A form of the ontological proof belongs to consciousness in that the idea of its non-existence, its final perfection, necessitates its existence, but no such proof belongs to the 'I', or particular self, pace Descartes. If there were such a thing as ego death then there ought also to be an ego resurrection, but nothing is ever heard about that. What there is instead is the realisation that the ego never existed at all, like a sudden waking from a dream. The idea of the ego's existence is a deeply buried and operative thought entirely lacking in that quality of ontological self-validation - it is not a reflexive thought object with a strange topology but something entirely flat, 'cartesian' in the most reductive sense. That is why it can continue to function after being exposed, only now with an unprecedented lightness.