# Where to "look" for your self



## Abraxas (Apr 23, 2011)

So with DPD you go from taking your identity and self for granted (its implicit knowledge, you dont even have to "check" if its there, it simply is), to suddenly losing it.

Now while sudden moments of DP are normal for all people (as with anxiety), in DPD somehow that state of unrealness remains chronic.

The most common and logical/natural reaction to this feeling of no-self, would be for the mind to withdraw its awareness or attention to itself. So, people who used to be extroverted (who "poured" their mind's attention outside for the greatest part of the day) are suddenly spending the entirety of the waking day looking "inside", that is, observing thought-streams, (lack of) feelings, bodily sensations, etc.

This is a very differente state of being, and therefore identity collapses, or is not found. Because your identity used to be constructed outside- in, not inside-out. You used to interact with the world, specially with people (friends), or with visual perception (looking at stuff). Now you suddenly switch to only interacting with "yourself" or that lack of self, and focusing entirely not on stuff, but your thoughts about stuff. Also you switch from paying more attention to the visual field, to paying attention on bodily sensations (anxiety).
This world-view stands in opposite to what you used to "be". Hence the identity lost and the inherent impossibility of finding self "inside".

Although Eastern philosophy and new age movement will tell us to Look inside for answers, or that the Self is found inside, in rest, in no-action, it is good to remember that our linage is Western (or at least our culture is, even if one has say, japanese blood). Western identity is defined through action, from the outside in. Not through inertia (East). Now, im not making a judgment here, i believe both are as good as the other. But what happens when you switch from one world-view to the other in a fast, traumatic way, is that the sense of self collapses. And you could spend aeons trying to build a sense of self from the inside (from the mind reflecting upon itself, or upon its thoughts), but most likely you will not succeed, or you might reach something which is completely different to what you lost, simply because it stands in opposition to that worldview.

So you either really let go of your past self, and look for a more "buddhist" worldview... (though rather than mind reflecting upon thoughts (mind content) the (empty, without attributes) mind should reflect upon itself), or you try switch back to the old way of perceiving which demands an EXTROVERSION of the mind's attention/will/concentration/awareness, into the world (that is people, stuff, images, sounds, dancing, moving, climbing, etc). This stands in opposition to sitting and thinking and watching "self". You didnt use to do that before, so why do you think you will "go back there" by doing so now.

Paradoxically, looking for yourself and trying to regain your self is counterproducting in recovering that feeling of self. Because feelings are everywhere thoughts and analysis are not. When you look inside, trying to find your self, you are analyzing your experience (breaking it into components), and trying to "see" where your self is in that experience. But that very analyzing is what halts the feeling of self, which is a complete (holistic) and non-reflective state. When you are you simply are, and it is indistinguishable from action (from what you are doing). Being is a verb, not a noun. Self is an artificial noun, used for practical/pragmatical/linguistical purposes when refering to "other people". So when you look for something, you are assuming it is something that can be observed. Sense of being is not. Sense of being is a by-product of action, of simply being.

To break the loop of DP you have to abandon all hopes of "finding yourself", because you simply dont exist, in that sense of the word. Like climbing is an action that could be composed of "people, shoes, ropes, mountain, etc", there is no noun "the climb". You could refer to "the climb", but its an artificial noun, it doesnt refer to a thing with real existence. It is the summation of all its elements plus something else, which will never be discovered by analysing its components, only by actually climbing.

So a great part of DPD in my experience is philosophical and linguistic. The mind is looking for some-thing. Self is not a thing that can be observed, but something which, paradoxically, occurs when you stop analysing (Analysis literally means breaking apart: "*Analysis* is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it". Self can not be broken into parts, because it is not a real thing, it is not an object of experience.

Now im not saying that you shouldnt observe thoughts/mind content. You have to couple that observation with action and embodiment. And due to the imbalance, it is advisable to really try "get out", get into action, no thinking, no judging, no evaluating, those are all self-killers. Just do, talk, feel, walk, smell, jump, climb, listen to music. You can even think if you want, but dont think about thinking, dont think about doing, dont think about feeling, dont think about the music, dont think about "the climb", just climb.
When you do this, without you looking for it, your sense of being will come back, and you will understand that it is not something on itself, its in the flow. it IS the flow.

