I will continue to look into this because this description of ego death in the context of meditation strikes me as less extreme than what I and others in this thread have reported.
@NotSeksoEmpirico Have you ever had surgery? It sounds like the experience of going under and then trauma like surgery is. Low self esteem results, too.
@chordy
I had minor surgery once, but it felt very different. Maybe I’m not understanding you correctly.
You also mentioned in the opening post the connection to dissolution of minimal self. In the literature, minimal self is defined quite strictly: it is the awareness of it being you who experiences some content. There has been debate whether, for example, intrusive/inserted thought lack this, but it seems to be established that since there is no question of who is experiencing such thoughts, minimal self should be thought to be preserved in such occurrences. I would say that the same holds for the - indeed more radical - experiences mentioned in this topic. For instance, you seem to leave no doubt that it was you who was experiencing this kind of ego-death. This is just enough for minimal self to be preserved. In fact, I would think minimal self is so robustly defined such that I doubt whether the notion of experience can be appealed to without minimal self.
I admit I feel uneasy about the fuzziness of this “awareness” on which the debate seems to hinge. Insofar any degree or form of this “awareness of it being you who experiences some content” (and you may dispute whether this awareness can adopt more than one form) implies an unbroken minimal self, the minimal self would indeed be preserved even under great duress. The problem as I see it would be in its extreme and aomewhat absurd form: “could an IT be ever aware of IT being who experiences some content?”
Could it be the case that minimal self as a special type of awareness is being conflated with minimal self as the mediator of the very possibility of that awareness? Both are far from identical and would have different consequences.
After the discussion I’m starting to doubt everything (which isn’t very much) I thought I knew about the minimal self. I’m questioning also its usefulness. I look forward to reading your future reflections on this topic.
This is what’s at stake it seems, but an absurdity indeed. I don’t think it’s a useful notion either…
I wish it had a different name, I think the death of one’s actual ego is important. All the ego does is make people hostile and act superior to others.
Yes this happened to me during my last episode. I literally felt as if I was dead and didn’t exist.
I axperience alot of depersonalization and loss of minimal self. Probably the most frustrating thing. I feel very inhuman, not myself at all with all sorts of odd thoughts and emotion. Its like only partly functioning brain.
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