you a more true reality that appears as a distortion as you are coming from a distorted perception of reality that you have accepted as real. I think it does both of these things actually, in some ways it clearly distorts reality and in some ways it clearly removes the distortion caused by the filters the sober mind perceives reality through. I don't know where Ego death falls. Logically I have strong doubts that the perception of eternal continuity associated with Ego death is a more clear perception of objective reality than the sober perception of discrete existence, although it sure would be beautiful and awesome. I also logically strongly doubt the existence of God and Heaven, although it sure would be awesome if we get to go to Eternal paradise after we die (well probably will not be allowed in due to my strong logical doubts, but oh well, I will just take acid).
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we are NOT HUMAN BEINGS having a spiritual experience
we are SPIRITUAL BEINGS having a HUMAN experience
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Ego 'Death' is a tripper's over-dramatisation. :P
What it is is the 'turning the volume down' on the Ego and Super-Ego, and a 'turning up' of the Id and Subconscious. As mentioned in earlier posts, when tripping the Ego is still present, it's just that the part of the experiential 'iceberg' that's under the water (sub-conscious) is more available to us.
It's just like going on holiday. ;D
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Sometimes it is hard to know if acid creates an illusion that distorts reality or if it inhibits mental filters that distort reality and shows you a more true reality that appears as a distortion as you are coming from a distorted perception of reality that you have accepted as real. I think it does both of these things actually, in some ways it clearly distorts reality and in some ways it clearly removes the distortion caused by the filters the sober mind perceives reality through. I don't know where Ego death falls. Logically I have strong doubts that the perception of eternal continuity associated with Ego death is a more clear perception of objective reality than the sober perception of discrete existence, although it sure would be beautiful and awesome. I also logically strongly doubt the existence of God and Heaven, although it sure would be awesome if we get to go to Eternal paradise after we die (well probably will not be allowed in due to my strong logical doubts, but oh well, I will just take acid).
It has nothing to do with heaven or "God" if that word is used in a mythic or supernatural sense. It may be called "God" without any abuse of language, however, since it possesses the property of creating all phenomena, although it also possesses the paradoxical property of being totally inactive. It's personal, in the sense that it is you, but it is also totally impersonal. It's a complete nothingness, but it is also the fullness of reality. I think we just have to accept the fact that the ultimate nature of reality isn't logical, but is profoundly paradoxical in nature. The logical mind rebels against this notion, but we need not dispense with logic. "X is paradoxical or nonlogical" is not itself an illogical proposition. It can be accepted. We don't have to reject reason to acknowledge the possibility of that which transcends reason.
Nor do I think it's wishful thinking on my part. I find myself in the perhaps unusual position of not wanting it to be true. This is why LSD should be taken only with the greatest of caution. It's not dangerous to you in a physical or even a psychological sense. It's metaphysically and existentially dangerous.
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Some folks here are using "ego" in the Freudian/Jungian psychoanalytic sense, as the conscious mind which we typically tend to think of as ourselves, and contrasted with the superego and id. Some are using it more broadly to describe self-identity, which may contain all of these parts, conscious and unconscious.
"Ego death" as the term is typically used is not a breakdown of the psychoanalytic ego. It's the total loss of boundary between what you would consider to be "you" and "not you". Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" is not best translated as "I think therefore I am". Rather, "something thinking exists". When you get to the point where that is ALL you know, not just intellectually but emotionally, spiritually, even perceptually, you're experiencing ego death.
When one has genuinely experienced ego death, it seems to be compatible only with the following interpretations:
1.) Solipsism. It was you all along. You are God, and everything and everyone you know is just an illusion created inside your own mind. The mind rebels against this possibility for emotional reasons. At times I entertained this possibility, but I found it so terrifying that I had to reject it. Of course, I can't refute it, but I can't live my life if it is true.
2.) Pantheism. We are all God (or the One, if you want to use a term without supernatural overtones). My whole life is an exercise of getting my divine Self deliberately lost in its creation to the point that I forget who I am, and believe myself to be just an individual creature. Other people are in the same situation and exist only as masks of the One self. There is no freedom of the will.
