What is ‘Ego Death’, And what it does to you

People have gone through profound experience while they were in shrooms, Ego Death. People who are very much self aware with their appearance, suddenly don’t care anymore. Eyes, which were considered too large, now look normal even beautiful than ever. Why am I so much consered with my appearance when I am just a tiny little thing in this world just like billions of people in this earth. There is much more to life than me, myself.

“a very complex and strange thing that involves, at least, loss of consciousness, like washing away into a black ocean of unconsciousness, then coming back and not really knowing where you were or what happened. You could just as easily call it being reborn, but you don’t need to call it anything. There is no word to describe it — who knows what it is? It’s a pharmacological fact and no language will ever describe what it is accurately. It’s a neurochemical change.” – Hamilton Morris

Although it has been defined in a variety of ways, ego death is a phenomena that can happen when you’re on a trip and causes the line between you and everything else to briefly blur. Oceanic boundlessness and the “feeling of togetherness” are two concepts that have been the subject of psychedelic study. Whatever you choose to name it, it’s a significant component of the mystical experience that psychedelics may provide and may be crucial to psychiatric recovery.

Magic mushrooms, LSD, and ayahuasca are three psychedelics that have attracted attention recently for their ability to cure a variety of mental health issues. It is possible that a major portion of this is attributable to the mystical experience, which is more frequently seen in greater dosages and can include, but is not limited to, ego death, as well as a sensation of transcending time and space, revealed truth, and/or ineffability. According to study, it is linked to higher chance of stopping smoking, decreased sadness and anxiety in cancer patients, decreased depression intensity in those with treatment-resistant depression, and enhanced openness to experience.

Despite this, scientists think further study is necessary to sift through the components of the mystical experience that are responsible for these advantages. He speculates that the sense of unity may perhaps be more significant than some of the other elements of the mystical experience. “I think that’s probably true, but we can’t say for sure now.”

The first time I had an ego death, I took three grams of magic mushrooms, says William, a 26-year-old from Vancouver. “At first I attempted to concentrate on bringing myself back a bit, but then that clearly was just not going to work because the magic mushroom knew what I needed. So, I started to shift my focus to keeping myself calm, as I knew though it feels like I am dying but I won’t die.

The “ego death” that William refers to is a severe psychedelic drug-induced state that is growing in popularity among online psychonauts. It is characterized by an initial terrifying sense of dying, during which the user goes into a trance and occasionally screams, before their entire sense of self vanishes and they are left with nothing but the awareness that everything in the universe is connected.

In its broadest definition, “ego death” doesn’t always entail LSD, mushrooms, DMT, or anything else you might expect to find in a squat raver’s bum-bag. It’s just an absolutely life-changing brain event. Sufi Muslims refer to it as fana; Buddhists call it enlightenment and think that meditation may help foster it; psychologist Carl Jung called it “psychic death” and said that it occurs when, after a time of suffering, our consciousness “dies” and is resurrected. So using drugs is merely a means of getting there more quickly.

William who has experienced ego death handful amount of times says, “there are many people online, who are making the process sound stupid. there has to be respect and vulnerabilty because here we are talking about a experience that changes personality and you cannot just come online and say “took some mushroom, experienced ego death”- you definitely sound like a jerk”

Like william lot of people believe that, Ego death experience gets you more prepared for life. It diverts you from being self-centered to be a part of the bigger picture. We have already talked about macro-dose of mushroom and how it helps to heal depression and anxiety, how it reduces social anxiety, akwardness but ego death is a different experienc. you cannot just approach this state. “It comes to you, when it comes to you” says william

When Anthony, a 23-year-old from Kentucky, took Psychedelic two months ago, he first experienced ego death. He claims that every surface in his living room was covered in detail that he had never seen before and that he was unable to close his eyes due to the amount of visual stimulation. It was the strongest sensation of connection he’s ever had, he said. All self-conscious sensations vanished, leaving just a loving unity with everything.

“You don’t even realise it’s happening,” says Thompson, a 20-year-old Toronto resident who has “50-plus times” fallen. “Your opinions are going to slow down, getting confused, after which despair sets in. Your body starts vibrating. It feels like ‘This is it. This is the moment I’ve been walking towards.'”

You have two options at this point, he says: accept it or resist and shout.

He explains, “You could find yourself briefly frozen in time with the opportunity to gaze about.” “At that moment, I experienced it. I could feel the wind roaring around me. I felt time slow to an absolute stopping point. I was devoured by a white light that emanated from everywhere. It was like there were two of me – my spirit looking about while my body was trapped staring at my buddy.”

While being investigated at Imperial College London, Johns Hopkins University, and NYU, psychedelics have a long history of therapeutic use and have been demonstrated to aid the terminally sick with depression, addiction, and anxiety when used in conjunction with professional care. However, risks still exist when using them excessively and unattended, particularly if users already have mental health issues. Increased anxiety and PTSD brought on by psychedelics are also frequent side effects, but the sense of manic depersonalization that can develop after ego death and persist is likely the most frequent. Most of the psychonauts I spoke to described having this experience.

Spiritual enlightenment may be unpleasant. The truth may make you unhappy. People fade away, you stop caring about things, and you start to doubt your job. For other people, it’s a blessing that regular life ultimately returns; it makes them happier for having gone through it. Others experience a nihilism that makes them wonder whether it would have been better to live the lie (like the rest of us) because they have glimpsed a utopia they can’t live in.

It’s hard to determine how many people who take psychedelics push their experiences to this point in reality or whether it’s just internet bravado. On message boards like Reddit’s r/Psychonaut, however, there have been enough ego death postings recently to imply that many psychonauts are being pushed into potentially dangerous turning points — at least in part, it would appear, for internet credibility.

Making friends with the ego and learning how to control it might be healthier than trying to destroy it. Ego death certainly seems to offer solutions to many of life’s problems when read about online, along with a promise of clarity in a confusing age. However, validation-seeking forum posts show that, clearly, our egos can’t be killed for long.