Experiential Differences RE: DMT w/THC vs. Without

[northape]

Hey Ape, I didnt take anything you said as arrogance.
I want to encourage all and anyone who communicates towards me to use brutal and concise honesty. I respond best to this style.
Say it like you believe it! Never going to take offence.

Thanks for your reply. I just became very self-conscious about my answer. I should have asked for your clarification before replying

My responses are always honest and straightforward, but as with everyone, some undercurrent habits and biases creep in. When I see that my writing is more of a learned knowledge than my direct experience, it all starts to sound arrogant and condescending. I never hold my views in very high regard, so any input is always welcomed. We're all here learning about ourselves and the world.

Ego-death is something that sounds fantastical... until it happens, most of the time.
I may be an exception to certain observations and it's why I have some of the view that I have. We have certain expectations for certain experiences, in this case, ego-death, that might show up in different ways for different people.

My problem is mostly with the term itself. It's not a death of the ego, and it comes back, so why even call it ego death? And then we use the term for a number of experiences.
I wouldn't consider the disappearance of the world or personal history an ego death. If there is someone to experience it, the ego remains.

However, it doesn't detract from the conundrum that people actively seek it and this is somewhat odd.

I was seeking the experience of ego death for years. My whole journey started from depression and a lot of suicidal thoughts. So in medicine, I found a way to kill myself without physically dying. And I pushed the boundaries for years, ending with insane amounts of both harmalas and DMT. However, I never saw a real death of my ego. Yes, I saw the total collapse of mental structures, memories, and personal history, but there was always someone left who knew what was happening. That awareness disappeared only when high doses led to a blackout, but then it quickly popped back online.

One day, an extremely powerful experience led to something different. Instead of a collapse of mental structures, I found myself in a totally open space. And it was on a dose that would have floored me two times over. In that state, there was no concern about the ego, thoughts, or any kind of tightness that our mind produces. I was just a part of a bigger cosmos, with boundaries between us close to nonexistent. That openness was so vast and relaxing that all problems started to unwind by themselves without my participation. I could clearly remember myself or my personal history, but it was all unimportant and not in my mind. The openness was the focus and a dwelling place at the same time. Right after the experience, my ideas about ego death and a search for it kind of lost importance. That state was much more interesting and healing than any notion of personal disappearance. I had it a few more times, always on an extremely high dose of medicine and even with different plants. The higher you get, the more open and free it becomes. The ego would fall by itself if you marinated long enough there. I don't know if it would be useful to anyone, but that was my experience.

Reading your descriptions and experiences i wish we could use telepathy because so much gets lost in translation
It's always hard to say if people are describing the same thing or not or from different perspectives or from different stages.

Me too. We all use different language constructs and sometimes mean the same thing but express it very differently. Language and personal biases can become a sort of limiting factor in our communications. I'm still learning how to translate what I mean into words. Quite often, I wish I had been a good artist or musician. It would be much easier for everyone

 

[Transform]

why even call it ego death?

Ego jesus gets resurrected every time?

I've had some curious experiences during the process of waking up from a night's sleep. Simply not knowing who or where I am is fairly common, but one time, I think largely due to my exact living situation at the time, this was briefly followed by the actual experience of being my neighbour who lived in a room directly above me.

Not sure how that particularly relates to the thread, but I was strongly reminded of this as an anecdote. That person taught me how to swim, come to think of it.

 

[northape]

Ego jesus gets resurrected every time?

Ego death is not a true death. True death means a total disappearance of the construct, but our ego resurrects each time. It's the main premise of samsara, too. This death-rebirth cycle is possible only because of the ego's seeming immortality. We never question it, so this ego dictator seizes more and more power.

I've had some curious experiences during the process of waking up from a night's sleep. Simply not knowing who or where I am is fairly common, but one time, I think largely due to my exact living situation at the time, this was briefly followed by the actual experience of being my neighbour who lived in a room directly above me.

As I mentioned before, I feel that the bare-bones ego is just this feeling of "I am form" or "I am separate." It's like an ice cream cone, and we can put any topping on it.
All of our personal history would just be the topping. Very few are interested in the cone, so it moves from life to life. So there is little difference between us, except for this fictional topping that's going to melt anytime, anyway. That's an example on my level

Not sure how that particularly relates to the thread, but I was strongly reminded of this as an anecdote. That person taught me how to swim, come to think of it.

That was a nice anecdote, and it shows very well how we are constructed anew each morning.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I wouldn't consider the disappearance of the world or personal history an ego death. If there is someone to experience it, the ego remains

I feel like this conversation is getting weird so may bail.

