Unreality & Dreams

catseye

catseye

Captain of motley gang of rag zealots
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On Tuesday night I took the dog out for her late walk and it was VERY foggy and also very dark - we've no streetlights, it was nearly midnight so there were just a few diffuse lights from houses a long way off. While the dog was eating grass, so I was just standing still, it occurred to me that it felt as though I were in a dream. It made me wonder if there's some link to that sense of unreality and sensory deprivation? The fog and darkness meant I couldn't see anything, I was just standing in a kind of fuzzy dark and it really did feel as though I wasn't really there.

Just having a bit of a ponder.
 
I think it is also the sense of isolation and being cut off (the fog and dark).

Sometimes, always at night in bed, I feel/wonder if I exist. Because at that time of the night, there is no one else around and, being on my own, I technically at that time exist for no one.
 
I was out last night again in the dark, but the feeling was very different, I was much more aware of things around me. Not to the same extent as during daylight, but I was more 'engaged in my surroundings' if you forgive the wanky term. There was just something about the fuzziness of the fog added to the darkness that really made everything feel dreamlike.
 
catseye said:
On Tuesday night I took the dog out for her late walk and it was VERY foggy and also very dark - we've no streetlights, it was nearly midnight so there were just a few diffuse lights from houses a long way off. While the dog was eating grass, so I was just standing still, it occurred to me that it felt as though I were in a dream. It made me wonder if there's some link to that sense of unreality and sensory deprivation? The fog and darkness meant I couldn't see anything, I was just standing in a kind of fuzzy dark and it really did feel as though I wasn't really there.

Just having a bit of a ponder.
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I do feel that really thick fog produces such an effect. It's not just light that gets muted and diffused... sound somehow seems quieter - possibly because for the fog to linger, there has to be no wind at all.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I do feel that really thick fog produces such an effect. It's not just light that gets muted and diffused... sound somehow seems quieter - possibly because for the fog to linger, there has to be no wind at all.
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Yes, I think the absence of sound - well, the very muted kind of sound you get, as though there's a blanket over the world - might have a part to play.
 
catseye said:
On Tuesday night I took the dog out for her late walk and it was VERY foggy and also very dark - we've no streetlights, it was nearly midnight so there were just a few diffuse lights from houses a long way off. While the dog was eating grass, so I was just standing still, it occurred to me that it felt as though I were in a dream. It made me wonder if there's some link to that sense of unreality and sensory deprivation? The fog and darkness meant I couldn't see anything, I was just standing in a kind of fuzzy dark and it really did feel as though I wasn't really there.

Just having a bit of a ponder.
Click to expand...
I have had a very similar experience. I commute for work by train and so get to the station at early in the morning. There was a day recently where I was on my own on the platform at about 7am stood sipping coffee in the dark the signals at the end of the platform poking though the fog all while i'm half asleep operating on autopilot really gave the impression even the feeling of being in a dream
 
Mythopoeika said:
I do feel that really thick fog produces such an effect. It's not just light that gets muted and diffused... sound somehow seems quieter - possibly because for the fog to linger, there has to be no wind at all.
Click to expand...

supporting what you and @catseye have observed! For me, it's snowfall. Then muted sound, weird light...

edit to add: @Okarin that sounds very altered state. *pleasurable shudder*
 
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Frideswide said:
supporting what you and @catseye have observed! For me, it's snowfall. Then muted sound, weird light...

edit to add: @Okarin that sounds very altered state. *pleasurable shudder*
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Oh, standing outside and watching snow falling at night can be a wondrous experience. It can be so peaceful and quiet and cozy.
 
I dislike snowfall because I can never relax into it. I live in a very isolated hamlet on the top of a hill and I have to drive down that VERY steep hill to get to work. So snow is always accompanied by thoughts of 'ffs, I wonder if they'll clear the road/if the big road is clear/if I'm going to be able to get out/home'. Whereas my friend (who doesn't work and lives within walking distance of shops/town) loves the 'peace and quiet' from the lack of traffic. So I don't get the 'warm and cosies' from snow. But I know what you mean about the quiet, when the traffic stops and all sound is muffled.
 
Okarin said:
I have had a very similar experience. I commute for work by train and so get to the station at early in the morning. There was a day recently where I was on my own on the platform at about 7am stood sipping coffee in the dark the signals at the end of the platform poking though the fog all while i'm half asleep operating on autopilot really gave the impression even the feeling of being in a dream
Click to expand...
A few years ago, I posted that I was walking through Domfront in France in some of the thickest fog I had ever seen. The silence was deafening (if you'll excuse the oxymoron). I felt, more than saw the flat tarmac under my feet change to cobblestones when I approached the town square and, when a medieval timbered building loomed out of the fog in front of me, I thought to myself "this must be what a time-slip feels like". The uncanny feeling dissipated though when I entered the building and found the interior to be a normal café, with electricity, Lotto tickets and Kronenbourg on tap.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
A few years ago, I posted that I was walking through Domfront in France in some of the thickest fog I had ever seen. The silence was deafening (if you'll excuse the oxymoron). I felt, more than saw the flat tarmac under my feet change to cobblestones when I approached the town square and, when a medieval timbered building loomed out of the fog in front of me, I thought to myself "this must be what a time-slip feels like". The uncanny feeling dissipated though when I entered the building and found the interior to be a normal café, with electricity, Lotto tickets and Kronenbourg on tap.
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...and no fog.

Is there something about fog that affects us intrinsically? Or is it just the blanking out of sight and hearing?
 
brownmane said:
Oh, standing outside and watching snow falling at night can be a wondrous experience. It can be so peaceful and quiet and cozy.
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When we had snow a week or two ago, I was walking back from swimming at the local sports centre, along the path parralel to the driveway through a small, neat copse. The path was lit by quite scenic well-spaced lamp-posts. I stood near one and looked straight up, to see the glowing snow-flakes falling directly down upon me. It was magical. Anyone passing by in their car must have thought I was mad.
 
Xanatic* said:
I once found myself in a fog which was not at ground level but about 3 meters up.
So looking around you, everything above 3 meters just didn't exist. It was a bit surreal.
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I live on the top of a hill with a river at the bottom. Quite often in autumn/winter I go out for a walk under blue skies and look down the hill and am unable to see the small town a mile away, or the moors, or anything other than grey. It's like being the only person existing in the world, when our hill pokes up into the sunshine and everything lower down is enveloped in fog.
 
This is all rather like the curious air of silence and stillness many witnesses (and no doubt quite a few of us forum members) have experienced prior to the onset, or in the midst of, unusual phenomena.
 
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