I wonder if this happens to anyone else?

So something that always has happened to me, but not other people and it just seemed different so I am wondering if this is something that can happen with people who have DID?
Okay on with it.. So when I watch a movie or something, sometimes I will get sooo involved, and I will feel like the characters or relate to them in some way. I also sometimes map out their lives in ways that aren't written in. This has happened much more with certain types of stories. But I end up literally feeling like the character, or some aspect feels like it is unlocking something in me. I don't know how to explain it. But it generally all feels very dis-associative and trance like.
Usually characters that have been broken in some way or symbolize it. Also yesterday I ended up looking into 'Pinocchio' things and it had a strong effect on me, that also Mary from Secret Garden. And even things like the nursery rhymes, like Mary Mary Quite Contrary, I just end up feeling all this additional meaning in things and no one else sees it.
Also even though I was here before, for the most part I have not been thinking of myself having DID, and just have denied my symptoms. But I felt a desire to as a journal (sort of) keep a folder on my computer of pictures that 'felt' like me at the time to keep track of how I am doing. My favorite pictures are usually been people who have been broken in some way or other.

spinningtops wrote:So something that always has happened to me, but not other people and it just seemed different so I am wondering if this is something that can happen with people who have DID?
Okay on with it.. So when I watch a movie or something, sometimes I will get sooo involved, and I will feel like the characters or relate to them in some way. I also sometimes map out their lives in ways that aren't written in.

We relate to some of this. We used to live near a movie theatre, actually it was kinda halfway between work and home. Previous host would drop in there now and then for cheap weekday matinees where it was practically empty.

She'd go alone, sit in the 2nd or 3rd row so the screen filled her entire field of view, and then when the movie started, it was like, her own sense of self just faded or stopped. The way she described it was, she would take her brain off the hook for a while. Stop thinking and being, and just experience the movie.

I don't think she'd feel like the characters, but she'd relate to them very strongly at times. Some movies affected her more than others, she'd go back and see them over and over, losing herself in them each time.

And a few of them, she would expand the movie's story, either backwards or forwards to 'see' the characters or whatever continue in further settings / situations. I can think of one in particular, she 'wrote' an entire sequal in her head, to tie up a bunch of loose ends and resolve some silly things about how the actual movie ended.

I can relate a lot. Actually, my ability to appreciate a movie depend on how much I can lose myself into it...
I don't think it something related to DID, but more a dissociative/absorption thing anyone can do, like dissociate while driving. DID people may just be better at it.
(but that's just my opinion)

i can relate to this a lot. there are several characters that go well beyond a simple connection for me. i read or watch or play the source material and it feels like a tug on my soul. what you said about it unlocking something in you really resonated with me, that's exactly what it feels like. i can relate so deeply to the character it feels like they are me. i see things in the stories that no-one else does, parts of their lives that are missing from the story itself. nearly all of those characters went through trauma of some kind. i'm able to recognise the difference between fiction and reality, so i don't feel like i literally am those characters or that i lived the life from the story or anything like that, but equally the connection goes way beyond "i relate to this character". i lack a concrete sense of self and the strong connections i feel to certain characters helps in a way. i don't know how much it's a dissociation-related thing though.

- alice

spinningtops wrote:So when I watch a movie or something, sometimes I will get sooo involved, and I will feel like the characters or relate to them in some way.

VioletFlux wrote:She'd go alone, sit in the 2nd or 3rd row so the screen filled her entire field of view, and then when the movie started, it was like, her own sense of self just faded or stopped. The way she described it was, she would take her brain off the hook for a while. Stop thinking and being, and just experience the movie.

This was how I got through my childhood a lot of the time. I wasn't just "absorbed" by books, TV shows, and movies, I was absorbed into them--out of my body and into whatever was happening on the screen or pages.

Dwelt wrote:I don't think it something related to DID, but more a dissociative/absorption thing anyone can do, like dissociate while driving. DID people may just be better at it.
(but that's just my opinion)

raptureblues wrote:i don't know how much it's a dissociation-related thing though.

- alice

I think it's definitely dissociation, and beyond being the same as singletons but "better at it"--that's also just my opinion, but for me it was the degree of absorption, the frequency, and most noticeable to me the difficulty returning to my body and my life. I was always devastated to discover that I had to return to my "actual" existence--in that body, with those parents, and that miserable life.

I would do the same thing on car rides and on the school bus--just leave, and then be upset that I had to come back. Once, on a school bus, a boy tried to get my attention--I guess he was calling my name or something, and then I think he was going to wave his hand in front of my face but the bus hit a bump and he ended up hitting my glasses and they banged into my face. I was about 10. Coming back to have that happen was kind of upsetting. He got in trouble for "hitting" me--I knew that wasn't quite right, but it still seemed like he deserved it--I hadn't been bothering anyone and he should have just left me alone. (Whoops--kind of got off the track there, but it's a similar derealization/depersonalization thing--I could make my "real" life not real, and be a different person (or disappear altogether); it was just easier with a movie or book because the details of where to go and who to be were handed to me.

We used that have alot of experiences similar to the one gang had with the boy on the bus but I don't think we were ever accidentally hit, just suddenly finding ourselves back in the body with someone in our face trying to get our attention. We were always told to stop daydreaming because of it and that confused us because we weren't we would just turn ourselves off.

Ozalces has done the DES-II and scored something like 2 so I don't think he dissociates much or ever has but he has told us he learnt to love reading because he loved the way he could become the character. Which confuses us because how do we become someone else? That would be nice to become someone less damaged feeling even for a little while.

Anyway so based on the above I think being able to become so absorbed you can identify with or imagine being the character I think it's about your ability to imagine and your ability to empathise and understand the character. Becoming lost in the story or confused over your own identity as a result is probably dissociative.