[Milan]

I figured I might as well post my entire story from which I have posted some snippets on this board. This I wrote before I knew about DP/DR and Panic Disorder. Some of the symptoms don?t bother me as much but there are new ones that have surfaced. I may add these at a later date as it may help people who think that the feelings they are experiencing are unique to them. Here it is:

I?m a 36 year old male and have a beautiful wife and 4 yo child. I live in Sydney Australia. The words below I wrote about two years ago whilst I was feeling some very scary and unusual changes in perception. A few months after that episode I got better and forgot about the experience but unfortunately about a year ago early one Sunday morning my son woke me up and an hour later the feelings were back (damn!!) and have been with me since. Sorry for the length of this article but I really wanted to articulate as best I can the experiences I have been having.

Within this words I will try to describe my feelings and perceptions after I returned from a Vipassana meditation retreat where I only completed three out of the ten days. I left late afternoon on the third day due to intense feelings of fear, anxiety and a perception of non reality. These feelings started late in the evening on the first day and varied in intensity during the next couple of days. On the third day I couldn?t take it any longer and left the retreat.

After returning home I noticed that the feelings still persisted although they did vary in intensity from just being perceivable to a point where my whole body felt like it would implode. The feelings I?m referring to are of fear, anxiety, panic, confusion, loneliness, weirdness, strangeness, unreality, detachment, depression and also a strong sense of not feeling like my usual self. I also discovered that I could trigger these feelings and change the intensity of the feelings by slightly shifting my awareness or focus on either my body, thoughts or surroundings. This shift in awareness would dramatically change the perception of my reality. The feelings I most dislike are feelings of intense and uncontrollable fear, anxiety and unrealism which makes me feel very distant and not like my familiar self. When I refer to my body and thoughts I?m referring to normal everyday functions that we perform millions of times a day like walking, talking, thinking, observing etc.; but this slight shift in awareness has a profound effect on my whole perception of these familiar phenomenons. The examples below will show how I can trigger these feelings by manipulating my focus which in turn initiates these feelings.

As I engage in everyday conversation I find myself doing many things at once. I am listening, comprehending, watching the other persons expressions, determining a response, gesturing and all this seems to happen instantaneously and automatically. As I flow through time and perform these functions it feels like I lose some awareness of my self and my surroundings. When involved in a conversation my mind seems to be open and everything happens spontaneously. Whilst talking I can trigger my fear when I slightly shift my focus onto my voice and then try to determine where the thoughts that produce these words come from. I start to analyse the situation and ask myself questions like - How was that thought initiated? How do I understand things? When people talk to me what am I aware of? What or who determines my response as they happen automatically with no prior thought? It?s like I?m switched to automatic pilot as I perform a myriad functions without my conscious effort. Why did I make that response out of the infinite available? Where did the very start of that thought that made that response emanate from? When I start questioning who is aware or who is driving all of the internal and the external happenings as we move through time and space I start to induce the many negative states I mentioned. I try to catch myself being aware at an instantaneous moment to try to understand where am ?I? during this process of either talking, thinking, moving, etc. Because I can not catch myself being aware or ?in control? as each moment passes I find myself entering this weird state where I don?t feel like myself and start perceiving things as unreal, strange, weird, different as if I?m viewing myself from some different perspective that I just can?t explain or understand. I lose all grounding of myself. In a nutshell it just doesn?t feel like ?me? and it absolutely terrifies the hell out of me. Most times I just let reality pass and not focus on anything but I do get this feeling that I?m avoiding something and with this avoidance there is an underlying current of anxiety. At times during the flow of reality I may momentarily realise that I?m avoiding focusing on the things that change my perception then I start analysing the immediate past trying to feel where my awareness was during those past few moments. In that moment of analysis it seems as if I wasn?t actually present. Then I start thinking about where was I during those moments and how was I performing all those tasks without being conscious of them. Depending on the solidity of my mood I may find myself simply ignoring this phenomenon or if feeling vulnerable this analysis tends to induce fear and anxiety which seems to be because I can?t substantiate my self/awareness during that time. Something as familiar as thinking may seem so natural to most but when I truly try to grasp how your mind wills your body to perform it?s most common tasks it seems radically weird and bizarre.

