Films featuring scenes of disassociation

I want to see more films that feature scenes like the one in Inland Empire where Laura Dern's character breaks character and laughs about how "this sounds like a scene from our movie!" before realizing, suddenly terrified, that she's doing a scene from the movie.

This is the only type of situation in modern cinema that still gives me goosebumps, the closest thing to the experience of watching a horror film when you're young when you're still afraid of Frankenstein and Dracula and zombies and stuff. Maybe it's because I'm terrified of having dementia? Or maybe it's because one too many times I've been high as hell and have had experiences similar to this?

Other examples:

the final scene in the original Solaris
Polanski's Repulsion / Tenant / Rosemary trilogy
Jacob's Ladder maybe? Haven't seen it in years.

also, weirdly, I remember the final scene of Blair Witch 2 working this angle, which is one of the reasons, I believe, that I am the only person on Earth who enjoyed that film.

Do you mean breaking the fourth wall? Not sure I understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMK6lzmSk2o

The documentary Tarnation tries to capture the horrifying feeling of depersonalisation/disassociation

the ending of Sword of Doom

I'm not sure exactly what the OP is looking for but the thread title made me think of the Fassbinder film, "Fear of Fear", where the screen goes all wobbly when the main character is feeling disconnected/disassociated.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/2c/67/462c6764982782970b82b8135ad584c5.jpg

this is half the plot of The Man Who Fell to Earth iirc

Belarus-set WWII film Come and See is filmed from the tight POV of a shellshocked boy with learning difficulties. As the horror mounts the viewer's sucked into the same bad-dream viewpoint. It's truly disturbing, as anyone who's ever seen it will attest!

On a similar note, Bad Boy Bubby is pretty discombobulating.

the end of Personal Shopper, maybe

lol, saw the thread title and came to post the very scene from Inland Empire you cited.

See also: the scene in Mulholland Drive when Naomi Watts peers through the window at her own corpse.

You name some very good ones in that first post, most of the ones I'd most immediately think of. I shall have to ponder.

And yes, agreed, this is just about the only cinematic trope that effectively evokes horror in me.

Perhaps Sissy Spacek slowly absorbing Shelley Duvall's personality in Three Women counts?

Marty McFly watching himself drive away in the DeLorean

in college I shot a 2-minute film (on FILM!) about a woman who's asleep and wakes to the sound of a phone ringing, goes to look for it, discovers the sound is coming from her alarm clock, picks up the clock and holds it to her head and goes 'hello??' and then wakes up

i always find the part at the end of 2001 where spacesuit bowman sees his own back as old bowman eats at a table very disorientating but i dunno if it counts as disassociation as such

the headless woman is very much nothing but this

Feel like this is a component of any film where characters swap identities like they're baseball cards.

Possession probably counts although I can't recall any specifically-dissociative scene atm.

the feeling of that 2001 scene is also evoked in the final scene of the sopranos where tony walks into the diner, we get a closeup to establish his eyeline and then in the next shot where you’d expect to see his pov you instead see him sitting at the table where he was looking

Aronofsky's Mother is full of this I think, at least until it goes fully batshit in the last 20 minutes.

That flick of the rearview mirror at the coda of Taxi Driver seems like one to me.

the headless woman is very much nothing but this

Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin in All Of Me

Some of the nightmares in the elm st series count here I think, the sense that you are acting out someone else’s scenario (this is also what’s horrific about any number of more mundane horror scenarios when done well)

that rip in Persona

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkZ43zj01b0

bette marx!

I feel like this might describe some of PSH's character's experience in Synecdoche New York but I'm not sure if it successfully evokes (or tries to evoke) that feeling for the viewer. I mean to give that film another go.

Some good leads here, everyone! And yeah, as I'm sure is clear now, I wasn't talking about the breaking of the fourth wall. I was thinking more dream logic meets "bad trip contact high" (for all you former and current trippers and stoners here). That scene in Inland Empire I referenced above is, to me, the quintessential example.

Oh, and the 'hotel' scene in 2001 cited above is a very good call, should have included that in my op

this dissociative mode is big in horror, as Repulsion shows

Let's Scare Jessica to Death gets good mileage out of it, as does The Lords of Salem

the headless woman is very much nothing but this

― devvvine, Friday, April 17, 2020 9:56 AM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

We watched this last night and loved it. Thanks!

Popping to mention SYBIL <3

Which I maintain is a horror movie, given that it is fictional.

Umm, not a film and I know it's my pet favourite thing of mine right now, but in the game 'Death Stranding', when you die and go into the limbonic 'seam' before 'repatriating' into the real world, we see everything through the eyes of the soul, swimming around trying to locate the player's body.
If you press the scanner button, the scan appears to come from the player's faraway body.
So essentially you're having an outer body experience until you locate the body, after which you're reborn through the body's insides and get puked out on the other side.
It's really disorienting and hard to explain. Essentially it means that the player acts as both a remote viewer, able to see your character in third person, but you're also the player's soul guiding him through the real world. When you die, your body and soul get disconnected..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI5DJK37IuE

whoa