I'm one who has said that I feel like I don't have a good sense of self, so I will respond.

Like with psychedelics, I've heard that deep meditation, or even sudden experiences of "enlightenment", are also experienced as a lack or loss of the ego. I've experienced something like that, I think, with some guided meditations, though not often on my own.

To me, what I call my sense of self is not the same as my ego. And maybe it's the disconnect or something between the two that is troublesome. I'm coming to understand and feel sometime that there's my sense of being -- without content, just being. And that's a kind of sense of self. A base-level self, maybe. And then there are the various aspects of social and personal identity. And the feeling that those are me, too. Only. . there can be this mismatch between them.

I do believe my sense of right and wrong, and who I was and should be socially, was overly strong and inflexible. And that that developed as a defense and coping mechanism because of the splits/disconnection in . . . whatever it is/was. . . Something in the limbic system, maybe, due to developmental trauma? So, then. . .some people say our current society is too egoic, self-focused, etc., and perhaps it is -- but I do think and feel like a realistic self concept is needed in order to function well. And then, that realistic self concept also needs to be related well to the base-level sense of being. They aren't the SAME, though -- that's something I have gotten from my own meditation, and from some lectures by a Buddhist monk.

So they all go together -- base-level sense of being, which often goes overlooked. Integrated emotions. Self-concept and social identity, what it seems like is usually referred to as the ego. And I guess when they are all connected -- and regulated? that 's what I would call a sense of self? That what I want, I guess, that's what would feel like a sense of self to me.

Maybe I've peered inside myself so much, and worked through emotion so much, that maybe I'm close to getting it? I would like to hope so. More flexibility? Yes, definitely. And redefining self concepts? Yes, that, too. It sounds like the psychedelics may help with that?