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Ego death
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<p>Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. The 19th-century philosopher and psychologist <a href="/facts/William_James/IdmT5LX7">William James</a> uses the synonymous term "self-surrender", and <a href="/facts/Jungian_psychology/QDxb1bFd">Jungian psychology</a> uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described later by <a href="/facts/Joseph_Campbell/Fk70dIR3">Joseph Campbell</a> in his research on the mythology of the <a href="/facts/Monomyth/jgNdgpPd">Hero's Journey</a>. It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking. </p><p>In descriptions of <a href="/facts/Drugs/FFFUI9n4">drugs</a>, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss to refer to (temporary) loss of one's sense of self due to the use of drugs. The term was used as such by <a href="/facts/Timothy_Leary/KeHK0FuP">Timothy Leary</a> <i>et al.</i> to describe the death of the ego in the first phase of an <a href="/facts/LSD/o5qq0grH">LSD</a> trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the <a href="/facts/True_self_and_false_self/zVybFGEL">self</a> occurs. </p><p>The concept is also used in contemporary <a href="/facts/New_Age/6cr8V2zG">New Age</a> spirituality and in the <a href="/facts/Nondualism_(spirituality)/UUH82Pk9">modern understanding of Eastern religions</a> to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self" and self-centeredness. This conception is an influential part of <a href="/facts/Eckhart_Tolle/65c9rwnX">Eckhart Tolle's</a> teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with, which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering. </p>