I've had a hundred conversations in the past few months with psychedelic therapists of wide-ranging modalities, and I'd estimate at least half of them express disdain for the term "ego death."
Many despise the term because it's trendy in psychedelic circles. It conjures up a macho culture of "heroic doses" and one-upmanship.
Some insist "ego death" -- or at least how the experience is commonly reported -- is a sort of a nonsensical oxymoron. To others, who view the psyche as composed of "parts" to be embraced and integrated, "ego death" is needlessly violent. Still others, such as the warm EMDR therapist I was brainstorming with last weekend, don't like the word "ego" at all in this context.
I'll make a distinction between two aspects/types of ego. This distinction allows the usual claims of "ego death" in psychedelic experience to be meaningful while highlighting the special nature of the ketamine state.
Self vs. Ego
Begin with your entire mind -- everything "in" it along with your mind itself (whatever that means).
Now call everything that can be named your "ego." Everything that affixes the word "I" to something -- anything. This is the most expansive definition of the term.
The "I-am-the-body delusion" described by Nisargadatta contains "I," so body-ownership is a manifestation of the ego.
A reflection that sounds spiritual and pure, like, "I am sitting watching the rainbow and it's like the rainbow and I have fused," contains "I," thus is a manifestation of the ego.
An emotion that has not yet been named, a stirring in the body before the thought occurs, could be described in terms of what "I" am feeling -- so emotions too belong to the ego.
What is left -- the being itself, without qualities, that cannot be attached to "I" -- is the Self. You could say it's the "I" naked and unattached. Ramana Maharshi said, "I-I," to indicate the Self beyond language.
Basic Ego vs. Social Ego
The basic ego is what you had as a homo sapiens walking this Earth a hundred thousand years ago, most of your waking hours.
It's comprised of body-awareness, the awareness of emotional states (feelings in the body/chakras) before words leap up, and the sense of "I" in flow states when there are no choices being made, no sense of initiating or doing.
The social ego is the tangled swarm of thoughts and feelings that relate to the external world and the contents of other minds, insofar as they are relevant to "me." Every complete sentence belongs to the social ego, as do almost all of the painful emotions.
Even a sentence/feeling that seems detached from social concerns, such as, "I am alone in the woods feeling the pine needles and smelling the rain," enters the domain of the social ego if there is the faintest connection to another mind. Usually there is!
The Myth of Ego Death (as a definitional misunderstanding)
When I have heard "ego death" in conversation (and it's not a prickly therapist), the person is describing a genuine, heartfelt experience. It seems wrong to dismiss it just because the psychedelic healers guild doesn't approve of the term.
If you interpret these claims as relating to the Social Ego, then they are valid! Most folks telling about the trips when they experienced "ego death" have genuinely let go of self-criticism in those moments, anxiety about the state of their life, constant fretting and fuming about relationships, etc. -- maybe they've let go entirely of the incessant stream of language in their skull. It is a tremendous, profound experience to suddenly be free of all the cacophony of the social ego! A person can touch bliss -- complete alleviation of suffering -- maybe for the first time in their life!
The Reality of Ego Death (in the ketamine state)
I have encountered this in a number of ketamine trips, as I perform pranayama (yogic breathing) near the peak.
The social ego is gone -- poof! -- and the basic ego joins it in oblivion. There is no sense of body ownership, no layers of personal identity nor "I" as the substrate. There is only what is happening. This happening includes the sounds and feelings (belonging to no one) of breathing. Words fail here too -- "I have encountered..." leads immediately to a contradiction since there is no "I"!
In fact, I doubt the episodic memories I manage to extract (or synthesize after the fact -- who knows?) from the dissociative peak come from the ego-death perspective. How can memories "belong" to someone who does not exist! I consider these memories akin to the reflections of sleep yogis on the deep-sleep state (often in the paradoxical language of mystical experience).
In a nutshell, if someone says, "I had an ego-death experience. It was beautiful!" there is no need to confront them, "Ego death doesn't exist!" etc. You can accept their account of the temporary cessation of their social ego.
If it's the death of the basic ego they're describing, there will be a tongue-tied confusion to everything they say, since language is fundamentally inadequate!
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