Derealization

[Peregrine]

Funny this thread has come up, I've not seen it before, however, I have had some pretty surreal moments as of late. (thanks for the bump, bph.) This "derealization" tends to happen, for me, in very public places, like the downtown core, or even driving within the city. I am all of a sudden overcome with the feeling that I feel very out of place & all that is around me feels very foreign. It doesn't at all frighten me, but I find it curious.
I also find that I have the complete opposite feeling when I am away from the city center & in amongst wilderness. I get this odd feeling of hyper-clarity, for lack of a better word. Also, I find that within the city, when I come across things such as birds or bits of nature, it's as if it the sounds & sights of these things come in so clear, wereas the rest of the city noise & sights are drowned out. Does anyone ever tend to experience this at all in regards to nature vs man made?

[brainpanhandler]

My experience is similar. I don't think I have ever experienced derealization or it's companion state depersonalization in nature.

I think maybe my earliest experience of this was when I was a child and I became convinced that all the adults in my life, parents, teachers, babysitters... were part of a conspiracy wherein I was the subject of an experiment. They were not what they appeared to be and they were testing and observing me. I couldn't have been older than 7 at the time.

From the op wiki article:

Derealization is a subjective experience of unreality of the outside world, while depersonalization is unreality in one's sense of self. Although most authors currently regard derealization (surroundings) and depersonalization (self) as independent constructs, many do not want to separate derealization from depersonalization.[2] The main reason for this is nosological, because these symptoms often co-occur, but there is another, more philosophical reason: the idea that the phenomenological experience of self, others, and world is one continuous whole. Thus, feelings of unreality may blend in and the person may puzzle over deciding whether it is the self or the world that feels unreal to them.

I think I fall into the latter camp that does not want to separate derealization and depersonalization. I think I experience both at the same time, although if I reflect on myself it tends to banish the effect and reroot me in consensus reality.

I posted the following poem in the Poetry Slam thread awhile back:

THE MAP OF THE HAND

What territory is this?
What rivers, what boundaries?
Whose bones beneath the ancient mounds?

Life, head, heart, fate--
the lines that hold us up,
that cradle us in the deep,
rocking wind of our lives.

I stare down at my own hand
like a man awake in a dream,
flying above the earth.

Al Zolynas

People suffering from derealization have described feeling as if the world external to them were something in a TV show or movie, or as if they were viewing it through a TV screen. This, and other similar feelings attendant to derealization, can cause a sensation of alienation and distance between the person suffering from derealization and others around them.

Interesting. Have we come so far so fast from our origins that derealization is just a natural byproduct of modernity? Is the tv screen analogy just a handy way of describing the experience or is it possibly cause as well? I get a similar experience to derealization when I exit a theater. I almost always get a similar experience, at least momentarily, when I wake up in a strange room.



Also from the op Wiki article:

Cannabis,[7] psychedelics, dissociatives, antidepressants, caffeine, nitrous oxide, and nicotine can all produce feelings resembling derealization, particularly when taken in excess.

Complicates my thinking on the subject, ahem.

[Luther Blissett]

This sounds like my early childhood, back all the way into the depths of my cognition. I can remember pretty far back...I'd guess before age two. I think that our ability to remember is tied with our ability to form thoughts into words, barring any trauma or disruption after, and I apparently started speaking in full sentences by 18 months.

I can remember that the world was...strange. I don't know how else to describe it. One day, as an adolescent, I realized it wasn't that way anymore, and I was filled with a difficult to describe sadness, because as scary as my perception of the world had sometimes been, I felt as though it was possibly more genuine.

I used to be endlessly fascinated with the symmetrical, ochre-colored patterned tunnel that one flies through when they rub their eyes hard, to the point where I was pondering it so much that I was laying it over my waking, eyes-open "reality."

I also suffered from Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, with an exceptionally high frequency and exceptionally long duration. Those episodes were beyond nightmarish, but, like my pre-age 2 cognition, I still yearn for it. I think there may have been some overlap. I feel like knowing what I know now, I'd experience it as an informative trip.

I am pretty sure I experienced some light derealization when I first came to the conclusion that I'd be getting a divorce - the feeling of walking through the city, detached from and observant of the hazy, gray surroundings, but I never fully submitted to the derealization. That didn't exactly feel like my childhood.

[Freitag]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derealization

How many people have truly experienced this?
Not just an ordinary existential crisis or a reefer freakout.
Certainly not just a neurological disorder, either.

[raises hand]

I hadn't seen this thread before either. Interesting topic.

I've experienced what I would call derealization in different contexts: during a panic attack, during a manic episode, and during normal things like talking to someone or driving a car.

The panic attack derealization was standard fare for such attacks, so nothing new or interesting there.

When I get manic (my own term, I haven't been diagnosed with anything), the world begins to seem unreal; usually it seems like reality is a liquid, or some kind of liquid crystal, so that I could poke my finger into it and make it ripple, like the surface of a pond. I've experienced this quite a few times (sans drugs).

Other times it happens out of the blue: once I was talking to a customer in a store where I worked, when it felt like I was instantly transported into an alternate Universe. The qualities of everything around me changed; everything became... stark. It's hard to explain but it was like a videographer putting a special filter on the camera, that changed the scene entirely. To this day I'm convinced I had a mini-stroke.

Another time I was driving near my neighborhood when I looked down momentarily, and when I looked back up, I had no idea where I was. Nothing had changed, it's just that I didn't recognize it anymore, it wasn't familiar at all. It threw me for a loop. I drove a few blocks and the feeling finally wore off.

Perhaps also relevant: Often I feel uncomfortable in my body, and I'll look down, for example at my hand, and it doesn't seem like "me" at all. It can feel like I'm a person inside, operating my body like a robot; instead of just reaching for an object, it's like I have to think through the motion, and guide my arm there with my mind. It's very weird. Exercise is good for eliminating the feeling, brings me back "into" my body.

What's wrong with me, doc?