# I can't FEEL my thoughts, but they're still happening???



## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

So somehow I'm pulling through in school... a skipped 3 classes today because I know I will pull through when it matters

: HOW?

because somehow I have remarkable talent for recall of pointless facts. I don't feel like I know something and then I just somehow find the answer... For instance, I got an A on my statistics test through some kind of weird osmosis that I could not feel but was apparent only by my grade. Its like... I didn't think I knew anything... I can't FEEL my thoughts... It's like my thoughts are from some much less conscious place than before and I somehow visit this dusty old corner in my brain, retrieve a fact and am able to spit it back out for a test? ITS SO WEIRD. How is this happening? I think the physical components of my brain have been seriously altered.

Its not that I don't appreciate this... I do... but its horrible not to know my own thoughts...... not to feel them...... I feel so empty but somehow I'm having conversations, getting straight As, working a cash register.. doing these things that seem from a CONSCIOUS standpoint of actual ACTIVE THOUGHT to be impossible. How and why is this happening?


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## livinginhell333 (Feb 19, 2005)

i have the same exact thing as you do. i can't feel my thoughts either, but sometimes i'm able to solve problems, converse, although i don't know how, but i do it, i work a cash register too, and i mean doing that is automatic but now feeling dped and not feeling in my body and not feeling my own thoughts i really feel like a robot. i really don't have much time to think about it cuz the place i work at is busy so i'm always ringin, but i just hate the feeling. i'm doing things, talking, moving, working, and it doesn't feel like i'm doing it. i really don't understand it.


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## livinginhell333 (Feb 19, 2005)

does anyone have any answers for this cuz i sure don't. the mind is a weird thing, things it can do.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2005)

I think i might have some partial explanation but im to damn tired to go throught it right now..check out this toppic tommorow and dont go crazy about it i also have this and it almost 24/7 stinks badly but maybe maybe well come up with something alriiight???

Goood nite yall


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

When you say "I can't feel my thoughts"... what do you think thoughts should FEEL like? The popular notion is that all humans experience both thoughts and feelings/emotions. Thought is thought, spontaneous, word based, thereby abstract. Feelings are more primal, they have physical components/affect our posture/disposition -? angry happy sad suprise fear etc.

What you describe sounds completely ordinary brain functioning, the only difference is that you are to a degree self-aware now, as opposed to being unconscious of these happenings, where most people are at... and perhaps where you differ from others around you and from your own past.

You'll get used to it.


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

Humans have to be somewhat robotic, go on "autopilot" as they say. It would be terribly exhausting to be aware of every passing moment. I'm sure everyone has experienced this while driving a car... a normal drive to the doctors, then next thing we know, we're driving down a familiar road, but this is completely off the route from where we were supposed to go, and the weird thing is, we don't remember when we lost track of driving.

Thank God we go on autopilot when we ring registers for a living. It would be impossible to make it through an afternoon.

The difference you're experiencing is that you are aware that you have been unaware/unconscious, and that strikes your conscious mind as being absurd, impossible, and somewhat frightening.

The reality is what we call our thinking selves, our conscious experience, is only one fragment of our total life. And that sh*t is just plain FREAKY.

But, we get used to it.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

I realize the wording was a little strange, but I couldn't really think of anyway to put it. I also realize many things are performed without a lot of conscious thought, but it's like things have become really difficult to grasp - I can't concentrate in school and I feel like I haven't learned anything, but I succeed on tests. I feel like I don't have a thought in my mind most of the time... like I'm not thinking AT ALL and then I will somehow pull out of thin air an opinion on a subject I swear I've had not thoughts on. It's like all my opinions were previously decided and I'm just reporting them and when I talk, I surprise myself. It's a very strange sensation. I hope this cleared things up a little bit.


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## Milan (May 29, 2005)

Bright23 I like your explanations because I can relate to what your saying. I think we have had similar experiences with our flavour of DP/DR.
When I see your name I look forward to reading your post.



> The difference you're experiencing is that you are aware that you have been unaware/unconscious, and that strikes your conscious mind as being absurd, impossible, and somewhat frightening.
> 
> The reality is what we call our thinking selves, our conscious experience, is only one fragment of our total life. And that sh*t is just plain FREAKY.
> 
> But, we get used to it.


