Ego death is a loss of the everyday sense of being a self. The phrase is used in research on psychedelic drugs, and this page recommends no drug. The kind I write about is quieter: a self you put together to cope stops being needed and goes still, with no event to mark it.
Open sky, where the crane used to be.
Kasimir stops halfway to the metro and looks up at it. For two years the crane stood over the plot beside his building in Al Jaddaf, yellow against the blue, lifting steel and glass up a tower that grew a floor at a time. Its horn sounded most mornings before he'd finished breakfast. On windy nights its warning light blinked through his blinds.
Now the tower is finished. Windows in, lights on in the lobby, a few balconies already holding chairs and pot plants.
Somewhere in the last few months there were lorries, men in harnesses, a lane closed for a day. None of it made enough noise to stay with him, though he walked this way every morning.
He looks at the tower a moment longer, then checks the time and keeps walking.
What is ego death?
It's a loss of the everyday sense of having a self. A 2008 paper on hallucinogen research says a person "may temporarily experience a complete loss of subjective self-identity", which is "sometimes referred to as 'ego loss' or 'ego death'". Here I mean something quieter: an old self, put together for an earlier time, going still.
Before anything else: nothing on this page recommends a drug, or any practice meant to break down your sense of self. If you've ever felt unreal, cut off from your body or far away from your own life, whether after a drug, after meditation or with no cause you can name, see a doctor or a mental health professional and tell them what happened. Do the same if the idea of losing yourself frightens you now. If the word death on this page sets off thoughts of hurting yourself, stop reading and reach out today, to a doctor or to a person you trust. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services. Therapy and medical care sit outside what this page offers, and nothing here should pull you away from the professionals already caring for you.
What ends in a quiet ego death?
Start with the word ego. Merriam-Webster opens its entry for ego with "the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world". That's a self that lives in relation to everyone else: watching them, managing them, keeping its place among them.
Many of the selves people would gladly be rid of are like that: the one who must be the most prepared person in any room, the one who has to have the last word, the strong one whose own bad weeks nobody hears about. These are what I mean by survival identities.
A quiz isn't the place for anything urgent: if you feel unsafe, or far away from yourself, a doctor or a mental health professional comes first, and in a crisis, contact your local emergency services. For a lighter first look, the quiz Who Did You Become to Survive? names one self you may have put together along the way, and to see what it names, you'll be asked for your first name, email and phone number. Or read on.
Think of Kasimir's crane. While the tower was going up, the crane mattered more than anything else on the site. Then the tower no longer needed it, and the crane came down. That wasn't a demolition. The tower stayed, and it had been the point all along.
That's ego death without the drama, as I use the phrase: not a person being destroyed, but one old self that's no longer called on going still. I can't tell anyone when that will happen for a particular self, and nobody else can either. Why is change so hard explains why an old self can hold on, even when the change was your own idea.
Why is ego death linked with psychedelic drugs?
Because some of the research that uses the phrase is research on those drugs. The paper I quoted, by Matthew Johnson, William Richards and Roland Griffiths in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, sets out safety guidelines for research with hallucinogens, and its subject is risk. The most likely one, it says, is "overwhelming distress during drug action", which "could lead to potentially dangerous behavior"; less common are "prolonged psychoses triggered by hallucinogens". If anyone is in danger right now, contact your local emergency services, and make sure a doctor sees them afterwards.
So I won't point anyone down that road, and nothing in this piece does. If you've had an experience like that and something hasn't felt right since, tell a doctor or a mental health professional about it, however long ago it happened.
I know some faiths and mystical traditions speak of losing or emptying the self in words of their own. Those words, and what they mean, belong to those traditions and their teachers, and this piece leaves them there.
Does ego death mean losing yourself?
Not the way I'm using it. The phrase can sound as if the whole person goes, and for anyone who has ever felt far away from themselves, that's a frightening thought, not an inviting one. If it frightens you, listen to that, and see a doctor about it rather than pushing past it.
In the quiet version, what goes is narrow: a habit of always having the last word, say. The crane comes down, and the tower stays where it is. What is unlearning covers a smaller, ordinary relative of this: a learned habit going quietly out of use.
That's also why I'd never make ego death a goal. Chasing an experience of losing yourself can take people somewhere frightening, as that paper's account of the risks makes clear, and it's no part of what this page suggests.
Can you write down one ordinary minute from your day?
Nothing on this page is therapy or medical care, and a doctor or therapist you already see stays the first person to ask. Treatment, medication and any support you rely on all carry on unchanged, and if you're in recovery, your programme and its people stay at the centre of things. If you've felt unreal, detached or not quite present, or you're being treated for that, put this exercise to your doctor first. Where the old pattern involves alcohol, drug use, hurting yourself, or someone who harms you, this exercise was never meant for it; a doctor or a helpline is the place to turn. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
Nothing obliges you to finish: stop before step one, partway, or the moment writing about your day feels heavy.
- Choose a quiet moment and a pen. Sit somewhere you feel settled, at a time of day that suits you.
- Think of one ordinary minute from today when you weren't managing anyone. Not steering anyone's opinion of you, not having the last word, not proving anything: waiting at a crossing, say, or watching the traffic.
- Put it into words: where you were, and one thing you noticed around you. A phrase is plenty.
- Read it back once, slowly.
A few words are all it asks.
Why point to the Survive quiz from a piece on ego death?
Because it's a small, plain look at one everyday self. Seeing your result means handing over your first name, email and phone number. Three things about it matter here.
- You're curious, not in crisis. Anything urgent goes to a doctor first; this is a light first look.
- Its statements are plain. The twenty-one of them, such as "I deflect attention when it lands on me", are about how you tend to act, feel and see yourself. Its final question goes further, asking when you last felt fully yourself.
- It sets the tone early. That first page of questions reads: "Truth, not performance."
If you've ever felt unreal or detached, or you're getting treatment for it, see a doctor before you take the quiz, since that final question reaches deeper than the rest. Some statements may land hard. You can leave the quiz at any point, and a doctor or someone you trust is the right company for anything heavy it brings up. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
My ego and I are still on speaking terms, most days.
Anne, one of the Amazon reviewers of my book: "This book is so much more than a read."
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.
P.S. If the phrase ego death has been turning over in your mind this week, here's something much smaller to do with it: a quiz built on twenty-one statements. Statements about yourself can hit harder than they look, so keep a doctor or someone you trust within reach, and in a crisis, contact your local emergency services. Show me who I became