I can also induce these fears by focusing on my body. I ask similar questions to the ones directed at my thoughts. As I perform familiar functions my body seems to do everything without any thought or conscious effort. I may be walking deep in thought then there is a realisation that I am walking but who is controlling the body? How does the mind will the body to move? Then the ?not me? feelings start as I start to analyse myself. I should add that the analysis may not be questioning by words; I might be examining the situation by feel. I may find myself testing myself by moving a body part trying to understand how I initiated the response for that body part to move. But as I focus on the body part I still have that perception that the body has a mind of it?s own.

During any analysis of my reality my mind is focused and inadvertently I let myself naturally flow through time. But at times I start analysing the thoughts that are analysing my reality and then I initiate a cycle of fear and anxiety. At this point I generally need something to distract me to stop this focusing to allow myself to calm down to a point where I?m not so anxious. I do notice that I rarely do this analysis internally and most times I feel comfortable allowing my thoughts to stream through my mind but when I talk aloud I tend to focus on my words and begin the analysing mentioned above which provokes the negative states.

I also have this fear of time but I think this is mainly due to the fact that everything I focus on that changes my perception like moving, talking, thinking, etc is all integral to the function of time. Time seems strange and weird as I watch the world changing around me. I sometimes watch other people move about and look back a few moments in time and picture that person in the space they occupied a few seconds ago. What weirds me out is when I try to comprehend where that person has disappeared to in that moment of time that just elapsed. When I focus on my surroundings I perceive reality?s relationship with time in a very linear sense. Rather than a person occupying space in a three dimensional world I look at them moving through space and time in quick successions of moments and then trying to understand where they were a few seconds ago. I believe the reason I do this time examination is because I?m always trying to analyse my awareness and perception as we flow through time; I?m just projecting the same analysis to the external material world.

The world around me also seems strange and different as I focus on every day objects. If I don?t focus my awareness on my surroundings everyday reality seems reasonably normal but with focusing my change in perception makes the familiar seem very foreign. Holding and manipulating an object in my hand can become a strange experience if I focus my attention in a certain way. I also find that my awareness seems limited like I have tunnel perception. It feels slightly enclosed and that I need to some how open it up to experience my surroundings with more clarity. It?s as if there is some reality impediment between my self and the world. Also this non reality increases with anxiety and fear.

All this prompts me to ask what was my experience like before this shift in perception? Was my illusion of reality before all this happened simply the thought patterns running through my mind? If I were to have focused my awareness on reality, as I do now, would that have initiated this strange existence I?m experiencing? Was I simply ignorant of the all the things that I am aware of now? Or did something change within me which provoked the shift in perception? When I let things flow I seem to have the same sense of self that I had before but something still feels different. Is the different feeling simply the fear of slipping back into a negative state? Or has something been altered in my brain changing my perception of reality? I really don?t know. If there were no anxiety and fear would that stop this strange experience and make me feel like my old self? I may be the same person but the me of now seems different from the me of before.

Losing my familiar self to make me feel emotionally flat and muted. I lack enthusiasm and find I spend long introspective periods examining and trying to understand the experiences I?m having. I tend to focus on trying to cope each day and look forward to moments when I?m not so consumed by the negative emotions and experiences. I miss the energy levels I had, I miss the excitement of looking forward to future, I miss the early Saturday morning feeling - I miss all the feelings that made life so interesting and fun. At times I still do get some of my old feelings but they are not as intense and tend to be very transient. But having at least some feeling keeps me going on.

What terrifies me the most is that I?m really not controlling the functioning of my body and mind. All this time it felt like it was me who controlled all the functioning. The mind and body simply do there things automatically, spontaneously, instantaneously and I (whatever that ?I? is ) is simply the observer of my body and mind interacting with reality. And it?s this shift in perception and the apparent lack of control that makes me feel the anxiety and fear. In the times that I was not feeling these strange perceptions was I simply living with in a narrow bandwidth of my mind that was creating its own illusion of the self and how it perceives reality? Living in this illusion I feel comfortable and grounded but with a shift in focus all that grounding disappears, my reality changes and everything feels different.

The passage of time passes and with that passing there are changes in reality; thoughts arise from nothing and disappear to nothing, my body moves through space, I feel different sensation and emotions. As long as I am alive I will be an integral part of the unfolding reality. I can?t escape this, I am part of this and I believe I will always be compelled to analyse this mind and body reality as we flow through time. If time were to stop there would be no change, nothing to focus on and nothing to analyse. Problem solved! Obviously this is not going to happen. Therefore I carry on until there is a change in my perception that hopefully feels better than the experience I?m currently having. In my case ignorance is peace of mind.

