If the world was some simulation, if you feel that you are a real bag of flesh and are able to feel conscuous, free will, etc. then it doesn't really matter if the universe is a simulation in my opinion It would explain a lot though. Sometimes I completely forget what I was going to do/find in a room right after I entered it, which could easily be explained by someone high above pulling a funny prank on the flesh bags.
this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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I don't feel like any of those things, personally.
It sounds like depersonalisation to me. A form of dissociation.
Lots of trans people deal with it when they're closeted. I know I did.
I don't feel like it's scripted and that's slightly worrying. I feel like a plank of wood being tossed about by the sea in a storm. At least with a benevolent god, one can assume that the suffering of life has a purpose. The older I get and the more evil I see prospering, the less confident I feel that there's a point to it all. This depresses and mildly frightens me.
Neurology tells us that we make decisions before we're consciously aware that we made them.
I felt that specifically on an anti-seizure drug that I used to stop familial tremors. Almost as if someone was walking in my body and doing everything 5 seconds before I knew what was happening. It's not abnormal, but it can feel remarkably disconcerting to believe you no longer have agency of your own body. Sorry for that, homeslice, but don't be too concerned.
Do you mean 'life feels scripted' in the sense of you feel like there is a narrative structure to life, like your actions and words are decided by an external writer? Or do you mean in the sense of life has a narrative economy, like someone could have 'plot armor?' Or is it the sense that life should have more structure, like it goes against some unwritten law of writing that some things could happen at all?
Not really, mine is pretty random and based on choices I made in the past
If the world seems unreal & you feel like you’re watching yourself play a role in a movie rather than living your life, then that might be a psychiatric disorder worth evaluation by a professional. It's normal on occasions, but not beyond that it interferes with your regular ability to function.
OP, please heed this. Make an appointment with a professional ASAP. If you're not able to do so or not able to get an appointment soon, please talk to someone you trust and ask them to keep an eye out/check in on you to make sure these feelings of depersonalization don't spiral into something bigger and/or unsafe. If needed, please visit a psychiatric ER.
Some mental disorders that present this way are theorized to be degenerative, and prolonged/multiple episodes of psychosis make it harder to treat and manage. Ideally getting them under control before a first full psychotic episode can even come to head.
Where do you think the idea of "The Fates" comes from? Or any number of other similar deities/forces in nearly every society around the world. That feeling has been with us as humans for a long, long time.
The worse things get in my life the more I feel like this. I believe it's a consequence of being raised Christian. (Though I am an atheist now.) When I was younger I believed God never gives you more than you can handle. So when things got bad it felt like God was breaking that promise. Now that I'm older it feels like "bad writing." Like, really? This many bad things in such a short time period? It's a little on the nose, isn't it? It's why I can't rewatch I saw the TV Glow until I know I am in a very stable mental place.
Major spoilers
The main characters enjoyed a TV show that got cancelled on a cliff hanger. It is revealed that the characters are actually characters from that show which is reality and the false reality is the world they're stuck in. To get back to the true world they have to bury themselves alive.
I saw this movie right in the heels of Trump's inauguration when I had a lot of other stress going on. Naturally, a movie with 4th wall breaking lines like "Do you ever feel like your life is a TV show?" when I did feel like my life was scripted and the way for them to get out was suicide was pretty terrifying.
The irony being that I have been going through a bit of a gender journey for a while and knew the movie had themes to do with that, but none of that really hot anywhere close to home as the rest mentioned above. I'm just glad I planned to see it surrounded by friends.
The idea that there's an escape hatch on reality is so alluring. The idea that all the bad things in your life are the fault of one person, even if they're a metaphysical entity, is so appealing. The sad reality is that it's all random and sometimes we just get unlucky streaks.
I don't feel important enough for that. Same reason I'm not religious. People claiming a personal relationship with the goddamn creator of the universe are hella conceited.
Eh, if you believe that god is omnipotent then it's not really hubristic to think that god can easily have a personal relationship with every living being, which includes you
I don't feel like my life is scripted per se, but sometimes I'll be talking to someone and all of the sudden it feels like someone else has taken control of my body and is doing all the talking while I just sit back and watch. I have to concentrate to get back in control.
Autopilot. That's what I started calling it for lack of a better term. It's like my consciousness moves to the back of my skull and I'm watching myself interact with the world as if following a script.
For me it's derealization/depersonalisation (I always confuse the two) caused by complex trauma. Any social interaction can trigger it so I tend to avoid people now.
That happens large when I'm on 'shrooms.
i think this is a common side effect of being self aware
little existential crises before getting back into life
Last night I turned off a small metalic lamp that's next to my bed. I then heard a tapping sound like a small dripping water hitting the metalic lamp.
I turned the lamp on. I saw no water. The tapping stopped. I looked at the ceiling. No sign of water. I looked at the lamp. No water. Turned the light back off. Rolled back over, and got comfy.
Tap......tap.......tap..........
Turned the light back on. Tapping stopped. Still no water.
