/Dissociation General/
do you suffer from depersonalization/derealization/other dissociation problems? talk about them here.
here's something i want to know. do you hate it? or maybe enjoy it even? i'm not sure how i feel about having them despite dealing with them my whole life.
how am I supposed to tell if I'm dissociated
that's too vague, tell us why you're unsure. for me it hits like a truck, you'll know when you're in the midst of it
bumping because no way another thread i make about mental health is going to die without at least a few replies
sometimes my arms and hands feel as if they arent mine, almost like theyre not attached to my mind but they are to my body if that makes sense. is that dissociation?
I deal with them, haven't gotten either in a few days luckily. I find it annoying when depersonalized and I freak out when derealized. I get depersonalized more often, usually every 3 days or so.
Because since I was a child I've felt like either myself or the world around me was unreal, and looking back on my life it feels like it's happened to someone else. When I try to conceptualize myself in my head I am always somewhat shocked when I realize that I actually am that person in the mirror and who people call by a name.
I used to have dissociation issues months after taking 25c Nbome but ironically enough taking LSD cured it. Wierd.
did you get other problems from LSD?
Not really. It cured my empathy issues that I got when I took meth the year before. I haven't dissociation issues but I know how it feels and it fucking sucks sometimes.
yeah, i have the same thing with not recognizing myself in the mirror and even now someone could be right in front of me calling my name multiple times but i'd have trouble realizing it was me they're calling for. do you have moments where everything seems normal though?
that's actually really good to hear it cured things for you without any drawbacks. i can't say i know too much about LSD but i hear it often triggers psychotic problems in people who are genetically predisposed to it already.
I used to get it randomly and for a few days after I've smoked a lot of weed
Yes, but my issue is wondering if it actually is normal or if I'm just used to some kind of state.
Has anyone had a moment were they have this clash of self/perceived self and it's almost like you've gone over a drop on a roller coaster? Like for a moment it seems like the whole world just did a backflip and you're left in this kind of weirded out state saying to yourself "wow, this is actually happening right now"?. I had a couple of moments like this when I was younger and I'm wondering if that's what dearealization/depersonalization is.
it probably is, but not a depersonalization/derealization thing if you don't have any other symptoms to go along with it. i've had that before too, but also couldn't move my limbs for a bit when i felt they weren't mine. does it freak you out?
the whole world doing a backflip is a good way to describe it, along with everything else you said but the first thing i think about when it comes to depersonalization is feeling like you're dreaming, or watching a movie through the lenses of your eyes, as if the real you is sitting behind your eyes watching everything happen in front of you. everything seems to zoom out and feel far away, and sounds become echoes in the background or sound as if they are underwater or something. if you can agree with the feeling like everything's a dream/movie part then it definitely is depersonalization.
I've never understood this, maybe I'm not actually experiencing it, or maybe it's just always been my default experience, but I don't understand why this would be uncomfortable to anyone who wasn't a normie. I enjoy being detached from myself allows me to be more objective.
I think I do, I almost have an odd sense that everything that's happening has already happened, it's very hard to describe.
can you pin down why you have them to a specific event/trauma you had in your life? i was surprised when i read that these conditions are a reaction to trauma, it wasn't obvious to me at all but i suppose it makes sense.
yeah, does every time you experience it feel connected somehow? that's how the deja vu-y feeling comes in, for me.
I don't really understand this 'when you experience it' thing that everyone talks about when they talk about disassociation, I always hear people talk about it 'happening' every day or every couple of days, like it comes on like a panic attack or an episode of something. Can you explain what you mean by it being experienced in intervals?
>maybe I'm not actually experiencing it
possibly, it feels much, much more intense than just being detached and objective. i've had times where i just walked into heavy traffic and almost got hit by cars/ caused traffic accidents. i was looking straight at the red signal, knowing it wasn't time to cross yet but did it anyway since i felt like i couldn't get hurt.
Well this is going to sound like schizobabble, so I'll try to be succinct as possible.