 

[Sojourner]

Milan,

You expressed what I believe is called "existential angst" beautifully and from my perspective accurately. Google for "existential angst" and you will find we are all in quite good company.

I think the difference may be in the context within which we experience it for the first time, what precipitated it initially, and whether we are intellectually aware of its being an experience common to humanity.

You asked many questions, such as the following:

"All this prompts me to ask what was my experience like before this shift in perception? Was my illusion of reality before all this happened simply the thought patterns running through my mind? If I were to have focused my awareness on reality, as I do now, would that have initiated this strange existence I?m experiencing?"

----

My response is YES, but usually people discover these ideas within great literature or other art forms first, where you have a guide to explain what is happening. For many folks here, it may well be that some had no "guide" when this perception first came into their awareness and that the state was entered as an ESCAPE from the self rather than from an intellectual intent to understand a particular human experience that has been widely -- and I do mean widely -- reported by writers throughout history. The self is wise, indeed, and does FEAR when we run from it into a place where nothing makes sense anymore. Without the fear, it's an intriguing and BRIEF sojourn into "another world," but with the fear, it's the apparent road to insanity.

But the experience itself is quite normal. Why it is CHOSEN in particular circumstances and why doing so causes FEAR is what is abnormal.

The experience is usually fleeting and non-threatening. I'm sure most people have even had it after two glasses of fine champagne, but just enjoyed that brief glimpse into the positive uncanniness of it all and let it go by. But when we seek escape from SOMEthing, we pervert what is meant to be an hors d'oeurves into a ten-course meal. In that dosage, it's a recipe for FEAR. We aren't meant to live there, though evidently some great writers and painters did.

Allusions to this experience are present everywhere in literature, music, and art.

----

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, someone (probably an older sister) told me to hold the palm of one hand about four inches from my nose and just gaze at it until something "happened." By my description, I'm sure you know what happened -- the same thing that happens when we gaze (not read) at a short word for a while. It induced a state in which the object gazed upon was perceived as something almost "alien" and unrecognizable.

-----

" Was I simply ignorant of the all the things that I am aware of now?"

Yes and no. You probably had glimpses that you just enjoyed for their oddity, but because the circumstances in which you had these realizations were non-threatening, you do not associate fear with your previous encounters with it, or you just let the feelings and perceptions morph back into normal perception.

What you're talking about is "existential angst" -- don't let the weirdness of it delude you into thinking it's an abnormal experience. It has a long, long history.

--------------

"Or did something change within me which provoked the shift in perception?"

Yes, something changed. You became a mature man is what happened. You grew up, and you grew up just when men are scheduled to grow up finally into their full manhood. Some people think that men become mature at 25. Not true. It's really not until the mid-thirties, actually. I am just stating my personal opinion, of course, but I have lived long enough to observe the development of men and women, and I think I'm right about this. You just grew UP, Milan, and you saw what sensitive adults have seen for millennia.

----------

"When I let things flow I seem to have the same sense of self that I had before but something still feels different. Is the different feeling simply the fear of slipping back into a negative state?"

No. You have increased your knowledge of reality and of yourself. You have personally experienced what's called the "contingency" of your existence and the truth that we are not necessarily what or who we think we are in our "everyday" intellects.

At the risk of offending you and anyone else reading this, this perception -- this experience -- is the place in which many human beings have found the meaning of the universe and the meaning of their existence (in some cases it's a loving Intelligence, in others, it's union with the Mysterious Being that pervades the universe, in yet others, its an intense sense of solidarity with all humanity and the stars and vastness of the universe).

What makes the experience unpleasant for us and filled with FEAR is that we do not sense a loving presence in that place. No. What do we encounter there, where God is said to lead people into contemplative prayer (not unlike the meditation you were interested in), when we are seeking ESCAPE from our SELF? We find the FEAR that is *wired* into us by the author of our minds and bodies, whether that author be evolution or pure Being itself. We are wired for fear/contentment, love/hate, hunger/satiety, pain/pleasure. But our bodies -- the "automatic pilot" -- knows better than our minds when we are touching a hot stove. What happens then? You got it. We experience pain. Pain is our friend, and so is fear. They keep us alive so we can learn more truth and do more good.