3.) Anti-theism. There is a God, but we should reject him in order to live our lives. We have to have the illusion of free will. We have to have the illusion that we are separate creatures. We should pretend that there is no God and just live in the illusion that God has created for us. This is where I think Nietzsche was coming from.
Someone might say that another possibility is that ego death is just an illusion, but I don't think anyone who has experienced true ego death can entertain this as even a remote possibility.
I agree wholeheartedly with the above, except the last part. My experience would be compatible with 1) or 2) (but not 3). However, as I have said, I *do not* believe that experience = truth. Even a "commonsense" conception of humanity is that of a brain in a sealed off box, with wires going to various instruments (eyes, ears, tongue, skin), with never a chance to directly perceive the world, all mediated, all subject to illusion, hallucination, delusion. The zealot hears a voice without source and says "There must be a God"; the mystic sees a ghost and says "There must be life after death". I am not so sure. Was the experience profoundly unsettling? Absolutely. Was it profound? Possibly. Did it reveal the true nature of existence? I have no idea.
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If you were doing math, typtap, you'd have just committed a unit error. Let's try an analogy. Imagine you have a bathtub with a divider down the middle. On one side of the divider is milk; the other orange juice. When I remove the divider, the two mix. Yes, the territory of the milk has "expanded". But it would be no less true to say there is only one beverage in the tub now. That is not any kind of "contraction" but a definitional one.
When you reach the point where the boundary you used to have between you and your environment is gone, there may indeed be only one thing - whether you associate what is left more with you (I am God; everything is me) or the environment (I have melted away; there is no me) are just different approaches to the same perceptual experience.
Descartes was out to find the foundation of human knowledge and see what if anything from commonsense reality could be rebuilt from there. "I think" and "I exist" already implies too much. But there is a world of difference between forcing yourself to intellectually discard all facts you cannot prove, and perceptually watching all unprovable things melt away.
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Well that's a bit more helpful. If you want me to know what you're on about, you're going to have to do better than two single-word parentheticals.
I do think the central idea of ego death is that composite of "me"/universe. I accept your use of "contraction" as "knowing fewer things" - yesterday (though I might not believe there was a yesterday), I thought there was a sun, an earth, a continent, a corner shop and grocer, goods and currency. Now there is only this composite. But that is fully compatible with Descartes' certainly that he could only "know" one thing for sure. Are you attempting to delineate the difference between claims that a) something thinking exists, and b) *only* something thinking exists? That's not a proper account of Descartes. It would be, had he not eradicated the distinction between himself and his environment. But he didn't stop at "well there's me, and then there's a bunch of things that may be real or not, I cannot say". That's the point of being more technically correct about the cogito quote. The most accurate distinction I can make between Descartes' conclusion and mine might be one of certainty, in that D was technically being agnostic about the existence of his corner grocer while I would seem to be taking a position of certainty with regard to the "composite", but I chalk that entirely up to one being an intellectual exercise and the other being a perceptual experience.
As for using the term "death", I think it's obvious that this is meant to indicate its apparent *totality* rather than its permanence. I've heard people who have been brought back by EMS refer to their "death" without it even being an event they ever had the opportunity to consider except while alive.
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my point is primarily that accepting the sun, earth, etc as "not real" is not the same as considering them to not exist. We may be experiencing a difference in how we describe the same experience.
I don't think the ego death experience necessarily stakes a claim on either the existence (but oneness) or nonexistence (and illusion/imagination) of the experienced world, though the person experiencing it may have a stronger sense of one or the other, which I think gets back to the three possibilities uLwc outlined. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that I had concluded it was all an illusion *or* that it was all "real" but somehow made of the same stuff. I'm not sure that's even a sensible distinction at that level, because when I'm talking about "me" I'm not talking about fingernails and hair and eyes, but the thinking thing. That I'd "imagined" everything is more a claim about those lost, discrete beliefs than the nature of the stuff.
