Do you exist?
June 23, 2019 10:09 PM Subscribe
I sometimes get this nagging feeling that I'm the only person who really exists. Am I alone (in thinking this way)?
I get this strange feeling sometimes and I'm curious if others experience it - I've casually searched around but unexpectedly can't find any disorder/condition/whatever that mirrors it. Basically, every so often I'll get hit with a weird discomfort over existing. It's a feeling of thinking I'm the only person who actually exists and that the universe was set up for me to exist in. There's also a feeling that I'm being observed in some way or otherwise expected or destined to play some particular role. Actually, this isn't so much a real feeling of some kind of presence, but a feeling that this is an explanation for why I exist. Maybe a bit of it is a struggle with the question of why I'm conscious or why I'm experiencing consciousness. I'm struggling just to put the feeling into words.
For what it's worth, I'd consider myself agnostic and not spiritual. I have a high level of social anxiety and am frequently depressed.
I'm wondering if this thing I'm describing has a name that I can read more about? Are there others who've felt/experienced something similar?
I get this strange feeling sometimes and I'm curious if others experience it - I've casually searched around but unexpectedly can't find any disorder/condition/whatever that mirrors it. Basically, every so often I'll get hit with a weird discomfort over existing. It's a feeling of thinking I'm the only person who actually exists and that the universe was set up for me to exist in. There's also a feeling that I'm being observed in some way or otherwise expected or destined to play some particular role. Actually, this isn't so much a real feeling of some kind of presence, but a feeling that this is an explanation for why I exist. Maybe a bit of it is a struggle with the question of why I'm conscious or why I'm experiencing consciousness. I'm struggling just to put the feeling into words.
For what it's worth, I'd consider myself agnostic and not spiritual. I have a high level of social anxiety and am frequently depressed.
I'm wondering if this thing I'm describing has a name that I can read more about? Are there others who've felt/experienced something similar?
See also philosophical zombies, in case you're wondering what all the other 'people' might be (apart from you and me, obviously!)
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 10:37 PM on June 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 10:37 PM on June 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm the only person who really exists
the universe was set up for me to exist in
I'm being observed in some way
expected or destined to play some particular role
How often do these feelings happen? Are they happening relatively recently or have you always remembered feeling this way?
Have you ever in your life experienced something like "sonder," which is described as "the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it"?
posted by erst at 11:02 PM on June 23, 2019 [13 favorites]
the universe was set up for me to exist in
I'm being observed in some way
expected or destined to play some particular role
How often do these feelings happen? Are they happening relatively recently or have you always remembered feeling this way?
Have you ever in your life experienced something like "sonder," which is described as "the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it"?
posted by erst at 11:02 PM on June 23, 2019 [13 favorites]
I am not a doctor or therapist.
You're certainly not alone in thinking about things like this, but I'm worried about your "feeling that I'm being observed in some way or otherwise expected or destined to play some particular role". These feelings can sometimes be characteristic of mental illness. I don't know whether you presently discuss things with a therapist or mental health professional, but you should raise these issues with them if you do. Otherwise, I hope you are able to discuss this with a friend who can advise you if these feelings seem to be affecting you negatively. In any event, if you find these thoughts are intrusive or controlling you should certainly seek mental health advice.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:42 PM on June 23, 2019 [15 favorites]
You're certainly not alone in thinking about things like this, but I'm worried about your "feeling that I'm being observed in some way or otherwise expected or destined to play some particular role". These feelings can sometimes be characteristic of mental illness. I don't know whether you presently discuss things with a therapist or mental health professional, but you should raise these issues with them if you do. Otherwise, I hope you are able to discuss this with a friend who can advise you if these feelings seem to be affecting you negatively. In any event, if you find these thoughts are intrusive or controlling you should certainly seek mental health advice.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:42 PM on June 23, 2019 [15 favorites]
It sounds like derealization (feeling that other people and things in the world around you are unreal), which can be part of a dissociative disorder.
posted by wintersweet at 12:06 AM on June 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by wintersweet at 12:06 AM on June 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
this isn't so much a real feeling of some kind of presence, but a feeling that this is an explanation for why I exist. Maybe a bit of it is a struggle with the question of why I'm conscious or why I'm experiencing consciousness. I'm struggling just to put the feeling into words.
This is what it feels like to bump accidentally into a Big Question.
