The Dictionary.com defines the feeling of dissociation as “the splitting off of a group of mental processes from the main body of consciousness, as in amnesia or certain forms of hysteria.” However, this is merely a scientific, medical term to help scientists easily understand the technical process of dissociation. One cannot simply read this poor example of dissociation and understand. It is simply impossible to grasp just how surreal the feeling of being dissociated from the current reality unless you have gone though it yourself. No amount of literature, scientific research or art form will fully prepare you to be suspended in a moment of opaque clarity. 

A moment when you realize that you are just one single vessel in a boundless ocean filled with ships. Somehow you feel both insignificant and the center of the world at the same time. As if you are standing at the center of the universe with everything orbiting around you, yet you feel so miniscule, like a grain of sand at the mercy of the wind. A sitting duck suffocating in the clutches of fate’s deadly talons. A meer pawn in a fatal game of chess.

The easiest feeling to relate this sensation to is the infamous deja vu, but even this is way different. Dissociation is the startling feeling of being trapped in a single moment, somehow knowing you’ve been here before, but not quite knowing how or why. The feeling of the world blurring out slightly as if your brain has forgotten to keep the focus on as it rapidly sifts through all of your memories trying to match one to the current scenario but failing. It doesn’t have to be just a moment that can trigger this feeling though, it could be a person’s face, a certain smell or even a sound.

No matter the cause, the feeling stays the same. The same feeling of drowning, only you’re not under water. There is nothing stopping you from taking breath after breath and you find yourself doing just that. Your body continues to suck in oxygen, yet the still feeling of drowning still plagues you. You’re not drowning in water but in your own mind.

This is the hazy feeling you get when you’re standing in the same school stairway you’ve trekked a thousand times but somehow, this one time is different. Somehow you’re not standing in that school stairway that you are just walking down yet another time. No, this time, you are brought back to the very first time you saw the stairway. The first time you inhaled the warm, stale air that’s trapped in the enclosure. The first time your eyes took in the bright light shafts of sun, reflected by the glass surrounding you. You have become trapped in both the present time with the comforting feeling of the familiar space and in the past when the stairway was brand new and scary. When you didn’t feel the comfort of familiarity. When the hot air, heated by the sun, feels sticky and choking, not like a warm blanket soothing your worries and leading you to the memories you and your friends will make. 

It is unclear whether this is the first time you have entered the stairway or if these stairs are as familiar to you as your own name would be. You have no recollection of how you have gotten to this point in your timeline or where you are meant to go from here. Your mind is only consumed by the haze of the strange intimacy of the stairway and yet you’re convinced that you have never been here before. Your mind becomes detached from the present reality, set only to the task of understanding why you feel this way. 

All noise surrounding you becomes distant, a faint mumble drowned out by the loud screams in your own mind. You cross into a dreamstate unaware that you are actually, in fact, conscious. Your little boat on the vast expanse of ocean - that is reality - is lost, spinning aimlessly in circles trying to get back on course. The little universe that you call your own has lost all its tiny planets. The talons of fate have been released from your neck and you are left, free falling through the weightless air. 

Then you find the other ships again. The overwhelming sounds of everyday life come rushing back to you, riding on a tidal wave of awareness. You have no idea of how you got here, only that you are here now. Your brain wakes back up and you become aware of your consciousness again. The tiny planets have been returned to your universe. You’re back in the clutches of fate, yet this time you feel comforted by the familiar feeling grounding you back to reality. You are no longer being suffocated or drowned by your own thoughts. You are no longer merely a pawn. You are in control again.