Ego Disintegration

Refimprove|date=August 2007

Ego death is an experience sometimes undergone by psychonauts, mystics, shamans, monks, psychologists, and others interested in exploring the depths of the mind.

The practice of ego death as a deliberately sought "mystical experience" in some ways overlaps, but is nevertheless distinct from, traditional teachings concerning enlightenment/"Nirvana" (in Buddhism) or "Moksha" (in Hinduism), which might perhaps be better understood as transcendence of the notion that one even "has" any actual, non-illusory "ego" with which to experience "death" in the first place.

Methods of inducing of the experience

The most direct means of accomplishing the mystical experience of ego death may be through the use of psychedelics [Grof, S: "LSD Psychotherapy", page 35. Hunter House, 1980] such as LSD, DMT, psilocybin, mescaline, salvinorin A, muscimol, nitrous oxide, a high dose of marijuana.Many other methods, practices, or experiences may also induce this state, including prayer, sacred ritual, several days of sleep deprivation, several weeks of fasting, or several years of meditation practice. Less frequently, it might also come about spontaneously or "of its own accord" (as a symptom of certain mental illnesses, or in response to severe trauma).

There are a variety of schools of thought about the aim, practice, and interpretation of the ego death experience. According to one system, for example (see [http://www.egodeath.com egodeath.com] - [http://airbag.student.utwente.nl/www.egodeath.com mirror] ) it is to be characterized as the perceived loss of boundaries between self and environment, a sense of the loss of "control," the loss of the accustomed feeling of existing as a "personal agent," loose "cognitive-association binding," and even

...a sense of being controlled by frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing, ever-existing future. Experiencing this model of control and time initially destabilizes self-control power, and amounts to the death of the self that was conceived of as an autonomous control-agent. Self-control stability is restored upon transforming one's mental model to take into account the dependence of personal control on a hidden, separate thought-source, such as Necessity or a divine level that transcends Necessity. [ [http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm#_Toc177337640 The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death ] - [http://airbag.student.utwente.nl/www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm#_Toc177337640 mirror] ]

It should also be noted, within the context of this system, that ego death is not "actual death" itself, but rather a temporary state of mind which can be stabilised and reverted. This can be done either by thought-source control for any who have achieved the state, as well as by deintoxication for those who have reached the state using psychedelics.

However, there are, again, "at least" as many points of view about the nature of ego death as there are mystics, psychonauts, etc. who have had the experience. (Some, for example, may even go so far as to agree with the poet who said, "after the first death, there is no other"." [ [http://www.undermilkwood.net/poetry_arefusaltomourn.html "A refusal to mourn death,"] by Dylan Thomas (retrieved 21-2-2008)] ] )

References

ee also

* Altered states of consciousness.
* Death, Brain death, and Near-death experience.
* Gnosis and Kenosis.
* , Ego (spirituality), and Self (spirituality).
* Mysticism
* Psychedelic experience and Entheogenic experience.

External links

* [http://www.egodeath.com Ego Death and Self-Control Cybernetics] - [http://airbag.student.utwente.nl/www.egodeath.com mirror]
* [http://deoxy.org/egofalse.htm Ego - The False Center]
* [http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=2758 The Effect of LSD on the Ego]