Firstly, I think depersonalization is kind of like ego death. It is the observation that consciousness is the observer and "you" are not exclusively the consciousness or the body but something in between. It is subject-object relationship between the mind and the body. Meditation is basically trying to do this, to attempt to understand pure consciousness or simply being.
This is where I'm going to get into really schizo territory. People now are often saying things like "reality is a simulation", I feel this is accurate in a sense, but it's more like us attributing the similarity of our experience to simulation. The way I see it, reality is a feedback loop of pure consciousness to observe and physical reality/environment to be observed. Each relies on the other for existence. When we are a consciousness in a body, there is the notion of "the wholly other" (read about the absolute for more information) which is an illusion the ego puts on us, there is no effective separation, we are all part of the same system. So I wouldn't describe it as a simulation, but more as a pure consciousness having a multifaceted dream through subjective consciousness in all sorts of vessels. When some one starts to become aware of this I believe that is when depersonalization sets in, and it will be up to the person's maturity in relation to their ego that will make it an uncomfortable experience.
Now, as for this notion of feeling like you've done this before... My theory on that gets even weirder, will continue in next post.
it happens everyday for me, but there are times when it ebbs. i've also spent days in the unreal state, but i feel like you'd have to stop feeling this eventually, otherwise you wouldn't go through the feeling hit by something unreal/backflip feeling. dissociation is hard to describe, but there is also the general feeling emotionally blunted and disconnected that can be due to other things, like as a result of depression. i experience both so i know they are very different although sounding similar on paper.
Yeah, I did drugs, not a good move.
Don't do LSD kids.
Ah ok, so it is an active thought process or logical deduction/paradox that leads to it, maybe I do have it then. I suspect I may be a schizoid as well so it's possible that I'm disconnected in another way that very similarly crosses over into a more generalized depersonalization sense.
All that said I'm also somewhat of a Taoist and I do believe that, to put a long story short, everything including myself and my experience of life is the manifestation of god, or the universe experiencing itself. So having moments where I 'drop out' of what seems like the normal flow of things seems appropriate as me just reminding myself that everything is taken care of.
>it will be up to the person's maturity in relation to their ego that will make it an uncomfortable experience
it's uncomfortable for me because you can't just tell the person you're talking to mid-conversation that you feel like they're unreal, can't hear them, or focus on them anymore.
>so it is an active thought process or logical deduction/paradox that leads to it
no, i thought everything i wrote was implying the opposite.
The reason this feels like it's playing out, or deja vu or anything like that, is because it is. You aren't moving through reality, reality is moving around you. It is a story unfolding to you. Everything is and has been. There is nothing new under the sun. Time is an abstraction we experience because the "hardware" we inhabit cannot absorb information beyond the moment. Truly there is only the now, time is a matrix to the now. Past and present are the duality/polarity through which context arises, and as a result allows for actual experience as opposed to just being. To just be is to be free of polarity/duality. If you were in a constant state of bliss, it wouldn't have no meaning to you, you would have nothing to compare to, no context, it would just be. Thus I see this pure consciousness having it's multifaceted dream as a sort of escapism it participates in, or perhaps it is for learning, or perhaps it simply is, and just observes. Regardless this pure consciousness oscillates between being a self contained consciousness (the little ball of pure energy we theorize preceded the big bang) and a self imposed illusion of separation from itself (reality as we experience it now). I do not know if one can apply boredom or loneliness to something akin to a god, but that is generally how I anthropomorphize it. Beyond that, when I say everything is,I mean everything. Theoretically after the big bang there was a phase of quotation fluctuation where a stability was being worked out, that stability was the laws of physics as we know them. In my experience though, every quantum state that ever could have been, has. Because this thing is experiencing every potentiality, why wouldn't it? My point being that your entire reality is a quatum meta state, or what I like to call a quantum path. Free will exists because we can navigate to nearby quantum meta states which are effectively different timelines. May add one more post if there is any interest.
