Navel-gazing is a kind of obsessive introspection on the nature of the self, or more specifically, on the nature of the transpersonal self. I don't know if the term navel-gazing actually grew out of a specific psychedelic exercise of grokking one's own belly-button, but the concept is quite clear. The navel represents the connection to mother, which at one time physically connected you to another human being, which kind of demolishes the perspective of a wholly individual self. As I stated previously, grokking provides a kind of temporal depth — an explicit history — of whatever it is you are looking at, so when looking at the navel it is perfectly natural to wander back in time in the mind's eye to a place in space-time where the umbilical cord was still attached, when you were still in utero, unformed, dreaming, barely aware. The existential impact of such an exercise can be enormous, a total paradigm splitter for those who think of themselves purely as individuals, as opposed to pieces of a larger interconnected system. But the reality is that we are not purely individuals, we are encoded protein structures that begin growing when seed fertilizes egg, and everything else we invent about ourselves is more or less an illusion formed by perception, language, and memory: the illusion of self, the illusion of identity, the illusion of ego. Shattering these illusions is the first step in path towards the psychedelic epiphany.
An epiphany is a divine revelation about the nature of the world or the self; an experience so powerful it forever shapes the way you view the world. Some epiphanies are welcome blessings, some are very difficult to cope with, but what is consistent across all epiphanies is that they are 1) indicative of a deeper truth about the self, 2) paradigm shattering, and 3) impossible to deny. We have already discussed how even the most trivial details can take on cosmic significance within the psychedelic experience — and how these inflated views can distort reality into delusional territory — but since concepts of ego and self are basically delusions to begin with, whatever we choose to believe about ourselves is "true" at that time regardless of external verification. For example: When you are dreaming, you may be younger, older, bigger, smaller, somewhere else in space or time, yet you are always you. Even though what you believe about your "self" at that moment (in the dream) may be delusional, it does not make you any less you, you are still you no matter who or what or where you think you are. You can think you are a good person and still be you; you can think you are a bad person and still be you. Although the first-person perspective of individual self (subject) always remains in tact, constructs of the ego are transient and mutable, and what we choose to believe about ourselves makes us who we are. In this sense, the ego is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and one that can be completely undone with a tiny pinch of psychedelic molecules.
Now I know there are those of you who will resist this notion, that the ego is such a fragile construct, or that the self is a delusion, but look at it this way: What happens to the ego if you loose your memory (as in amnesia)? What happens to identity if you loose the ability to form lasting concepts (as in schizophrenia)? Your body may still move around and do things, but the self basically dissolves like dust in the wind. Our notion of self depends on our ability to constantly update and remember the internalized image of who we are — or who we are supposed to be — and how we stay true to that image or how we adapt it to meet our circumstances. And so, with the advent of psychedelic exploration in the sixties, New Age ideals of "finding the inner self" or "transcending the ego" became part of the Western lexicon for the human condition, even if most people didn't really understand what either of those things meant. Yet the search for deeper understanding of the self is the fundamental premise of all psychedelic therapy. Weather you want to take a Freudian approach (analyzing birth experiences and early life imprinting) or a Jungian approach (viewing the self as a part of a larger integrated whole), both of these models are valid when attempting to construct a workable ideal of the self and ego, and both fit naturally with the psychedelic experience. This is precisely why both Freudian and Jungian psychologists were quick to embrace psychedelics in therapy: they provide access to deep memory recall as well as perspectives that transcend the self and place it within in a larger context. Elements of both the intimately personal and the universally transpersonal can be accessed within the psychedelic state, and since all psychology and psychotherapy is an attempt to achieve harmony between the transient notions of the inner self and the cold hard facts of external reality, the value of such profound personal and transpersonal perspectives cannot be overstated.
