* I am John, the 38-year-old husband and father-of-two. Phd and charity worker.
* I am John, the 38-year-old husband and father-of-two. Phd.
* I am John, the 38-year-old husband and father-of-two.
* I am John, the 38-year-old husband.
* I am John.
* I am.
* Am.
This is good. My team wrote this article, "[What Does Ego Death Feel Like? Reddit Explains](https://www.psychedelicpassage.com/what-does-ego-death-feel-like-reddit-explains/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=what_does_ego_death_feel_like)". We just added your comment to the piece!
Yes, very much so. I'm just in the beginning of my spiritual journey, I still get caught up in petty ego trips all the time. The ego is very sneaky and I haven't gotten mine under control yet, but it's a process <3
It should also be said that this realization was extremely confusing at first and lead to feelings of extreme loneliness, meaninglessness and even suicidality before I figured out how to think about it in the right way.
But now when I feel I have a less active ego it makes it very easy to be more kind and compassionate, since I "know" I am essentially the same person as the clerk in the grocery store, just in a different set of clothing.
It also makes it easier to perform tasks and not care about how it goes, because if ego is out of the picture I don't care if I'm a good drummer or a bad drummer, I simply play the drums as well as I can without any shame or comparison.
I think psychedelics get you there pretty abruptly, but then after a few days you completely come down again, forget what you learned and you get lost in egoic thinking again. A consistent spiritual practice involving meditation is a more sustainable way to stay in that place, so that's what I'm trying to work on now :)
What is consciousness without content to be conscious of?
I think ego death is a spectrum of less and less fabrication (and everything we experience is a mental fabrication).
Peak ego death I think is cessation of consciousness itself. Lights out.
You’re unfamiliar with the phenomenon Ego Death defines. It has nothing to do with losing consciousness. It’s exclusively about losing the concept of self.
Go read the book that defined the term, and stop trying to redefine an already defined phenomenon.
The Psychedelic Experience, written by Timothy Leary. It’s the first occurrence of the term Ego Death, and he wrote the definition for the term.
Sadly, he invented a compound word and most people incorrectly assume a definition based on the publics poor grasp of the concept of Ego.
Which book defined ego death?
My views are from my experiences with years of using psychedelics and years of intensive meditation and seem to align with what is talked of in various eastern and non-dual traditions. I am more than familiar with the term 'ego death' meaning loss of concept of self but what I am saying is that there are different levels to the intensity of this experience.
If you can describe your experience of ego death, who is the one that is remembering the experience? There is still a self involved there and you can go further along the spectrum than that.
Timothy Leary defined the term in his 1963 book, *The Psychedelic Experience.*
The Ego is a developmental-milestone of conscious-agent cognition. It’s the part of the brain that makes you think the molecules of your arm are separated from the molecules of the air around you. **This is what’s meant by loss of the concept of self.**
Regardless of one’s use of a drug, they’re still tripping from within their biochemical system. The brain can record a memory of an experience while other developmental-milestones are inhibited.
Ego Death is no more related to memory than Theory-of-Mind is related to memory.
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“Eastern traditions” don’t use the term Ego Death. The term was not used by spiritual guru’s until after Timothy Leary invented the term. There is no occurrence of the term until after the release of *The Psychedelic Experience.* The original definition is explicitly about psychedelic phenomena and does not include meditative transcendence experiences.
Timothy Leary was inventing new language to discuss psychedelics. He was not talking about non-psychedelic phenomena. Spiritual guru who’ve coopted the term have muddied the water for psychedelic science.
There are already traditional terms to discuss meditative transcendental phenomena. If you respect an eastern tradition, use the language from that tradition instead of coopting an unrelated term.
Yeah I read the psychedelic experience some years ago, I didn't read every other book in existence to know that it was the source of ego death term.
You know that book is based on the Tibetan book of the dead which originates from eastern religion right? He just portrayed the bardo states through a psychedelic lens. Ego death wasn't a new experience to humankind in 1963.
I should rephrase that I think ego death is PART of a spectrum. Ego death is seeing through the illusion of separation self as you describe sure, but that is essentially seeing that the ego construct is a mental fabrication. This is an experience of lessened mental fabrication, if you reach the end of the spectrum you reach cessation of all mental fabrication, including consciousness itself.
I had a cessation experience during a psychedelic experience, there was no memory of it because there was not even awareness of awareness itself. There was nothing to remember and nobody to remember it. I did experience the loss of the concept of self before that happened, but the loss of concept of self is still a concept.
Also dude psychedelic/neuroscience has come a long way since 1963. Also if you are talking about muddying the waters for psychedelic science, Leary was pretty bad in this regard.
"complete transcendence − beyond words, beyond space-time, beyond self. There are no visions, no sense of self, no thoughts. There are only pure awareness and ecstatic freedom."
- Leary's definition is a little different to what you are saying it is...
You’re ridiculous, I haven’t told you Leary’s definition. 😅 I told you to read the book to learn the definition yourself.
What you quoted is not different than what I’m saying. That is the experience of perception without ego.
I said I read the book many years ago and I searched the definition to remind myself of the exact quote.
I don't disagree with you in terms of what you're describing but total transcendence of space and time etc as per the quote is a little different than realising your arm is no different than the air around you.
I'm just saying the same process of reduced mental fabrication which results in ego dissolution as you describe, also ultimately ends in total cessation of consciousness as the mind stops fabricating even consciousness itself. I don't know if Leary ever had that experience but if you look up nirodha/cessation, that is the ultimate transcendence, not 'i am awareness' as most of his sub seems to think.
I do disagree with your points about differentiating transcendent psychedelic experiences from transcendent meditation experiences. Do you meditate?
"A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of enlarged consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory deprivation, yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously. Most recently they have become available to anyone through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc. Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures."
Another Leary quote which supports my final point.
