Depersonalization/Derealization anxiety episode after emptiness insight.

[AJBrew]

There's an insight I had a couple weeks ago where I realized or felt that everything was space or emptiness. This insight was a bit too much for me to handle and I froze for a couple seconds. The next day I felt detached from the present and my body. I noticed part of my attention was on whats in front of me and the other half of my attention felt like it was in the back of my head. I did further research on this and talked it over with my PCP as well and its seems to be a potential Depersonalization/Derealization episode triggered by intense anxiety. The following days to weeks I noticed I was detached from my body and my surroundings, I recognized the same environments I've been in for years but they felt unfamiliar even though I was able to recognize them. It felt like I was living up in my head and my psyche was trying hard to resist the present moment so I practiced grounding meditation and feeling into presence which helped quite a bit on-top of hot showers. I also noticed that focusing on tasks like work and socializing brought me tremendous relief as well, I was extremely sensitive to the point of feeling overwhelmed by the littlest things and haven't been this sensitive to anxiety since I was a child.

There was a point I was in the shower and my psyche was strongly resisting "what was" or simply resisting this reality or this life itself, I then tried to focus on the present as deeply as I could with compassion and this seemed to have resolved this. I had this lasting dissociative episode for about three weeks were I was hyper aware of my environments and my body (even though I was dissociated at the same time) to the point where I was able to hear and sense things in my body that I've never been so intensely attuned to before. Resting on the couch with my cats, watching shows and playing some lighthearted video games after work seemed to help this episode, hot showers and sleep were definitely the most effective as speeding up the recovery from this episode as well.

 

I'm posting this in-case someone else has had a similar experience to receiving insights that were too intense for their current state of consciousness and have had their nervous system burn out like in this instance. Any advice or feedback on this would be greatly appreciated as well as this seemed to have lasted three weeks but I seem to be back at baseline now thankfully. 

Edited 18 hours ago by AJBrew

[Judy2]

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

 I noticed part of my attention was on whats in front of me and the other half of my attention felt like it was in the back of my head.

yes, sounds familiar. that's depersonalisation/derealisation. 

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

 I did further research on this and talked it over with my PCP as well and its seems to be a potential Depersonalization/Derealization episode triggered by intense anxiety. 

it can also be vice versa: depersonalisation/derealisation can trigger anxiety because it's a very odd, intimidating state. i experienced a pretty intense panic attack last year during dissociation. 

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

I recognized the same environments I've been in for years but they felt unfamiliar even though I was able to recognize them. 

yes! that one also feels very familiar. it's like the state warps even familiar environments into something structurally different.

1 hour ago, AJBrew said:

. It felt like I was living up in my head and my psyche was trying hard to resist the present moment so I practiced grounding meditation and feeling into presence which helped quite a bit on-top of hot showers. I also noticed that focusing on tasks like work and socializing brought me tremendous relief as well

yes, very good! 

hot/cold showers, ice cubes, physical exercise, using your senses to ground yourself. 

 

i would also describe any type of dissociation as the ego's attempt to "go into hiding" and, indeed, dissociate from the physical, emotional, and mental attributes it usually attaches to. typically, it's a reaction to help you deal with overwhelming circumstances or when responsibilities feel like they are too much for YOU to handle....so you almost take a step back and pretend like you're not even there anymore, or not personally involved. it's a stress-response, typically reserved for traumatic events. once this pathway has been activated, though, the activation threshold has been lowered, so it can keep getting activated more often without proper reason for it/can even become an unhealthy coping mechanism for some and an obstacle to successful psychotherapy, because intense emotions cannot be accessed, felt, or worked with.  

from what you describe, it sounds like you have also come to recognise the confusing aspect of how dissociation borders on the spiritual, but it can equally be driven by a lot of fear despite resembling an experience of no-self. personally, i found it hard to navigate this confusion as the dissociation was felt so spiritual and very addictive, and it was tough to let it go.

 

three weeks sounds exhausting, though. how are you doing now?

Edited 17 hours ago by Judy2

[PolyPeter]

I had something very similar happen. It's like becoming present about being present in the room, almost becoming the room itself, awareness becoming aware of itself, and then the nervous system panicking because nothing in ordinary life prepares you for that. It took me years of questioning what it was, and also I've talked about this in a therapeutic environment, and the diagnosis was "stress-induced dissociation / depersonalisation / derealisation."