I still think ego-death a misuse of the word death and that translation or transformation are more accurate in cases where consolidation is not. Just because the self at the other end isn't recognizable as like ours doesn't make it not a self, and just because you forget that you're a self doesn't make you not a self. I often forget that I'm a self when I'm caught up in a moment of shared experiential euphoria with friends and/or strangers. Doesn't mean I ceased to be a self.
Forgetting something and experiencing that thing's dissolution are utterly different. When you're with friends, do you ever cease to be able to tell where you end and they begin? (it's possible; there is a disorder of this nature) I would agree that consolidation, translation, and transformation are all technically accurate in terms of what the person experiencing the phenomenon is left with. What it fails to emphasize is the *loss* of the original identity or concept. That is what is being mourned. That is what died. I think some people find it more traumatic than they would being hit by a truck and continuing to exist as a separate spirit. Loss of identity is a primal fear. It is completely sensible to talk of the "death" of the self, even as there is realization that there is *something* still remaining and that it includes parts formerly recognized as "you".
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Very interesting read.
99% of data is filtered out before it reaches consciousness (normally). Acid likely makes much of the data appear novel enough to bypass the filter when it normally wouldn't. This gives a more open view of reality, but not the one we interact with around us unless it's a small dose. It's more basic a perspective than that, especially when you take more.
I would like a source for this. Seems like an interesting topic to research.
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I was on the Internet once, and the next time I looked up, THREE HOURS HAD PASSED.
??? ;)
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Very interesting read.
99% of data is filtered out before it reaches consciousness (normally). Acid likely makes much of the data appear novel enough to bypass the filter when it normally wouldn't. This gives a more open view of reality, but not the one we interact with around us unless it's a small dose. It's more basic a perspective than that, especially when you take more.
I would like a source for this. Seems like an interesting topic to research.
Aldous Huxley expressed a similar idea in The Doors of Perception.
'... the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. ... The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful. According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things. That which, in the language of religion, is called "this world" is the universe of reduced awareness, expressed, and, as it were, petrified by language. The various "other worlds," with which human beings erratically make contact are so many elements in the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large. Most people, most of the time, know only what comes through the reducing valve and is consecrated as genuinely real by the local language. Certain persons, however, seem to be born with a kind of by-pass that circumvents the reducing valve. In others temporary by-passes may be acquired either spontaneously, or as the result of deliberate "spiritual exercises," or through hypnosis, or by means of drugs. Through these permanent or temporary by-passes there flows, not indeed the perception "of everything that is happening everywhere in the universe" (for the by-pass does not abolish the reducing valve, which still excludes the total content of Mind at Large), but something more than, and above ah something different from, the carefully selected utilitarian material which our narrowed, individual minds regard as a complete, or at least sufficient, picture of reality. '
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It has nothing to do with heaven or "God" if that word is used in a mythic or supernatural sense.
I would compare the experience to a feeling of merging into 'God'. It is the transcending of space and time, as all is one there is omnipresence for everything must be simultaneously everywhere if there is only one infinite unchanging thing. It is the destruction of the self yet even without the self there is perception, it is similar to the notion that when our selves die they have merely transitioned by merging into one eternal entity that is not restricted by space or time. When the raindrop enters the ocean its individual identity is destroyed yet the destruction is more of a merging into something else, something that consists of countless drops of rain that used to all be individual but now no longer exist outside of the whole of the ocean. I imagine that if heaven was a real state of being it would be similar to ego death, except you would never come back into the form of a raindrop. If this was the case, or if after the death of our physical bodies and minds we merged into something reminiscent of ego death, rather than disappearing into oblivion, it would be beautiful and awesome. I guess the question is, are we like flames on a candle, which are blown out and disappear eternally, or are we like droplets of rain falling into the ocean, disappearing as individual droplets but merging into the ocean. Logically I believe we are more like the flames on a candle, when I take LSD I feel like we are droplets of rain.
