# How do you explain DR



## J. (Apr 2, 2007)

I cant.
Ive called it beeing drunk and sober at the same time
Stoned but not really
2d
Trippy
Dreamy

My mine problem is my vision. I see so freakin weird. When i star at someting it keeps moving or it merges with other surounding object. 
(when i look at colored stones, i can concetrate in such way what some stones become the same color).

When i close my eyes i cant hold them still.

Does anyone reconize this, or i'm i just gone crazy. 
im tiered of this. just so tiered. Its to heavy every day. I keep fucking things up just because im tiered (the vision is exhausting) or i cant concentrate.

...


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## Guest (Jun 26, 2007)

Sleep walking


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## J. (Apr 2, 2007)

Like everything is blinking realy fast. 
When you are outside, is still as if its inside
so is it vision related?


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## MidnightRambler (May 5, 2007)

i have vision problems. the patterns on my carpet move (but not very noticeably, it never interferes because i don't always see it), pinpoints of light, the sky is full of swirling dots of color, and i have the "eyes won't hold still" problem as well. and i've never even taken acid :-/

as far are describing dp/dr, i've never told anyone but i'd say it's like being removed from reality, like you're grounded enough to function but there's no emotional attachment. being on autopilot, mental fatigue.

it's a mess.


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## J. (Apr 2, 2007)

life is pain


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## suz (Mar 26, 2007)

Constant deja vu.

Or like I went out of synch with time and I'm a split second ahead.


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## EverDream (Dec 15, 2006)

under water
the glass prison
dizzy
unreal
lost
not human
disturbed
twlight zone
weird!


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## Ludovico (Feb 9, 2007)

DREAMLAND is my favorite way to describe it


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## dunno (Jun 5, 2007)

in the truman show


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2007)

Jim Carrey is the best!


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## needacure (Apr 25, 2007)

hellish dreamreality


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## severed (Jun 11, 2007)

Lately, it feels like what little is inside me (in a physical and mental sense) is being pushed against the the inside of my skin, leaving a big hole inside me. Plus t heres all the other fun stuff, 2-D world, proportions seem weird, emotional detachment. Definitely auto-pilot.

Does anyone kind of tune things out in the distance? It's like I see the world around me, but I truly don't think its real and I feel detached from my vision, like its all very shallow and like I'm wearing some sort of reality distorting goggles. I remember looking around my bedroom this morning and I felt that everything I couldn't feel was not real. It'ts really hard to explain...


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## David Kozin (Jan 11, 2005)

This was very hard to think of, but in our study we defined the symptoms as such:

Depersonalization is ?an alteration in the perception or experience of the self so that one feels detached from, and as if one is an outside observer of, one?s mental processes or body (e.g., feeling like one is in a dream).?
*
Derealization is ?an alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems strange or unreal (e.g., people may seem unfamiliar or mechanical).?*

Because the DSM-IV only lists Derealization as a passing point within the diagnosis, and not an official diagnosistic entity, we challeneged this with out study. If you read our study, we look at the differences. It is important to note that this idea of Derealization is often overlooked and should be defined in a more strict way (this is part of the factorial analysis). I hope that our study can help define it, and I think all of you who reply to this question should really think about your answer and come up with a group.
This is the largest group of DR individuals, so why shouldn't you be the people to define the disorder, not the researchers!


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## severed (Jun 11, 2007)

I agree with David.


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## David Kozin (Jan 11, 2005)

If you read our first offshoot article (I have it still on the web site), you will see this is exactly what we are trying to support. Here is the abstract of the article that we reviewed to help work on looking at DP and DR as separate entities:

Here is a sample of our ACTUAL MANUSCRIPT WITH OUR research discussion. 

See how we are trying to look for the discriminations using research. And people say that NODID doesn't care about DP/DR individuals. 
 I willl highlight the important points

*Results indicate that the construct of depersonalisation / derealisation subsumes several dimensions not strongly related to each other. *The first factor, labeled ?Emotional Numbing,? describes the blunting of affects, pain, and bodily sensations such as hunger and thirst. With the exception of lack of fear or pleasure (items 4 and 5), all items reflecting emotional blunting loaded on this factor. Indeed, neurobiological studies of depersonalisation disorder have demonstrated blunted emotional and autonomic reactivity (Phillips et al, 2001; Sierra et al, 2002; Simeon et al, 2003). *The second factor, labeled ?Unreality of Self,? describes detachment from the physical body, thoughts, and actions. This factor is the most reminiscent of the DSM description of depersonalization. *Of note, three pertinent symptoms, seeing oneself from outside (item 15); thoughts have a life of their own (item 26); and touching oneself to be reassured of existence (item 27),failed to have salient loadings on this factor or any other factor. The third factor, labeled ?Detachment from Past? describes a fading and temporal distance from one?s past experiences; all pertinent items loaded on this factor. *The fourth factor, labeled ?Unreality of Surroundings,? encompasses all items referring to an altered experience of the external world, and corresponds to the DSM description of derealisation.* The fifth factor, called ?Perceptual Alterations,? encompasses visual, tactile and somatosensory modality distortions. All relevant items loaded on this factor with the exception of feeling that hands or feet changed in size (item 12). Heightened perceptual abberation in the absence of magical ideation has been previously quantified in DPD (Simeon et al, 2004).
*Factors in this substantially larger sample are quite similar to those of the original factor analysis (Sierra et al, 2005).* Although the latter study included individuals diagnosed with DSM-IV depersonalisation disorder, whereas the survey nature of this study precluded diagnostic interviewing, the CDS score reported by Sierra et al (2005) was strikingly similar to ours (mean = 119, s.d. = 58.9). With the exception of the smaller fifth factor, the first four factors closely approximate those derived by Sierra et al (2005), sharing a total of 18 items in common (asterisked items in Table 1). The fifth factor items, reflecting perceptual alterations, were scattered amongst the other factors in the prior report. ?Anomalous Body Experience? (?Unreality of the Self?) was the largest factor in the Sierra et al (2005) report (eigenvalue 11.2), whereas ?Emotional Numbing? was the largest factor is this study (eigenvalue 10.0).

In all, this and the prior factor analysis readily lend themselves to defining symptom sets that can comprise psychometrically validated and clinically meaningful diagnostic criteria options for depersonalization disorder, namely deaffectualization,unfamiliarity of the self, unfamiliarity of surroundings, detachment from the past, and multimodal perceptual distortions. *These five symptom sets are well suited for prospective study, in an effort to derive clinically useful polythetic diagnostic criteria for depersonalization disorder in light of the DSM-V.*


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## J. (Apr 2, 2007)

my vision is my main concern. Maybe i do not have dr but some other disease.


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## Jane (Aug 14, 2006)

Out of curiosity, I'd like to ask, if one presented to a physician with only one symptom of that set, say for instance, emotional blunting only, with no other perceptual symptoms, would a diagnoses of depersonalization disorder be accurate? Or would one need to suffer from all five symptom sets?


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## David Kozin (Jan 11, 2005)

This would depend. For example, patients diagnosed with anxiety without DP/DR took the same test and had completely different results, and this is same for temporal lobe epilepsy. What characterizes (or what is the formula) that makes one DP or DR is not known (or more accurately invented), but we know that certain individuals will tend to cluster around a set of symptoms. for example, there are the "robot-feeling" DP patient and then the "perceptual alterations" DP patient. Or one with both, however individuals tend to select severity in predictable ways.

- Dave


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## Guest (Jun 29, 2007)

The only way I can describe it is that it feels like I am just a mind with no body.

Greg


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## Guest (Jul 5, 2007)

Due to the server going down... a day's worth (more or less) have been lost. "Could have been much more worse".


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## Guest (Jul 5, 2007)

Bless ya. If any one is banned from the site, I would "assume" it would show them a message saying "you've been banned from the site" ect. So don't worry about it if there's a next time (hopefully they won't be)... you won't have been banned... and you tend to need a reason for being banned =P.


