Altered perception and mimicking?

Hi

I'm wondering to what degree it is normal to have people and movie's/books etc affect my personality/mood/perception. Often I find that my brain subcontiously starts mimicking people around me or the mood that I experience in movies. Social gatherings and movies also at times alter my perception. Now of course I'm pretty sure that every one's mood gets affected by what they watch or read but what I experience seems a bit strange.

To elaborate...

When I'm in the company of someone I sometimes start unwittingly mimicking their gestures, accent and even at times things like a limp or a stutter. My two year old neice is visiting with us and I'm noticing that I am starting to stumble around like a toddler. Granted I am experiencing a pain flair at the moment but this is beyond the ungainlyness and clumziness I experience when I'm struggling with my jonts/pain.

When I'm watching a movie my perception becomes altered and it's almost as though my state of mind/perception gets lost in the mood of the movie. It's not like I become the characters or believe I can do things they do in the movie but it's more subcontious perception (transferrence?) If I watch a serious movie my behaviour for, almost, the rest of the day becomes serious and even my movements and actions become focused and deliberate. If I watch a movie of a monk for instance I find myself becoming pious, my movements and actions becomes relaxed and minimalistic.

Is this kind of experience normal for everyone and to what degree. At what point, if any, does it become a concern? Aside from normal mood swings, does this phenomenon contribute to the experience that people have, when dealing with someone with Bipolar, that the person's personality can turn on a dime and that people sometimes feel that they don't know who you are?

This might not be what you are experiencing, but if I listen to a sad song, I become sad. If I listen to an upbeat song, I am happy and so on. I am what I call, "very moody" and I change moods with music easily and with experiences in life. I take this plunge into sadness easily. I feel things strongly. Anger, happiness, excited. But it's not like the bipolar moods of mania or depression, or hypomania, it's very temporary and I go up and down easily. I blame it on me getting into some type of episode. I usually feel extremely tired as I feel like my mood changes tire me out emotionally.

Definitely. Sounds like an "empath" although I'm not sure I believe there is such a thing. Some people really soak up the vibes around them (good and bad) while others are more in their own protective box and shut people out. A perfect example is talking with someone who has a British accent that is very nice and you start to talk with an accent. On the other hand, I've learned to try to shut out bad vibes. I try to limit spending time with negative people, watching violent/horror movies, reading the news, social media, etc.

This has happened to me once. I was friends with this girl years ago, and I started picking up the way she spoke, kind of like a lisp. I also started using words that she used. Strange, really.

Thanks for the responses

quietgirl2538 Oddly enough, music doesn't alter my mood so much, though it does make me feel better if I listen to something that reflects my mood.

z7z Yeah, heard of Empath's as well ... even been called a Psychick vampire once, lol. I try to ignore those kinds of ideas/thoughts though as it can easily cause me to slip into delusions/psychosis. Same with Deja-Vu ... been having very strong feelings like that since September and annoys/freaks me out to no end. The brain works in very strange ways at times ... able to convince you of just about anything if you give it the chance.

Jellybeanery It's strange indeed.

I pick up people's speech patterns and gestures easily while speaking with them but I've always attributed that to my freaky Gemini vibes

I have had issues with people not trusting me because of my moods, usually ghosting them during a depression or blurting out stuff quite insensitively but I don't know if that's related to my initial gregariousness. I've realised that I'm my most mimicky when I'm hypomanic but that's not surprising.