Turned the light off. The second the light was off, I heard the tap again.
Turned it back on. Still no water.
Got up, got out of bed, checked all around my night stand. Checked behind it. Nothing out of the ordinary.
While standing next to the bed, turned the light off. Tapping resumed.
Turned the light back on, and walked to the living room. Layed down on the couch.
Light on in the bedroom. I'm in the living room. Turn the living room light off.
Now there's tapping inside the pipes inside the walls. Totally different tap. Totally different place. Totally different tapping sound. This didn't sound like dripping water. This sounded like someone hitting the pipes with a wooden spoon with the same cadence.
Tap......tap.......tap........
But it always stopped when I turned the light on.
So I went into the bathroom, and took a shower.
Now, here's the kicker. I live alone. I have no pets. I have no rodents in the walls.
The whole thing came off like someone playing a prank on me. Except that person didn't exist. It felt like I was living some 1930s comedy skit. Some Abbot and Costello skit. Except this is just me, alone in my apartment, going insane.
You sure it wasn't just the light fixture or bulb contracting after cooling down from being warm after being on? Metal light fixtures tend to do that. Especially in the winter.
Except this is just me, alone in my apartment, going insane.
Username checks out xD
No.
No, but it's something I've heard other people describe. I don't know if it's common, but it doesn't sound odd.
People at church when I went as a kid would talk about a sense of feeling guided. People talked about feeling "called" to something. I always felt a lot of nothing, but I don't think most of them were lying about that feeling, even if I suspect a different source than they did.
I thought it said Lotus of Control and I was 'bout to grab a flamethrower ready to burn some flower down.
FREE ME FROM YOUR GRASP, CURSED FLOWER!
Yeah, a bit. My life is one of those shows where when something's finally going right it immediately gets undercut and everything falls apart
Tbh some of those incredible downturns in my life couldn't be better scripted if you tried
something’s finally going right it immediately gets undercut and everything falls apart
This is so me 💀
Life is going a bit smoothly? Boom bullying, difficult assignment, test, shitty teacher, parents lash out, political problems, oops chemical spill leaked into your city's water supply (actually happened), a FUCKING PLANE CRASHED within a 10 mile radius of me, fire on your street, random dude crashing into parked cars on your street (wtf), a fucking global pandemic, civil unrest, suppression of protests, insurrection/coup attempt... etc... etc...
Is a parent or grandparent in your family a narcissist? That crud does trickle down.
Not really, no.
I’ve felt like I’m in a simulation quite often. It sounds very cliché and I never thought I’d actually feel it (the idea has always fascinated me but c’mon, really?) up until the last few years.
Some things happen in my life way more frequently than statistical probabilities would suggest.
Even if such observation of yours is an objective unbiased statistical estimation... statistical deviations as large as M are also expected on one out of N times, the trial factor correction is non trivial at all... even without multiverse assumptions
What I find truly amazing is that sometimes a thought suddenly flashes through my mind: Hey, I feel like I've anticipated this very situation before! Sometimes I can even predict what someone else is about to say next.
We've actually figured out that that one is basically a "stutter" in your memory encoding system. Consciousness isn't as continuous as it feels, and so you can get a situation where your memory says it just put some stuff in working memory and consciousness thinks it means your current thoughts or observations. So you end up with a feeling of a past recollection of a current awareness. Because it's tagged "past" you can't do anything other than understand it to be in the past, even though you're actively experiencing it.
A related phenomenon is how you "always" wake up just before the loud noise. Even though you're asleep you still hear things and process audio. A loud noise happens and your audio processing tells you to wake up. Conscious you wakes up, creating that new memory, and then processes the noise that woke you.
Consciousness is a process that takes place over a duration, not an instant.
A lot of your life will play out seemingly by design, but it's just a byproduct of living in a society.
I watch scenes in Movie/TV where a character has a traumatic childhood and memory/flacshback scene, then I realize I have the same feel, so I feel like someone staged it, like my older brother is actually an actor in this dark version of truman show purposfully giving me that traumatic memory.
movies are meant to make you feel a certain way, to come to some realization in your own life. this is the point of all (halfway decent) art, somebody is telling you a message amd your supposed to figure out what the message is
Shit... which telephone do I use to exit the simulation?
ALL THE PAYPHONES ARE GONE!
Edit: Or do you mean like I'm supposed to stay in this fictional world and be the protagonist? Is that traumatic childhood necessary to have a good story? lol
only tangibly related to your question
there are some people who think conflict is required to bring about higher levels of consciousness, though that's probably just a hierarchy of needs things playing out more often than not.
there's this old jewish tradition uh...i forget the word for it, but basically the most sacred act you can do is teach someone else to be self sufficient. (whether that's financially/emotionally/whatever, before you can seriously help others you must be self sufficient, therefor you should help others become self sufficient).
one way to do this is via stories, examining the stories etc.
but uh...yes, generally trauma is a prelude to creativity. people who don't know struggle have no good/relatable stories to tell.
You're my NPC and I yours.