Anyone ever get feelings of Depersonalization? -

[ApatheticViewer]

I get these sometimes. Basically it feels like I'm outside my body watching myself. I'll look at my hand and not think it's actually me. I'll walk around and feel like I'm being controlled

It feels like I don't actually exist in my body. Like I'm trapped inside myself watching myself

 

[PL 001]

I don't know if this is actually just a side effect and I'm being an idiot, or if smoking it brought out a latent symptom of it, but I may have had something similar.

My first time smoking weed, I was trying to be Mr. Big Tough Badass and not pacing myself. I chiefed an entire joint of Blue Dream, pretty potent strain and not recommend for newbies.

About an hour in, and I was in hell. I was utterly convinced that my entire life up to that point was a hallucination I had conjured to cope, an escapist fantasy and the real me was in a mental institution. I was 100% convinced of this. I kept begging my friends to convince me that they were real, that I was real. I was terrified.

I slept it off eventually, but those feelings persisted a good three weeks after. I hadn't smoked any more green in that period, no alcohol or any other substance.

I had read accounts that "greening out" on weed can lead to feelings of depersonalization, and it sounded very similar to what I was feeling, especially how long those feelings lingered after the high wore off.

I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but that's my story.

 

[fartsnstuf]

i actually experienced this same feeling when I was younger, it somehow went away as time went on

 

[Clop]

You are just an observer in a gigantic mass of cells that are only interested in living forever and working to preserve DNA, while your vaguely defined consciousness is interested in playing video games and posting philosophy on the Farms.

 

[millais]

When I was younger, I experienced something like that for a while. Concerned about whether the next time I awoke, it would reveal that everything in my life up to that point had been a dream and the "reality" of existence was something completely divorced from the experience of the dream state.

 

[Lemmingwise]

I get these sometimes. Basically it feels like I'm outside my body watching myself. I'll look at my hand and not think it's actually me. I'll walk around and feel like I'm being controlled

It feels like I don't actually exist in my body. Like I'm trapped inside myself watching myself

Reminds me of a Neill Gaiman short story where a morose guy goes to the doctor a couple of times and he is tested to have NSUD (non-specific urethera disorder). He describes how it feels like part of his body isn't his. And throughout the short story the area grows and he describes it as if the affected part of the body is answering his requests to move rather than himself moving it. At some point the area covers his entire body and he ceases being able to make choices himself anymore and is only observing rather than choosing. Then he goes to the doctor again and he's suddenly chirpy and satisfied with the non-answers he's getting. Then he watches as this new being decides what to do with his new life.


As for what you describe it sounds like depression to me; the more I do what I like or what makes me feel good or better yet, acting with a mission and purpose, the less I feel like a passive observer but rather as alive active inhabitant of my life. The more I am forced or forcing myself to act in a certain way, the more I feel like a passive observer.

But yes, I'm sure that drugs can have similar disassociative effects.

 

[Rand /pol/]

I get that sometimes when i'm doing crystal.

 

[MediocreMilt]

I get that sometimes when i'm doing crystal.

Have sex.

Without the crystal. You don't want AIDS, after all.

 

[MAPK phosphatase]

I get that sometimes when i'm doing crystal.

Is she nice?

 

[Okkervils]

Is it frightening for you when it happens? It can be a symptom of anxiety, panic attacks especially.

 

[Scotsman]

Nope, but when I get off the treadmill I sometimes start walking without meaning to...

 

[The Shadow]

My avatar is drawn from someone that occasionally just seems to be a voice in people's heads so...no. Never.

 

[Underestimated Nutria]

It's why I won't smoke weed, and why I am still baffled it's considered a soft drug, when a so-called hard drug like morphine, dosed appropriately, will just make you feel warm and fuzzy and still totally capable of working, etc.

I also had it once with an episode of bad anxiety.

It gets worse the more you think about it. Like depression, you get better when you focus on things outside yourself.

 

[Dutch Courage]

I can only attest to feelings of depersonalization via the wonderful world of drugs too. Hallucinogens (of which cannabis is a relatively mild member) are the doorway. Such feelings of depersonalization (or ego loss, as the heads used to call it) is often a trigger for what people often refer to as a "bad trip", but it is also something that one can control, if they are experienced enough and insightful enough to put mind over matter. I imagine some mental illnesses working in a similar fashion, in that there is a critical point of depersonalization where you either descend into madness or get a handle on things.

I don't think drugs are necessary to induce this feeling though; I think the potential for it exists within sober humans too. I think it is more common among teenagers, who are comparatively more disoriented to the world than adults. It's not even necessarily a bad thing, as long as you are promptly able to reel yourself back into reality.

 

[Cool kitties club]

I remember stuff in the third person like a video game; I do the same thing in dreams too.

 

[guccigash]

I get these sometimes. Basically it feels like I'm outside my body watching myself. I'll look at my hand and not think it's actually me. I'll walk around and feel like I'm being controlled

It feels like I don't actually exist in my body. Like I'm trapped inside myself watching myself

Are you on any medication?

 

[SugarSnot]

I sometimes get distorted perceptions of distance, like I'm growing larger or going smaller and the room is moving without any of those things actually happening. Also, after having dabbled in hypnosis and trance stuff I find it pretty easy to enter a self inflicted trance state where I can imagine and daydream way more vividly and forget all about my surroundings to the point where I don't even feel my body anymore.

 

[Recoil]

You are just an observer in a gigantic mass of cells that are only interested in living forever and working to preserve DNA, while your vaguely defined consciousness is interested in playing video games and posting philosophy on the Farms.

thank you for that. I wish there was some way I could convey to you how reassuring that is to me right now.

 

[Kaede Did Nothing Wrong]

dissociative disorders are a pretty serious symptoms to be experiencing OP and probably fueled by a root problem you need to address. it's not like you have brain cancer or schizophrenia so nothing to get too spooked over, but I think you'll have better luck fielding the question to people who've sought professional help for the same issue and hearing what they learned. iirc this also isn't the sort of problem doctors rush to hop you up on pill when they hear, which is also good.

 

[Mysterious Capitalist]

It happens to me after a very long and vivid dream, usually after going to bed when I'm physically and mentally exhausted.

It's like my dream self lingers for a few seconds when I wake up and doesn't recognize my body, but it usually goes away in a few seconds. Just enough to watch my hand (or my bedroom) and feel like it doesn't belong to me.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually just killing a different version of myself that develops in my dreams, like an amnesiac that gets their memories back after a year of being a completely different person and returns what they were before.