I experience the world as if I was made to observe it

Metaphysics & Epistemology
1

I don’t know if there is a specific term for what I’m trying to describe, and I would mainly like to know if anyone has experienced something similar.

I became aware of this from the earliest years of my life, without being able to fully understand or consciously comprehend it. It gradually started becoming more conscious from my adolescence onward, and year by year I became increasingly aware of the experience.

I don’t feel unique, special, or different in the sense of being superior. I believe every person feels unique in their own way.

I believe that all people have their own lives, behavior, thoughts, and emotions. However, I don’t have direct access to their subjective experience. Yet I experience and live all of reality as if it was created for me to observe it, or, more accurately, as if I was created to observe it and collect experiences.

I experience everything normally — joy, pain, anxiety, stress, exhaustion, love, sexual desire, loss, pleasure, etc. I don’t feel detached from life, nor am I actually detached from it. I can participate normally in everything that happens in my life and, at the same time, observe it as a neutral observer, or bring it back to memory and analyze my own behavior.

Sometimes I can now even observe my emotions as they arise and, to some extent, regulate them. For example, I can feel anger or desire as it begins to arise and decide whether I should let it develop further or not.

I also want to add two things:

  1. I have a memory from before I was born. Specifically, I remember feeling as if I was floating or drifting around a light — perhaps even around the planet, although I don’t know if that is a later interpretation. I remember feeling joy, like someone celebrating, and an inner voice told me:

“It’s your turn.”

  1. I have a memory from when I was a baby, before I could speak. I remember being in my crib and my mother closing and locking the door of the room as she left the house. What is particularly interesting about this memory is that I remember knowing that I couldn’t speak yet.

I don’t claim that either of these memories is objectively what I think it is. I don’t know whether they are exactly as I remember them, whether they were reconstructed later, or whether I am mistaken about the age at which they occurred. I’m simply describing them as I remember them.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

Not necessarily with the same memories.

What I mean mainly is this strong feeling:

“Why me?”

I’m not necessarily looking for an interpretation or an explanation. I would simply like to know whether there is anyone who has experienced or is experiencing something similar.

2

It’s possible. We’ve always been observer to the world. Our senses and brain come together to produce this effect. A stone lacks this apparatus and so can’t observe. There’s a star out there somwhere in galaxies beyond that has just gone supernova, but the flash of light it produces is yet to reach us, arriving perhaps only in the far, far, future.

3

You remind me of a Starseed. Starseeds are people who think they come from another planet. The weirdest thing I did was figure out I was going to die by age two, which was enough to ruin my day.

4

I think what you are describing, at least in part, is called “mindfulness”.
The sense of being an observer of yourself. You aren’t alone in this it is common in meditation and spirituality.

5

Thanks. I think mindfulness is definitely related to one part of what I’m describing, especially the ability to observe my own emotions and reactions. But the main thing I’m trying to understand is something slightly different: not simply “why am I able to observe myself?”, but “why am I this particular observer?” Out of all possible first-person perspectives, why is this one the one I experience as “me”?

6

Hi

In his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding David Humes offers the following advice on Miracles

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavours to establish.”

Thanks

7

I agree with Hume’s point, and that’s actually why I explicitly said that I don’t claim the memory is objectively prenatal. What I’m primarily interested in isn’t proving that memory, though. It’s the underlying experience I’ve had since childhood: the feeling of being this particular first-person observer and the question of why this consciousness is “me”.

8

Interesting

It might be worth starting with this question.

Is it useful to have a first person view. If so , or if not, what other POV could we have.

9

That’s exactly what I’m trying to get at. I don’t really question the usefulness of having a first-person perspective. What puzzles me is why this particular first-person perspective is the one I experience as “me”, among all the other possible first-person perspectives.

10

Could it be the evidence telling that you have your own idea of self identity?

11

The question behind this topic isn’t answerable. You’re attempting to ask a bunch of humans over the internet why you’re you. Let’s say you’re you because you did well in your previous life and they needed a scientist. It makes little difference.

12

Does that depend on what process or agency you think makes people function well.

13

The ability to observe and perceive your own self, inspect your own early or recent memories via reflection, and asking questions to your own self, is the sign of having the idea of SELF.

14

Could you clarify what you mean by ‘process or agency’ in this context? I’m not sure I understand how it relates to the question I’m asking

15

My main question is whether there is anyone else who experiences the same thing I do.

16

I feel emotions

I also have an awareness of those emotions and have some conscious control over them but that is often limited

I can also question any false beliefs that give rise to those emotion. Including the belief that power, wealth and consumption will make me happy but that is not always effective. Its an ongoing process not an instant solution.

17

Yes, that’s very close to one part of what I experience. Do you also have the deeper feeling that you are the particular observer experiencing your life from this specific first-person perspective, and ever wonder why you are this particular experiencer rather than another?

18

No, I am not quite sure what you mean. I think you are referring to a disassociation of some kind. I dont know why you would feel that strongly if you do.

19

Tough question. I don’t know. Why am I me? you mean? Never crossed my mind, but it is an important question because I’ve seen it being discussed elsewhere. Are you trying to offer an answer?

20

Forgive me. I can’t say I experience the same.