Ego Death: What It Feels Like And How You Can Experience It
Ego death is one of the key aspects of a psychedelic mystical experience. Many psychonauts chase this state of consciousness, believing it to offer life-changing, and therapeutic results. Indeed, those who have experienced ego death describe the experience as one of the most profound and meaningful moments in their life.
Psychedelic therapy with a high dose of a psychedelic can be capable of inducing a mystical experience and, in turn, ego death. Both classic and non-classic psychedelics can induce ego death, including:
This article will detail what ego death is and explain why it is not necessarily the only critical part of psychedelic therapy. There are researchers who have found that other aspects of the psychedelic experience are also linked to improvements in mental well-being.
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Here’s a Breakdown of the 5 Stages of Ego Death
| Ego Death Stage | Description |
| 1. Dissolution | The onset of the experience, where normal awareness and cognition begin to alter. There can be a sense of anxiety or fear as familiar ways of perceiving the world break down. |
| 2. Disorganization | A state of confusion or disorientation as the sense of self begins to dissolve. This can be a challenging stage, and fear or resistance can potentially lead to a negative or even traumatic experience. |
| 3. Ego Death / Rebirth | The moment of “ego death” itself, described by some as a profound sense of unity, interconnectedness, or non-dual consciousness. This may be accompanied by intense emotions, visions, or insights. |
| 4. Reintegration | The return to normal consciousness, where the sense of self re-emerges. There may be a sense of relief, euphoria, or confusion, and the insights or experiences from the ego death stage may be difficult to integrate or understand. |
| 5. Integration | The process of incorporating the experiences and insights from the ego death into one’s normal life. This can involve changes in beliefs, values, or behaviors, and may lead to long-term benefits like increased well-being, openness, and empathy. |
A Personal Take on Ego Death
Experienced psychonaut Reilly Capps says this:
I’ve experienced ego death a handful of times–in an ayahuasca church, with my psychedelic psychotherapist on psilocybin and MDMA, and doing breathwork with a group. These were all scary–I’m not some Buddhist monk who already believes the ego is an illusion and can easily disappear. I’m just a guy who gets sad. Yet my ego deaths gave me a glimpse of what the Buddhists, Sufis, and Hindu gurus are talking about–there’s more here than meets the eye. “We are so tied up in our minds we’ve lost our senses,” said the philosopher Alan Watts. “It’s time to wake up.”
With my therapist or friends, I’ve found value in lower doses where I can keep my sense of self. I can work with my parts and my feelings to see what’s really there, in a new light. So I can live with my “ego” more easily, like a part of me I can befriend–not something I want to kill.
What Did Ego Death Feel Like for Reilly?
“In a reclining chair in a clinic in Denver, on a large dose of ketamine, with a blindfold on and the band Spoon playing on my headphones, I felt like I was dying,” says Capps.
“My body was gone; like someone had carted it off to one of those mountain towns where there’s no cell reception. My memory was out of commission; I couldn’t remember where I was or why everything was black and wavy, and I couldn’t have told you things I normally know, like who was the quarterback on the Broncos’ 1999 Super Bowl team.
Everything about ‘me’ was gone, and the last thing I thought was: my family’s gonna be mad at me for dying recklessly. But then I figured, well, we all gotta go sometime, and the last scrap of “me” give up, let go, and just ‘died,’ and there was nothing left, not even darkness. With no narrative in my head, no walls up to defend against anything, my consciousness ‘felt’ like it was absorbed into the fabric of the cosmos. I felt like an electron in an atom, a clod of dirt in a field, or a drop of water in the ocean. It ‘felt’ peaceful, like home.
Of course, I wasn’t dead.
When the drug wore off, and dropped ‘me’ back in the comfy chair, I thought: it’s not so bad to die, is it? The next day, I started cleaning out a messy closet I’d been avoiding. Tossing my high school copy of Paradise Lost would clear up space for new books and fresh ideas. (I always wished I’d read Paradise Lost, but never did, and felt bad about that.) But now I could let small parts of my past drop away, because I knew that dying was just … whatever, nbd. There are parts of myself go and I’ll still be alright.”
Remember, these stages can vary widely from person to person, and not everyone will experience all of these stages or experience them in the same way. The concept of “ego death” is not universally accepted or defined, and it can be a disorienting or even distressing experience. Please always prioritize your safety and mental health when exploring such profound psychological experiences.
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What Percentage of Psychedelic Users Experience Ego Death?
The occurrence of ego death is likely influenced by many factors, including the type and dose of psychedelic, the user’s mindset, the setting in which the substance is used, and individual physiological and psychological differences.
A survey of 1993 individuals who had used psilocybin mushrooms (magic mushrooms) reported that 34% of respondents met criteria for a “complete mystical experience,” which often includes aspects of ego dissolution or ego death. However, this statistic does not provide a clear indication of the percentage of all psychedelic users who experience ego death.
Ego death is a complex and deeply personal experience that can be difficult to measure and quantify scientifically.
What Is Ego Death, According to Clinicians?
Ego death (or ego dissolution) refers to the sense of losing your subjective personal identity. Some people prefer to use the term ego dissolution as the word “death” carries negative connotations, such as darkness and sadness. Ego death, therefore, and may sound like a frightening experience. But it doesn’t have to be.
“Ego is our self-defined ‘self,’ and is both who we perceive ourselves to be, and how we think the world perceives us. Ego death is a deep dissociation and separation from our ‘default-settings’ that we impose on ourselves, and that releases the physical world from the mental world. The subconscious opens up to our consciousness, allowing it to be explored.”
Dr. Jonathann Kuo, Chief Medical Officer of Hudson Mind in New York City:
Ego death is a temporary experience. Whether you experience it through psychedelics or some other means, the experience does not last very long. When it occurs during a psychedelic journey, it will tend to occur at the peak, when the effects of the drug are the most intense.
“Ego death is an opportunity, described in both Eastern and Western philosophies,” continues Dr. Kuo, “and is often the “gateway” to ending self-suffering and being reborn.”
It is also possible for people to experience multiple ego deaths during one psychedelic session, losing their sense of self, regaining it, and then losing it again.
When the psychedelic experience is over, your ego will return. However, it may be changed.
Ego Death Can Be Pleasant Or Unpleasant (Or Both)
Ego death can be a pleasant or unpleasant experience, or contain a mix of both positive and negative emotions. For many people, losing their ego is accompanied by feelings of bliss, joy, ecstasy, peace, and contentment. This is because the ego is often a kind of burden we carry around with us, negatively affecting our lives. To lose it, therefore, can be extremely relieving.
On the other hand, our ego acts as an anchor in the world. So when you lose it or feel yourself beginning to lose it, this drastic change can feel unnerving and destabilizing. During ego death, it is not uncommon for people to experience fear, anxiety, dread, panic, and resistance. As with other aspects of the psychedelic experience, ego death can be terrifying if you do not accept what is happening.
Why Ego Death Feels Like Dying
Sometimes, ego death may feel like you’re actually dying. This is understandable. If your ego dissolves, you can forget all your memories, including your name, where you live, things you’ve experienced, the people you know, and the awareness of having taken a drug.
You will still have some awareness during ego death, which some users may call “pure awareness”, but losing your memories and concepts can still carry a feeling of “dying” in some way. This feeling may be especially intense if you have an out-of-body experience (OBE) at the same time. An OBE can make you feel like your awareness has disconnected from your body.
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Ego Death And The Mystical Experience
The mystical experience, which is a key aspect of psychedelic therapy and often includes ego dissolution, has been closely linked to both symptom reduction and improved quality of life. Instruments like the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) and the Hallucinogen Rating Scale (HRS) are used to measure the intensity of these experiences. Some studies have found a correlation between the intensity of the mystical experience and therapeutic efficacy, indicating that more intense experiences could contribute to better treatment outcomes.
