A "Has anyone else?" question

Does anyone else believe that they have physically been to places that LOOK almost like they are supposed to but somehow different? Smaller landmarks, different fonts on signs and such? I would love some rational goddamned explanation for some very unsettling experiences and can't stop thinking about it all. The Tacoma Dome.. I know what and where it has always been. It was smaller and too close to I-5 the last time I passed it. Things I am very familiar with are not the same sometimes.
I am being treated for bi-polar but did not really associate that with hallucinations...So maybe I am just crazy, but at least I am aware of that. So..just wondering

a reply to: ReluctantBlossom

It could be attributed to changes in your perception. For example: I went back to the town I grew up in last year to visit. It had only been about 2 years since I had been there. I had been away for a few months, a year, and a year and a half in the past. Each time I've been away from there how much it has changed has been directly affected by how long it has been since the last time I was there. I'm not talking about new businesses or houses, etc. but my perception of most everything- the size of different buildings and pieces of property and such. The older I get and the longer it is between being there and not being there makes it seem much smaller even though in reality the town has grown and the buildings and properties are the same as they ever were. Perception is strange!

a reply to: ReluctantBlossom

It's not unusual to have fairly major changes in how you physically perceive your relationship to objects or people, and it can be a shock when this happens. I take it that being bipolar or schizoaffective can make this happen more often.

But I, too, tend to remember things through a lens of how I perceive them, and in some cases that manifests in my recalling them as being larger, smaller, closer etc than they are.

I tend to remember people's sizes in relation to me in terms of my perception of how I relate to them. I always, for example, remember officers and higher ranking NCOs as being a lot bigger than me, and it's an endless shock when I meet them years later and they're totally different now, in terms of size or intimidation factor, although nothing's PHYSICALLY changed, the relationship did and my old memories are from that time. So now there's a sharp conflict between memory and current perception.

The same with my brothers, if I'm not around them for a while, I tend to recall them being taller than I am, and it's startling when I realize that I'm the second tallest behind Billy. I remember Billy as short, because he was the youngest. But I always recall Dan as towering over me, and he's a good three inches shorter, while Billy is about three taller.

There are also days when I feel weird errors in proportion, like I feel physically larger than I am even when my eyes refute it, other days I feel smaller than everyone, same thing. Doesn't happen often, but it's creepy when it does. I figure it's some brain center misfiring and just ignore it.

originally posted by: ReluctantBlossom
The Tacoma Dome.. I know what and where it has always been. It was smaller and too close to I-5 the last time I passed it.

The Tacoma Dome has been sitting in the exact same place and is the exact same size as it was when it was built. It has always been close to I-5. Why not stop at the LeMay car museum next time you go by and veg out a bit? Nice place.

a reply to: ReluctantBlossom

The rational explanation is that the human mind is fallible.

There's tons of research online.

Certainly nothing supernatural.

a reply to: ReluctantBlossom

I am being treated for bi-polar but did not really associate that with hallucinations...So maybe I am just crazy, but at least I am aware of that. So..just wondering

I've seen bipolar disorder being linked to 'magical thinking.' Maybe your brain is misperceiving your environment and then your intellect is using magical thinking to explain the disconnect? Sensory impressions are often distorted by bipolar disorder. I picture it like a graphic equaliser. Does that make sense? It's the way senses and perceptions can be cranked up high in some areas and really low in others and all simultaneously.

On ATS you'll see posts hand-waving things away with 'magical thinking.' It's generally used as an insult. They don't get how it's actually a rational series of thoughts based on empirical data. The problem is when we don't know how much our senses are off-kilter and feeding us inaccurate information.

Examples of faulty perceptions are 'beer goggles' when we've had a few drinks and people start looking more attractive. Or stoners gazing down a beaten up road and thinking it looks beautiful. Paranoia off too much weed smoking etc.

a reply to: Bedlam

I truly thought it was just me. When I was in the navy every officer I walked by were always taller then me. I stand at 5'11" so I thought I was just small or it take tall people to be an officer or something. Chiefs too at times. Hated the small chiefs. They had to act bigger then they were and made them very annoying.

Never thought their rank was intimidating enough to change my perception of them.

Very fascinating.

originally posted by: ReluctantBlossom
Does anyone else believe that they have physically been to places that LOOK almost like they are supposed to but somehow different? Smaller landmarks, different fonts on signs and such? I would love some rational goddamned explanation for some very unsettling experiences and can't stop thinking about it all. The Tacoma Dome.. I know what and where it has always been. It was smaller and too close to I-5 the last time I passed it. Things I am very familiar with are not the same sometimes.
I am being treated for bi-polar but did not really associate that with hallucinations...So maybe I am just crazy, but at least I am aware of that. So..just wondering

For children, the world seems very big. Going back to, for example, the school one went to, or a national park one was taken to, or the house one lived in during early childhood they always seem tiny compared to how we remember them.