I like what you wrote above because a lot of times my awarness of my awarness really disturbs me.


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## klt123 (Jun 15, 2005)

totally.. i have the same thing! so u think there is hope that i can actually finish college like that? with me i want to "feel"like im doing it though or there is no point.. its like im not gaining confidence if i feel like im a robot. i do the same thing. i tell my parents. i have no clue how im talking or making sense. i really feel like its so hard to make sense but somehow it comes out ok.. weird. please email me at [email protected] i would love to talk with u ok? thanks


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## person3 (Aug 10, 2004)

you may not believe this but NORMALLY you're not supposed to be so damn conscious of your day-to-day actions. you may at one time have been TOO focused on how you felt, when you felt it.


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## livinginhell333 (Feb 19, 2005)

about the whole school thing, like what if i graduate and i feel nothing, no reward or anything. just that dull dead feeling. i want those things to make me happy like it makes other people happy. actually anything that could make me happy or feel more alive i would gladly take right now.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

livinginhell333 said:


> about the whole school thing, like what if i graduate and i feel nothing, no reward or anything. just that dull dead feeling. i want those things to make me happy like it makes other people happy. actually anything that could make me happy or feel more alive i would gladly take right now.


I felt pretty much nothing at my high school graduation, except a little relief...not having to deal with people anymore. Then again, the general mood during the assembly seemed to be: "Lets get the fuck out and get drunk" :lol:

But don't feel bad just because things like that don't make you as deliriously happy as they do others... there are more important things than high school for sure.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2005)

Alright sorry for late reply but i was on a smoke out for the past 3 days,as i promised :

#1

Kolb & Wishaw (1990) have identified eight principle symptoms of temporal lobe damage: 1) disturbance of auditory sensation and perception, 2) disturbance of selective attention of auditory and visual input, 3) disorders of visual perception, 4) impaired organization and categorization of verbal material, 5) disturbance of language comprehension, 6) impaired long-term memory, 7) altered personality and affective behavior, 8) altered sexual behavior.

Selective attention to visual or auditory input is common with damage to the temporal lobes (Milner, 1968). Left side lesions result in decreased recall of verbal and visual content, including speech perception. Right side lesions result in decreased recognition of tonal sequences and many musical abilities. Right side lesions can also effect recognition of visual content (e.g. recall of faces).

The temporal lobes are involved in the primary organization of sensory input (Read, 1981). Individuals with temporal lobes lesions have difficulty placing words or pictures into categories.

Language can be effected by temporal lobe damage. Left temporal lesions disturb recognition of words. Right temporal damage can cause a loss of inhibition of talking.

The temporal lobes are highly associated with memory skills. Left temporal lesions result in impaired memory for verbal material. Right side lesions result in recall of non-verbal material, such as music and drawings.

Seizures of the temporal lobe can have dramatic effects on an individual's personality. Temporal lobe epilepsy can cause perseverative speech, paranoia and aggressive rages (Blumer and Benson, 1975). Severe damage to the temporal lobes can also alter sexual behavior (e.g. increase in activity) (Blumer and Walker, 1975).

Common tests for temporal lobe function are: Rey-Complex Figure (visual memory) and Wechsler Memory Scale - Revised (verbal memory).

#2 "To make matters even more complex,exposure to trauma may temporarly shut down Broca's area the region of the left hemisphere of the brain that translates the expierience,the means by which we most offten relate our expierience to others,and even to ourselvs" This quote comes from The Myth of Sanity : Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout.

#3
Have I made things worse?

Disorders of thinking can be divided into the following categories:

Disorders of the stream of thought ( speed and pressure )

Disorders of possession of thought

Disorders of content of thought

Disorders of form of thought

DISORDERS OF THE STREAM OF THOUGHT

In this category there is an alteration in either the amount or speed of thought.

At one extreme there is pressure of thought, when ideas arise in unusual variety and abundance and pass through the mind rapidly. At the other extreme there is poverty of thought, when the patient has only a few thoughts, which lack variety and richness, and seem to move through the mind slowly. The experience of pressure occurs in mania; that of poverty in depressive disorders. Either may be experienced in schizophrenia.

Stream of thought can be interrupted suddenly, the patient?s mind goes ?blank? and an observer may notice an interruption in the flow of conversation. Minor degrees of this experience are common, particularly in people who are tired or anxious. In contrast, thought blocking, which is a particularly abrupt and complete interruption, strongly suggests schizophrenia. Because thought blocking has this diagnostic significance it should only be identified if there is absolutely no doubt about its presence. Inexperienced interviewers often wrongly identify a sudden interruption in speech as thought blocking. Thought blocking should only be identified when interruptions in speech are sudden, striking, repeated and when the patient describes it as an abrupt and complete emptying of the mind. The diagnostic association with schizophrenia is strengthened if the patient also interprets the experience unusually, e.g. as having had his thoughts taken away by a machine operated by a persecutor.

I dont know if any of You ppl find it usefull or not..any comments,questions dont hesitate to write me

Peace arthur


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

Hey Arczi,

What kind of "smoke out?" By your reply I'd guess grass, correct? Because your reply was pretty "far out" hYUCK, er...

This is a forum for people dealing with varying forms of anxiety, DP, DR, ie Psychological Conditions. Not organic temporal lobe damage. No need to be alarming people around here.

Fingertingle... thinking and talking is spontaneopus (sp), uncontrollable and appears just plain WEIRD when you focus exclusively on it.

I recommend driving to a farm and hanging out with some cows for at least a half hour paying exclusive attention to exactly what they do and say. They say "MOOO. moooooo. MOOoo." over and over, and eat grass. It's so WEIRD.

I'm very serious, try it.

Life is automatic, 95% auto pilot, and it tends to take care of itself. Our stomachs tell us when to eat, our bladders when to pee, our colons when to crap, and trying to deliberately not sleep when we are tired is a hopeless battle. We didn't choose to be born, it just happened. And we don't know when we will die. There's really not much we have any control over, other than what we choose to focus our conscious mind on.

So why when we become self-aware, do we choose to focus on how weird, uncomfortable, frightening and/or depressing our human experience is?

Nietzche, G. I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky, William James, Robert Anton Wilson, Goethe, Nabokov, Pema Chodron, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, Lao Tzu, Erich Fromm. These people have all asked similar questions. No easy answers.

Milan, was it meditation that brought your DP/DR on? Do I remember that correctly?


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## Milan (May 29, 2005)

Yes Bright, it was a Vipassana meditation retreat that brought on my DP/DR. Had no idea what was happening at the time when I was going through massive anxiety and very weird states of consciousness. I thought I was either going mad or experiencing some form of realisation. Looking back at it I've had DP/DR many different times during my life. I remember the first time I got stoned I had the worst DP attack. I really thought I was being possessed. Scary sh*t. I think my brain is wired that way and any form of anxiety or deep existential thought seems to bring it back. Before this time it was probably over a decade that I had any weird mind states. I'm never meditating again.


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## LISA NICHOLS (Sep 3, 2005)

im suprised i got any exam results at my school as i couldnt concentrate one bit at school!!!
i was in constant fear and tryed to keep myself looking sane more then anything 
yeah i agree about the thoughts thing but the reason you feel you cant feel them is your trying to hard you dont feel them anyway there just there 
but when your suffering from this what we all are everything is analised to the point it would drive anyone crazy 
try and keep a journal it helps i thought i would start one on here as you can see. infact why dont everyone start one we can compare help each other as we are still alone yes we come on here but noone fully understands what we go through and by opening up our lives in a journal then it will let others into it more maybe this will help more ???


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2005)

Hiya Bright

Yeah i've noticed the big Deprsonalization community on the top of the page but it seems like there is a small fanclub of this particural symptom and dispite all the talks about overfocused selfwatch anxiety factors i think thers is more to it.Those are 3 things that could also contribute to it,depending on each individual story.But maybe Your right maybe im too fucked up even for this board..


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## Monkeydust (Jan 12, 2005)

fingertingle said:


> So somehow I'm pulling through in school... a skipped 3 classes today because I know I will pull through when it matters
> 
> : HOW?
> 
> ...


You might think that I'm just being patronising, but I'm not.

