The ego

[Dthoughts]

My 'ego' talk to me, does anyone else notice this? I can distinguish now a clear connection with my 'non-english' intent/thoughts And a voice in my head the 'englishes' these intents/thoughts and formats them in a verbalization directed towards me as if from an outside perspective. I also note that it comes with a an emotional charge that makes it almost sentient in appearance. The fact that it's emotions are clearly different from the emotions that I feel as my own are responsible for making 'it' appear sentient. Yet, it 'seems' to work in my favor and compliments me and has a tendency to want to direct me for my own good. But obviously it is also program-like as it is directed by my intent and changes it's opinion based on my previous intent.. Any experience in dealing with the concept of ego and ego death are welcome to me (As if I do not welcome any kind of conversation in this thread, feel free to speak ur mind! )

[DreamyBear]

My 'ego' talk to me, does anyone else notice this? I think very few notice that actually. But hopfully more and more people will notice what is going on inside themselves. I've notice my "ego" from time to time. And what often very easily happens, is this hide and seek game that occur out of that noticing of the ego in action. But obviously it is also program-like as it is directed by my intent and changes it's opinion based on my previous intent.. This is the thing. It's a like a self-excusing program that will just looping around self inflicting problems with temporary solutions that is merely excuses for itself in the end. I would say keep doing what you doing, and just observe what is going on no matter what it is. Keep up the good work!^^ /EgoBear

[Neo Neo]

I can definitely relate to this, and I think everyone does experience it from time to time. For me, a big part of my life is becoming a musician, so its not surprising that this ego stuff makes its appearance to me the most when I'm pursuing music. It can be through cello practice, performance, or just talking or interacting with other musicians. Also happened sometimes in class whenever my thoughts would drift. It often manifests as either a self-doubt thought or a feeling of unwarranted hubris. So its more the "negative", self-conscious (or sometimes self-destructive), and insecure thoughts and feelings that impact myself and musicians in general. Its weird because sometimes it'll be in response to what I'm doing, like if I'm practicing a specific passage and I can't get it, and I'll get things like "you'll never get this!" or "you have to practice faster/harder!". Other times around people its been like "I can't believe they didn't know that" or "Wow how can I stand up to these other performers? I'm not anywhere near their level of expertise". Its even stranger since its like you said Dthoughts, these messages seem to come from something that isn't your conscious self, and is like it just butts in to your area of thought. Almost like the ego has masculine qualities (there could already be psychological research on this from jung or freud, i'm just ranting lol) and yes it doesn't have to be negative, it can be positive too. I'll also have to say shut up to my ego sometimes lol, wow sounds like I'm boarderlining on a mental condition, but I promise I'm not . Like I'll have to mentally check myself sometimes, just because certain thought patterns are too much ego or are feelings/thoughts that are counterproductive to what I am trying to accomplish. Its also why I view music as more of a ego-focused career path for myself, since it is a combination of being both competitive and humanistic at the same time. There are a lot of pompous classical musicians out there, and I don't want to be one of them lol, but at the same time I have to be as proficient at cello as possible. And music is still an art, so it is supposed to be enriching for our culture, ect. But it is personal for me, so hence the relation to ego. Other musicians and artists could view it differently, more ego-focused or more altruistic, but anyway there is definitely a struggle with the ego either way. But then other forms of art like visionary art (like Alex Grey) plays different roles like awakening the self and dissolving the ego. And final thought, that its weird how the ego naturally resists being dissolved, and across cultures too. Why the fear of losing ego? Its not a physical part of us, and other parts of us survive ego death, even if it is just our pure unaltered awareness. Just the fact that I need to tell it to stop, makes me feel as if it is a separate part of myself, and perhaps even sentient to an extent. Or a lot lol.

[Enigmatik]

Very interesting topic! What I have noticed over time is that when I was younger, I had no REAL idea what ego was. Therefore, most of the time what I said or did really didn't have a whiplashing effect on me. I rarely reflected on things much. Now, I notice when I'm around people who I don't know very well I sometimes feel like I need to let them know WHO I am or what I am about. Before I do this I always get the memo from my brain to keep quiet, lol. The times I don't, I know before I speak I will regret it. And sometime's I still go on with saying what I wanted the person to know about me. I usually immediately feel the pain from this choice. I try to be humble, but fear of rejection usually kicks my ego into full gear. Usually it's all work related. But, it is truly funny how your true self will give you warnings before you open your mouth, and how you know you should listen. But for me a good majority of the time I don't. Shame on me! lol

[Narwhal]

If the ego is a program, it's a strange one. When I was in a horrible state of mind in my later teen years my ego seemed to have malfunctioned and worked against me. When I believed in Christianity and was horrified of hell and the selling one's soul thing in particular, I used to have horrible battles with that source of thoughts in my head. It was always thinking to me to sell my soul, and then with the thoughts I could control I had to start ridiculous chants to try to block it out. But then the chants effects would start to fade over time so I would have to find new chants. I felt like I was always on the edge of selling my soul like the ego was thinking for me to do, so I had to resort to bigger distractions, and when the cat scratched me that made it stop for a day so I got the delusion that I was possessed and that opening my skin up sucked the demon out of my skin like a vacuum. So I took up scratching my legs with a razor if my ego got too bad. But of course I had to do worse and worse since the effects fade like drugs so you have to do more drugs to get the same effect as the first time. So It ended up I was scratching my skin open all the way around both my entire shins and calves. One night my mom did something stupid that threw me into I guess an episode by bringing a man I hated into the house to have sex with less than 2 months after my dad got kicked out the house from the police because he tortured us and wouldn't let us leave the house. Man I was in my room, laying on my bed and I could hear everything so loud and tunneled directly to me, so I put my mp3 player headphones on to try to blast out the noise but my ego was louder so I took them off and then the my room, my entire room started swaying back and forth and I felt sick and dizzy so I had to sit on the floor and try to rock back and forth to counter act the rooms violent swaying and say lalallallalal over and over to try to stop how badly my ego was trying to get me to sell my soul. So then I grabbed the razor, scratched every bit of lower leg I could, panicked even more because for the first time it had absolutely no effect on my ego for shutting up. So I went into the living room and my mom was out there and she said something horrible, so I got mad and ran to my room blacked out and I remember I grabbed the razor and made 3 huge slashing movements on my left arm and the 3rd one made my arm split open huge all butterflied and that put me in shock and woke me up from the black out because I never cut myself, just scratched, and it didn't bleed at all, I just asked my sister if she could get me a band-aid. That's when it all stopped, my ego never acted up again, but I thought in my delusion I rid all demons and wasn't possessed anymore. It never bled so I had a delusion that the man brought his own demons that were huge and they all went into to me and attacked me, and the scratches weren't big enough openings to suck them out, but the huge cut on my arm sucked them right out and they burned my flesh upon leaving and that's why it didn't bleed. I remember I was horrified that it didn't bleed. Look what my ego did because of my beliefs and state of thoughts. I created my own hell. Now my ego seems to function as everyone elses, it turns everything I get into, into an identity. I'm not sure of the purpose of that. If I recall correctly, a research paper that said the majority of mentally ill people are extremely religious and their hallucinations and delusions relate to such. I wonder if their problem is as mine was, their ego reacting to the thoughts of fear from religion, and the trigger of creating a hell being a big negative experience.

[snoop]

I've noticed this since I was a child, on certain drugs (namely dissociatives and psychedelics, especially the former) I can actually have conversations with myself and different parts of my brain, or rather a single different part. In that state it can communicate in whatever manner it chooses, thought forms, concepts, images, intuitive feelings, scenarios, and even using my own thought language to converse back with me. Otherwise, I've always been very aware of my thought processes and feelings and have been able to easily separate myself from them and analyze them.