Perceptions.

I remember my first sensei as being tall cause i was a kid and looked up to him. Saw him at a christmas party and he hadnt aged a day but he was this little 145lb man.

Im a short guy so everybody is taller than me. When somebody is describing someone and they go you know the tall guy. Im like who? Even tall people dont seem tall to me for some reason. A good example theres a cool homeless guy in my neighborhood. Hes 6'11". Very tall. He doesnt feel tall to me cause i equate size to weight and mass not height cause i had to basically factor height out of everything in my life. If youre under 230lbs. You just dont seem big to me regardless of hight.

I was standing next to lebron james a month ago on a job. I thought to myself. Hes small. People consider these basketball players giants. I was like yeah hes tall but not big. He was sorta soft looking to me. Not iconic or bigger than life. He was a nice guy too.

Shaq however when i stood next to him did feel big. Hes massive. Weight mass height everything.

Another sensei of mine used to scare the crap out of me as a kid. I revered him. He looked like guile from street fighter. Saw him a year ago as an adult and it was hard wrapping my head around that he just wasnt intimidating now as an adult.

Perspective. Its all perspective.

Well, the Tacoma dome has always been minuscule and the more that got built around it the smaller it looked. Besides, I grew up close to the Astrodome which was huge, but is now nothing more than a small arena because of that massive stadium they built directly above it. It is all a matter of time and perspective.

a reply to: Kandinsky

That's alot of what I attribute it to...trick of my mind or brain chemistry, but I do understand that it is most probably just me perceiving things differently. Then I keep reading stories from so many people having similar delusions and experiences that are quite similar to what I thought were just my own personally...I admit to having a mental illness and so take that into account, but I am damned lucid about it all. Most really mentally ill people don't realize it and just live inside their delusions...Just believing the CIA is in their toilet but never wonder why they believe that. It's like I can step aside and factor mine into what I believe and be rational,but it seems so convincingly real...

The smell of the air was different, the quality of light was odd, stinging skin in regular daylight. I don't understand why my brain would alter my perception of familiar places only sometimes and not others...I spend alot of time wondering about it.
I met people in support groups telling stories similar to mine and wonder how we can all be experiencing the same delusions separately...Like a giant mental illness outbreak pandemic or something...That part kind of freaks me out lol.

Maybe I can just use my thread to process some of my own mental baggage lol

a reply to: schuyler

I was surprised to see it so small and right next to the freeway like that. It had seemed farther off a ways.
Are you a friend to the Lewis County LeMays?

a reply to: ReluctantBlossom

The Pacific northwest is a strange place.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I thought of that myself, but I was born in this area and spent all of my life here...that's what is so damn confusing.
We have all driven down a famiiar road and suddenly noticed a house we hadn't seen before...it feels kinda like that but sorta not, too.

At the very least I can rationally describe what mental illness is like in minute detail lol

a reply to: ReluctantBlossom

The main reason I can empathise with you is because I've had similar experiences. I know what it's like to have the cognitive dissonance between 'knowing' the reality of an incident and it not making sense on an intellectual level. This thread is a good example of the struggle to understand an experience.

The smell of the air was different, the quality of light was odd, stinging skin in regular daylight. I don't understand why my brain would alter my perception of familiar places only sometimes and not others...I spend alot of time wondering about it.

Bipolar tends to be characterised by exaggerated sensory perceptions which could explain the disconnect you describe. On the up-cycle things can be brighter, more colourful and somehow profound. The down-cycle can render things to monochrome and feelings of depersonalisation.

I wish I could write something more helpful or insightful, but we all have to live in our own skins. Advice and good intentions can only go so far. It sounds like you've got a good grip on reality and that's the important thing

a reply to: Kandinsky

I have also been diagnosed with Schizo-Affective Disorder because I have also experienced thought insertion...It is easier to call them voices but not actually audible...but absolutely able to keep them separate and aknowledge how unlikely it is that they could be anything other than my own seemingly alien thoughts, right? I have had to look words up in the dictionary to understand them sometimes...I am curious as to why my mind would use a vocabulary different from my own.

a reply to: ReluctantBlossom

Okay. I have dreams, at night while sleeping, about locations that so far I have not found IRL. College campuses, houses, medical centers, main-streets.....

these locations are recurring and static. The episodes that take place in each of them are one-off situational experiences.

Like I'm actually there, and these are places and people that I know, and that I miss (like my dad), and that I imagine....

a reply to: Kandinsky

I missed that bit.

My Mrs was diagnosed a while ago and has had a couple of manic/psychosis episodes. The weirdest thing is how intuitive and almost PSYCHIC she becomes in these states. I don't discuss it with her for fear of inducing madness or confusion. When ill she would predict things before they happened, she would know what I was doing when I wasn't there... All sorts of 'paranormal' behaviour which was put down to the illness but could well be expained by her brain being on overdrive and using parts it never used before!