The weird thing about Big Questions is that all of them have simple, obvious, trivial answers that are deeply unsatisfying because they don't feel anywhere near as Big as the questions do. For example the Big Question of "am I the only consciousness in existence" has the simple, obvious and trivial answer No.
But because the Question feels so Big, the simplicity and directness of that answer feels very dubious; surely there must be something I've missed here? From which feeling follows loads and loads and loads of self-important musings, most frequently generated by men around the age of thirty, that somehow manage to get themselves Taken Very Seriously by People Who Know Better and filed under Philosophy.
A great deal of philosophy is tremendously useful and well worth the time it takes to get amongst. But before getting seriously stuck into it, ground yourself with Stuart Chase's The Tyranny of Words, first published in 1938; this vital though imperfect work will help you sort the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff and so forth.
As somebody who went mad for a while and then got better, my best advice to you is that feelings about Big Questions that can't ever be put clearly into words ought to remain just that: feelings. Feelings are for sitting with and experiencing, not for drawing conclusions from. The feeling of understanding a thing deeply and perfectly is not the same thing as actually understanding it to the extent of being able to explain it clearly to somebody else, and it's important to avoid falling into the trap of mistaking the former for the latter. That way lies psychosis.
As for explanations as to why you exist: I would encourage you to pursue the question of what kind of explanation would satisfy you, and give careful consideration to the idea that causality is perhaps not as universally applicable an organizing principle as most of us generally seem to assume that it is. Many things, it seems to me, are as they are for no discernible reason at all, and making up just-so stories about why they are as they are merely feels like an advance in understanding. Ignorance, as long as it isn't wilful ignorance, should always be acceptable.
posted by flabdablet at 12:11 AM on June 24, 2019 [27 favorites]
This is what it feels like to bump accidentally into a Big Question.
The weird thing about Big Questions is that all of them have simple, obvious, trivial answers that are deeply unsatisfying because they don't feel anywhere near as Big as the questions do. For example the Big Question of "am I the only consciousness in existence" has the simple, obvious and trivial answer No.
But because the Question feels so Big, the simplicity and directness of that answer feels very dubious; surely there must be something I've missed here? From which feeling follows loads and loads and loads of self-important musings, most frequently generated by men around the age of thirty, that somehow manage to get themselves Taken Very Seriously by People Who Know Better and filed under Philosophy.
A great deal of philosophy is tremendously useful and well worth the time it takes to get amongst. But before getting seriously stuck into it, ground yourself with Stuart Chase's The Tyranny of Words, first published in 1938; this vital though imperfect work will help you sort the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff and so forth.
As somebody who went mad for a while and then got better, my best advice to you is that feelings about Big Questions that can't ever be put clearly into words ought to remain just that: feelings. Feelings are for sitting with and experiencing, not for drawing conclusions from. The feeling of understanding a thing deeply and perfectly is not the same thing as actually understanding it to the extent of being able to explain it clearly to somebody else, and it's important to avoid falling into the trap of mistaking the former for the latter. That way lies psychosis.
As for explanations as to why you exist: I would encourage you to pursue the question of what kind of explanation would satisfy you, and give careful consideration to the idea that causality is perhaps not as universally applicable an organizing principle as most of us generally seem to assume that it is. Many things, it seems to me, are as they are for no discernible reason at all, and making up just-so stories about why they are as they are merely feels like an advance in understanding. Ignorance, as long as it isn't wilful ignorance, should always be acceptable.
posted by flabdablet at 12:11 AM on June 24, 2019 [27 favorites]
Yes, definitely a big question. I guess the reasons why you're finding it particularly troubling right now are probably related to your anxiety & depression - we can say that existential doubts are strongly correlated with those other symptoms. I've been there myself.
In philosophical terms, though - for me there's quite a satisfying non-dismissive answer. Think of the language that you've used to describe your situation - how did you learn those words, and how to use them? Language-use is necessarily social - without other people to converse with, you'd never have acquired the language even to describe the feeling of fear that you might be alone in the world.
TBH I doubt that many people would find that argument very consoling. But fwiw, it works for me.
posted by rd45 at 12:54 AM on June 24, 2019 [8 favorites]
In philosophical terms, though - for me there's quite a satisfying non-dismissive answer. Think of the language that you've used to describe your situation - how did you learn those words, and how to use them? Language-use is necessarily social - without other people to converse with, you'd never have acquired the language even to describe the feeling of fear that you might be alone in the world.