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I still think ego-death a misuse of the word death and that translation or transformation are more accurate in cases where consolidation is not. Just because the self at the other end isn't recognizable as like ours doesn't make it not a self, and just because you forget that you're a self doesn't make you not a self. I often forget that I'm a self when I'm caught up in a moment of shared experiential euphoria with friends and/or strangers. Doesn't mean I ceased to be a self.
The word 'death' is a metaphor for transcendence. It could just as easily be called ego transcendence. In ego death, the ego is no longer the whole, but is reduced to a part of a larger whole, the bodymind (which in higher levels of conscious is itself reduced to a part of a higher stage of unity, namely that of cosmic consciousness). It is not unusual for the autonomous ego, which hitherto saw itself as the highest stage of unity, to believe that it is literally dying. Each level of transcendence may be experienced as a kind of death.
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I nearly experienced ego death on 2C-I and did not like it that much. It basically felt like I was becoming aware of my own thoughts and my sense of "I" was kind of fading in and out. The more I tried to focus on something, the more it felt like my core attention span was fading off into nothingness. It could be that I was experiencing a brain zap or something, as I was starving and dehydrated at the time, as well as taking Tramadol. This happened when the trip was already wearing off. One minute I felt almost normal, and the next minute I was fading away. It was freakin odd to say the least, and I felt like shit for like 2 months after likely due to anxiety and severe Tramadol withdrawal (I stopped taking that crap after the trip). A couple days after this happened, I was able to drift off into "everythingness" simply by closing my eyes and stopping all thought. It was cool, but also very disconcerting and existentially frightening at the same time. Needless to say I haven't tried going back there. LOL
Since I was little, I always felt a strong connection to that greater "everything" of perfectly organized chaos -- the intangible backdrop on which the empirical universe(s) of matter "float". There was a part of me that knew "it" was behind everything we perceive, but did not want to accept it because it would nullify life as we know it here. Although verifying (albeit through subjective experience which means nothing to anyone but myself) that this "God" force is out there was a long-desired accomplishment, life feels kind of dull now. Turns out I liked the whole mystery of not knowing. For me, ego death is something that should be experienced once. After you get that "Ohhhh" moment, you need to forget about it as much as possible and move on. You need an ego in order to survive life, otherwise you'll be a disconnected mess that's constantly thinking about how fake everything seems. I think part of the problem is that one needs a good, strong ego to return to after ego death. If you're insecure, anxious, and constantly doubting yourself, it will be very difficult to rebuild the ego afterwards. However, once you do come back fully (and it takes a while), you'll find that the new ego is stronger than before as it was forced to deal with all the shit you were repressing!
I'd also like to mention a *potential* scientific explanation for this experience: hyper-reflexivity. It is this process of exaggerated self-consciousness that some believe gives rise to the alienation of self in schizophrenia. Don't be alarmed; none of this means we're destined for insanity. Not only are these just theories, but actual diagnosed schizophrenia involves a profound loss of reality that most sufferers aren't even aware of. If you aren't vividly seeing or hearing things that others don't, or experiencing your own thoughts as those of an alien or government experiment, odds are you are perfectly sane in the sense that you are not psychotic. It's more likely that psychedelics trigger this same process in "normal" individuals, and that once you experience it, your brain keeps trying to relive the moment because it has no clue what the fuck happened and wants to work out a solution to the impossible. This leads to extended periods of depersonalization/derealization which will eventually go away once the event fades from memory enough. The more obsessive you are, the longer it will take. Once you realize that the whole ego death thing is completely incomprehensible to living beings, reality will come back to you. As long as you are experiencing reality through a brain--which processes empirical information logically--you will never fully understand anything other than material reality. You can get a taste of the other side via drugs, but it's still just a simulation whereas death will be the ultimate revelation of everything, at least in my opinion.