That's fine. There's also more than one definition of ego, so we can agree to disagree. For example, I'm not Hindu, and I don't feel I need to subscribe to every part of their definition or schema of the idea.

That being said, you have an issue with term ego death? Me too too because I have an issue with the way in which we sloppily use ego to dodge the more nuanced aspects of experience. Seeing ego as a part of self, it being gone for a while doesn't delimit there being experience for a "unit" of consciousness. Hence my story where I didn't care what I was. I don't even know if I was a thing. The "I" wasn't there, just a "unit" of consciousness. And the thing about is it's hard to explain because of the limits of language.

You said it's not something that you've ever experienced so in all the instances in which you counter the claim of ego, you're promoting dogma.

One love

 

[northape]

You said it's not something that you've ever experienced so in all the instances in which you counter the claim of ego, you're promoting dogma.

I agree. Who knows if it's a lack of language, experience, or understanding. However, I side with you here.
We may mean similar things, but we approach them from very different sides. I don't want to produce more confusion than I already have.
This topic is complex, and it seems like I know nothing about it. I'd better stop trying to understand it and return to the practical side of things.
It's not that I want to be right, but more that there's a need for validation that I won't ever find. Yeah, that's my baggage sitting on my head.
I think that I have honestly shown my cards, so make your own choices about anything I wrote. I would put it all in the fiction category myself.

 

[Voidmatrix]

It's not that I want to be right, but more that there's a need for validation that I won't ever find. Yeah, that's my baggage sitting on my head.

You're good, my Kali energy could probably tone down and make me less of a McAsshole because I wondered about this and then thought I may have been projecting. I apologize for the lack of compassion in my reply.

The reason I said that it's getting weird is I feel like there are some parallels with the ego conversation and the thread about the term breakthrough. When we're matter of fact about it, we're spinning our wheels.



One love

PS. Don't devalue your positive contribution. Nothing belongs in the fiction section.

 

[northape]

You're good, my Kali energy could probably tone down and make me less of a McAsshole because I wondered about this and then thought I may have been projecting. I apologize for the lack of compassion in my reply.

I actually appreciate your approach. Sometimes I need a strong pushback to stop and see what I'm doing. It's a form of compassion, too.
It would be nice to get a definitive answer on what "ego death" is or what a "breakthrough" is, but they are like a mirage and rainbows.
Maybe this lack of a clear understanding is a part of the ego system's functioning. How could it define what's outside its boundary?

 

[CosmicRiver]

It's all good imo, if a person has a "western" or "eastern" philosophical framework it makes all the difference. Consciousness, self and ego mean different things in the two frameworks so it's normal that misunderstandings arise

 

[Voidmatrix]

I actually appreciate your approach. Sometimes I need a strong pushback to stop and see what I'm doing. It's a form of compassion, too.
It would be nice to get a definitive answer on what "ego death" is or what a "breakthrough" is, but they are like a mirage and rainbows.
Maybe this lack of a clear understanding is a part of the ego system's functioning. How could it define what's outside its boundary?

Thank you for seeing it that way, because that's where it comes from, and from personal experience, it doesn't land most of the time with people and I end up apologizing.

It's all good imo, if a person has a "western" or "eastern" philosophical framework it makes all the difference. Consciousness, self and ego mean different things in the two frameworks so it's normal that misunderstandings arise

This is one of the reasons that it's hard to find the right way to express my thoughts on this. I try to cover disparate bases and it's a lot of work.

One love

 

[northape]

Thank you for seeing it that way, because that's where it comes from, and from personal experience, it doesn't land most of the time with people and I end up apologizing.

Remembering Kali imagery, she has a garland of heads. Maybe you collect egos the same way?
Cut everything with wisdom until only bare reality remains. Thank you, too.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Remembering Kali imagery, she has a garland of heads. Maybe you collect egos the same way?
Cut everything with wisdom until only bare reality remains. Thank you, too.

First and foremost, I see, recieve and accept this humbly. Very kind of you.

Second, made me actually laugh out loud.



One love

 

[Voidmatrix]

@northape I'm wearing this for you today.

One love

 

[dithyramb]

The term ego is itself ambiguous, let alone ego-death.

It is a Latin word meaning "I" and the person introducing it as a psychological term is Freud. Then there is the modern "spiritual" usage in which it deviates from Freud's framework.

In my culture, the aspect of the self which is to be transcended as one matures is not just a crude sense of a separate self. İt emphasizes the attachments, among which the biological drives of food and sex are explicitly mentioned. But the eventual aim is not to renounce these aspects of human life, or to deny any reality of a separate self in this life. İt is to not be a slave to anything, and to be a pure channel to God's will. God's will is also admittedly a problematic concept that is being and has been readily abused throughout history. But, speaking from my own personal experience, I can say there is an authentic form of it.