You can start by something as easy as moving your body around, free your movements, run, jump, stretch, move your face muscles.. get out of that petrification, DP slowly imprisions you inside "yourself", and since we naturally believe that the self is or should be inside, we "stay there", without even moving a muscle, as stiff as fuck, trying to find ourselves in that dead heap of inertia.

Act. ACTION. movement. scream, get out of your house, throw rocks, climb a tree, run, make funny faces, sigh, moan, yell, punch a door, get into a fight, listen to loud music and sing to it, make yourself a smoothie, carve a fucking cat out of a soap, nobody gives a fuck, nobody is looking at you, nobody really cares about you, you are free. stop worrying so much about the consequences and purposes and metaphysical truthness of every single little action and do ANYTHING, really. take the batteries off your remote and toss it at a stranger. And when he says: hey! this is not agreeable, you say: yes I know. *I KNOW. I* *TOSS* the batteries. *I* *TELL* you to go fuck yourself. There is no true "I" if its not accompanied by a verb. "I" on its own is a reification, its a fallacy.

"*Reification* (also known as *concretism*, or *the fallacy of misplaced concreteness*) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity.[sup][1][/sup][sup][2][/sup] In other words, it is the error of treating as a concrete thing something which is not concrete, but merely an idea. For example: if the phrase "fighting for justice" is taken literally, _justice_ would be reified."

There is no "I", stop looking for it, and be it. beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, like a bee.

DPD is an attempt of the mind to separate experience from the experiencer. Or to find an experiencer in experience. The mere fact of not equating these terms results in existencial non-sense. Because an experiencer can never be found in experience, if you define experience as that which the experiencer experiences.


----------



## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

Wow. This is amazing. Probably the best advice on the forums that i have read! I had never thought about life in this way before, and it makes complete sense. 1 year before I got DP, my friends who I spoke to on a daily basis all sort of headed off on with their lives at the same time, I only had 3 but they were from different areas, didn't know each other, so it seemed to be college that suddenly made them absent. I always knew though that having friends was like my food and water... I needed it to feel whole. I defined myself in what kind of person they viewed me as, and, suddenly having nobody to give me those things, I felt like i was losing me. I have had DP since a year after that with one break in between. From your post it seems like that could be related somehow. And the you are what you do approach makes perfect sense too. When I dance, do the washing up, cook... suddenly there is a sense of peace for me, like i need to do, in order to escape the chaos. And the more I try to look in and find myself, the more chaotic I feel.

I would "like" but I've over indulged in spending my 5 today


----------



## EdwinJanssen (Oct 10, 2012)

I have had DP for six years without much hope. This post just gave me a few new ideas, thank you so much for posting this. Just reading it cleared my mind a little more, thank you!


----------



## gasspanicc (Mar 21, 2012)

This wat ive been trying to do, my brain has gotten itself into one massive.mindfuck that I just act without any comment on that decisiom or acting. But why cant you find the experience, why cant the experiencer look at the experience it experiences? Great post btw, please post more often.


----------



## gasspanicc (Mar 21, 2012)

Tbh im now actually greatful for dp, I just dislike some of the ways it penetrates ocd.


----------



## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

I'd agree.

Personally, I was full of misery and anxiety when I began to meditate and I was looking for an escape route.. an easy way out. I wanted to get rid of my personality and run away from the anger and sadness. One night I meditated with intense focus and the day I woke up was the day I started feeling depersonalized. Soon after I had a horrendous panic attack in which I was convinced I was dieing though I didn't know what from and could barely leave my flat...

so yeah fearless I'd agree with you and I think DP is an emotional problem & defense mechanism.


----------



## Abraxas (Apr 23, 2011)

Hi, im glad it helped =)
----------------------------------

What im arguing for is not "spiritual" but philosophical/ontological (*Ontology* is the philosophical study of the nature of _being, existence_, or _reality_, as well as the basic categories of being and their relation)

Regardless of how the DPD started (underlying traumas, drugs, etc), the "thing" that keeps it going is in my view, the obsessive analyzing of experience. _If you could manage to "let go" and stop looking for your self in experience, this would allow for actual experience to take place, which gradually results in a sense of being. _

Because when you are analyzing, you put experience on halt. You can't read a book and give a literary interpretation of it at the same time. I mean, you can, but if for every single word you stop to analize it, break it down, judge it, etc. Then most likely you will "lose the plot", that is, you will not submerge into the fantasy, into the experience of the story being told. Because rather than going along with the story, you are breaking it down into components trying to see whether it is real or not, or a trick, or a trap, or if the characters in the play are out to get the main one or no, etc etc, without you even getting to the point in the book where they start describing the "other characters".

You're like an annoying kid who asks questions during a movie "who's the bad guy? is he good? why didnt he take the staff if he knew it was there?" etc, rather than just waiting and seeing how the movie actually evolves.
Ideally you first live an experience, then you might want to analyze it symbolically, so that you can draw wisdom/knowledge from it, for future events. For example, you go for a dinner with someone special, and you have a given conversation, and discuss certain topic, lets call it _D_. A normal person would talk about D, getting involved in the discussion, and say, maybe the partner showed signs of not being too entertained by it. So when the date finishes the person looks back at the experience and says "shit, I shouldnt have talked about Dungeon&Dragons, she looked bored". And well, next time he ll come up with something better, end of story, no endless rumination about what happened.

A not-so-healthy person, while he is talking about D, tries to observe himself talk about D (losing any kind of grace and fluency), analyzes not only the words he's using and those coming out of the other persons mouth, but also the whole experience, the surrounding, the fact that they are both alive and are uttering words out of their mouth, the fact that they are eating food, and chewing, and all these sensations in the body, and where did all come from, and also judging the quality and "realness" of the colours, the depth, the music, etc." ie, non-sense, paralysis, depersonalization. You can't do and analyze what you are doing while you do it! Or well, you can, but the product is a state devoid of essence, without flow, without Eros, pure Logos. you never quite do things right, and you never quite think about things right, because you try to do both at the same time. (basically you cant make love and think at the same time... if you think about what you are doing, you lose grasp of the erotic nature of love-making. Same with every day sensual experiences, ranging from breathing in, to drinking a cup of hot chocolate, to having a conversation with a friend. You cant look at someone in the eyes and think about how strange they're eyes are and how did evolution take place. I mean, you can, but what you do is you lose connection, you lose the "salt & pepper" of life, because suddenly you stopped living, and now you turned into a life critic/commentator. "This is REAL, this is STRANGE, this is NOT HOW IT USED TO BE, I FEEL NO LOVE because I think too much because I am afraid to connect to that love in the first place so i keep detached from everyone by living in this fake thought-world and I have no intention of leaving, im going to keep thinking forever so that i never ever connect with Life"









well. you are a coward. get out there and live. "you" definitely are not real. when you start connecting with your experience, "you" will dissapear. "you" are just a construct, a charade. When you stop trying to defend yourself and separate so desperately from the "outside world"/experience, paradoxically you will find your true self, which is in the action, which is indistinguishable from pure experience. It arises out of INTERACTION, that is to say, it is not a thing to itself. DPD happens when you desperately try to find, in experience, an unchanging, self-sufficient, independent self, and by not finding one, you paradoxically fear your own absense!

Think of "Electricity".

For electricity to occur, you need two things: A positive node, and a negative node. Lets call these, Subject and object. ( In philosophy, a *subject* is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity (or "object"). *A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed*.)

Now, what is electricity? is it a thing on its own, is it a physical, real entity? no, its an INTERACTION between two "real" things; a possitive node and a negative one. The electricity is only present when the two of these are in contact. If you isolate the possitive node, you will get no electricity.

So you have the possitive Subject (say, the mind's Eye, the pure mind), and the "negative" Object of experience, ie, an apple.

When you "connect" the Subject with the Object, subjective experience is produced. In this case, the mind "pours" its attention onto a room with an apple (the whole room + apple being the object/s of experience), and experiences the redness, shape, etc of the apple. We could call this flow, this exchange, electricity.

Now, imagine this system of Subject-Object has run smoothly for some time, until at some point there is a short-circuit, and some of the experience goes odd.
the SUBJECT (which is the "true" Self, the observer!), noticing the lack of electricity, or better put, say, a decrease in its voltage or resistance, or whatever (as in DPD, experience does go on), begins to Analyze the OBJECT of experience, in order to find out what went wrong. Notice that the SUBJECT could never in principle analyze the EXPERIENCE as a whole because it is part of the experience itself! That is, there is no Subject separate from experience.
Subject (experiencer) + Object (experienced) = Experience (flow, electricity)

You can not have the Subject analyzing the experience, as it would mean (simply replace Experience by Subject + Object): Analysis = Subject + (Subject + Object). Two subjects!! which is an impossibility.

in spite of this fallacy, this is what one with DPD actually tries to do. By doing so, the actual experience is moved to an "objective" place (which is really not purely Objective at all), it is just tried to fit into Objectiveness by the mind. And the mind (subject) tries to analyze it in turn.

