# Dreams merging with reality



## Skye Perk

Lately I've been out and about, and feel like I am unsure if I am a part of this reality. I have very lucid dreams every time I go to sleep, I can recall every detail about them.When I wake up, sometimes I stop and question whether I am in a dream or not and get anxiety because I am unsure if this is reality or not and start feeling like something drastic could happen... like the walls of reality could start caving in on me. I feel like my mind could be trapped in a limbo in between insanity and reality.

Occasionally, these dreams seem to exist in different kind of spaces of reality, other worlds that have other kind of substances. It's not earth, not another planet, more like a different plain of reality. Or I am in everyday world that we know, and I'm dealing with people and situations and distinct personality's. Each of these dreams have such substance and the people in my dreams seem so real and have such strong personality's that I can't help but feel that it isn't coming from my subconscious, that I am actually in a real place. Can I really create these elaborate people and places with my mind?

One last thing, each dream leaves me with a distinct feeling and leaves a very strong emotional imprint on me, it's extremely hard for me to explain this part of it to all of you cause I can't explain what I'm feeling. The only thing I can compare to is that raw vulnerable feeling that you felt when you were a child when you were thrown out into such a large and strange world.

Does anybody relate to any of this at all?


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## Sar4

Slightly. I also have very vivid, lucid dreams. Sometimes I am not sure if something really happened or if I just dreamed it. It's freaky.


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## ThirdEyeGrind

Skye Perk said:


> Lately I've been out and about, and feel like I am unsure if I am a part of this reality. I have very lucid dreams every time I go to sleep, I can recall every detail about them.When I wake up, sometimes I stop and question whether I am in a dream or not and get anxiety because I am unsure if this is reality or not and start feeling like something drastic could happen... like the walls of reality could start caving in on me. I feel like my mind could be trapped in a limbo in between insanity and reality.
> 
> Occasionally, these dreams seem to exist in different kind of spaces of reality, other worlds that have other kind of substances. It's not earth, not another planet, more like a different plain of reality. Or I am in everyday world that we know, and I'm dealing with people and situations and distinct personality's. Each of these dreams have such substance and the people in my dreams seem so real and have such strong personality's that I can't help but feel that it isn't coming from my subconscious, that I am actually in a real place. Can I really create these elaborate people and places with my mind?
> 
> One last thing, each dream leaves me with a distinct feeling and leaves a very strong emotional imprint on me, it's extremely hard for me to explain this part of it to all of you cause I can't explain what I'm feeling. The only thing I can compare to is that raw vulnerable feeling that you felt when you were a child when you were thrown out into such a large and strange world.
> 
> Does anybody relate to any of this at all?


Are you taking a SSRI? Just asking because SSRI's are known to cause very vivid and lucid dreams. I use to have lucid dreams on SSRI's all the time. I knew I was dreaming and could do whatever I wanted. If its not from a SSRI, it sounds like you just have very very realistic dreams. When you sleep, your brain doesn't know the difference between a dream and reality (this is for everyone). I use to have dreams so real that when I woke up I was upset that it wasn't real. Or sometimes the dream itself would cause me to have a very emotional reaction once I woke up. Does any of this sound familiar?


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## Hallucinating Zebra

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## SolaceChaser

I think it's awesome. Your subconscious is merging with the conscious. I think you're waking up to the real reality: Our subjective reality is the only reality. This world can be so real and unreal sometimes. You get caught up by the speed of life easily, especially in the US. It takes you, it entertains you and plays you like a flute. Then, when you start doing your own thing, your desires manifest and people come to you.

That ride in Disneyland, "It's A Small World Afterall," I never got it until now.


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## ThirdEyeGrind

Skye Perk said:


> Lately I've been out and about, and feel like I am unsure if I am a part of this reality. I have very lucid dreams every time I go to sleep, I can recall every detail about them.When I wake up, sometimes I stop and question whether I am in a dream or not and get anxiety because I am unsure if this is reality or not and start feeling like something drastic could happen... like the walls of reality could start caving in on me. I feel like my mind could be trapped in a limbo in between insanity and reality.
> 
> Occasionally, these dreams seem to exist in different kind of spaces of reality, other worlds that have other kind of substances. It's not earth, not another planet, more like a different plain of reality. Or I am in everyday world that we know, and I'm dealing with people and situations and distinct personality's. Each of these dreams have such substance and the people in my dreams seem so real and have such strong personality's that I can't help but feel that it isn't coming from my subconscious, that I am actually in a real place. Can I really create these elaborate people and places with my mind?
> 
> One last thing, each dream leaves me with a distinct feeling and leaves a very strong emotional imprint on me, it's extremely hard for me to explain this part of it to all of you cause I can't explain what I'm feeling. The only thing I can compare to is that raw vulnerable feeling that you felt when you were a child when you were thrown out into such a large and strange world.
> 
> Does anybody relate to any of this at all?


