I've always had issues with intense anxiety and depression, but never anything like this. I've always thought of things a weird way. It started when I was really little, and went to church with my grandpa. I would ask my parents if they knew heaven was real, and I would be filled with a very intense feeling of dread. I remember very clearly my dad once saying, "You're starting to scare ME now..." After I was a little older I would ask my mom questions like, "Why is pain uncomfortable but pleasure feels good? If it all happens in your brain, why do you have to see it as uncomfortable?", to which she would respond, "What do you mean? Because it is! That's a dumb question." I would start asking questions about how we could know what's real when your perceptions are processed by your brain, they're subjective to however your brain puts whatever input together. I would tell her that people can never truly know each other, because they can't know their thoughts or experiences, they can just describe them, but it never shows them the whole picture. Some things just can't be explained to another person. I was never good at explaining myself, so after a lot of confusion, I stopped talking to people about it. About 6 years passed and I started thinking more deeply as I got into high school. This led to very dreadful thoughts, and lots of panic attacks. I started noticing how strange everything was, stick with me here... this is difficult to explain, but I think I can describe the feeling a bit. It's like... I'll just be at a friends house or something, and I'll notice how strange it is that things exist, let alone exist as they do. Everything starts to seem more like a movie. I can feel myself behind my face looking out through my eyes. I'll look down at my hands and legs and they just look strange... alien to me. It feels strange to have my arms extending out so far, I have to try to do natural things. Walking is more deliberate, I have to purposefully put one foot in front of the other. I have to think about breathing and blinking. I'll look at my friend and wonder why it is I'm perceiving my thoughts, instead of his. It seems so impossible that the same molecules that make up a rock can produce consciousness when arranged a certain way. So this leads to me believing I may the only person who ACTUALLY exists. I understand that logically, it shouldn't matter because your experience is the same regardless, but it's still bring up a very sick, sad and anxious feeling. I can physically feel the feeling in my stomach and chest. I don't know why I care so much. I try to help people out a lot, sometimes too much to the point that it can harm me (and a lot of people owe me money). Maybe this is why I care so much? I don't think so though. I don't notice that strangeness ALL the time, but I can remember the feeling, and it hits me randomly. It seems to be much more frequent. It usually only lasts around 20 minutes to a few hours, but on one occasion, it lasted for almost a week. Does anybody else understand this strangeness I'm describing? Can you explain it better?
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Does anybody else notice the strangeness of reality?
- Thread starter JasNod
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ziggo
Bluelighter
You are the same as everyone, you are everyone, but you're also not everything and everyone at this particular moment in time because every human being on this planet at the moment has their own free will and uses it combined with their soul to make their own choices. Uni means one, verse means poem or words. Universe means it's all ONE BIG EPIC POEM that makes us up... Now go with me if you desire, we are all sentient spirits that control our own destiny with our willpower, but some form of "karma" also is taken into consideration and is the factor in life that limits your willpower from always getting you what you want. In the province of the mind whatever you believe to be true either is true or becomes true eventually within certain limits. Eventually your mind can pass those limits and keep going, but the body limits we have in our own bodies and inside this world system have limits that can't be passed.
Anyways even if we can't experience the same things, words and definitions are constantly evolving and new definitions and words are being made up constantly to describe very intense, unique, things/thoughts/experiences. So no you may not be able to put into words your last 10-hit lsd trip to your best friend, but someday you may learn the words to actually put that trip into words. And if your friend knows the definitions of those words as well, then you both can share in the experience of knowing exactly what you went through.
Did I answer your questions? 8(
Anyways even if we can't experience the same things, words and definitions are constantly evolving and new definitions and words are being made up constantly to describe very intense, unique, things/thoughts/experiences. So no you may not be able to put into words your last 10-hit lsd trip to your best friend, but someday you may learn the words to actually put that trip into words. And if your friend knows the definitions of those words as well, then you both can share in the experience of knowing exactly what you went through.
Did I answer your questions? 8(
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modern buddha
Bluelighter
It's for you to make conclusions.
We sometimes make up excuses or disapprove of a thought of someone else because we ourselves have not thought about it or simply don't know.
