Does anyone else occasionally get a bizarre mood like this?

Yes, sometimes. It's not that uncommon a feeling; just gazing into the sky makes me think of all the possibilities in the world. No one takes on all of them, but just thinking about what a difference there is makes me wonder.

 

Not exactly that, but close, I think. From a very young age I've felt a similar kind of 'bizarre mood.'
It's when I realize that this, here, right now in this body in this time in this country is the only life that I will ever have and the no-one else in the whole however many billions of people there are on this planet will ever experience this moment exactly as I am doing right here and now. And that there will never, ever be another me. I don't long for another life, but it doesn't instill in me any urgency to live this one either. I think it's just an acute awareness of the many huge and tiny and strange lives that are on this planet and that we, none of us can ever see the world exactly like anyone else. That no-one else will ever be able to experience my life with me, not really, and I'll never be able to experience someone else's life.
It doesn't last very long usually, half an hour is the most, but when it does happen it's almost exactly like you describe, very out of body, almost like drifting kind of sort of but not really. Yeah, describing the indescribable.

I guess we're both rambling. Even if my bizarre mood is nothing like what you feel, we can ramble together... sort of. (&&&)

 

Yeah, I totally know what you mean. It's a weird mix of both feeling connected to the entire universe and yet being frustrated that you can't really be connected to everything.

It tends to come upon me at the most random of moments. In fact, it has even happened in the midst of browsing EC. All of these people on here have days that are just as full of experience as mine, and yet I can only touch a tiny slice of that experience. Nor can they truly ever know what it is to be me. And when I'm thinking that, I realise that even I don't truly know what it is to be me.
And that's even just people I can technically reach out to. Over the vastness of time and space, there's countless of people so distant I can never even know what their lives are like, experiences I'll never fathom, places that I can't visit. Some of the most amazing sights in the univers are things that can only be imagined, and no one will ever truly be able to look on them and appreciate them in reality.

And yet... I also can't help thinking that in a way, I AM connected and integral to all of them. A stray sentence I write might give someone an idea a they would have never had otherwise. A smile I give to a stranger on a train might change their mood and their day might be totally different. This will all cause other changes and ripple outwards in ways I can't fathom.

And even if no one will remember me in 1000 years, there is the thought that no one can ever undo the now. That I will always have been here, thinking the thoughts I thought, doing the things I did, feeling the feelings I felt.


...okay, getting carried away here. But yeah, I think it's similar to what you feel. I like to call it religious experiences, as that's really the only word I have for feeling this way.

 

There are many ways that this feeling has been described in various writings; Martin Buber called it an "I-Thou" experience. In his book I and Thou he described a childhood experience touching a horse and feeling completely connected to its existence.

Robert Pirsig in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" called it an experience of Quality, and named quality as the collapsing of our usual subject-object dichotomy in the experience of quality (contemplation of beauty, or elegance in a mathematical equation, or a well-built motorcycle)

Flow psychology (Csikszentmihalyi) even touches upon this feeling, a kind of fusion between oneself and one's work.

Each one of us is a world on its own, a unique consciousness that is able to take in the entire universe, each one of us is a microcosm, not a statistic on a government spreadsheet. Who's to say that coming out isn't a kind of revolt against becoming some granular, insignificant entity in the mass of humanity?

 

I've been having weird feelings like this a lot, too. It's good to know I'm not (that) crazy.

 

Sometimes I feel like my life is a dream. Soon I'll wake up and things will be completely different. There are also time when my dreams seem more real than reality. There are some dreams where I know I'm dreaming and make deliberate choices. Does anyone else do that?

 

I've read quite a bit about lucid dreaming. There are times when it feels like I may not get back to my body. It causes me to panic sometimes and wake up. Dream walking is the next step after lucid dreaming. You can go into a place with no time or distance. I've read some stuff by Lynn V. Andrews on shamanism.

 

I think I know what you mean. Sounds Numinous, thought not in a religious sense.

 

I know exactly what you mean, and it's an indescribable feeling. I get all sentimental and experience nostalgia a lot, almost to the point of wishing I had taken a different path in life. Although, I love my life and wouldn't change it for anything if given the opportunity. I am grateful and have been extremely blessed, so yeah. I tend to experience these emotions/out of body experiences with those I have met, and I often wonder what life could be life if I were them.

My friend experiences these emotions as well, but they have impacted her own life a bit. She's kind of far gone and a bit delusional, that I truly believe that she wishes that she could trade places if given the chance.

 

Yes. But trying to comprehend the enormity of all possibilities is in itself impossible for just a regular ol' human being, so I try not to stay in that state for too long, despite how good it feels to daydream.