Owledge

Dissociative experience without taking anything

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I think I had some kind of dissociative experience without taking anything that could cause that.

 

I had an annoying experience that made me angry and then tired, so I didn't feel like doing anything. I just wanted to take a nap, so I lied down on the bed, on the side, head on one arm.

 

I fell asleep and woke up later and turned around to the other side. Apparently I went back to sleep quickly. I have to mention that I tend to experience more active dreaming after a 'wakeup phase', when going back to sleep after having been awake for a minute.

I had some of the usual confused, mixed images you tend to get in dreams. Stuff that doesn't fit together properly.

At some point, I'm mot exactly sure what happened first, but eventually I opened my eyes and saw the pillow my head was lying on, just like waking up, but the problem was that all my bodily sensations weren't there, but in the confusing dream world.

Like, I went from the living room to the staircase and noticed I had forgotten to turn the water off in the shower I assumed I had taken earlier. But the shower was in the staircase, so as I said, the usual dream stuff. I then tried to turn off the water in the shower, which took several attempts, using proper force to turn the knobs, and I could feel my hands on the knobs and the water on my skin and my wet hair, and at the same time I kept opening my eyes and saw my room, the pillow.

I then tried to get up or wake up or whatever, to get back into that world, but I couldn't feel it. My bodily sensations (when I say this I guess I mean mostly my touch) were now fading from the dream world, but still nowhere to be found in this world. Somewhen during that part, there was a few seconds where a slight ringing in my ears got louder when I wasn't sure which of the two worlds was real or if any of the two was real, since I couldn't get my sense of touch into the eyesight world and the eyesight in the touch world was getting very vague and sporadic. Well, it's more like a mindsight in the dreamworld. The usual imagery you get in dreams that doesn't seem to be entering through the eyes.

I tried to focus more on the eyesight world, though (probably fueled by that part of me that is anchored in this reality), and it was difficult. Now eyesight world was there all the time and dream world only a faint remnant in the background, and my touch was somewhere in-between both worlds, because I started to move my arm and couldn't feel the pillow or anything. I kept moving my arms, I started to find some solid matter. Eventually it felt like I could turn around with some effort, my body still very much paralyzed, and my hands touched something that I think must have been the table next to the bed, and that more and more anchored me, but this was still not eyesight world. Only through these efforts at grabbing onto something, the 'lost part' of me moved closer to eyesight world, and eventually, and only at a certain moment, not before that in any way, I could actually begin to move and turn around and get up - that which I had done according to my sense of touch a moment ago. This process was kind of a vague transition. I can't remember the actual moment where I could move my body again, but I remember eventually being able to. I was fully awake now and could move again normally.

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I haven't had that intense or prolonged but it's happened. I don't know enough about neurology (or what practices you're doing) to say more. But I'd do a check in with a teacher if I had one. I suppose if it's uncontrollable there's a preference for making it controllable. The dream yoga people ought to be able to give more precise information, it's their field.

 

Edit: Look also at hypnogogic state research and sleep research. Sleep paralysis and neural proximity (what causes synesthesia apparently but who knows?) I'd also cut back on practice for a while, but that's just me.

Edited by -K-

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I have no idea how to answer that question. You are too vague for me to understand.

Edited by Owledge

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*double post deleted*

 

Neat post. You should keep a journal on tao bums and migrate this post there.

 

As for the sleep stuff, you might need to calm your shen more so you have more peaceful sleep. If you're going into REM right after waking, something is wrong with your sleep cycles. Of course, I am not a doctor, but you should check it. *disclaimer*

 

Have you been staying up all night or taking medications that will change your sleep? Talk to a doctor about it.

 

From an energy perspective, you should protect yourself more. I'm no expert, but I know when I'm tired, crap happens in my sleep too. Don't be so scattered. Cut the coffee. Keep a regular bedtime. My two cents. :)

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Frm people's accounts of those experiences, I always thought sleep paralysis is only when you really feel like your body is paralyzed ... for which you'd have to have a tactile sense - to feel your body. In my case, there wasn't even the question of body paralysis, because I wasn't completely there. When I tried to move my arm, I didn't feel like "Darn! I can't move my arm!", but I could move it in the somewhat dreamy world. I could manifest my intention to move my arm and I could perceive it moving somewhere ... like in a dream. That difference - if it's not just people using a bad way of describing it - might be why I didn't feel like panicking. I wasn't incapacitated. When you're in the dream world, you don't miss the ability to move your real body. The dream is real while dreaming.

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Frm people's accounts of those experiences, I always thought sleep paralysis is only when you really feel like your body is paralyzed ... for which you'd have to have a tactile sense - to feel your body. In my case, there wasn't even the question of body paralysis, because I wasn't completely there. When I tried to move my arm, I didn't feel like "Darn! I can't move my arm!", but I could move it in the somewhat dreamy world. I could manifest my intention to move my arm and I could perceive it moving somewhere ... like in a dream. That difference - if it's not just people using a bad way of describing it - might be why I didn't feel like panicking. I wasn't incapacitated. When you're in the dream world, you don't miss the ability to move your real body. The dream is real while dreaming.

Hi Oweldge.

 

I have experienced both of these things, and have even had mornings when I was cycling between them. So I see them as different manifestations of the same phenomena, probably something to do with shen.

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Frm people's accounts of those experiences, I always thought sleep paralysis is only when you really feel like your body is paralyzed ... for which you'd have to have a tactile sense - to feel your body. In my case, there wasn't even the question of body paralysis, because I wasn't completely there. When I tried to move my arm, I didn't feel like "Darn! I can't move my arm!", but I could move it in the somewhat dreamy world. I could manifest my intention to move my arm and I could perceive it moving somewhere ... like in a dream. That difference - if it's not just people using a bad way of describing it - might be why I didn't feel like panicking. I wasn't incapacitated. When you're in the dream world, you don't miss the ability to move your real body. The dream is real while dreaming.

 

Hello owledge,

 

This is a common experience. I've experienced similar things before, it most often occurs while someone is falling asleep, when there can be confusion regarding whether one is awake or asleep. You obviously experienced that confusion. One method of inducing dream yoga is actually to try to fall asleep while maintaining conscious awareness, the transition results often in one finding themselves within their dream, knowing that they are dreaming.

 

My own tribulations with lucid dreaming is that, even though I know that I'm dreaming, I still can't control the dream world, as in change the landscape and such, but then again, it's more fun when you don't know what's going to happen, isn't it?

 

Long story short, nothing to worry about. If you're practicing dream yoga, then just consider this a step towards improving your awareness of your dream state.

 

Aaron

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