You'll just have to forgive your elders and friends/family for not knowing the answers to the questions you seek. You will have to create your own answers.
I do also notice the strangeness of reality, also. I'm sure my take is similar, yet different from your own. You'll do well here once you can sort out yourself. No need to worry about things. Just watch and learn.
We sometimes make up excuses or disapprove of a thought of someone else because we ourselves have not thought about it or simply don't know.
You'll just have to forgive your elders and friends/family for not knowing the answers to the questions you seek. You will have to create your own answers.
I do also notice the strangeness of reality, also. I'm sure my take is similar, yet different from your own. You'll do well here once you can sort out yourself. No need to worry about things. Just watch and learn.
pharmakos
Bluelighter
some people say that it is bizarre that anything exists at all, but i think it would be even stranger if *nothing* existed.
fridgebuzz
Bluelighter
Sometimes randomly my environment becomes very real like I no longer just live it, I'm connected to it. All my sensory sensations are amplified for a few minutes as I just observe the happenings and take them in. There's no way I can describe it other than things get very real. It isn't scary, it just makes it harder to focus on trivial tasks, like I'm bewildered as to the point of doing anything when I could just be absorbing the amazement of it all. Like I said this lasts for a few minutes, but I can never actually be consciously aware of the feeling subsiding, as in it's like I'm distracted from that feeling and never actually witness it go away until I realize I'm not thinking about it that way any longer some hours later. Its presence disappears like it arrives - without notice. I don't think there's anything special about it other than just plain transient, heightened, sensory acuteness.
There's a philosophical view I quite like which says that objects we perceive are nothing more than our ideas about that object and not the object itself. I forget what it was called, but it went object > idea > perception, where our ideas filter and separate us from what's actually there. It is the opposite of the idea that consciousness is a direct image of the objective world. Basically the idea goes we see a table but we don't actually see the table, we just see a duplicate of the table. This same style of thinking can be applied to the self, in that what we perceive ourselves to be, including our thoughts, is just a hallucination of what we imagine ourselves to be.
Wouldn't it be crazy if our consciousness was just the way a butterfly interprets its own existence?
There's a philosophical view I quite like which says that objects we perceive are nothing more than our ideas about that object and not the object itself. I forget what it was called, but it went object > idea > perception, where our ideas filter and separate us from what's actually there. It is the opposite of the idea that consciousness is a direct image of the objective world. Basically the idea goes we see a table but we don't actually see the table, we just see a duplicate of the table. This same style of thinking can be applied to the self, in that what we perceive ourselves to be, including our thoughts, is just a hallucination of what we imagine ourselves to be.
Wouldn't it be crazy if our consciousness was just the way a butterfly interprets its own existence?
qwe
Bluelight Crew
^ i think we have structures of information, layered upon layers, in our minds. everything we "see" and interact with are structures within that mind -- that is simply how perception works. we cannot be objective, we can only work with the structures of information in our minds.
some people are (at times violently) opposed to this idea, for obvious reasons. we really like to believe that what we see is reality.
some people are (at times violently) opposed to this idea, for obvious reasons. we really like to believe that what we see is reality.
hiphophippy
Bluelighter
It's a physiological response to stimuli; The product of millions years of evolution meant to convey that something is wrong with you body or something is doing something harmful to your body.
Good
existential crisis! :D
Still good. Same thing happens to me.
Possible.
I like ron hogan's and Stephen Mitchell's translations because they are more accurate and convey tao the right way and not that new age western harmony and balance bullshit.
http://www.duhtao.com/translations.html
Flickering
Bluelighter
Do I notice the strangeness of reality? Yep, all the freaking time. And I think I know exactly what you're talking about.
I have thoughts like this too. They're pretty much constant. I suspect taking LSD made it worse. Well... not worse necessarily, but stronger. Combining the constant hyper-analysis with depression is what makes it bad. I can easily imagine it being like the fascinating experience of an explorer riddling out existence, but it's rather more like being choked by the impossibility of my every waking moment. I'm slowly turning it around worse.
Yep, I get this too, only it's not as strong, and it feels more like walking through a dream where nothing's real and I'm not quite switched on. What you're describing are strong dissociative thought patterns, which of course go hand-in-hand with the intense depersonalisation and derealisation you're describing. Look up 'derealisation disorder'. I would be very careful with drugs of any kind from now on, considering how strongly you sound like you're experiencing this.
