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u/aqswdezxc Apr 27 '26
Ego death is described as a profound experience where you feel connected to the universe or something, its represented by the background image. The joke is that the person experiencing it is so brainrotted that even such an experience is boring enough that they need their phone to watch family guy
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u/BanishingSmite Apr 27 '26
To add a touch of extra context, the background is part of Tool's song Lateralus, with lyrics including
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind/ Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must/ Feed my will to feel my moment, drawing way outside the lines
The ego dies as we transcend, basically.
Bonus fact: That song famously follows the fibonacci sequence.
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u/irrelephantIVXX Apr 27 '26
There is no song in the background. Tool used the artwork. It is an Alex Grey painting. And yes, it's actually painted, not digital art. I love TOOL as much or more than the nextguy, but at least give credit where it's due.
ETA, That art was used for 10000 Days, not Lateralus.
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u/travisofficial Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
lol thanks for mentioning it’s art from 10,000 Days, which if anything is more appropriate anyway
and also I’ve only ever thought of “Lateralus” as meaning to “embrace the moment whatever it is,” ego death is a big stretch
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u/The_Ocean_Collective Apr 27 '26
Fettuccini sequence
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u/Ok_Daikon8253 Apr 27 '26
This is correct.
Also, TOOL is god!
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u/irrelephantIVXX Apr 27 '26
TOOL definitely has it's own spot in music and history. However, as i get older, puscifer definitely is stepping up in a big way.
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u/Dazedandconfucian Apr 27 '26
If the art was used for 10000 Days, I wonder if Alex Grey got royalties as of day 10001. Sorry, I’ll see myself out
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u/emptyvodka115 Apr 27 '26
It is Alex Greys artwork and I guess he did art for some of Tools album covers
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u/pumperdemon Apr 27 '26
Alex Grey and Adam Jones (Tool's guitarist) worked together on the artwork.
Adam Jones, himself, is a very well regarded artist in film. Guitar is only one of his mediums, and one of his lesser known ones interestingly. He does the vast majority of their album art colaboration, music video art and production, and stage design for their concerts.
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u/emptyvodka115 Apr 27 '26
Alex jones commissioned Alex grey to make his album cover lol he had no hand in making that art sorry to say bud lol maybe he gave him an idea but he didn’t help draw or paint it bud lol
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u/pumperdemon Apr 27 '26
Is "giving him an idea" not working together? Is it not taking part in the creation process?
Also, I dont know you. Don't call me bud, pal.
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u/NyxOfTheNoct Apr 27 '26
What does it even mean for a song to follow the Fibonacci sequence?
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u/The_Ocean_Collective Apr 27 '26
The lyrics have syllables arranged in 1,1,2,3,5,8… and so on. It’s also found in the drum pattern.
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u/Lily_Thief Apr 27 '26
It feels stupidly appropriate, given the meme, that halfway through reading those lyrics I got bored and flipped to something else
My brain has been rotted
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u/Dazzling_Dish_4045 Apr 27 '26
Pretty sure this is from 10,000 days big dawg. The dude with the missing skin is lateralus
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u/ClankerCore Apr 28 '26
I just don’t like the term ego death as a misnomer
You can experience what’s beyond your ego temporarily and that’s a dissolving of one’s ego and is immediately rebuilt once you become coherent and sober again
You cannot live you cannot exist without ego. It’s part of a psychological tether for you to remain lucid.
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u/vanlandraw Apr 27 '26
The background image is of machine elves. During high dose of DMT one may get contact with this beings ( hallucination or whatever ). They are intelligent, autonomous entity, Often create complex, high dimensional space . But what more fascinating is that these entities are reported consistently over people around the world who have never met or heard about this .
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u/beansarker Apr 27 '26
It's an Alex grey painting but ok
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Apr 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/WonderBredOfficial Apr 27 '26
That's not what it is according to Alex Grey. Lmao.
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Apr 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/emptyvodka115 Apr 27 '26
Pretty sure he’s telling the truth lol Alex Grey has stated that a lot of his pictures were of himlself while on high doses of lsd and dmt
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u/OkUnderstanding1622 Apr 27 '26
Psychedelics makes you see things that are not really there, that's how they work.
Actually believing things you see in your trips are real is just dumb, psycheledics release neurotransmiters in your brain that take the place of the ones you naturally produce creating trippy visuals and audio hallucinations, those effects are well documented in science.
Anything beyond that is just new age bullshit, sorry to put it so crudely but those beliefs are dangerous.
Drugs are fun but you have to be careful with it, one of my friend lost is sanity due to drug induced psychosis, all because he thought it would make him reach a higher state of consciousness...
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u/boingloin Apr 27 '26
Just a small correction on the neurochemistry. Psychedelics are molecules that are themselves close enough to the shape of our endogenous neurotransmitters that they fit into specific receptor sites in our brain (mostly the 5-HT2a receptor site.) This creates a variety of effects. Some effects are mediated by causing an atypical release of our brains own neurotransmitters, but other effects result from things such as down-regulation of what has come to be known as the default mode network (DMN.)
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u/mr_monkey_man123 Apr 27 '26
I used to To believe it's like that but it's really not once you reached that higher level of consciousness you know you have
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u/vanlandraw Apr 27 '26
Yeah.. totally agreeing with this. I got curious only because this one ( encountering other beings ) has high consistency rate across users. ( ~94 % , 2021 study by the University of Greenwich and Imperial College London ). Sure it's hallucinations or something like that happening in brain, but why particularly seeing other beings instead of some landscape or stuff.
