Have you ever disassociated from yourself?
Perhaps you were dabbling with plant medicines, practicing a spiritual craft, or experienced a moment where your self-image suddenly dismantled. Your foothold on reality is destabilized.
The nature of your reality becomes more existential, and you begin to contemplate.
Suddenly you’re in an unfamiliar headspace, questioning who you are. As if you’re seeing yourself from an outside perspective, you might wonder why you behave in certain ways, or why you do certain things. You have mental spaciousness to see yourself through an unbiased filter, rather than the filter of self.
Ego dissolution can be a disorienting feeling, one we all experience at times, but it also creates space for huge levels of personal growth. That’s because ego dissolution allows you to see yourself from a different perspective.
Let’s explore this fascinating phenomenon, and look at how it can be leveraged for growth and transformation.
What is ego dissolution?
Ego dissolution (also called ego loss) is the experience of temporarily feeling disconnected from your normal sense of self. Think of it as your ego temporarily dissolving, to make way for a fuller expression of soul.
First, you need to understand the ego.
The ego is your sense of self, and the part of you that is an individual. It is the sense of I, or me, and can be understood as the mechanism that separates you from nature.
Without an ego, you wouldn’t experience consciousness as an individual. Having no ego would mean that you’re not a separate entity at all. In other words, you would be a vegetable, unable to think, perceive, believe, or do, because all these things come from you. With a bloated ego, you are the center of the universe, nothing else exists besides you.
Naturally, we’re all along this spectrum at some level. Some people have bigger egos than others, but we all have egos.
Ego dissolution ranges from a subtle feeling of not being your usual self, to feeling like you’re completely losing your mind. It’s a temporary disconnect from ego, leading to a loss of self.
When you start losing your ego, everything that you identify with is stripped away. Everything you know becomes a foreign subject, and simply put, you don’t know who you are anymore. This loss of individuality increases feelings of connectedness with the universe.
During ego dissolution, you still identify as an individual, but that sense of separation lessens. If you were to completely disconnect from self, you would experience ego death. Ego death is a complete loss of self and submergence into the collective consciousness.
Ego dissolution is characterized by:
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- Feelings of disorientation
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- Sense of alienation
- Minor disassociation from the body
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- Unfamiliarity with oneself
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- Changes in thought processes
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- Changes in perception and outlook of life
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- A sense of being more connected to a deeper part of oneself
- The nature of existence becomes more philosophical
Diminishing the sense of 'me'
You identify with your thoughts, memories, personality, beliefs, ethnicity, the jobs you have worked, the experiences you have had, the people you meet, the music you like, and the shows you watch. That conglomerate of associations is what creates your sense of self.
You are constantly reinforcing who you are, and this image of yourself is what the ego wants to consolidate. The ego does not like change, or disruption of identity because it perceives it as a threat.
Often, we believe that we are what we associate with.
I’m Daniel. I am 31 years old. I am a traveler. I am down-to-earth, relaxed, and spiritual. I could write an essay about who I am and how I identify because I have spent my life crafting this image of myself.
And there’s nothing wrong with having a stable sense of self. It’s normal. However, none of this is me. I am a soul in a body, everything else is narrative. I am consciousness, everything else is a mask.
When we get too caught up in the narrative of who we are, we become stubborn in our ways. This prevents flexibility and inner spaciousness. It turns life change into the enemy because life change might not be congruent with your identity.
When there is so much wool blanketing the true self, we never really experience it.
Leveraging ego dissolution for personal growth
You may experience ego dissolution from events that push you out of your normal headspace. When you enter a space that becomes more attuned with spirit and less with self, you temporarily exit your normal mind.
There are a few common ways that people may experience ego dissolution:
- Plant medicines: Psychedelic substances often induce ego dissolution and a loss of one’s sense of self.
- Ungrounded: People may experience ego dissolution when they’re not grounded.
- Presence: An individual’s identity may temporarily diminish during states of presence because they are being, rather than reinforcing an image of self.
- Existential crisis: You may reach a point where you feel your life (and yourself) is falling apart, and you need to find a new path.
- Major life changes: Big life changes can uproot your sense of self and cause you to question your reality
As you can see, different things can trigger ego dissolution. But it’s not a bad thing. Although you may feel out of place during these experiences, it allows you to rebuild yourself more healthily, by identifying and discarding aspects of your identity that no longer serve you.
Unexpected life changes can also cause ego dissolution. Your wife or husband leave you. Your employer lets you go. The landlord wants their house back, and suddenly your entire, familiar life caves in.
Part of your identity is tied to that partner, to that house, to that job. So when these aspects of your identity are suddenly taken away, you’re forced to take a long hard look at yourself.
Likewise, when you live a lifestyle where things are constantly changing, naturally, your sense of self is going to weaken because there’s no stability, thus no reinforcement of self.
With that said, here’s how ego dissolution can be used as an aid.
Molding your new identity
Usually, we feel secure in our identities because they’re all we’ve ever known. They’re our houses, but what happens when your identity becomes dislodged, and suddenly there’s a new space to fill with experience?
This is why ego dissolution creates a unique window that allows you to experience yourself from a different perspective.
You are temporarily unbound from your identity and the patterns and programs that are associated with your sense of self.
Ego dissolution is valuable because it grants you an unbiased view of who you are.
This is where real transformation can take place.
You are forced into an extremely personal journey. Therefore, you begin to redefine who you are, what you like, and what happiness means to you. For once, the framework of your identity becomes malleable, and you can mold your identity much more quickly.
When experiencing these states of consciousness, you tend to ask more questions. These can be really important questions that bring your awareness to more significant parts of your life experience – which in turn can be a catalyst for change.
Some of these existential questions may include:
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- Who am I and why am I this person?
- Why am I living the way I do?
- What brings me deeper fulfillment than my usual activities?
- What makes me content in this present moment?
- What gives me a deeper sense of fulfillment in life?
- What is holding me back from having the life I want?
- What other states of consciousness can be achieved?
If you’re experiencing ego dissolution, use it as an opportunity to question the nature of your reality, and reconstruct yourself in a better, healthier way.
Molding yourself differently can provide insights and perspectives that can greatly benefit your life. Don’t be worried about the experience because you will feel like yourself again. Perhaps, that self is a better version of who you are now.
Encourage the transformative process to occur while you experience the window of ego dissolution, and use it as a valuable opportunity to gain a different perspective into your self.