Have you ever had that feeling of being "outside" of yourself, like reality is a dream or illusion?

Yes op I’ve had it happen a few times too. It’s creepy as hell. I definitely believe our reality is a collective illusion we all take part in and sometimes we kind of skip out of that.

I have, OP.

I used to have frequent out of body experiences in bed while falling asleep. I've also had that "sleep paralysis" which is exhausting. I've also experienced anxiety-based "outside myself", the most recent while acting on a popular tv show. I knew my lines, but my usual anxiety managed to explode upon the word "Action!", and suddenly I was floating above myself just standing there, unable to pry my own mouth open, and spit out my lines while my mind raced. It was awful. I hope it never happens again.

I’ve experienced this in times of acute, almost unbearable stress.

Is it dissociation? I had this floaty feeling the other day, like a balloon that was about to float away. Didn't like it.

This is feeling is called disassociation.

During one part of my life, I was so stressed at work that I went across the street to pick up my lunch, then I couldn’t quite figure out how I’d ever get back to the office (just across the street.) I was just kind of frozen.

My daughter has this from time to time. In a weird way, I'm glad she's not alone. She's tried to explain it to me, but it's like nothing I've ever experienced. It's extremely stressful for her.

The only other sensation that is even remotely similar is deja vu. This isn't deja vu. It's creepier and stronger. That said, when I have feelings of deja vu, the way I experience it at least, I can swear that I had a dream about what is going on right then and there. I associate the two feelings because they both seem to prove that reality is entirely predetermined and there's not really any free will; consciousness is just a feeling of control that arises out of physical processes that are playing out on their own.

I have the same feeling with deja vu like it was a dream.

Yes. Sometimes but its when I’d dream about something that would happen in the near future. When those things do occur, it’s usually close enough in time that I recognize it from my dreams.

I told this before on another thread. As a young child I creeped my family out so I blocked it away. Once I saw a mother and son walking towards my mom and me on the street. The mother/ son pair had bloody head bandaged as if they were in the hospital. I asked my mom why they were walking around injured. My mom told me to stop making up stories. Later when we went home to my grandparents house (we were vacationing there) my grandparents said there was a bad auto accident in town which killed a mother and her son.

Two days before the TWA 800 crash, I had a premonition about plane crashing near NYC, where I was spending the summer in Queens with my aunt at the time. I even told my cousin about it. Then when the news broke about a plane crash, my cousin was so freaked out he avoided me for days.

R6, yes, that has happened to me too. I had this feeling once while driving and I felt like I'd forgotten how to drive and how I was supposed to get to where I was going. I had to consciously tell myself to press down on the gas pedal, turn the steering wheel, etc.

Since I was in high school, caused anxiety or was caused by anxiety severe enough to disrupt my studies.

I’ve had it happen at work a few times. Also at home when I was just relaxing.

yes, i have felt like that a couple of times, mostly when i am having major stress and anxiety. It's like seeing yourself on autopilot

For me, the feeling has only ever lasted a few minutes. Do some people feel like this all the time? I've read about people with long-term psychological issues that say they don't feel real, but I've always taken that as a metaphor, not as a literal disconnection between one's consciousness and the world.

Dissociation is not very common, but can happen for some folks from time to time. Most often it’s due to intense bouts of anxiety, PTSD, borderline personality disorder, psychosis, or depression (but only a small proportion of people with these issues), but some people just have it pop up once in a great while for no reason and it’s not necessarily a sign of mental illness. In those cases, a spiritual interpretation might be helpful rather than pathologizing it.

No, but thank you for asking.

I've had something similar, for as long as I can remember. I think it's called depersonalization. It's like you look at yourself, outside yourself. "This is me? This is who I am?" Luckily it doesn't happen very often and it only lasts for a few seconds. I was once interviewing a woman for a research project and she said she had to stop smoking pot because the same thing was happening to her.

OP, I've been struggling with this my whole life. I can tell you it has everything to do with anxiety...for which I've self-medicated with alcohol, benzos, pain killers, blow, and Adderall. Substances made it subside but unfortunately, it turned me into a walking addict. I'm 42 now and just learning to live drug/alcohol free and being ok with myself.

It feels like you're in a movie, that's how I originally thought to describe it decades ago when I first had the sensation.

That's great that you're making progress, R19, I wish the best for you. How long did the episodes of dissociation typically last for you, and how often would you have them?

It’s low blood sugar. Eat a candy bar.

I had 2 out of body experiences in my early 20s (apparently a popular time for them to happen) when i was falling asleep or asleep. it was the most incredible thing. They both happened within a day or 2 of each other. i was looking at my body on the bed, and looking around. Everything was sort of different looking...like "on fire" in a way. Moving seemed like i was swimming through something thick. it was really strange and not something i asked for. also didn't drink or drug back then, i was a young single mother going to school and had to keep my wits about me.

i'll never forget it.

R23, did that experience change your life in any deep way? Make you see reality differently? It's easy to paper over these experiences by telling yourself they were caused by some misfiring neurons.

I have had feelings of deja vu. A few times while walking on a street etc I am surrounded by the smell of a particular flower or a sense of being there before.

As long as most people pathologize these experiences or give physicalist explanations they will continue to be mislead. For some reason spirituality is the taboo these days.

r24 it affirmed to me what i already knew at a relatively young age - that we are more than just these bodies and we exist in a way that transcends and lasts. i tried to will it to happen again but it never did. i ended up studying extensively about out of body experiences and even corresponding with an expert in the field who wrote a few books (i honestly can't remember who, this was over 30 years ago). He did say that these experiences often happen to people in their early 20's, especially during times of extreme stress. That was totally me at that time of my life.

That said, i was never a close-minded person growing up, especially in the family i came from. i just never really thought it would happen to me and it's stuck with me this whole time. i was me - but not me at the same time.

I woke up thinking I had left the heat on. As I walked down the hall to turn it off my legs slowly rose as if I were in a pool. At that point at I realized my body was still in bed. I was gently pulled backwards until I "reconnected " with my physical self. I think it was caused by extreme stress as my dad was dying at the time.

r28 that's exactly how it felt to me, like i was wading full-body in water.

Never.

I read that deja vu is when there is a shift happening based on your karma

Yes. Dissociation once or twice from trauma in the past. But more interestingly at times where it feels like my soul has stepped outside of my body. Almost like astral projection. Where I am watching myself/life from a higher perspective. Which is scary but fascinating and a reminder that I guess that I am not my body, but consciousness. This has become very comforting in an odd way. Now I just embrace it.

Before we’re born, we’re shown about a dozen or so brilliantly rendered montages of the life we’re about to inhabit- important experiences, milestones or lessons.

When you have “deja vu”, you’re seeing the montage again.

ElderSage - YES. i've read extensively on that. i've had a lot of deja vu but i've never had specific memories of the things we're shown before we are "thrown down the chute" so to speak. "Journey of Souls" - Michael Newton.

Closest thing I've experienced to this would be sleep paralysis. I didn't even know that was a medical condition for the longest time. Strangely though, once I became aware of it I stopped having it. There would be times I was laying flat on my back in bed, but would suddenly get the sensation that I was walking and tripped, and was about to fall flat on my face, bracing for the impact.

Several months ago on my husband’s birthday, I decided to drive all three dogs down to the dog beach. When I opened the car door, one popped right out and ran across the street towards traffic. With both others in tow, I ran after him, slipped and fell on a patch of wet grass and got right up again and saw him dart under an 18 wheeler training the leash with him.

What happened next defies reality, because inside of a millisecond or so- I SAW and FELT all possible outcomes very clearly- like seeing facets turning on a diamond. I saw myself tearily telling my husband the dog was dead, I saw every other possibility- like strings emanating from the event- this has happened a handful of times in my life- where things could’ve gone one way- or another. It happened while I was talking with my half sister.

I yelled “NO”- a primal scream that no came from the bottom of my heart and from every dimension I inhabit. I don’t know if I lost consciousness or gained it- but the dog, with 6 feet of leash trailing behind him, managed to pop out the other side of the rolling truck untouched. Not just untouched, but as though something with the timing was altered. It was like someone spliced a reel of film and changed or shifted the outcome. The shift was ever so slight, and if you had blinked you’d miss it. The universe realigned itself to assert a different result.

I’ve always believed in Higher Power and that there are laws about reality and the universe that we don’t understand completely. I’ve also had experiences and understanding that something happened that day I cannot fully explain.

i know that the OP was asking about something a bit different, but there have been many documented experiences when people have been disassociated from themselves and experienced several things that couldn't be experienced.. i know it's not exactly what you are thinking but it has a lot of relatively. Some recounts are very good. Some are out there.

[quote]R36: I yelled “NO”- a primal scream that no came from the bottom of my heart and from every dimension I inhabit.

MARY!

I've experienced derealization. From what I've read it's different from depersonalization, which is a disconnection from yourself, whereas derealization feels like the world around you isn't real.

It's a scary feeling in the moment, or it can be. Physically, it's kind of like when you get dizzy after you suddenly stand up and you feel like you might pass out. When the feeling of dissociation first strikes, it feels like your consciousness has become untethered from your body and might float away. But if you're in a safe place, and especially after the episode has passed, you come to see it as a positive experience, or at least I have. I think it was Stephen King who once said that the horror genre is philosophically optimistic because for all its terrifying aspects it fundamentally presupposes that there is something there after we die. Dissociation is terrifying when it strikes but it makes you see reality more clearly afterwards.

I had it happen for around 40 minutes once but that was the longest. Luckily I was at home.

What some people are describing isn’t dissociation/depersonalization but a more spiritual experience, while some are experiencing classic dissociation due to anxiety, grief, drug use, etc. Deja Vu and OBEs are more on the spiritual side, as is astral projection.

R36, something similar has happened a few times in near traffic-accidents where it seems that time altered to allow my car through--this may be just a trick of the mind. When I was younger (my dad taught me to drive and died a few months later when I was 16), I've felt my dad helped me avoid an accident.