It also sounds like you could be experiencing "derealization". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derealization


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## penguin runner

I can sort of relate to that. I've also had many lucid dreams and very vivid dreams since childhood. And there have been many times I find myself wondering if what I think happened happened in reality or my dreams. Not often but sometimes. And I sometimes can't remember if conversations I've had with family members are real or dreamed. 

I know a big part of getting lucid dreaming to work is to question your surroundings to see if they make sense with reality (like checking the time back to back, or text back to back for inconsistencies). I think once you have a lucid dream and you recognize you are in a dream world, you may start to have that same questioning of reality more often. 

And I've definitely had a few dreams that left an imprint on me. Being in complete control of the dreamscape in a lucid dream is just too much to not have some effect on you. I love lucid dreams, but I always wonder if I am actually aware and in control of my dream or just that I think I am aware and in control of my dream. Also would it matter either way?


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## ThirdEyeGrind

penguin runner said:


> I can sort of relate to that. I've also had many lucid dreams and very vivid dreams since childhood. And there have been many times I find myself wondering if what I think happened happened in reality or my dreams. Not often but sometimes. And I sometimes can't remember if conversations I've had with family members are real or dreamed.
> 
> I know a big part of getting lucid dreaming to work is to question your surroundings to see if they make sense with reality (like checking the time back to back, or text back to back for inconsistencies). I think once you have a lucid dream and you recognize you are in a dream world, you may start to have that same questioning of reality more often.
> 
> And I've definitely had a few dreams that left an imprint on me. Being in complete control of the dreamscape in a lucid dream is just too much to not have some effect on you. I love lucid dreams, *but I always wonder if I am actually aware and in control of my dream or just that I think I am aware and in control of my dream. Also would it matter either way?[/*QUOTE]
> 
> I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that once you realize you're dreaming (lucid dream) you're in total control of what happens. But sometimes a person can get too excited/amazed that you're actually having a lucid dream, and you lose the ability to make anything you want happen.


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## ThirdEyeGrind

There's a really cool movie about dreams/lucid dreaming called "Waking Life". I highly reccomend this movie to anyone interested in this kinda stuff. There's also a bunch of clips from the movie on youtube. Really cool movie.


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## Music Man

I can have very lucid dreams most nights.
They can be quite nice but sometimes scary because they're so realistic and even my senses seem to be active in the dream, like I can feel pain etc
When I wake up, I can feel panicky if the dream didn't end and it stopped at a tense point in the dream. 
I would rather not have them.


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## kaykay609

I always get that the nights after I've had a lot of alcohol, but that's just because I don't remember going to bed the day afterwards.. But this one time I dreamt that some kind of devilish creature was going after me for my soul and even though I know it sounds ridiculous now that I'm awake but in the dream everything felt real and I remember everything and I know that I died exactly 16 times in that one dream and every time it happened in the dream the pain and the fear and the panic was so real, I'm afraid to fall asleep sometimes. Some people are blessed with the fact that they can never remember their dreams. Guess I drew the short straw. I'm just glad that I can always wake up from those nightmares, even though sometimes in the dream it feels like years have passed. 

Anyway when I wake up from really lucid, heavy and scary dreams, it usually takes about 15 minutes until I finally know for sure that it was all just a dream. It's just that the mind needs more time to wake up than the body does. I once had a dream within a dream, now that was creepy and confusing.. And once I dreamt that the grudge, you know that japanese girl with the black hair and white dress from the movie, killed the girl I love, and at the end of the dream I was standing in the hallway just outside my room, and when I woke up, first thing I did was step into that same hallway and everything looked the same as in the dream, and I had to text her to find out if she was still alive. 

I think we can all agree that dreaming sucks. At least, it does when all your dreams are nightmares. I maybe had 1 "good" dream in my life that I can recall.


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## amm

Lately, all my dreams have mimicked certain commonplace events that I might experience in my actual life. The dreams range from putting on socks to making plans with someone about a future event. For example, my most recent dream was about me browsing Facebook, and the only thing interesting that stuck with me was a status update that read, "RIP Cormac McCarthy." 

