What Psychedelic Ego Death revealed about the Mind

What being in a state where I could go in and out of ego death freely was like

About two weeks ago, my brother and I ate 25 grams of magic truffles in Europe. Although truffles are quite weak relative to other psychedelics I’ve done, this was the most profound psychedelic trip I had had yet (only to be topped by the trip that would follow 5 days later).

Starting about 8 years ago, I tried a couple psychedelics here and there: A ‘heroic’ dose of dried psilocybin mushrooms in Europe, ayahuasca in South America, psilocybin truffles and San Pedro cactus back in Europe. I didn’t realize it in the moment, but the heroic dose of mushrooms and the ayahuasca led to ego death. While they were profound experiences, they were too chaotic and hard to interpret to lead to a clear sense of insight.

I revisited magic truffles in December 2022 just three months after my second (sober) 10-day meditation retreat. My first meditation retreat in July 2022 lead to a profound acute bang in my mind which slowly tapered off to a slight yet permanent shift in how my mind operates. (That story is described in 8 parts here) Long story short, in practical terms: my mind doesn’t get caught up in worries or regrets so much and it’s now far easier to meditate for long periods of time even if I’ve slacked off for weeks. I bring this up because this seems to have increased my sensitivity to psychedelics. When I tried truffles after those two meditation retreats, they felt far more potent when I tried them again in December 2022.

A dose that just kinda make things look funny and silly before, now made staring at a single point on my girlfriend’s back …feel like I was Ant Man shrinking in between molecules and into the quantum realm.

Let’s get back to what happened on the 25 gram truffle trip over the holidays. A good chunk of the come up mostly consisted of my brother and I laughing about aliens. We theorized that either the pyramids were built to act as a kind of sensory deprivation tank to help the Pharaohs or whoever reach altered states of consciousness …or the pyramids were built to impress aliens. We also imagined a scenario where the Pharaoh would proudly and grandiosely say to the aliens: “Marvel at my power! Look at what I have built!” To this, the utterly unimpressed aliens would say “So? I flew across galaxies to get here, you think I can’t build a big triangle? …what a loser.” 

My brother imagined a scenario where the aliens were less contemptuous. He said people showing off the pyramids to the aliens would be more like an amped up yet tired 3 and a half year old boy talking to his Dad at a family gathering after excitedly running around with his cousins for a couple hours. His Dad would be having a drink with his brother-in-law and the kid would come up with a crazed look and half-whisper "...I created the entire universe..." The Dad would give him a pat on the head and dismissively say "You did? Good job, buddy."

Try not to ponder this image too much. Just make a mental note of whether you immediately know what it is or not. 

At some point after that I decided to meditate for a while. Staying still felt good. The psilocybin and meditation synergized very well together. Progressing through the stages of my meditation technique felt much easier on psilocybin. I also had the distinct feeling that through meditating, I was able to guide the effects of the psilocybin trip deeper and deeper towards its conclusion. It’s hard to place when exactly the first ego death happened, but I distinctly remember feeling that I was this hunk of energy or “power” and saw my body as being composed of light which sourced from my spine. My mind was very still and I felt very distanced from any activity going on in my mind. At some point I began to suspect that all my mental activity - impulses to say explore a thought further or investigate small pains or sensations in my body were all tricks. All the attention-grabbing concepts arising into and fading out of my mind were all just tricks to steal my power.

So, I set the intention to completely disengage from all mental activity. Eventually it felt like my body dissolved and I lost a sense of being an entity separate from the external world. As if different parts of my mind were powering down, my mental activity became more and more quiet until the awareness of anything at all had completely powered down. Basically my conscious awareness stopped. I felt a familiar sense of confusion and emerging out of a dream without ever having fallen asleep. I could feel that I was arising out of nothingness, though it was hard to tell how long I had been in that nothingness. I opened my eyes, the room cobbled itself back together and it looked very different. There appearance of the room wasn’t distorted - there were no hallucinations of things that weren’t there, but it was certainly different. It was also much more silent than earlier. My mind‘s automatic tendency to spout off interpretations about whatever was going on had become silent. Aside from my mental quietness, the room itself was more silent not because there were less noises, but there was much more space in between each noise. Kind of like if you took a song and spaced out the notes, it would feel much quieter. 

As far as I can remember, this point in the trip was the first ego death* where I clearly understood it for what it was.

What I’m calling ego death here includes a brief moment of completely shutting down conscious awareness. So, I suppose I should say “consciousness death,” but that’s too long.

After that first ego death, I went in and out of it many times before the trip was totally up. I noticed that I could decide to go back to it a couple different ways:
・Make the intention to completely let go of everything
・Think about what exactly ego death was like
・Try to explain what ego death was like
・Intend to examine any moment at the smallest possible time scale

The ego death happened near or in a fundamental, baseline space that is located before concepts.