My experience with 5-meo-DMT: The Ego Death

As I continue to explore the practices of meditation and plant medicine, I am consistently amazed by the vastness and power of Mother Nature. She holds within her all the answers to the ego-driven issues that plague us, and the more I delve into these practices, the more humbled I become by her vastness and wisdom. This life force we are a part of, but cannot see, contains all the answers to our ego-driven problems. In my forever quest to continue to understand myself, my traumas, and heal myself and my ancestors I decided to journey with 5-meo-DMT, also known as Bufo or Toad Medicine.  I went on my first Ayahuasca retreat back about 6 years ago and wrote an article about my "shift". Three months later, I felt I was ready to experience my  “ego death”. 

This was a very difficult experience to document. Imagine going to another planet and witnessing its natural habitat, only to have to come back to earth and use language to explain things and experiences that have no name. But, I will try my best to explain it here.

What is the “ego death”? 

It's is the most commonly way those who have journeyed with Bufo explain their experience. Also referred as 5-meo-DMT, it is a toxin derived from the Sonoran Desert toad known as Bufo Alvarius. In short, the toxin is crystalized, then smoked with a pipe.  

How does it affect the brain?

Disclaimer: I am no neuroscientist but I’ll explain it as best as I can. These guys do a good job at it.

The toad, Bufo Alvarius, produces a toxin in its glands which contains 5-meo-DMT, a powerful psychedelic similar to DMT. Like DMT, 5-meo-DMT is produced naturally inside the body and is found in all mammals.

This compound is part of the tryptamine class, a category that includes other very well known compounds such as serotonin and melatonin. Our brain absorbs serotonin through receptors in the brain, a compound essentially responsible for keeping all your body engines in check. It regulates your bodily functions, your mood and is responsible for your social behavior. Since 5-meo-DMT is a very similar compound, when inhaled, it hijacks these receptors, releasing the serotonin and attaching itself in its place.

Now, this does not mean we lose control of our body or we stop functioning as human beings. Instead, what happens is our brain is no longer constrained by serotonin.  Because your brain isn’t solely focused on keeping you alive, your brain is able to expand, which allows it to work in a different combination of brain waves than it’s used to. Your brain gets to explore other areas of your brain previously untapped. The result is an altered state of consciousness.

Experiencing The Ego Death 

I won’t divulge the logistics that led up to the ceremony itself, but with a group of trusted friends holding space for me, I smoked the powerful toxin and surrendered to the medicine. I felt its effects almost immediately.

It went a little like this: Upon inhaling, I quickly laid down to prepare my body to let the medicine take over. After what felt like 3-5 minutes, I began to hear my ego, that is, the judgmental voice in my head, begin to get uncomfortable and anxious. Given my other experiences with psychedelics, I was able to breathe through this feeling and remain calm. Instead of focusing on labeling my experience or going into a state of panic, I surrendered and let the medicine lead the way.

As my body fully relaxed, my mind began to feel the opposite. The usual waves of constant chatter, neurosis, and nonsense got more agitated and louder. In this state, I observed how opposite my body and mind were reacting to the medicine. In our waking life, we understand the concept of mind-body connection. We know the benefits of having it but we rarely notice the disconnect in real time. That is why consistent practices like meditation and breathwork are important methods to bring that awareness to our mind and bodies. In this case however, I was experiencing complete opposites. Imagine the most neurotic and panicked you’ve ever felt in your life, and then picture yourself the most relaxed you’ve ever been, perhaps at a spa or laying on a beach somewhere soaking in the afternoon sun. That’s how this felt, but before you stop reading our of sheer fear, i want to emphasize that none of this felt scary. I wasn’t afraid at all. I felt like an independent observer with the clarity of mind to understand how both my mind and my body were reacting simultaneously. My body felt like it was on a mild anesthetic, heavy and unmoving, while my mind was claustrophobic and alarmed.

I spent many journal entries after my journey trying to rationalize this paradox. I don't know if I've gotten very far. Perhaps, rationalizing it is not what's important.

Many meditation teachings speak to the relationship between body and mind, and the importance of honoring both parts of our being. Up to this point, I knew this on a logical level, but I can’t say I had ever truly experienced it in real time. And it’s an odd feeling. That onto itself is a magical experience. I learned in this moment we don’t really have control of our body at all. Truly think about it - how much control do you have over being sick, wanting to vomit, feeling hungover, or going to the bathroom. Our body is it’s own magical, independent organism. One that keeps us alive and healthy and is incredibly self-sufficient. And I don’t think I ever gave my body any credit before. I spent the majority of time time wanting to change it, contort it to fit into whatever piece of clothing I needed it to fit into.

