Sometimes reality looks flat and dull

Thought I would tell you all about something that happened to me while I was driving to see my girlfriend on wednesday evening:

It was a perfectly normal wednesday at around 8 in the evening when I left my house to drive to the next town where my girlfriend lives, about 17 miles away. It was raining quite hard so not the best driving conditions. Just over half way there I suddenly had this feeling that something wasn't quite right, a bit like has been mentioned in various other threads here recently. I slowed down a bit and had a look round, and thats when I realised that the surrounding countryside had somehow faded and lost its depth. Its quite hard for me to think of a good way to describe it. I think the closest comparison would be to image a landscape made completely out of cardboard cutouts, so instead of the scenery blending in, it had distinct layers, like it had somehow been flattened and lost its depth. Everything seemed to have also lost any vividness it may have had, and as such looked very dull. I continued on my journey, all be it with probably a quite confused look on my face, until I reached a section of road that required more concentration. By the time I had a chance to look around again everything seemed to have returned to normal.

I've definately had the same feeling in the past but never has anything actually looked out of the ordinary. Just to get rid of a few of the obvious responses, I have never done any drugs, had not drunk alcohol since the friday before, and there is nothing wrong with my eye sight.

I've read here in the past that the world looking flat and dull is sometimes reported by people who were experiencing time slips, but I did not see anything that would have been out of place here, so if that was the case it was a pretty boring one.

Anyone experienced similar?

Your post interested me due to another i have been following here on ATS, headed "something has changed, timeline?" perhaps you should have a look at the thread if you havnt done so. I think your post may be relivant.

Can't say that I've experienced things becoming...... two-dimensional and uninteresting. I have to say, and I mean this with no sarcasm at all..... I'd be concerned if that happened to me, and I'd want to have a medical check-up.

I have experienced moments when I felt like I was a bit "out" of myself, sort of disjointed, unstuck in the moment, whatever...... but nothing like what you described.

Question: Does this occur often? Also, would this be after a long and arduous drive, or after a drive of mundane surroundings, such as boring scenery, or driving in a storm? Just curious.

I did think about posting this in the "something has changed, timeline?" thread, but having read through several pages of it, I decided to post this in its own thread due to the fact that the appearance of my surrounding had appeared to me to have changed, so my feeling wasn't completely unfounded.

The drive only takes just over 20 minutes, its a pretty fast stretch of road for most of the route. I must have driven it several hundred times in the last 3 or 4 years. As for the weather, it wasn't so much a storm as just heavy rain, which had been going on for most of the day. Ive driven down that road at all times of the day in just about every weather condition imaginable, but ive never before seen it looking anything like it did for those couple of minutes.

reply to post by ray648



An old friend of mine used to refer to this type of experience as "Moyidh" (the "dh" is pronounced as you would the "th" in "this" - it helps if you speak Welsh :lol

He described it as a sort of "state of detached attentiveness", and claimed that as a mental exercise, it was very useful in that it allowed you to observe a situation in real-time while evaluating the detatils and varibles the situation presented without the distraction of possible emotional contamination by the observer: a kind of way to "step back" and see the "bigger picture".


He claimed that it was not only very useful in stressful, potentially dangerous, situations , but in daily life as well, wherein such detachment could provide a "mental respite" from the chaos we all accept as "Modern Life".

Was it by any chance derealization? en.wikipedia.org... It's a psychological problem/condition...there's a ton of stuff on the internet for it...there's even a message board for people ill with it. I wouldn't recommend reading too much of it thought because you can get sucked in haha...misery loves company, you know.

Dull and gray?

Any particular shade?

I hate the cement gray...you know looks like a jail cell.

Dull?

What...caught in a rut? Same old job, same old life? Rat in a wheel?

Dull.?


Aha! Flat....nothing jumps out at you? Flat...just more of the same as far as you can see...flat like the prairie...flat like the ocean...

Just rif on your phrase for a while.

Ask why?

Why flat and gray?

Its a good exercize.

Or flat and dull!


[edit on 10-7-2008 by whiteraven]

I dont know about dull but I was walking around the city the other day with its big screen tv's,neon lights cars etc and I was taken aback at just how primitive the technology etc was.

reply to post by ray648


Very interesting.

Does this sound familiar?

"Flattened landscape"?

(I hope you read it thoroughly and compare it to your experience as honestly as you can.)





[edit on 10-7-2008 by Vanitas]

Originally posted by anglodemonicmatrix
I dont know about dull but I was walking around the city the other day with its big screen tv's,neon lights cars etc and I was taken aback at just how primitive the technology etc was.

That happens to me quite often too. A feeling of "wow, we are practically in the stone age!"
I don't think it's the same phenomenon the OP is talking about, but it is interesting.

Originally posted by Vanitas
reply to post by ray648

 

Very interesting.