Look up solipsism. It's a valid philosophical argument, but I don't believe it's correct. I also think that concluding no one else exists is not a logical but an emotional conclusion. On my bad mushroom trip, I went through four hours of thinking I was God, that my subconscious had created the universe, and that no one I knew had ever been real. It was not a rational deduction. It was a reaction to the very strong dissociation and the general mindfuck of the experience.
I think you explained it pretty well. Reality doesn't seem like reality. Reality has no contrast upon which to call itself reality. Duality is meaningless. What is a THING? What is a FEELING? When I'm happy, what IS that feeling? It's just information, and it should really 'feel' neutral. Really everything is just nonsense.
That's pretty much what this feels like right?
In mentioning dissociative disorders like derealisation, I want to caution that the more you research it, and the more you think about it, the further into it you go. It helps immensely if you're able to ignore it. I've found that once I conditioned myself to stop worrying about it, the periods of dissociation came and went less frequently, and in turn caused me less turmoil. But perhaps you need to explore the condition a bit first before reaching that point. Sometimes we have to go deeper in before we can get out. Hang in there... you'll do fine.
I have thoughts like this too. They're pretty much constant. I suspect taking LSD made it worse. Well... not worse necessarily, but stronger. Combining the constant hyper-analysis with depression is what makes it bad. I can easily imagine it being like the fascinating experience of an explorer riddling out existence, but it's rather more like being choked by the impossibility of my every waking moment. I'm slowly turning it around worse.
Yep, I get this too, only it's not as strong, and it feels more like walking through a dream where nothing's real and I'm not quite switched on. What you're describing are strong dissociative thought patterns, which of course go hand-in-hand with the intense depersonalisation and derealisation you're describing. Look up 'derealisation disorder'. I would be very careful with drugs of any kind from now on, considering how strongly you sound like you're experiencing this.
Look up solipsism. It's a valid philosophical argument, but I don't believe it's correct. I also think that concluding no one else exists is not a logical but an emotional conclusion. On my bad mushroom trip, I went through four hours of thinking I was God, that my subconscious had created the universe, and that no one I knew had ever been real. It was not a rational deduction. It was a reaction to the very strong dissociation and the general mindfuck of the experience.
I think you explained it pretty well. Reality doesn't seem like reality. Reality has no contrast upon which to call itself reality. Duality is meaningless. What is a THING? What is a FEELING? When I'm happy, what IS that feeling? It's just information, and it should really 'feel' neutral. Really everything is just nonsense.
That's pretty much what this feels like right?
In mentioning dissociative disorders like derealisation, I want to caution that the more you research it, and the more you think about it, the further into it you go. It helps immensely if you're able to ignore it. I've found that once I conditioned myself to stop worrying about it, the periods of dissociation came and went less frequently, and in turn caused me less turmoil. But perhaps you need to explore the condition a bit first before reaching that point. Sometimes we have to go deeper in before we can get out. Hang in there... you'll do fine.
Flickering
Bluelighter
It wouldn't be strange at all if nothing existed, because 'bizarre' is the interpretation of an observer, and if there's nothing then there's no observer.
modern buddha
Bluelighter
Go lay in the grass and look at the sky. Just watch it and imagine...
pharmakos
Bluelighter
the concept is still entirely bizarre IMO, even if its ultimate realization would have no one there to realize how bizarre it is.
fridgebuzz
Bluelighter
ziggo, the thoughts crossed my mind... Simply_Live, I agree that there are other ways to look at life, I've looked at life a different way before, but It's always temporary. I'm open minded to the fact that other people have logic behind their ideas that I just don't understand at the moment. I don't blame anyone for not being able to answer my questions. I think I was more looking for a discussion. Maybe when I was little I expected someone to be able to answer them, but I don't really remember. I know worrying about things is pointless, but I still worry about them. Thenightwatch, if nothing existed it could not be strange. Nothing would exist because nothing ever existed. How does something exist? I'm sure your ideas make sense to you and I just don't understand it right now, I'm just trying to explain my idea a little better. Thanks for your input. Fridgebuzz and cwe, I agree, and very interesting way of putting it. That's a good way to look at the world fridgebuzz.