TBH I doubt that many people would find that argument very consoling. But fwiw, it works for me.
posted by rd45 at 12:54 AM on June 24, 2019 [8 favorites]
Are there ways of existing that seem to you like they'd be better? It's possible you feel like you're being pushed to perform a role that feels inauthentic and unpleasant because your existing mental health stuff needs better management. If every way of being a human on Earth in 2019 seems equally worthless, that's depression.
It seems plausible to me that the word you're looking for is dysphoria. That is, you're inching towards the sense that the particular role you have been assigned is not the one you want, and might not have been the one you wanted for a long time. I'm not saying you're definitely trans; apparently a bunch of people who feel called to join the clergy have similar revelations. Nonetheless, some kind of life change might be in order.
posted by bagel at 1:00 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
It seems plausible to me that the word you're looking for is dysphoria. That is, you're inching towards the sense that the particular role you have been assigned is not the one you want, and might not have been the one you wanted for a long time. I'm not saying you're definitely trans; apparently a bunch of people who feel called to join the clergy have similar revelations. Nonetheless, some kind of life change might be in order.
posted by bagel at 1:00 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think this question occurs to most people at some point in their lives. It can pass, or be forgotten, or it can lead to a life-long spiritual and intellectual quest to understand the nature of self and of existence and reality (even though, at base, these things are not actually comprehensible to us). In my experience this quest has led me down avenues of exploration that have led to a philosophy and belief in non-dualism of all existence and a religious/spiritual practice in the Zen Buddhist tradition. There are lots of other avenues that seek to explain these things (other religions, other kinds of philosophy), but for me this is the only thing that I have examined and found to be congruent with actual reality.
For what it's worth I also have depression and have found that my preoccupation with these questions and my interest in learning and practicing a philosophy towards them has been consistent and is not tied to being well or unwell mentally. When unwell my feelings about all this have felt more negative, that's all- but feelings are like weather that comes and goes, and doesn't change the basis of reality.
These questions and my pursuit of a deep understanding of self and other, and of lived reality, have also had profound effects on the way I live my life and the choices I make. This is not idle questioning, but the very stuff of living and having a meaningful life!
Good luck.
posted by Balthamos at 2:47 AM on June 24, 2019
For what it's worth I also have depression and have found that my preoccupation with these questions and my interest in learning and practicing a philosophy towards them has been consistent and is not tied to being well or unwell mentally. When unwell my feelings about all this have felt more negative, that's all- but feelings are like weather that comes and goes, and doesn't change the basis of reality.
These questions and my pursuit of a deep understanding of self and other, and of lived reality, have also had profound effects on the way I live my life and the choices I make. This is not idle questioning, but the very stuff of living and having a meaningful life!
Good luck.
posted by Balthamos at 2:47 AM on June 24, 2019
Wait, there are people who don't sometimes feel this?
I thought it came from reading science fiction in early youth where the world is an artificial construct for the protagonist, sort of like "The Truman Show", but for those of us who read the books early than "The Truman Show", it comes out rather more sinister.
Taking it seriously in a paranoid way would be the mental illness take, but using the idea creatively, or for philosophical speculation is just the wandering thoughts of the brain.
As a species we need seriously to cooperate with each other both to maximize our own survival, but also and more importantly, to ensure that there are any ensuing next generations. So we have a lot of biological mechanisms to make us go and hang out with each other. One of these mechanisms is a pervasive feeling of not-quite-belonging, universal to our species. Some of us spend half our lives trying to make other people change the way they behave so they belong to us, some of the rest of us spend half our lives trying to change who were are and what we do to overcome this feeling of being secretly an outsider. This sometimes means we trail after other people like a emotionally needy child desperately trying to figure out if this is yellow shirt day at school when nobody will tell us. In general the only way to thoroughly and semi-permanently squelch this outsider feeling is to completely commit to other people, regardless of consequences to ourselves, the way that a military unit commits to its members, or parents sometimes commit to their kids, or two people in love commit to each other. Feeling an overpowering willingness to die for another person is the feeling that can replace that on-the-outside-looking-in feeling. A lot of the time you would be better running like hell instead, of course, but existentialism is a lonely philosophy, so...
Somewhere there is a kid's poem, perhaps A.A. Milne, with a line "There's nobody else in the whole wide world, and the world was meant for me."