Now, notice that in neither of the two cases, the SUBJECT was found on the OBJECT (of course), so the pure Self was never on the flow of experience (electricity), however, being this flow all that it ever knew (and will ever know, as Subject can not have itself as object, that is an eye can not see itself), it IDENTIFIED with a given quality of this flow (example, smooth flow. the "self" was the smoothness, the easy going flow of experiences (feelings, etc), ie, the ELECTRICITY!!)
Now you have a blocked flow of experience which is not allowed to untie itself simply because the mind is actively creating this detached state of analysis! That is, it is withdrawing its attention from the Object to "itself", hence the electricity falters (as the + needs to connect to the - in order for good flow to occur). But this is even more weird because the + can never direct its flow towards itself!! so what it does, it creates a "second subject", one that "feels" like it is a subject, and directs its energy towards it. The "you" in a DPD state, is this "subject", which is not the SUBJECT and will never be, and will never "feel" right, because it has no flow, no life. Its not even a real subject at all, its just a bundle of irrational thoughts and fears, it is clockwork, and ultimately Objective!, that is, made up of parts. Whereas the real Subject is unseen and without attributes (as only objects/phenomena posses attributes). And the "self" is an Interaction, a flow, and nothing with "reality" of its own.
So you have four possible seats for sense of identity: The true, unique Observer (the mind's eye), which can not be seen! The Objects of experience (sensations, feelings, etc), experience itself (the flow, the electricity, the contact between Observer and Observed), and finally a made up objective "I" which is a mind-construct, which lives "in the mind", but is not the mind, that is, it is a CONTENT of the mind!
My guess is that most people, including everyone here before they had DPD, identified with the flow. While on DPD you identify with mind content in the shape of a subject, which is bound to feel empty, simply because... it "lives" were feelings are not, ie in the thinking mind!
Best is to go back to simply experiencing so that flow is slowly re-established. Being in Action.

-----
The search for self is fruitless, because doing the searching is what blocks the flow in the first place, and it is the flow which you used to identify with your "self", never the Subject, as the subject will always remain Unknown (by definition, and this goes to all levels: linguistical, logical, ontological, metaphysical, etc). An eye can not see itself, it could at best see a reflection of itself on an object of experience, ie in experience itself! But never in the analysis of experience! never in this or that object of experience in particular! the most approximate that the Subject will ever get to See itself is when it is in complete communion with what it is DOING! that is, in complete communion with the experience! The more you try, in your mind, to separate Subject from Object, the more unreal the self becomes (the less electricity! imagine this electricity as representing a smooth flow of feelings, quite apt to be labeled "myself!", The more you "look for"/analyze/comment/judge, the less your feelings flow, and the more unreal "you" become, simply because "you" = flow of feelings**.

** with this i dont imply that you have to be a drama queen all day long and have strong emotions in order to have a sense of self. I mean any kind of feeling, from the most intense to the most subtle and ephemeral.

In the case of the observer in the room with an apple. Imagine that a day lasts for 1000 years. For 500 years this observer looked at the apple so intensely that it started to identify with it. "Suddenly", it turns from day into night, and the apple, "dissapears". So the observer starts panicking cause it thinks that He is dissapearing. Well, he is not. Also the apple is there, and maybe if instead of analyzing it so much, he would reach and give it a bite, he will realize that it tastes the same. (Note i am not encouraging apple-eating as this is the fruit of the devil. Please substitute "apple" for "pineapple", which is also tastier imo.)
Also imagine the freedom this could provide... suddenly the observer realises that he is not "just" the apple, and now he starts to explore the rest of the room. (analogy being... well... you might explore different sides of your personality that before went unnoticed or unexploited.) Also could mean: there are other people and things going on in the world than "you". Get out there and take a look! *inter-act!* maybe you find something even better than what you "lost".

