[weerd]

This is a main element of DeLillo's latest book Zero K. A state-of-the-art secret facility is built in a middle of nowhere former Soviet bloc country. It's financed by ultra wealthy people whose bodies are disassembled and frozen with the hopes they will be reanimated in the future.

There is a short chapter that is narrated by the detached consciousness of one of the patrons. She has lost all sense of self and is trapped in a dim loop of pure thought, constantly questioning what she is. Probably one of the most quietly terrifying things I have ever read.

[daodedickinson]

I had something similar happen to me once and didn't know how long it was going to last and it really was that terrifying, except instead of questioning what I was, I could remember everything I normally could. I just couldn't sense anything but my own thoughts and memories. Luckily I came out of it, but it would be an awful hell.

[weerd]

That is intense. I hope that's the only time you have to experience that. Speaking of hell, it's actually similar to what my Catholic school taught us hell would be like. No physical pain or brimstone... Just your mind, alone and separated from all for eternity.

[dorgo]

Really? Interesting. People are social to an extent that they think isolation is hell?

[weerd]

Well it goes a bit deeper than socializing. I said separated from all, but that's including "grace", which if I remember correctly is a connection to god that is available to humans during life.

[beojan]

Yes, that's why solitary confinement is considered torture.

[Can_Not]

You're isolated from both other people and from the cool things you can do without other people.

[rjbwork]

This happened to me once in high school. I had fallen asleep on the couch in the basement (it was fully finished, and my siblings and I spent most of our days down there when we weren't outside, playing, watching TV, and playing video games) in the early evening. When my sister wanted to watch TV, she tried to wake me up, leaning over the back of the couch. For a solid 5 minutes my memory just did not work at all. My inner monologue was something like "What? What is all of this? What am I? What is that (my sister)? Where am i?" etc, repeatedly for a number of minutes.

Nothing like it has happened since.

[raducu]

Did you take any dissociatives or psychedelics?