But, honestly, this is entirely normal. You're not supposed to be able, you're not "programmed", to be consciously able to "feel" or "comprehend" the totality of the thoughts that reside in your mind. That's simply how it is. You'll find yourself able to recall information when provoked that you didn't know you had. This is simply because it's part of your registered memory, that comes to awareness when something provokes you to make the "connection" to it.

One of the keys to overcoming DP is the ability to accept how your mind works as it is, to disclaim any attempt to question or change it, and to just live with it anyway. It's easier said that done, but likewise, once you can do it, it's easy to carry on that way.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

Okay arczi, this freaked the shit out of me as I'm alread terrified of schizophrenia. That was really interesting and now I'm going to do my very best to forget it immediately... :shock:


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

Monkey dust -
Its hard to explain but the simple explanation in arczi's post seems enough: "a poverty of thought" and there's a noticeable and drastic difference between how I used to think and how much I used to think and my current state of mind - in which my thoughts seem few, fuzzy and repititious. Either I'm explaining this totally wrong or I'm alone in this. I have no idea.


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## LISA NICHOLS (Sep 3, 2005)

fingertingle said:


> Monkey dust -
> Its hard to explain but the simple explanation in arczi's post seems enough: "a poverty of thought" and there's a noticeable and drastic difference between how I used to think and how much I used to think and my current state of mind - in which my thoughts seem few, fuzzy and repititious. Either I'm explaining this totally wrong or I'm alone in this. I have no idea.


no not at all 

u r not alone infact u proberly r one of many others me being the of of many other !!!!!


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

FINGERTINGLE, a suggestion, use your self monitoring and focus out a bit... examine what is going on in your day to day... is there a lot of repitition? are you meeting new people, exchanging ideas? are you getting out to see movies? reading a newspaper in a coffee shop, getting out and seeing things? what do you do day to day? are you depressed and isolating? or are you active and participating in the world?

All of these things have MAJOR impacts on what and how we are thinking.

And you are not alone, even though you might like to think you are unique in your suffering. Its a bit disturbing how comforting this idea can be. It was for me.

MILAN, from what I recall, you weren't necessarily very experienced at meditiation, correct? And then you jumped in head first into a Vipanassa retreat?

Did you have any idea what you were getting into? Did you think it was going to be a vacation, a simple break from your day to day life? Or were you trying to get away from something big and only something as extreme as a major meditation retreat could be the antidote?

What were your expectations?


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

Bright,
I do agree that focusing out would help a great deal. It seems impossible, but I rarely do any of these things you have mentioned. I feel that the memory loss signifies brain damage that cannot be fixed through social interaction. I'm doing things ...indoors.. haha... But maybe you are right.


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## bright23 (Jun 6, 2005)

Indoors... alone?


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2005)

Hello,

I was browsing the forums and signed up to respond to this topic, so I'm new here.

fingertingle: I understand exactly what you're talking about. It seems that others on this board started out with a different baseline, so for them, this isn't anything out of the ordinary. People are different, so that makes sense.

Before my symptoms began, I could "sense" many different thoughts swirling through my head at all times. Things felt layered, with different functions, motivations, and perspectives being represented at each layer, and I was aware of it all. Now, much like fingertingle describes, my head feels empty. It's like I'm not having any thoughts at all.

Now, when I voice an opinion or answer a question or make a joke, I really have absolutely no idea where it came from. Before, I was there for every step of the process. I guess I'm saying I don't see the man behind the curtain anymore. And I miss the man. He was my friend. I think many people are probably born this way, so there's nothing "wrong" with it per se, but you're going to prefer what you're accustomed to. And I definitely prefer the way my brain used to work.

Thanks,
nbains


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

bright23 said:


> Indoors... alone?


Reading...at my apartment.. Watching movies..at my apartment.. Talking to my roommate.. at my apartment.. 
I got out and get coffee sometimes.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

nbains said:


> Hello,
> 
> I was browsing the forums and signed up to respond to this topic, so I'm new here.
> 
> ...


Wow, thanks for wording that better than I ever could have. Exactly.


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2005)

I know this too but first noticed it just a week ago. I hate the (none-)feeling...


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