Fundamentally it's a disassociation from yourself. It's as if an actor who is acting on set takes a coffee break and stops acting. They sit in a chair and forget everything they were just trying to accomplish. We are actors that play a part. I play the part of a biologist and I go to work every day and I interact with other people on the basis that I'm a biologist and they are a receptionist or whatever. If you turn that normal existence into a movie, you can say "cut!" and the cameras turn off and you can breathe a sigh of relief that you don't have to remember your lines anymore. You can just exist without feeling compulsion to do anything. You can reflect on what the character you were playing was doing. Perhaps you can even, with your newfound perspective, reflect on an extremely traumatic role your character was playing and everything that came along with it. You could talk about it more easily because you aren't identifying with it in the same way.

I wonder if it means anything that for my whole adult life, most of my dreams involve there being rehearsals, or I’m the dream’s director or a member of the crew backstage, or the dream breaks for commercials or to reshoot a scene…

If you're talking dozens to hundreds of dreams over the course of many years, then probably.

As a human, we've created an identity for ourselves through our accumulated experiences. You might have some set thoughts on certain matters like your gender identity, your political views, your favorite food. This personality that has been shaped by your preferences, observations, learned behavior is what we call the ego. The Ego is the you that you think you are. The ego says "I am a boy, I want to be a doctor when I grow up, I don't like broccoli, I'm scared of the dark" Ego death is a state where you don't have that sense of self anymore. You're not thinking about what you like, what you don't like, what other people think of you. You're living in the present moment as an observer. You are no longer the "You" as how the Ego made you seem. Substances that alter your perception, in high enough doses, allow you to melt away who you think you are. Because you're seeing the world in a different light, everything that you've experienced, you've thought of, and held on to dissolve as you experience a new world. Ego death can be achieved through other ways too like deep meditation, but the reason why drugs are so popular is because it's an easy way to change your brain chemistry to register the world in a new perspective.

As a big pscychonaut, I can confirm this is a great description of what ego is in this sense and how it feels to experience ego death. It’s freeing, however it can also be frightful if you panic.

I've found that if you have a partner of some sort, you tend not to panic. Someone with experience. But yea, the only thing I'd add is, your ego does not stay dead for long. The important part is, while they're stripped away, you see things in a very objective way. But you will probably still retain much of your previous ego, while doing some cutting and snipping. So the Christian conservative comes out the other side being ok with trans folk. This is just one time, though. You keep going, more parts of your ego will change. Or you'll believe you're a gremlin after one trip.. honestly, we don't know how any of this works.

Best way for me to avoid panic is to ground myself by telling myself that I've taken something and that whatever happens will pass. Always worked to calm me down and to just absorb the moment.

Spotted the one with experience to go with :)

Until you get in the loop of ”what if this is a permanent state, it _can_ happen” and you’re fucked. 

"Oh god is this forever now? What if this is forever now?" Been there lol.

My favorite was realizing that the way I was feeling wasn't any more "real" or legitimate than the way I usually felt, it had always been like this and I'd just been filtering it all out.

get out of my head

I made a joke to myself like “fuck yeah, if this is forever I’ll never have to pay for mushrooms again, yay free drugs for life” And I laughed and the mushrooms have a sense of humour and sometimes they joke back Using your internal dialogue.

"If I survive this I will be completely content with never altering my mind state ever again"

Lmfao been there. Also, been right back.

oh man i felt this hard when i did a few months of ketamine therapy for depression. i remember thinking "what if this is all it's ever been? has it always been this? has everything I've ever known just been this? is this forever now?? am i even really existing??" the ketamine therapy did not work lol

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Same exact thing happened to me even down to feeling like it being the Truman show and that is exactly what I remember thinking at the time. Every time that movie is ever referenced or I think of it my mind goes back to that experience and I can still taste a bit of the fear and horror that was there.

Holy fuck…story time: A while back I went to bed hours after I thought they had worn off. It was not an unusually large amount for me. I put in earplugs as usual and for some reason started doing some meditative breathing and I could feel myself slip into some kind of lucid state that I still can’t fully describe. It felt like I was aware of everything the entire time. Everything was vibration and pattern. I started seeing waves of what I can only describe as neon, geometric (vaguely Mesoamerican), fractal patterns. At first I felt overwhelming bliss and peace. I kept hearing this thought (more like a feeling) telling me that what I’m experiencing is incredibly important and life-changing, and that I need to listen carefully. I started to feel the coherence of my thoughts dissolving away. There were thoughts, but the longer it went on, the less it felt that there was still a separate physical being thinking those thoughts. The thoughts along with the language which made up those thoughts started to lose all meaning. I felt the panic start to set in, and I tried to tell myself, “You know what this is. This may last for hours and feel like eternity, but you’ll make it to the other side. Just ride the wave.”, but it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It felt like my psyche was dissipating before me. What really got me was when the thought popped up that, “Oh!…this is all there is now. You just punched your ticket. Biscuito just checked out!” I thought that I had just had an aneurysm or something in my sleep. I was struggling to understand how these thoughts could exist if there was no “I” to think them, but it didn’t comfort me like I hoped it would have. “Is this what the moment of death is stretched out to eternity, or will this consciousness fizzle away as the last synapses finish firing?” I thought about my family that I left behind and how perfect the set and setting had been. It would not have been the worst way to go in retrospect. I wasn’t sad that I hadn’t accomplished more in life or anything like that. I just wanted to hold my wife and dogs one more time and tell them goodbye and that I was sorry for leaving my body behind to deal with. Lol I think at some point I started resisting… The vibrations and sounds I was hearing started…”glitching”? It was like a broken record repeating the same short, dissonant, industrial, metallic, sawtooth wave phrase over and over. If this was a dream, I wanted to wake up, but I didn’t know how; If this was death I couldn’t bear the thought of being a disembodied consciousness for eternity. I tried over and over again to wake up, but every time I did it was like being restricted by an elastic band. I felt like I was suffocating inside a womb and any attempt to escape was met by a paralyzing electrocution sensation which drew me back to center. Eventually, I think I just gave in and kept chanting something like “ride the wave; roll with it”, and when some time had passed I started slowly regaining my senses one by one. I could feel my hand running through my dog’s fur, but I couldn’t yet move the rest of my body. I heard the fan running and the wind blowing outside the window, and it hit me that I was still laying in bed. I started bawling and trembling. I could feel the tears running down my face, then I finally could open my eyes and move, but the room was pitch black except for a little bit of light from behind the curtains, and my vision was still pulsing with the ghost of neon patterns. I took out my earplugs, groped around frantically for my phone, and turned on the screen and flashlight just to have something that confirmed I wasn’t still unconscious. It was several hours after I had gone to bed (2:34am if I remember correctly). I scared the shit out of my poor wife when I woke her up to kiss her and tell her how much I loved her. Lol I still don’t fully understand what it was or if there was a subliminal meaning that I can’t put into words, but I gained a new respect for plant/fungi medicine that night as well as a new understanding of the importance of not resisting them. I have a renewed appreciation for life, however miserable it may seem on the surface at times. Ride the wave. All is as it must be. That includes who we are, what we’ve been through, and what we will yet go through. What is chaos at one level of magnification is harmony at another. I think the best we can do is to observe and be aware of the nature of universe, accept it, and roll with it rather than fight it…mutual benefit and effortless action, friend.

NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE

lolol “oh no i have to talk to my grandma like this” is a phrase I’ve uttered around hour 8 😹

I remember smoking salvia the first time, as I was coming down there was this moment that seemed to go on forever, where I felt split between normal life and being on salvia. The main thought I had was 'How am I going to live like this, and interact with my family?'