However, there is also a viewpoint in the scientific community that the subjective experience might not be essential for the therapeutic outcome, as the increase in neural plasticity could have its own therapeutic value independent of the mystical experience
For some people, an ego death experience leaves them with the belief that the self is an illusion. In other words, they feel that the entire universe has a connection, or that consciousness can transcend physical death.
As well as ego death and unity, there are other dimensions of the mystical experience, including the below.
- Sacredness. A sense that what you encounter during the experience is holy or sacred
- Noetic Quality. The experience is imbued with an aspect of meaning and a sense of encountering ultimate reality, which is felt to be “more real than real”
- Deeply Felt Positive Mood. Joy, ecstasy, peace, gentleness, tranquility, awe
- Ineffability. The experience is difficult or impossible to put into words
- Paradoxicality. To explain the experience, you have to use mutually exclusive concepts (e.g. becoming nothing and everything at the same time)
- Transcendence Of Time and Space. Traditional notions of time and space lose their meaning
The Therapeutic Benefits Of Ego Death
Researchers from Imperial College London have found that the mystical experience drives the efficacy of psychedelic therapy. Patients with depression who showed the greatest improvements in their symptoms were those who had a mystical experience. Indeed, there is a significant association between the feeling of unity and oneness (which occurs during ego death) and a reduction in depressive symptoms.
A study from Johns Hopkins University similarly discovers that smoking cessation outcomes were strongly correlated with measures of mystical experience.
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What This Means During A Psychedelic Journey
For example, the dissolution of the ego can allow an individual to view their sense of self differently. When the experience is over, a user may be left with the notion that their negative and limiting sense of self is illusory and not essential to who they are. This can be a great relief.
Moreover, an ego death experience may lead an individual to enlarge their sense of self and incorporate more aspects into it, including the environment and others. And we know that feeling more connected to nature and other people leads to improvements in mental health.
However, ego death may not always be therapeutic. There is some evidence that struggling for a long time during a psychedelic experience can lead to enduring negative outcomes. It’s worth noting, though, that this relates to the unsupervised use of psychedelics. Researchers believe that the risk of enduring psychological distress is low when psychedelics are given in a controlled setting, with participants screened, prepared, and supported.
If you decide to engage in psychedelic therapy and you struggle with ego death during the experience, you will receive psychological support that you would lack outside of this clinical context.
FAQs About An Ego Death Experience
Ego death can be a terrifying experience to some. But it can also provide a transcendent moment during a psychedelic experience. In terms of it being “good or bad,” like all psychedelic journeys, it’s a personal opinion.
The term “ego death” comes from Harvard LSD researcher Timothy Leary, who, in the 1960s, began to use it when someone discovered “ego dissolution.” They essentially both mean the same thing — someone losing their self — allowing a user to open new pathways towards healing.
While terrifying on the surface, ego death often allows for deep issues to rise from deep inside oneself. This may lead to larger revelations and, in theory, quicker identification for recovery.
Depending on the dosage a person takes, ego death can last anywhere between several minutes up to a few hours. Prior to the comedown of the experience, studies show that some people felt “a feeling of profound peacefulness,” while others reported “unusually elevated self-assuredness and confidence”.
There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to going through ego death, as it’s different for everyone. While there are “triggers” that may help some people achieve ego death, per psychotherapist Annette Nuñez, Ph.D., LMFT (via Mind Body Green), most encounter the experience spontaneously.
Like all psychedelic journeys, it takes work to work towards ego death. Intention of your journey is most critical, as well as preparation (like breathing exercises or meditation, but, even then, it’s not always something that occurs.
Yes, ego death does exist. As mentioned above, it’s more of a dissolution during a psychedelic experience, giving a user the opportunity to drop potential boundaries within their subconscious. This opens up the possibility of identifying issues that would otherwise be disguised during treatment or therapy.