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## Revelation_old (Aug 9, 2004)

amlangela said:


> ooo ok, thought I was banned and all my messages were lost in the universe


Never


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Sounds like a useful system. Should hopefully help people describe their symptoms better in the future.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

It's funny that dissociative headaches aren't mentioned as that almost characterised my disorder - along with time issues. As well as feeling I have no past, and that I can't see the whole picture, there is a sensation of my mind not being contained entirely in my head, and that my head is full of feelings of energy. I know I'm not dissociated when my mind is clear from the feeling of energy.


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## ihavemessedupdreams (Apr 19, 2007)

if this is from trauma it's connected to you making everything not real you need to somehow bring up pain from your past and accept it... this is the only way the derealization goes away depersonalization on the other hand I think is self acceptance

@Jane ---DP/DR.. settle to an emotional deadness so ya it is still DP/DR.
guess its just you become so use to it you dont notice it. it's just the way it is.


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## FeelingFake123 (Feb 5, 2007)

The best way I describe it is like My face is pushed up against a movie screen. Or High definition vision lol. Everything is so much more crisp and vivid. You can really appericate everythings beauty. But it can be a scary feeling at times. Like I dont like walking outside by myself because become so aware of my surroundings. Like right now i want to go ut ofr a bike ride. But part of me doesnt. Cause i know its going to be tripppppy.


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## ihavemessedupdreams (Apr 19, 2007)

if i knew i would let you know hunny

i would say weed and explore yoursself but you might not want to do this


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## ihavemessedupdreams (Apr 19, 2007)

guess with time then


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## goo goo (Aug 31, 2006)

DR for me is just floaters, VS, white blood cells, bad vision ( when my vision is better than 20/20!), afterimages.

Then there is feeling detached from the enviroment around me, knowing that my reality is fake... makes me feel very wierd and lonely.


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## joepert (Aug 16, 2006)

feeling vague
emotional numbness / apathy
Visual snow
after images
floaters 
detachment from enviroment and other people
numb feeling in limbs (especcialy my arms)
viewing myself from a distance

Got it after a bad trip / combination of drugs..(xtc, speed, lsd & datura)


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## nu-power (Sep 27, 2006)

so do you think that if someone has dr then got blind, his dr would come more bearable?


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## MidnightRambler (May 5, 2007)

joepert i heard datura is an insane experience... did you take all that stuff at once?

for me, the symptoms are:
feeling like there's a "mental block" that prevents me from connecting
world looks too 3D, like everything looks incredible and everything has a definite and independent beauty to it but i am still remarkabley unmoved due to emotional detachment... very strange
waves of feeling like i can't go on "being", not that i want to die or will die but that i can't keep up an image to others and a memory and a self
recently persisting obsession about gravity and space, how in relation to the universe we're not really on solid ground we're on a rock and i can't help but imagine being thrown off into the universe... irrational but very real.
life doesn't flow naturally like it used to... i can't be in a group without overthinking about everything that's going on, i feel like i've stepped back and am watching rather than participating in. like instead of playing in the game i'm a spectator... i can still tell you what's going on but i'm missing the fine details and can't feel the energy.
occasional sensation of being on a boat and rocking back and forth (anyone else have this?)
visual snow, bright "dots" that move around in the sky, floaters, pinpoints of light, a few mornings i've noticed closed eye colorful geometric shapes/patterns (i think these are just kind of like hypnagogic hallucinations though, only happen for a few seconds in the mornings and they've happened twice), very slight trails (i hate hand talkers).

haha hope that's enough.


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## joepert (Aug 16, 2006)

MidnightRambler said:


> joepert i heard datura is an insane experience... did you take all that stuff at once?


No I took the datura with amphetamines. Datura is indeed a very insane expierence, its even heavier dan LSD. I got an extreme bad trip from it and when it was over, there was the dp/dr/HPPD. And this month it's exactly 4 years ago...


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## David Kozin (Jan 11, 2005)

I have known some very hardcore drug users in my day, and none of them would ever do datura again. Many ended up half-naked sitting in puddles, usually ending up at the police station or mental hospital.

Seriously,

David


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