Dreamlike phenomena, which are ordinarily confined to sleep, thus intrude into waking consciousness and are expressed as dissociative symptoms, including depersonalization and derealization, and, in the extreme case, identity fragmentation evident in DID.
Dissociative mental states also manifest during dreams and may be typically related to discontinuities and shifts in dream scenes, which according to some psychological studies of dreams may specifically manifest in pathological processes related to nightmares and recurrent dreams linked to traumatic experiences ( ...
A sense of being detached from yourself and your emotions. A perception of the people and things around you as distorted and unreal. A blurred sense of identity. Significant stress or problems in your relationships, work or other important areas of your life.
Studying the relationship between dissociation and sleep
In a pioneering study, Watson (2001) showed that dissociative symptoms—measured by the DES—are linked to self-reports of vivid dreams, nightmares, recurrent dreams, and other unusual sleep phenomena.
By this definition, lucid dreaming can be viewed as “a dissociative mental state of consciousness in which the dream self separates from the ongoing flow of mental imagery.” (Voss et al., 2018, p.
Oneirophrenia is often described as a dream-like state that can lead to hallucinations and confusion. Feelings and emotions are often disturbed but information from the senses is left intact separating it from true schizophrenia.
Symptoms of a dissociative disorder
feeling disconnected from yourself and the world around you. forgetting about certain time periods, events and personal information. feeling uncertain about who you are. having multiple distinct identities.
You could feel as though you're observing yourself from the outside in — or what some describe as an “out-of-body experience.” Your thoughts and perceptions might be foggy, and you could be confused by what's going on around you.
Feeling like you're looking at yourself from the outside
Feel as though you are watching yourself in a film or looking at yourself from the outside. Feel as if you are just observing your emotions. Feel disconnected from parts of your body or your emotions. Feel as if you are floating away.
Many times, people who are dissociating are not even aware that it is happening, other people notice it. Just like other types of avoidance, dissociation can interfere with facing up and getting over a trauma or an unrealistic fear.
Zoning out is considered a type of dissociation, which is a feeling of being disconnected from the world around you. Some people experience severe dissociation, but "zoning out" is considered a much milder form. Daydreaming is the most common kind of zoning or spacing out.
Shutdown dissociation simulates central nervous system neuropathy. Peripheral neuropathy describes the damage to the peripheral nervous system. Peripheral damage affects one or more dermatomes and thus produces symptoms for specific areas of the body.
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder is a sleep disorder in which you physically act out vivid, often unpleasant dreams with vocal sounds and sudden, often violent arm and leg movements during REM sleep — sometimes called dream-enacting behavior.
Some signs your therapist can sense if you're dissociating:
They feel confused. They feel numb. They feel like you've gone somewhere else. Things don't add up.
There are five main ways in which the dissociation of psychological processes changes the way a person experiences living: depersonalization, derealization, amnesia, identity confusion, and identity alteration.
Dissociation involves disruptions of usually integrated functions of consciousness, perception, memory, identity, and affect (e.g., depersonalization, derealization, numbing, amnesia, and analgesia).
While dissociation is not a symptom of ADHD, the two are closely related because they are often comorbid. 123 People with dissociative disorders may also show symptoms of ADHD and vice versa.
Examples of mild, common dissociation include daydreaming, highway hypnosis or “getting lost” in a book or movie, all of which involve “losing touch” with awareness of one's immediate surroundings.
Researchers have reported that dreams in patients with schizophrenia tend to be simpler and less elaborate (2, 8), less emotionally sophisticated and self-involved (2, 9), more bizarre (10–12), and more negative, violent, and unfriendly (9, 11, 13) compared to dreams of healthy individuals.
Symptoms of derealization include: Feelings of being alienated from or unfamiliar with your surroundings — for example, like you're living in a movie or a dream. Feeling emotionally disconnected from people you care about, as if you were separated by a glass wall.