I DON'T EVEN KNOW, MAN. I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

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I've tried this. So now, I think about the same book or film for months at a time.

Lots of ideas, imagery and observations whirl around in my head, but I have no one to share them with. I become an expert at analysing the colour scheme, special effects, themes and how these relate to the personality of the film director.

I don't want to "spoil the story" of the book or film for other people, so I keep silent about it.
So whenever I think "what a interesting idea" or "how innovative" about a book or film, I feel sad because other people won't be interested.

The challenge here is:
"How can I adapt these ideas to help people in real life?"
"How can I use these concepts and apply them to a different context in my own work?"
"Can these inspire other ideas and trains of thought?"

So basically, I could try and communicate the concept to people (such as the semiotic use of complementary colours of characters clothing) without mentioning the film or book at all. Or perhaps just a very brief reference at the right time?

I sometimes feel envious of men who are allowed to be "living encyclopaedias". They seem to be allowed to be enthusiastic about esoteric/technical topics and "drown" people in a deluge of information. I have never really been allowed to have a really enthusiastic conversation about technical topics with other people. This makes me sad. They'd call me "too intense" or say that there was "something wrong with me".

I can read a book or watch a film and think about it for months because there's no one to "snap me out of it". Because no one asks me about it and it isn't useful the ideas stay stuck in my head. I can focus on patterns in the carpet for hours at a time. I can't help it. It's like the focus on my mind's microscope keeps zooming in and out in erratic ways. This makes it very difficult for me to talk to other people or find a circumstance where I could use my detailed knowledge to help them.

It's Charles Bukowski. I am not sure what Senses Fail is.

I went through a major burnout at about age 25. I was in the middle of getting my PhD in physics. At that time, I was the star pupil, destined for greatness. What I didn't realize was that I was hitting the limits of my ability to cope. I was focused 100% on my studies. My personal life had completely disappeared. My obsessive tendencies were maxed out. I had lost the will to continue, but I still pushed on, because I didn't know what else I could do. I became obsessed with the idea of suicide.

One day, it all crashed down. I made a couple of suicide attempts. Somehow, I managed to survive. At that point, I realized that nothing that I was working for really mattered. For the first time in a long time, I was free. I lived for several months without purpose. In many ways that was the most peaceful time of my life. I had no goals, because I had completely failed at my goals. I had no ambition. All I could see was the present. All that mattered was the present. I was emotionally numb, but at the same time, I was almost at peace. For a little while, I was beyond caring what anybody thought of me.

THIS IS ME. I just feel like I've lost all my filters. They were always a little faulty, and now they are just GONE. My sense of time is non-existent, my sense of space...is just...an amorphous blob:|

My mind DOES feel like th internet, in the past I described this as feeling like I was constantly flipping through television channels. I can't really distinguish between what sounds normal and what doesn't, anymore, it's all the same. I just can't tune into anything, compeltely. It's happened in the past but lasted nowhere *near* this long.

He is called Philosoraptor. Do you love it?

No real difference, I just mean that I've lost a huge chunk of my sanity but haven't gone BONKERS *crosses fingers*

Seems common among WPer's. I think this may be a permanent state of mind, for me. I can learn to adjust to it, I just hope it doesn't progress further O_________________________________O

I didn't really think anyone would know what I was talking about. You all described it perfectly.

Very glad to see it that it's so common among WPer's. I can adjust, and I don't feel sad, it's just going to take some getting used to

Dude, your eyes are seriously spread out....
I had never thought of those episodes as anything but depression. I'm in a phase like that just right now....has been lasting for a couple of months actually, I went out of my house today and talked to some people and it felt so alien to me, then I realised why: I hadn't talked to anyone in too long ( there was a few times I went out but this was a real conversation, like, stay on top of your game, type of thing) .
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing though...I feel a total disconnect but if it's not depression then what is it? "bonkers" is not on the DSM (I checked).
I've had times in my life when I was so disconnected that people complaining about small problems would make me laugh. Just the seriousness of someone taking himself seriously could throw me in fits of laughter. Out loud. I was a teen then so people just thought I was being a brat I guess. Thankfully this hasn't happened in a long time....

I am 23 now and have been having a ton of issues with apathy.

Reading this thread has scared the s**t out me. What do you do about this?!

As if my insomnia wasn't already an issue for me.....

The greatest channel flipper and "sound bite" quoter of them all.
If Batty isn't a symbol of how information saturated the modern would is, I don't know what is. How many commercials, radio shows and TV shows go into people's heads every day? It's frightening how much mental clutter people must have up there. People get bored and lonely, so have to fill their minds with something.

Perhaps the amount of information that people have had to absorb has grown exponentially, since the advent of TV, store Muzak radio, video games, VHS, computers and standard assessment tests. In the olden days, did people have to deal with this much information and constant change all at once?

A loss of filters.
Everything seems equally detailed and equally important.
I notice this after prolonged isolation. If someone engages me in friendly meaningful conversation or I see a friendly animal, I notice that my perception of the world becomes more integrated. It's not so much like looking into a shattered fairground mirror any more.

Like you say, the perception was never perfect to start with.
Adverse circumstances and stress seem to aggravate the "disintegration of reality".

Definately. People in those days just worked the field or so, they would have lived most of their lives in peace. Maybe the occassional book or play for entertainment but not the stimulation we have now.

