Does life seem surreal to you too?

Today, driving around, I felt that life has taken on such a surreal nature to me. It's as if I am wandering around aimlessly, and that nothing matters. Things happen, but they happen just to happen. I look around me, and it's as if I'm part of a dream that is very life like but that I cannot wake up from. I look around me at people just going about their lives, and I wonder how they do it. They don't seem the least bit bothered by what is going on in the world. It's really as if I'm almost living a completely different life than they are, in another world. Yet, I see them, and they see me. I feel like a foreigner even though I can remember being here for as long as I can remember. This existence has taken an artificial quality. It's like nothing really matters to me, because nothing (important) seems to matter to anyone else, except trivial crap. I feel like I'm paralyzed and can't move, but the people around me are moving and carrying on; they notice me, but nobody notices that I'm not moving. It is a very odd feeling. It's like I do not belong here.

It reminds me of nihilism of some kind. The things that are so important to me and to our advancement as a species are ignored by most people. It's like I realize this now, and I have given up on the world around me. People have traded reality and a quest for progress, for entertainment and shallow pleasantries. It really bothers me, but there's nothing I can do to change the people around me. (I have tried.)

The way that I have found to cope with this is really to isolate myself from most people to keep away from the harsh reality of it all, but I can't do that enough, it seems. I feel wrong, at times to judge others, but I know these same people would judge me in the same way on certain issues if I were to share them. I consider it my responsibility to judge the world, including the people in it, if I am to live here. Maybe that is my purpose, to sort of be the eyes and ears for something bigger that I don't know about. Or, maybe that's what I tell myself to accept the state of my world.

Is this maybe just some kind of growth phase that I'm going through? Has anyone felt the same, and did it pass or did it get better or worse for you? It seems I'm at a very confusing point in life, which is kind of okay if it teaches me something. I realize the people who feel they have the most answers are often the most lost. I'm just looking to see if anyone else has felt similar.

Sometimes when I'm in an urban area, I feel everything is a stage set and very flimsy. The buildings I see seem to be cobbled together out of toothpicks and airplane glue, or like the flat scenery backgrounds of a cheap stage production. People play their silly roles with little conviction - Businessmen acting like what they think businessmen should act like, mothers and fathers acting like cliches of motherhood and fatherhood, hippies and punks regurgitating the same old stale cultural memes decade after decade...when I feel this way, everything seems as though its made of cellophane and about to fall apart in the wind and blow away like a chewing-gum wrapper. Its an empty and unsatisying feeling, a little surreal. I am not sure if this is what you are talking about, but occasionally this hits me.

I understand exactly how you feel, you will learn to cope better if you have more faith in humanity and if necessary yourself.

Keep fighting strong we are not as rare a breed as you might think.

Thats exactly how i feel. Exactly. Its like everyone else is playing off a movie script....

Forgot to mention, if everything seems overly surreal try gazing at the sky, never fails to ground me

I feel the same way alot of the time. You feel very alone.

I tend to isolate myself to because of this reason, hence feeling like you need something more.

You surround yourself around this people, and it does nothing for you.
or you isolate, and it does nothing for you..

Makes me laugh when i look around and everyone just putting on some fake personality to seek approval from their fellow man!

I'm yet to find an answer myself!

It's because you've broken off from the socially accepted way of life that has been programmed into you.

Most people need to feel accepted into the society they have grown up in. They adapt and mould themselves into what makes them feel accepted by the popular opinion of the majority. It feels safe.

They aren't free people. Call them sheep if you want.

reply to post by daynight42


I know what you mean, The other day when I was sitting at a bus stop, looking at people it just felt so... plastic. I wondered if this is really real? it all just feels so faked. As someone mentioned people play their parts with how they think they should act... lately it feels like I've been breaking through the illusion too fast. Feels like we are just one big simulation and it has started to break down bit by bit.

it seems fake

all of it.

thats why I dont know why I bother half the time.

with or without me- it will continue.

might as well have a bbq.

i have felt like an old tape recording that feels alive yet knows the end of the line but im trying not to fast forward my mortality in my mind.

