Trying to organize where I should start such a very difficult topic and thread is, well, challenging at the least, but lets start at Gestalt
psychological theory.
Gestalt theory Attempts to understand why we have meaningful perceptions, why it is that
instead of just seeing a mix of lines, shadows, patterns, and swirls, we see meaningful wholes and organization which helps us interact with reality.
Gestalt theory has defined many laws of perception, however I want to quickly turn the attention to the law of closure -
Law of Closure—The law of closure states that individuals perceive objects such as shapes, letters, pictures, etc., as being whole when they
are not complete. Specifically, when parts of a whole picture are missing, our perception fills in the visual gap. Research shows that the reason the
mind completes a regular figure that is not perceived through sensation is to increase the regularity of surrounding stimuli. For example, the figure
that depicts the law of closure portrays what we perceive as a circle on the left side of the image and a rectangle on the right side of the image.
However, gaps are present in the shapes. If the law of closure did not exist, the image would depict an assortment of different lines with different
lengths, rotations, and curvatures—but with the law of closure, we perceptually combine the lines into whole shapes
I present the law of closure because I believe the Ego is a delusive construct arising from this principal when applied to the mind and in the context
of self perception, All this is important in understanding how the mind is organizing our reality and thus our ego, I argue that our ego is the sum of
all our parts, that it is an illusionary but integral part of reality, and in certain states of mind this becomes uncomfortably obvious. I am going to
relay an experience that I had many years ago as a teenager, this was obtained in an altered state of consciousness, though I do not believe it takes
away from the profound nature of the experience.
I walked upstairs to my old bedroom in my parents house, so that I could avoid any unwanted attention, and to provide set and setting, immediately I
knew I was in for the ride of my life. The most beautiful Instrumentals began playing in my head, I was so taken aback and enthralled with the sounds
I just lay there in my own world, drifting slowly to the beautiful instruments, all crystal clear, and all perfect in harmony.
Suddenly, I realized that one part of my mind appeared to be controlling the logical rhythm of the instrumental ( 1. 2. 3. 4.) Just after, I realized
another part of my mind appeared to be controlling the more abstract rhythms that flowed into the logical. As these entertaining idea's were coming
to the surface, I suddenly lost any meaningful description of myself, "I" was becoming uncomfortable, and I was having waves of dsyphoria, my depth
perception also was rapidly transitioning from 3d to 2d and back again, I was totally out of my mind.
Then it happened, I watched the whole of my personality (ego) split into every characteristic that makes me up, and each characteristic personified
at the same time. (having no singular "I" essentially means you no longer functioning in reality) upon this mayhem, I was becoming detached, and
having moments of eternity, then I became completely objective, morality did not exist, everything just was, and it was pure experiencing, and
beautiful. I don't know how long I stayed like this, but I eventually regained my "sense of self" and subjectivity and returned to baseline.
I know this sounds like the ramblings of a broken mind, but what I just described to you was my experience of
EGO DEATH this experience has been extensively written about over the ages, and is revered by
Buddhist monks. It can be achieved through several methods, sensory deprivation, meditation, spontaneous occurrence, and of course psychedelic
substances. its called enlightenment, it is the total dissolution of the ego and purely experiencing reality. It's very fascinating to me, especially
the ego splitting that I experienced as a prior stage to complete ego death, it showed me that the ego truly is just an illisonary construct with many
different working parts. I am an atheist, but I do take this experience quite seriously, it certainly makes me question the idea of a "life spark"
or soul, because it appears that even when all is stripped that pure experience remains.
I was hoping to get some feedback, and wondering if any of you have experienced anything like this, and what your take is on such states of mind.
Please keep the thread T&C friendly I look forward to your dialogue.
further reading about ego death