>May add one more post if there is any interest.
yeah, go on user
but does it show up out of nowhere or is it triggered in some way? Do you feel it creeping up on you or does it just pop out?
i've tried to search for anything that triggers it for years, or to look for patterns somehow. it comes out from absolutely nowhere, and there's no slow ease into it, every time i realize it's happening i'm completely submerged already. if there's a feeling like it's creeping up i can only think it happens in seconds. i'm also , i couldn't even pin my dissociation problems to trauma, the trauma that's happened in my life and these dissociation problems feel like they happened separately. depersonalization is also the earliest memory i have, when i was 4 years old, so it's not like i can remember what happened that lead to it before.
Actually I will add one last part. I can never tell is deja vu is coming from a notion of something having happened before because pure consciousness has been oscillating between the dream and the one, or if it is a temporary notice of time not actually being linear beyond our senses and deja vu just being an important moment slapping us in the face.
I know what I'm saying is fringe and spits in the face of things as we know them, but I'm going to post some concepts that might allow you too see where I'm coming from.
>wave particle nature
>quantum entanglement
>synchronicity (Jung in general)
>the absolute
> the demiurge or mara (these are the archetypes that are less actual entities and more metaphorical attempts to explain duality/polarity and the illusory/distracting nature of material reality, there are also other instances of this archetype, but these are the most interesting imo)
>monad and monadism (everything from a source point, emanationism, 1 2 3, point line triangle, etc)
Ok then that is strange, the experience itself that I've had sounds very similar to your but it only comes apparent when I 'think' about it or 'realize' that it's happening. It's like it's always going on, with me numb to it, but then something may happen that draws my attention to the fact that it is always happening, and then that backflip occurs, and suddenly its like I've walked through a door in England and come out one in China.
Okay I will do one last piece, although this has gotten pretty far from depersonalization now.
So to go even further down the rabbit hole, I'm going to bring this to Jung and the shadow and how this plays into the god thing.
When it shatters its one consciousness into many, for whatever reason, it forgets itself, it imposes an illusion of separation from itself. I believe this is for the purpose of learning about itself through subjective experience of itself, which would otherwise be impossible. This is also going to bring some notion of reincarnation into the mix. So if all this were true, this is still ultimately self reflection on a grand scale. I believe that there is something like a "soul" and that it will continue to reincarnate until it finally reaches a sufficient enlightenment to integrate its own shadow. That means full self acceptance and awareness of self. Going from there, your inner world is a reflection of the wholly other (the outer world) together these are your subjective experience of "your"self (god). When you integrate the shadow you reach a place where you can unconditionally love yourself. There are a lot of platitudes about enlightenment being one with everything and unconditional love for the wholly other, but I believe you have to unconditionally love self before you can unconditionally love the other (which itself is still part of self in the macrocosm, to which you are the microcosm). Anyway what I'm trying to get at is that the "purpose" of this place is to integrate your own shadow, and help others to integrate theirs. What this results in being effectively is a meta scale ego dissolution of the universe, and a cessation of the notion of separation from self (god). The result being heaven, nirvana, whatever else. We don't go to heaven, we do the work and bring it to us.
I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone, it's kind of hard for me to articulate any better.
That could be pulled to being an ego thing, it's in the interpretation of the experience. You are seeing it as separation from the world, when in a sense it's almost the opposite, you've just become hyperaware of your vessel to the extent it becomes distracting and distressing. But when you say you can't focus, can you go into more detail on this? In the sense of describing the experience to me. What is it that is distracting you? I know the depersonalization, but is it anything else? What is going on in your head at those moments?
>color starts to drain from your surroundings
>things start to flatten, depth perception problems
>dolly zoom effect
>can't hear what people are saying, they sound too far away
>can't feel the ground beneath your feet, feel like you're floating and sinking at the same time
>start moving/talking in slow motion (sometimes other people start to notice something's wrong)
etc. it's not something to do with how i think, i can't control it. i'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing
anyone else look in the mirror, and sorta see someone they're sharing their life with? Like there's a gap between us
Ever since I did shrooms two years ago I felt like time stopped and I'm living a different life as another person. It freaks me out that it's 2018 even moreso that it's almost over. Where did my life go? I tripped and everything changed for me, everything feels scarier and unsurmountable and I feel stupider and stupider each day because I keep using alcohol to quiet the bad feelings in my head. I hate being sober and feeling like I'm piloting myself, I thought being depressed was bad but this is different, like my ownership has been evicted from my body and I'm just squatting in my head until I get caught
Interesting, certainly not to the same extent, but what you're describing sounds like a very dysphoric trip. So are you unable to think coherently in this state then? And you said you really don't know what triggers your descent into this state right? Have you ever tried meditation before?
