This is going to be relatively hard to explain, but I will try the best I can. I haven't had a medical diagnosis but a friend with epilepsy said it sounds similiar to seizures. It began when I was 17 or so...
I remember driving to work and looking out the window (not exactly on the road but hold the critism till later), I was just sort of staring off into space and got I guess lost in my head. It felt like someone had grabbed me (not my actual body but my essense I suppose) from the back of my head and started pulling back. Everything started moving in slow motion like a movie scene. I began to lose a sense of my life. I couldn't remember who I was really, what I was, etc. I remember thinking my name "Chris" and trying to figure out what that meant exactly. And how the foreign the word and or thought felt to me. I began to see my life as someone else's and couldn't comprehend what I was exactly. I began to feel like my life was fit into a mask and that I was currently wearing and felt as if I had someone taken off or slipped from my mask for what felt like eternity but was only mere seconds. I began to slide like I was going to fit into another mask but just kept slipping. Then I snapped back into reality and sort of freaked out (since I was driving). After that I'd every now and again for no apparent reason get this sinking feeling, but not as if I'd done something wrong or s*** was going to hit the fan but a physical sinking.
It happens very rarely now but at times I can be doing nothing at all and the lights will seem to flicker and dim and my surroundings will suddenly began to rise as if they were growing. Everythings shade will change slightly and I will began to feel this empty hopeless feeling and feel myself slipping again. Now I've managed to catch the reigns on it and can snap myself out and bring myself back into the here and now. But it is scary and I don't know what it means exactly or what it is. Perhaps an actual slip from reality as it is known (to me at least) or perhaps a medical condition that my lack of insurance will block me from "fixing", for the time being at least...

any similiar stories? ideas? etc...

About one in three adults report having had at least one roughly similar experience in public opinion surveys conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, dating back to the 1960's. As is usual, the affirmative response rate varies with how the question is worded.

Recurrence is somewhat rarer, but is also reported. Many people find these experiences pleasant, some do not. You sound like you would enjoy them, except that you worry that they may be pathological.

If you are worried about any mental or physical event, then you should get a medical opinion. In the Chicago Yellow Pages, you will find free or low-cost referral options.

By the way, at least one religion has been founded on the strength of a single such occurrence, that of Osho, a.k.a Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. That was a real money spinner, which could solve your insurance problem .

Chris, I'm gonna fire off a PM to ya.