The feeling of not-belonging, I think, is related to the feeling that you are the only person who exists. If everybody else is not a member of your tribe they are not really a people, they are only scenery, and the fact that they might have an internal life (theory of mind) is all very well, but it doesn't change the fact that they are not actually as relevant as the inanimate objects around you which are important to you. It's worth examining how you feel about the important people in your life, as opposed to the strangers. Can you sustain this feeling that this other person is not real when you look at your closest childhood companions, ideally your siblings? Often this is where the feeling fractures and you go back to understanding theory of mind. It is easier to detach from your parents and other people than it is to detach from your siblings because you are meant to detach from your parents once you are an adult, if necessary, but siblings are your closest genetic bond.
The opposite of this feeling perhaps, is the feeling that the people in our imaginations are real in some way - Immanence - (I might have the wrong word) but the pervasive feeling that there is a parent out there somewhere is another version of this, reversed, and accounts for much of people's faith in God. For some people they can't escape the feeling that there is someone out there, higher than them, watching. I expect this feeling is vestigial from toddlers, who need it in order to remember to go back and look for the parent, or the first time you look away from your one-year-old for twelve consecutive seconds when you are outdoors with them would be the last time you ever see them.
Writers often feel like the characters they create are real people. When I was told that I would be united with my family when I got to heaven, I almost burst into tears. At that point my happiness was entirely dependent on getting away from them. But when I considered that the people I would meet in heaven would be people I cherished and trusted like the characters I created, I was able to reconcile myself to the idea of an afterlife.
posted by Jane the Brown at 3:25 AM on June 24, 2019 [6 favorites]
I thought it came from reading science fiction in early youth where the world is an artificial construct for the protagonist, sort of like "The Truman Show", but for those of us who read the books early than "The Truman Show", it comes out rather more sinister.
Taking it seriously in a paranoid way would be the mental illness take, but using the idea creatively, or for philosophical speculation is just the wandering thoughts of the brain.
As a species we need seriously to cooperate with each other both to maximize our own survival, but also and more importantly, to ensure that there are any ensuing next generations. So we have a lot of biological mechanisms to make us go and hang out with each other. One of these mechanisms is a pervasive feeling of not-quite-belonging, universal to our species. Some of us spend half our lives trying to make other people change the way they behave so they belong to us, some of the rest of us spend half our lives trying to change who were are and what we do to overcome this feeling of being secretly an outsider. This sometimes means we trail after other people like a emotionally needy child desperately trying to figure out if this is yellow shirt day at school when nobody will tell us. In general the only way to thoroughly and semi-permanently squelch this outsider feeling is to completely commit to other people, regardless of consequences to ourselves, the way that a military unit commits to its members, or parents sometimes commit to their kids, or two people in love commit to each other. Feeling an overpowering willingness to die for another person is the feeling that can replace that on-the-outside-looking-in feeling. A lot of the time you would be better running like hell instead, of course, but existentialism is a lonely philosophy, so...
Somewhere there is a kid's poem, perhaps A.A. Milne, with a line "There's nobody else in the whole wide world, and the world was meant for me."
The feeling of not-belonging, I think, is related to the feeling that you are the only person who exists. If everybody else is not a member of your tribe they are not really a people, they are only scenery, and the fact that they might have an internal life (theory of mind) is all very well, but it doesn't change the fact that they are not actually as relevant as the inanimate objects around you which are important to you. It's worth examining how you feel about the important people in your life, as opposed to the strangers. Can you sustain this feeling that this other person is not real when you look at your closest childhood companions, ideally your siblings? Often this is where the feeling fractures and you go back to understanding theory of mind. It is easier to detach from your parents and other people than it is to detach from your siblings because you are meant to detach from your parents once you are an adult, if necessary, but siblings are your closest genetic bond.
The opposite of this feeling perhaps, is the feeling that the people in our imaginations are real in some way - Immanence - (I might have the wrong word) but the pervasive feeling that there is a parent out there somewhere is another version of this, reversed, and accounts for much of people's faith in God. For some people they can't escape the feeling that there is someone out there, higher than them, watching. I expect this feeling is vestigial from toddlers, who need it in order to remember to go back and look for the parent, or the first time you look away from your one-year-old for twelve consecutive seconds when you are outdoors with them would be the last time you ever see them.
