# Fiction with DP/DR themes



## Guest

I don't know of any pieces of fiction dealing directly with DP or characters stated as having DP. But I have read a few books where the narrator describes some feelings very close to symptoms.

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre is the one I feel is most complete and relative to my personal situation. The narrator senses that something is different in the world and tries to determine what. The book is a little hard to explain; it doesn?t have a plot, but it is the first thing I thought of when I was told about the symptoms of DP and DR. There is one scene where the narrator stands in front of a mirror trying to recognize himself and ends up being lulled to sleep by his reflection.

Another is Nadja by Andre Breton. Mainly deals with the narrator?s relationship with a mentally ill woman, but the way the narrator tells the story suggests he?s never really inside himself. He speaks of living by ?haunting? people; of having no identity of his own. I can?t say much more about since I found the book to be sort of boring and stopped reading it after awhile, but that aspect struck me.

The third is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. The narrator actually has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. I related with the main character?s pattern of thinking a great deal, even though I do not have autism or any other sort of developmental disorder (although it was suspected at one time).

There?s also a great deal to be found in the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, examplfied in is his famous line ?I is someone else?.

If you have read any of these things or have your own works to contribute, I?d like to know.


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## Scattered

I have a post on this in the Thats Life! forum. Man in the crowd by Edgar Allen Poe was mentioned. I would also add that the Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa has alot of DP like characteristics. A short story by J.G. Ballard called The Overloaded Man is pure DP/DR in my mind.I think this story is especially relevant because the whole plot centers around a man who is able to remove the meaning of objects around him until they no longer resemble anything he can understand. I suppose its more indicative of DR though.


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## rob

Camus - L'Etranger
Satre - Age of Reason/Nausea
Ian McCewan - Cement Garden/Between the Sheets
Paul Auster - New York Trilogy


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## Brainsilence02

I have read in an article that Kafka and Dostoyevski (I hope I am spelling the names correctly) had writen stuff based on DP experiences.


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## Guest

Kafka is _badass_. I never noticed any DPish stuff in his work myself, but I can see how someone would say that.

I guess pretty much anything from the existential, surrealist and magical realism genres could fit the bill.


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## Martinelv

A lot of Kafka stuff has been interpreted as a study of depersonalisation, especially Metamorphasis, and with Dostoyevsky (no idea if that's the correct spelling either) - usually Crime and Punishment and The Double, but I think they have more to do with alienation from society than alienation from 'self'. Much the same with Camus.

Rob pointed out The Cement Garden, one of Ian McEwan's shorter novels. I read that years ago, and thinking about it - yeah, it does have elements of DP in it. That and burying your parents in the garden.

There is another one, 'The Comforts of Madness', can't remember who it was by, but I think it won some kind of literature prize. From memory, it's about a young boy who 'decides' to go catatonic after a series of terrible life events. Some DP in there too.


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## Brainsilence02

Do you think that it would be enjoyable (for DP patients and not) to see the everyday life of a DP person: a two-sides story: the way other people see him/her and the way he/she sees the world?

Is there a writer who has done that?


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## Guest

Philip K. Dick seems to have been obsessed and tortured by questions about reality and also there were some dp/ dr themes

BUT DON"T READ IF THIS STUFF DISTURBS YOU! Only if you are ok with thinking about these things. Not if it's a trigger.


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## Guest

Triste said:


> Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre is the one I feel is most complete and relative to my personal situation. The narrator senses that something is different in the world and tries to determine what. The book is a little hard to explain; it doesn?t have a plot, but it is the first thing I thought of when I was told about the symptoms of DP and DR. There is one scene where the narrator stands in front of a mirror trying to recognize himself and ends up being lulled to sleep by his reflection.


I agree. I've read that many people think Sartre did suffer from depersonalization. Do you find yourself attracted to this kind of existential literature? I do alot...

My contribution: Whore, by Nelly Arcan. In runs in circles kind of the same way as Sartre. Her thesis advisor in school who read the book sais that "in the end, all you've said is nothing because what you seek to explain is unamable." Story of a girl who prostitutes herself at the same time as she finishes her master in literature... It's like a 200 hundred page existential crisis. Tough read.

Nancy


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## Guest

I love existential lit. It gives me hope.


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