The Disembodied Woman
A woman named Christina was about to go into surgery to remove her Gallbladder. It is a very common procedure, but obviously Christina was nervous. The night before she went into surgery, Christina had a dream. She was "swaying wildly in her dream, very unsteady on her feet, could hardly feel the ground beneath her, could hardly feel anything in her hands, found them flailing to and fro, kept dropping whatever she picked up”. The next morning, all these things were happening to christina. She said she felt "disembodied" and had absolutely no unconscious control over her body. This innate control over our bodies is something we probably take for granted. It is one's sense of proprioception. This sense allows us to know where our body is located in space and allows our body to stay active even when we aren't thinking about it. So since her body was no longer sensing itself, Christina had to actually look at anything she wanted to control. She had to use her sense of sight to take over her sense of proprioception. If she wanted to walk, she had to look at her feet, and intently watch them move across the ground. If she wanted to grab a fork, she would watch her hand grab the fork. But, there is no moderation either. She would grab the fork as hard as she could. For Christina to stand up on her own two feet, she would look in a mirror and observe herself standing. But, if you turn off the lights, she would fall to the ground. This is something that she can learn to live with, but obviously it would not be close to the life she had lived before.