ABSTRACT
According to some philosophical and religious stances, to be human IS to live in a dissociated condition. Religious accounts of a fall from grace tell us that we were in an undifferentiated relationship with the rest of the natural realm, but eating from the tree of wisdom, forgetting our Buddha consciousness, or some other metaphor have characterized our seemingful permanent exile from full participation in the rhythm of life. More recently, Descartes’ dualistic model of the mind and the body provided another account about the unusual relationship that we maintain between the stream of consciousness that we identify as “I,” and other mental processes and the body, the “me” of William James’ account (James, 1890/1923).
