depersonalization??

[thenoob]

lately I am finding myself falling more and more into depersonalization, where you basically feel you aren't alive and life is a dream. Does this have anything to do with spritual progress? I have a theory that it means my mind is preparing for the next stage of expansion and detaching itself from my body... yesterday was especially disturbing I felt sooo unreal like watching your life through a movie screen

[MisterJingo]

lately I am finding myself falling more and more into depersonalization, where you basically feel you aren't alive and life is a dream. Does this have anything to do with spritual progress? I have a theory that it means my mind is preparing for the next stage of expansion and detaching itself from my body... yesterday was especially disturbing I felt sooo unreal like watching your life through a movie screen

Hey thenoob,

Depersonalisation (DP) is usually a warning sign that you need to cut back a bit on spiritual activities and take time to ground yourself in 'mundane' reality. I've suffered from severe DP in the past (and 11 years on it comes and goes to varying degrees), and it can keep increasing until it is incapacitating unless you make a concerted effort to stop it.
Something that a lot of people don't understand is that most spiritual practices (meditation, energy work, obe practice etc) can have negative side effects. What we are fundamentally doing with these practices is changing brain function over time. Where drugs (mainly psychoactive ones) can cause radical changes quickly, the practices mentioned above (and related ones) can cause equally profound changes slowly over time. But the changes through such practices can be very long lasting.
When ever you feel 'out of it' or feel depersonalisation / derealisation it's always best to take a break, do things which connect you with reality, and then get back to it when you feel grounded. We have our whole lifetime to practice these things but rushing too fast and becoming disconnected from reality can cause some serious problems.

[lady of the ring]

cool - finally! an answer for what I seem to be going thru
the problem is i am having difficulty getting back "on track" - i know this might sound strange, but i know where I have to be and what I am here to do, but something (myself maybe) blocking me.


Namaste

[The Present Moment]

You need to be able to function in physical reality. Take a hiatus from whatever practices you are doing if you believe they are causing this.

[thenoob]

yes it is very frightening it feels like your mind is going to get lost to sea

but a part of me is a little bit tempted by this, for some reason I feel as though it means I am doing something 'right' spiritually... like an unplesant side effect of progress is still progress, which is good. It's a strange thing to say but I might want to see 'how deep the hole goes' is it really possible to lose your mind like this?

[MisterJingo]

yes it is very frightening it feels like your mind is going to get lost to sea

but a part of me is a little bit tempted by this, for some reason I feel as though it means I am doing something 'right' spiritually... like an unplesant side effect of progress is still progress, which is good. It's a strange thing to say but I might want to see 'how deep the hole goes' is it really possible to lose your mind like this?

I think it could lead into deep depression and quite severe anxiety. When I was really deep in it, my head felt fuzzy, it really did feel like I was watching my life on a movie screen from 100 miles away (very hard to explain – but I think it has something to do with tunnel vision brought on by the DP) and even familiar things became alien. Such as we build up emotional prints of day to day objects, and even days, for example Sundays have a specific feel, doing certain activities evoke a specific feel etc. My DP washed all this away. To show the extremes of it, looking at my hands was just scary, it was hard to comprehend how they 'connected' to me. They just seemed so far away and alien.
10+ years on I go through phases of it still, but I'm used to it now and it is nowhere as severe as before.
If you do want to go with this, just be very careful as eventually it will stifle any spiritual progress and replace it with more negative fear based emotions.

[MisterJingo]

last year I tried to put the experience of DP into a poem:

Sometimes
the world seems to spin too fast
as it screams past my mind, in
an increasingly uncomprehensible pattern
of waves and streaks, and
regardless, of attempts
to chain my mind down,
i still get thrown off, tossed into orbit
falling over myself into blackness
and a birdseye view of my distant life.
removed from my daily chores, and
seeing through a fog of increasing irreality
my fellow companions seem to merge
into this dream, as depersonalisation
descends like cloudy lenses, foisted
over eyes and mind.
bemused smile beams, through cracked mind
to see my own hands
held before my (not) face,
in the third person – from an unfathomable distance
as
cotton wool packs my brain

[Hannah b]

Being well grounded - The best way to survive on this planet. Get well grounded and then you can fly as high as you want, and no harm will be done...

[Derik]

I don't see it as a bad thing, I'm intrigued by it. I try to foster it as much as I can, it seems like a good thing to me, you are lucky if you experience this.

Don't be afraid of it.

[Stookie]

I don't see it as a bad thing, I'm intrigued by it. I try to foster it as much as I can, it seems like a good thing to me, you are lucky if you experience this.

Don't be afraid of it.

Meditative or trance-like states should not spill over into everyday life. If anything, spiritual practice should make you more cognitive and aware of yourself, your body, your thoughts, and your environment. Reality should become more "alive", not distant.

[The Present Moment]

Such as we build up emotional prints of day to day objects, and even days, for example Sundays have a specific feel, doing certain activities evoke a specific feel etc.

I was never able to find a word for that. It's like the perceptual function of emotion.