What is Dissociation: 5 Common Types and Signs

Have you ever felt like you're floating outside your body, disconnected from the world around you, or losing chunks of time without explanation? These experiences may be signs of dissociation — a protective response that often has its roots in childhood trauma and developmental trauma.

What Is Dissociation?

Dissociation in short is your mind's way of disconnecting when something feels too overwhelming to bear. While dissociation can occur on a spectrum — from everyday experiences like daydreaming to more severe disruptions like dissociative identity disorder (DID) — it is often misunderstood and overlooked, even in mental health settings.

Rather than being "broken" or "crazy," people who dissociate are actually demonstrating the profound intelligence of the human nervous system. Dissociation is a survival strategy — an unconscious attempt to protect you from pain that feels unbearable.

The Five Most Common Signs of Dissociation:

Although dissociation can look different for each person, there are five common ways it tends to show up:

1. Depersonalization: Feeling Disconnected from Yourself

Depersonalization is the experience of feeling detached from your body or sense of self. You might feel like you're watching yourself from the outside, like an observer rather than a participant in your own life.

Common experiences of depersonalization include:

• Feeling numb or emotionally blunted

• Feeling like your body isn’t your own

• Describing yourself as feeling "robotic" or "unreal"

When people search for "signs of dissociation," depersonalization is one of the most commonly described symptoms.

2. Derealization: The World Feels Unreal

Derealization involves a sense of disconnection from the external world. The environment may seem foggy, dreamlike, distorted, or emotionally flat.

Symptoms of derealization can include:

• Feeling like the world is fake or distant

• Perceiving sounds or sights as muted or exaggerated

• Experiencing a sense that time is speeding up or slowing down

Both depersonalization and derealization are natural responses when the nervous system perceives a threat it can't physically escape.

3. Amnesia and Memory Gaps

Memory loss is another hallmark symptom of dissociation.

Common signs include:

• Forgetting important personal information or everyday events

• Losing track of conversations or activities

• Inability to recall parts of childhood or traumatic events

People often don’t even realize they are experiencing dissociative amnesia until they start therapy or undergo trauma-focused treatment like Brainspotting.

4. Identity Confusion or Fragmentation

When someone struggles to maintain a consistent sense of self across situations, relationships, or emotions, it may be a sign of dissociative identity confusion.

Examples include:

• Feeling like you are "different people" in different contexts

• Not recognizing yourself in the mirror or photos

• Shifting dramatically in personality, behavior, or interests

In more severe cases, this can lead to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), though most dissociative symptoms exist on a spectrum.

5. Emotional Numbing and Shutdown

Perhaps one of the most common signs of dissociation is emotional numbing — the inability to feel emotions fully or appropriately.

People experiencing emotional shutdown often report:

• Feeling like emotions are inaccessible

• Apathy toward people or activities they once cared about

• Feeling like they are "going through the motions" of life

In trauma therapy, helping clients reconnect to their emotional landscape — slowly and safely — is a critical part of healing and navigating dissociative tendencies.

How Childhood Trauma and Developmental Trauma Create Dissociative Patterns

Childhood trauma and dissociation are deeply linked. When children are exposed to overwhelming stress — especially when it comes from their caregivers or occurs without the presence of safe, attuned adults — dissociation becomes a survival necessity.

The Role of Developmental Trauma

Developmental trauma refers to ongoing disruptions in attachment, safety, and emotional regulation during critical periods of childhood. It includes:

• Emotional neglect

• Physical or sexual abuse

• Chronic invalidation

• Exposure to domestic violence

• Parental substance abuse or mental illness

Unlike a single traumatic event (like a car accident), developmental trauma is often relational and ongoing. The child learns early on that the world — and even their own body and emotions — are unsafe.

To survive, the brain and body adapt:

• Cognitive adaptations: Suppressing memories, minimizing abuse, idealizing harmful caregivers

• Emotional adaptations: Numbing, avoidance, emotional detachment

• Somatic adaptations: Disconnecting from body sensations to avoid feeling pain

Over time, these adaptations hardwire into the nervous system, creating enduring dissociative tendencies into adulthood.

Why Talk Therapy Alone Isn't Always Enough

Traditional talk therapy can be helpful in understanding dissociation and its roots. However, because dissociative patterns live in the subcortical brain (the parts that control survival responses like fight, flight, freeze, and dissociate), cognitive approaches often fall short.

Clients may say things like:

• "I understand why I dissociate, but I can't stop it."

• "Talking about it doesn't help me feel more present."

• "I know I'm safe now, but my body doesn't believe it."

To truly move through dissociation, therapy must engage the brain and body systems responsible for survival responses. This is where Brainspotting therapy comes in.

How Brainspotting Therapy Helps Heal Dissociation

Brainspotting is a powerful form of somatic trauma therapy that accesses the deep brain processes where dissociation lives.

Discovered by Dr. David Grand in 2003, Brainspotting uses the positioning of the eyes to locate "brainspots" — eye positions linked to unresolved trauma held in the subcortical brain.

Why Brainspotting Works for Dissociation

• Bypasses the thinking brain: Brainspotting doesn't rely on cognitive storytelling. It accesses the deep, survival-oriented parts of the brain.

• Fosters embodied presence: Clients often describe feeling more connected to their bodies, emotions, and sensations during and after sessions.

• Respects the nervous system’s pace: Healing happens at the client's natural rhythm, preventing overwhelm or retraumatization.

• Integrates fragmented experiences: Brainspotting helps clients bring together dissociated memories, emotions, and body sensations in a safe, titrated way.

What a Brainspotting Session for Dissociation Might Look Like

In a Brainspotting session focused on moving through dissociation:

• The therapist helps the client find a brainspot associated with a dissociative feeling (e.g., numbness, fogginess, shutdown).

• The client holds their gaze on the spot while noticing thoughts, body sensations, and emotions — without trying to change or analyze them.

• As the brain processes the stored trauma, clients often experience waves of physical or emotional release, increased presence, and deeper self-awareness.

Over time, Brainspotting therapy can help rewire the brain's survival responses, making it easier to stay grounded, present, and emotionally connected in daily life.

Dissociation is Part of the Answer - Not the Problem

If you’ve lived with dissociation, know this: your nervous system did exactly what it needed to protect you. There is no shame in your survival strategies.

At the same time, you deserve to live fully — not just survive.

Healing from dissociation involves:

• Building felt safety in the body

• Slowly reconnecting to emotions and sensations

• Processing unresolved trauma at the subcortical level

• Reclaiming a cohesive sense of self

Brainspotting therapy offers a pathway toward integration and presence. It’s not about forcing yourself to "stay present" through willpower — it's about healing the parts of you that learned long ago that checking out was the safest option.