# Metacognition



## whatisthis (Feb 27, 2009)

Hi Everyone,

So today I came across a word that I remember learning way back in junior high- metacognition. I remember my English teacher telling us to think of the word as "thinking about thinking". Her analogy was to imagine ourselves in a helicopter above our heads looking at ourselves thinking then to imagine ourselves above that helicopter thinking about ourselves and so forth. Bizarre concept, but recently I remember that analogy and that is how I feel DP is for me. I am constantly above myself "thinking about thinking about thinking". I used to do a lot of this when I was younger, until it would creep me out. haha. Another random thing that I used to have a hard time with and sometimes even now is looking in the mirror at myself. Is that me? Who am I? All those lovely existential thoughts that creep into my mind periodically. Oh another thing that weirded me out was watching the Truman Show with Jim Carey. Anyone else have similar experiences?


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## egodeath (Oct 27, 2008)

These are all very common with DP/DR. When you find yourself thinking about thinking, try to get yourself involved in something else...physical activity, a video game, whatever. Getting lost in your own head is not fun. Also, as a side note, people (yes, including "normal" ones) often feel depersonalized when they look in the mirror for an extended amount of time. In fact, in some forms of therapy for panic disorder patients are instructed to look at a mirror until they experience a subjective sense of unreality so that they are less likely to fear the symptoms of extreme anxiety present during panic. A word of advice: avoid (and pardon my French) mindfuck movies/books/etc--Waking Life, Vanilla Sky, and all those kinds of films are not good ideas. Philip K. Dick, Camus, Sartre, even Tolstoy--not a good idea unless you want to think about perception and reality and death.


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