Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
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Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#2[dead]
Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#3I spent months underwater on a US submarine and felt the same thing. Later the Navy pdoc labelled it dissociation, which is in the DSM.
Common Types and Symptoms
Depersonalization: Feeling detached from your own body, mind, or actions, like watching yourself in a movie.
Derealization: Feeling that the outside world is fake, dreamlike, or foggy.
Dissociative Amnesia: Forgetting important personal information or blocks of time that go beyond normal memory loss.
Identity Confusion or Alteration: Feeling unsure of who you are or experiencing shifts in your personality.
Causes and Triggers
Trauma and Stress: Acts as a defense mechanism against overwhelming stress, abuse, or frightening events.
Everyday Triggers: Loud noises, strong emotions, or reminders of past trauma.
Mild States: Getting lost in a book, daydreaming, or "highway hypnosis" while driving.Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#4Being an astronaut seems cognitively expensive. Your time is regimented down to the minute. Your space is regimented down to the inch. The things you bring up and down, including yourself, is measured to the pound. I would imagine you have to constantly be evaluating, assessing, and thinking critically about everything you do all the time. And then to suddenly not have to do that and just live in the moment has to be a massive readjustment.
Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#5The mind works with benchmarks on a constant basis. Everything is a comparison - to your prior experiences, other people's experiences, your identity, etc etc etc
Introducing a new benchmark creates a new perspective to measure old perspectives against. In essence, de-sycing your perceptions of self, reality, etc until the new and old normalize out.
(You see this with psychedelics a lot which is why it can be such a valuable therapy for depression and PTSD)
It is no wonder that being put in a giant space bullet, shot into the darkness of space, with the light of your world reflected back at you like the ultimate out of body experience leads to an "observer" sensation.
Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#6I spent months underwater on a US submarine and felt the same thing. Later the Navy pdoc labelled it dissociation, which is in the DSM. Common Types and Symptoms Depersonalization: Feeling detached from your own body, mind, or actions, like watching yourself in a movie. Derealization: Feeling that the outside world is fake, dreamlike, or foggy. Dissociative Amnesia: Forgetting important personal information or blocks…
I’d be curious to learn about what you were experiencing, what the astronauts experience and the third man syndrome that Everest hikers experience. I don’t know if they are similar but I’d be curious to learn more about how our perception and attachment to our bodies changes while enduring these extreme conditions.
As a side note, it seems pretty naive to believe that humans would be able to handle going to Mars without serious psychosis. I have no idea, but it would not be surprising to find out it is an insurmountable obstacle to becoming an interplanetary species.
Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#7Being an astronaut seems cognitively expensive. Your time is regimented down to the minute. Your space is regimented down to the inch. The things you bring up and down, including yourself, is measured to the pound. I would imagine you have to constantly be evaluating, assessing, and thinking critically about everything you do all the time. And then to suddenly not have to do that and just live in the moment has to be…
Your comment lead me down a rabbit hole of space micromanagement. OSTPV (onboard short-term planner viewer) is the software they use to basically schedule every minute of your space flight. Basically every day someone from earth decides what you do, when you eat, when you exercise and will make changes in realtime.
Great read here with a video of someone using the actual software: https://blogs.esa.int/iriss/2015/09/09/playing-with-playbook...
Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#8I thought this was going to be about feeling watched, reminding me of philip k dick but it's more like being john malkovich which might be scarier
Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#9Being an astronaut seems cognitively expensive. Your time is regimented down to the minute. Your space is regimented down to the inch. The things you bring up and down, including yourself, is measured to the pound. I would imagine you have to constantly be evaluating, assessing, and thinking critically about everything you do all the time. And then to suddenly not have to do that and just live in the moment has to be…
There's a popular clip from Joe Rogan out there where he says "Be the hero of your own movie. If your life was a movie and it started now. ... What would the hero of your life’s movie do right now? Do that. Do those things."
So it's interesting that this cognitive state is helpful for some people to visit in a transient or metaphorical way but becomes weird when it's persistent. But it does seem potentially related in that maybe it originates from a kind of conscientiousness in the astronaut profession
Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions
#10This article recalls the Steven Wright joke:
“I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates.
I couldn't believe it.
I called my roommate in and said, 'Come here, look at this stuff, it's all an exact replica. What do you think?'
He said, 'Do I know you?'”