who am i, where am i, what am i doing

[eschatonic]

Last weekend I did 5.2 grams of cubensis . I had selected all the ones that looked the strongest from my stash and weighed out the 5.2 from the blue stained mushrooms. This was the strongest trip i have had on shrooms. At the peak of the trip i realised that i was God. I was all knowing and I recognised my ego as an artificial identity. I also felt a complete lack of fear of death because i realised i was allot more than just this physical body.During this time i felt like I had discovered something that could change the world and that nothing would ever be the same again. I also found out what was going to happen in 2012 but the answer has vanished from memory along with anything else I found out.

My question is how far must you go for it to be considered ego death?

In this trip even though I saw my ego through the eyes of a higher consciousness and fully realised the illusion, I was still aware of where I was, who I was, what I was and why this was happening. All of these questions are things i could not answer or even think to ask during a salvia ego death. I am also interested to know if the mushroom ego death can go as far as the salvia.

[sancho23]

You're playing in the right arena, but always keep your questioning going, never fully trust anything you experience because there are no clear cut rules for these things, no barometer of the soul that will accurately identify what you're experiencing!

Just keep questioning and engaging your subconscious mind, asking it to reveal answers to you and seeking to become more open to that. . .Might I suggest some advice for accessing your "higher self" as given by Edgar Cayce:

http://newwavesnews.blogspot.com/2008/06/edgar-cayce-on-channeling-your-higher.html


And don't get caught up in "did I have an ego-death-trip, or didn't I?" because that in itself does not make you special or more enlightened. Ego death may not be an experience necessary for everyone, and often times it may even be a result of simply trying to control the experience thus allowing your ego full reign during the session and, well, 5+ grams of mushrooms has a way of sweeping aside even the most vain egos. . .

My rule tends to be this: If you can't apply it in some way in your everyday life, then consider very strongly if it truly has value to you. . .

[Ostritt]

Your answer is as good as anyone's man. Who has the sole-ownership of 'ego-death'? No one can own an idea. Certainly not Hoffman or anyone else. You decide.

[cheshirecat]

Last weekend I did 5.2 grams of cubensis . I had selected all the ones that looked the strongest from my stash and weighed out the 5.2 from the blue stained mushrooms. This was the strongest trip i have had on shrooms. At the peak of the trip i realised that i was God. I was all knowing and I recognised my ego as an artificial identity. I also felt a complete lack of fear of death because i realised i was allot more than just this physical body.During this time i felt like I had discovered something that could change the world and that nothing would ever be the same again. I also found out what was going to happen in 2012 but the answer has vanished from memory along with anything else I found out.



You were God? Wow...i am very interested to hear more about your experience. I am earnest to see, if upon reflection, you have learned anything from it as well. I know you claim to find out what was going to happen in 2012, but has since faded from your memory. I would like to know why you feel it was 2012 related, as well as get other particulars...that sounds like an amazing experience my friend! I am not sure I would like to attain the observance point of God, but maybe an aspect of God, or a god, or the god within.

I also agree with Sancho23, if you ponder too much about whether or not you experienced ego death, you are making it an ego enhancing experience.

Let the experience fill you without and within. I or eye...

who am I, where am I, what am I doing

[eschatonic]

Thanks for the comments but i can now see this is not the question I wanted an answer to.
I am not looking to confirm that i have reached some kind of spiritual goal.
I should have asked does Psilocybin kill the ego to the point where you forget who you are where you are or that you are tripping.
These are things I have experienced with Salvia and I assumed that at some point in a 5 gram trip I would experience a similar loss of ego. Instead I experienced being the single conciousness which all egos are a part of, while still knowing and experiencing my previous identity.

[Defenderalex1]

This kind of experience supports the theory that quibensis are the "fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Or some ancient type of mushroom(which looks like small trees) is the fruit of the tree. I would call it my theory but i'm not the first to think of it.

I know that alot of pro-cannabis/mushroom people don't like the bible or christianity much, but I do. I find the bible to fit in perfectly with my own religious beliefs and I also find it constantly challenging to me, because it says a lot of very strange things. But i recognize my own cultural pre-programing and have answered my own questions as i've grown up. My religious beliefs have evolved but stayed basically the same. There are many modern versions of the bible(at least 15 in English) and i don't need a book to tell me what to believe, but i like the new living translation(NLT) and new english version(NIV but there are now multiple versions of both). Even with the artistic wording, some things are said in a blunt and different way than i would have written, but i guess that makes it interesting and extremely controversial for all you drama queens :D

The more i find out about the world the less i can put into words. It's like... where do you start?

[gratefuldude]

i just like to take it all in as it comes :D

[max_freakout]

My question is how far must you go for it to be considered ego death?

the term 'ego death' refers to the conviction that you have died, or reached the end of the world in a trip, but imo it is more like a stage in life than a particular trip, it is the 'life changing experience' you have on psychedelics, as opposed to the experience you have which you forget about when you are reincarnated (ie when the trip finishes and you return to normality)

so the important point isnt how strongly you tripped, but how much the trip changed your perspective on life when you are back to normal


I should have asked does Psilocybin kill the ego to the point where you forget who you are where you are or that you are tripping..

you dont 'forget' anything on psilocybin no matter how much you take (unlike with Salvia, where you forget everything :eek:), but instead you realise that you are not really who you thought you were, the idea of 'being a particular person' is fictional, just a conventional illusion, the truth is you arent really anyone, you arent really anywhere. You become aware of this on psilocybin because it shows you a radically new perspective from which to look at life

[max_freakout]

This kind of experience supports the theory that quibensis are the "fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Or some ancient type of mushroom(which looks like small trees) is the fruit of the tree. I would call it my theory but i'm not the first to think of it.

it isnt just the bible, it is all myths, from all times and places, religion is the same thing as myth

all myths are telling the same story, which is the story of the individual who undergoes ego death/psychedelic religious transformation. mythology is an allegorical description of the psychedelic experience

the serpent in myth always refers to the revelation of eternity which happens at ego death, just as the serpent in Eden revealed eternity to Adam and Eve causing them to fall from the garden of Eden, the serpents that make up the hair of Medusa the gorgon reveal eternity to anyone who looks at them, causing them to turn into stone, it is the same theme repeated in 2 completely different stories

[Ostritt]

These are things I have experienced with Salvia and I assumed that at some point in a 5 gram trip I would experience a similar loss of ego. Instead I experienced being the single conciousness which all egos are a part of, while still knowing and experiencing my previous identity.

This is very similar to what I've experienced and imo it's just as valid an indication of reality as going crazy and thinking you're dead. It doesn't matter how you experience that awareness, what matters is that you understand what it implies. While Max takes one conclusion, I take another. While you are 'nothing' and 'no one' you are also 'everything' and 'everyone' if you go away from the experience understanding only one of those you haven't understood the point of the experience in the first place.

It is the most empowering thing you can ever be aware of and it allows you to never again put yourself below God, instead you co-create your own reality, and if everyone realised they could do this (which they can), then the world would change very quickly.

[max_freakout]

everything is nothing :cool:

[Zeke0]

Nothing is everything:eek:

[eschatonic]

[max_freakout]the term 'ego death' refers to the conviction that you have died, or reached the end of the world in a trip,

so by this definition what I experienced was not ego death as I was fully aware that I was not dead.


[max_freakout]
but imo it is more like a stage in life than a particular trip, it is the 'life changing experience' you have on psychedelics, as opposed to the experience you have which you forget about when you are reincarnated (ie when the trip finishes and you return to normality)
so the important point isnt how strongly you tripped, but how much the trip changed your perspective on life when you are back to normal.

By this definition I think cannabis has contributed the most by far to the death of my ego. It definitely changed my perspective on life the most but I think that's just because it was the first thing i tried. This strong psilocybin trip didn't change my perspective on things that much because it showed me that reality worked in the way that I already intuitively felt that it worked. What it did do was to give me experience to convince me that these ideas were true.
After a while of reflection on this trip it has made me question the source and validity of the psychedelic experience. what I learned in that trip was that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself as may separate identities like some kind of split personality, and among other things the fact that I was god or the conciousness which all of these identities are a part of. What I question now is how much of that did I create myself because I kind of felt this was the case before the trip. If I were a Christian would my experience have confirmed my religious beliefs?

[Ostritt]

Is thing everyno....

I think I lost :rolleyes:

[max_freakout]

so by this definition what I experienced was not ego death as I was fully aware that I was not dead.


yeah ego death is the most intense trip you can have, where you completely lose the connection with normal reality and become completely convinced that you will never return, the conviction is the most important aspect of it, because it shows you that the trip is effectively in charge of things, to such an extent that it can alter your most fundamental core beliefs about life. It really is 'death' in a sense, even though it ends and you are reincarnated back into the world, because after ego death you can never again believe in the illusion, so the belief has died permanently, after ego death you are fully aware that the illusion is an illusion (so it turns from a delusion into an illusion)



By this definition I think cannabis has contributed the most by far to the death of my ego. It definitely changed my perspective on life the most but I think that's just because it was the first thing i tried. This strong psilocybin trip didn't change my perspective on things that much because it showed me that reality worked in the way that I already intuitively felt that it worked. What it did do was to give me experience to convince me that these ideas were true.

that is very interesting that cannabis had such an effect, was it a particular cannabis experience you had which made you start thinking this way? If so, what was the experience like?



After a while of reflection on this trip it has made me question the source and validity of the psychedelic experience. what I learned in that trip was that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself as may separate identities like some kind of split personality, and among other things the fact that I was god or the conciousness which all of these identities are a part of. What I question now is how much of that did I create myself because I kind of felt this was the case before the trip. If I were a Christian would my experience have confirmed my religious beliefs?


psychedelic ego death fits in perfectly with christianity, it is the death and ressurection of the Godman Jesus Christ. But similarly it fits in perfectly with all religions and all mythology, because from the esoteric/initiated perspective, all religions/mythologies are telling the same exact story, which is the story of the religious transformation of the individual.


so 'yes' to your question, it would confirm a christian belief, but only to the extent that the christianity is understood explicitly as a myth and not as a historical event, when religions are understood in the exoteric/uninitiated context as literal historical events, they lose their deeper meaning

i think that the stronger the trip is, the less able you will be to interpret it through the lense of your own preconceptions, culminating in the ego death experience which is the ultimate deconstruction of all beliefs. I think therefore that it is important to understand the psychedelic experience not in terms of being an experience which constructs new beliefs, but rather the opposite, it deconstructs old beliefs. Any interpretation of the experience is limited by the descriptive power of language, this is why mythic metaphor is a useful way to describe the experience

[eschatonic]

yeah ego death is the most intense trip you can have, where you completely lose the connection with normal reality and become completely convinced that you will never return, the conviction is the most important aspect of it, because it shows you that the trip is effectively in charge of things, to such an extent that it can alter your most fundamental core beliefs about life. It really is 'death' in a sense, even though it ends and you are reincarnated back into the world, because after ego death you can never again believe in the illusion, so the belief has died permanently, after ego death you are fully aware that the illusion is an illusion (so it turns from a delusion into an illusion)

My conviction that reality is an illusion was unshakable during the trip but i as soon as i came down i started to realise how ridiculous some of the thoughts i had were. while i was tripping i was convinced that i had discovered somthing that would change the world and that i would become some sort of messiah. These kind of thoughts made me really question everything about the whole experience and I have become less confident that the experience was as real as it felt.

that is very interesting that cannabis had such an effect, was it a particular cannabis experience you had which made you start thinking this way? If so, what was the experience like?

I'm not sure if you meant it this way but the shift in consciousness that i experienced due to cannabis use seemed greater than the shift in consciousness i experienced when moving on to mushrooms. Before I used cannabis i was very unconscious materialist reductionist and some kind of atheist. I cant really say that it was any particular experience but gradually i began to realise everything i believed could all be wrong and the infinity of possibilities opened up to me. I do remember having alot more intense experiences with cannabis when i first started using it. I can remember having experiences where i felt like i was watching myself from a third person perspective. I would look at my hand and it would seem so foreign like it wasn't mine.


psychedelic ego death fits in perfectly with christianity, it is the death and ressurection of the Godman Jesus Christ. But similarly it fits in perfectly with all religions and all mythology, because from the esoteric/initiated perspective, all religions/mythologies are telling the same exact story, which is the story of the religious transformation of the individual.
so 'yes' to your question, it would confirm a christian belief, but only to the extent that the christianity is understood explicitly as a myth and not as a historical event, when religions are understood in the exoteric/uninitiated context as literal historical events, they lose their deeper meaning

I haven't met any Christians that actually believe they are anything to do with god apart from his creation. Because of this i don't think my experience would have confirmed a religious belief like this. What i wonder is would i have had a different experience if i had different views and ideas.

[max_freakout]

My conviction that reality is an illusion was unshakable during the trip but i as soon as i came down i started to realise how ridiculous some of the thoughts i had were. while i was tripping i was convinced that i had discovered somthing that would change the world and that i would become some sort of messiah. These kind of thoughts made me really question everything about the whole experience and I have become less confident that the experience was as real as it felt.


yeah it's completely real, but only until the trip ends :)




I'm not sure if you meant it this way but the shift in consciousness that i experienced due to cannabis use seemed greater than the shift in consciousness i experienced when moving on to mushrooms. Before I used cannabis i was very unconscious materialist reductionist and some kind of atheist. I cant really say that it was any particular experience but gradually i began to realise everything i believed could all be wrong and the infinity of possibilities opened up to me. I do remember having alot more intense experiences with cannabis when i first started using it. I can remember having experiences where i felt like i was watching myself from a third person perspective. I would look at my hand and it would seem so foreign like it wasn't mine.

this is very interesting that cannabis caused a more profound change in your consciousness than mushrooms, for me it was the other way round, although the actual transformation was the same, i went from unconscious atheistic materialistic etc to max freakout. I think that the fact that you can think of yourself in2 fundamentally opposed ways, either as a subject or as an object, is the core issue at the heart of all paradox


I haven't met any Christians that actually believe they are anything to do with god apart from his creation. Because of this i don't think my experience would have confirmed a religious belief like this. What i wonder is would i have had a different experience if i had different views and ideas.

i dont think the experiences would be different, but the interpretations of the experiences may well have been different (although not necessarily) if you had gone into the experience already having some preconceived ideas about religion and spirituality