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[NF] NFs, especially INFs -- Freaky Mind-Body Dissociation?

mwv6r

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Okay, I guess I am putting myself out there to sound really weird, but I've been wondering if any other NFs out there -- especially INFs or perhaps INs -- experience what I have difficulty labeling so I will just call it "freaky mind-body dissociations."

What I mean by this is, most of the time I'm merrily going about my day, but occasionally, seemingly out of nowhere, I get weirded out with the sudden thought "Oh my god it is so weird that out of all the people I could have been I'm me and I'm inside this body and brain seeing out of this one particular perspective, holy crap that's so weird." It doesn't happen often and it's not necessarily unpleasant -- just kind of strange and surreal. I'm especially prone to it after a long movie that I got really into. I come out of the theater and I'm like "Whoa, I forgot I was me for a little while" and being me and seeing all the mundane normal things around me that I've seen a million times before suddenly seems very strange.

It's kind of like that freaky scene in the Matrix where he realizes his life has been a hallucination and he's actually been in that tub of water alongside all the other humans having his mind controlled by aliens. It's not that I think I'm in a tub of water having my mind controlled by aliens, but it's like, how would I know if I were since I am only living through the eyes of my one particular body?

Hmm. I hope I'm not coming off as too insane here. I swear I'm actually a pretty stable, healthy productive citizen and all that.

Anyway, I've talked to my ESTP husband about these little "freaky mind-body dissociations" and he cannot relate at all and seems a little spooked any time I mention it. However, I talked to an INFP friend about it a while ago and she said she experiences it too. So that made me wonder if it was an NF thing or perhaps an INF or IN thing? And is there a term for it? If so let me know because I'd kind of like to learn more.

Please don't rip me apart here or tell me how crazy I am, I'm a sensitive little INFJ who's just curious...
 

Sizzling Berry

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What I mean by this is, most of the time I'm merrily going about my day, but occasionally, seemingly out of nowhere, I get weirded out with the sudden thought "Oh my god it is so weird that out of all the people I could have been I'm me and I'm inside this body and brain seeing out of this one particular perspective, holy crap that's so weird." It doesn't happen often and it's not necessarily unpleasant -- just kind of strange and surreal.

OMG mwv6r - u r so right. It's like why my conciousness, the me-essence is here, in this body, why do I look through those eyes at the world. The feeling of me could anywhere else. It's a bit awe-inspiring state.

Thanks for sharing :wubbie:.
 
P

Phantonym

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I get the same feeling regularly after watching a movie or reading a book or listening to music and getting lost in it. Obviously not with every type of movie, book or song. Afterwards, when you start to come out of it, it's like you're watching yourself from the outside while being very aware that you're inside your body. Everything is suddenly so clear. It is kind of strange and surreal. I have no idea what it is but I love the feeling.
 

metaphours

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Hmm... I do this sometimes. Like sometimes I'll sit there and wonder what it would've been like if I hadn't been born. Would there just be nothingness?

It's kind of like that freaky scene in the Matrix where he realizes his life has been a hallucination and he's actually been in that tub of water alongside all the other humans having his mind controlled by aliens. It's not that I think I'm in a tub of water having my mind controlled by aliens, but it's like, how would I know if I were since I am only living through the eyes of my one particular body?
THEY'RE ROBOTS, NOT ALIENS, GODDAMIT.

:D
 

Amargith

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I kinda had that problem after playing D'nD and then going home after. I'd walk over the street going 'oh, hang on, I'd better stop for these cars, I aint allpowerful in this world :doh:'

Not kidding. You're just straddling two worlds at that moment. I regularly experience this and involunarily as well I might add. It's one of the reasons I don't drive a car. Half the time I aint present in this world.

And I've had the whole wondering why my mother means so much to me as well. What makes her so special? Confused the shit out of me, coz I love her dearly, but it was just that I was so disconnected from who I was at that point that it made me view things from a different perspective. From a strangers perspective almost. Also fun when you're overidentifying with someone elses point of view and you have to go 'wait, what was mine again on this topic?'

Think it's as close to shapeshifting as anyone can come ;)
 

Coeur

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I have that all the time. XD Usually I'll be super focused on something, and then when I lose that focus, I suddenly snap back into reality and I'm hyper-conscious.
 

Laurie

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I'm an E but yes, I feel that. Sometimes just looking out from my body feels weird, I don't have a face to me, really. I have arms and legs and these things all move when I want them to.. but no face?
 

