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It must be a terrible experience to have minutes to hours of thinking you're dieing and the suffering that comes from fighting that. My heart goes out to you.

It must be a terrible experience to have minutes to hours of thinking you're dieing and the suffering that comes from fighting that. My heart goes out to you. There is this movie called Revolver written by psychologists who try to show the audience their ego is not them. Some people took to the movie well and others... When Roger Ebert reviewed the movie he wrote, "Some of the acting is better than the film deserves. Make that all of the acting. Actually, the film stock itself is better than the film deserves. You know when sometimes a film catches fire inside a projector? If it happened with this one, I suspect the audience might cheer." Tripping reduces the ego. If you go too far, the ego disappears for a couple of seconds. But for those who mistakenly think their ego is them, when their ego starts to disappear, they think it is them that is dying. A good sitter will tell them they're not dying, and they'll relax and have a good trip, but sadly not everyone gets that treatment. The ego processes language and concepts. It understands words and it speaks words. It is tied to the inner dialog. When the processing of concepts, like the word 'self' and the concept of identity temporarily goes away, sometimes people mistake that for them.

jl2718 7y ago
I don’t mean “I thought I was dying”. I mean that I actually was dying and the regular world turned off and another world turned on. At first it was dark and silent; no perception of any kind, absolutely nothing. I could talk but there was no echo, and then I slowly realized that I didn’t have to breathe, and then I began to panic and scream because I realized what was happening although I didn’t know why. Then transported to dream state, long vision quest kind of stuff that I’m still trying to process (10 years). Then back into nothing world, but this time it’s tearing and burning deep throughout my body, a seemingly impossible level of physical pain; mental anguish or fear of death not even registering anymore. Then I came back to consciousness in and out for a while during the rescue and eventually back to (mostly) normal. The mind’s potential for suffering is immense. The scale doesn’t go nearly as far in the other direction. I cannot imagine any possible pleasure within many orders of magnitude. I can see how this would stop addictions by eliminating the sense of all pleasure or minor discomfort. Its possible that this was part of ego dissolution and I just didn’t come completely to the point of acceptance of the pain, but I think about it a lot, and fully expect an eternity of that when I die.
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  >The mind’s potential for suffering is immense. The scale doesn’t go nearly as far in the other direction. I cannot imagine any possible pleasure within many orders of magnitude. I've meditated a lot, which brain scans show the brain lights up in a near identical way to magic mushrooms, except when meditating you get to control how deep the state is, so if you bump into something you can't handle you can come out of the state or reduce the state as little or as much as you want. This gives the ability to "trip" without the risk of a bad trip. I know it's a bit apples and oranges, but from meditation I've passed out from pleasure before, so I can say it gets very extreme. Neurologists and psychologists have been finding for a while that the average person's suffering is 3x that of equivalent pleasure for an equal event. They recorded day traders making a profitable traid and a losing trade and recorded their responses to get this rough baseline. Facts, while valuable, never the less, can seem cold hearted in the face of painful emotions. I hope I'm not coming off that way. Understanding and knowledge gives power over what you know, and with the power of knowledge it is possible to conquer suffering. Those who struggle with death have a baseline suffering that has been happening for so long they often don't even notice it. Identity is one of the three big causes for suffering. By understanding how the ego works, and what really happened there, one of the causes of many pain points throughout your life goes away. From that benefit it is imho worth knowing about. Tripping is a bit of a trial by fire. Those who shed their ego comfortably gain the option to learn how it works, and from that they gain power over it, including suffering. This is why an ego death is touted as the single best thing that has happened to some while simultaneously touted as a horrible experience for others. The problem, imho, with the tripping community is it's easy to bump into an ego death, where in meditation circles it's walked up to and only experienced once one has removed (or at least reduced) all of the kinds of suffering before it guaranteeing a pleasant experience.
  - Trasmatta 7y ago
    This is why I recommend people interested in altered states of consciousness try out meditation instead of psychedelics. It's so much safer, and with enough practice, can be just as profound.
- 7y ago

jl2718 7y ago

I don’t mean “I thought I was dying”. I mean that I actually was dying and the regular world turned off and another world turned on. At first it was dark and silent; no perception of any kind, absolutely nothing. I could talk but there was no echo, and then I slowly realized that I didn’t have to breathe, and then I began to panic and scream because I realized what was happening although I didn’t know why. Then transported to dream state, long vision quest kind of stuff that I’m still trying to process (10 years). Then back into nothing world, but this time it’s tearing and burning deep throughout my body, a seemingly impossible level of physical pain; mental anguish or fear of death not even registering anymore. Then I came back to consciousness in and out for a while during the rescue and eventually back to (mostly) normal. The mind’s potential for suffering is immense. The scale doesn’t go nearly as far in the other direction. I cannot imagine any possible pleasure within many orders of magnitude. I can see how this would stop addictions by eliminating the sense of all pleasure or minor discomfort. Its possible that this was part of ego dissolution and I just didn’t come completely to the point of acceptance of the pain, but I think about it a lot, and fully expect an eternity of that when I die.

proverbialbunny 7y ago
>The mind’s potential for suffering is immense. The scale doesn’t go nearly as far in the other direction. I cannot imagine any possible pleasure within many orders of magnitude. I've meditated a lot, which brain scans show the brain lights up in a near identical way to magic mushrooms, except when meditating you get to control how deep the state is, so if you bump into something you can't handle you can come out of the state or reduce the state as little or as much as you want. This gives the ability to "trip" without the risk of a bad trip. I know it's a bit apples and oranges, but from meditation I've passed out from pleasure before, so I can say it gets very extreme. Neurologists and psychologists have been finding for a while that the average person's suffering is 3x that of equivalent pleasure for an equal event. They recorded day traders making a profitable traid and a losing trade and recorded their responses to get this rough baseline. Facts, while valuable, never the less, can seem cold hearted in the face of painful emotions. I hope I'm not coming off that way. Understanding and knowledge gives power over what you know, and with the power of knowledge it is possible to conquer suffering. Those who struggle with death have a baseline suffering that has been happening for so long they often don't even notice it. Identity is one of the three big causes for suffering. By understanding how the ego works, and what really happened there, one of the causes of many pain points throughout your life goes away. From that benefit it is imho worth knowing about. Tripping is a bit of a trial by fire. Those who shed their ego comfortably gain the option to learn how it works, and from that they gain power over it, including suffering. This is why an ego death is touted as the single best thing that has happened to some while simultaneously touted as a horrible experience for others. The problem, imho, with the tripping community is it's easy to bump into an ego death, where in meditation circles it's walked up to and only experienced once one has removed (or at least reduced) all of the kinds of suffering before it guaranteeing a pleasant experience.
- Trasmatta 7y ago
  This is why I recommend people interested in altered states of consciousness try out meditation instead of psychedelics. It's so much safer, and with enough practice, can be just as profound.
7y ago