Originally posted by Common Good
it seems fake

all of it.

thats why I dont know why I bother half the time.

with or without me- it will continue.

might as well have a bbq.

It may seem fake but life or you isn't.

What's fake is the people that try to conform to the socially accepted norms of life.

They do what is expected of them. No wonder people go through the motions in life seeming dull and lifeless.

Lets face it, we are told how we should dress, have our haircut, what careers paths are acceptable, what music we should listen to, books to read, artists to like ( social snobbery). Call it fashion. I call it a strangulation on creativity.


You should feel happy knowing you are free of all that. You choose what you like and not what's decided by the majority of opinion.

I maybe wrong.

Earth= One giant Proving Ground.

We are someones/somethings entertainment.

Derealization (sometimes abbreviated as DR) is an alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal. Other symptoms include feeling as though one's environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring and depth.[1] It is a dissociative symptom of many conditions, such as psychiatric and neurological disorders, and not a standalone disorder. It is also a transient side effect of acute drug intoxication, sleep deprivation, and stress.[citation needed]

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by daynight42


Thank you for opening up, i too share your feelings. But you and i both know deep down, to stay positive. It will surely pass in time. We are aware for a reason, we feel discontent with what is around us for a reason. We are the bleeding edge of life, it is our job to stay strong and listen to our hearts. We are revealed this knowledge because we possess the ability to cope with it. Times are tough but we must maintain. I will admit, seeing your post gave me strength just to see there is another one like me out there. I hope you can find the same from my words to you. Keep your head up.

reply to post by Common Good


We do have something to prove alright. It is the arduous task of knowing whats right, and then doing whats right. We all have a lesson to learn on this planet earth. Once we realize we are not the judges of this earth, but the spectators, will the burden begin to lift.

Originally posted by Common Good
Earth= One giant Proving Ground.

We are someones/somethings entertainment.

There's a new psyhcriatric term (excuse the spelling) for that after the film with Jim Carey. I can't remember the one but it's the one, off the top of my head, about a person believing they are in a reality type situation, where they are being watched and they are the source of entertainment.

Like the Matrix film, people that feel disconnected with society can start to believe fiction. It makes their life have some meaning or some importance seeing as they feel rejected from the main stream.

Like I say above, they need to drop that, and focus on being their fantastic unique selves.

Originally posted by RealSpoke

Derealization (sometimes abbreviated as DR) is an alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal. Other symptoms include feeling as though one's environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring and depth.[1] It is a dissociative symptom of many conditions, such as psychiatric and neurological disorders, and not a standalone disorder. It is also a transient side effect of acute drug intoxication, sleep deprivation, and stress.[citation needed]

en.wikipedia.org...

describing the symptoms doesn't tell you what causes it. without knowing the cause, you cannot find an answer, a solution or a way to defeat it.

you have to find the cause first to understand it and beat it.

I feel the same way too- have been for pretty much my whole life (not to say that I haven't had a lot of fun in the normal world too, though). I used to wonder why I always felt like that (the OP described it so well). I figured I'd find out someday. Now I get it. It was all preparation for this time- right here, right now.

There are times- rare times- in human history when "the world turns upside down" and fundamental change is not gradual, but sudden. At these times the present world we know takes on the quality of old photographs we find in a box years later. A sort of time slip- like we see the present as if we were remembering it rather than directly experiencing it. Or so it seems to me. Dunno- I could well be wrong, and perhaps this is not at all what the rest of you are describing.

I don't think it's a phase of life you're going through, I think rather it's a transformational era that we're all living in now and only some people can see it.

Originally posted by RealSpoke

Derealization (sometimes abbreviated as DR) is an alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal. Other symptoms include feeling as though one's environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring and depth.[1] It is a dissociative symptom of many conditions, such as psychiatric and neurological disorders, and not a standalone disorder. It is also a transient side effect of acute drug intoxication, sleep deprivation, and stress.[citation needed]

en.wikipedia.org...

okay that's what I meant minus the film references, type thing.