The symptom was the resistance to the insight, not the insight itself.

You figured this out in the shower when surrendering. That's the whole move.
 

As awareness increases it goes beyond what the current ego structure allows. If it expands too much too fast the ego will feel pain, and that pain often shows up as dissociation.

Just curious, have you been practicing any awareness expanding practices by any chance?

[Cred]

I'm calling this "the void". I described it in this post:

Quote

A space that looses both unity and duality dissolves and becomes the void. 

This is the ultimate risk of neither unity nor duality, neither infinite being nor finite being which is nirvana. The void is a state of apathy, depression, and nihilism. It is devoid of both life and love. It is a loss of will and the ambivalence of death. The void is the dark night of the soul.

Quote

The acceptance of the void will enable one to engage in non-action and therefore reach emptiness and end suffering.

Quote

In horror [...] The void manifests as the loss of will, apathy and nihilism.

Quote

depictions of the void in art and literature

• No longer Human—Osamu Dazai
• The Stranger—Albert Camus
• Crime and Punishment—Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Anything from the band Nirvana

Quote

This is a pretty good contender for the best void music. It is pretty well known (it gets worse and worse):

Edited 16 hours ago by Cred

[AJBrew]

5 hours ago, Judy2 said:

i would also describe any type of dissociation as the ego's attempt to "go into hiding" and, indeed, dissociate from the physical, emotional, and mental attributes it usually attaches to.

This is a perfect way to summarize what the ego was doing and I'm sorry to hear you had a similar experience. How did you manage and heal from this if you don't mind me asking?

I feel fine and at baseline now, back in my body and in the environment. I still notice a heightened sense of anxiety that's only brought up through worry or being exposed to overstimulating things so im cutting out caffeine for a while now. I should have mentioned I was drinking matcha and green tea everyday for months but I barely think that's enough caffeine to trigger something like this.

This experience also provided some positives too which is odd. I've felt more socially open and less anxious talking to anyone now and I noticed feeling less judgement towards myself and others which is so interesting. It's almost like the ego had to re-calibrate or something.

Edited 12 hours ago by AJBrew

[AJBrew]

4 hours ago, PolyPeter said:

The symptom was the resistance to the insight, not the insight itself.

You figured this out in the shower when surrendering. That's the whole move.
 

As awareness increases it goes beyond what the current ego structure allows. If it expands too much too fast the ego will feel pain, and that pain often shows up as dissociation.

Just curious, have you been practicing any awareness expanding practices by any chance?

I'm sorry to hear you went through a similar experience. How did you recover and heal from this if you don't mind me asking?

Exactly, I noticed my resistance was the whole issue but my ego just wasn't ready and it felt like getting ready to drop on a roller coaster. 

It's crazy you mentioned that because yes I was practicing raising my awareness in my meditations the past couple months. Should I do it every couple of days instead of everyday or just do grounding mediation for now? 

Edited 12 hours ago by AJBrew

[AJBrew]

4 hours ago, Cred said:

I'm calling this "the void". I described it in this post:

Oh geez man, I don't know if that's helping lol. Based on what you showed I question some of those beliefs and theory as it looks like they involve suffering and fractured ego. This was more luminous than anything (in the moment).

Edited 12 hours ago by AJBrew

[PolyPeter]

3 hours ago, AJBrew said:

I'm sorry to hear you went through a similar experience. How did you recover and heal from this if you don't mind me asking?

thanks for the kind words. It's been a loooong time since I last had an experience of the kind. 

My recovery process involved doubling down on meditation practices, and connecting with life in different manners.

Also recontextualizing that this episodes of derealisation have no evil quality to themselves, rather, the fear I felt was not the usual "there is a bear coming" fear, it was more like "I've never had this experience in my life, I don't know what it is, and I don't feel particulary good about this"

More like a fear of the unknown

The thing that helped me the most was just focusing on expanding my baseline consciousness

 

There was a breaking point though, i think it is worth mentioning

practicing meditation everyday, is good

but try to build up momentum to the point where you can meditate for at least 40 entire minutes without getting bothered

 

A deeper sense of I AM will prevail

just be that

and keep practicing that

 

what it did for me was not that it eliminated the episodes from happening in the future, but it allowed me to understand them, by what they actually are.

 

Consciousness can focus on anything. If you focus on how you are focusing too much, probably, you will do that in circumstances where you didn't initially thought about. Like, you can be cooking a meal, and then become conscious of the activity, then yourself, then the entire room, and even struggle to distinguish a thing from another, but also notice, there is ALWAYS awareness. Even during an episode. This awareness will forever remain untouched, since its You, the real You, not the human you. 

 

When you re-contextualize everthing as appearance, except awareness itself, then, any sort of appearance will be seen as such, appearance, it comes and goes

 

Maybe another thing that might help right now, is to try and ground yourself with some human things, in order to give yourself a break if you need it

[Hojo]

Thats you God/ seeing itself. Your conciousness or awareness is seeing itself and seeing that you arent your thoughts and you pointing to the bottomless pie of God.

Its what panic feels like. Its you waking up. This happen to me 1000s of times and I didnt know what was happening. Then one day I wake up and realize the panic was pointing at something. You are seeing you are not you.

Edited 3 hours ago by Hojo

[Osaid]

16 hours ago, AJBrew said:

I also noticed that focusing on tasks like work and socializing brought me tremendous relief as well

These are "grounding" activities. (they are about what is present or real)

It probably also created a kind of flow state. It's hard to think about yourself when you're focused on what is present, like friends and work.

Similar things are making jokes (humor) or really just focusing on anything that is directly perceived (like the breath). Even basic actions like drinking water or eating food are grounding, because they are real.

16 hours ago, AJBrew said:

There was a point I was in the shower and my psyche was strongly resisting "what was" or simply resisting this reality or this life itself, I then tried to focus on the present as deeply as I could with compassion and this seemed to have resolved this.

Beautiful, the present (truth) sets you free. Truth can also be non-resistance, or "surrender".

I think you're already good. Try some guided meditations on Youtube if you haven't tried them. They should be relaxing, like exiting the shower. Also pay attention to how emotions and feelings change based on what you focus on, that is also insightful.

Nothing is wrong with you, nothing about you has really changed. “The unreal never was and the real never ceases to be".

Edited 1 hour ago by Osaid

[Judy2]

11 hours ago, AJBrew said:

This is a perfect way to summarize what the ego was doing and I'm sorry to hear you had a similar experience. How did you manage and heal from this if you don't mind me asking?

I feel fine and at baseline now, back in my body and in the environment. I still notice a heightened sense of anxiety that's only brought up through worry or being exposed to overstimulating things so im cutting out caffeine for a while now. I should have mentioned I was drinking matcha and green tea everyday for months but I barely think that's enough caffeine to trigger something like this.

This experience also provided some positives too which is odd. I've felt more socially open and less anxious talking to anyone now and I noticed feeling less judgement towards myself and others which is so interesting. It's almost like the ego had to re-calibrate or something.

i don't really know how to answer your first question. all i can say is that everything leading up to and fuelling the dissociated state needs to be addressed, and emotional patterns or conflicts need to be confronted bit by bit (i think?). 

glad to hear you feel more normal again! cutting out caffeine is a good idea. i remember it had a strong impact on me back then, too. although a cup of green tea should be fine - it's mostly excessive consumption that's concerning. i was doing 2 litres of diet coke a day lol, and that definitely enhanced both dissociative symptoms and panic attacks. 

it's good to hear you are experiencing less self-judgement nowadays. self-compassion really is a nice thing to practise:) 

2 hours ago, Hojo said:

Thats you God/ seeing itself. Your conciousness or awareness is seeing itself and seeing that you arent your thoughts and you pointing to the bottomless pie of God.

Its what panic feels like. Its you waking up. This happen to me 1000s of times and I didnt know what was happening. Then one day I wake up and realize the panic was pointing at something. You are seeing you are not you.

i do think it is important to acknowledge that, alongside awakening, the above is definitely also reminiscent of a recognised psychiatric/psychosomatic symptom. there are potentially many different shades to this experience - some can be cathartic, others can be a result of trauma, and many are probably somewhere in between. it's critical not to oversimplify in this regard.

dissociation is not the same as a spiritual samadhi, but there are confusing overlaps. still, it's potentially dangerous to conflate these two, depending on who you are talking to. dissociation has a much more existential feel to it than other mental health symptoms, but it is also much more of a physiological symptom than spiritual awakening and it usually comes with a great deal of side-effects (impacted sensory perception, mobility, emotional function). 

Edited 48 minutes ago by Judy2