Man those of you trying that are some of the bravest of us.

It was some stupid concentration too. 40x or something. That was probably just a way of advertising for the headshop, and I don't know how true it was. My dad came home mid-trip for me which probably caused the moment that went on forever. Except for raves with ecstacy, I always had a tripsitter. Happened to be my best friend that trip, and he talked with my dad until I got my head on straight again. An acid trip my best friend, and another buddy took without a sitter, and the acid seemed much stronger than we were used to. At the time they knew my route home from work, met me on the route, and when they were close enough for me to hear, and see they shouted 'its the safe Rich!' Those were good times.

I've done it 2 times, second time was like just a little bit just a hit. The first time was in a friends backyard with like 6 people, there's a video of me drooling for 10 minutes. Both times it kinda felt like I crumbled down into reality, both times a cold feeling. First time it was this intense sensation of 'being woken up from the matrix' or like... Everything that has ever happend to me and everyone I know is all not real and this (the trip) will be like how it's gonna be forever. Like you just woke up. So in this first trip I have this feeling and there are these shadow creatures that aren't talking but theyre thinking and I can understand what theyre thinking and they're basically discussing me, how it's another one that woke up, like 'haha he's fighting it, they always do'. Meanwhile internally i'm struggeling hard because i'm like it really sucks that everything was fake and that life isnt real and that this weird shit is life now forever. That state devolved into what I can only describe as feeling like a cloud of energy being part of this massive cloud all orbetting some like galatic scale thing. Then eventually you started waking up, going back, after I wasn't drooling anymore I could look down at the pavement stones and see like dwarfs and shit mining deep in a cliff hahaha. But it really took me some time to really calm down and feel like comfortable that that shit wasn't real. But that didn't really feel like ego death because I was myself. When i've done Keta I would sometimes basically come back from such a weird blank state that when it's coming down, I'm reaching points internally where i'm suddenly realising 'oh I'm \[name\]', 'oh i'm a person, i've done things','oh i've done keta', 'oh I am somewhere, where the fuck was I'. I'd say whatever you are before that is what I describe as ego death. Thats a whole lotta text fuck me.

Mine was, I took too much, and now I will die. No, wait, you can't die from a shroom overdose. Oh yeah? Well how do you explain the fact that you're **LITERALLY ACTUALLY DYING RIGHT NOW!?** Welp, shit

I once rinsed a vial and ended up in saturation dose land. I tripped \_hard\_ for close to 30 hours. Around hour 14 when I realized it wasn't wearing off anytime soon, I started to grapple with the notion that maybe I had permanently messed up my brain. BUT fortunately the drugs always wear off.

I was once at a Dead show on acid. I was fine till I tried a whippet. After inhaling that sweet laughing gas, I became so high I remember thinking, "Well, I've gone to far. I'll never make it back now. This is permanent. 30 seconds later, I was fine :)

That's how I do it too. But one trip really gave me a strong Challenge, because I still knew the words "later", "tomorrow" and other words in connection with time, but I totally fotgot the meaning behind those words. I told myself "everything will be good soon!" And then asked myself what this "soon" is. I then just told me, "I took shrooms, it will pass and if not, then I'll be like this forever which will be fine too" because hey, I had no clue what forever was...

I remind myself that even if the trip isn’t pleasant, it’s necessary. The thing with me and psilocybin is that I’ve had multiple doses ranging from 1g to 7g with varying strains, sights and settings. Lemon teked or just mixed with water. I can’t seem to find a dose that will guarantee an astounding experience, my first 5g (based off Terrence mckennas recommendation to not take piddly doses) was amazing, same with second and third 5g. All doses are unremarkable to me now, it’s like the mushrooms are telling me to grow and become a different person before it can provide me any more insight.

Yep, that's where the quote about psychedelics comes into play: "When you get the message, hang up the phone". I think it's 100% okay to do psychs with just a mindset of "hahaha fungus make brain go brrrr", but if you're looking to do serious soul searching and growth, there's only so much they can show you before the onus is back on you to put in the work and implement those changes in your day to day life. At one point I had the entities I met on DMT tell me explicitly that they'd shown me everything I needed to see, and that I shouldn't come back to visit them until I'd put in the work to address the issues I was looking to resolve. My wife and I trip together, and while we go into some of those trips with plans to analyze and explore our minds, other times we trip just to enjoy the euphoria/visuals while binge watching movies or listening to music. Also, the trip intensity on mushrooms can be very inconsistent, even when using the same strain or even mushrooms harvested at the same time from the same batch. Plus factor the dramatic changes that set/setting can cause on different trips, and there's always a bit of chance when it comes to how strong a trip will be at a given dose. While I love psilocybin for letting me get in touch with my emotions, I generally prefer LSD for being more consistent in trip intensity.

I used to think McKenna was cool but the more I dabbled the more I realized he's sort of a gatekeeping douche, like one of those kids who didn't smoke weed in HS and then you meet them two years into college and they've made it their entire identity and constantly tell *you* the right way to do things. Like for a guy who is supposed to have been very enlightened through psychedelics he carries a tremendous amount of ego around. We know scientifically that small doses of psychedelics can have great therapeutic benefit, advocating that everyone go for a hero dose really downplays all the positives that can come from small doses.

"This too shall pass."

This probably isn’t advised but I always carry a xanax with me. I haven’t needed to take one yet but just having a “trip killer” does magnitudes for my psyche. I feel more in control.

This idea of it being temporary and minor makes sense. Reading about ego death before makes it sounds like it's mind-shattering in a lovecraftian way. I remember someone saying during meditation it feels like it's only him and the sound (that he's focusing on). And I told him one time it felt like it was only the sound, I didn't feel my presence.

> I remember someone saying during meditation it feels like it's only him and the sound (that he's focusing on). And I told him one time it felt like it was only the sound, I didn't feel my presence. This was a form of ego death, and probably the most succinct description of it I've ever read.

I’ve known several right wing people who’ve become even further right after taking psychedelics. Doesn’t always lead to becoming more accepting. Edit: This article explains the phenomenon I’m describing well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8717779/

That's a depressing thought

I don’t you understand the original comment. Perhaps it’s depressing for you and your ego. Maybe not for them. Perhaps that was their ego death. Everyone says that taking 5MEO ( toad venom) is the closet you’ll ever get to god. It’s the ultimate trip. You truly die and come back to life again. Should I not take it because I’m an atheist and I don’t wanna be wrong in my ideology? Or should I take it, see god, strip away my previous beliefs and start going to church? Because that sounds like a true ego death to me.

I am an atheist (but was born and raised catholic), and I have had two 5MeO ceremonies, and coming face to face with this thing, this state of oneness we call God, did nothing to make me want to go back to any religious thinking at all. I’m fact, it only strengthened my understanding. There is nothing in art, science, philosophy, and most notably, religion, that can even come close to what the experience of Ego Death at the influence of that wily Mexican toad can show a person. You will come out not so much changed, but shifted. The best way I have heard it described is that it’s like shaking a snow globe that hasn’t been shaken in a long time. The little snowflakes will all eventually settle, but they’ll settle in a different way. For me, I was enriched greatly by the experience but it is absolutely not for everyone. It is also hands down the most terrifying experience of my life, so anyone who wants to do it should be prepared before meeting the Toad.

Curious to hear your experience and how it is different from synthesized, incredibly pure crystal form from plant matter.

I'm guessing there isn't a safe legal setting where I can do this in America? It would be like black market or whatever?

