Thread: When NOTHING is real...

Has anyone else felt this? Nothing in dreams is real. Nothing when you are awake is real. It's as though you see the world as it really is beyond all it's illusions, and you realize NOTHING is real. Human drama, physical items, thoughts, anything and everything doesn't even really exist. (Time, numbers, people) What is real???!

What's "next" - if anyone else has felt like this?...

Of course I can only say this here... if I say this anywhere else they send u to the 'insane asylum' or mental wing of a hospital! ha ha!

Try reading up on buddhism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

i had that feeling when i once took LSD a long time ago...it wasnt pleasant at all! In fact, i did think i would end up in the mental asylum

you prob. got it waaaay softer, but i can relate to that...

try to do some grounding work, like working in the garden, sweeping leaves in the backyard, jogging, wrestling, hatha yoga etc...anything phisical should be good, even better if it envolves other people, like sports...just dont get to point of phisical exaustion....

also, eat something heavy like meat or cheese...

these mental states are not good, and they are not a sign of "spiritual enlightment" no matter what people say... reading on budhism might be good, but without grounding it can just make things worse... also, if you smoke pot, stop for a while... dont drink either

hope it helps
TBW

oh, and later you should get involved in meditation practice, like watching the breath (vipassana meditation)... but dont do it untill you feel better and that 'nothingness' anxiety has gone away...

ah, almost forgot: sex is good in such cases too! brings awareness to the body and energy to the base chakra

To be frank, it used to happen to me when I was a kid: I'd wake from dream feeling as though, in fact,I woke up into another dream. The sensation was neither pleasant nor unpleasant; it was dream-like.

Naturally Lucid, the only advice I can give you is that on no conditions you should attempt to read Robert Irwin's "Arabian Nightmare", this terrible mind-trap of dreams within dreams within dreams, each of them nested in another one - ad infinitum - and the stories nested within dreams, and the dreams nested within stories. This book is a hellish maze of dream and narration that certainly wouldn't help you regain your sense of reality. You should also stay away from such writers as Philip K. Dick, who, after writing for years about reality-mimicking illusion ended up with a conclusion that the reality, after all, is an illusion, don't read the meditations of Descartes, and turn off your television as soon as you see that the movie you are watching contains some neo-cartesian overtones.

Other than that I can recommend sport, any kind of mental or physical labor, exercise, and some good and healthy sleep.

But, of course, only heed this advice if you really want to be fooled into the illusion of reality...

I know the feeling, I felt it a long time ago.

When I was around 7-8 years old, I started having severe panic attacks. I couldn't breathe, so I would start hyperventilating, and my heart pounded like it was gonna explode. During these attacks, it felt like nothing was real. I genuinly thought I was going to die the next moment, even though I didn't. It was the worst feeling in the world. I still remember what it was like, and I don't want to feel that again. I talked to a psychologist about it when I was older, and she said that that can happen when you have really bad panic attacks. If I remember correctly, it's kind of a survival mode to distance yourself from the bad feelings you're experiencing. The others give good advice.

Personally, I think that time is a kind of illusion, even though the world we live in is real. I think that when we die, we will end up in a place without time. My thoughts on this are kinda hard to explain, but what I'm trying to say is that I can relate to your feelings, but I think they can pass.

I can experience that whenever i want, actually.

I become aware that everything people take for granted, is just a state of mind. Anyone believes in his government, for instance. When you "switch the dial", the government disappears in thin air.

I'd say that anything the mind believes and perceives is an illusion, but all experiences are real.

What if someone told you that the music isn't real. The melody you listen isn't there. It's just some sounds put together. You know better than that, don't you?

When you experience another reality, you might get the feeling that it cancels the other realities. Instead of that make the "dial" work as an extra dimension, and construct a "bigger" reality with many view points.

It's like the parable about the blind men touching an elephant. One said "It's like a hose", another said "It's like a tree", another said "it's a huge bulk".

Originally Posted by TravelerBetweenWorlds

these mental states are not good, and they are not a sign of "spiritual enlightment" no matter what people say...

Ha ha! xD
Well, i say it's a good sign, no matter what TravelerBetweenWorlds says. =P
I see people very anchored to their particular reality. Like religious fundamentalists, sports fans, and other weak minded people. Anchorage leads to fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, and you know the rest.

Everyone seems to assume it causes you anxiety. Maybe it does, but since you didn't say so i ask: Does it?

