Like a dream | INFJ Forum

Like a dream

subwayrider

subwayrider

Into the White
Sep 26, 2011
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This thread is about that feeling you get. I know everyone feels it or has felt it. This thread is about that feeling you get where your life feels... not quite real. Family, friends, pets, places, objects-- something about all of them is not quite right. Something is off. It's on the tip of your tongue, elusive. You can't say exactly what it is, but for a long time now, maybe even your whole life, it's been there, waiting.
 
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I recently went through this feeling a few days ago. I've experienced it before, and I'll experience it again. It's a sort of feeling of disconnect that you can't quite define. It tends to come in waves. But I've found that once I've felt that, it always stays in the back of my mind and I can never fully "reconnect" again.
 
Yes, a disconnect.
 
eloquent_leo said:
I know the feeling.. Think I'm perma stuck in it.
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Me too.. well, before, it came with exceedingly favourable or unfavourable events happening in my life (I guess so unbelievable that they felt "dreamlike") and went just as quickly. But it seems like these days it's the default. I think the defaulting of it may have happened after I started taking drugs for depression/anxiety (and stayed even though I've come off them for a couple months now)? It's kind of like... I can't take my thoughts and actions that seriously, because everything seems so unreal and dreamlike. Or maybe it's because I've had to deal with my unstable and unreliable thoughts and feelings and actions for so long, that I feel that they are still unreliable and my future is totally out of my hands no matter what I do, and that "unbelievable" things that I never could have forseen will keep happening, just like a long withstanding dream.

so it's like this world.. is just like a dreamworld to me. i wake up, and i've just entered another dream.
 
hmm. . that is my life. . like a really poorly directed movie. . with a terrible script. . lousy actors. . I'd leave the theater if I could, but I cant find the exit. .rats
 
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Isn't this called "dissociating"? I used to feel as though the physical world wasn't real, like it was all holograms, and that the only thing that was real was myself. That was like a couple years ago. Nowadays I don't really dissociate. I'm pretty associated with reality for the most part. Hmmm... I think I've become a dirty sensor.
 
[MENTION=1798]Out To Lunch[/MENTION]
I suppose it can be called a lot of things. Joiiinnn uuussss....
 
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niffer said:
Me too.. well, before, it came with exceedingly favourable or unfavourable events happening in my life (I guess so unbelievable that they felt "dreamlike") and went just as quickly. But it seems like these days it's the default. I think the defaulting of it may have happened after I started taking drugs for depression/anxiety (and stayed even though I've come off them for a couple months now)? It's kind of like... I can't take my thoughts and actions that seriously, because everything seems so unreal and dreamlike. Or maybe it's because I've had to deal with my unstable and unreliable thoughts and feelings and actions for so long, that I feel that they are still unreliable and my future is totally out of my hands no matter what I do, and that "unbelievable" things that I never could have forseen will keep happening, just like a long withstanding dream.

so it's like this world.. is just like a dreamworld to me. i wake up, and i've just entered another dream.
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Were they illicit drugs? I know when I would smoke pot every day the feeling would intensify. I'm not sure it was the drugs that first brought it on (probably not), but I know they have contributed some. Thankfully for me, the feeling has nothing to do with emotions, because they're sort of dulled right now. It's sort of a flat-line, relatively constant, feeling of detachment that presents itself mostly when I venture outside of my own mind.

Maybe I've just been living here too long.
 
I get this feeling occasionally. The last time I had it was last weekend. I was eating dinner at my parent's house, and half-way through the meal it hit me. I could only nod and mumble along with the conversation because everything felt so odd. After an episode I generally have a hard time sleeping because I'm afraid it will happen again. It kicks my anxiety up into full-gear. Generally I blame it on my constant state of sleep deprivation.
 
[MENTION=1009]bamf[/MENTION]

The lack of sleep probably has a lot to with it. It's like the Narrator said in Fight Club:

"When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep... and you're never really awake. With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything's far away. Everything's a copy of a copy of a copy."

I try to get my 8 hours, or then I really feel like I'm losing it. But then, really losing it might prove an interesting experience.
 
subwayrider said:
@bamf

The lack of sleep probably has a lot to with it. It's like the Narrator said in Fight Club:

"When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep... and you're never really awake. With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything's far away. Everything's a copy of a copy of a copy."

I try to get my 8 hours, or then I really feel like I'm losing it. But then, really losing it might prove an interesting experience.
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Haha, that is a perfect quote. I work 3rd shift so my sleep-schedule hasn't really existed for the past three years. I do spend a lot of the time in a "fog", not full losing feeling, but not all there. When I get a couple nights off and actually sleep, the world seems completely different, and more there.

Where do you think your "dream" like feelings are coming from?
 
[MENTION=4717]subwayrider[/MENTION] I do not have schizophrenia. I do have bipolar 1, which can cause what I'm feeling. I think this meaning sums it up pretty well for me.

Depersonalization (or depersonalisation) is an anomaly of the mechanism by which an individual has self-awareness. It is a feeling of watching oneself act, while having no control over a situation.[1] Sufferers feel they have changed, and the world has become less real, vague, dreamlike, or lacking in significance. It can be a disturbing experience, since many feel that, indeed, they are living in a "dream". Chronic depersonalization refers to depersonalization disorder, which is classified by the DSM-IV as a dissociative disorder. Though degrees of depersonalization and derealization can happen to anyone subject to temporary severe anxiety/stress, chronic depersonalization is more related to individuals who have experienced a severe trauma or prolonged stress/anxiety. Depersonalization-derealization is the single most important symptom in the spectrum of dissociative disorders, including dissociative identity disorder and "dissociative disorder not otherwise specified" (DD-NOS). It is also a prominent symptom in some other non-dissociative disorders, such as anxiety disorders, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, migraine and sleep deprivation. It can be considered desirable, such as in the use of recreational drugs.
 
eloquent_leo said:
@subwayrider I do not have schizophrenia. I do have bipolar 1, which can cause what I'm feeling. I think this meaning sums it up pretty well for me.

Depersonalization (or depersonalisation) is an anomaly of the mechanism by which an individual has self-awareness. It is a feeling of watching oneself act, while having no control over a situation.[1] Sufferers feel they have changed, and the world has become less real, vague, dreamlike, or lacking in significance. It can be a disturbing experience, since many feel that, indeed, they are living in a "dream". Chronic depersonalization refers to depersonalization disorder, which is classified by the DSM-IV as a dissociative disorder. Though degrees of depersonalization and derealization can happen to anyone subject to temporary severe anxiety/stress, chronic depersonalization is more related to individuals who have experienced a severe trauma or prolonged stress/anxiety. Depersonalization-derealization is the single most important symptom in the spectrum of dissociative disorders, including dissociative identity disorder and "dissociative disorder not otherwise specified" (DD-NOS). It is also a prominent symptom in some other non-dissociative disorders, such as anxiety disorders, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, migraine and sleep deprivation. It can be considered desirable, such as in the use of recreational drugs.
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Oh my god.. thank you so much for posting this. I read this page just now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization_disorder , and every word fits me to a T. I'm going to see if I can get tested for it.
 
[MENTION=3998]niffer[/MENTION] no problem. It does say that it can be temporary so you may just be stuck in a rut sweetheart. Regardless, I hope you find the answers you're looking for.
 
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I'd describe it as an out of body experience. You get the vague sense that you're in a different time zone or space than everyone else, on the outside looking in. Weird feeling of disassociation.
 
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