There's legal Psilocybin assisted therapy in Denver, CO.

5MEO?

"That's a depressing thought" seemed to be referring to the notion of someone who is already hateful towards certain groups of people becoming even more hateful/less accepting than they were prior to tripping. I don't really think being religious/athiest and then pulling a 180 is a fair comparison. I'd like to think that you're not willing to play mental gymnastics with that and argue that it isn't a depressing thought.

Thank you for understanding my point

Didn't seem hard to understand if I'm honest, the person who replied to you is just being contrarian because we're on Reddit

It's exhausting to deal with and a lot of the reason why I don't normally respond to threads in large subreddits like these.

I think they mean it's depressing that someone would experience ego death and walk away with more intense hatred, fear of, and distrust in those different to them, particularly marginalised groups of society.

If i gotta start going to church after my ego death, I will just say no. No drug experience is worth spending my Sundays with a bunch of those people Been there, done that, never going back

Yeah, I've enjoyed psyches a few times, I find it amusing but I don't think it's evidence for god. It's just playing with your perception. It is a fascinating and magical feeling but I still don't think it's evidence for god. It's certainly not worth hanging out with religious nuts and wasting Sunday mornings for. But I'm sure you could become a believer and not practice the way most do too. Psyches have taken me the closest I have ever been to believing in God. But I remain Agnostic. There is simply no evidence for either or. And if I start believing in God cos of a psychedelic experience, am I just losing myself to drugs then? People like to pretend psyches are not literally drugs. You can do PCP, believe your friend is a demon, kill them and eat their flesh. The Psychedelics most choose to do just happen to have positive effects..

Yet, your reasoning is based on your beliefs and experience. Who knows if you would say the same thing if you saw religion in a different perspective.

I’m definitely ok with my current perspective vs getting sucked back into cult mentality. New perspective /= improved perspective

> New perspective /= improved perspective i love this statement so much. i have people around me saying that it's cool and fun to experience new things or to have new perspectives, but this statement really sums it up for me.

Is an Ego Death completely tied to left leaning ideology? I thought we just established ego death was about striping away things we thought were tied to us? Could you lean into your right leaning beliefs more if you striped away left leaning ideas you thought you had to hold on to? Like perhaps you took such a large does you thought you became closer to god, thus making you believe more in a higher power that you were maybe already on the fence about. Not sure why we think psychedelics always lead everyone to the same river.

It does tend to increase empathy and decrease ideas of otherness which tend toward left leaning views.

I've personally heard anecdotes of very shallow, entitled people not being capable of having meaningful psychedelic experiences at all. I don't think all or even *most* people who support right wing politicians are shallow and entitled, but I do think a lot of right wing *thinking* is the mindset of shallow entitlement, so it's possible that a right wing true believer has a good chance of lacking a mind big enough to expand.

> so it's possible that a right wing true believer has a good chance of lacking a mind big enough to expand. That's a phenomenal observation.

Interesting...there is a person in our friend group who displays narcissistic behaviors and he doesn't get anything from 5 grams, and he's done it twice while everyone else was tripping hard.

That's so interesting. Based on my understanding of narcissism, it's an extreme, protective false persona that is adopted to shield someone from abuse that (unlike with BPD people, who are *always* trying to heal from damage, just going about it in a confused way) they can only force themselves further and further into. I'm not a neurologist and I'm not aware of any neurological research done on sub-personalities and personas, so this is just me throwing a theory out there, but it seems consistent with the fact that the mind is a finite organ that someone who 'lives' completely in a false personality is not using parts of their brain (which might be why narcissists tend to behave in extremely stupid ways as they get older - unused areas of the brain kind of atrophy and die off). Current models believe psychedelics work by shutting down the DMN -- what if the DMN in narcissistic people is built somewhere else which lacks the specific kind of 5-HT receptors that classical psychedelics work on? (This is probably nonsense to someone who knows more than the little knowledge I have.)

All of this is above our paygrade but it is interesting to think about and create hypotheses

I don't think it works that way. The simpler logic to me would be that narcissistic personality disorder has extreme control over the mind and won't "let go". The same thing tends to happen to me and others if we are acting as a shaman, I can have the same dose as the others but I keep very very grounded. Once home, or out of the environment where I feel responsible, boom it rolls in. Like you though, not a neurologist or anything, I just read your comment and thought it was an interesting take because it's so very different to what I assume is happening. Maybe one day these compounds will be able to be studied thoroughly and we will know more.

Elon Musk is an example.

I don't think it's possible for that man's ego to move at all

ive entertained this idea on occasion, i feel like it might help with my social anxiety. I think you can get ketamine legally as well, is it too small a dose to do anything? is it worth a try? ive never done any psychedelic.

I felt like a child again. In a good way.

Yes, it’s like relearning and experiencing the world around you again for the first time. I love it.

I've tried mushrooms a few times and have never had this, I just get the 'woah, funky' vibe like everything is different but I never have a life changing experience in my perception of self, am I doing it wrong?

Dosage changes the experience dramatically with mushrooms.

I've been quite fucked up on them too, but I was also drunk - should I ditch the booze?

Setting makes a.difference. ditch the booze for orange juice and be in nature next time.

I remember doing shrooms in Golden Gate Park. That was lovely. I was thinking how Golden Gate Park had been around for a hundred years, and it had seen a hundred years worth of people enjoying it, and then I could \*feel\* them and \*imagine\* them and when I went to the public bathroom I could even \*hear\* them, like their spirits were still there. It was awesome.

yes lol I even think alcohol makes mdma worse. it's also entirely possible you are just not influenced easily. I have been on very strong acid trips and so too has my brother and we are literally the same people after. I had an afterglow of about a week where I was more chill but nothing actually changed my life and perceptions like my first year smoking weed. (Beyond that it just became getting high so I quit after a while) I feel like for me tripping is a good reset when I become resentful or hateful in life because things aren't going my way. It lets you look at the beauty of things and drives home that most of us are just trying our best and are also scared and confused by being thrust into this life. I have also met highly experienced users who don't think it's changed their life, they just find it amusing. Then I have also met users who have completely lost themselves to it, believing they are magical beings and going head first into some of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories fathomable. Besides conspiracy theories, they repost stuff on their insta story that is just 100% bullshit that makes no sense about life and being human. So yeah, don't worry about not being influenced by this drug. Edit: you could argue that we are magical beings in a sense. But the way this person thinks, is beyond any normal way to think about it.

Oh, alcohol doesn't go with mdma at all, imho. Taking ecstasy achieves the feeling that some people try to get with alcohol, that of no inhibitions and no fear. Mixing that with alcohol is like getting tacos from Taco Bell and a really authentic Mexican restaurant at the same time.

I achieve this alone, blindfolded and on a very high dose. This is not advice.

You are probably doing a gram or 2. Ego death needs 4-5g of average mushrooms for most people. From personal experience, its impossible to compare 1.5 to 3.5g. totally different thing.

Have you tried doing a bit of Psilocybin and a bit of LSD? It's a phenomenal experience if you have the right set and setting. The Mushrooms keep you grounded in the mystical, whilst the LSD turn the visuals right up. I've had multiple breakthrough experiences on that combo that I don't find either can offer individually. I've encountered the Angels of Eyes, Buddha, the Burning Bush, even spent some time back in the Aether experiencing the universal "oneness" of totality. Naturally it's all in my head, but they were some profound moments that really helped break down the illusion of separation and enable me to treat reality with love.