The truth is, I rarely respected or cared for my body. I treated it as a mechanism designed to be optimized. I needed to tweak, pluck, pull, and squeeze every part of my body to create the perfect human bodysuit. I never treated it as its own being, or took into account its delicate need of care and attention. It took me feeling like I was being pulled by two bulldozers in opposite directions to truly understand this. As I lay there, my body half asleep and my frantic mind ready to break havoc, I understood this.

As this was happening, I also began to feel a separation between "me" and my experience. I began to turn into The Watcher. I was no longer seeing the world in terms of subject and object. My awareness began to expand. This expanded awareness felt the heaviness of my body while simultaneously feeling the intense maniac that was my mind. 

At this point, my ego felt like a caged wild animal. I can only describe this as my ego trying to claw at my mind to hold on. It was fighting for its life,  furious, unpredictable and unwilling to let go. 

Now, I want to be clear about one thing. Again, the watcher never felt scared. And this has been the truth for all plant medicine I’ve ever tried. Once you tap into source, fear does not exist. I, as the watcher, watched these events the same way someone watches a movie in a theatre, aware of the motion picture but detached from the experience itself. I later realized it’s because it’s never our connected self who experiences fear, rather fear is a mechanism the ego uses to stay in control of situations. 

By this point, my ego is fighting for its life. I’m deep in my journey. The medicine is in complete control, and it is beginning to shut down my ego. 

As this is happening, the watcher realizes underneath the aggression and ferociousness is really only trying to protect its own fear. The caged wild animal rattling in my brain is afraid. This really hit me. All of a sudden, an uncontrollable wave of compassion took over my experience. For the first time (probably ever), I saw my ego for what it really was - a scared little girl. I understood my ego was a scared and insecure version of me. In other words, for the first time in my life, I felt my inner child.

It is the part of me that uses manipulation and scare tactics to maintain the safety of the status quo. The ego's job is to stay within the parameters of comfortability. Unfortunately for me, comfortability also included social conditioning, childhood trauma, unfinished business, decades of baggage, hurt feelings and unrequited love.

I later realized the bruised, terrified version of me is who’s been in the driver’s seat for most of my life. Through years of consistent deep self-work, I've seen its power; but I now realize I never really understood it's nature. It is not an evil monster that needs to abolished. Instead, It is a scary but docile creature who's in need of a friend.

As I went deeper with the toad, I uncovered my severe abandonment issues. Where they come from or how they were developed in the first place, I don’t know. Perhaps that is what I need to take to therapy. But Bufo showed me my severe separation anxiety that started as a child and the way that separation anxiety has been manifesting in my adult life. My habitual conditioning, such as my unwillingness to be vulnerable in romantic relationships or my reluctance to open up in certain scenarios are defense mechanisms that ultimately don't serve me at all, and are all ways the ego has used to protect itself.

Perhaps the most important lesson was the new compassionate lens in which I saw my ego. Until now, I saw the ego as a limitation that needed to be transcended. I didn't know then it was my shadow self - the parts of me that needed to be seen.

The ego is what makes us human. It is the part of us that has withstood years of suffering and neglected emotional needs. It is a scared, bruised, and ugly part of us that should be honored, accepted, and reintegrated into who we are as a whole.

Perhaps the most life-changing aspect of this revelation is how I no longer feared myself. On the contrary, I knew in that moment my ego was a part of me that needed to be listened to. This reminds me of a beautiful poem by Nayyirah Waheed. she says:

After the medicine shows me all of this, my ego shut down. This is going to sound insane, but I actually missed its absence. At the same time, I felt complete wholeness, beauty, and connectedness. This feeling is indescribable. The entire universe was one whole, breathing organism; vast, complex, and interconnected, yet dependent on every single living thing to keep it alive.

And then just as quickly as that feeling entered my body, my ego reappeared. The drama queen was back.

The medicine began to wane down. I came back to this reality and I opened my eyes. 

Integration

Just like most experiences with plant medicine, it was the integration over the following weeks that truly propelled me forward in my practice. It took me about 3 months to make sense of it enough to be able to write about it. My bufo experience was 3 years ago and I feel I am just scratching the surface of what I truly experienced.

The sense of initial interconnectedness is not as prevalent now, but it is still with me. A part of me wishes I could forever live in this feeling of interconnectedness. I’m starting to think a lot of what it means to be human and if part of the understanding the human experience is to live in separateness. Or at least to understand it. I think is why psychedelics and and plant medicine is so dear to me. It’s my way back to source. To feeling whole. It’s how I fill my cup to then be able to continue on my path of being human. I don’t have answers, and most of the time these deep experiences seem to raise even more complex questions.

To all the answers I will never receive - I am ok continuing to respect the mystery.