Uncle Knucles wrote:For me, it's the transition. Once I'm out of the way, all is usually gravy, but getting there is another story. The urge to hold on is kind of hardwired into our genetic code, and the act of "dying" is pants shitting scary. It's that process of shedding the body...
^^ I share this sentiment, and I should mention that the slower, more noticeable transition always occurs on psychoactive mushrooms which I have a strong affection for as a means of exploration (I prefer the longer, controlled journeys as opposed to blasting through the spaec).
To Gibran's point, I agree, once your past this transitional phase all is fine and being human, if it's even an afterthought, is a silly notion entirely. In part of my explorations (I like to mentally observe every process of a psychedelic trip, from come up to come down) I had wrote in my journal the difference in ego loss I experiences on each psychoactive. For mushrooms I had mentioned that is seems to slowly work me into the space, so that sometimes I'm completely unaware that anything special has happened at all until I almost silently say 'oh yeah... i forgot about this place'. For a more rapid substance like Saliva, I had put down "Sally, unlike shrooms, has no desire to casually coax you into the space... instead, it's a roller coaster ride where the teacher plant says 'Ok, we don't have much time with this guy, let's get the death process over with and move on'", however this creates too much anxiety and fear in me to pull much information from, so as such I lean towards other psychoactives.
A definition of ego loss? That's a toughy I'm not sure it can be described as I'm sure it's different for everyone. As most have said already, it pretty much feels like dying, or the closest approximation to dying one can experience (outside a NDE possibly) while still living. To me, it sort of starts as a creeping anxiety, a movement if you will in some deep part of me and once my concious mind notices this 'wiggle' as I call it, panic starts to set in because my ego is aware it is losing control of the situation. At this point, as the trip begins to increase in intensity, the ego becomes more desperate to hang onto concensus reality, and will use every imaginable trick in the book to keep me locked in orbit around planet earth. As I stated before, it will even go as far as begging and pleading for me to 'just stay...' with it, but once I'm off, the whole thing seems overhyped. Sort of like when you go to the dentist and they count down from three before they pull a tooth... the anxiety is terrible until that last moment when it's all over and your left feeling silly you got so worked up about it. Sorta like countdown from three:
3... 'oh god... no... not this again...'
2... 'I'm dying! oh my god this is it... the end! I'm losing myself...!'
1... 'I can't hang on... just stay... please...'
0... Big me: 'man what were you so worried about? you're fine!'
What's really terrible is if I plan in advance to spend a day exploring, before I can even dose myself I will typically sit in front of whatever psychedelic I'm about to consume and have a battle with my ego. Apparently tripping so much has made that part of me hyper aware of what 'I'm' trying to do and 'it' attempts to stop me just about every time I plan to trip.
*sigh* as I was writing all of that I realize just how shitty our written and spoken language is when it comes to dealing with this stuff. Nothing I actually typed makes sense in words... you just have to go through it to know what I'm talking about.
All posts are from the fictional perspective of The Legendary Tek: the formless, hyperspace exploring apprentice to the mushroom god Teo. Tek, the lord of Eureeka's Castle, is the chosen one who has surfed the rainbow wave and who resides underneath the matter dome. All posts are fictitious in nature and are meant for entertainment purposes only.