I've been in a completely disassociative state once before, but it was induced. Was very terrifying, but couldn't even conceive of reality around me at all, was somewhere else entirely. I felt some of these feelings you are talking about though.
I do stupid things but don't feel it. I know they are objectively stupid but I feel no emotional impact about it, it's like I'm a sitcom character. I see life like this big adventure.
Effectively speaking, you are right and what your are experiencing is true. From someone who has had similar experiences though, don't run from it. Accept it, integrate it. Let go, it's out of your hands (it's actually not, but I felt the acceptance of things being out of your control is important) Why run from it? Your stuck here in it anyway, just let go and accept.
Honestly part of what I think you're experiencing is the shrooms laid yourself bare to you, and it is uncomfortable to accept. Inward before outward.
>what you're describing sounds like a very dysphoric trip
it does? from all the time i spent googling my symptoms/in psych wards/therapy i am sure it's depersonalization though, nothing i described is out of the ordinary for someone who has it. it feels so intense that i can't think about anything else other than trying to focus on my surroundings. it was much harder when i used to go outside because i had to worry about traffic and things like that. now i'm just a hikki neet so i can stare into space as much as i need to. i tried mindfulness/ meditation when i was in the ward because i was forced to do it but it didn't help. and no, i don't know any specific triggers.
>I've been in a completely disassociative state once before, but it was induced
induced how? sounds scary
i do stupid things too but it's just to give myself a laugh. i'm just trying to entertain myself, even if no one else finds it amusing
not user you've been replying to but i have been following and i think i feel what you feel. i'm assburger tho and lately have been wondering if i have some depersonalization or maybe just some schizoid going on.
I remember the first day I had symptoms which literally appeared out of no where, I was scared at first; thought I had psychosis or something (not that the symptoms were anything like psychosis, I just have severe anxiety)
It never went away, I saw a psychiatrist and I was diagnosed with depersonalization disorder back in 2014 (symptoms are slightly different than derealization disorder)
I didn't really give a fuck about it after that after I realized it wasn't me losing my mind, now I hardly notice it because I've become so used to it and don't remember what it was like without it.
However when I get symptoms of derealization I really fucking hate it. Normally I feel like I'm not real which I could say I enjoy, but derealization symptoms are like the whole world around me/everything I know isn't real and I find that uncomfortable
It's more that shrooms made me realize there is nothing "deeper" to me than I've already thought about sober. When I was on shrooms multiple times the only conclusion I came to each time was "you will never get better, you were born defective". I've felt hopeless and suicidal and even attempted it before but I never felt a sadness so deep and true to my core than I did on shrooms. I appreciated my worthlessness objectively instead of just thinking badly about myself, was so sad I could barely breathe, realized any hope for the future or potential I ever saw in myself was a lie and daydreaming to make me feel better about being me. I'm getting a mental health evaluation in early October to find out what is wrong with me but it is a struggle. Ever since then I have been distracting myself with drugs and have withdrawn from everything and everyone, no friends at all and barely speak to my mom. Am drunk right now and it's like the 10-something teenth day in a row. I just can't cope anymore, I can't. The only thing keeping me from hanging myself today is cowardice
I've spent most of my life day-dreaming. I take small breaks when i talk to people at work or have to take care of a presentation then go back to my fantasy. 18 hours a day. I know it's wrong but I drag myself back into it without even realizing what I'm doing. When I stop I look in the mirror and realize my hair has gotten longer and I need to get a haircut. Usually every 6-8 months when I cycle between fantasy worlds. I try to put my feet on the ground and get busy thinking of real issues but it's like trying to look through fog. Ive spent very little time in this world and I'm simply not attached to it.