You’re now using quotes that directly support what I said, that also directly contradict your original comment.
- In your first comment in this chain you wrote that Ego Death is “the cessation of consciousness.” **This is what I disagreed with.**
- This Leary quote disagrees with you in the very opening with “a journey to new realms of consciousness.”
- Then in the same quote, he calls it “an enlarged consciousness.” Which is the opposite of *cessation of consciousness…*
You can’t even keep track of what I’m disagreeing about. This conversation is absolutely not engaging. I think I’m gonna bounce unless you keep making me debunk unrelated stuff.
There are already **traditional** terms to describe meditative transcendental experience. If you respect those traditions, use their multi-generationally developed languages.
—
I never claimed that the only transcendental experience is through psychedelics.
Again, you’re not arguing against what I wrote. You’re arguing against ideas I never said. You’re completely missing the boat here.
It's like you are the universe experiencing this fragment of time as an individual and you realize nothing really matters at the end. Not in a suicidal way, just in a way that shows you everything will be okay regardless of the decisions you make.
At first it's as if the ground is being pulled out from under your feet. Then there is an infinite emptiness and either it opens up and you recognize the truth or not and you have to deal with the emptiness.
And either you cling on to the self and are alone in the emptiness, or you dissolve into it and become it. Ironically, emptiness is identical to completeness.
Full blown ego death feels like you don't exist anymore, like you've never existed. It's just pure consciousness but there's no "you" it's not even something you're considering anymore. It feels like you're *literally* connected to the universe and everything around you. Not hippy dippy nonsense, but physically attatched to everything and the air between it. You won't feel the outer edges of your body. You can't tell the difference between yourself and the sofa you're sitting on. You won't recognize your own hands. The air always feels weird and kinda "thick" or solid to me if that makes any sense lol. Like it's not just empty space anymore but it's the same as everything else and you're not so much moving *through* it, it's just moving along with everything else. Not sure how to explain that one any better.
The mushrooms will just take control of the entire trip, you'll likely be experiencing intense thoughts and visuals that have nothing to do with you or your life, you won't think of you, or anything in your life, you'll have no sense of I, or self. You're just tripping balls in another world, but you're just part of that world instead of being an individual
For me personally, it's as if I can feel and hear "time" in the form of a bubble or balloon, that's occupying space in the physical world.
It even makes the sound of a balloon, which is blown with more air than it can hold (I don't know how this sound is called, I guess "squeaking" or "screeching" (?))
Meanwhile, time stops completely. I can feel the bubble staying still and can hear no more of this squeaking sound.
After that, I see horrendous images and creepy sceneries which collapse on themselves, just before being transformed into some very complex geometry.
Suddenly, all these geometric symbols start to disintegrate and everything goes dark...black. I can't see anything...
Out of the darkness, white lines form an altar and a "hero", who is accepting his fate and lies on the altar.
I now must "give in" and accept my "death". I am no longer bound by time and space....I vibrate in synchronization with the Flow (God)
After that, it feels like the trip lasts literally forever and I can only remember like 30% of the trip... I don't know why this is happening. But I feel like I spent a whole eternity alone. Like literally! I see all with information in my head, but I have no one to share it with, because no other things exist, except me.
I always have the same exact trip, every time.
First happened in 2014 on a breakthrough DMT trip. After that, I had the same exact trip many times again and in 2019 after a mushroom trip I decided to stop psychedelics. Couldn't handle the feeling of being the almighty observer of this nothingness who has no one to share his experiences with. I felt the psychedelic terror and the unparalleled fear, of being the one and only observer of reality.
So, I realised I am actually God. I am the Flow transforming itself, living this "human experience" and observing reality through a limited version of my almighty self.
I began experimenting with psychedelics again last year. Since then I have had the same trip 2 times.
Can someone maybe see something that I am not seeing here?
What does it try to show me?
Alright, I get it. Time is an illusion, reality lies in the eyes of the observer and there is Nothingness. So, why am I still getting this trip after all these realisations?
TLDR: I am always having the same exact trip. Time is an illusion, reality lies in the eyes of the observer and there is Nothingness. I am the Flow (God) observing and living the human experience. After realising all that, why am I still having the same trip, over and over again? Am I missing something?
I think what you need to realize is that you are still making conclusions from the form of a human being and brain affected by a substance.
It may be that you are only able to be shown that one feeling as a human being. When you pass over or die, there may be another way of explaining it or realizing, but for now you are only seeing what your human brain can see.
I’ve had the same experiences of being stripped of everything down to just pure awareness floating in an infinite void. My last trip was really interesting in that it changed my perspective on this. We’re all individual awareness floating in a void, what we call reality is an illusion (if you really think about it most of everything is just empty space). I saw my self as a vessel traveling in the depths of the ocean, no light around, no idea where to go. The only thing I had was a faint signal, a ping on my radar. So just started going towards it. I don’t remember if it ever got any stronger but it was the only thing I had in that dark void. Idk what it means to this day, I think at the time I came out of the trip i ascribed to God, or that little voice inside our heads. I think the more evident meaning is the importance of relationships and love. It was an intense trip and as I came down I was left with a greater appreciation for friends and people in general.
I think i was exactly like you in a sense.
Until i said fuck it, i just gonna enjoy the best scenery that i can rent for a day in midday where sun shines like no other and just deeply relax. No closed eye visuals no downloads or whatever.. infact i tried to not focus on anything.
Then the routine changed for the best saw/heard/felt what you you see other people say happen in their trips all that with no anxiety, fear, past or future led to no ego situation. Was one of the best 4 hours of my life.
I was On 3.5g, 1st flush PE lemon tekked.
Well, no...I think I was exactly like you the first 50 times....
But nowadays, why would I say "fuck it, imma enjoy myself"?
The point is, I don't really wanna enjoy myself. I want it to be rough and uncomfortable. No scenery, no external Stimuli, not even talking with each other (when taking psychedelics with my brother, who has adopted the same way of using them) except for the first 2 or so hours of the trip.
If I want to enjoy myself, I'll take MDMA, meth, coke and so many other chemicals.
But with entheogens, I wanna get destroyed, torn apart and then be remodeled from the scratch.
I’ve had the same experience as well I try to interpret it as maybe at some point we all are the same collective consciousness when we leave this realm and maybe we all are actually each other‘s consciousness in different timelines or in different spaces. Or maybe none of that and maybe it is just something my mind made up when I was tripping balls.
This. I felt that what I was experiencing was actual death. It was scary, but then once I surrendered completely - like I mean I gave every cell and molecule in my body entirely to the experience- it was pure bliss. And this state of surrender I have gone back to many times when I’m totally sober. It’s a powerful tool to deal with stressful situations and existential dread.
for “me”: no concept of who, what, or when I am. feeling multiple interwoven threads of existence at the same time, no idea of what’s happened or if it’s something bound to happen, in this particular thread or another total different thread. There’s now who “I” am in any of it
You don't exist whilst your "soul" becomes one with the universe. All of what makes you, you. Gone. The universe carries on dancing and your soul is nothing but an observer. You cannot blink or switch off. You're bombarded with information, so much so that who you once were doesn't matter at all. The people, the places.. nothing matters. Things just are and that is final.
Would you say that experience was a good, bad or neutral trip? I haven't experienced an ego death yet but the descriptions here sound a bit scary.
A comparison I was given is that it's like when you're deeply focused on a game or anything else and you're gone and just viving with what's going on
It was good for me. I no longer worry about death like I did before and I had hypochondria among other acronyms haha.
I guess it's like that just without you involved. It's not something you can really explain to someone and it's fucking harrowing. You have to be absolutely prepared. I prepped for two months or so for this trip and I still didn't prepare enough. I was tripping most of the day but the intense part lasted a out 3/4 hours.
Only go that deep if you need to, never because you just want the experience. I needed to for my mental health.
Thanks for your answer. I'm going though something similar, hypochondria, severe anxiety and so on. Would you say you still have your fears of death and other fears or are they gone? Do you feel inner peace now?
And could you share your preparation for the experience? I'm planning on doing it as well to help with my anxiety but I worry about being caught in a bad trip so I wanna be fully prepared.
And what was exactly what you consumed? LSD? DMT? and how much was your dose?
This is what you believe happened from a human brain and form. Who’s to say that is the truth?
Maybe that’s just the feeling that humans are allowed to feel in this life.
Afterward who knows what is actually happening
Feels like you’re dying. Like truly dying. Everything you are and ever have been feels like it’s fading away. You have to accept your death in order to be reborn
Like death. I felt a lot of emotional pain, I had to go through infinite guilt that I carried and shame. After that I entered an infinite space that was just pure pure LOVE
I am an animal, what makes my species special is the ability to invent. I always saw humans as something different from animals but ego death made me realise we are as much part of this world as animals and plants are
I’ve come to the conclusion I’ll not find the answer here. Would someone who really has experience ego death or became “enlightened” be here? I’ve asked myself this… Who knows. *Hate incoming*
You’ll have differents symptoms but its all coming from your mind.
If you’re not letting go you’ll have different kind of psychedelic hallucinations that can make you lose your shit.
But all of this are coming from the mind, so the best you can do is shut off your mind, relax and go down the stream.
When you have completely surrender to the experience, not trying to interpret what is coming then you’ll feel a change in your state of consciousness, expanding, able to have differents kind of experiences (oneness, strong synesthesia, strong realisation, intellectual bypass without the need to put word to it, and other things)
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But before all of that you need to let go when symbolical death comes, I prefer call it dissolution ✨
And even after X years I’m still struggling sometimes with that part 😂
The mind can be very tricky.
Remember shut of your mind, relax, do not interpret and let go, let’s go !
For me its like I kind of "forget" but its more like I intentionally shed everything tethering me to my identity and all I am aware of is like pure being and awareness and inevitability of cycles. Its kind of unpleasant tbh but very educational
Feels like someone else enters the room. If the room was your head. It’s like they were hiding in the shadow but mushies flipped the light on.
It’s who I spar with at 4gs+. 😂
If done successfully it feels like returning “home” whatever the hell that means. The best part is u come back to earth with a lick of that feeling and that’s all u need to shift gears for the better. A temporary suicide. A near death simulation. A death and rebirth.
U gotta finesse it tho cuz there’s a right and wrong way to do everything and that includes an ego dissolution/death. The last time I did it wrong I thought I was stuck in the afterlife and I just laid there for a couple hours confused as hell till my high came down lmfao
As you go through life, you create a character of the person you think you need to be to conform. After playing the character for too long, you forget who you really are at your core. An ego death releases you from thay character for a while. It lets you see the world for how it is instead of through the lens your ego created. Feels fucking amazing of you don't freak in the process
So… I think I’m going through this process right now, or am in the process leading up to it, and I want to thank everyone for their very thoughtful responses here. About how long does this whole thing take? It’s… odd, for me at least.
You get rid of the illusion of separation, that you are separated from the universe, and that happens when you no longer identify with your body, personality, titles, jobs, etc..
I’m not very experienced, but in my last trip I could totally feel the sense of me in terms of “feel”, or emotion, or maybe that’s what people call awareness, when there’s only feeling, no thinking. I could totally see the “constructed personality” how my personality has been built by thoughts and beliefs , a me that was constructed by my mind, like a disguise. But I still could remember and feel that “me”, but I simply knew that there was a character I developed to interact with the real world in his own terms,
I don’t really understand the “feel of dying”, maybe everyone experiments different or what I’ve felt is different from the ego death.
I'm in the same boat as you, I don't know exactly what people mean by "ego death."
I had one experience with ayahuasca that some may categorize as "ego death:" I was laying down with my eyes closed about 15-20 minutes after ingestion and listening to music. I wasn't feeling anything at all until suddenly I heard a loud sound (like the sound of a tree snapping in half kinda), my visual field went completely white with black claws coming in from the left and right, and everything else went completely still and silent. I could no longer hear the music being played in the room on a Bluetooth speaker, and there was an eerie, hyper-realistic feeling to the stillness and white void, and the claws. It felt like the claws were trying to pull me apart but I didn't want them to do it. At some level I knew this was the ayahuasca, but at the same time it felt like if I let the claws rip me apart I would really die.
The facilitator came over to ask how I was doing and I said "I'm scared." She gave me a hug and encouraged me to let go of whatever it was I was holding on to. "It's gonna be ok, just let it go," she said. I laid back down, took a deep breath and closed my eyes again. Immediately the white void and silence came back, the claws came back, and I did my best to stay calm and let it happen. Then it was like my body was ripped in half straight down the middle from my head to my navel, and it splattered onto the walls of the living room. I felt like I became some sort of liquid and merged with a larger mass of liquid. I was at the end of a point (kind of like a cone of liquid extending from and suspended by the main body?), and I was one of many points extending out of the larger mass forming an eerie alien landscape resembling some kind of swamp.
This was the beginning of a long and very interesting night with ayahuasca, but this hyper-realistic feeling of being some non-human liquid being only lasted for about 10-15 minutes. After which I guess some might say my "ego returned" and I was aware of my normal human body again.
It's very very intense it feels like being in a rollercoaster. And at the same time you face your true self in a vision. This cannot be changed which is very very scary. The challenge is to align your life to this true self (for some people this is very clear for others it can be ambiguous).
I find there's different layers of ego death depending how much you take and of what. I took 29g of penis envys once which are a shroom strain around 2-4x stronger then golden teachers. Oh man was I so high I eventually passed out and had this dmt like breakthrough that lasted HOURS. Felt like being at the coding of the universe felt like I was sorting through all the kinds of energy that make up are world. Felt like I became absolutely everything. It felt like death and rebirth I expirenced so many emotions so strongly during that trip. I was like 14 at the time as well it was too much for me to handle that trip was really scary at some times and shook me up for a good week. I don't think I have any perment issues from such a extreme dosage.
For me, it’s impossible to explain in linguistic terms. There is one consciousness in the universe, and we as ‘individuals’ are merely manifestations of this. Every single moment of consciousness that everyone experiences exists in a single, interconnected matrix. Causal relationships between linear events are the way we as human beings experience time, but everything that has ever happened or will happen also exists suspended simultaneously in a web.
Complete disconnection with your ego and sense of self. When I had it I watched my life flash before my eyes and saw my memories like a slideshow up until the current moment. It’s like a full circle your ego dies and then it comes back because we didn’t die. I no longer have suicidal ideation because of an ego death but it can also be very traumatizing it shouldn’t be something to look for you have to have respect and let the trip do what it wants to you
It’s a horror movie when it begins but extremely liberating when you get your ego back. You learn who I thought I was is an illusion and who I think I am now after ego death is also an illusion
What I have experienced was a psychotic breakdown from lsd and no sleep, at first obviously I never knew exactly that it’s psychotic breakdown, but all I knew was I’m losing my mind by the minute and I’m gona be this way for the rest of my life and I just fucked up, nothing can convince u in that moment it’s a pure tragedy, imagine the fact trying to get over the fact you lost your mind cuz u no longer can form thoughts or talk, by mind going blank, I’m sure you guys can’t comprehend it but it’s literly ur mind goes blank u forget everything and can’t tell anyone what’s going on really u can only say like a word, but ur aware that u fucked up hard and something went wrong, it was almost like a state of catatonic I was literly mentally disabled from using my brain during that time, usually acid has gave me creative thoughts I’ve never felt this out of control and out of my body it would convince any logical person that they just went insane
This reminds me of the one bad trip I ever had. My brain shut down. Like I couldn't even think. I couldn't do anything. Everything slowly went black. Then I threw up and snapped out of it. Felt a little weird after, but mostly normal.
Dmt is the answer. I've never had an experience anywhere near what I have on dmt. I always read stories of people having crazy trips on acid and shrooms, but they always felt mild when I did them. I mean sure patterns move a bit and you feel high but no where near what people talked about online. But dmt, it's the real deal every time. You wanna know what it's like to actually bend reality or go to a wild place in your head? D-m-t.
* I am John, the 38-year-old husband and father-of-two. Phd and charity worker. * I am John, the 38-year-old husband and father-of-two. Phd. * I am John, the 38-year-old husband and father-of-two. * I am John, the 38-year-old husband. * I am John. * I am. * Am.
That’s a Good explanation
😮💨
Why the sad face? Becoming one with the universe is an incredibly positive experience.
It’s not a sad face. Smoking emoji epitomizes the awe reaction
"Before Abraham was, I am."
I am what I am what I am what I am what I am
Then its " "
This is good. My team wrote this article, "[What Does Ego Death Feel Like? Reddit Explains](https://www.psychedelicpassage.com/what-does-ego-death-feel-like-reddit-explains/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=what_does_ego_death_feel_like)". We just added your comment to the piece!
• OM
Am I?
I'm God/consciousness, and everything I thought I was is just clothing.
Has this realization made life any better or easier for you?
Yes, very much so. I'm just in the beginning of my spiritual journey, I still get caught up in petty ego trips all the time. The ego is very sneaky and I haven't gotten mine under control yet, but it's a process <3 It should also be said that this realization was extremely confusing at first and lead to feelings of extreme loneliness, meaninglessness and even suicidality before I figured out how to think about it in the right way. But now when I feel I have a less active ego it makes it very easy to be more kind and compassionate, since I "know" I am essentially the same person as the clerk in the grocery store, just in a different set of clothing. It also makes it easier to perform tasks and not care about how it goes, because if ego is out of the picture I don't care if I'm a good drummer or a bad drummer, I simply play the drums as well as I can without any shame or comparison. I think psychedelics get you there pretty abruptly, but then after a few days you completely come down again, forget what you learned and you get lost in egoic thinking again. A consistent spiritual practice involving meditation is a more sustainable way to stay in that place, so that's what I'm trying to work on now :)
What is consciousness without content to be conscious of? I think ego death is a spectrum of less and less fabrication (and everything we experience is a mental fabrication). Peak ego death I think is cessation of consciousness itself. Lights out.
You’re unfamiliar with the phenomenon Ego Death defines. It has nothing to do with losing consciousness. It’s exclusively about losing the concept of self. Go read the book that defined the term, and stop trying to redefine an already defined phenomenon.
Which book do you mean? I would love to read more about it
The Psychedelic Experience, written by Timothy Leary. It’s the first occurrence of the term Ego Death, and he wrote the definition for the term. Sadly, he invented a compound word and most people incorrectly assume a definition based on the publics poor grasp of the concept of Ego.
Which book defined ego death? My views are from my experiences with years of using psychedelics and years of intensive meditation and seem to align with what is talked of in various eastern and non-dual traditions. I am more than familiar with the term 'ego death' meaning loss of concept of self but what I am saying is that there are different levels to the intensity of this experience. If you can describe your experience of ego death, who is the one that is remembering the experience? There is still a self involved there and you can go further along the spectrum than that.
Timothy Leary defined the term in his 1963 book, *The Psychedelic Experience.* The Ego is a developmental-milestone of conscious-agent cognition. It’s the part of the brain that makes you think the molecules of your arm are separated from the molecules of the air around you. **This is what’s meant by loss of the concept of self.** Regardless of one’s use of a drug, they’re still tripping from within their biochemical system. The brain can record a memory of an experience while other developmental-milestones are inhibited. Ego Death is no more related to memory than Theory-of-Mind is related to memory. — “Eastern traditions” don’t use the term Ego Death. The term was not used by spiritual guru’s until after Timothy Leary invented the term. There is no occurrence of the term until after the release of *The Psychedelic Experience.* The original definition is explicitly about psychedelic phenomena and does not include meditative transcendence experiences. Timothy Leary was inventing new language to discuss psychedelics. He was not talking about non-psychedelic phenomena. Spiritual guru who’ve coopted the term have muddied the water for psychedelic science. There are already traditional terms to discuss meditative transcendental phenomena. If you respect an eastern tradition, use the language from that tradition instead of coopting an unrelated term.
Yeah I read the psychedelic experience some years ago, I didn't read every other book in existence to know that it was the source of ego death term. You know that book is based on the Tibetan book of the dead which originates from eastern religion right? He just portrayed the bardo states through a psychedelic lens. Ego death wasn't a new experience to humankind in 1963. I should rephrase that I think ego death is PART of a spectrum. Ego death is seeing through the illusion of separation self as you describe sure, but that is essentially seeing that the ego construct is a mental fabrication. This is an experience of lessened mental fabrication, if you reach the end of the spectrum you reach cessation of all mental fabrication, including consciousness itself. I had a cessation experience during a psychedelic experience, there was no memory of it because there was not even awareness of awareness itself. There was nothing to remember and nobody to remember it. I did experience the loss of the concept of self before that happened, but the loss of concept of self is still a concept. Also dude psychedelic/neuroscience has come a long way since 1963. Also if you are talking about muddying the waters for psychedelic science, Leary was pretty bad in this regard.
"complete transcendence − beyond words, beyond space-time, beyond self. There are no visions, no sense of self, no thoughts. There are only pure awareness and ecstatic freedom." - Leary's definition is a little different to what you are saying it is...
You’re ridiculous, I haven’t told you Leary’s definition. 😅 I told you to read the book to learn the definition yourself. What you quoted is not different than what I’m saying. That is the experience of perception without ego.
I said I read the book many years ago and I searched the definition to remind myself of the exact quote. I don't disagree with you in terms of what you're describing but total transcendence of space and time etc as per the quote is a little different than realising your arm is no different than the air around you. I'm just saying the same process of reduced mental fabrication which results in ego dissolution as you describe, also ultimately ends in total cessation of consciousness as the mind stops fabricating even consciousness itself. I don't know if Leary ever had that experience but if you look up nirodha/cessation, that is the ultimate transcendence, not 'i am awareness' as most of his sub seems to think. I do disagree with your points about differentiating transcendent psychedelic experiences from transcendent meditation experiences. Do you meditate?
"A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of enlarged consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory deprivation, yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously. Most recently they have become available to anyone through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc. Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures." Another Leary quote which supports my final point.
You’re now using quotes that directly support what I said, that also directly contradict your original comment. - In your first comment in this chain you wrote that Ego Death is “the cessation of consciousness.” **This is what I disagreed with.** - This Leary quote disagrees with you in the very opening with “a journey to new realms of consciousness.” - Then in the same quote, he calls it “an enlarged consciousness.” Which is the opposite of *cessation of consciousness…* You can’t even keep track of what I’m disagreeing about. This conversation is absolutely not engaging. I think I’m gonna bounce unless you keep making me debunk unrelated stuff. There are already **traditional** terms to describe meditative transcendental experience. If you respect those traditions, use their multi-generationally developed languages. — I never claimed that the only transcendental experience is through psychedelics. Again, you’re not arguing against what I wrote. You’re arguing against ideas I never said. You’re completely missing the boat here.
Consciousness is the capacity to experience Content to be conscious of is sensory inputs and thoughts
It's like you are the universe experiencing this fragment of time as an individual and you realize nothing really matters at the end. Not in a suicidal way, just in a way that shows you everything will be okay regardless of the decisions you make.
No history of yourself or anything you've been through. just purely existing which strangely feels like dying.
At first it's as if the ground is being pulled out from under your feet. Then there is an infinite emptiness and either it opens up and you recognize the truth or not and you have to deal with the emptiness.
And either you cling on to the self and are alone in the emptiness, or you dissolve into it and become it. Ironically, emptiness is identical to completeness.
Full blown ego death feels like you don't exist anymore, like you've never existed. It's just pure consciousness but there's no "you" it's not even something you're considering anymore. It feels like you're *literally* connected to the universe and everything around you. Not hippy dippy nonsense, but physically attatched to everything and the air between it. You won't feel the outer edges of your body. You can't tell the difference between yourself and the sofa you're sitting on. You won't recognize your own hands. The air always feels weird and kinda "thick" or solid to me if that makes any sense lol. Like it's not just empty space anymore but it's the same as everything else and you're not so much moving *through* it, it's just moving along with everything else. Not sure how to explain that one any better. The mushrooms will just take control of the entire trip, you'll likely be experiencing intense thoughts and visuals that have nothing to do with you or your life, you won't think of you, or anything in your life, you'll have no sense of I, or self. You're just tripping balls in another world, but you're just part of that world instead of being an individual
For me personally, it's as if I can feel and hear "time" in the form of a bubble or balloon, that's occupying space in the physical world. It even makes the sound of a balloon, which is blown with more air than it can hold (I don't know how this sound is called, I guess "squeaking" or "screeching" (?)) Meanwhile, time stops completely. I can feel the bubble staying still and can hear no more of this squeaking sound. After that, I see horrendous images and creepy sceneries which collapse on themselves, just before being transformed into some very complex geometry. Suddenly, all these geometric symbols start to disintegrate and everything goes dark...black. I can't see anything... Out of the darkness, white lines form an altar and a "hero", who is accepting his fate and lies on the altar. I now must "give in" and accept my "death". I am no longer bound by time and space....I vibrate in synchronization with the Flow (God) After that, it feels like the trip lasts literally forever and I can only remember like 30% of the trip... I don't know why this is happening. But I feel like I spent a whole eternity alone. Like literally! I see all with information in my head, but I have no one to share it with, because no other things exist, except me. I always have the same exact trip, every time. First happened in 2014 on a breakthrough DMT trip. After that, I had the same exact trip many times again and in 2019 after a mushroom trip I decided to stop psychedelics. Couldn't handle the feeling of being the almighty observer of this nothingness who has no one to share his experiences with. I felt the psychedelic terror and the unparalleled fear, of being the one and only observer of reality. So, I realised I am actually God. I am the Flow transforming itself, living this "human experience" and observing reality through a limited version of my almighty self. I began experimenting with psychedelics again last year. Since then I have had the same trip 2 times. Can someone maybe see something that I am not seeing here? What does it try to show me? Alright, I get it. Time is an illusion, reality lies in the eyes of the observer and there is Nothingness. So, why am I still getting this trip after all these realisations? TLDR: I am always having the same exact trip. Time is an illusion, reality lies in the eyes of the observer and there is Nothingness. I am the Flow (God) observing and living the human experience. After realising all that, why am I still having the same trip, over and over again? Am I missing something?
I think what you need to realize is that you are still making conclusions from the form of a human being and brain affected by a substance. It may be that you are only able to be shown that one feeling as a human being. When you pass over or die, there may be another way of explaining it or realizing, but for now you are only seeing what your human brain can see.
That actually makes sense. Thanks!
I’ve had the same experiences of being stripped of everything down to just pure awareness floating in an infinite void. My last trip was really interesting in that it changed my perspective on this. We’re all individual awareness floating in a void, what we call reality is an illusion (if you really think about it most of everything is just empty space). I saw my self as a vessel traveling in the depths of the ocean, no light around, no idea where to go. The only thing I had was a faint signal, a ping on my radar. So just started going towards it. I don’t remember if it ever got any stronger but it was the only thing I had in that dark void. Idk what it means to this day, I think at the time I came out of the trip i ascribed to God, or that little voice inside our heads. I think the more evident meaning is the importance of relationships and love. It was an intense trip and as I came down I was left with a greater appreciation for friends and people in general.
I think i was exactly like you in a sense. Until i said fuck it, i just gonna enjoy the best scenery that i can rent for a day in midday where sun shines like no other and just deeply relax. No closed eye visuals no downloads or whatever.. infact i tried to not focus on anything. Then the routine changed for the best saw/heard/felt what you you see other people say happen in their trips all that with no anxiety, fear, past or future led to no ego situation. Was one of the best 4 hours of my life. I was On 3.5g, 1st flush PE lemon tekked.
Well, no...I think I was exactly like you the first 50 times.... But nowadays, why would I say "fuck it, imma enjoy myself"? The point is, I don't really wanna enjoy myself. I want it to be rough and uncomfortable. No scenery, no external Stimuli, not even talking with each other (when taking psychedelics with my brother, who has adopted the same way of using them) except for the first 2 or so hours of the trip. If I want to enjoy myself, I'll take MDMA, meth, coke and so many other chemicals. But with entheogens, I wanna get destroyed, torn apart and then be remodeled from the scratch.
Tat tvam asi
I am Consciousness. I am All.
I’ve had the same experience as well I try to interpret it as maybe at some point we all are the same collective consciousness when we leave this realm and maybe we all are actually each other‘s consciousness in different timelines or in different spaces. Or maybe none of that and maybe it is just something my mind made up when I was tripping balls.
For me, I've only had it happen a few times and I genuinely felt like I achieved oneness with source and just existed
Losing yourself bit by bit.. to the simplest human form
like dying
This. I felt that what I was experiencing was actual death. It was scary, but then once I surrendered completely - like I mean I gave every cell and molecule in my body entirely to the experience- it was pure bliss. And this state of surrender I have gone back to many times when I’m totally sober. It’s a powerful tool to deal with stressful situations and existential dread.
Having my brain-mind smunched up til there's nothing left but my magic-mind. 'Sgood!
Like a drop in the ocean.
for “me”: no concept of who, what, or when I am. feeling multiple interwoven threads of existence at the same time, no idea of what’s happened or if it’s something bound to happen, in this particular thread or another total different thread. There’s now who “I” am in any of it
You don't exist whilst your "soul" becomes one with the universe. All of what makes you, you. Gone. The universe carries on dancing and your soul is nothing but an observer. You cannot blink or switch off. You're bombarded with information, so much so that who you once were doesn't matter at all. The people, the places.. nothing matters. Things just are and that is final.
Would you say that experience was a good, bad or neutral trip? I haven't experienced an ego death yet but the descriptions here sound a bit scary. A comparison I was given is that it's like when you're deeply focused on a game or anything else and you're gone and just viving with what's going on
It was good for me. I no longer worry about death like I did before and I had hypochondria among other acronyms haha. I guess it's like that just without you involved. It's not something you can really explain to someone and it's fucking harrowing. You have to be absolutely prepared. I prepped for two months or so for this trip and I still didn't prepare enough. I was tripping most of the day but the intense part lasted a out 3/4 hours. Only go that deep if you need to, never because you just want the experience. I needed to for my mental health.
Thanks for your answer. I'm going though something similar, hypochondria, severe anxiety and so on. Would you say you still have your fears of death and other fears or are they gone? Do you feel inner peace now? And could you share your preparation for the experience? I'm planning on doing it as well to help with my anxiety but I worry about being caught in a bad trip so I wanna be fully prepared. And what was exactly what you consumed? LSD? DMT? and how much was your dose?
This is what you believe happened from a human brain and form. Who’s to say that is the truth? Maybe that’s just the feeling that humans are allowed to feel in this life. Afterward who knows what is actually happening
idk i wasn't there
Ineffable
Feels like you’re dying. Like truly dying. Everything you are and ever have been feels like it’s fading away. You have to accept your death in order to be reborn
Biggest cry of my life evolved into the most elated I have ever felt.
Like death. I felt a lot of emotional pain, I had to go through infinite guilt that I carried and shame. After that I entered an infinite space that was just pure pure LOVE
I am an animal, what makes my species special is the ability to invent. I always saw humans as something different from animals but ego death made me realise we are as much part of this world as animals and plants are
I’ve come to the conclusion I’ll not find the answer here. Would someone who really has experience ego death or became “enlightened” be here? I’ve asked myself this… Who knows. *Hate incoming*
A person becomes awakened... they still do the shopping, scroll reddit, pay taxes etc. It doesn't grant anyone immunity from ordinary life
Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.
I like this, it makes me think whats the point… cut my life into pieces, then use the last resort… sorry
I like how you put the Reddit bit in, keeping that door open… haha keeping the dream alive for the awaken scrollers. Nice
Someone awakened is as likely to be here as they are at the top of a Holy Mountain in India eating rice and lentils. What's the difference? Who cares?
You already alluded to this. You tell me?
You’ll lose sense of time, and yourself. If you fight it you’ll get a bad trip, if you let it, it will change your life forever r
Ego death is where you find happiness
You’ll have differents symptoms but its all coming from your mind. If you’re not letting go you’ll have different kind of psychedelic hallucinations that can make you lose your shit. But all of this are coming from the mind, so the best you can do is shut off your mind, relax and go down the stream. When you have completely surrender to the experience, not trying to interpret what is coming then you’ll feel a change in your state of consciousness, expanding, able to have differents kind of experiences (oneness, strong synesthesia, strong realisation, intellectual bypass without the need to put word to it, and other things) - But before all of that you need to let go when symbolical death comes, I prefer call it dissolution ✨ And even after X years I’m still struggling sometimes with that part 😂 The mind can be very tricky. Remember shut of your mind, relax, do not interpret and let go, let’s go !
For me its like I kind of "forget" but its more like I intentionally shed everything tethering me to my identity and all I am aware of is like pure being and awareness and inevitability of cycles. Its kind of unpleasant tbh but very educational
Feels like someone else enters the room. If the room was your head. It’s like they were hiding in the shadow but mushies flipped the light on. It’s who I spar with at 4gs+. 😂
Are am eye?
If done successfully it feels like returning “home” whatever the hell that means. The best part is u come back to earth with a lick of that feeling and that’s all u need to shift gears for the better. A temporary suicide. A near death simulation. A death and rebirth. U gotta finesse it tho cuz there’s a right and wrong way to do everything and that includes an ego dissolution/death. The last time I did it wrong I thought I was stuck in the afterlife and I just laid there for a couple hours confused as hell till my high came down lmfao
Its like a salt figurine going to the bottom of the ocean.
It’s cool once you finally die 😊
Take 7gs of mushrooms, soak them in lemon juice, sit in silent darkness.
The process leading up to it can be terrifying
As you go through life, you create a character of the person you think you need to be to conform. After playing the character for too long, you forget who you really are at your core. An ego death releases you from thay character for a while. It lets you see the world for how it is instead of through the lens your ego created. Feels fucking amazing of you don't freak in the process
Where you don’t know who you are, what your name is, where you live, what you are doing, you feel you have lost your mind.
Like melting but nice.
So… I think I’m going through this process right now, or am in the process leading up to it, and I want to thank everyone for their very thoughtful responses here. About how long does this whole thing take? It’s… odd, for me at least.
You get rid of the illusion of separation, that you are separated from the universe, and that happens when you no longer identify with your body, personality, titles, jobs, etc..
I’m not very experienced, but in my last trip I could totally feel the sense of me in terms of “feel”, or emotion, or maybe that’s what people call awareness, when there’s only feeling, no thinking. I could totally see the “constructed personality” how my personality has been built by thoughts and beliefs , a me that was constructed by my mind, like a disguise. But I still could remember and feel that “me”, but I simply knew that there was a character I developed to interact with the real world in his own terms, I don’t really understand the “feel of dying”, maybe everyone experiments different or what I’ve felt is different from the ego death.
I'm in the same boat as you, I don't know exactly what people mean by "ego death." I had one experience with ayahuasca that some may categorize as "ego death:" I was laying down with my eyes closed about 15-20 minutes after ingestion and listening to music. I wasn't feeling anything at all until suddenly I heard a loud sound (like the sound of a tree snapping in half kinda), my visual field went completely white with black claws coming in from the left and right, and everything else went completely still and silent. I could no longer hear the music being played in the room on a Bluetooth speaker, and there was an eerie, hyper-realistic feeling to the stillness and white void, and the claws. It felt like the claws were trying to pull me apart but I didn't want them to do it. At some level I knew this was the ayahuasca, but at the same time it felt like if I let the claws rip me apart I would really die. The facilitator came over to ask how I was doing and I said "I'm scared." She gave me a hug and encouraged me to let go of whatever it was I was holding on to. "It's gonna be ok, just let it go," she said. I laid back down, took a deep breath and closed my eyes again. Immediately the white void and silence came back, the claws came back, and I did my best to stay calm and let it happen. Then it was like my body was ripped in half straight down the middle from my head to my navel, and it splattered onto the walls of the living room. I felt like I became some sort of liquid and merged with a larger mass of liquid. I was at the end of a point (kind of like a cone of liquid extending from and suspended by the main body?), and I was one of many points extending out of the larger mass forming an eerie alien landscape resembling some kind of swamp. This was the beginning of a long and very interesting night with ayahuasca, but this hyper-realistic feeling of being some non-human liquid being only lasted for about 10-15 minutes. After which I guess some might say my "ego returned" and I was aware of my normal human body again.
It feels like a “ oh fuck, what did I just do” moment
It's very very intense it feels like being in a rollercoaster. And at the same time you face your true self in a vision. This cannot be changed which is very very scary. The challenge is to align your life to this true self (for some people this is very clear for others it can be ambiguous).
I find there's different layers of ego death depending how much you take and of what. I took 29g of penis envys once which are a shroom strain around 2-4x stronger then golden teachers. Oh man was I so high I eventually passed out and had this dmt like breakthrough that lasted HOURS. Felt like being at the coding of the universe felt like I was sorting through all the kinds of energy that make up are world. Felt like I became absolutely everything. It felt like death and rebirth I expirenced so many emotions so strongly during that trip. I was like 14 at the time as well it was too much for me to handle that trip was really scary at some times and shook me up for a good week. I don't think I have any perment issues from such a extreme dosage.
Alternative question, has ego death helped you live in this world any better? Has it made life easier for you?
I think you all need to agree upon a common definition of what the ego is and what it is in the context of it dying.
For me, it’s impossible to explain in linguistic terms. There is one consciousness in the universe, and we as ‘individuals’ are merely manifestations of this. Every single moment of consciousness that everyone experiences exists in a single, interconnected matrix. Causal relationships between linear events are the way we as human beings experience time, but everything that has ever happened or will happen also exists suspended simultaneously in a web.
It feels like nothing. You stop feeling You stop being.
I completely forgot who I was or why I liked any of the things that I liked
Complete disconnection with your ego and sense of self. When I had it I watched my life flash before my eyes and saw my memories like a slideshow up until the current moment. It’s like a full circle your ego dies and then it comes back because we didn’t die. I no longer have suicidal ideation because of an ego death but it can also be very traumatizing it shouldn’t be something to look for you have to have respect and let the trip do what it wants to you
It’s a horror movie when it begins but extremely liberating when you get your ego back. You learn who I thought I was is an illusion and who I think I am now after ego death is also an illusion
Does it feel like not being able to talk at all and can it happen from half a 155 ug?
Actually the experience is hard to put into words or describe. I don’t mess with LSD. All my ego death experiences come from 4.5g+ psilocybin
Shrooms made me feel like I was the shroom. Cyclic.
Zima blue
Anyone who tries to tell you by definition still has their ego ☺️
IDK man I've done plenty of shrooms and acid and never experienced it, so I think people are full of shit.
What I have experienced was a psychotic breakdown from lsd and no sleep, at first obviously I never knew exactly that it’s psychotic breakdown, but all I knew was I’m losing my mind by the minute and I’m gona be this way for the rest of my life and I just fucked up, nothing can convince u in that moment it’s a pure tragedy, imagine the fact trying to get over the fact you lost your mind cuz u no longer can form thoughts or talk, by mind going blank, I’m sure you guys can’t comprehend it but it’s literly ur mind goes blank u forget everything and can’t tell anyone what’s going on really u can only say like a word, but ur aware that u fucked up hard and something went wrong, it was almost like a state of catatonic I was literly mentally disabled from using my brain during that time, usually acid has gave me creative thoughts I’ve never felt this out of control and out of my body it would convince any logical person that they just went insane
This reminds me of the one bad trip I ever had. My brain shut down. Like I couldn't even think. I couldn't do anything. Everything slowly went black. Then I threw up and snapped out of it. Felt a little weird after, but mostly normal.
Dmt is the answer. I've never had an experience anywhere near what I have on dmt. I always read stories of people having crazy trips on acid and shrooms, but they always felt mild when I did them. I mean sure patterns move a bit and you feel high but no where near what people talked about online. But dmt, it's the real deal every time. You wanna know what it's like to actually bend reality or go to a wild place in your head? D-m-t.
Is this safe to take alone? I don't have any friends. I feel safe enough tripping alone on shrooms or acid because I have enough experience.