[thomasmarcelis]

I find it weird people keep saying they lose the ego-based view of the world after taking psychedelics, it has had the complete opposite effecf on me. I know the experience is very personal but I have never read about experiences similar to mine. I become very ego-centric and just think about how I can get the most out of the world.

I do think it has affected me positively overall. I find it easier to work through tough times in order to reach what I want these days.

[uoaei]

Curious. If you don't mind answering on a public forum, what was the ratio of your dosage to bodyweight? For instance, my experiences were usually around the ratio 5e-5.

It is true that some people's egos "fight" the drug more than others. All the bad trips I've seen in others have been the result of a person's ego refusing to relinquish control over the body, and fighting to remain relevant to the host. They were driven to a maniacal series of "I want/I need" demands and their satisfaction, which is precisely what the ego thrives on. Below a certain level, the ego does not feel threatened but continues to act, as it did for you I guess. Above a certain level, the ego is forcefully dissolved but this may not always lead to a beneficial experience that feels safe.

[a-priori]

I find it really interesting that psychedelic drug users frame their experiences in Freudian terms, using terms like 'ego' and its struggle against other entities within the mind.

[yesenadam]

What's so really interesting about it? Well, what other term would be so readily understood by people?

Also, I guess with LSD/mushrooms there's usually a lot going on, and you can either go with it or try to resist. Going with it is advisable, but it can get scary - e.g. horrific death/maggot/slime-based imagery. You have to trust in the experience, which is so huge the self disappears.

I guess a similar thing happens in everyday life, but not so unmistakably. A similar thing came up for me when writing orchestral music - I quickly learnt just to be a tool for the music, to follow the flow, never to impose my ideas "I want this to happen here/next" - that never worked; just to write down what I heard in my head. I guess a lot of pursuits are like that.

[uoaei]

>what other term would be so readily understood by people?

Exactly the right question. Language is clumsy and imperfect. For many hard science topics and simple descriptions, it is precise. But for everything else, prominent thinkers among us have built a collective mythos as a society constructed of these abstractions and models. We can only use the models that others have ready access to, being participants in society, even if they are imperfect to describe the phenomenon, to communicate effectively. To take it ad absurdum, we can say that reinventing a whole new language for each conversation partner based on the most efficient way to transmit concepts would just be too clumsy for timescales on which humans operate.

> quickly learnt just to be a tool for the music

Case in point: this is a meme that recurs when talking about creative pursuits, and it's a useful and succinct way to think about and discuss this phenomenon. It's clear though that there are powerful mental processes that simply never bubble up to the level of conscious awareness, because to allow such would slow down the process too much to be useful. The artist acts as if "my mind is empty" even though the most important word is not "empty" but rather "my": that is, the ego sees nothing happening and runs on the basis that its experience is truth, when a rational examination disproves that assumption readily.

[thomasmarcelis]

I took 'truffles' (scletoria, Psilocybe tampanensis), which are legal where I live, multiple times in increasing dosages. I'd love to send you my 'trip report', but am not comfortable posting this online.

If you are interested you can contact me on my username at gmail dot com.