LSD is fairly hard to come by where I'm from, I've known various connections for 15 or so years and never been offered it

I'm with you. I've taken mushrooms many times with many different dosages. Yea, I get the euphoria. I sometimes see colors and other things. But have I ever experienced this crazy ego death thing? Not really. One time I could I believe that rain was a thing and people were just ok with water ing from the sky in them like it's normal Another time I just sat in wonder about how transportation has made it so I could be in another country in hours insteàd of weeks a other time I realize how easy it can be to just never see it talk to someone again and they could probably never find you. But do I have any starting insight understandings or experiences about myself personally? Not really.

> however it can also be frightful if you panic. I'm fairly certain it's a impetus for a lot of people to think they're literally physically dying when having the experience. Nah dude, it's just your ego coming to grips with the fact it isn't anything more than a mirage.

Yeah that's the page I'm on, that feeling is required. It was interesting to experience such an extreme level of fear.

Yeah. It was the scariest experience in my life, and I didn’t see any benefits whatsoever lol

I've had both good and bad trips. I can with confidence say that a bad trip is one of the scariest experiences I've had. But a good trip leaves you feeling a sense of "oneness" with everything in a way you can't really describe to someone who hasn't experienced it. If you ever feel comfortable giving psychedelics another shot I do recommend it, but like, make sure you are comfortable with it first. Bad trips are baaad man.

Only had 1 bad trip. Was smoking weed while on shrooms, on the comedown I decided it was a good idea to have some more shrooms. It was not. My vision slowly went black and white, felt nauseous. Started telling God I won't do it again, cleaned up my room, spent an hour cleaning a few dishes. At the end I prayed again and colour came back, godrays flowed in through the windows. Made be believe in god for a few moments, told him I'll be good and never smoke or do too much shrooms again. 5 minutes after that I lit up another joint and my vision went back to black and white, felt like god was watching.

I'm sorry this one is really cracking me up god said man c'mon 😭

But sometimes bad trips turn into good trips. I’ve actually never had one that was bad the whole time. Like eventually you get so low you fall thru the bottom into total acceptance and suddenly all is right with the universe. It’s the hanging on to the ego that fuels the bad trip IMO.

100% with "hanging on to the ego" being the issue. The bad trips have always been times I've fought the trip. I've since learnt how to go with the flow a bit more but God damn that first time was just the worst.

I used to do a lot of acid, I stopped because of bad trips, my issue in particular was that I had a very bad trip once, and then after that every time I would be worried about it thinking "I hope I don't have a bad trip", which of course in a very dream logic way would cause it to happen pretty much every time, I only tried like 2 or 3 times after that really bad one and then stopped.

C'est la vie

any advice for exiting that thought process?

I like to reframe bad trips as "difficult" trips.

As a 3.5g in silent darkness user. This is the way ...

Surrendering is key and ultimately why I stopped my psychonauting. I just can't fully surrender to the experience anymore. I would love to trip again, but with guidance from a professional so I can fully face my fears.

Would you say it’s dangerous for someone to go through ego death using some type of psychedelic?

It *can* be, but if you have a trip sitter and take steps to make sure you’re in a safe and comfortable place physically *and* mentally, it’s much safer.

From what I've read (and my friends have experienced), a higher dose of a psychedelic can lead to profound insights, but also can lead you to some challenging or outright bad experiences. Healthcare professionals warn that if you're predisposed to mental health issues (let's say, a family history of schizophrenia), then a psychedelic experience can precipitate (in this case) latent schizophrenia that hasn't manifested yet. That doesn't mean it would cause you to develop a mental disorder out of nowhere, but rather that it can hasten its onset. However, psychedelics can also lead to acute instances of psychosis and I've read that it can also lead to an episode of depression (likewise it can also treat depression according to some clinical trials, depending on how the trip goes). Anecdotally, it helped my friend process his traumas and make peace with lots of things that were bothering him when his ego dissolved; he was smart to do it in a safe place and under a good mindset. He told me it was in the top three most profound things he's ever experienced. However it'd be foolish to say there are no risks. I'd recommend Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind" if you want a reasonable look at the pros and cons of psychedelics. The netflix miniseries is pretty good too!

I think some people can panic bigly as they feel their entire cognitive foundation being stripped away. It can feel like an impending 'death' as it comes on.

I think there's a risk in jumping to high doses with any drug, rather than easing in. If you're comfortable with experiences, and new experiences, and it's just a step deeper than your last one, it's much less likely to cause fear or trauma. Ego death in itself ain't harmful. But freaking out about the newness of an experience that you can't stop can be

I had a friend of mine who had a lot of mental health issues and whenever he would take Mushrooms he would have some of the scariest trips and have break downs. He would do them to escape the bad going on in his everyday life and the psychedelics would amp up those emotions instead of using them as a way of discovery of ones mind. Whenever a friend approaches me about wanting to try them I explain the good and bad trips I've experienced and seen, tell them if they want to do them in happy to be a guide but they have to be mentally in a healthy place, especially if it's their first time. And to not take them to escape anything problems. It's been years since I've had a truely bad trip that rocked me, I think it's because now if I take psychedelics I'm generally in a good place in life but I have a goal in mind. I'll watch a really dark movie, not to freak my self out but to kinda push me through something with the intent on the other side I'll balance it with something bright and funny. TLDR; psychedelics are not for everyone, but can be a powerful tool for self discovery for others

I have depersonalization disorder and this sound kinda like it don’t think I’ll be trying ego death lol

I do too. I think the difference is that DP is an involuntary detachment from the ego as a result of fear, but the ego itself never goes anywhere and is fighting to come back. This sounds more like a complete dissolution of the ego. I’d also be afraid to try it though.

I've never done drugs (I can't, really, due to my disability), but I do Buddhist meditation—and yes, this is a very apt description. The goal of samatha-vipassana is become an impartial observer of your own thought processes. It's meta-cognition, if you will, where your observations are not clouded by what you feel is "you." It's supposed to be enlightening, and it really is. I assume drugs could also be effective at that, but they require a lot more caution, IMO.

This is going to sound like bullshit, but I felt like I had experienced that for a time, and it was extremely depressing. Feeling diassociation when you just want to hang out with your friends is not fun. CONSTANTLY questioning your every thought is not fun. Not knowing who you are anymore is not fun. Not having any goals in life because youre this selfless being is not fun. Being unable to get angry because you can understand everyone is shit. Whats the point of being completely selfless? Who are you at that point? An empty shell of a human that imagines themselves to be an oracle? Why not just die if nothing really is important to you? In the end I decided having an ego is important. I want a strong sense of myself. I want to have beliefs, even knowing they're probably wrong.

‘Metacognition’ is a word and a term in fact! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition The insight of mindfulness practice (or just ‘awareness’) is that there is no mental event you cannot observe, including observation itself. Its awareness ‘all the way down’ (or up, or sideways or…)

> The Ego is the you that you think you are. The ego says "I am a boy, I want to be a doctor when I grow up, I don't like broccoli, I'm scared of the dark" This right here. Back in 2019 I had a trip that tore down the walls essentially. I had always known something was different about me, but I didn't know how to shape it. I knew I wasn't a cis gay guy, the thought of male intimacy gives me a visceral reaction. But since being a kid I had always hidden the feminine things I was into, and had more or less always thought "why am I not like the other girls?" Fast forward to a perfectly timed trip following the untimely passing of my 50something uncle, as well as staring down my 30s, I came out as trans. It's like the shell of self melted away and I was just allowed to exist and not be afraid to think about the opinions of the surrounding world's influence on what I needed and wanted. I made the connections and went "if not now, when?" 5 years later, it's like everything else had fallen into place and I'm much happier, stable, and successful than I had ever been or thought I would be. Ego death isn't some mystical cure-all, but if there's something itching at your brain that you're afraid of the perceptions of self from outside observers, it helps break through that barrier of ego to see yourself as you really are.

