Primeval

"I'm starting to prefer the ones who don't believe in me."

Stardust

Part & Parcel

Don't forget Gangaji! https://www.youtube.com/user/stillinawareness

You have the biggest ego in the room... ...besides me.

Those guys are all awesome sauce! Also I've lived in Berkeley before, cool place! Synchronicities are great to have!

You may have heard of Depersonalization & Derealization Disorder. Shinzen Young has dubbed it "Enlightenment's Evil Twin". I'm intensely aware of this condition. I've been Dissociated for over 13 years, non-stop, 24/7. For those not knowledgeable of depersonalization, it's a state of mind/being of feeling a loss of one's self, which can include out of body sensations, autopilot/robotic like "going through the motions" bodily actions. Having a completely blank mind is not an uncommon symptom, this means actually have no inner monologue of thoughts. There is also a lack of emotions which definitely becomes anhedonia, loss of pleasurable sensations to experiences one would normally enjoy. There is also a removing from life before DP/DR, so that memories from before no longer feel like yours, as if one is now in an entirely different reality and any thing before DP/DR is now felt as a completely different past lifetime/dimension. Another frequent symptom related to the previous one is losing felt connection to loved ones, friends, family, partners. This is a very basic and rough summation of depersonaliation, and each person going through it may have any number of these symptoms to varying degrees and have their own unique symptoms, everyone is different. There is also Derealization which is basically the outward projection of the same neurosis, i.e. reality seems fake/like a dream/sometimes people start seeing in 2D vision. Well what is the problem you ask? This sounds like enlightenment, almost? No it's not really. The blank mind is akin to being in a really interesting conversation and having something important to say but then you lose your train of thought. Except with DP/DR and Blank Mind, one feels that "loss of train of thought" 24/7. It's not a blissful state of ego transcendence. It's more like being drunk where you cannot possibly work on overcoming your ego because your state of mind is below the necessary threshold of awareness to address the ego. Another symptom I have is feeling like 13 years has been one really long moment in time. Before dissociation I recall that each moment was "segmented", like going to sleep and waking up to a new day. Well for me and some others with DP/DR, time is vanished and there is no "new day" or different "moment by moment" experience of reality. However, this is not an experience of being Present in the Now. It's an experience of being ever NOT present in the Now. It feels like total disconnection with life on every level. How do you overcome life's illusion when you are removed from life and always aware of this removal? That's what I am dealing with. Here's a video by Shinzen Young about "Enlightenment's Evil Twin": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zIKQCwDXsA Anyways, when I first became this way, I started looking into Meditation. I went to a local Zen Center at first. I then worked my way through different teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and Jiddu Krishnamurti. My goal has always been to find a way back to reality, to meditate or gain an insight leading out of DP/DR, to restore my sense of self. You see... your normal... is the enlightenment that I seek.

@Wormon Blatburm Thanks a lot! I've made some progress in living healthier, now I need to expand to a social circle and work on my financial situation. I've heard it a lot before: live life how you would if you didn't have dp, then you will recover from or at least overcome this condition!

Thanks @Vingger Any more insights?

I was just adding an Eckhart Tolle talk to my "watch later" list on youtube. Then I heard Eckhart's voice: Watch Now ...

@Vingger That's like saying a broken leg is still a leg. While true ... ... one cannot run the marathon with a broken leg.

There is a forum similar to the set up as actualized.org forum: http://www.dpselfhelp.com And then there is a large group on facebook simply titled "Depersonalization" it's a 'closed group' so if you are on facebook and join the group then you'll not have to worry about people on your friends list seeing that group. Thanks @SMC