Do You Disassociate Or Experience Derealisation?

[Daydreamer]

I do. For different reasons. Usually happens when I'm feeling overwhelmed. The main two experiences that can lead to this are moments of intense emotion, or too much sensory information.

When I become overwhelmed for sensory reasons, things start to feel less real. I begin to feel disorientated, almost light-headed even. As if I'm fading in and out of reality. I have a tendency to start swaying uncomfortably when this happens, sometimes unintentionally.

The noise around me stops being coherent, if someone speaks to me when I'm going through this I can't understand them because it doesn't fully register. It no longer sounds like English. "Hey, are you alright?" ends up coming across as "e, ar ligh?" and I can't seem to respond either. It's as if I've temporarily forgotten how to speak for a moment. The whole experience feels strange and I feel like I'm just on the verge of waking up.

I become exhausted for seemingly no reason. My fight or flight kicks in, except it only gives me the flight option. If I leave, I can recover somewhere peaceful and quiet.

However, if I don't then things only become more odd and I seem to disconnect completely for a moment that feels like it exists outside of time itself.

So I focus on one detail before acknowledging the others gradually, this seems to drag me back to reality. I've never experienced what would happen if I didn't use this technique and stayed in the situation. Frankly, the idea of letting it play out like that partially terrifies me. However, surely I'd come back into feeling like I was back in reality eventually...right?

 

[Bolletje]

Yup, happens to me too.

 

[JDShredds]

Yes. I am intimately familiar with that experience.

 

[Fino]

Yep!

 

[Edward764]

Yes, I often feel like I live in a parallel universe with a dream like atmosphere, and I am the only person in this universe

 

[Mllry]

I've definitely experienced this a lot before, or at least something really similar. It happened to me almost all the time when I was a teen, to a point where I would almost consider it to be my 'default' state. But now it mostly happens when I'm extremely stressed or exhausted.

It's like the entire world around me becomes blurry and distant, like I'm in a dream. I can still perceive everything that's going on around me, but it's overwhelming and chaotic, and I don't even have the 'will' or 'energy' to talk or interact at all. I feel like I'm 'stuck' inside my own head while my body goes on auto-pilot, and it's not really 'me'.

 

[Progster]

I get this in situations of contrast - I go from being in a very quiet or dark place to a bright or noisy one - such as going into the supermarket at night, or coming out of the cinema during the day.

 

[luna88]

yes this has been happened to me a lot more lately because of a traumatizing social experience. i've learned from my therapist that contenting to my senses will help to bring me back to the present moment so i'm working on that but it's a challenge when i never really feel safe in my body...which leads me to getting stuck in my head.

 

[grommet]

I do. For different reasons. Usually happens when I'm feeling overwhelmed. The main two experiences that can lead to this are moments of intense emotion, or too much sensory information.

When I become overwhelmed for sensory reasons, things start to feel less real. I begin to feel disorientated, almost light-headed even. As if I'm fading in and out of reality. I have a tendency to start swaying uncomfortably when this happens, sometimes unintentionally.

The noise around me stops being coherent, if someone speaks to me when I'm going through this I can't understand them because it doesn't fully register. It no longer sounds like English. "Hey, are you alright?" ends up coming across as "e, ar ligh?" and I can't seem to respond either. It's as if I've temporarily forgotten how to speak for a moment. The whole experience feels strange and I feel like I'm just on the verge of waking up.

I become exhausted for seemingly no reason. My fight or flight kicks in, except it only gives me the flight option. If I leave, I can recover somewhere peaceful and quiet.

However, if I don't then things only become more odd and I seem to disconnect completely for a moment that feels like it exists outside of time itself.

So I focus on one detail before acknowledging the others gradually, this seems to drag me back to reality. I've never experienced what would happen if I didn't use this technique and stayed in the situation. Frankly, the idea of letting it play out like that partially terrifies me. However, surely I'd come back into feeling like I was back in reality eventually...right?

Thank you for mentioning this. It used to happen to me very badly when I was younger. Very frightening. I am unhappy this happens to other people too but I am relieved to find out it is not only me. I also have the experience that when I am overwhelmed sometimes I can't move, it's like a paralysis. There's nothing I can do until it passes.