[Eclara]

Does anyone else get flashes? I don't know how to describe them exactly. Like...I'll be on the internet and see a picture of something that seems completely random, like blue frosting on a really gross looking cookie or sunlight reflecting on a pool or a white tile floor and I'll get a flash of this strong sense of recognition- like it's part of a memory my brain is trying to remember, on the tip of my (tongue? Lobe? I don't know)- followed by a panicked, vulnerable feeling. Sometimes it's a smell, like chlorine or a cinnamon candle. Sometimes it's weirdly specific, like the sound of airplanes on a cold day or the feel of an air conditioner in a basement. The smell of the shampoo I used to use seven years ago, the sound of rock music from the early 2000's, the cartoon Peter Pan movie. It's completely baffling to me but it's so fleeting I can never get a grasp on it, and when I try I mostly just feel overwhelmed.

Sometimes they'll trigger or be triggered by a feeling or emotion I can't identify, but that feels familiar and again like I'm on the verge of remembering what it is.

For while I was getting random flashes of smells and tastes I knew well from my past, like I could physically smell/taste them but I could distinguish that they were not real. They did not make me anxious the way the other flashes do.

Are any of these things other people experience as well?

 

[Haumea]

I think I used to experience this a lot more in the early months after onset of chronic DP.

I know what you're talking about - it's like someone took your brain and has tied it into an origami shape or something. All kinds of weird sensations, memories and so on pop in and out.

Not a big deal, though. You basically ignore the random associations that pop into your head. They're not really useful and so one doesn't need to focus on them.

 

[Babebu]

I have this too, I got these sometimes when look on somebody's photoes, like falling into some state for a second, very strange, or when remembering your past gf after 6 years. But sometimes I get it just sitting calmly and watching tv, like the smell of fresh wood or a smell of medicine, the smell of hospitals. I usually start being anxious about it because I've read somewhere that it's related to a lot of mental ilnesses. But I think it's as related to dp as vision problems etc.

I wish I would not have dp but still to remember these flashes. i would like to write about it in a novel. Hope, someday I'll get out of this shit and everything will be even better than it would be instead.