Most of these dreams are so mundane that it's hard to separate them from reality. I mean, I woke up after this most recent dream and immediately went to Wikipedia to see if Cormac McCarthy had actually died. Other times I've had these dreams, I'll remember them later as if they had actually happened. Sometimes I'll be talking to my friend and bring up a conversation we had had a month earlier or something, and he'll have no idea what I'm talking about because the previous conversation had been a dream. 

I think it's more dangerous if it's midday and you start to feel like your dreaming. Like when you're existing in reality but you perceive it as a dream rather than the other way around. I was working, driving down a street last December, and I felt like my peripheral vision was getting foggy and I could only really focus on the part of the road my headlights were illuminating. I guess my brain automatically made the connection that this was just another mundane dream because I felt like I lost control of everything for a moment. Like I should've just woken up. It was ridiculous.


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## straightarrows

daydreaming side effect!


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## ThirdEyeGrind

Since this thread is all about dreams figure i might as well tell my weird dream story/reality happening. One night I dreamed after my shower in the morning and walking downstairs that my father told me that my best friend died in a car accident. The next morning I took a shower n came downstairs n my father said he read outta the newspaper that my best (the same person) friend was arrested for breaking into cars the night before. Another weird dream I had was that I was dreaming that I was in Wal Mart, and these kids were climbing up the shelves. Once they reached the top shelf, they began to sway/fall over, and right when they hit the ground, my shelf in my room which is hotglued (shouldn't have fallen) all the sudden fell to the ground waking me up the same second that the kids on the shelves hit the ground waking me up. Its so weird. Feels like I made my shelves fall because I experienced such a realistic dream. Will always be a mystery to me.


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## JamieHasAnxiety




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## tweedyrat

I think I can somewhat relate.
I first heard of and then started lucid dreaming when I was 12. It has definitely messed with my head over the years. I think lucid dreaming has played a part in my depression (though I still practice it and think it's cool and everything). I used to have extreme feelings of what I now call solipsism (I didn't know the word back then). This is a good definition:

_Solipsism Syndrome: A pathological psychiatric condition involving a dissociative mental state. This psychiatric condition is characterized by a detachment from reality - a state of mind in which a person begins to feel that all reality is internal and the remainder of the perceived universe is unreal or only exists in a dream state._

This is opposed to the second definition of being egoistic!
Anyway, I could write an essay on it but I'll try to keep this relatively short. Bascially the feelings are still there but not as painful... different.

Hmm, I sound like Cobb's wife from Inception. Nice idea to see portrayed in a great film but not nearly so action-movie straightforward in RL.


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## Skye Perk

Wow, this thread didn't take at first so I thought it bombed but now there are actual responses that I didn't notice until now. Sorry I didn't respond until now. But I'm glad to see that some people are sharing their personal experiences with dreams and suggestions to what might be going on. I'll have to take a closer look at this tonight when I have time and can sit down. Sounds good so far though.


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## ThirdEyeGrind

JamieHasAnxiety said:


>


lol


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## Witan

JamieHasAnxiety said:


>


Hehe

Okay guys and gals, time to pull out your totems!

But anyways, I sometimes feel the same as OP. In the end, all we have is our subjective experiences. As Descartes said, "cogito ergo sum". Hell, for all I know, I'm the only consciousness that exists, and everyone else, including everyone in this thread, are just personas created by my dream.

And of course, if that's the case, then right now I'm basically talking to myself


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## serenegeek

I can relate to all of this! I've been having vivid dreams all my life + false awakenings and sleep paralysis and lately it has increased to the point where I am confused about where the dreams stops and where reality begins. It came to the point where I was even afraid to go to sleep or seek other methods ( eg. alcohol, sleeping pills) to basically help me pass out so I would avoid the dreams but that isn't a good way to deal with this, I know. Anyway, when I first saw the trailer to Inception I couldn't believe my eyes and when I saw the movie I was relieved to see something on the big screen I could relate to and that I wasn't losing it. My life is basically like inception...I totally understand what you mean with having an emotional imprint from this, in my case it goes so far as also getting physically very exhausting as if I really have been acting out the things in my dreams but in a different reality.


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## CopadoMexicano

Ive had my dreams with my fears popping up in my sleep.


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## game nerd

Ever since I can remember and I'm not on any meds. Just last night I dreamed about my dead dog, but I was aware she was gone and questioned her in my dream what she was doing there because she can't be here. My dream-self thought I was hallucinating until I realized I was dreaming, in which case I woke up. 

I get really messed up when someone is talking to me right before I go to sleep or while I'm waking up. Often the conversation bleeds into my dream and continues there. I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with people (usually family) later talking about a discussion that never happened. 

I've also had dreams where someone I know did something upsetting in the dream. Like I had an argument with them or they were mean to me. When I woke up I was still upset and would continue to slightly resent them throughout the day. I'm well aware it was just a dream and it didn't really happen, but the emotion still lingers.

It's kinda annoying since I can't control when it happens or what the effects will be. It's also really embarrassing when I recall something from my dream and talk like it actually happened because I get memories and dreams confused. They're both so vivid and realistic sometimes. *sigh*


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## kitkatstar1

I can relate to this, I used to have dream of dying and I'd wake up screaming because I thought I was going to die. I think it's either severe anxiety or psychosis but I'm not sure


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## daniel83

OMG I have the exact same thing! And it was before the movie Inception, what if everything is just a dream, an illusion created by my mind (this is called Solipsism I think), I've been interested in this kind of stuff for some time now, it goes back to Indian philosophies like Advaita vedanta or Kashmmir shaivism. Or maybe I'm just insane, it's weird if you try to explain this to your friend or family, they will think you're crazy, you have to experience it somehow, which happened to me in my dreams. Sometimes I even have dreams within dreams, where I dream how I wake up from a previous dream go brush my teeth, dress etc. and then suddenly I awake again. It's actually quite amazing and fascinating!!


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## Monroee

I suffer from chronic derealization. Been so for many years now, around 7 years. I constantly question my reality. I see things two-dimensional & flat - so obviously - everything seems like some incredibly badly visual dream. My real dreams are more vivid than my waking life - so I tend to believe that they are the true reality. It's all very confusing.

I related so much to the wife in Inception that I actually threw up after the movie.


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## daniel83

what if the wife was right, and we really are in a dream state. scary thought.


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## isitreal

*feel u*

My dreams are so.real i can smell taste and feel things after i wake up an i dont understand


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## FranzKafka

In a way ALL of reality is coming from your mind too. By this i do not mean that the other people, and objects, are part of your mind. But i do mean that what you sense of them, and your views of them, are entirely your own, formed inside of your mind. So in some states one can indeed be in danger of mixing up what is real and what is not.

But such games are potentially dangerous, although they can seem very interesting to some people. I would advise you to seek therapy if you feel you can no longer control your grasp of what is real.


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## peter62

Our life has become very fast, time is passing so much fast speed we are busy in life from head to foot. After passing some months and some years when we get some free time we think in past and we find our past like dream but its reality that we face in our own life.


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## iAmCodeMonkey

Sar4 said:


> Slightly. I also have very vivid, lucid dreams. Sometimes I am not sure if something really happened or if I just dreamed it. It's freaky.


I also have this as well.


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## noyadefleur

I tend to dream about things that could very well happen to me in real life. Then sometimes when I'm off and not terribly lucid as I'm going about my day, I have surreal experiences that I can't remember whether or not I dreamed. The lines are often blurred.


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## Solomon's Tomb

AprilEthereal said:


> It also sounds like you could be experiencing "derealization". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derealization


No, quite the opposite of "derealization." The OP is awakening to the true reality. I've experienced the exact same phenomenon he has. I know where it goes, I've even learned to control it to some extent. It's beautiful when you understand what it truly is. There's no word in any language to truly describe it.


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## peter62

Our life has become very fast, time is passing so much fast speed we are busy in life from head to foot. After passing some months and some years when we get some free time we think in past and we find our past like dream but its reality that we face in our own life.
Supported Living Community


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## mysticman

What you are experiencing is a spiritual phenomena. This also is happening to me as well. Eventually our dreams and reality will totally merge into one reality.


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## derpresion

^ no thanks :no

i have crazy and distinct dreams as well. sometimes they are so real and vivid and different i cant believe they are something my brain made. yesterday fe i was playing video game and eating cheese in my dream. it was weird and didnt made any sense but i could feel real taste wtf :blank and visuals were so real. 
and then sometimes i dream really horror stuff and wake up all stressed and panicky, all of this didnt go away even when i started my meds. 

once i even went through several levels of somekind of horror game in my dream that had really detailed visuals. it had really creepy skeleton characters in it so i somehow cheated and just run away without battling them. idk what to think about all of this and how it couldve happen in my freaking brains but often im questioing my reality when im in dream too. weird stuff..