Writers often feel like the characters they create are real people. When I was told that I would be united with my family when I got to heaven, I almost burst into tears. At that point my happiness was entirely dependent on getting away from them. But when I considered that the people I would meet in heaven would be people I cherished and trusted like the characters I created, I was able to reconcile myself to the idea of an afterlife.
posted by Jane the Brown at 3:25 AM on June 24, 2019 [6 favorites]
You might be interested in the Truman Show delusion. Modern social media culture can play into the feelings that our lives are observed and our choices become performative, I think.
posted by sallybrown at 4:09 AM on June 24, 2019
posted by sallybrown at 4:09 AM on June 24, 2019
Here’s how I deal with this, maybe it will help you too.
Put on your best Rodney Dangerfield voice, loosen your collar a bit, give an exasperated look to the camera and say:
Is it getting solipsistic in here, or is it just me?
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:17 AM on June 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
Put on your best Rodney Dangerfield voice, loosen your collar a bit, give an exasperated look to the camera and say:
Is it getting solipsistic in here, or is it just me?
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:17 AM on June 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
I definitely get this! Just had a moment last week, actually. It's only ever passing through, because I can't reconcile that my partner might not be real. Not so much in a "I want them to be real" as much as a "I know they are as real as me" sort of way. I also, like Jane the Brown, chalk it up to reading a lot of SFF as a kid.
posted by brook horse at 4:20 AM on June 24, 2019
posted by brook horse at 4:20 AM on June 24, 2019
I get this too, I used to more when I was younger. When I would get freaked out by it, I would observe people or situations and realize it made no sense for that to be going on because it affected me zero, so logically I can’t be the only thing that existed because if some things happen that don’t affect me at all, what’s the point?
Sometimes I would also feel this profound loneliness, like if God created us and everything, maybe God feels alone because if he created everything, what else is there on his level? That was an even worse “alone” feeling.
Now that I’m a little older I don’t get into those feelings as often, but they’re interesting philosophical questions and I agree with people above saying instead of being fearful or paranoid, be creative and delve into the “Big” questions, it helps shape your world view!
posted by katypickle at 5:23 AM on June 24, 2019
Sometimes I would also feel this profound loneliness, like if God created us and everything, maybe God feels alone because if he created everything, what else is there on his level? That was an even worse “alone” feeling.
Now that I’m a little older I don’t get into those feelings as often, but they’re interesting philosophical questions and I agree with people above saying instead of being fearful or paranoid, be creative and delve into the “Big” questions, it helps shape your world view!
posted by katypickle at 5:23 AM on June 24, 2019
Actually feeling this way is very different from indulging in some kind of philosophical scepticism as an intellectual pursuit. I'd consult a doctor if I were you and make sure there is nothing wrong neurologically.
posted by thelonius at 5:49 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 5:49 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
This sounds similar to the Truman Show Delusion.
There was a recent This American Life episode about a man who suffered through this delusion during manic episodes. It's a very interesting listen in any case, and I think you'd get a lot out of it. The episode is #677 Seeing Yourself in the Wild.
The interesting thing about this phenomenon, to me, is that it's experienced VERY differently from the inside and from the outside. From the inside, you are experiencing this whole rich world of destiny and intensity of feeling, a sense of full and unique personality and life. But from the outside, you look like some person, just as ordinary as anybody else. If you start thinking a lot about the gap between how the inside feels and how the outside looks, I think that you'll pretty inevitably experience what a previous commenter called "sonder." And it'll probably help increase your empathy, too.
posted by rue72 at 6:41 AM on June 24, 2019
There was a recent This American Life episode about a man who suffered through this delusion during manic episodes. It's a very interesting listen in any case, and I think you'd get a lot out of it. The episode is #677 Seeing Yourself in the Wild.
The interesting thing about this phenomenon, to me, is that it's experienced VERY differently from the inside and from the outside. From the inside, you are experiencing this whole rich world of destiny and intensity of feeling, a sense of full and unique personality and life. But from the outside, you look like some person, just as ordinary as anybody else. If you start thinking a lot about the gap between how the inside feels and how the outside looks, I think that you'll pretty inevitably experience what a previous commenter called "sonder." And it'll probably help increase your empathy, too.
posted by rue72 at 6:41 AM on June 24, 2019
Yeah, I'd say this is relatively common among a certain population of inner-world, introspective types of which I'm one. So no, you're not alone to answer your question, and I've had the specific feelings you've had (minus the some organization orchestrating things, I suppose).