Lately I picked up this technique where I have to hold on to something like a desk or whatever to keep myself grounded in reality but it doesn't really work
I see money like Monopoly money
Life is kind of this big video game to me
i agree with you on most of what you've said but i can't agree with the parts about an end goal of any sort or the parts about their being a hidden, driving model gently guiding to (or offering the path of) anything at all.
things just (is/are) happen(ed/ing).
this, too, shall pass.
>all these anons wondering if they have depersonalization disorder
If you have to wonder if you might have it then you don't.
Oh yes, sorry I didn't mean to imply you were wrong or invalidate your experiences or anything, was just comparing your experience to some I have had. It reminded me of trips when they become dysphoric/psychosis tier.
Which guy itt are you, it's hard for me to keep track.
As for the induced experience, I did salvia and my mind was in an entirely different reality, my friends we're watching my body and I was doing all sorts of odd shit. They recorded me and it was very scary to watch afterword knowing I wasn't there at all. I could describe what happened in that place if you want, but it's not super relevant. That said, the next day I literally thought ithat was going insane and that I fucked my mind permanently, but looking back on it I was probably still trying to understand what happened because I had never disassociated to that extent.
when you don't have anything to compare to, you can never be sure if what you have is "normal"
I experience derealisation. Especially during times of stress. It's like looking through a fog.
I'm in a lift club with people I work with. I was waiting outside my apartment complex for them to pick me up from work. They stopped outside the complex and I looked straight and the car and stood there. I did not recognise the car as theirs.
One person got out the car and walked up to me and asked if I was on drugs.
I mean the end was meant to be optimistic. I actually lean towards it being an oscillation between the states and simply being. Don't take what I said the wrong way, didn't man the comments about heaven literally.
don't worry about it, i wasn't implying that either haha. i am actually really curious about how drugs alter your brain like that. please tell me how it felt, and what you mean by your mind being permanently altered. do you still do drugs?
You can only understand what you have context for. Subjectivity is a bitch. With most mental illnesses though, it rarely seems to be black and white, but generally on a sliding scale. We have a definition for it based in symptoms, but no way of knowing how intense it is from person to person.
understood. i just don't agree with anything about a "purpose". not disagreeing with the "purpose" you posit, just disagreeing with the very concept and existence of a "purpose".
there can't be any empirical proof either way so it's not like i'm arguing with you, i'm just giving my own input as well. it all really comes down to a type of "faith" or belief really, we believe what we do because we do. that's fine.
I do, I could talk all day about my experiences, but I feel this isn't the place and I've already done enough derailing with my godshadow ranting.
To answer you succinctly, I do still do drugs, but I'm at a point in life where I'm trying to stop. When you get the message, hang up the phone. Anyway as far as three permanently altered, just that my perception of reality was so fundamentally challenged that I had to find new ways to rationalize it. I view reality in a very different way from how I did even 2 years ago. The thing about your post that really hit me was the feeling of floating/sinking, which I experienced very intensely in the salvia place, although it was more like pulling. For a while I would look at the horizon in the distance and then hang to look away because it felt like I was being ripped towards it.
As for that meditation they made you do, it's probably useless and the way they presented it to you was probably pleb tier. It's definitely something you have to cultivate an interest in yourself and want to do. I do think it could maybe be helpful. Do you have discord or anything? I wouldn't mind talking to you more, but I don't want to circle jerk in this thread, also I should get back to work.
Anyhow, if not, it was an enjoyable conversation, and maybe I'll be back later if this thread is still up.
Psychedelics tear back the egoself and push you into a sense of pure consciousness. I think derealization/depersonalization is an ego reaction that causes intense discomfort, by psychedelics can be very healing in the sense they show you you have to let go of ego otherwise they fuck you in the ass raw.
Hmm, I have felt depression to that extent where it's physically painful, but I have never gotten stuck on it the way you have. I don't think you should accept those limits for yourself. You can be better, it didn't have to be societies notion of better, but your own. I know this is basically "just b urself" tier, but I have found it is what helps and heals. I have tripped 9 or so times, and I keep having realizations I need to fix myself, don't, trip again, and end up even more dysphoric. Now I am just accepting of i want to be happy it's up to be, I can't rely on others. I have to love self. I'm not great at it, but I'm trying to get over the self loathing. Sorry about response time, missed your post.