[kadie]

ha,ha,ha,. I get it from time to time. I call it my Angel side or devil side. depending on what advice I get. one time it seemed like they were arguing about something I should or should not do, and "I" had to tell them both to shut up. LOL Anyway, I think it is health for the most part, it helps resolve inner conflict. I personally believe the ID, Ego, self etc. is what we experience in dreams as DC's, and dream guides etc.

[snoop]

If the ego is a program, it's a strange one. When I was in a horrible state of mind in my later teen years my ego seemed to have malfunctioned and worked against me. When I believed in Christianity and was horrified of hell and the selling one's soul thing in particular, I used to have horrible battles with that source of thoughts in my head. It was always thinking to me to sell my soul, and then with the thoughts I could control I had to start ridiculous chants to try to block it out. But then the chants effects would start to fade over time so I would have to find new chants. I felt like I was always on the edge of selling my soul like the ego was thinking for me to do, so I had to resort to bigger distractions, and when the cat scratched me that made it stop for a day so I got the delusion that I was possessed and that opening my skin up sucked the demon out of my skin like a vacuum. So I took up scratching my legs with a razor if my ego got too bad. But of course I had to do worse and worse since the effects fade like drugs so you have to do more drugs to get the same effect as the first time. So It ended up I was scratching my skin open all the way around both my entire shins and calves. One night my mom did something stupid that threw me into I guess an episode by bringing a man I hated into the house to have sex with less than 2 months after my dad got kicked out the house from the police because he tortured us and wouldn't let us leave the house. Man I was in my room, laying on my bed and I could hear everything so loud and tunneled directly to me, so I put my mp3 player headphones on to try to blast out the noise but my ego was louder so I took them off and then the my room, my entire room started swaying back and forth and I felt sick and dizzy so I had to sit on the floor and try to rock back and forth to counter act the rooms violent swaying and say lalallallalal over and over to try to stop how badly my ego was trying to get me to sell my soul. So then I grabbed the razor, scratched every bit of lower leg I could, panicked even more because for the first time it had absolutely no effect on my ego for shutting up. So I went into the living room and my mom was out there and she said something horrible, so I got mad and ran to my room blacked out and I remember I grabbed the razor and made 3 huge slashing movements on my left arm and the 3rd one made my arm split open huge all butterflied and that put me in shock and woke me up from the black out because I never cut myself, just scratched, and it didn't bleed at all, I just asked my sister if she could get me a band-aid. That's when it all stopped, my ego never acted up again, but I thought in my delusion I rid all demons and wasn't possessed anymore. It never bled so I had a delusion that the man brought his own demons that were huge and they all went into to me and attacked me, and the scratches weren't big enough openings to suck them out, but the huge cut on my arm sucked them right out and they burned my flesh upon leaving and that's why it didn't bleed. I remember I was horrified that it didn't bleed. Look what my ego did because of my beliefs and state of thoughts. I created my own hell. Now my ego seems to function as everyone elses, it turns everything I get into, into an identity. I'm not sure of the purpose of that. If I recall correctly, a research paper that said the majority of mentally ill people are extremely religious and their hallucinations and delusions relate to such. I wonder if their problem is as mine was, their ego reacting to the thoughts of fear from religion, and the trigger of creating a hell being a big negative experience. Your ego didn't malfunction, you just had conflicting paradigms/world-views. The downward spiral led you toward introspection and even to doing something (like cutting yourself) that allowed you to believe that you had been healed. As long as it makes sense to you, you are healed. Whatever (rather large, I'm guessing--not trying to be condescending though, I've been there too man) problem(s) you had were taken care of, at least for the time being, so honestly your mind devised a way to help yourself, and it worked.

[Narwhal]

Your ego didn't malfunction, you just had conflicting paradigms/world-views. The downward spiral led you toward introspection and even to doing something (like cutting yourself) that allowed you to believe that you had been healed. As long as it makes sense to you, you are healed. Whatever (rather large, I'm guessing--not trying to be condescending though, I've been there too man) problem(s) you had were taken care of, at least for the time being, so honestly your mind devised a way to help yourself, and it worked. Thank you for that snoop. I don't know why, but that comforts me.