It doesn't sound like you're overly worried about it, but minorly in the way you're worried about a lot of things since you have depression and social anxiety (I understand!), is that right? I have had a few "ideas" or fairly odd feelings/beliefs creep into my life at various times and I had to sort out why I had them and generally let them go. One time I got really into the thought of if I did a certain way that and I was like, well this is strange. Then I eventually quit it. (Think if I open this door with my left or right hand, the cubs will win the world series as an example.) Maybe that was just my brain briefly trying on a hat to sort a chaotic world into a manageable space.
Anyway, feel free to Memail me if you want to talk about it. From reading, I think I understand what you're feeling quite well. The "sonder" isn't a term I'd heard before, but that also might occur and is a good feeling for me. I would advise taking long walks and sitting in a park observing people. Maybe journaling in the park. Put yourself in the world.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:53 AM on June 24, 2019
It doesn't sound like you're overly worried about it, but minorly in the way you're worried about a lot of things since you have depression and social anxiety (I understand!), is that right? I have had a few "ideas" or fairly odd feelings/beliefs creep into my life at various times and I had to sort out why I had them and generally let them go. One time I got really into the thought of if I did
Anyway, feel free to Memail me if you want to talk about it. From reading, I think I understand what you're feeling quite well. The "sonder" isn't a term I'd heard before, but that also might occur and is a good feeling for me. I would advise taking long walks and sitting in a park observing people. Maybe journaling in the park. Put yourself in the world.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:53 AM on June 24, 2019
I am the centre of this universe
The wind of time is blowing through me
And it's all moving relative to me
It's all a figment of my mind
In a world that I've designed
- from “Master of the Universe” by Hawkwind
No references, but I’d guess that many people wonder about this from time to time.
I believe a solipsist believes that only they exist? If you feel you’re being observed, doesn’t that imply that there’s at least one other entity out there? I’m reminded of the Grand Glaroon from Heinlein’s short story “They”.
Most days I figure that I’ll die and wake up in something like “Roy: A Life Well Lived” that exists in the real reality.
posted by doctor tough love at 8:39 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
The wind of time is blowing through me
And it's all moving relative to me
It's all a figment of my mind
In a world that I've designed
- from “Master of the Universe” by Hawkwind
No references, but I’d guess that many people wonder about this from time to time.
I believe a solipsist believes that only they exist? If you feel you’re being observed, doesn’t that imply that there’s at least one other entity out there? I’m reminded of the Grand Glaroon from Heinlein’s short story “They”.
Most days I figure that I’ll die and wake up in something like “Roy: A Life Well Lived” that exists in the real reality.
posted by doctor tough love at 8:39 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yes, except, it's me. Ok end of yoking around, folks around seemingly reading from a script, deja vu feelings become predictable, looking out the window seems like a monitor screen. Spooky at times.
One thing to do is look closely at nature, walk in the woods, any park or just the curb, and look at the incredible detail, all of it for it's own purpose that's actually not me but coexists just outside the doorway. Notice the amazing wonderful world, all the great and not so great ideas from other people, you're amazing, I'm amazing, all of us in some ways are amazing.
posted by sammyo at 10:48 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
One thing to do is look closely at nature, walk in the woods, any park or just the curb, and look at the incredible detail, all of it for it's own purpose that's actually not me but coexists just outside the doorway. Notice the amazing wonderful world, all the great and not so great ideas from other people, you're amazing, I'm amazing, all of us in some ways are amazing.
posted by sammyo at 10:48 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Another vote for Derealization, which is a specific type of dissociation.
Everyone dissociates from time to time. Daydreaming is a benign form of dissociation. And it’s a protective response to dealing with trauma. It can range from pleasant to distressing. I spent most of middle school convinced I was on the verge of a nervous break because 60-80% of my thoughts didn’t feel like my thoughts. And like a lot of these answers, I lived in a false dilemma of If I Name This, I will be Crazy and Locked Away.
If it happens too much, it can rewire your brain so the smallest stress can push you out of your body into an episode.
If you want to push yourself out of an episode, look up grounding techniques. If they are interfering with your life, seek professional help. If it’s just a weird thing your brain does sometimes, it’s a weird thing a lot of brains do. But it still has a name, and refusing to name it in neurotypical people feels really gross and Othering to people who need help.
posted by politikitty at 10:50 AM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Everyone dissociates from time to time. Daydreaming is a benign form of dissociation. And it’s a protective response to dealing with trauma. It can range from pleasant to distressing. I spent most of middle school convinced I was on the verge of a nervous break because 60-80% of my thoughts didn’t feel like my thoughts. And like a lot of these answers, I lived in a false dilemma of If I Name This, I will be Crazy and Locked Away.