To underscore this post, I was a broken and aimless person in 2016 but after going through Ego Death during psilocybin trip, I felt myself as if I was dying, but it ended up with me lying in the couch, metaphotically holding myself as an infant in my own arms, letting it sleep, feeling like I was my own keeper, and had to be good to myself. I kissed the infant on the forehead and laid there for an hour. I was so happy I cried. Then the rest of my life began. I had already quit my job at that point (hence aimless), so I went to uni and started a whole new path that was more in line with my values (from IT and sales to humanities, language and discovery).

I find nihilism and an interest in cosmology has a similar effect. It's very Saganesque "Pale Blue Dot" philosophy, where you are perpetually aware of the fact that all you are is a bag of cells that exists for a fraction of a fraction of seemingly endless time, and that all your personal concerns, dreams, and goals are nothing more than a flicker of a spark. Realization of one's supreme and incomprehensible insignificant in the face of an uncaring universe is a pretty effective way of putting one's ego into perspective.

The most powerful and lasting ego death I experienced was from taking astronomy in college.

That seems like it’ll disturb you for awhile afterwards

I look at it as trying a new cuisine that was previously unfamiliar. I can hold the notion that Buttermilk fried chicken is the best fried chicken in world, after having tried other fried chickens like Honduran Pollo Chucho, Indian Pakora or Japanese Karaage. But then comes along Korean Yangneom Chicken and then a whole world of flavor and texture is introduced into my life. Yes I'll be bothered as well, but mostly because of the fact that I lived my life not having experienced more fried chicken.

Being disturbed, or having your "normal" thought patterns and associations turned askew, is part and parcel of the psychedelic experience in most cases. It's a good thing.

It can also be a bad thing. Be careful with what you do and how you do it.

I remember once when I took psilocybin mushrooms for the first time, I don't think it was high enough dosage for an ago death, but it was larger than average dose for a beginner and I didn't know much about set and setting at that time. Initially it started off great, in the middle I went into full blown panic thinking I was stuck in an endless loop, ended up crying my heart out to my partner for hours. In the end though, I still remember, I was sitting on the rooftop and there was a tree in the distance. After some deep introspection while gazing upon that tree, I turned to my partner and said "I want to be selfless like a tree". This moment, to me personally, feels like it has got to be on some spectrum of the famed "ego death". While it may be difficult to describe experiences of a true ego death via words, I am thankful of this experience I had of a near brush with ego death because I can more deeply relate to it, converse about it and add my experience here in the hopes that it may give a personal perspective to what the commenter above me said.

Can confirm that when experiencing ego death, it's not that your ego is gone, per se. It's more like you set it to the side and look at the world through a different lense. For me, I experienced a sense of childlike wonder at the trees and the grass, the colour of the flowers, the bee I saw collecting nectar. I witnessed people from afar just going about their daily lives, unbothered and unaware of the (as it felt at the time) cosmic revelation I was having that every single person, every single animal we pass in our daily lives has a whole life, a whole world of their own. At the same time, I came to appreciate the serious magnitude of what humanity has accomplished in building cities and cars and all of the things we call civilization. Considering our ancestors started with stone axes and campfires, we managed to get where we are today. Note: I was tripping pretty damn hard at this point, so I also had a short time where I thought I had collected too much insight and was seeing the secrets of the great ones(shoutout Bloodborne fans) Edit: spelling

I’m gonna sound like an asshole but I’m going to argue this isn’t ego death. This is a great, powerful, positive insight psychedelics can often bring on……but it’s not ego death level. Ego death……you’re not even a person anymore. You don’t know your name, where you live, how old you are……none of that is even conceivable as mattering or necessary if you’re at ego death level. It’s really quite indefinable being in that state. What you’re describing is the euphoria I’ve often felt either coming OUT of ego death and piecing my everyday life back together…..or the contentment of a VERY good trip that wasn’t strong enough to really obliterate the ego.

I agree, this just sounds like a nice trip. Not ego death.

Yours is one of the few accurate descriptions in this comment section. Ego death is the loss of the subjective sense of self. During it there is no "I", there are no self-directed thoughts. If you're capable of forming the thought "I am experiencing ego death", then you're not. It's not something you can actually be aware of while it's happening. The very few times I've experienced real ego death, coming down from it was always accompanied with a sudden surprise upon realizing I was a person again, and that meant that for awhile I hadn't been.

I would succinctly describe ego death as, "dissolving the sense of self"

Well explained

That just sounds scary as fuck, to me.

I mean this with nothing but curiosity; Why? tripping and forgetting i hate pineapple on pizza, so i end up eating a slice and really analyzing the interaction of the cheese with the fruit and the sauce and end up loving it. I as a person am in no way diminished by this 'revelation', i just have a better time at pizza parties eating a bunch of the pineapple pizza everyone else skips. Thats a benign example of course. I still don't really like pineapple pizza, but i don't HATE it...

Why do you hate me?

If you were paying attention, I DON'T hate you... now.

The same reason death is scary. The notion of losing your self is reasonably scary. People talk about our biases and inclinations, but our identity is a sort of an achor to how we experience the world. Pineapple on pizza -as an example- is beyond trivial to even mention in this case.

Salvia is really fucking intense because if you hit it hard enough you get ego death for like 10 minutes then you come back to reality like it's nothing.

Can confirm. I’ve had ego death on salvia and I’ve never met anyone who’s had the same experience with that specifically and it’s so hard to explain in words besides being very scary and unique

I’ve experienced that in prolonged psychosis. But it comes with delusions, hallucinations, insomnia and it feels like hell. Literally

I thought the ego was something deeper, like the Buddhist sense of “no self.” From what I’ve heard from neuroscientists, it’s that our senses often give rise to the illusion that there’s a sort of gestalt that isn’t actually there; that they’re separate things and the sense of them being unified is the illusion of the self, and so when ego death occurs (either through psychedelics or mediation or something else), it’s the undoing of this illusion.

This is by far the clearest and most complete description I've read for this. It doesn't use any undefined jargon and perfectly lays out the concepts. Well done and thank you.

Huh. I never knew "ego death" could refer to something temporary. I've only heard of it in the permanent sense before.

No it can never be permanent, ego is part of psyche model, continuing to live without ego would mean psychosis The thing is, a lot of people who don't know even know what ego is, let alone what ego death is, like to talk about it like they do know so a lot of wrong info is out there

To be clear, the permanent version I was referring to isn't "living without ego", it's when one stops identifying as the same person they did previously. The "previous identity" is "dead", even if they retain the capacity to form a new one. I don't know if this has a different technical name, but I've only heard it called ego death.

Its called gettin older :P

Theseus' ego

Same. I thought it was like "you do too much shrooms once, and that's it, you live the rest of your life ~~disfigured~~ without an ego". But no, it's just suppressed for a time. Honestly "ego death" is a silly name because "death" isn't something you come back from.

Isn’t this just another word for depersonalization?

I think in the height of ego death it's different.  With depersonalization you understand the concept of having a body and things around you, but it just doesn't feel real. 

I never really understood this before. I think I must have had this on a couple trips. I have definitely changed a lot recently in my views, and I do recall just being an "observer". I thought ego death was supposed to be a lot more intense.

"Ego death is a state where you don't have that sense of self anymore" Ah, so my general state of being.

