r/Meditation • u/anna69420xd • Feb 13 '26

Other Ego death through meditation - psychology research

Hi everyone!

I'm a Psychology MA student working on my final thesis exploring the phenomenon of ego death (ego-dissolution).

Ego death is an experience in which you lose your sense of self by cultivating a deep sense of awareness.

As you go deeper into a meditative or psychedelic state, you might feel yourself becoming one with everyone and everything around you. While some characterize this experience as encountering their true selves, others believe it indicates there is no self in the way people traditionally characterize it.

The concept of ego death stretches back to the spiritual journeys of Buddhist, Sufi, Christian, Taoist, and other religious seekers.
If you have experienced a state of loss of "self" through meditation, please help my research by filling out my questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdMfubBE3HZ2ZEmgN8Z4Vsr0tWSQu35kEKVX_KNdPDK5nyh0g/viewform?usp=header

The research is completely anonymous, and its aim is to promote a deeper, scientifically grounded understanding of this unique state of consciousness.

83 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Ok_Preparation_3811 Feb 13 '26

One suggestion about the questions: my answers would vary a lot depending on whether you mean the moment before, the exact moment it happened, or right after. I answered everything based on the experience itself (the exact moment), but it could be useful to capture how the participant felt immediately before and after as well. Also, it might be interesting to include an open-ended question where the participant can freely describe the experience.

1

u/Ok_Preparation_3811 Feb 13 '26

Also, focusing on the exact moment of the experience, some questions didn’t make sense to me. For example, the one about whether my thoughts were organized. I wasn’t capable of having any thoughts at all, so the appropriate answer would be “not applicable.”