Ego Death and the Collective Unconscious

I have. Cannot help though. It’s so important it’s unimportant, it’s so unimportant it’s the most important things there is. Attempts at articulating these kinds of experiences are something akin to an exercise of the ego. Knowing you have to surrender doesn’t really help as you cannot forcibly ‘surrender’.

You’ll reap the benefits of the experience somewhere down the lie if you’re honest with yourself (probably?)

GL

You might like this. I don't think there is a better exposition the source and meaning of such experiences.

Take some time to let the experience integrate.

Quoting Eric Wintjen

As it bit me I believe that I began to experience what is have heard in the context of psychedelic drugs like DMT as 'ego death'. That one with everything feeling. I felt my sense of self slipping away, in these moments my vision went black, and my perception of reality was stripped of any context involving me as an individual, until I eventually woke up.

I've had many such experiences and the wikipedia article specifically mentions a loss of self which I construe to be zombie-like - lights are on but nobody's home kinda thing. Sadly there's very little to talk about in this case since the requisite amount of awareness to even vaguely recall such an experience is missing.

As for oneness with everything I think it's true but not something many people bother about - the ego is, depending on how you look at it, too well/over developed in them. It's quite sad not to feel the connection and it's equally lamentable when people sever that connection. I personally don't think we should be too obsessed about this oneness with everything. I don't consider it too helpful for personal happiness of normal people.

From my experience, an ego death is something that is temporary and is not a spiritual as some may claim it to be. It is definitely a real phenomenon, which can be induced by things such as meditation and psychedelic drug use.

To begin, I think it is important to realize the self is not a thing to be had and lost. It is not a substance of any kind, unless you subscribe to a form of dualism. It is rather an ability to integrate information and understand a vantage point in relation to stimuli. This seems very counter intuitive , I know, and it is very difficult to talk about self-hood without referring to it as something to that can be obtained. "the self" is a form of proprioception. It is a relationship between one organized system and another. When the ability to relate to information is lost, the whole feeling of having a place in which you are related to something is lost as well.

What we recognize as the single self that we are instead seems to be an aggregation of various view points, which often conflict with one another. This concept of an ego arises naturally with life, which a definition of will hardly ever go uncontested. Minimal life seems to be a system that undergoes self organization, has a semi-permeable membrane, and reacts with the environment in a way that allows for a transfer of matter. This last point is metabolism. A further point would include cognition, which under some understandings is merely efficiency with the environment. In other words, when one cognizes something, it requires an environment to provide inputs, and the living system provides outputs in the ways of behavior, and often merely thoughts in humans. I am not claiming to know how this mystery of life arises, only how we can potentially understand it compared to non-living things. With the arrival of these criteria, naturally comes a self or agency. Life is organization of matter, rather than matter itself. So, similar to the self or ego, it is a pattern, or relationship to the environment.

Now, consciousness of this phenomenon is a very complex, and scarcely understood, concept, which I may no claim to being able to explain. But, I subscribe to a form of identity theory and personally believe that it is identical with brain processes, but does not completely reduce to them. That is because consciousness is a perspective of these brain processes from a subjective vantage point, but does indeed exist and guide us. So, what I'm trying to say, is that even though consciousness and brain processes are the same thing, the way that consciousness is experienced sets it apart from the way that brain process are experienced; namely through the third-person perspective. I personally believe that the point of consciousness is to augment attention processing in order to enhance the ability to hold information in working memory and to focus on certain things more effectively, but this needs more scientific testing.

So, with this being said, the feeling of ego-death is the failure to recognize that one is an organized system that has separated itself from the normal organization of the environment and can. Life is a self-perpetuating system that moves through the environment, exchanging matter, but ultimately "following its own rules." So, when this recognition falls away, it is not very surprising that one feels as if they are one with everything else; I mean, technically we are. We're embedded in this universe, but our embodiment produces a feeling of separation, which is supported by our bodily organization, and made seeming obvious by our membrane, i.e. body boundary. When one realizes that they are one with everything, its just a transcendence beyond the organizational boundaries forced on us by being living things. This is not to say it is good or bad, but it does seem to provide a perspective that is more open to varying degrees of altruism, because upon regaining the sense of self, one does not find themselves as isolated from others. The idea that we are all one stream of consciousness is not appealing to me, because we do not share brains, regardless of how connected we are through evolutionary factors emphasizing our social nature.