And Ime/imo, God doesn't want us all to be monks and renounce human life. Human existence is sacred. This planet, this physical universe of duality is sacred.

The physical world, or even the soul might be an imagination from the perspective of God or the dimension of pure unity. But then again, God appears as imagination to the physical universe of duality. İt's all a sacred imagination.

...

Edit: And speaking of "ego-death," there is a parallel term in my culture. But it has nothing to do with an experience. It means becoming permanently free of worldly attachments. Here I have to admit that in my lifetime I don't believe to have witnessed anybody who has freed themselves completely of all attachments. I tend to think such a project has become practically impossible in today's age. That if you take a hypothetical totally liberated person from the ancient past and put them in today's world, they would likely also disappoint. İn the end I see this project as a striving, and a constant, neverending work of regular purification and unifying with God, which does bring a progressive elevation of consciousness with it.

 

[northape]

@northape I'm wearing this for you today.

Jai Sri Ma

And Ime/imo, God doesn't want us all to be monks and renounce human life. Human existence is sacred. This planet, this physical universe of duality is sacred.

I often bounce between renunciation and a total acceptance of reality. Although, my gut feeling tells me that acceptance is the way to go. Any form of resistance toward creation just creates more problems. Total embrace and unity feels more like love

 

[Voidmatrix]

Jai Sri Ma

I often bounce between renunciation and a total acceptance of reality. Although, my gut feeling tells me that acceptance is the way to go. Any form of resistance toward creation just creates more problems. Total embrace and unity feels more like love

I feel like the simplest way to combine these is to find balance. Renouncing what ought to be renounced for the individual on that level, embracing what ought to be embraced by an individual at that level.

Regardless of the deeper nature of reality, we can't help being here, may as well live it.

One love

 

[blig-blug]

It would be nice to get a definitive answer on what "ego death" is or what a "breakthrough" is

I think this is backwards: what they are is words. If we were all using those words to refer to the same experience (or phenomenon), then we could wonder about its nature, but I don't think it's the case. And a discussion of which of those phenomena would be "true" ego death is very much meaningless. Likewise for ego.

A prerequisite is to understand what we are talking about, and then we can investigate it. For matters as close to subjective experience as these, it's not easy.

As an example, as @dithyramb points out, the term ego came initially into use as something other than "me" through Freud. Freud used it to refer to a certain part of the psyche. Now, we can agree or disagree whether that "part" makes sense as a separate category, but the experiences he attributed to the ego are something we all experience.
Then, it came into use as a poor translation of atman (Sanskrit) and atta (Pali). As a translation it's very inadequate, those words are much closer to spirit in both etymology and meaning.
Later, to further complicate matters, comes along the term "ego death" and it becomes usually related to apparently similar terms such as the Buddhist term anatta (literally no-atta). However anatta doesn't refer to the absence of an ego, soul, self, or spirit, but to the absence of a permanent ego, self, or spirit. In fact one of the questions Buddha explicitly refused to answer and warned not to attempt to answer is whether there is a self or not.

So, it's a messy situation and the usual words don't help here. It would be much better to pin down what we are talking about before talking about it further.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Buddha explicitly refused to answer and warned not to attempt to answer is whether there is a self or not.

Ive been saying this for years! Answering that question only leads to attachment, which is antithetical to non-attachment.

One love

 

[northape]

So, it's a messy situation and the usual words don't help here. It would be much better to pin down what we are talking about before talking about it further.

Yeah, I've become quite confused myself at this point. All I meant by ego is the sense of being, existence, or "I am."

 

[Voidmatrix]

So, it's a messy situation and the usual words don't help here. It would be much better to pin down what we are talking about before talking about it further.

Floating castles in the sky (a baselessness to all our developed ideas).
This is why I like paradox and skepticism . It's the Socrates in me.

One love

 

[Transform]

In fact one of the questions Buddha explicitly refused to answer and warned not to attempt to answer is whether there is a self or not.

Ive been saying this for years! Answering that question only leads to attachment, which is antithetical to non-attachment.

One love

I'm using this as a personal appeal to authority (i.e. buddha - sorry, Void!) to justify my indifference towards many philosophical matters. Thanks

If I happen to get around to trying weed + DMT in some kind of temporal proximity we'll have to see what that does for my purported indifference.

Floating castles in the sky (a baselessness to all our developed ideas).
This is why I like paradox and skepticism . It's the Socrates in me.

DJ So-Crates in da howse: