solipsism obsession wont go away

[bethw112]

its been about 3 months since i became obsessed with the idea that nothing is real and it just wont leave :/

every single day its the first thing i think about when i wake up, i spend all day trying to disprove it to myself and i have moments of clarity when i think to myself 'thats stupid of course everything is real' but its not long before the panic comes back- my throats feels like its closing, im scared my family arent real and i have images in my head of just being all alone in some big white void.

i know how crazy this all sounds. but i dont know what to do. i feel trapped and i keep thinking 'isnt it quite a logical idea that actually the world is just a creation of my subconscious? how is that any less likely than the world being populated by 7 billion concious people? how can that many minds even exist at once?' i just want someone i restore my faith in reality. i feel like im losing my mind.

i had my first session with a therapist last week and she said i have a fear of rejection or something... but i dont know.

another thing is that my exams are going really badly, mostly just because i cannot focus on revision. school/ exams have always been the one thing i was good at. now ive lost all my motivation and all i want is relief from this constant anxiety.

i would rather go through anything but this. i genuinely feel like anything i could cope with as long as i knew everything was real. this is worse than any other obsession ive had. i also really feel like i could be genuinely happy for the first time in forever if i could just get rid of this doubt.

please someone help i dont know what to do anymore :(

[xvolatileheart]

You and I are in the EXACT same situation right now. I've woken up yet again with the thought and fear that nothing is real. I have vivid nightmares all night and when I wake up I think "is this all a dream? Am I awake? Is this reality?" It's the most awful feeling. I'm on medication and it has taken away the panic attacks and calmed down some of my anxiety but this thought won't go away. I am also a student and studying is so hard with this. I can't stay focussed, I'm tired all the time, my memory is crap. I've always been such a good student so I just feel lost right now.

I'm trying to learn how to let these thoughts float by without engaging with them. It's hard. I'm always here to talk and be your recovery buddy! We can get through this.

[bethw112]

I'm so sorry to hear you're going through this too :( it honestly is the scariest feeling. I know studying is really hard but I did try and do some today and it did take my mind off the fear if just for an hour or so. I think giving yourself something to focus on is definately helpful. Also I don't know if you play an instrument or anything but I find singing and playing the piano helps me escape for a bit hope you're ok

[Matthewray]

This is all the result of anxiety. The questions are actually quite fun and interesting to ponder but under anxiety such question take on a scary feeling, I know this because I had everything you speak of. Before my anxiety, I loved reading into these topics but under anxiety I was so afraid of them.

As for your thoughts about nothing being real. Lets ask ourselves a few questions.

What constitutes what is real and what is not real? Why is this standard true? You will find in trying to answer these that there exist no coherent standard. If you experience it, it is real or rather What is real is what we experience. So everything is real, it just feels different than you remember it. I'll give you a quick proof of something that even you can find real. Is the feeling of unreality real? Your actions in making this thread prove that to be the case. So you do have something that feels real.

Why do you feel this way? This is caused by your anxious mind shifting focus from the external world into your internal mind. You spend so much time analysing things internally that you forget to experience the very thing you are analyzing (the external world). Thus creating the illusion that nothing is "real". Its important to recognize when you have these intrusive thoughts (which are essentially any thoughts questioning the realness or meaning of anything you experience) by Relabeling it as what it really is; an intrusive thought. Then you must Reattribute it: "Its not me thinking this, its my anxiety misfiring signals (thoughts)". Finally, Refocus your attention to something else. It my seem like you are forcing this at first and it may seem disingenuous but after doing this for a while your body will slowly start learning to identify such thoughts as false and it will become easier to ignore. Your attention will start coming back to the external world slowly.

As for you solipsism, philosophically there is no way to prove this is or is not the case however its never made my interactions any less meaningful with people. Let's grant that your world is just a product of your own consciousness (which I personally believe), does this some how make icecream less tastier? Does this make love and sex less enjoyable? It doesn't. only in your anxious mind do you theorize it to be that way but I guarantee your experience will show otherwise. Bottom line, Nothing about how you experience the world changes if this really is all a product of your consciousness. So then what's the big dea? It's just your anxiety making it out to be a problem when there isn't one.

Hope this helps.

I highly recommend "At last a life" by paul david and "Brain lock" by Dr.Jeffrey Schwatz for more info in dealing with your anxiety/OCD

[Sparkle1984]

I know exactly how it feels - I went through a phase of being obsessed about solipsism when I was 19. Here's how it came about and also how I overcame it:

I have experienced derealisation several times in my life, and it's a horrible feeling, especially when you start worrying about existential things. The first time I had it, I was only 8 or 9 years old. Thankfully it wore off after about a month, but then when I was 12 it happened again towards the end of my first year at high school (during the summer term).

When I was 19 years old I went through a phase of solipsism (in my specific case, I was worrying that I might be the only person in the world, and that everyone and everything is a figment of my imagination). This was the most extreme derealisation that I'd ever experienced.

I was just sitting there one day when I was 19 and I was on holiday, waiting to go to the bathroom, when suddenly this awful thought came into my mind, "What if the whole world and everything/everyone in it is all a dream? All a figment of my imagination."

That really scared me. The thing is, I'm still not exactly sure what triggered that thought to come into my mind. It happened when I was on holiday with my friend, and my friend's grandmother wanted to go to the toilet. I let her go first, even though I needed to go too. As I was sitting in the bedroom, waiting for her to come out of the toilet, that's when the scary thought came into my mind. I started to think that maybe I should have gone to the toilet first, because my friend's grandmother might not actually exist anyway. (I know that last bit sounds really funny, but back then it was really scary for me).

The thing is, I had done several things in the past to help other people, but never until that day did I have a scary thought like that come into my mind.

From that day, I started to worry about it a lot. This obsession carried on for the rest of spring 2003 and the first half of summer. It took me several months before I got over it completely.

I started to search on the internet, and it was only then that I found that there was a word for my feelings - solipsism. Closely related to it is the "brain in a vat" philosophy. Also, the film The Matrix scared me, as it dealt with the topic of everything being controlled by a computer and not really existing.

Fortunately, as the months went on, the feelings of solipsism gradually wore off. Every day I would try to look for evidence to disprove solipsism. For example, if you really were the only person in the world, then it must mean that you created everything yourself, including famous writing such as Shakespeare plays, famous pieces of classical music etc. I definitely wouldn't have been capable of creating those things in my own mind. So, for me, this disproved the theory of solipsism. I do still think about it occasionally, but nowhere near as much as I used to. I didn't have any more anxiety episodes for a few years. Years later, when I had my next anxiety episode, it was about a different theme.

Looking back, I think the reason why it came about could be because I was studying hard for my first ever university exams - I was in the first year of my degree course at the time, and I was told that I had to pass all my exams in order to move on to the second year of my course. I do now believe that the nerves and pressure could have contributed to me developing obsessive thoughts.

I hope this helps you. The obsession will die down eventually.

[rachelstewartallen]

i know it has been more than three years since you’ve posted, but i am going through the EXACT same thing with no real cause or trigger. i went to a psychiatrist and was told that it was a defense that my mind was putting up due to an imbalance of really everything (depression, anxiety, hormones, etc). right now my reality feels like it has been shattered as if i’m living in a dream, and i can’t really tell what’s real and what isn’t. my dissociation with everyone/everything is constantly affecting everything, and i need it to stop. i have no idea if you will see this, but i really need to ask if this gets better because i feel like whatever this is is ruining my life

[jojo2316]

“I’m a solipsist, and frankly I’m surprised there aren’t more of us”.
I love that you say you are solipsistic and you are appealing to others to reassure you. It made me laugh!
I’m fairly sure I’m conscious, so I’m going to guess you aren’t the only one.

[jojo2316]

i know it has been more than three years since you’ve posted, but i am going through the EXACT same thing with no real cause or trigger. i went to a psychiatrist and was told that it was a defense that my mind was putting up due to an imbalance of really everything (depression, anxiety, hormones, etc). right now my reality feels like it has been shattered as if i’m living in a dream, and i can’t really tell what’s real and what isn’t. my dissociation with everyone/everything is constantly affecting everything, and i need it to stop. i have no idea if you will see this, but i really need to ask if this gets better because i feel like whatever this is is ruining my life

Oh it’s you posting really, not the solipsist. Philosophically you are onto something. Reality really is not what it seems to our limited little brains. But you can choose to address that fact with curiosity and not sadness or fear....?

[Prospector]

Solipsism does not exist as consciousness is a property of physical matter. The same goes to dualism, or the notion that the mind and body are somehow separate entities. It's just philosophical nonsense and not based on anything empirical or scientific. Your conscious mind= neuronal system in an absolute state that exists in your brain (absolute state= not a mathematical model or a 'law of physics', it is undeniably there). Other persons mind= another separate neuronal system in a separate absolute state. It takes a very unique arrangement brain matter to produce conscious experience though, that much is clear, and whilst the state is absolute, it has the capacity to change (sleeping, states of mind, influence of drugs, brain damage all have a profound affect on the conscious mind). The system within our brains is also clearly highly interconnected (we can't yet model consciousness or its place in the brain but the pattern is definitely lying there somehow in the brain, perhaps in a single region but more likely across the entire brain, and if the Integrated information theory of consciousness is true, then this would seem to be the case) ergo we don't perceive the reality in the exact same way as someone else and is essentially why consciousness exists very subjectively, although technically, there is an extremely weak connection between your brain and the rest of reality but obviously not enough for you to experience someone elses thoughts like you experience your own, although I suspect in the future, as tech and science improves, it may well be possible to connect two minds together, thought the result would be quite scary I imagine. I would hope that would put to bed all of the arguments about the mind-body problem/solipsism though. But yes, reality exists in an absolute state and that goes for all matter across the entire known universe.

I always take interest in to philosophical topics when it comes to anxiety as many people find it very hard to rationalize as so many different views and interpretations exist and it's often hard to get a rationally based perspective. It's unfortunate that this day and age where we should be looking towards more empirical ways of looking at reality that we are still leaning back on old imaginary thought experiments like 'I think therefore I am' or 'Is the tree there when I don't look at it'. It's all nonsense and not based on any evidence beyond your own thoughts and thus can't be given any legitimacy. Philosophy is dead, and we shouldn't waste our time philosophizing, let alone getting anxious about abstract nonexistent concepts! I hope this helps