Does this sound familiar?

"Flattened landscape"?

I remember reading that thread when it was originally posted. What I experienced was very similar to the way it is described there but without the time slip part.

A good way to discribe how it looked would be to compare it to old 3d computer games, for example if you look at this image. Note how the fence and hedge on the left are drawn on a single 2d plane, and the trees behind are on another 2d plane. It was like the scene was split down in to multiple 2d layers instead of being 3d.

reply to post by ray648


I thought I'd never live to see the day...
Of someone experiencing the same thing AND posting it here, I mean.

I am very glad you did.

Can you tell me anything specific about the temperature, weather, air pressure etc. during that occurrence?

Were there any power lines or plants nearby?

Another thing: are you positively sure that nothing else in your environment was "off" during the experience?

(I am not trying to elicit false memories from you - believe me!
I am just asking. )






[edit on 10-7-2008 by Vanitas]

A good way to discribe how it looked would be to compare it to old 3d computer games, for example if you look at this image. Note how the fence and hedge on the left are drawn on a single 2d plane, and the trees behind are on another 2d plane. It was like the scene was split down in to multiple 2d layers instead of being 3d.

That is EXACTLY how I imagined it would be.
(Not that it was very hard to imagine, true... )

Thanks.
I am very grateful for such detailed descriptions of this highly interesting - and unusually neglected - phenomenon.

reply to post by Vanitas


I hadn't thought about the possible effects of the power line but now that I look at a map its fairly obvious. The event happened between here and here, which as you can see, is the entire time I was within about 300 metres of that power line.

The weather was just constant rain, hard enough that I had to put my wipers on the highest speed and turn the headlights on. If anything else was wrong about my surroundings then it certainly wasn't obvious. When I drove the same stretch of road a couple of hours later on my way home, same place, same conditions, just the opposite direction, nothing unusual happened at all.

reply to post by ray648


If you could just post the date and the hour, I could ask for nothing more...

EDIT: Oh - sorry. I see you HAVE posted that.


Well done!
I wish everyone would be half as thorough...

And BTW, I have no idea whether the data I am asking for would be in fact relevant to the case (although I suspect they might be). But it's good to have on record as many "objective" data as possible.






[edit on 11-7-2008 by Vanitas]

I would like to suggest that you might find some insight into your observations by starting with the premise that your perceptions of external reality are mirrors of your internal state. The external world appears flat and lifeless because at that moment you are flat and lifeless so it produces a filter through which you process your perceptions. I'm sure you can recall a time after some incredibly exhilarating event when the whole world suddenly seemed more vibrant and alive. I recall how after my very first kiss at 14 with a girl I had a crush on for years even the colors around me seemed so much more vivid.

But it is more than just your perception, it seems that when we are with people we at some level start to share our perceptions -- I have no idea how or why but perhaps it is evidence of a collective unconscious that links us all. You might find the following story interesting.

A couple of months ago, I took my teenage daughter downtown to run some errands. After we had been in the city for a while she said "Gee Dad, it's like you and Mom live in totally different cities." When I asked her what she meant, she commented that whenever she went downtown with my ex-wife, people were rude and pushy, sales people treated her with suspicion and most of the people they encountered were hostile and aggressive. But, she explained, when she was with me strangers smiled and said hello, people held open doors, salespeople were eager to help and everyone seemed friendly and cheerful. She was totally blown away by the fact that when we pulled into a parking lot, one of those automated put the ticket on dash lots, a total stranger offered to give us his ticket because he was leaving and still had a couple of hours left n this ticket.

I explained to her that the world outside is often a reflection of the world within, and in my world, I believe that everyone wants to be happy and friendly whereas her mother believes that everyone is just out for themselves and are all basically selfish and untrustworthy.

I like my world a lot better.




[edit on 11-7-2008 by metamagic]

Sounds like you started seeing things as they really are.

Sometimes when I see with only my mind's eye, everything appears as a flat 2D circular mandala pattern. I think our brain is a filter which locks down our perceptions into 3D.

Depth is an illusion. While seeing with the mind's eye, things that normally appear further away are really just smaller or behind other parts of the same pattern. Like one of those pictures where you cross your eyes, line up the pattern just right, and you see another picture in the middle that appears 3D.

Imagine a circle with a point in the middle and two connecting streams spiraling into infinity. It might appear as if the point is further away, when in fact it's on the same plane as the circle. Light is massless (2D). My opinion: this 3D world is just an illlusion.

You are what you see...

Conscience shaping reality.

reply to post by metamagic


I am pretty sure the original poster is not talking about a mood-influenced perception state.

But I like your thinking anyway.

You may have just had tunnel vision, and were disillusioned from the drive. It really all depends on your mindset. I'm sure it was all in your head though, our brains are very strange indeed.