Here are a couple links dealing with ipseity (self) disturbances and how they relate to the brain at large:
http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/3/427.abstract - Click the 'full text' link to read the whole thing (PDF WARNING)
http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/6/1229.full
The last one is particularly interesting as it relates disturbances of the self to the CODAM working model of consciousness. In a nutshell, the article claims that our experience of self-consciousness or the inner self is a result of an "attention copy signal" that serves as a sort of background working-memory (attention) checking process in the brain. I'm guessing that psychedelics either turn off this process, or make you more aware of it... which makes no sense because it is supposed to be "you". OK, thinking about this shit is giving me a headache. Someone else take over now lol
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I don't have nothing but you!
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i didnt read every post before mine but i dont mind just talking about my first few ego death experiences, and what they did to me with me being new to psychedelics. my first psychedelic experience was a blast off on dmt. during this experience i
1, ate grass.
2, pulled out my dick while someone was talking to me because i had to piss
3, had several friends thinking i was "faking" my experience because of how dramatic the effect was on me...
but thats how it is when you go for a heroic experience without having any previous psychedelic experiences haha.
i also had "god" peel up the environment i had landed in during my dmt experience, and show me how the world is put together like a puzzle. neat stuff =D
my second big ego death was a 5 gram fungus trip. i was at a friends just me and him, when i tried 5 gs for the first time. it came on so strong i had no choice but to lay down. i did and faded in and out of myself constantly. it took me to a place i know as the void. while i was there it told me a few things. one of them being "all you are is an imagination of yourself. you are dreaming" which to me broke down what exactly the ego is. later on several people showed up to my buddys to party (had no idea they were coming over). during the experience i had no concept of self, so my mind was integrating into every person around me. i became nearly every person in that room over the course of the night. i literally felt in control of them, that i was creating the conscious thought that made them act. ego death can be tricky, but i think the number one thing that specifies an ego loss, is doing things that are out of the ordinary to you. (as well as showing you how you behave in day to day life, and pointing out your flaws as a human) hope this is helpful :)
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I disagree with teaching it as ego-death.
Fortunately no one is in the business of teaching any such thing. Nor do I think people have the wrong idea about the use of the term. Why not ask instead of assume?
I had never heard the term before I had the experience, and had I, "accurate" or not, I think it very likely that I would have taken comfort from it - rather than seeming like I'd fallen down some never before seen hole, perhaps never to emerge, I'd come to experience something that others have been through - and returned from. If there is any value in being pedantic in this instance, I have yet to see more than your assertion for it. Repeating your point doesn't make it any more valid.
How about this: you use the term you like, and everyone else can do the same.
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Ego death is followed by a kind of rebirth in which feelings of annihilation are followed by a sense of reunion with the ground of being. The whole death-rebirth struggle is a very common experience in psychedelic sessions. Ego death is also interpreted by the experiencer as a kind of death. The person often becomes apprehensive about dying, believes that he has already died, or that he now knows what death is going to be like. Hence "death" is a valid and accurate metaphor for the experience. No doubt you understand the meaning perfectly well. Maybe a person suffering from Asperger's syndrome will be confused by this non-literal use of the word death, but I think most of us understand that it is intended to be understood metaphorically.
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marked for further reading
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Very interesting read.
99% of data is filtered out before it reaches consciousness (normally). Acid likely makes much of the data appear novel enough to bypass the filter when it normally wouldn't. This gives a more open view of reality, but not the one we interact with around us unless it's a small dose. It's more basic a perspective than that, especially when you take more.
I would like a source for this. Seems like an interesting topic to research.
Aldous Huxley expressed a similar idea in The Doors of Perception.
'... the function of the brain and nervous ...../\/--- -----/\/......... picture of reality. '
So this statement is based on something written in a "book", like a "novel".
Is there any more substantial , scientific evidence backing this up?
Sounds like an interesting theory though, might explain some things i experienced while on 25i/c combo trip.
