Anxiety
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in "The Concept of Anxiety" (1844), described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In "Art and Artist" (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation, and differentiation.
Ego death
Concepts and ideas from mysticism and bohemianism were inherited by the Beat Generation. When Aldous Huxley helped popularize the use of psychedelics, starting with "The Doors of Perception", published in 1954, Huxley also promoted a set of analogies with eastern religions, as described in "The Perennial Philosophy." This book helped inspire the 1960s belief in a revolution in western consciousness and included the "Tibetan Book of the Dead" was one of the sources. Similarly, Alan Watts, in his opening statement on mystical experiences in "This Is It," draws parallels with Richard Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness, describing the "central core" of the experience as