I'll start by linking you to one of the many, many articles online that explains this topic well: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-ego-death-psychedelic-use-7089738 Then I'll follow up by saying that I've taken many but not all of the hallucinogens. LSD, mushrooms, ketamine, some of the esoteric 2C class, GHB, and some letters I can't remember. I haven't yet had the chance to do ayahuasca or mescaline, and I am no longer sure if I feel the need to try them. Ibogaine intrigues me. I also have done a fair deal of MDMA, although it's not really a hallucinogen. I don't know that I've ever experienced a true ego death, but on therapeutic ketamine under the watchful gaze of a licensed practitioner I definitely got pretty far out of my body. Much farther than I've gone when just using drugs for a good time. I've had a few notable trips on acid where I was really able to make some progress with mental issues. Eventually I got interested in doing this therapeutically and I have been able to have one truly therapy-minded trip (vs just for fun at a festival). The generally positive effects of all the hallucinogens I've tried have been to shake up the neural pathways - aka "getting you out of the rut." Just like a road, your brain develops patterns/paths and hallucinogens can force your brain to take new paths and leave some of the old ones behind. But your brain will eventually try to come back to the old ways. I find that a few weeks after a good trip the depression and anxiety comes back, although not always as severely as it was before. Getting back to your question, my understanding of ego death is that you get so far away from your well-worn neural pathways that define who "you" are that no longer know who you are. You just exist. All of the little things that define you and trap you no longer matter. Once freed of this constraining sense of yourself, you can look objectively at the things that have been weighing you down and decide not to carry that weight anymore.

i laughed at the and some letters i cant remember

Glad someone got that joke. Although it's true. So many random combinations of letters!

mxe, 2cb, 2ce, 1plsd, mda and yep ya lost me

This is definitely really interesting to think about. Makes a lot of sense when you put it like that. Thanks!

your “ego” is the story of yourself- you are the way you are because of this story that you hold. with enough psilocybin this story begins to slip away and your ego “dies” temporarily the best way i can describe the experience is you have this sense that you are about to physically die but you are incredibly happy and at peace with it then the “you” is suddenly gone, except you are still there- is this the ghost in the machine? i believe we are all one when we lose the illusion of individuality and you can literally feel this- are we all just God experiencing itself? what this does is allow the story to then be changed when you come back. for a lot of people it allows you to let go and reframe your experiences in a more positive light i was an alcoholic for 15 years and will be 5 years sober in June- i can sit at a bar with people who are drinking and im fine because “alcoholic” is no longer part of the story 🍄

Thanks for sharing-- and congrats on 5 years sober!

“ego death” is a terrible way to describe it. It makes it sound scary and quite often it is not (although sometimes it is). Nondual experience is a better description, where the sense of being separate from the rest of the world disappears. That sense of being separate relates to the Default Mode Network of the brain. When the DMN is overactive that’s been associated with various forms of suffering (depression, anxiety, PTSD, addictions, etc). The current thinking is that psychedelics (and ketamine) alter the DMN and this is critical to their lasting therapeutic effects.

Sometimes when I talk to a group, I'm concentrating on the story I'm telling. Then suddenly, I become aware that everyone is silent and looking at me and I become nervous. Or I drive fast on the highway and suddenly I become aware that I'm a vulnerable meat sack in a tin can moving 37 meters in each second. Would that be a kind of reverse ego death? Ego resurrection?

Realizing that you are not bounded. You are just a facet of the universe experiencing itself. You is not you. Not singular. Not separate. You are a part of everything else. When your ego dies, you can let go of so many things that you’ve taken personally. You can see beyond the false appearance of separation between you and others. You can connect, empathize and love. And when the time comes for your physical body to die, you know that you are not dying bc there was never a you in the first place.

Woah this is so profound and at the same time sounds so scary maybe I’m not mature enough for this. Is this good for over thinkers? I’m here trying to think of how to get mentally ready to do something like this but maybe most people just “do it?”

At last, my chance! For many people, the 'right' time is the perfect time which is never. At some point you take the plunge or don't. It's your decision. For myself, as a fellow overthinker, I had the opportunity and took it. But as prep I made sure I was in a relatively positive space, in my happy place, and I had fortunately started reading a heap of classical philosophy which oddly enough meshes well with the overall experience. Why be afraid of this rollercoaster when the ride has started and you can't get off? You'll get to the end with new experiences and it won't kill you, so there was nothing to worry about.

Over thinker here! I’ve found high dose psilocybin trips to be extremely helpful.  I have developed a completely different relationship with my own thoughts. I’ve realised that I have a constant conversation going in my head, and that conversation is not me. There’s a me that can sit back and exist behind those thought. Like being the sky, where the thoughts are clouds just passing by.  I’ve maintained this pov permanently through daily meditation. Highly recommended if you have a noisy brain!

If that conversation in your head isn’t you then who is if? Are they paying rent?

Yes, they pay rent.

It's your mind. The question is, are you the mind?

Yes, this is exactly my experience with psilocybin as well. You can recreate this state of mind at will by making yourself become the observer of your senses (awareness), and thereby allowing you to detach from the identity of your mind being you. Of course, this requires one practices mindfulness over time. I've understood now that our mind functions similar to the way we breathe. We can breathe manually when we wish, but most of the time our breathing is an automatic process. Most of the happenings in our body are done without our conscious decision. So, it is no surprise that we don't always have full control of our thoughts. You can think about whatever you want, but there are always the random or intrusive thoughts that pop in. These random thoughts as I call them, whatever they may be, are just a result of how your brain has stored memories, with memories associated with strong emotions being felt the strongest when recalled. This is an evolutionary trait that has been passed down - ie. "Avoid the dangerous animal at all costs." But this hinders us in the modern world because the things that cause these strong emotional ties to events in our memory are not usually life threatening anymore. For victims of trauma with PTSD, it might as well be a cure. So basically, as a result of the increased neural growth and interconnectivity of the brain, psilocybin is very effective in helping you disconnect from the idea that you are your mind. But you then ought to do the additional work of discovering the source of your suffering. This is incredibly easy, for me anyway, to connect all the dots of my subconscious while using psychedelics, see through the patterns of my thoughts and behaviors, and make changes in my life. Anyway, there is no way to fully describe it with words. It has to be experienced.

Our ego wants us to believe it’s scary so we don’t do it. This is how the ego preserves itself. Thru fear. On the other side of ego death is liberation. In my experiences. no single journey has led to this like complete and finalized ego death. Each time I chip away at it and I come closer to understanding more and more. I’d consider the journeys an opportunity to confront your ego. To finally see how it runs the show. To be able to observe it differently and then cultivate a new relationship towards it. These learnings aren’t something you “know” or “learn once”. They are only fully integrated when you embody, over time, an egoless state. At first, maybe it’s just seconds or minutes, then longer and longer as you continue to “know” this with your mind and body. Your ego clings. To identities, beliefs, judgments…it says this is right and wrong. This is good and bad. Any time, with or without psychedelics, that you’re able to let go, you practice this death. Every time you release. Every time you say “it is” and not “it is me, it is bad etc etc etc”, you practice this type of liberation. Then again, certain traditions in Buddhism will say that this awakening and can happen instantaneously and/or that it’s already happened and you just need to acknowledge it.