Well, it is sort of a "joyful apathy", like a previous poster described, but it's not like I'm absolutely incapable of making a connection with someone. It's just very hard to have a lasting connection, nothing really seems to have a different meaning than anything else, everything is equally important. The focus on details become very intense, my ability to process the big picture gets smaller and smaller.

It probably appears to be apathy, to others, which makes me sad. I just *can't* understand what people are saying to me half of the time. I mean, I can process it,most of the time, but everything is fragmented, I just can't tune into people, I guess. I really hope people don't think I just hate them. I can still have pleasant conversation with friends and make them laugh, BUT, I'm a total flake. Can't keep plans and just don't understand how to "hang out" anymore.

Totally. You described it best. Everything does seem equally detailed and equally important, and my perception is fragmented, as as opposed to integrated.

In the past, it did help to spend more time around people. Now, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

*Sigh*. I think I've probably gone on stimulants or SSRI's when it was this bad, back then. I might end up doing so again, but it's definitely my worst case scenario. Not against meds, just *really* wanted to learn to adjust naturally.

They probably also adhered to just one local culture.
Life was harder and simpler.

Think about it: now there are many cultures all competing for people's attention.

Walk down the street in my country and you'll hear music that was produced in America. There is dance music being blasted out of car windows and in shops.
The music is out of its social context. One can't just dance in the shop or down the street without looking silly. When shopping, it's especially annoying: your brain is saying: "Dance and be emotional!" at the same time that it's telling you that you "really need to buy deodorant".

I end up memorising all of the lyrics. I feel shy and awkward because my voice just cannot compete with some wailing diva. Now, I find that I remember places by the lyrics of the music that I heard there, not the real life conversations that I had with people. Actually, I usually go mute because my voice cannot compete with the singer. Play me a pop song that was produced in the last 30 years and I'll be able to give you a detailed description of the furniture that was in the room I was in at the time I first heard the song. I'd probably also be able to draw you sketches of the patterns I saw in the wallpaper and the carpet at the time I heard the song. I could also tell you the running order of the tracks that were played or if the CD got stuck on one song.

I remember when I was trying to attend an open day at a College somewhere. I couldn't pay proper attention to what the man was saying because "Jenny from the block" was going round and round in my head. It was the song that was being played in the hotel restaurant the night before. Whenever that song plays, I always remember the pattern of the hotel carpet and the smell of roast lamb. I also feel awkward for missing out on an opportunity to talk to the man. I couldn't talk to the man properly because if I'd tried, he'd have got a recitation of "Jenny from the Block", which is fine for karaoke, but not so good for real life.

I think that things would be a lot less confusing if dance/emotionally charged music was just reserved for special social occasions that weren't mundane. Playing music like that constantly in mundane situations cheapens the impact of the song. Not only that, it confuses people and wears them out when they're trying to shop/have a conversation.

Pop Music now seems to be a commercial commodity, not a product of community.
It's not spontaneous or self generated either. Busy sounding music has to be piped into passive environments like a car or the shops.

People are also exposed to many different and conflicting cultural messages on TV.
Having awareness of other cultures can be enriching.
However, having to process lots of information about many cultures within a short time frame can be confusing.

I remember watching educational tv shows when I was little, that seemed to be telling me to get up, experiment and sing or dance. When I got to real school, everyone was told to sit still, follow instructions and be quiet. Culture clash! No wonder I "misbehaved", I was confused. I didn't know who to believe or what to do. I don't think I was the only one who was confused.

They wouldn't have had TV or radio.
They wouldn't have had to cope with disembodied voices or a barrage of images coming from an electronic source.
So basically, in the modern developed world, there's a lot of psychosocial clutter that doesn't originate from real life social interactions of an individual. This clutter comes from the media.

I have watched a video on a "simulation" of schizophrenia.
It shows the TV and the radio "telling" the person with schizophrenia that s/he is "worthless".

I can't help but wonder if media involving disembodied voices can cause pyschosocial confusion. You can hear the voice, you can see the person in "TV land", but you can't interact directly with the person. A reporter on a TV News show could be reporting from a country far away and yet that reporter to you, seems as though he's talking to you in your own living room!

I wonder if the human brain has really adjusted to long distance communication properly yet? From the reading I've been doing (and I'm not a professional expert at this) it's common for people with Schizophrenia to be afraid of telecommunication devices such as the telephone. I think that the telephone can be a source of psychosocial confusion and stress for some people because you're dealing with a disembodied voice, not a real physical person in your presence.

So, basically when someone with Schizophrenia claims that "people are coming through the phone" or "talking to them through the TV" I think they have a point. We are all influenced by messages on TV and what we see can influence our behaviour in the real world (but we don't consciously always like to think about it!). Maybe they just see existing pyschosocial confusion/stresses/pressures in a terrifyingly exaggerated way?

I wonder if perhaps in countries where there's less access to media and telecommunications, there's less disembodied "psychosocial/informational clutter".
If there's less psychosocial confusion perhaps there is less risk of "delusions" or "breakdowns" involving media messages?

Sorry if this is going off topic.
I think this issue definitely needs looking into.
People "losing their minds" through environmental influences.
Could disembodied voices from the media act as triggers for certain kinds of "mental health issues"?

I wonder if the human brain can really with a lot of conflicting messages and confusing pyschosocial stimulation all at once?
Perhaps some "highly sensitive people" feel this social confusion and dissociation of message from real life context more than most?