------

"Or has something been altered in my brain changing my perception of reality? I really don?t know."

Yes, something has changed, just like something changed in your brain when you learned how to read as a child. You have observed existentially another facet of reality -- not a distorted view of reality -- but just another facet of reality. It's really as monumental as learning how to read. I cannot remember learning how to read, and perhaps you cannot either. It all happened more or less "automatically" after the first conscious assimilation of the rules we had to learn.

-----

"If there were no anxiety and fear would that stop this strange experience and make me feel like my old self?"

Yes, and you would be able to *choos4e* when you wanted to have this perception.

You've really hit the nail on the head, Milan: it is only the fear that makes it an undesirable experience. Let's not condemn the perception itself -- which is normal and extensively documented throughout history.

What I have concluded is needed is to discover what problem is being worked on by our unconscious. What question are we trying to resolve in our unconscious right now? Is it ultimately a problem that makes us want to avoid coming to decision about something, is it a problem that we have to choose between two things or people we want and we cannot have both? Is it a problem that is just to thorny to have an immediate and clear-cut solution right now? Are we pushing something we have to do away in the hope of escaping it? Are there feelings that we think are unacceptable that we are attempting to push deeper and deeper down into unawareness? Are we holding in anger that we feel is unacceptable to express? Are we denying some truth about ourselves that frightens us by its obvious consequences?

As long as there is a mysterious "something" that causes this perception to be accompanied by "fear," and as long as we still have no clue about what this mysterious "something" we are running from is, we will experience this perception with fear. The FEAR is trying to save us from what we are doing. As I keep saying, the experience itself is quite normal, and you will find corroboration of what I say from professionals in the field of mental health -- psychiatrists, therapists, scholars, and so forth. This is a well-known fact. The experience itself is TOTALLY NORMAL. What is abnormal is only -- I can't stress that enough -- ONLY the FEAR.

Even a baby-step at looking for the problem is going to bring tremendous reduction in fear. Your body will thank you profusely.

-----

"I may be the same person but the me of now seems different from the me of before. "

Yes, you've grown up. You've discovered "existential angst" but like a 14-year-old who drinks an entire bottle of sherry, you do not see the beauty in the perception because you have sought escape in it. Your body is smarter than you are, though, because it is telling you to take your hand away from the hot stove.

-----

Peace, love, and joy to you, Milan!

My name is Bonnie

 

[Guest]

My main advice to you is this: right now you are way too fascinated by this entire experience. I really do understand - and I did the same thing for a long time - most of us do. But you sound like you are really STUCK inside the Study of the whole experience.

Trust me on these two points:

1). You will NEVER find the totally resolving answers you're looking for regarding precisely what happened inside your Self and why/how this shift in consciousness came to be;

2). The whole quest is not nearly as interesting as you currently think it is.

You are being TRICKED by your own mind to harp on the 'How did this HAPPEN to me?" experience and the "Let me trace this step by step, awareness by changing awareness....to see specifically what has shifted inside my personal experience..."

STOP. You must force yourself to say "well, it happened and I sure as hell am here in it NOW..." and then move FORWARD, not back. Trying to retrace your mental steps from the meditation weekend through each of the shifts in consciousness is just LIKE BEING BACK AT THE DAMN RETREAT, lol - it is just another type of meditative rumination that involves self-monitoring and the analysis of minutae about your own mind.

STOP.

I cannot stress this enough. You must stop turning this experience over and over in your hand like you are trying to comprehend it from every angle. That is exactly what brought on the DP state in the first place.

It's HERE. It's the most bizarre thing you could ever have imagined happening to you. Now force yourself to stop being interested in it. The way OUT has NOTHING to do with dissecting its onset or watching its daily status. That is the fastest way to KEEP it, I can promise you.

Remember, you said you went on the retreat in the first place because you had anxiety. You were not just meditating to find inner joy, lol...you were searching for something to help you CONTROL your own mind. Well, that is just the invitation to DP states. You do not control your emotions, you only survive them. You THINK right now that you are keeping yourself from totally going insane by studying your every thought, but you're not. All you're doing is keeping yourself frozen by clenching your mind like a fist and trying to MASTER what happened to you. You cannot master it. You can only endure it. And move past it.

Also, from other posts, it is VERy clear to me that some of the underlying problems that probably sourced your original anxiety have to do with your marriage, your family, your very conflicting feelings about wanting to be needed, your anger around not feeling loved but being terrified to ask for/expect more, and probaby a ton of guilt around SOMEthing that you have a hard time facing. I imagine you have fantasies/thoughts about literally getting on a train and running away forever. I don't mean to do some instant therapy, lol...but those are ISSUES, as they say, that come through loud and clear. THAT is the stuff to be working on, thinking about, talking about - not the details of your DP state.

Hope this was helpful in some way, and I really wish you all the best. I think you have a chance to totally recover from all this, but you've got to really shift your focus and start doing some of the other work, in other areas and the DP and obsessiveness will take care of themselves.

Peace,
Janine

 

[Milan]

Thank your Sojourner and Janine for your posts. Sojourner I was going to explore your post some more and give you my thoughts but I just read Janine's post and that changed my mind. What you wrote was very interesting but I can't go now searching the net for 'existential angst' as it will only worsen my condition. You also wrote about reaching this condition is some form of maturity - I don't know if this thinking is an indicator of maturity, my shrink read what I wrote above and called it scattered thinking and I must stop it. Sojourner we share a lot of experiences and it's really nice to know I'm not the only one out there experiencing this stuff. Janine I will take your advice as I always do. It's just so hard but I really have no choice. I know that not focusing on this stuff may not make it better at the time but it sure doesn't make it worse. I'm glad your on this board always reminding us what to do, we need that constantly and you never seem to tire from doing it. I'm so glad that you care so much for us, the needy.

"it is VERy clear to me that some of the underlying problems that probably sourced your original anxiety have to do with your marriage, your family, your very conflicting feelings about wanting to be needed, your anger around not feeling loved but being terrified to ask for/expect more, and probably a ton of guilt around SOMEthing that you have a hard time facing"

I didn't realise that I was that obvious in my posts. You got all that about me from a few of my posts? I almost feel embarrassed. Yes, I have been thinking about hitting these other issues with some kind of depth therapy as that seems to be what has worked and is working for some on this board. Like I said my shrink is into CBT and I don't think he will go much into the unconscious. We do talk about some of my other problems and he did mention as long as they persist so will this state. I'll keep seeing him for a while longer but if I'm still at this stagnant point six months down the track I'll try someone else. The train does sound comforting but I'll miss my family and friends to much. I must keep going until I feel more of those moments where I'm in my skin and happy. I was just wondering when will you be opening up your practice in Sydney?

Thank you both for your posts. I'm so glad I found this board and the people on it. One big group hug!!

 

[Sojourner]

Milan,

Let me clarify something, if I might.

I don't think I am saying anything substantially different than Janine -- I thought that I was clear before, but I tend to ramble, so I probably wasn't.

You wrote: "Thank your Sojourner and Janine for your posts. Sojourner I was going to explore your post some more and give you my thoughts but I just read Janine's post and that changed my mind. What you wrote was very interesting but I can't go now searching the net for 'existential angst' as it will only worsen my condition."

Yes, perhaps that was not a good suggestion on my part. Maybe at sometime in the future when you are feeling like yourself, you can do that.

You went on:
"You also wrote about reaching this condition is some form of maturity - I don't know if this thinking is an indicator of maturity, my shrink read what I wrote above and called it scattered thinking and I must stop it."

I was trying to reassure you that the state into which you entered is not OF AND IN ITSELF deleterious to human happiness. Seeing certain aspects of reality is only scary because of what we bring to the experience at the moment -- like a very young child who may not be ready to watch that wonderful movie, "The Wizard of Oz." I was trying to say that I thought the experience of our contingency and the mystery of existence is a mature insight into the nature of life -- not that you should look on your fear-tinged experience as a good thing. The experience without the fear is not bad in and of itself -- that's what I wanted to say. I was trying to say that only its being accompanied by FEAR is bad. My bottom line, I thought, was the same as Janine's -- find out what's really bothering you. I'm sorry I didn't express that more clearly. Maybe sometime you can re-read my post and see what I am saying.

"Sojourner we share a lot of experiences and it's really nice to know I'm not the only one out there experiencing this stuff. Janine I will take your advice as I always do. It's just so hard but I really have no choice. I know that not focusing on this stuff may not make it better at the time but it sure doesn't make it worse. I'm glad your on this board always reminding us what to do, we need that constantly and you never seem to tire from doing it. I'm so glad that you care so much for us, the needy."

I hope you didn't read my comments to mean I was encouraging you to focus on the experience. I feel pretty strongly that I did not do so and instead -- and I thought, rather clearly suggested the opposite.

Mainly I was trying to reassure you that the "changes" you felt were in and of themselves normal human development. The only thing that's "bad" is the presence of fear.

I hope at least you will consider what I am saying: the experience itself is well-known -- our difficulty is that we often bring to it the things we are afraid of or that we are struggling with. That distorts the experience, which in and of itself tends to highlight our mysterious connection with all that is.

 

[yesemina]

Milan, I saw your post to me about how your DP state came from meditation as well, so I read your personal story. All I can say is WOW - I am SO happy to hear someone with a very similar problem to mine. In fact, I think it's probably near damn well my exact case - the same exact thoughts were running through my head.

I posted my personal story as well (under "My crazy experience with depersonalization") - so I won't go into detail about what happened on my part. But, I used meditation to pursue what was more important to me than anything in the world: freedom of mind. I thought meditation would help me to get to a state past my thoughts, and to preserve better clarity and purity of mind. I thought I would be meditating 2 hours a day at least for the rest of my life, if it all had worked out as planned.

Well, one of the things I noticed while I was all out-of-bodied out (lol), was that well, I still had my thoughts, and even while I was in this different state of being, my thoughts could still be impure and cause suffering. This gave me an onset of more fear in that there was an imbalance going on.

Well, there was. I couldn't enjoy the beauty of this state of being for long (although I did have my moments where I did, and at the time saw it as a source of great love), because my overactive mind got the best of me. I feel like it was an honest mistake though: that I was trying to control my mind and get past my thoughts. It's like I went too far when trying to find freedom of my own mind.

Meanwhile, I learned that no matter what, my thoughts have to be kept in balance - not controlled, but managed in such a way that they let my spirit shine through. I started to understand the balance... I felt that in my beginning years I delved too much into the material reality, then just recently too much into the "inner reality" or spiritual reality - whatever it is called, neither times ever having freedom from my own mind. It's sort of like now I have to play a match-up game with my thoughts and spirit/higher consciousness - to make sure they are all in harmony.

Also, I CONTINUALLY have felt my awareness as sort of this tunnel perception and that I need to open up and understand things with more clarity. That is something I have felt for so long.

Meanwhile I have definitely figured out that it is the fear itself that is the problem: the meditation/DP experience was actually okay - great at times, the anxiety and fear and obsessive thoughts made this into a big problem. But, I also felt intuitively at the time that I was feeling all this that I was playing with fire - and well, I was; the experience was something I couldn't handle. Too bad. I did come away with some good insights - in particular this one realization of the inherent KNOWING that I would have to be careful in life because i would get caught up with identities and ideas of what things were (including ideas of who I was) and none of it was real, but the way the knowledge came to me it felt like I knew it from wayy back - it was like sort of a forewarning to myself. Maybe it felt like it was me from way back only because of the way I am accustomed to perceiving time, but was in reality just a part of me I don't normally tap into in my daily life, so deeply buried inside that I felt that finally coming into conscious access with it felt as though I knew it from a long time ago. I also would look at a person and in an instant come to the realization that their true nature of existence was all contained in their very being. Today I experienced something similar, when my mom came home from a camping trip I realized that she was just BEING, and this was so fascinating to me that I wanted to say "Mom, you are just BEING right now," because of how amazing that is still to me. Lol. It also helps to purify the mind of ideas of what is or isn't reality for me - what IS, is contained in its very being, not the ideas/conceptions of what it is. Duh. This might seem like common sense to some people, but it goes a long way when realizing how much of our perception is affected by ideas and illusions that we hold towards things: not seeing them for what they are. The feeling of experiencing and seeing someone as just BEING is still very fascinating to me.

Anyhow, I have gone on forever now - but I couldn't help it, it feels so good to be able to identify this with others. Thank you for sharing your story, and to Sojourner and Janine for helping out - definitely helped me as well.