It happens to me every once in a while. I’ll be going about my daily routine and suddenly wonder- am I really here, am I really doing this, or am I dreaming? Am I really petting this cat, vacuuming this rug, paying this $1.75 cent place bet on the six?
Does anyone else have these moments? Why? Why would a person suddenly doubt the reality of what’s happening at a given moment? I didn’t take that much acid during the '80’s. Did I?
This happens to me all the time. What is really wierd is when all of a sudden you get shifted into what I call ‘third person mode’ ya know that strange feeling when you suddenly feel as if you are watching yourself do things in the world.
Its not the acid, given how I’ve never felt the desire to try any…
I just attribute it to the times when I pause to take stock of my life or the world around me. When I think to much I start to get wierd.
I can’t believe I’m seeing this in GQ. If this was reality it would be in IMHO.
Don’t worry about it. We just have to fine-tune the rating on your Doubting Circuit, then everything will be fine. Just forget you ever saw this reply.
The “reality” you think exists is, at any given time, no more than your current concept of it, subject to whatever cognitive errors, erroneous misinterpretations, conclusions leapt to without validity, sensory input distortion, memory inaccuracies, and so forth that are your personal errorset.
It is therefore healthy and necessary that your mind periodically question what you think is real, even things it can’t reconcile meaningfully such as “Am I really me, being here, or am I imagining or dreaming this?”, rather than operating under the assumption that everything you believe you know is known accurately.
Is the psychological term. Unless the feeling of being removed from reality or shifting to 3rd person becomes frequent and/or disturbing, don’t worry.
This is not my beautiful house . …
And these are our opinions, what are yours?
Off to IMHO.
Jill
Wnen this thread disappeared from GQ, I actually wondered if I had really started it or if having composed and posted the OP were figments of an overactive imagination.
Thanks for turning my already addled brain into a neurological omlette, JillGat. I still think this belongs in GQ, as the OP is a question about the cause and commonness or rarity of a particular paychological phenomenon.
'Course, with the philosophical bent some of the replys seem to have, I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually turned up in GD.
BTW, I did find AlHunter3’s post to be a very comforting notion. Thanks, Al.
No problem dude. I’m officially and diagnostically a schizophrenic, and that makes me perhaps a little bit more aware than the average person of the useful and practical aspects of periodically doubting what one believes to be real.
I get these jolts every now and then as if my mind had been disrupted and my consciousness snaps violently back in place. I don’t really ask myself if it is real, but I do get this weird snapshot of my mental state that feels very surreal.
The sensation is like a condensed, instantanesous version of vasovagal syncope, what happens when you play the stupid fainting game. Here’s an article about it:
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/news/mtc_docs/135208.htm
I’ll sometimes think back on a moment and think it was real; i.e; I washed my car last tuesday. When in fact I did not wash my car I only dreamed I washed my car.
I’ve never thought I was draming when in fact I wasn’t though.
Actually, Thea, you’re not real, the SDMB just imagined you.
I usually do this right after something really bad has happened.
I’ve never gotten a moment where I doubt reality, but I do have moments of extreme reality (usually when I look in a mirror) when I am stunned by the realization that this is really happening and I’m not just another character in a story.
Depends. Did you take the red pill or the blue pill?
Sure, all the time. But then you hit a point where you have to accept that even though you strongly suspect all of your coworkers, friends and family are coal-powered alien robots bent on dissecting you, you still have to carry on with life anyway. 
Well, that would explain the fumes coming out of thier asses…
phew.