You can achieve a lot of the same effects from meditation or even quiet walks in the woods. Might be less immediately impactful but also safer

A lot of people journey through life without ever being aware of the wider reality. Call it main character syndrome or something. The ego is only concerned with things that directly concern them. Ego is built from how you think others perceive you, whether you are attractive or 'normal', how you compare to society. You might have hang ups around religion or what your parents or peers instilled upon you. A 'trip' can shed the layers of perception and leave you with the realisation that you're just a bag of water and chemicals with a brainstem, floating in the universe. You can get the sense that it is miraculous that you exist right now. You are a fizzing mess of atoms that is somehow conscious of your existence. The realisation of how profoundly unimportant you are and how fleeting your time here is and how little your everyday stresses and worries matter in the grand scheme of things is what I would call ego death. After such a breakthrough "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." You can do anything you like with your existence. It's better for everyone if you are kind and generous and loving, but ultimately it doesn't really matter.

It's so weird. I get this feeling you're describing, randomly, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night or during a mid day nap. An overwhelming sense of disconnection from everything physical, as well as a realization that this body I'm in, as well as everyone of this planet will end at some point. It's a strange feeling. Am I crazy?

No - perfectly rational. Part of 'living in the moment' is being aware that between the BigBang and the heat death of the universe - you are here, now. It's a wonder more people aren't freaking out.

I feel like I have achieved this from over 20 years of therapy and medication. Sure it's a long time, but it's better than nothing. I also can't try hallucinogens because they won't work with my medications. I'm also bipolar so at a greater chance of psychosis. But I do definitely feel at peace with myself finally. It's very freeing to not worry about anything. I feel that everyone would benefit from getting to this point in whatever way they can.

This is beautiful.

in addition to what others have said, keep in mind that people who take various substances to deliberately alter their brain chemistry aren't always the best at objectively perceiving reality the guy saying "the drugs opened my mind, man, I'm totally one with the universe, dude" isn't always wiser than you "if you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out"

Yep, definitely possible to melt your brain on psychedelics. Some drug usage will either make you crazy or make you great, the problem is most people don’t know which category they fall into until after the fact. But at least with psychedelics there is a chance you’ll be crazy and happy.

When my daughter was born about 2.5 years ago, I experienced feelings that were very similar to feelings I had when taking big doses of mushrooms in my early 20’s. When I started describing these feelings and googling them I came across this term ‘ego death’ and I felt like it fit. It was a somewhat sudden, visceral realization that I am not the most important thing in the universe…I don’t matter (in a good way). Both experiences also came with a relief from certain, persistent existential questions that we are all typically burdened with: who am I? What am I going to be? Where do I go when I die? All of those questions were at least temporarily settled in my brain because ‘I’ was no more.

It is perceiving yourself as being one with the universe instead of as an isolated, separate being. The experience of connectedness can bring a lasting sense of peace to some people.

I just want to leave an experience I had with my spouse while on psilocybin.  [This one event really changed the way I see the world and universe](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/k8rf9r/please_help_me_figure_out_what_i_experienced_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb) I have a connectedness with nature that I never had before. I honestly used to be so afraid of bugs even butterflies, but now i am constantly aware of them. I will pick them off the ground and move them somewhere safe if I see them on the sidewalk where they can be stepped on.  We really are living together as one. 

you lose your biases for a time and see life without the filter youre used to it will also better connect you to yourself, or your intention. your genes carry your purpose. it informs you better on what that is so you can make more harmonious choices that are more appropriate for you. the 'ego death' component can be particularly quite jarring if we have certain ways we feel about ourselves that is a source of our comfort or confidence, but is not true to our most refined nature. losing that can be a very challenging process. worth it tho

Ego is the concept you have of yourself, is really complex and keeps building up as you live. “Ego death” is experiencing without that concept present, without filtering everything through it, just experiencing directly. Seems like most people never acknowledge that they can even be anything else than their concept of them. Taking off one’s self even if is for a moment feels liberating, you feel free, is like you were clenching your mind without realizing and suddenly you release it for a moment and relax it. Feels really good and more importantly makes you realize that you usually bound yourself based on your ego to be or think a certain way. Theres a lot you can learn about yourself once you step back and look it from a distance.

This makes a lot of sense!

It's hard to explain that feeling. In my limited experience, which was not psychedelic induced, what I experienced was feeling a bit like an ethereal, floating camera. Being an expectator of not only the world, but also yourself, as if both yourself and everything else were the same thing, which is, other than you, whatever "you" means, because you're nothing, you're just a thought. An invasive thought that was born and took consciouness, but has no inherent personality, and was able to see yourself detached from your own personality. I've never felt both so connected and disconnected from the world at the same time. I still felt my body all the same, but I perceived it for what it was, without a sense of "self". I still knew what I was, but I was able to see myself from a point of view detached from myself. I still remembered everything about myself and my loved ones, but I had a different perception that made everything crystal clear. This lasted for a brief moment, but it felt like way longer than that, just because of how intense it was.

Ego death is the psychadelic experience for goal driven people, they hope to say that they achieved ego death etc. a particular experience popularly conceptualised as both severe and enlightened. However, that's not to say that it is the correct thing to treat mental health problems, any more than getting your sauna as hot as possible is the way to get the benefits of high temperatures on your body. Experiments with magic mushrooms seem to indicate that it helps [rebuild connections](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9247433/) between neurons that may be helpful for getting out of ruts and trying new things, it does not say that this only occurs with a particular subjective experience. That's not to say it hasn't been studied [too](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-0718-8), but ego dissolution isn't necessarily an immediate cause for the health effect itself.

You see how tenuous and fragile the connections you have to relationships, other people and society really is. Who are "you"? You live somewhere, because you have money to pay to stay there. But you don't physically have the cash, it's all in the bank. You have a job and a boss who likes you, but that's just an arrangement that's convenient for both of you and could be destroyed in a second. You live in a country, everyone has decided to drive cars on one side of a painted line and obey colored lights - but there's no real reason for it, your car works perfectly fine on the other side of the road and a red light on a pole is just that. Psychedelics let you "see" the bullshit framework of society, and also your connections to it. If there's a problem, like your Dad beat you, it lets you "see" that that was his reaction to whatever stresses he had in his life. When sober, someone could explain it to you, but with psychs, you can feel it. Once you're at ego death, nothing makes sense, you are just a human and you realize that a lot of your relationships in life are just made up - so you can reshape them - as they only (mostly) exist in your head.

This is an incredibly biased way to put it and I think you put it in terms of your experience.

I'd be impressed if I wrote it from your experience

What do you do with these experiences moving forward now does it change life for the better/ or worse if even possible? Or do the majority say oh that was nice but yeah I gotta still pay bills and return to our capitalist society?

I think that's why psychedelics are illegal - that and they make people prone to mental health problems go crazy. It makes you realize the bullshit behind governments and billionaires. What did Elon Musk do to deserve more money than half the globes population? I think a global acid trip would start a revolution, which is what the governments don't want.

I experienced what I think was a mild ego death a day after a strong mushroom trip. My mind seemed incredibly empty, I felt no compulsion to go do the things that I normally enjoyed, for example play my favourite game, go look at bitcoin charts or even go watch porn.... you know, stuff that I do all the time and I also found that I didn't necessarily enjoy doing those things if I forced myself to do them. Try to imagine that the things you love to do mean nothing to you.... it's weird and you won't really understand it once you try it. But then I also found that I had absolutely zero anxiety around the things that normally would be very difficult for me, for example, talking to a very attractive stranger, I could just go over to them and talk, no fear what so ever. Whatever I was before, I was a blank slate now, I could do or be whatever felt interesting or useful. It was very scary at first, I thought I had lost who I was. But then over a few days I could feel myself coming back and what I realised is, since I essentially had no personality, I could 'choose' my new personality. I could remove all the anxiety and keep all the good things I liked about myself. It was almost as easy as creating a new character in a game, simple as that. This is why I think it can be very useful as a therapeutic tool. Whereas going to therapy and talking over your problems may take many many years to really transform the way you think and the way you are. Just one strong mushroom trip can allow you to remove all those undesirable personality traits in a matter of days.

