Intrinsic alienation

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i'm not sure how you intend to separate a genuine spiritual experience from a strong emotional experience. I've had quite a few experiences I would say were genuinely spiritual, most of which under the influence of psychedelics (which I stay away from now), or while in lucid dream state, and they were all strongly emotional. Are they invalid because they required the "technology" of plants or chemicals? I've never had a machine-induced vision, but I wouldn't rule it out or assume it was invalid just because it was caused externally.

A hallucination is deemed real when enough people agree they are seeing it. It's still subjective, only collectively so. Objective reality could only exist without the participation of any subject, so then whatever we say about reality is really only our subjective interpretation and anyone who claims otherwise is either God or deluded (chances are, the latter). The idea that numbers increases objectivity may be an illusion in itself. Visionary states happen to individuals much more than they do to groups, and yet such visions would seem to pertain to "greater" reality more directly than the consensus view of things.

All this being a roundabout way of saying that the "afflicted" minorities of auties, schizos, and the like are more naturally attuned to Reality, cap R (reality outside of cultural programming), than ordinary sane folk who rely on drugs, crazy religious beliefs, and weird helmets to get there! It may not appear that way, or feel it, but that's because the dominant NT culture doesn't accomodate visionary states of being, and so distorts and redirects their expression into sickness, inbalance, ect.

Just a few thoughts...

I agree. The experiences are different to me as well.

One thing which I don't recognise is not being the master of my own thoughts. I am always thinking, very intensely. So much that I sometimes forget the surroundings. My actions as well were often a result of open, deliberate defiance rather than an inability to adapt. For example in kindergarten, when we had singing, I started to howl like a wolf.

Yup. Your description was enough. I don't even need to watch the video.

Any music video or movie would illustrate my perception. Life for me is like living in a 3D video/movie. The only thing real in it is me. Everything else, and everyone around, is "out there."

I'm just an observer. But not a player.

You are so right. I feel as if I live in a different world on the same planet.

I have TLE but even before that I felt disconnected with people. I live with my mum and I feel there is a massive wall separating us. I look at people in the street and see a species completely different from me. I do feel like I'm viewing them from a parallel world.

My TLE is a lot stronger. I can be taken out of my body and be staring down at the world. I can see and hear things that can no way be actually there. I've seen serpents sliding through crowds and black panthers stalking the stage at a rock concert. I even have an Australian Shepherd called Henrietta that protects me from all the unknown dangers of the night. I've seen a lot of weird things from mythological creatures, aliens and demons.

Michio Kaku actually said the TLE experiences were the first foundations for organised religion. If that is the case I could start one crazy religion where herding sheep dogs are protective angels.

Brain fog can feel like this. I don't know how much because I have autism too. It just makes thoughts hard to think and articulate in spoken words.

Interesting. I've been in a Pentecostal church and when they worship they see 'visions', have a burning feeling, become vocal and may begin shaking.
I don't know if I'm ready to throw out my whole belief that this is actually a spiritual experience but it is interesting to think of it in a way of TLE.

Yep. I do understand what you're talking about, Dr Horrible. Sometimes I get into a brain fog (common in most fibromyalgia patients, like myself) where I can't remember anything and I feel even more disconnected and discombobulated from everyone else (if that's possible). It's another reason why I'm not a fan of big crowds.

this is from an interview with David Whyte, here

DW discusses alienation in terms of a necessary precursor to individuation - sort of like the splinter in Thomas Anderson's brain (Matrix ref), and argues that, although alienation is, in a sense, the universal human condition, it's also, paradoxically, unique to each of us: the precise nature of our alienation relates to our uniqueness as individuals.

Maybe the best model for understanding this is the family environment. I am guessing this is the same for most people here: when I was growing up, the more aware I became of myself as an individual, the more alienated I felt from my family, and society, and the more I pushed against that, which only strengthened my sense of alienation. This is the primary drive towards individuation, one which usually gets quoshed by the counter drive towards belonging, so that most teenagers, though they rebel against their family and society for a while, eventually "knuckle down" and adapt themselves to fit, because leaving the second womb of the family is too frightening. I never did "knuckle down" and fit. I never held a job; only got married in my forties; have traveled my whole life; have never been able to make small talk. Always had the sense that reality was "elsewhere." I figured it was just me, I was a freak and a prodigy: a new strain of human or a throwback. I was 40 before I'd even heard of aspergers syndrome.

Aspergerians and autists seem to be people who are just genetically incapable of "knuckling down" and fitting; alienation is our lot. It doesn't matter what shape the holes we are supposed to fit into are, we remain our own distinct shape - and even if we try to remold ourselves, it never quite works. The price of this is a constant, often intolerable sense of alienation; the upside is that we are forced to evolve, adapt, improvise, and to pursue individuation whether we like it or not, and that can lead (though I take this on faith somewhat, since I haven't got there yet) to finding a deeper sense of belonging by connecting to our core nature and being nurtured by that, rather than by any external matrix.

Ironically, this is what everyone wants: peace and wholeness and a clear sense of our own reality and truth. Few people have what it takes to cut all ties with family, society, and even consensus reality, and be a living, breathing anomaly in a sea of unfamiliar and unsympathetic faces. Most find masks and cloaks behind which to "pass" in NT-world.

My guess is that those of us who don't reshape ourselves to fit are those who just can't - we would if we could but nothing ever quite works. The splinter in our brain is just too big to hide it. The challenge then is to turn that apparent weakness into a strength, and make alienation an art form.

(David Byrne was my role model as a teenager.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-mxVxFXLg[/youtube]

Oh My God!

I've been looking for anything about this for ages!
I always feel like I experience time differently than other people. I always feel harried because everything & everyone moves so much faster than I do. My daughter is the same.
I can be seriously hurrying, which can be very stressful, and it still takes me three times as long as everyone else to, for example, get ready to go shopping.

I'd really love to hear anyone else's experience with this. The link to the article doesn't work anymore unfortunately.

As for the original subject, I certainly feel like I'm trapped behind glass and that my life is passing me by, just beyond my grasp. It makes me very, very sad.

Zel.

Gosh, yes! I thought I was the only one, or that I was ill in some way.

I've never really known how to phrase it, but behind a glass wall seems to fit my experiences. Like I am never really a part of what is going on. And the more people are in the room, the more detached I feel.

Close friends have commented that I look like I'm in my own world at times, and even sometimes that I don't seem to be fully real physically, as though they could put a hand through me or I could disappear at any point.

And now I come on here one morning and find it is, erm, normal! In a way!

It's amazing what we learn. We often think we are alone but we never really are.