Is solipsism the same as derealization?

[Antor8188]

@Leo Gura do you believe people confuse solipsism with derealization or are they the same?

[Kksd74628]

@Antor8188

Because you ask the question you seem to confuse them or at least think that some folks do so I ask the question from you that what makes you personally think that it can be confused. Also little tip for you that next time you start topic make it little bit longer and try to explain your thoughts more clearly so people know immendiately what you mean by that and this makes it easier to answer for your questions : )

Edited February 24, 2022 by Kksd74628

[Preety_India]

No. 

Derealization is a mental phenomenon where you feel detached from your surroundings. People and objects around you may seem unreal. Even so, you're aware that this altered state isn't normal. Surroundings that appear distorted, blurry, colorless, two-dimensional or artificial, or a heightened awareness and clarity of your surroundings. Distortions in perception of time, such as recent events feeling like distant past. Distortions of distance and the size and shape of objects.

Do not confuse this with any spiritual awakening or experience. 

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Preety_India

[Inliytened1]

20 minutes ago, Antor8188 said:

@Leo Gura do you believe people confuse solipsism with derealization or are they the same?

No they are not the same.

[Kksd74628]

@Preety_India

Thing is that this is pretty tricky, because what do you define as real or normal and what does they mean. I know that derealization is defined as symptom, but at the same time loss of sense of self (depersonalization) is being seen as symptom as well, but this is just stopping believing to something that does not exist.

When you define something as real or normal that implies that there are opposites unreal and unnormal and what are they in this situation and how do you "know" which is real compared to other. If real is that what has been always then having no self or face is real, because when you were "born" there are none of those. So actually believing to any of those is being seen as "unreal" or "unnormal".

The reason they are seen as sympoms are because our main humanity is not deep enough to understand these spiritual concepts and therefore they see them as something bad. So actually this whole conversation is hard, because same time some of these are scary stuff and need to be "cured", but at the same time these are same things that one who is very deep into spiritual sees as positive signals.

Difference between fluidity of mind in psychedelics, deep meditation or just accepting wrong assumpions and something that we should be conserned is just that how the one who experiences these takes them. If the one is happy from these, does not panic and his/her life is not "threatened" by these I wouldn't call that as anything bad and vice versa.

So the difference is actually pretty hard to define other than how it is being taken and therefore only thing we can do is to help people to have more happiness in their lives and we need to understand that which makes them happy and help them based on this knowledge. So you can't for example give football to someone who likes tennis or car to someone who likes running.

Sidenote: why did you stop using your own face as avatar or did it feel too personal for you?

-joNi-

[BipolarGrowth]

Not the same. 

[Preety_India]

1 hour ago, Kksd74628 said:

@Preety_India

Thing is that this is pretty tricky, because what do you define as real or normal and what does they mean. I know that derealization is defined as symptom, but at the same time loss of sense of self (depersonalization) is being seen as symptom as well, but this is just stopping believing to something that does not exist.

When you define something as real or normal that implies that there are opposites unreal and unnormal and what are they in this situation and how do you "know" which is real compared to other. If real is that what has been always then having no self or face is real, because when you were "born" there are none of those. So actually believing to any of those is being seen as "unreal" or "unnormal".

The reason they are seen as sympoms are because our main humanity is not deep enough to understand these spiritual concepts and therefore they see them as something bad. So actually this whole conversation is hard, because same time some of these are scary stuff and need to be "cured", but at the same time these are same things that one who is very deep into spiritual sees as positive signals.

Difference between fluidity of mind in psychedelics, deep meditation or just accepting wrong assumpions and something that we should be conserned is just that how the one who experiences these takes them. If the one is happy from these, does not panic and his/her life is not "threatened" by these I wouldn't call that as anything bad and vice versa.

So the difference is actually pretty hard to define other than how it is being taken and therefore only thing we can do is to help people to have more happiness in their lives and we need to understand that which makes them happy and help them based on this knowledge. So you can't for example give football to someone who likes tennis or car to someone who likes running.

 

People who undergo spiritual transformation or gain spiritual insights do not experience symptoms of psychological disorders(unless they're actually suffering a psychological condition). That's a terrible  misconception. If one does not know what a particular symptom is in the psychological context, they can easily confuse it for spiritual awakening. No spiritual awakening mimics a psychological disorder, they're very distinct from each other. This is the reason why teaching concepts like Solipsism and other spiritual stuff is so dangerous to those who are already mentally unstable. They need to admit themselves into a psych facility and keep away from spirituality and not confuse their symptoms for awakening. They're better off in a mental hospital taking meds and treating their symptoms. 

If anything that spirituality does is, it makes you a more refined and wholesome person, it's a way to keep your mind and spirit fit, the way you keep your body fit with exercise. Spirituality does not lead to downspiral, <if it does, it's not spirituality>, it only takes you higher and at a better place in life.