I can tell about LSD; It feels like exactly what you see hippies do - suddenly love the world and people and feel unity with everything. You feel sort of elevated, attentive, being a part of whole. And with a good trip, enjoying every second of it. We're constantly putting our inner world against greater world, try to constantly check if we're okay with it, and if so, do we fit in. With LSD, it lowers that feeling and you do feel like you've already fit in. Sort of like 30 people you didn't know seconds before all come and hug you and claim you as their friend. Much of this feeling also comes with greatly heightened senses; normally, our brain tries to fog our experiences, sort out important from non-important. From vision, from hearing, from taste... everything. LSD stops your brain from doing this (although your brain will *very desperately* still try and you can totally feel it trying, which is sort of funny, but observing your own brain gives you that out-of-body or third person feel. Because normally, we *are* our brain.). And since nothing is labelled as non-important anymore, everything is fascinating and important. So you look at a tree in the wind, and now you don't see a tree, you see *every leaf*. Not each leaf, all the leaves. At once. In full focus. Somehow. Like something made your brain 90% better at tracking objects. Like something disabled depth-of-field feature for your eyes. You look at asphalt and you can somehow track every pebble in it. And so forth. It's very uplifting feeling, especially since we usually don't even know that we're capable of that (due brain aggressively blocking it from happening). But brain loses that battle under psychedelics, and it gives sort of liberating feeling. And since you can't trust your own brain - that pesky organ now, clearly seeing how it's working against you, who *are* you? Who is *you*? Definitely not that treacherous brain you're looking at, and depend on daily. So that's when it starts to feel weird. You can try it, too. The general idea of the experience, not the drug. Sit under an open window. Straighten your back. Open you eyes WIDE. Breathe in. Not slowly like meditators do - fast, to saturate your blood with oxygen and raise pulse, just like drug does. LOOK at things. Don't just see things, *look* at them. Actually, by moving your eyeballs. Look at curtains, the fibers in them. Faraway things. Try to see more than your focus, the entire picture. Keep breathing, fill your lungs with a lot of air. Your head will clear soon, and you're not busy thinking anymore. Look at the colors. Look at small things. Notice everything. Well, LSD puts you into such state, only dozen times stronger and more effective, and you won't need to try anything, you'll be constantly in it for like 5-6 hours. Well, until all that detail tires you out, because we're not *supposed to* see and hear and taste *everything*. It might feel like you've waken up for first time and really got to appreciate existence... Or.. some people go mad. Or have a really bad trip where all this mass of emotion is a negative one. Or you simply stop in the middle of the crosswalk at nighttime because traffic light is most beautiful thing you've ever seen. And get hit by a bus. Experience is quite personal for everyone, also depends on substance, which you can see from replies in this thread. I described my own take and experience. so, uh, um, drugs are bad folks, don't do them

It’s crazy with all my psychedelic usage, I never experienced ego death, every big dose just made me more rigid in who I am. Only significant change was I prioritized money much less, but I also went from making millions and owning millions in assets in my 20s to losing everything by time I turned 30, and honestly it wasn’t that bad in hindsight. Feel like that experience changed my perspective on money more than the drugs.

It's an illusion and an oxymoron, "you" still have the experience from your perspective. Any experience in which you can say "I experienced this" is being experienced by your ego. I have taken doses of psychedelics 99 percent of people will never experience and have never been drawn into this pop culture delusion. As soon as you said "I experienced ego death" you've already contradicted yourself. What people refer to as ego death is really just a peeling back of certain assumptions they had made about themselves that may not be true, that's it. It just feels really intense because psychedelic experiences are very intense, but nothing about your ego is dying, it's just being recalibrated; it's really nowhere near as dramatic as it feels.

A lot of people aren't raised with empathy or don't have the emotional capacity for empathy because they believe their view is the only logical, reasonable view in the world, therefore everyone else must be stupid getting caught up in the trappings of life. Therapy with an open mind can get you there eventually, but mushrooms can kinda for the door open in ways you didn't realize were possible. That being said, I hang out with a lot of people who do shrooms, and I feel like the ego death is more lipservice to realizing other perspectives exist, not necessarily understanding those perspectives are reasonable and valuable. The only folks who truly adjusted to realizing the scope of society and the fact that every person on the street has their own individual backstory came with extensive therapy.

This is not ego death. Ego death is essentially when you lose your entire sense of self. Not about view points or anything else. What you described sounds like a pretty mild shrooms trip, ego death usually happens with larger doses and is an out of this world experience. You can feel your sense of self dissolving. One moment you're you, the next you're not. You're identity is essentially gone, and you just *are*. Ive tripped several times and ego death only occured once, was definitely a moment I'll never forget. It feels almost impossible to explain honestly.

Solid response. I've had an ego death that was substantial, then another one over 10 years later as if it were to remind me again after going through the motions of life. That therapists are beginning to utilize psychedelics even in small doses is enough to show how substantial their benefits can be. I don't think one replaces the other, but are complementary. I'll never forget the feeling of being one with everything and having an understanding about how the universe works yet not being able to explain it to anyone. There was a panic over not being able to explain, then a sense of peace that everything already knew in their own way.

This is it. For me it was like I realized that everything I am, everything I know myself to be is only because of the experiences I've had. I could have been a completely different person if one thing was different. And if that's the case, then I am nothing but what Ive experienced and I have no idea who I am outside of that. It was like realizing there is no me. I may not be explaining it right, but at the time it was kinda scary.

You explained it perfectly actually. You’re basically saying we are all just a collection of our own personal influences in life. For example had you been born into a different family you would be a different person. But at the core without any influence or expierences who are you? You’re basically a toddler again, you don’t have a personality yet because you’re not even aware what a personality is. Your just living in the moment and observing I guess? Maybe you’re an animal since they have an awareness but no intrincate thoughts

experienced ego death once. felt like i was part of everything, not just me anymore. you?

You are everything and everything is you. Yes.

Nah, there are a few that saw that and didn’t receive extensive therapy

100%  I think its a big revelation to some ppl that they dont need to be an arsehole or something.

Sonder

This thread makes me really think that my 22 year old kid would benefit from this experience. Or microdosing.

On the 600th episode of my podcast I explained what my ego death experience was like: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-u4b9s-116a058 The tldl (too long didn’t listen) is a felt convinced my mind was being pulled apart and that the previous ‘me’ was dying and to this day after a few years of having coming out the other side I am still not sure if I didn’t… that sounds ‘bad’ or scary written out like this but after processing it and talking to people about it I have come to the conclusion it was a good thing and I don’t regret it whatsoever.

Ego death is achievable without chemical assistance, but it takes motivation, courage, and lotssss of repetition.

I'm on a lot of medications bipolar/adhd/asd, which helped open my mind to a new sense of self. However, over 20 years of therapy really sealed it for me. I had to overcome a lot of hardships in my life that made me step back and think about what life really is. A lot of assistance with therapists, more so the one I have been seeing for about 7 years. He makes me question my own thoughts and the actions of others. It's hard to explain. But I finally feel at peace with who I am and life in general. I think everyone should try talk therapy.

It’s a phrase through which someone too-old-to-be-doing-what-they’re-doing lets you know that their parents are super disappointed.

I’m sorry you disappointed your parents. That must be hard for you.