I'm very concerned with the possibility that I am developing depersonalization disorder. I'm 22 years old and currently attending a new University. I went from having a lot of friends back home to zero here at school. Stress from my course work and not having much contact with the outside world is causing me to lose my mind. I have been out of touch with reality and nothing seems real to me at times.

I've always been what you would call a "natural" lucid dreamer. As a kid i would frequently wake up in a dream, but i thought there was no real purpose for it so i left it at that. After discovering the possibilities of what can be done in a dream, I got more and more involved in the practice. It wasn't until about 6 months ago when i started writing my dreams down and keeping a dream journal. After i stated doing this i became lucid a lot more often. When i woke up in a dream there wasn't really a need to do a reality check. There was an irrefutable distinction between waking like and real life, up until the last month or so.

I became dependent on reality checks and started doing them every time i saw something out of the ordinary in waking life. This increased my lucidity significantly. Up to the point where i was have lucid dreams nearly every rem cycle, every night. The realization that i am dreaming a lot more really started skewing my perception of reality. I stopped doing the reality checks in my dreams, but felt the need to continue with them in waking life.

Just as a fun little thing i set the "kick" music from inception as my alarm clock. I've been using it for about a month. I would set it on low volume so it would barely wake me up. This caused the music to play a role in multiple false awakenings. I used this as my most reliable dream sign.

Recently, i was in the library doing coursework listening to music. My ipod was on shuffle and the inception kick song started playing. Immediately i did a reality check and it worked. I was in fact in waking life, but i didn't believe it. I was using this as a dream sign for weeks and having it work, so the one time it goes off in waking life i cant believe its reality. My heart started beating intensely and i got tunnel vision. Things were moving in slow motion and i felt completely detached from reality. I had to leave the library and go for a drive.

Ever since this panic attack i haven't felt all there. I feel as if im viewing the world in third person. I'm under a lot of stress at uni and im hoping this feeling will pass after im home for winter break. Until then I'm completely done with lucid dreaming. I wrote this in my journal "You will no longer have lucid dreams. You will be unaware you are dreaming when you are sleeping. Waking life is reality." I studied these couple sentences for a minute or two and ripped up the journal and threw it away.

If things dont get better when im home im going to see a doctor. I'll keep you guys updated with whats going on. Thanks for listening/reading.