Isn't an existential crisis temporary?
Yea that's pretty much what it sounds like.
Thanks for all your ideas and support. It's really appreciated.
I agress that it's a self defense mechanism, I didn't explain myself very well. I can't help but believe it's fake because it's just something happening to your body, your body sending the message to your brain, and somehow turning into conscious perception from there.
Isn't an existential crisis temporary?
I stay away from psychedelics because it always intensifies the emotions that come with these thoughts. I always think I'm going to finally snap and just be insane. One of my friends is always trying to get me to trip, he just like, "Common man you just have to enjoy it, there's no such thing as a bad trip." He's the same one that always asks me why I don't just sleep more... Anyway, I've looked up solipsism and depersonalization/derealization before, I hear astronauts are prone to these.
Yea that's pretty much what it sounds like.
Thanks for all your ideas and support. It's really appreciated.
I do this. It's very peaceful. Except I lay on the ground, smoke the grass, watch the sky and don't think. I watch my thoughts come and go but I don't pick one. The thoughts just go by and I just lay there and watch them go.
ziggo
Bluelighter
I already changed my mind on something in my previous post. I change any idea or belief I have instantly if another conflicting one starts to entice me more, or I think about them both and try to come up with my own definition in the middle ground somewhere.
Flickering
Bluelighter
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
Tell your friend to chug two big bottles of DXM cough syrup and watch Descent, then he can get back to you on whether there's any such thing as a bad trip.Astronauts are prone to dissociative disorder? Wow, well actually that makes sense, but that's amazing.
hiphophippy
Bluelighter
The pain is real, you can measure pain you can measure the signals of the brain. Don't let all the hardcore fallacious existentialists fool you. The logic train wreck, our observations can be subjective and our subjective interpretations can influence how we interpret objective things ergo nothing is real and objectivity is impossible, is exactly that a logical train wreck it is fallacious and poorly reasoned.
The existential crisis lasts as long as you don't understand why you are having it/aknowledge the reasons it is happening. There are quite a few was to escape it, the most popular being bullshitting yourself that you were just being crazy and everything in the world is correct. But I suspect you might have enough integrity to actually go through the process of realizing why you feel that way and going into things to overstand your position and become a decent real (exestential)nihilist
one must observe and understand themselves and their own subjective interpretations and how they influence your understanding of the real objective reality. before they can escape the existential crisis.
I can do my best to help you discover the process if you want. It's not a very nice feeling all the time. But it's honest.
Also I found psychedelics helpful, but don't take them if you don't WANT to. Being in a good mood has very little to do with your experience. if you're not excited to drop it can and most likely will go wrong. also psychs are a tool not a medicine.
Lost Ego
Bluelighter
Define strange, if it feels like deja vu, then your amygdala is functioning incorrectly and you may be developing a neurological illness. Maybe being with your friends simply feels wierd because their minds see the leaves on the tree where as you see the entire forest. I am the same way... Perhaps you are just growing up and you're having a little identity crisis. You are probably also high and what you are doing is entering alpha brain waves (e.g. when and are forced to focus only on your breathing or walking or thoughts or whatever - alpha)... The secret is: instead of focusing on your thoughts, focus on something you love, for me its music or kung fu or driving or sex lol. Seek love in your life, perhaps the feeling will bring you back to reality. If nothing you love feels right then abandon all hope and focus on the nothingness, cease all thought and sit and just BE. I'm still struggling with the idea that i'm the only thing that exists, and it seems impossible to prove that the earth and universe exists through thought. Cogito ergo sum, if i think then i am. If your thoughts can influence mine then does that not verify your existence and everyone else's for that matter?
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Biovail
Bluelighter
I've had similar thoughts. But nothing is really strange. Strange is a human invention. There is no strange/normal. Everything simply exists. Nothing has meaning, only what you give it.
You make things strange.
Though you're not the first being to ponder these things.
I wonder if monkeys ever just look at their arms and think "what?..."
You make things strange.
Though you're not the first being to ponder these things.
I wonder if monkeys ever just look at their arms and think "what?..."