What does ego dissolution actually feel like? Descriptions from people who've experienced it

The closest description I can give: imagine you're usually watching a movie called 'your life' from inside the protagonist. Ego dissolution is the moment when the protagonist and the watcher both disappear and there's just... the experience, with no one watching it. There's still perception, still sensation, still something happening — but the 'me' who would normally be narrating it, judging it, being afraid or excited about it — that was gone. Not as a loss but as a relief. Like putting down something you'd been carrying so long you forgot you were carrying it.

For me: there was a moment where I tried to remember my name and couldn't. Not like forgetting a word — more like the question didn't make sense. 'Who is that a name for?' was the thought, and then even the question dissolved. What remained was not nothing — there was presence, awareness, sensation. But the coordinates were gone. I had no location in space or time. No past to remember or future to anticipate. Just this.

The fear that preceded it was about the loss. The actuality was not fearful. I think the ego's fear of its own dissolution is like the fear of going under anesthesia — the imagination of the loss of consciousness is frightening in a way that the actual unconsciousness is not. Ego dissolution, in my experience, was not experienced as a loss from the inside — because there was no 'inside' to experience loss from. The fear belongs to the person approaching the edge; the experience of crossing it is something else entirely.