Further philosophical nuanses:

It is also curious to note that the Subject could never be apart from Object! Or better put, the Subject could never "know" of itself if there was no Object, because there would be no experience. So, not only it would be unable to "look at istself", as stated before, but it could not even know itself through the logical conclusion "thers is experience, I am". If you are, but can not "see/feel" yourself, nor any other thing, then you would never even know you exist. That is why Object (phenomenical experience) is so important and necessary for sense of self.
----
You could argue that the analyzing is an object of experience itself. (as it definitely does not happen "inside" the Subject). In this case, the analyzing would be competing against the present object (your room, the person you're talking to) for the Subjects attention, creating a poor energy flow between the Subject and the present object, which in turn makes that object look less real. That is, the analyzing experience becomes more real than the other objects of experience (those presented to the senses).
-----

So,... on a more pragmatic level.. simply try substituting "me, or I", with "breath, eye-contact, warm sunlight on the skin, love, fear, beauty, colours" Dont even think "I breath", simply, breath. if you are compelled to COMMENT on experience, say "breath". Better still, say "breathing" as everything happens in time. There is no such thing as a pin-point entity or event in time. Where is "the breath"? its nowhere to be found, in the same manner as "self, I, me" is nowhere to be found. Simply because these words/ideas/nouns, are *reifications*, they, in the most essential sense of the word, don't exist. They are not made up of parts, because they are abstract ideas, and ideas are holistic, are absolute, and are "imagined", or conceptualized. Same with "I".
Looking for the Subject (observer) is like going around your room, moving your furniture around, checking under the bed ,etc, looking for yourself. It can not be known. The observer can not observe itself.
However, the sense of self can and does occur when the Subject and Object** interact in a direct, non dual (not mediated by judgements, comments, analysisI) way. Quite paradoxically, the less "you" interfere with experience, the more real you become.

** note that while Subject is and can only be one, "Object" refers to a phenomenum or all phenomena ocurring simultaneously at a given point of time. (this could be from simple things as looking at an apple, or thinking about god, or feeling love, or looking at someone's eyes as an airplane flyes by, with all the sensorial perceptions that come along with that experience.

** also note that im a retard because in order to write this I had to do a great deal of Analysis! =p that is, I stopped being for a couple of hours, and turned into a fucking machine)

Anyway, to sum up. Be. ( period, dont comment about it):

Be


----------



## Abraxas (Apr 23, 2011)

Yes I agree with the original anxiety/panic sensations being the cause for the mind to become so anal and try to know and solve everything. And while it doesnt find a solution or explanation, it unconsciously finds a way to diminish the pain, by keeping the thinking/analyzing process going! it just thinks in order to avoid feeling, its a way to try disconnect from experience, even if its disguised as "you wanting to know about deep important questions in Life". The result is the same, whether you're thinking all day long about where God is, or whether you're thinking about the best chess strategies all day. Rational/Logical thinking breaks up, Being/feeling is holistic. Language (speech) is, in its core, not more than algorithms. Experience is beyond algorithms. When you try to apply these to find a basis for your sense of self, then you re bound to lose. Even the searching through/scanning through the experienced (without even thinking about it), in the attitude of "looking for myself", is a priori bound to fail, because "self" is a state, not a thing to be observed, and it is a state that is far from the one you're currently in (analyzing, looking for self, etc). Before DPD, your state was never one of "looking for my self", so why do you look for yourself now? this is not who you were before. Your "old self", did not look for it self, it just lived. So to recover your self, literally stop looking for it! stop looking for, stop analyzing experience!
that is a state of being which is very awkward and contraditory, as Subject is trying to find self everywhere it is not, since "self" is a state of uninterrupted flux. By posing so many questions and analyzing (breaking apart), you are interrupting the flow! see the paradox? just let go and slowly the flow will begin to re-establish itself, and you will start feeling that "essence of being" come back, without you looking for it! and don't interrupt by saying/or looking "is it here yet?" as you'll go back to zero. Just abandon all hopes of finding your self, abandon all hopes of deriving existential/metaphysical knowledge from experience, and paradoxically by doing so you will start to approach that which is true.

Good analogy with the camera! never thought of that one!! =)

edit: great story as well







questioning things too much makes those things become unreal. stop questioning and the answer will simply "be". I think the world feels uncomfortable with our questions. Maybe we're making the wrong ones! or we re using the wrong muscle to pose them. (ie the brain/thinking mind)


----------



## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

All the points made here are awesome. I really like abraxas' book and date examples - they're great break-downs of what happens in our minds when we get DP.

I don't think I can stop saying I though, lol.


----------

