system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is ego death and how is it achieved?
gpt
Ego death, is as simple as the death of your ego, but it's more complex than that. Your ego is the collective information you have pooled together, that you believe comprises who you are as a person.  All the things your good at, all your accomplishments, how you view the world, etc...all these things affect your every day interactions.  Your ego is often the biggest reason for how you act the way you act, why you treat others the way you do, etc etc...

Ego death occurs when all these beliefs about yourself, essentially, die..or more simply, are reset.

This occurs usually with the help of strong psychedelics like large doses of mushrooms, Acid/LSD, DMT, Ayahuasca, etc. These chemicals induce very strong visual hallucinations, and play on your deep insecurities and issues.  And above all, they really play on your inner fears...not just a fear of commitment or something simple as that, but your true, deep down, hidden fears.

There's one thing that most humans beings share a fear of: Death. This is why the common theme for a lot of deep mental exploration through psychedelics, occur a playing out of one's death. Often very violently. Then they experience how they view themselves from a third person point of view. And a combination of these experiences often totally resets one's outlook on life, their existence, and our place in the universe. So in essence, they experience ego death, and by resetting their mind and ego, they are now "new people" free to pattern themselves purposefully rather than being the outcome of their environment.