Detachment and feeling hollow is just one aspect of the brain function, not really the intellect but emotional centers. I had that kind of feeling from time to time (which looking back I would place around times I had lots of dental work done; I had 17 amalgams for about 20 years, until this summer, now only 2 left). It is not 'brain death' but just a transient schizophrenia-like depersonalization, detachment. That is one of mercury neuro-toxicity symptoms. It is disabling while going on, it can ruin relations or result in a loss of a job (happened to me 14 years ago), but it is not a permanent brain damage or a state that lasts.

I know this will draw some fire around here, but this is the natural medicine (an ancient medicinal plant, that is available in any country and it should be fairly inexpensive) that helped me come out of such 'feeling hollow' states far better than anything else (see also post2 and post3). In any case, whatever you do, stay away from psychiatrists. If they get their hands on you and start drugging you, then you will end up with a real brain damage for life, emotions, intellect and the rest. When in this delicate, fragile phase be also very careful around regular doctors, or even other people you meet, since they can get you into involuntary psychatric treatment.

Yep, I studied this subject in some depth because I ended up once at the edge of being locked up, after my future mother in-law, who was a university professor of psychology, wanted me "examined" and I was at the time clueless about the traps of the drug-pushing psychiatry, so I went along. Just to talk to a friendly doctor, she said, and I thought, why not, what could possibly go wrong.

So I went and did as she advised. In my detached state, though, I signed some forms they handed me at the clinic, completely mechanically without looking. They were all so friendly, offered coffe and cookies while waiting, so why bother reading. After talking to a nice doctor, then waiting in a room with nothing going on, I decided to get out into the reception area. Two big guys came from behind in the hall, got around me and in front of me, blocked me and said, you can't leave, stay there, you must wait for Dr. Epstein. I was in a great physical shape, competed in college judo at the time and was pretty good at it, so some "interesting" then some quite unpleasant events followed... At the end, there were just too many of them and too few of me. The forms I thoughtlessly signed, in essence handed my rights to them, to keep me and do as they wished until they declare me "cured". Had my parents not been medical doctors, who bailed me right out after I called them in an absolute panic (when I realized these drug-pushers, the so-called psychiatrists, won't let me out and wanted me forcibly drugged), I would have ended up there for life, truly brain dead.

So be very careful who you talk to about it. This will clear on its own, without any of their drugs. As you will find out at the antipsychiatry sites, their whole psychiatric "business model" comes down to using your present temporarily fragile state and turning it into a permanent truly brain-damaged state, a genuine drooling, shaking zombie, resulting in you becoming their permanent patient. Hence, instead of one time real help (which they can't offer, since they are really clueless, beyond their self-serving pretentious jargon, about human brain, or any brain), they make you into a lifelong subscriber to their "services" which are not merely ineffective, but are truly harmful.