ABSTRACT
The “inner” sensations of the body, those that stem from the organs, those evoking “deep” messages, signs hidden under corporal envelopes and skin, seem to be “eternal” sensations that go back to the very roots of existence. However, there is nothing more historical than this sensory universe, with its mix of intimacy and darkness, but also the sense of self and work on the self. This chapter examines the slow construction of a modern consciousness of the inner body into a place of exploration. This history is all the more noteworthy because the existence of this universe was long neglected by the witnesses of time, the participants and academics: it was probably considered too inaccessible, too closed, too different as well from what spontaneously seemed to identify the “inside” to the “mind”, although it has transformed, since the Enlightenment, our vision of the organic, and our vision of ourselves.