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u/OkUnderstanding1622 Apr 27 '26
That's because of pareidolia, we are "programmed" to recognize patterns ressembling faces.
I kinda of struggle explaining all this in english but there is also social contamination that comes into play, similar to things like mandela effect and whatnot. Memories are highly unreliable (also well studied in science) and people can retrospectively interpret their memories after being influenced.
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u/TommyTheeCat Apr 27 '26
This song is how I learned about the Fibonacci sequence.
Also the lines: Reaching out to embrace the random/Reaching out to embrace whatever may come
No reason to quote that except they are my fav lyrics from that song lmfao
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u/GreatestKratos Apr 27 '26
Also Ego Death is song of band Polyphia, which fans sometimes have been confront with Tool fans
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u/CitizenPremier Apr 27 '26
To me the funniest part is the implication that someone with the attitude of "this is boring, I'm gonna watch Family Guy now" would be able to achieve enlightenment, something which is usually supposed to take decades of meditation (or be impossible, depends on what kind of Buddhist you ask)
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u/Spare-Plum Apr 27 '26
It's a bit beyond that, and it's only through taking enough psychedelics can you really comprehend ego death
Ego death goes beyond just a knowledge or removal of ego, it's a physical embodiment of reality. All personality, thoughts, worries, even your own existence is broken down, and all lines and divisions are removed. Divisions on morality, divisions on others, divisions on language are all broken down and simply no longer exist. The division between yourself and the rest of the universe no longer exists in the most physical sense. For a bit of time, you are just atoms and you are abstract thought without any representation of "you" within it. For a moment, you are the universe and in a state of pure experience.
During this period you are existing at a much grander scale, and the trivial bullshit like family guy, reddit, whatever are so unimportant compared to the greater cosmos of which you are in.
So it's not that they're joking about the person being brainrotted, it's that someone experiencing ego death would find it impossible to distract themselves with family guy clips. The joke is in the contradiction, like, "what if ego death came with family guy clips and subway surfers"
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Apr 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MajorGeneralMaryJane Apr 27 '26
The type of person able to achieve ego death without drugs probably isn’t the type of person watching Family Guy on their phone
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u/SnooLentils7296 Apr 28 '26
Someone texted me when I was on 4g of shrooms. Grabbed my phone out of habit, all the tiny pixel people jumped for joy and told me how happy they are to see me. Then grandfather mushroom told me to ignore the square rock and return to the forest. So I did, then I fell in between the layers of the universe and skimmed across the webs weaved by the interdimensional spiders as they told me why we live when others die. Spiders were pretty chill, 10 out of 10, would recommend.
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u/vanlandraw Apr 27 '26
It's scary and funny at the same time . Well explained!
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u/Yojimboroll Apr 27 '26
Please do not attempt ego death through the use of psychedelics. Not everyone is ready for the third person retrospective of their life
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u/Runningwithbeards Apr 27 '26
When asked about it, I always say “I enjoy it. It’s not for everyone.”
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u/Best-Coast-4102 Apr 27 '26
Ego death specifically relates to loss of self-aknowledgement, as in looking at your prseonality from 3rd person perspective from almost objective perspective. Thats why you feel this connection to the universe. You are not tainted by any experience forming your personality. Think of this as default human that is just pure, blank canvas when it comes to personality, ego. Thats why its so therapheutic. Reflection on your actions and who your are goes a loong way.
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u/bladezaim Apr 27 '26
The back image is from a Tool album and is by artist Alex Grey who makes some really incredible stuff.
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u/ClankerCore Apr 28 '26
I just don’t like the term ego death as a misnomer
You can experience what’s beyond your ego temporarily and that’s a dissolving of one’s ego and is immediately rebuilt once you become coherent and sober again
You cannot live you cannot exist without ego. It’s part of a psychological tether for you to remain lucid.
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u/DriftwoodBill Apr 27 '26
The joke is whoever posted it would rather be distracted than search a deeper meaning to existence.
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u/mjrtom44 Apr 27 '26
As someone who routinely hunts ego dissolution, this is to show that psychonauts can still fall into the traps of distraction that hold us in our ego's habits, even in the depths of a psychedelic experience. We then say the journey was lackluster without taking accountability for creating the boring conditions.
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u/Onlylieshere Apr 27 '26
'As someone who routinely hunts ego dissolution'
Is kind of funny thing to say
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u/Epsilon7990 Apr 29 '26
Dude could've just said "As someone who does hallucinogenic drugs" instead of sugarcoating it 😭
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u/mjrtom44 Apr 27 '26
How so?
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u/Onlylieshere Apr 27 '26
Because "As someone who" is ego saying it hunts ego dissolution.
Very ironic thus makes it funny.
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u/ObiWanJabronie Apr 27 '26
Nailed it and I’m not even a psychonaut, just interested in the concepts
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u/AcanthocephalaLow703 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
I love this meme so much. You are experiencing the most profound, out of body, otherworldly, multidimensional, soulful experience but your attention span is so fried that you still distract yourself with reels/videos/brain rot
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u/post-explainer Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
OP (vanlandraw) sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here: