Blog Post #3

One of the concepts that I wanted to explore in my animation was "ego death", where someone feels a, "...complete loss of self-identity." For one of the rooms in my character's inner self, I attempted to make a visual metaphor for this concept, which ended up looking quite similar to the photo above (which was NOT on purpose but I am glad I got the idea!). 

Ego death is not achieved through the use of DMT alone, but can rather be experienced through most psychedelics. One article claims, "It is termed so because it has been reported as feeling like a form of dying in which one lets go of their sense of self, their identity, or their selfish or worldly desires." I think this is the first and one of the most important things to explore in my animation, because once the sense of self is completely gone, you can remove your opinions and biases from a conversation or experience and see what could possibly be "the truth", which is what a lot of users of psychedelics are on the hunt for. This is the the main premise of my animation and research, particularly, young people craving the truth due to their high stress, confusing and violent environments.

As I mentioned, this will be the first room that my character will walk into, where he will be essentially killing himself to then unabashedly explore the other "rooms" of his psyche, including things like the exploration of connections to others (particularly maternal/familial), the breakdown of gender/sex, higher powers, and ancient geometry and fractals as they make up the universe. 

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-ego-death-psychedelic-use-7089738