Edit: Can you subscribe to a thread, so you get alerts when someone replies? Since i haven't subscribed, will i read this thread again? Bah, i better mark the page...
Another thing: Is this thread in the right place? Looks misplaced. But i'm a newby. Maybe i should shut up. ^_^

Hey Wisp!

No you shouldnt shut up!

Last time i checked this was a freedom-of-speech internet, right?

I get what you're saying... i took that he felt anxiety because thats how i related to this feeling... you see, when you begin to awake to reality, it may come firts as this feeling that nothing is real... but then you kick a rock and break a toe, so whats not real?... and so on... and you still have to wake up on mondays to make living!

So, my point is: it MAY be a good sign or not... today, i'm a budhist, a practicioner of dream yoga, and i regard reality as a dream, but the feeling is very diferent... instead of feeling less real, i feel MORE real...

... and yet i get a constant GLIMPSE of a deeper reality the lies within and beyond the usual "conceptual world" of names and forms... but i only get to be there when i LD or when i meditate deeply (can i recomend Ramana Maharshi books?).

Being in this state of "unreality" when you have work to do, or kids to care, or whatever, can be very disturbing!

Thats why i said that grounding is good in these times, and this feeling of "not real" is not spiritual enlightment in itself... it may be the start of the path, but you have to take control over it, or else you can find yourself in troubled waters before you can say 'nirvana'

cheers
TBW

There's a ton of conjecture in this thread, so I thought I'd link you to something that is based in fact:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization

What you're describing is fairly well known in the field of psychology.

i get that feeling sometimes its a weird thought..that maybe your whole life is just a dream and maybe in reality your in a coma or something. imagine waking up from that it would be insane

Naturally Lucid:

You've fallen upon the most fundamental issue within the field of philosophy. It is commonly regarded to as the Brain-in-the-Vat Paradox. Who's to say I, or in this case you, are just a brain in a vat and the entire universe as you perceive it is merely a construct of your own design?

The only answer anyone's been able to so far prove is that there is no answer. It is merely what you believe the answer to be.

This is why religion has developed. It fills the void that would otherwise be occupied by the constant ponderings of the lost sentient mind.

We have evolved to become self-aware, and as a result, have become stuck in a cyclic thought-process that attempts to determine if the 'I' and 'me' we commonly refer to as 'ourselves' actually does exist in a 'real' world.

The fact of the matter, though, is that there is no answer. Hell, you're probably wondering whether or not I am just some shard of your own self trickling some type of inner information to you. You will never be entirely sure that I am in fact another sentient being separate from your own consciousness, even if I told you repeatedly.

This is the human dilemma. It is what all struggle with their entire lives. Some fill it with religion, some choose to just be happy with what is and not question it,some choose to wait till the end comes naturally, and others choose to end it sooner. (I would advise against the latter).

This 'life' can be fun if you just think of it like a little game. Don't let the perceived pains and aches make your true-self (that is to say, the one that perceives, and NOT the one that identifies itself with 'I', 'myself', and 'me') become pained. Instead, just let yourself know there's no use suffering over it or questioning it. It's all a mystery, there is no true answer, and the only thing you can do is hope you'll know the answer every next moment. But until then, just live happily with what is in the present. After all, that's all there is.


Hope that helps!

-Ailos

I totally understand how you feel, it happened to me too after I started to LD a few years ago. I remember the same sentance: »Nothing is real.« I felt so miserable. Then someone said to me: Actually, everything is real. You just need to expand your definition of reality.

Today I look at it this way: as we go beyond and have unusual experiences (like LDs) some of the definitions, like the definition of what is real for instance, don't fit us anymore. I think that's why this feeling »nothing is real« appears. In other words that's just us saying – nothing fits into this old definition of what's real anymore. But that's no reason for despair. We've changed, that's a natural process and we just need a new definition, like we need new clothes as we are growing up. We don't cling on to the old ones for ever.

In my opinion first of all you need to shift your mind from seeing a problem to seeing progress in all that's happening to you - you're evolving and changing and that's good. In my case just replacing that negative sentence »Nothing is real« with affirmative one »Everything is real« did the trick for a start. I felt a lot better. Maybe this will help you too. But anyway, your feelings are temporary and from here you'll go to a new understanding of what reality is. Exciting!

WTF , "nothing is real" could there be a better feeling than that?


I love it. You should take advantage of it. Cant let it get you down, see the potential in it.