Faine

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Oh, I can definitely relate to this. :yes:

I haven't got much to add really other than yes, I do get 'Freaky Mind-Body Dissociation', particualarly after reading or watching a movie as has been said, or sometimes if I've just been day-dreaming for a long while and I suddenly wake up to realise how much time has passed. I don't talk about it with anybody else. Whenever I try and start up a subject even remotely like this it usually leaves people staring at me like "WTF?" I don't really blame them.

Usually I'll be super focused on something, and then when I lose that focus, I suddenly snap back into reality and I'm hyper-conscious.

Exactly this. :)
 

BlackCat

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I used to do this, but not so much anymore. I can relate to what you're saying though about how it was.
 

Z Buck McFate

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It doesn't happen often and it's not necessarily unpleasant -- just kind of strange and surreal. I'm especially prone to it after a long movie that I got really into. I come out of the theater and I'm like "Whoa, I forgot I was me for a little while" and being me and seeing all the mundane normal things around me that I've seen a million times before suddenly seems very strange.

Me too. :yes: I don't think I can connect mine to any specific catalyst (you & others mentioned movies, daydreaming, etc.), but I get this too.

FYI that you may or may not already know: the part in bold print sounds like 'jamais vu' to me. It's the opposite of 'deja vu'. Jamais vu is when you are someplace familiar, but you feel like you've never been there before. It's got the same disorienting feel to it as deja vu. I get it too when my head is in the weeds.
 
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erm

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I used to do this, but not so much anymore. I can relate to what you're saying though about how it was.

Same here. One of many weird experiences as a kid.

Another one being when reality suddenly felt like a dream for a few seconds, sometimes longer. Strangely unreal in some way.
 

WoodsWoman

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When I get very stressed (too much stimuli) my body becomes a shell, my eyes windows that I peer through - not from - and sometimes with the additional sense that I am stuck in here and cannot communicate properly with other people. ---As long as I get enough sleep and take care of myself I rarely get to this point any more.
 

scortia

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I have an unnatural sense of alienation of being for myself, especially around other people. I often wonder if I'm even human because my perspective of things is so different from others and no one gets it. It is pretty surreal.

A few philosophers have discussed how things we sense aren't necessarily relative. What's red to you from your perspective isn't necessarily the same to me... we both just associate the same thing as red, but it may look very different to both of us. Fun stuff. :)
 

speculative

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I get the feeling that my body isn't really me (it's a sensotard things perhaps)... but I'm not sure if that's what's even being discussed here.
 
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I can relate, I just felt that a few days ago, and it was completely surreal. Actually, I was waiting for my xSFP friend and I just sat at the staircase and waited. Oh, I didn't want to knock at her door, because her mom was mopping the floor, I just came from a storm, and I would dirty her house.

I was unaware that I sat there for a long while, I just sat there. Patches of the walls started blinking, it was cold and my ears were hurting, because I could hear beats and with every beat I heard, I felt shocks of tingles from my ear to my body. It felt unreal and unfamiliar, even though I have been in that place before, but it feels like maybe my mind is at my friend's corridor but my body is in somewhere else or vice versa. Because I am not sure if my mind is here or there, and okay, I don't exactly know what I am writing but, it just feels so unreal and disconnected from reality even though I am fully aware that I am in reality.

My xSFP friend thought I was a ghost, screamed and I 'woke up'.
 

jaku

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this is what life means

Okay, I guess I am putting myself out there to sound really weird, but I've been wondering if any other NFs out there -- especially INFs or perhaps INs -- experience what I have difficulty labeling so I will just call it "freaky mind-body dissociations."

What I mean by this is, most of the time I'm merrily going about my day, but occasionally, seemingly out of nowhere, I get weirded out with the sudden thought "Oh my god it is so weird that out of all the people I could have been I'm me and I'm inside this body and brain seeing out of this one particular perspective, holy crap that's so weird." It doesn't happen often and it's not necessarily unpleasant -- just kind of strange and surreal. I'm especially prone to it after a long movie that I got really into. I come out of the theater and I'm like "Whoa, I forgot I was me for a little while" and being me and seeing all the mundane normal things around me that I've seen a million times before suddenly seems very strange.

It's kind of like that freaky scene in the Matrix where he realizes his life has been a hallucination and he's actually been in that tub of water alongside all the other humans having his mind controlled by aliens. It's not that I think I'm in a tub of water having my mind controlled by aliens, but it's like, how would I know if I were since I am only living through the eyes of my one particular body?

Hmm. I hope I'm not coming off as too insane here. I swear I'm actually a pretty stable, healthy productive citizen and all that.

Anyway, I've talked to my ESTP husband about these little "freaky mind-body dissociations" and he cannot relate at all and seems a little spooked any time I mention it. However, I talked to an INFP friend about it a while ago and she said she experiences it too. So that made me wonder if it was an NF thing or perhaps an INF or IN thing? And is there a term for it? If so let me know because I'd kind of like to learn more.