 

[Kksd74628]

@Preety_India

So you didn't understand my point when I addressed words normal and real. One person may see world as unreal and is diagnosed as having derealization, but at the same time one who does not make assumptions from "world around you" may feel the same. Which is difference between "psychosis" and psychedelic trip? You may say that none of those is real, but you are wrong, because actually both of those as equally real and unreal because that which feels real is just your own definition for the word and that is not based on anything.

I agree that people with so called "mental illnesses" shouldn't participate in spiritual practises or the consequenses could be radical, but all that I am saying is that there are nothing which is more real than anything else and that is the reason we can't separate any experience from another one. I may have good insight and call it spiritual awakening and there is no one who can argue with me, because I am the one who defines how the word is used, but at the same time another one could see it as illness, becuase it's scary as h***.

If you have more questions then let me know and we can have further analysis on here : )

[Preety_India]

2 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

I may have good insight and call it spiritual awakening and there is no one who can argue with me, because I am the one who defines how the word is used, but at the same time another one could see it as illness, becuase it's scary as h***.

By this logic even Connor Murphy is having an awakening. The Answer is a clear, unambiguous and firm NO.

Mental illnesses, as recorded in dsm journals, are very distinct in their nature and typicality, they differ from any other human mental condition. They are not simply someone acting like a madman. They are based on a variety of factors like heredity and genetic factors, they run in the family, they have distinct symptoms and signs and they remain more or less the same in the display of signs from one patient to the next. Their symptoms have been recorded throughout millennia of human existence and for so many centuries these symptoms have remained the same, and it's not just a particular symptom, it's a cluster of symptoms that finally leads to a firm diagnosis. 

If someone is having a psychotic episode and they call it awakening, they're mistaken and if people legitimately match their symptoms to a known diagnosable mental illness, then surely it's a mental illness or episode rather than an awakening. People like Connor Murphy need psychological help because they mask their psychological illness as awakening, a dangerous territory to enter. 

So you cannot interchange the words mental illness and spiritual awakening. They're both distinctly different. 

When you're in the middle of a psychedelic trip, you see visions and colors and what not. This is not mental illness since it will happen to anyone who takes that psychedelic. It's the effect of the psychedelic, nothing more and this effect is temporary, it fades as soon as the psychedelic's potency in the system wears down. 

Awakening is not the same as a psychedelic experience, it is not so temporary. It is a permanent shift of the mind/consciousness to another base where the mind perceives everything differently. More or less permanent and there will be degrees to this. 

So if you are having a psychotic episode, then you cannot call it awakening, classic mistake (see Connor Murphy). It is what it is. So if a doctor or people see it as a mental illness after noticing how it closely matches a mental illness pattern, then yes it is nothing but mental illness. 

Don't ever make the mistake of confusing one for the other, that's literally a dangerous trap. 

 

 

[Kksd74628]

@Preety_India

I am not confusing them to each another, but just talking about that calling something real does not mean anything, because it's your own definition of something. Also that if something happens to many of us is not valid argument that it is more real than another one. Also many of us think that there is "I", but still that is not the "truth" so don't make argument mistake "Argumentum ad populum".

I am not saying connor is having awakening or not, because no one knows, but him. We only know that what we see, but that is his behavior not what he experiences and this whole connor argument is beside the point I am trying to show. All that I am just trying to point out is that derealization may happen either as mental illness or as spiritual symptom. For example kundalini reportebly makes you see different things and it is not mental illness. 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Kksd74628

[BipolarGrowth]

@Preety_India I hope you take the time to watch this. 

 

[Reciprocality]

Many a knee jerk reaction.

Psychological disorders are defined radically removed from a comprehension of spiritual insights.

It is an individual and an individual only who can come to terms with the variety of their experiences, there can not be so far as we know done a general science beyond any individual and their particular experience which has any bearing on their experience, for this reason alone it is futile to conclude from speculation on a difference between disorders and mystical phenomena.

In truth all phenomena is mystical, and to that effect all psychological literature becomes speculation. 

Derealization is not a particular meaningful idea, solipsism is. 

The former is an identity that has been put on a bunch of different individual experiencing things that are understood as different to consensus reality by themselves and by their therapists.

The latter can integrate what can in the former be denied, that is a phenomena in which rationality is defined by the limits of the phenomena itself by the subject which has it. 

[OBEler]

No clearly not! 

Derealization is a coping mechanism against trauma. 

[Yarco]

Definitely not. I derealized about a week or two ago and there was nothing spiritual about it. No wisdom or insight. Just a scary shift in perspective.

I guess you could say there is "less attachment" in that state but moreso simply because of a distortion in your senses.

In a TV show or movie where someone experiences trauma, like gets stabbed and is about to die, and time is all distorted and their vision is messed up and they're stumbling around and voices are muffled, that's actually a pretty accurate representation.

By definition, derealization is not marked by a detachment from reality.

To experience solipsism I believe you would need to go past just derealizing, all the way to psychosis where you are actually disconnected from reality. I dont think you can seriously believe you're the only real being in existance and still be in this reality in the traditional sense.

Not to say that enlightened people are insane. But to a psychologist I'm guessing it would present that way.