Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

Moving this out of a subthread, but I can't find any sources corroborating the the phenomenon described in this article. In fact a lot of the literature from NASA seems to explicitly contradict the claims in the article[0][1]. Obviously not dispositive, but this article reads to me at least partially like AI confabulation. Perhaps my Google-fu is lacking here but I had Claude do a search as well for good measure and couldn't find any supporting evidence that way either. Without the author offering more primary sources I would advise against placing too much if any stock in this piece.

[0] https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/Evidence/reports/BMed.... [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-30583-2_...

I 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.

Being 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.

This somewhat reminds me of the cognitive layers as understood by Nisargadatta Maharaj.

»The body appears in your mind, your mind is the content of your consciousness; you are the motionless witness of the river of consciousness which changes eternally without changing you in any way. Your own changelessness is so obvious that you do not notice it.« —Nisargadatta Maharaj

We are usually submerged and self-identify with what is known experience and therefore rarely ever question it. When the lived context of the cognitive environment we take for granted profoundly changes in unexpected and not yet experienced ways the absence of being submerged into the known emerges. And then the so called witness state of perception is suddenly obvious.

I have felt this many times after extended travels and stays in other cultural spheres where other languages (which I manage fine) are spoken.

As a high-functioning autistic person, the description of being “a half-step outside the frame” perfectly captures the way I live.

I am, and have always been, aware that I am experiencing the world and my own sense of self slightly removed from how people typically experience the world. It is very much like playing a first-person game with the POV set so the view is through the character’s eyes, but you remain aware that you are controlling an avatar in the game nonetheless.

Edit: interesting how they describe the degraded sense of proprioception as part of the cause, given it is often a problem for autistics.

I used to spend weeks outdoors in the wilderness without ever entering a building (I would sleep in a small tent) and I used to have a similar range of sensations when coming back home and/or going into an enclosed building for the first time. This used to last maybe for a couple days.

Two more things that I used to experience, which are not among the phenomena described in the article, is that I was hyper aware of how sound echoed through a room, and I used to be hyper aware of how hard the floor was (carpeted floors are not common where I grew up, most rooms have tiled floors) I guess these two are something specific to the outdoor->indoor change and so they don't apply to astronauts.

I 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

I feel some of that when I return from international trips. Like an outsider looking in. Not to the same degree as what the article describes though.

Being in a different culture, hearing and speaking a different language, different foods, sights, and smells. Then a day of travel later on the return and everything familiar feels oddly new and the same. While dealing with sleep deprevation on top of that because I can't easily sleep more than an hour at a time on airplanes.

I have to admit that I did read all of that even though it felt like something that was written by or with the assistance of an AI. A little repetitious in places, making or trying to make the same point as if it becomes true if you repeat it often enough.

True or not, it would make a great premise for an astronaut or space travel movie, to see everything transpire from a detached perspective. That's all I got right now.

I used to have this just on earth after having a stroke. I had it for years and then it suddenly disappeared.

Equally fascinating observation:

“But many also say something small stays behind — a slight awareness of being a person in a body on a planet, a residue of the view from the cupola that never fully fades.”

Can’t wait for the companion piece.

Interesting subject, Horrible LLM stench emitting from this article!

I wonder how much similarity there is between this and what people describe from awakening experiences.

The 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.

I was reading the article trying to find a source cited where I could see where the depersonalization symptoms are better described but didn’t find it. Anybody have a better link to primary sources?

This 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?'”

Absolutely terrible AI writing. Do not read.

I get this sometimes when I wake up at night and once or twice when looking in the mirror. A persistent notion that "wow, this is really weird to be in a body, what a weird experience!" It used to be a little scary, but as I've gotten older I've come to like it. I think it's funny that we call this state "dissociation", when, frankly, not one of us knows what the heck any of "this" is anyway. Is it "real"? What if the dissociative state is actually more like a temporary loss of the illusion of life?

Aliens.

I've found positive forms of this or similar sensations/realizations after heavy/frequent travel too:

You know how, right now, you could think of a familiar street or neighborhood in your town/city, and you'd know exactly how it must be like at this minute?

Like, "I should go to the cafe", or the mall, or the square, or Bob's house

and you already know what the vibe is there at any given time

After traveling to several different countries back-to-back and living for about a month in each, I have this weird thing now, that I could be sitting in Singapore, and feel like I could step outside my hotel and be in Tokyo, Japan..

I know how Shibuya or Akihabara is right now at this very moment, or Delhi, India, like those cities are right outside my door, even though I'm tens of thousands of kilometers away.

The world becomes one continuous blur. And it's only recently in human history that ordinary people can get to travel so easily. What's amazing is how the richest and most powerful people among us, who have seen it all and can go anywhere anytime, seem to be so dour and mean and short-sighted.. :')

Readers describe persistent "AI slop" sensation after 3.5 years of LLMs

Sounds a little like the ‘depersonalisation syndrome’ sometimes described by some heavy VR users, where their own bodies start to feel unreal.

AI Slop writing

I had that one time. I was kind of ill at the time and it lasted about an hour. That is some freaky shit if you don't know what is going on. My continuing thought was "Is this going to last forever?"

Time dilation. The ISS travels at 17,400 MPH. Just like satellites, their clocks have to be adjusted.

> Gravitational time dilation is the time passed for a far away observer. That is, the satellites' clocks gain 45850 nanoseconds a day due to gravitational time dilation.

https://www.gpsworld.com/inside-the-box-gps-and-relativity/

“You think you’re better than me?”

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