Please don't rip me apart here or tell me how crazy I am, I'm a sensitive little INFJ who's just curious...

YOU ARE NOT CRAZY!!!

what I am wanting to say could, I think, be an entire new thread altogether. And maybe if I'm feeling that sometime, I'll do something about it. But, for now, I just know that I need to respond to something in this thread because it's pulling at me. You do not have to read it if you don't want to :)

mwv6r, the process of trying to make sense of all those scenarios from your OP, is called philosophy :)

everyone can take this and judge it however they wish but I'm going to say it regardless..I'm here in this forum to make sense of life and gosh damn it, life just keeps making more and more sense the more I talk with you people.

so here goes.

I'm 21 years old. A year ago I took LSD for the the first time in my life. It was half a year after an experience (of otherworldy-connectedness resulting from reading a spiritual guidebook a film instructor recommended) that the opportunity arose for me to experiment with acid. There's a picture of two dudes and a car in my photo album in the forum from the day it all went down, if you're interested.

I live in Milwaukee and the three of us headed to one friend's family farmhouse in central Wisconsin for the weekend. Sleeping arrangements, provisions, and little pieces of LSD-soaked paper all premeditated. This seems like a good spot to throw in that I consider myself to be a very responsible drug user. I say this because I knew during high school not to get involved and hold off on things until the time was right, regardless of what others around me may have been fascinated with at the time. I didn't want to concentrate less on school as that would in turn make my parents sad/upset/confused and who knows where it would go from there (was hard not to think i was just being paranoid, but it all paid off in the end). I have been very interested in psychedelics for a long time without even really knowing it, until I learned the etymology of the word psychedelic. Psyche = Soul, Delos = Manifestation. And I've been, trying to manifest my soul, soul-searching I guess, for a great deal of my life. Probably since I was around 8 years of age. It was all very beneficial to me having all this under my belt by the time I was in my second year of college and transitioning from fleeting high school relationships to forming lifelong bonds with others and experiencing the world. I am just realizing this all now. weird. cool. Anyhow, I learned early in life that the who's what's where's why's when's and how's we talked about all the time in 3rd grade are actually GREAT for questioning and considering in all life things. So I knew that when the desire arose in me to try acid for the first time, I needed to really consider those things.

who= It would be myself and INxP friendforlife and INFP friendforlife.
what= did a LOT of research, discussing
where= nature would need to be involved if this was to be a worthwhile endeavor. we had 8 acres for ourselves that weekend :).
why= read this post
when= when I'm ready
how= very cautiously

In any drug-experimenting scenario in life: your immediate surroundings, mental and physical, need to contain the lowest degree of negativity possible in order to fully experience the benefits of the mind-altering state. This is why I have bolded the who and the where. Those were the major contributing factors in my being prepared to be in it for the long haul.
I kind of forgot where I'm going with all this right now...
...
..
...um. OP.........OH! Out of body!
So. That was the first day I saw the world from every perspective possible. That was the day I began to understand infinity. Everything has a smaller and larger version of itself, depending on what you compare and contrast it with. It's all relative. (einstein even put forth a theory about it!) My armpits are sweating because I've been in the same position typing for so long. Language is what it is, more specifically a word means what it means, because it doesn't mean what all other words mean. It's all relative.

My friends and I have an acid-trip inspired phrase for this... idea?.. philosophy?.. life?? ....anyhow: "It's in the same thing"

This is our way of saying Everything is Infinity. Something can't matter unless it also doesn't matter. water cannot feel hot unless it can also feel cold. Lift over a rock and realize that beneath our feet is a subterranean world. Not separate from ours, but it could not exist without us and we could not exist without it.

...do we exist? :)

so to the OP, I think in those moments when you are experiencing existence from an alternate perspective, you are delving in to the world of the spiritual.

To answer your question about the NF-association with freaky dissociations, it's only because those who can intuit and feel and think and judge are less likely to become brainwashed by the society we live in. We've been knocked down and had to get back up again. We've likely experienced a complete ego dissolution at some point in our short-lived lives. In essence, we are more likely to have a soul :)
but I know for a fact that NTs experience this phenomenon often as well. It's a maturity thing I'm thinking.

Perhaps Introverts more than Extroverts?

oh god.
what have i done.
 
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phthalocyanine

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in childhood i often used to experience things sort of third person in my head, like a dream in which you see and hear yourself from the standpoint of being outside your own body and mind.. complete with documentary-style narration.
 
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