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## shadowsxtc

*Twice already.*

I've had these dreams twice already. Where I scream and nobody hears me. Where I feel as though my body is moving so much but all I ''see'' is a twitch. I can see everything, but I can't wake up to stop myself.

Once was when I slept in my own room. I was ''sweating'' and ''suffocating''. My eyes were ''open'', and I kept screaming for my parents to help me but I couldn't make a sound. I was almost in tears until a black shadow rushed into my bedroom door and sort of landed on me.

The other was early one morning. I woke up, got bored, and decided to take another nap since I hadn't much to do. I slept on the sofa. I dreamt that I was a detective and I was playing a recording to someone like real detectives do. The man on the recording started to scream "help me", and then it proceeded to him just screaming as though he were being dragged or tortured or something. The recording seemed to go on a loop at that part, and I got really scared. I wanted to wake and I could see the lights in the kitchen turning on so i wanted to scream but I couldnt. I started to try to "kick" the sofa. I could feel myself kicking, but I saw myself only twitching. Eventually I had enough energy to kick myself off the sofa so that I'd wake up.

Please, if you have any advice to help me stop having these, or what the causes of these type of dreams are, please let me know. Thanks


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## purplerain2015

very interesting topic here.i myself have very lucid dream everynight so real that i can get shot feel drastic pain or just jump from a skyscraper bymyself. in my idea there are differences between lucid dreams though it cant be proven by science. the type with full ctrl and not recognizable at all from the reality happens when u have ctrl over the soul or whatever disassociate from u. indeed u r seeing urself in reality other dimensions or world and u will feel returning to your body so dramatic.the other issue is that some always wake up at REM step and they recall everything from their dream in super details but it simply do not happen for most.we do not know the reason yet but my suggestion is to enjoy ur dream and have fun...


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## Hopegood28

I'm so confused for the past month when I think back I can't remember if my dreams were reality or just a dream I feel like I'm insane I feel so alone idk if it has to do with my depression


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## SwtSurrender

Skye Perk said:


> Lately I've been out and about, and feel like I am unsure if I am a part of this reality. I have very lucid dreams every time I go to sleep, I can recall every detail about them.When I wake up, sometimes I stop and question whether I am in a dream or not and get anxiety because I am unsure if this is reality or not and start feeling like something drastic could happen... like the walls of reality could start caving in on me. I feel like my mind could be trapped in a limbo in between insanity and reality.
> 
> Occasionally, these dreams seem to exist in different kind of spaces of reality, other worlds that have other kind of substances. It's not earth, not another planet, more like a different plain of reality. Or I am in everyday world that we know, and I'm dealing with people and situations and distinct personality's. Each of these dreams have such substance and the people in my dreams seem so real and have such strong personality's that I can't help but feel that it isn't coming from my subconscious, that I am actually in a real place. Can I really create these elaborate people and places with my mind?
> 
> One last thing, each dream leaves me with a distinct feeling and leaves a very strong emotional imprint on me, it's extremely hard for me to explain this part of it to all of you cause I can't explain what I'm feeling. The only thing I can compare to is that raw vulnerable feeling that you felt when you were a child when you were thrown out into such a large and strange world.
> 
> Does anybody relate to any of this at all?


Yea man, I relate to dreaming, I myself am very fascinated by it and I love it so much. I also am left with distinct feeling from each dream when I wake up every day, it's like the dreams I had that night/day help shape my waking life that I have that certain day. It happens everyday!

Yea I used to feel like I was in a dream in my waking life, I think it was because of my overwhelming anxiety and social anxiety, so my mind created this defense mechanism, I have something in my psychology book, I'll write it here for you, it says, "*defense mechanisms* in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality." So our ego is using this method of reducing anxiety and it distorts our reality, making us feel like it's a dream, isn't that cool, how our mind is helping us survive in the world by reducing our anxiety, so we can survive. Ahh we are amazing human beings, yes we are, but the dream gives us more power. :hug s

I used to also have derealization and depersonalization I think this was also a coping mechanism to reduce anxiety, and I also had used this belief that we are dreaming in reality so I could reduce my anxiety, and now I am on prozac and I feel like it is a dream even more, it's like prozac helps me take risks, like how you want to take risks in dreams but you can't unless you can control the dream. I can do this in real life and I like it mmm it feels good, when I first tried weed I felt like I was in a dream too, the weed was very intense on me I felt like I was going to die, but I enjoyed how it took me on a dream stroll for about 3 hours, it was nice and very dreamy.


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