Good trips btw
huh i know what you mean by feeling like being ripped towards something, i don't remember where i've felt this before but i definitely know what you are talking about. i don't take drugs though, even the ones i'm supposed to take to fix my brain problems. just gonna ride things out and see what happens. are you trying to stop doing drugs because having your reality altered so much is becoming too unpleasant? or for another reason? also i don't have discord but i hope this thread is still up when you do get back. i definitely don't mind you talking about your experiences itt and i don't think anyone else does either.
Isn't the point of meditation to disassociate from emotions and see them only as things arising in consciousness, but not identical to you the self? Sounds like this disorder would be a good thing, especially if you're neurotic by nature.
>Sounds like this disorder would be a good thing
yes, i've read it's a reaction to prevent yourself from getting hurt even further. i suppose i am thankful for it sometimes, but i also can't induce it when it'd be convenient so it's like what gives
anything can be a blessing or a curse, it depends on what you can make it lead to
I've been told people who meditate a lot can induce these sorts of states pretty much on command. Can't verify myself though since i'm dogshit at meditation myself.
No, to the contrary I'm feeling better than I have in years. I'm trying to stop drugs because I use them as hedonistic distraction/a crutch. I have had unpleasant phases but I've made my way though them now, well at least for the time being. The way I view reality now is much more comforting. Like I mentioned, when you get the message, hang up. I can tell the story for you in a sec here.
Yes, you should read through the whole thread.
>be me
>with friends about to smoke salvia for the first (and probably last) time
>take my hits
>somehow I manage to put the bong down before everything goes white and then pitch black
>only concept I have is the now
>suddenly I am one petal on this immense biomechanical flower with hundreds of other petals
>this is the only concept I have of me at this moment
>the flower starts contracting very quickly, all petals including myself pull up at an incredibly fast rollercoaster tier speed
>as the flower is almost closed I literally rip through the floor of my friends room (second floor), and come back into my body consciousness
>have an incredibly terrifying realization "HOLY SHIT I'M STILL ME" because I had completely forgotten my existence as a consciousness in a body up until that moment, I cannot stress how scary this realization was, to me up until that point I was just a petal on a flower with only a vague sense of self, no sense of past or future
>even though I'm terrified, I'm happy because I'm back and I think it's over
>nope
>get violently ripped back down through the floor into the salvia place again
> am now even more terrified because I think " oh fuck oh fuck, please let me go back"
>flower is now back in it's open state
>starts pulling up again at the same speed
>I look to my left and see a fellow petal
>it's has a face and turns to me screaming, the face was just an outline though, like someone being choked to death by being wrapped in latex
>rip through floor again back into body reality
>less scared, starting to feel calmer because it seems like I'll stay this time
>nope
>get taken back for one more expansion/contraction of the flower
>finally rip through the floor one last time
>actually get to stay this time
That's basically it, had sort fucked dream that night and thought I broke my mind the next day while watching the last couple episodes of welcome to the nhk.
I hope it was interesting.
>mfw I nearly went and did salvia when I was 17 because I thought it would be fun and easy going since people said it only lasted 10 minutes
It does only last 10 minutes here, but in my mind it felt like an eternity. Kind of forgot to mention that. At the time I thought it was just meaningless and the only thing I could pull from it was "well I guess my normal reality isn't that bad". Brat through the years I keep thinking back to it and pulling meaning from it. The mind has a very strange way of communicating with you. Most everything is symbols to be interpreted to the mind.
The best part is it was recommended to me to do before I tried lsd. What a fucking meme, single most psychedelic experience I've ever had hands down. At least on lsd and shrooms you're still somewhat connected to this place and not in the deepest recesses of your mind.
That's why I'm so glad young stupid me didn't get his hands on the stuff, and it wasn't until a year after first wanting to try it that I did some proper reading into it, I think that stuff would have done me in for good. I ended up doing lsd some time later and from how intense that stuff was I just don't think I could handle anything else.