Wait, you accidentally experienced ego death while meditating as a kid!? That's fascinating
If you're willing to share, I would love to hear more. How did you get so deeply into meditation? What was your practice like? What were you doing that got you to such a "bad trip"
I don't know that it was ego death, precisely. I just inferred that from comparing the impact on me with what others reported experiencing. I've heard it also called 'epiphany'.
I was just reading books and pondering. Sci fi, Sagan, Fritjof Capra, Taoism, Zen, some Buddhism. I didn't know any one who knew anything about this stuff.
I started meditating because I was struggling, had a lot time, nothing to do, and was trying to psyche myself up to start working again. I hadn't been diagnosed yet, so didn't know my failings were health related. I thought I just had a bad attitude, was being lazy.
I got pretty good at reaching a trance state. I was stuck on the notion of "no thought". Best I could do was let thoughts float away. So I started my notions of mental exercises. Visualize a sphere. Think of a color and try to see it with my mindseye. Imagine the center of my ego was my sternum and not my head, imagine the world from that perspective. Float above my own body.
So I was just doing my thing, pretending to have an out of body experience, and I slipped into a different state. The idea was really simple. It was like being able to actually internalize a trillion. Or like Fritjof's epiphany of seeing all the grains of sand on the beach.
I had the full impact of how big the universe is and how small I am, the briefness of my lifespan.
It terrified me. I reflexively pulled back, popped out of trance. And then I laid on the bed for a long while, trying to figure if I was back in my room, if I was dreaming, what's real or not.
I came out of it very different worldview. That whole ecological, holistic awareness, everything is connected, and other woo-woo descriptions. Popping that ego-centric bubble for just a moment.
Again, I'm just using other people's words for what best matches my experience. "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." and all that.
I don't know if this is the same thing, but in my early teens, I terrified myself during meditation because I got to a point where I felt I could "think myself out of existence" if I had continued along the (mental) path I was on.
Not sure if that's the same thing as ego death but it was terrifying.
Sounds the same. The Void is terrifying. Whenever my distractions stop working -- Hello Hacker News! -- my mind wanders back and everything seems a lot less real.
If you're willing to share, I would love to hear more. How did you get so deeply into meditation? What was your practice like? What were you doing that got you to such a "bad trip"