Enhancing the perception of something that is normally filtered out ( i prefer "muted" in this case ) is a possible action of psychedelics, which would explain how it is possible to perceive the minutest details while looking at objects, or listening to music ( or any random sounds). This can be extrapolated to emotions, thoughts, ideas, etc, and would explain how people might feel "enlightened", happy, paranoid, etc. This gets more complicated of course, as the perceptions will be subjective that person's current state of mind as well as the knowledge he possesses, and a wide array of other factors.
example - a religiously inclined person who has no idea of brain function and psychedelics, has no background in science,and other such things, if subjected to an LSD trip might decide that he has had vision of some sort, or felt "close to god", or "blessed".
This is because his brain is probably trained to associate the inexplicable (such as LSD trip) with his faith (religion), and can only describe such an event using the information contained within the brain. If it is overloaded with religious knowledge, the brain would tend to fit such an event in that realm, and construct the "visions" based on that information. Thus a religious person, would tend to have a "religious" trip
I had another theory about the action of psychedelics. Maybe along with enhancing our perceptions, they also add "noise" to it, which results in distortions in our perceptions of things.
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As already mentioned you're having something of an existential crisis. I spent my mid-20s dealing with existential issues and altered states of mind definitely informed some of it. Although, at the time I was not as devoted to psychedelic ideas as much as I was scientific ones, so I ended up developing a deterministic worldview i.e., everything that happens does so for no reason or meaning.
We can talk about the pros and cons of determinism all day but at the end of the conversation I think that we all have to agree that it isn't "livable". What I mean by that is there is no possible way to live without directing oneself. Aside from mental illness or other dysfunctional outliers, every individual at least has the FEELING of responsibility - of making choices - so even if a person can't philosophically believe that their choices matter, it behooves them to lives as if they do.
How can a person live something the don't believe? Well, if a person doesn't contradict themselves at least a little bit here and there it is a sure sign that they are either lying to themselves, lying to others, or have a lot yet to learn.
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there is one good book titled "HANDBOOK FOR THE THERAPEUTIC USE OF LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE-25 INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP PROCEDURES" published in 1959. it is amazing book and explain many things precisely in scientific language.
I think it is possible to download this book form cleanet, if not let me know I will upload it to some TOR storage.
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As already mentioned you're having something of an existential crisis.
Who? Me? Or OP?
I believe everything happens for a plenitude of reasons, depending on the person, the place, the day, etc. I believe that this beautiful structure of sorts to experiential reality is possible because each of us is so in this reality. If we all shucked off responsibility it would fall apart. I feel an utmost responsibility for my actions.
The OP. Interesting post here Typtap. As I mentioned I was once a hardcore determinist in theory but I also uphold personal responsibility as a planetary goal. I have never considered the structure of reality falling apart if responsibility is discarded... that is most interesting.
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It has nothing to do with heaven or "God" if that word is used in a mythic or supernatural sense.
I would compare the experience to a feeling of merging into 'God'. It is the transcending of space and time, as all is one there is omnipresence for everything must be simultaneously everywhere if there is only one infinite unchanging thing. It is the destruction of the self yet even without the self there is perception, it is similar to the notion that when our selves die they have merely transitioned by merging into one eternal entity that is not restricted by space or time. When the raindrop enters the ocean its individual identity is destroyed yet the destruction is more of a merging into something else, something that consists of countless drops of rain that used to all be individual but now no longer exist outside of the whole of the ocean. I imagine that if heaven was a real state of being it would be similar to ego death, except you would never come back into the form of a raindrop. If this was the case, or if after the death of our physical bodies and minds we merged into something reminiscent of ego death, rather than disappearing into oblivion, it would be beautiful and awesome. I guess the question is, are we like flames on a candle, which are blown out and disappear eternally, or are we like droplets of rain falling into the ocean, disappearing as individual droplets but merging into the ocean. Logically I believe we are more like the flames on a candle, when I take LSD I feel like we are droplets of rain.
Beautiful. Thanks for this.
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there is one good book titled "HANDBOOK FOR THE THERAPEUTIC USE OF LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE-25 INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP PROCEDURES" published in 1959. it is amazing book and explain many things precisely in scientific language.