If it happens too much, it can rewire your brain so the smallest stress can push you out of your body into an episode.
If you want to push yourself out of an episode, look up grounding techniques. If they are interfering with your life, seek professional help. If it’s just a weird thing your brain does sometimes, it’s a weird thing a lot of brains do. But it still has a name, and refusing to name it in neurotypical people feels really gross and Othering to people who need help.
posted by politikitty at 10:50 AM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
consider what the existence of "other people" would mean if you are the only "real" thing. are all of these other "fake" beings generated by... you, i guess, some sort of giant magic space computer? all of these other skin-bag bundles of liquid and flesh-wire who can easily communicate with you in real time, what are "they"? basically most of the people you've met can pass a turing test just as well as you can. so if they're simulated biological A.I.s who believe in their own existence, would their consciousness honestly be any less valid than yours even if you were some sort of operating protagonist? solipsism is a dead-end, philosophically, and not really nearly as hard to think one's self out of as solipsists like to claim. consciousness is an emergent property of our physical reality, and the validity of my agency has nothing to do with whether or not i'm merely here for you to experience.
posted by rotten at 11:48 AM on June 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by rotten at 11:48 AM on June 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
You might be interested in an episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "Shadow Play." It revolves around a man on death row who is certain he is dreaming and that nobody else is real and if they kill him, he will wake up and none of them will exist any more.
It's a neat thought experiment. I saw it back in the 80's and it has always stuck with me.
posted by tacodave at 4:24 PM on June 24, 2019
It's a neat thought experiment. I saw it back in the 80's and it has always stuck with me.
posted by tacodave at 4:24 PM on June 24, 2019
I get another version of this, where I decide I am definitely not real and that someone in the world is real, and it is all for them but I have probably (statistically) never met them and never will, and am in fact many links in a chain removed from the person you indirectly contact who will interact with that "main character."
(E.g. I work with fertility in an administrative capacity. Imagine someone comes to my clinic, never meets me, only emails with me a few times, but I help them solve a problem or the way I interact with them tips their decision in one way or another. Because of this they get pregnant. That's person A. Person A's child, resulting in part from our interaction, goes on 20 years later to cut off Person C in traffic one day, so Person C is mean to Person D who works in a sandwich shop, which leaves person D distracted and they accidentally use expired turkey so their 57th customer of the day, Person E, gets food poisoning shortly before their date with Person F, who is the "only real person" in the world, except in my head it's not person F it's person ZZZZ.)
But the point is that I will never ever know who the real person is, if I have met them, if I have walked past them on the street, if they even exist in the same period of history as met, etc.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 2:19 AM on June 25, 2019
(E.g. I work with fertility in an administrative capacity. Imagine someone comes to my clinic, never meets me, only emails with me a few times, but I help them solve a problem or the way I interact with them tips their decision in one way or another. Because of this they get pregnant. That's person A. Person A's child, resulting in part from our interaction, goes on 20 years later to cut off Person C in traffic one day, so Person C is mean to Person D who works in a sandwich shop, which leaves person D distracted and they accidentally use expired turkey so their 57th customer of the day, Person E, gets food poisoning shortly before their date with Person F, who is the "only real person" in the world, except in my head it's not person F it's person ZZZZ.)
But the point is that I will never ever know who the real person is, if I have met them, if I have walked past them on the street, if they even exist in the same period of history as met, etc.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 2:19 AM on June 25, 2019
Thirding that this sounds a bit like derealization to me. (I am not a mental health professional.)
It's sometimes a symptom of severe anxiety disorders. Probably worth talking to a therapist about. Good luck!
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:41 AM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's sometimes a symptom of severe anxiety disorders. Probably worth talking to a therapist about. Good luck!
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:41 AM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm thinking my previous comment may have been a bit 'woo' about how amazing the world is, and it certainly is but the point to use awareness and analysis in this kind of instance is re-develop the feeling of being part of the world, integral to the environment rather than separate, isolated or singular. For good or bad we are elements of the ecology, we are people but we are also of the category animal, taking and contributing to the world. That sense of integration by looking at the detail may not always be nice but it breaks the feeling of solipsism.
