I often catch myself thinking that reality feels, well, not real, like a dream or a story from a book. I have also noticed that, while the feeling does occasionally disappear entirely, it's there to a greater or lesser extent the majority of the time. Does anyone else feel this way? How common is it? I can try to give more details as needed, but I'm having a hard time collecting my thoughts on the matter.
Life feels like a movie you are watching, or like you are outside of it watching it happen to someone else? I'm no expert, but I've felt like that myself in the past and found it kind of disturbing sometimes, so I looked up some things. This is what I learned: Derealization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Depersonalization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If you are distressed by it, or if it interferes with your life, you might want to talk to a psychologist. These are types of dissociation, and they are often a coping mechanism to deal with trauma. But then they can persist.
I can honestly say I can relate quite a bit to this. Especially the closer I get to starting HRT (tuesday) the more I find myself doubting reality. I think its kind of acting as a safeguard as a result of the stress of how things are going to turn out, because when it wears out and I think about how this is real life, I just feeling scared and feeling intense anxiety about the future. That sound fairly similar to what you are experiencing?
Kind of. I've been experiencing it for years in one form or another, with stress seeming to correlate more to the exact type rather than the strength. Basically, when external stress is high, I feel like the world around me isn't quite real, and when it isn't...I feel like I don't really have an identity of my own, for lack of a better way of putting it. I am already seeing a counselor, and I'll probably bring this up with her. My biggest problem is that the more I think about it, the more facets I find, rendering it difficult to isolate what exactly I'm feeling. I have been trying to read up on other people's experiences, but so far most sources have a) been extremely sketchy or b) dealt with derealization in the context of anxiety and panic attacks, which isn't applicable in my case. Does anyone know of a source that deals discusses derealization/depersonalization in the context of depression, or even just in general without focusing on any specific disorder?
Yes, god yes, definitely. I feel like I'm living my life by looking at it rather than living it. This is probably because I have no clue who I am. I feel very foreign to myself. This also my be a result from being so isolated with people too. Who knows. Also in reply to you comment above, I think by actually admitting this to yourself you will eventually get over it and start actually living your life.
I sometimes feel awaken suddenly, and start to wonder are these really happening and about my existence. I related it, to something to do with my philosophy, as it tells world of a person, is nothing more than senses by faculties and nothings permanent. But then I remember doing it, in buses while watching people move around , IDK when it started, but I think that was before I took those teachings seriously. I was watching them, and wondering about the reality of what I was seeing or feeling. I mean not that if the scenery was not real , but questioning, when I am dead, still these will be happening, right, but then i woudn't be existed as now, but still all that would/should be going on like now, so it seems unrealistic, like a dream, something to question about my existence . Like in matrix the movie, that's mostly like, I sometimes realize about my surroundings and me, there's more that I have to see. I start to look in to those things I'm surrounded with. I realized that I sometimes do so, when I was watching Matrix. But I stop without going further with it, just like awaken from a long sleep and suddenly then, realizing there's too much trouble to deal with being awakened and then feeling lazy, just go back to sleep again, wiping out all those thoughts. Then everything goes on as before dropping me into the normal flow of thinking. It's not like, I don't feel like life is not real or living in like a dream or as Ianthe said, "Life feels like a movie you are watching, or like you are outside of it watching it happen to someone else?" . No, It's like, I suddenly realize this is not the truth I'm seeing, there's lot more to see in what I see, a hidden truth, hidden bc I don't look at it deeply. Only that I just, ignore it and forget it and go on with what I was doing before. I sometime think loosing a family member may have made me feel like that. One day he was there, then next gone forever, with all the impact made on my life, but still world is moving on, with me. Yes my case might not sound like what you are asking, but something I remembered, reading yours.
This is not exactly what you're describing, but, I mean, it relates to it. I feel like I'm not living everything I'm doing, more of that I'm part of an audience watching the movie of my life. I've been having major Deja Vu for almost every single event in the past 5 months or more. So many times, I've felt like I've done things before, and that now I'm just watching them replay. I don't know what it's supposed to mean, but my life feels like Inception. I feel like I'm living in two different places. I can't really explain that too great either, but that's what I've been feeling like, it's so weird. But, more related to what you're talking about, sometimes I do feel like I'm in a dream, or that reality isn't reality even though it is. It feels like it's fake, like it's too good to be true. There's some things that feel like they aren't supposed to happen in reality, but they do.