I think it is possible to download this book form cleanet, if not let me know I will upload it to some TOR storage.
thanks for that. i found the book. im going to read it before my next trip. looks very interesting! thumbs up
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I'm wasted right now,
but subscribing for later use of this page - looks great... need to come back later...
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I feel like ego death is an effect from accessing a different layer of our consciousness. Taking some psychadelics (for me lsd) allow you to access different parts of these layers. When i take a lot of lsd after a tolerance break and experience ego death, its because my consciousness is now one with the greater conciousness that is everything. Its like I am no longer me because we are everything and everything is god. When im experiencing what you guys call ego death I can literally FEEL the grass im laying on or the wind or even feelings of other people who are also in the same state of mind. I'm still trying to understand it myself but personally I don't feel any words could begin to summarize the LSD experience...so go try a good dose!
-Mao
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I apologize for not being the best writer (especially in this thread it get's obvious)
but I tried to detail my most profound "ego-death" experience
- the text still misses lots of details, so don't expect a perfect all-included description of what happened,
but if you want to read about it,
here's the link:
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=84848.msg969434#msg969434
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My experiences with ego death could be described as losing any sense of self. At some peaks I could not remember who I was or any personal memories, and was more focused on comprehending the nature of the universe than with retaining or rebuilding an ego. I came to see myself as not different from the universe in any objective way, any differentiation was purely a subjective imposition useful in getting through everyday life. Once this had been established, I came to see death as something that happens to one ego, but that I in fact would not die and had been living quite some time previously, as I was not an ego but conscious human life force.
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I've followed this thread with interest before, now I believe I experienced this last night. I understand how people can say it's liberating and all that, but how the fuck are you meant to deal with that... it's like losing all you ever knew, not just the bad things... I'm walking around with genuine doubt whether other people exist ffs!
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Ah I dunno I'll take it as it comes I suppose. See how my sanity pans out lol
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I've followed this thread with interest before, now I believe I experienced this last night. I understand how people can say it's liberating and all that, but how the fuck are you meant to deal with that... it's like losing all you ever knew, not just the bad things... I'm walking around with genuine doubt whether other people exist ffs!
you may lose all you ever knew, but what you gain is awareness of your true nature and the interconnectedness of all things... and that is priceless!
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Actually I'm glad someone else had the same initial reaction I did. Which is how do i go on living knowing that I am adrift alone in a Godless Dream Universe? How can you continue to chop the wood and carry the water (Make the motions as they say) when you are aware of an other worldly consciousness that somehow manifests itself through you and all life. The silent observer. The watcher, the keeper of all things seen and unseen.
I could end on this note but I choose to begin here. I can tell you the meaning of life, existence, consciousness... the answer to why? That being said, the answer is not what most people want to find when they seek such answers. One with an open mind can evaluate the following and find no fault in the logic or philosophy thereof. Also, alot of eastern philosophies have known such things for a long time and are widely accepted as fact in a distant land..
Simply put, the meaning of life is Expression. Nothing else. To express. Each form of life expresses individuality yet it is more alike its brethren than it is different. Tigers all have different stripes, but they are striped non the less. To delve deeper into such a concept, the purpose of a flower, an ant, and a human being are all the same. One expression of life done through infinite varying possibilities. Weather it be individually or as a society the role that one or more creature plays as individuals is vastly different, but cosmically we are all one possible expression of reality.
Now, how can you continue a life that may now seem purposeless? meaningless? senseless even? After years of my own personal struggles i have found ways to cope that are as simple as the initial thought of expression. Do not place societies standards upon yourself. Live as your inner self tells you to and never second guess your human nature. You are perfect in your human form, it is your minds regurgitation of man-made belief that causes the strife and negativity associated with consciousness. The biggest lie man has believed is that he is born of sin. If this is true and we are born of sin, how can we be expected to go against our very engrained nature?
One cannot love others freely until one learns to love self. Learn to love your nature and know no shame. That is the freedom i sought and found via Ego death. 8)
(If you're interested in my hallucinogenic ego death experience check out the 'Reincarnation' thread.)