Without the relationship between the self and the environment being established, things seems to blur. Life is a comparison to other things; it is relational. for example, take the adjective, 'strong.' Can one be strong if they are the only one explicating the idea of strength? If only one being exists and they can pick up something that weights 1000kg, are they strong, or are they just what is? It seems to me that there would need to be at least one other being. And if that being could only lift 500kg, then the first would be strong, while the other would not. Life is similar, and when the feeling of separation falls away, so does the ability to compare any differences.

Well, that's my take! I am very open to more discussion regarding any of the claims I have made. I could very easily be mistaken and only think that we will grow through more scientific discoveries and philosophical debates that clarify what it is we are really trying to answer.

Quoting Eric Wintjen

I am aware that my ability to articulate this is not very good, and I am hoping that somebody who has had a similar experience either through dreams or psychedelics could help me understand and articulate this feeling more effectively, and perhaps point me in the direction of information related to this sense.

I tried in some other post and I'm not sure I did a good job either.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/176521

Reply to Eric Wintjen I should for the sake of clarity that Jung’s ‘Collective Unconscious’ has nothing to do with the sensation of feeling ‘at one with everything’.

It’s a term that is often misused in this manner.

Reply to I like sushi
Does Jung actually say it has nothing to do with this? Certainly Jung writes about oceanic feelings and having such experiences.

Reply to Pantagruel Yes. The definition of the term is quite specific.

Yes, the definition is, but is its extension? Sure, the collective unconsciousness houses transpersonal archetypal symbols and material, but who is to say what are the limits of the experience of those materials? I've read lots of Jung and he talks extensively about the embodiment of this material in primitive animistic religions and rituals. I really don't think you are correct in saying Jung explicitly denies this aspect.

Reply to Pantagruel Show me then.

Reply to I like sushi You want me to explicate Jung's entire theory of the unconscious for you?

He repeatedly describes how dreams and religious experiences link to the symbols of the collective unconscious. Take a look at Aion maybe?

Look, I’m dimply guarding/cautioning against this:

Quoting Eric Wintjen

That one with everything feeling. I felt my sense of self slipping away, in these moments my vision went black, and my perception of reality was stripped of any context involving me as an individual, until I eventually woke up. Its is a sensation more impossible to describe then then the strange state of being simultaneously an observer and participant in a dream.

But this experience left me with this deep feeling that I cannot shake, that our individual consciousnesses are just part of this greater whole. As if there is this great infinite fabric sheet and our consciousness is just a twisted knot out of that sheet, and 'ego death' is the unraveling of this twisted knot.

If the OP interprets the ‘collective unconscious’ being something akin to an experience of the ‘collective unconscious’ then they’ve used the term out of place.

What page in ‘Aion’? Wouldn’t it make more sense to refer to ‘Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious’? I am curious about the term ‘transpersonal’ that you used. Is this taken from Aion?

Be clear, I’ve come across many New Age woo woo spinners unintentionally misquoting and misrepresenting Jung’s ideas. Given I’ve had a powerful experience too, I felt it was important to express a degree of caution in how terms are used and such experiences are viewed - it can be dangerous given these experiences leave people extremely open suggestion and to making obscure and ephemeral links seem concrete.

Reply to I like sushi Well, Jung has an entire book based on his "confrontation with the unconscious," The Red Book, which is a compendium of paintings, dreams, fantasies, etc. He says "The knowledge of the heart is in no book and is not to be found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth."

So I guess the "experience" of the unconscious has at least that much significance in Jung (for Jung).

:)