Oh and exercise, go for a walk in the woods!
posted by sammyo at 7:38 PM on June 27, 2019
Oh and exercise, go for a walk in the woods!
posted by sammyo at 7:38 PM on June 27, 2019
Another useful exercise is decoupling the idea of existence from the ideas of experience and objectivity.
You are indeed the only being who has and has had and will have the specific experiences that you do. And regardless of the fact that the same observation applies to all of us, there is no way at all for anybody else to share the entirety or even the majority of what you experience. You - you who really exists, not any of the hypothetical yous that might have been had things been other than they were, nor any other being whom it could possibly be like something to be - truly are right at the centre of your own life's narrative, there's no way for anybody else to get right in there with you, and as an embodied conscious being there is simply no way around that.
Objectivity is nothing more than the pursuit of a means of reconciling each of our own experiences with those of others we encounter; if a thing has objective existence, there is a way to map your experience of it onto that of others who also encounter it to an arbitrarily high degree of detail. Objectivity is an emergent property of multiple interacting subjectivities. It can therefore not be privileged above any of them, so there is no objective sense in which your experience is either the only one being had, even though it is and was and will remain the only one being had by you.
As for the idea that your own experience is merely somebody else's fictional construct: doesn't hold water. "Somebody else's construct" is a description you might choose to apply to your own experience to see if it fits, but the only person capable of testing that description against your experience is you, and you need to exist in order to do that or even to wonder about it.
There is a possibility - a likelihood, even - that the way you describe your experience to yourself contains fairly large amounts of fiction that you do indeed generate internally and largely subconsciously; that does seem to be the way that brains perform perception. But those fictions are worthwhile only to the extent that they help you minimize the differences between what your embodied self encounters and what it anticipates encountering. So sure, it's feasible to embrace fictions like "I am actually a Boltzmann Brain engaged in constructing everything I appear to perceive, or I'm dreaming in the Matrix, or the whole Universe is actually a computer simulation" and so forth, but unless you actually manage to leverage one of these in a way that lets you walk through walls or make goats drop dead when you stare at them or slow time to dodge bullets, it's not a particularly useful way to spend your day. A grasp of the bleedin' obvious is far more valuable, in my experience. But then you would say that, wouldn't you? :-)
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 AM on June 28, 2019
You are indeed the only being who has and has had and will have the specific experiences that you do. And regardless of the fact that the same observation applies to all of us, there is no way at all for anybody else to share the entirety or even the majority of what you experience. You - you who really exists, not any of the hypothetical yous that might have been had things been other than they were, nor any other being whom it could possibly be like something to be - truly are right at the centre of your own life's narrative, there's no way for anybody else to get right in there with you, and as an embodied conscious being there is simply no way around that.
Objectivity is nothing more than the pursuit of a means of reconciling each of our own experiences with those of others we encounter; if a thing has objective existence, there is a way to map your experience of it onto that of others who also encounter it to an arbitrarily high degree of detail. Objectivity is an emergent property of multiple interacting subjectivities. It can therefore not be privileged above any of them, so there is no objective sense in which your experience is either the only one being had, even though it is and was and will remain the only one being had by you.
As for the idea that your own experience is merely somebody else's fictional construct: doesn't hold water. "Somebody else's construct" is a description you might choose to apply to your own experience to see if it fits, but the only person capable of testing that description against your experience is you, and you need to exist in order to do that or even to wonder about it.
There is a possibility - a likelihood, even - that the way you describe your experience to yourself contains fairly large amounts of fiction that you do indeed generate internally and largely subconsciously; that does seem to be the way that brains perform perception. But those fictions are worthwhile only to the extent that they help you minimize the differences between what your embodied self encounters and what it anticipates encountering. So sure, it's feasible to embrace fictions like "I am actually a Boltzmann Brain engaged in constructing everything I appear to perceive, or I'm dreaming in the Matrix, or the whole Universe is actually a computer simulation" and so forth, but unless you actually manage to leverage one of these in a way that lets you walk through walls or make goats drop dead when you stare at them or slow time to dodge bullets, it's not a particularly useful way to spend your day. A grasp of the bleedin' obvious is far more valuable, in my experience. But then you would say that, wouldn't you? :-)
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 AM on June 28, 2019
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posted by pwnguin at 10:13 PM on June 23, 2019 [11 favorites]