Feeling Mighty Unreal: Derealization in Kleine-Levin Syndrome

I went on this trip once, back to my hometown after a long absence. Have you ever felt that your surroundings seem odd and distant, and that you're completely detached from them? That the things and places around you aren't real? This can happen to me, on occasion.It did on this trip, perhaps because I've dreamed about those places so many times that the real places and the dream places are blurred in memory.Of course time marches on. The stores in the strip mall have changed, and you go to Starbucks with your father. But sometimes new and surprising things appear in the landscape.Or maybe old and unexpected things pop up in the background, renewing a long-standing confusion between rural and suburban.These nostalgic travel vignettes illustrate the phenomenon of derealization, a subjective alteration in one's perception or experience of the outside world. The pervasive unreality of the external environment is a key feature, along with emotional blunting. The world loses its vividness, coloring, and tone. Some even report seeing things as if they're looking through a fog or a haze. Or a pane of blurry glass.Derealization is often (but not always) associated with depersonalization, a feeling of detachment from oneself, as if you yourself are unreal or even outside your body. Both of these phenomena can be mild and transient, or the symptoms can be chronic and disturbing in Depersonalization Disorder, which is considered a dissociative disorder.Not surprisingly, these disso...
Source: The Neurocritic - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs