Waking up to discover existence

**MartinB** · 07-21-2007 04:13 PM

Lately (within the last few months), there have been some occasions where I have woken up quite suddenly to be hit very hard with the idea that I exist. It's very hard to explain. It's almost like I'm dead and waking up has brought me back to the realisation of reality - I cannot remember anything (of dreams) prior to waking.

It is sometimes very intense and extremely scary because there is always a transition phase of a few seconds where "reality" seems "unstable", as though "reality should not be", and that everything I am experiencing is just an hallucination. After about 30 seconds, this effect disappears.

Another thing that I've noticed is that when I awake it feels like I've suddenly "jumped back into my physical body" again, and the feeling of being bound to the physical world inside my body seems very much exaggerated beyond normal and somewhat alien during the "transition phase".

Any thoughts on this? I'd like to stop it from happening because the last time it happened at around 02:30 in the morning and was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life - the kind that makes you not want to go back to sleep for fear it might happen again.

I'm wondering if anyone has ever experience anything like this and / or if anyone know what it means?

**Keeper** · 07-21-2007 04:21 PM

I sumtimes feel that, but never after waking up.

The earliest time was when I was about seven. I suddenly thought: "I am Luke. But, how can I be? How can anything be?"
I freaked out and ran to my room, and sat and stared at my corner for a bit.

**MartinB** · 07-21-2007 04:39 PM

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's that strange question that "how can anything be?". Not just asking it, but actually feeling what it means to be asking it.

**CryoDragoon** · 07-21-2007 09:26 PM

Yes, I have that quite a lot recently (I have no idea why it only happens now), but never when I wake up. It almost are these random moments when my mind just wanders off to question something... Or to think about something that is SO common, and SO normal... And it just dawns on me that "I exist"... It is, indeed, quite a difficult thing to describe, but if you've experienced it, you know what it means right away...

Existance... It is strange indeed... Which is probably why I don't worry too much about it... The last thing I'd want is to get as strange as that myself :p

The only thing that I can think of to say right now is "Even Apeldoorn Bellen"... But that doesn't help very much, now does it? O_o

**MartinB** · 07-21-2007 09:36 PM

Hehe, I'm not actually Dutch, just that I'd rather live here than in the UK (yes, I'm British), but doesn't that translate to "Just telephone Apeldoorn"? I don't get it... :p

**CryoDragoon** · 07-23-2007 11:36 AM

Something like that, yeah... It is a bit different though, but the meaning is essentially the same.
(the word "Even" doesn't mean "just" (If you'd say "just call apeldoorn" then the dutch phrase would be "Bel Apeldoorn gewoon"... In fact, it doesn't really have an English equivalent... The most accurate meaning would be "Gotta call Apeldoorn"... It is very difficult to say what the meaning of "even" in those contexts really means... It's just something that's typically dutch... You won't find it in English)
And to make thing even more interesting: when you translate the phrase "just call apeldoorn" to dutch (in the colloquial speech), most people would translate it like this: "Bel Apeldoorn gewoon EVEN"

That line is almost famous here in the Netherlands... It comes from a series of commercials on the television, in which something bad happens (you encounter the most random stuff... I'll try to find something on youtube), after which the line "Even Apeldoorn bellen" shows...
They are commercials for this insurance company called "Centraal Beheer Achmea" ("Central of which the 'headquarters' is in the city of Apeldoorn...

Spoiler for Because there are so many good ones::

**Sain** · 07-30-2007 08:06 AM

That happens to me, mostly in school days, when I'm too tired and can't wake up myself fully. It's scary, since I need to talk to people or I feel like, "WTF am I doing?, Why am I doing this?" then I answer myself, but come up with more questions.

**Sandform** · 08-01-2007 10:44 PM

Isn't that anxiety? They have medication for when you go through stuff like that. I think they are generically called a volum. Or however you spell it...I think prozaq is one of them...again however you spell it. I don't use them but I hear they are good.

MartinB is it possible you have had some kindof truama happen to you, which you've blocked out of your mind, and are now experiencing nightmares, which you then also block out of your mind?

**MartinB** · 08-04-2007 10:23 PM

No such trauma that I'm aware of; this started happening when I finished university and left the UK to work in the Netherlands about a year ago.

The experiences were initial somewhat mild and quite intriguing and in some ways even strangely pleasant, but now the effect seems to have become more unpleasant as I described in my initial post.

It doesn't happen too often though; maybe once or twice a month.

I've found that if I can sometimes prevent it or at least make it less intense by distracting myself with something when I wake up, but I'm not sure if this will always work.

**yay** · 08-04-2007 11:29 PM

I think I know what you mean, but what happens with me is that whenever I am doing things without much thought about it or anything, Im like, woah, im alive. like I was on autopilot or something and then come back and acknowledge that I exist.

To me it's just a weird feeling, nothing to be worried about, but it seems like yours are having a fairly big effect on how you feel.

I'm not sure if this will help, but you said

""reality" seems "unstable", as though "reality should not be", and that everything I am experiencing is just an hallucination."

I think you are experiencing a hallucination, not that reality is a hallucination, but a hallucination that reality doesn't exist. If you think about it, in order to have those feelings , you have to exist. And while it is a different and strange feeling than normal, I think if you realize you've felt this way before, and know its all in your head, I think you can "take a step back" analyze, and overcome the feeling and it will pass.

do you ever realize whats happening when you wake up? since it has happened before

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