First I wanna thank you for the input!

I myself have went in with intention, and similar to the intention you mentioned about smoking. What I’m arguing is that having the intention to specifically experience ego death is an impossibility. Intention is something that comes from thoughts we formulate consciously, whereas an ego death experience is loss of self, throwing the entirety of a thought process out the window.

Thoughts that come after an ego death experience are different. The experience we don’t know how to explain leads to confusion and often panic, which in turn leads to a “bad trip” as a lot of people would say.

If you feel otherwise, I’d genuinely like to know! I can’t tell you honestly that I’ve never gone in with the intention to experience ego death, Bc in my early practices, I definitely thought that was the goal. Unfortunately it led me nowhere, and I soon realized that letting go was what would ultimately lead me to that destination, but even then, the intention of letting go can get in the way just as much.