Ahimsa - A healthy person does not feel his body! Feelings in the body.

First and foremost is to return to the body. If we have no connection with our own bodies, then there is no connection with the earth. We are disconnected, rootless, and without roots in the body nothing can be done, absolutely nothing.

Once you are rooted in the body, everything becomes possible.

And problems like jealousy, possessiveness, greed, all come from lack of roots. Without roots, we are always afraid; because of this fear, we try to make others slaves, because of this fear, we cannot trust anyone, and jealousy arises. In fact, we cannot trust ourselves - that's the problem - how can you trust yourself if you don't have any roots in the earth? Trust comes when you have deep roots in the earth. Then, whatever happens, you know you can endure and you can handle it. Then you don't have to cling to others - there is no need; enough of you, on your own.

So the first and foremost thing is that you have to take root more and more in the body. Feel the body more, enjoy the action, run in the morning and enjoy the body and the feeling of running energy. Take up swimming: enjoy the body, the river, the touch of the water. Run, dance and jump in the air, in the sun, and let the body begin to tremble with joy again.

This is the first thing to do...and breathe as deeply as you can. As soon as you enter the body, as soon as you become alive in the body again, nine out of ten problems will disappear.

This is one of the tricks by which society alienates people from themselves. It cut you off from the body, and you became like a ghost in a mechanical cage. You are in the body, but still not in the body - you are hovering around it. You take a friend's hand, but it's just a dead hand in dead hand- no feeling, no poetry, no joy. You eat, but you just stuff yourself with food; taste is not felt. You look, but you don't see existence as incredibly bright as it really is; you see colors dull, grey, dusty. You listen to music, but only sounds reach you; you don't hear the music.

Thus, for several months, enjoy everything that concerns the body: walk, run, play, jump, dance, shout in the mountains. Return to childhood! And you will begin to feel as if you have been born again. You will have exactly the same feeling as a caterpillar when it becomes a butterfly.

More on Feeling disconnected from the body I can't feel my body. How can I establish a better connection with him?:

  1. Stiffness in the Lower Body My legs and lower body are heavy and there is a blockage in the energy. How can I get more in touch with the earth?
  2. Rajneesh Bhagavan. Body-mind balance. How to learn to listen and understand your body, 2006
  3. Reviving the senses I am an intellectual and work with a computer a lot. I often feel like I'm not alive enough.
  4. Feeling the Body from the Inside I am generally a very mental person, but lately my body and mind have gone through a lot of changes. At this time, I felt more inside, but now I am afraid that I will fall back into old habits again and the mind will take control again. How can I move more from mind to body?
  5. Stiffness or lack of flexibility I feel like my body is very stiff and my girlfriend says that my chest is like a shell.
  6. Now I GIVE MYSELF TO POWER Higher Power which I call God. I am sure that this situation will continue to develop in a perfect way, in accordance with Divine guidance and spiritual law. I recognize my oneness with the Source and feel my connection with it. I have returned to my true nature, which is Love, and now I love X again. I close my eyes to feel the love flowing through me. I am overwhelmed with joy that goes hand in hand with love.

Yoga begins with awareness of the body: its position in space, relaxation or muscle tension, breathing. With awareness begins control over internal processes, bodily and mental. Body awareness is essential for complex practices such as pranayama, bandhas and mudras.

Concentration on bodily sensations is the simplest meditation, practicing it, the adept learns to voluntarily control his attention, switching it from thinking to perceiving the body. This switch allows you to reduce anxiety, relieve muscle clamps and relax deeply.

Finally, body awareness opens the door to inner world, because emotions and desires are closely connected with the body and manifest through it. Poor contact with the body is always associated with difficulties in understanding one's own emotions.

However, most people feel bad about the body. I run into this all the time in class. Such people do not understand well what it means to strain or relax some part of the body, find it difficult to answer whether they are comfortable or not, do not feel their own fatigue or overexcitation. A few examples:

A 27-year-old girl complains of frequent headaches. After a few sessions, I began to feel that I was walking all the time with raised shoulders and a tense collar zone. She began to specifically relax and lower her shoulders. The headaches are gone.

Man, 35 years old, hard at work. After a month of classes, he made a discovery: it turns out that his lower back has been hurting for a long time. How long ago? He doesn't know, but at least a year. We started working with the lower back, after a couple of months the pain began to go away.

A 48 year old woman complains about excess weight. I attended classes for about six months before I realized: I often eat not when I'm hungry, but when I want to calm down and get positive emotions. Food for her is a form of self-defense. I began to track my feelings and learn differently to achieve what I want. The weight slowly went down.

Such cases are numerous. I would like to ask: dear ones, where have you been all these years if you did not feel the obvious? Who lived in your body instead of you?

Why do we not feel the body?

Feeling the body is an innate ability. Even a one-month-old baby gives a signal that he is hungry, or tired, or his stomach hurts. But as we age, we lose this ability. Why?

  1. "I'm cold, put on a hat!" Our feelings don't matter. Mom knows better when we want to eat, when to sleep, when we are cold or tired. Our desires are ignored. It is better not to feel anything so as not to face disappointment. We don't feel.
  2. End justifies the means. We work hard to succeed, and the body sabotages the process. It is sick and tired, it has needs. That's lazy and a traitor! Thank God - there are analgesics and stimulants. You can stay in line. Until they take it out feet first.
  3. Feeling the body is scary and painful. Between the ribs pricked - is it the heart? I will die? The stomach hurts for the third day - probably an ulcer! No, it's better not to know! And my back hurts terribly, it's impossible to do anything. It's better not to feel it.
  4. The body is a graveyard of repressed emotions. Emotions and desires manifest through the body. If a person is afraid own feelings and does not cope with them - he begins to suppress them. Along with the senses, the sensations of the body are also suppressed.

What causes a violation of contact with the body?

  1. We are not aware of our feelings. This leads to relationship problems. Such a person cannot express emotions and understand the other, is incapable of intimacy, and sometimes is overwhelmed by such a storm of feelings that he loses control of himself.
  2. An insensitive body is a tense body. Emotional problems lead to muscle clamps. Movements become constrained, posture - rigid. Body tension provokes an increase in anxiety 1 .
  3. We stop having fun. The experience of pleasure occurs through the body. Losing contact with him, we find ourselves in a world of fake Christmas toys. The very ones that are beautiful, bright, shine, but ... They are not encouraging.
  4. We are not aware of the needs of the body. Am I hungry or thirsty? Or am I just upset? Or maybe I'm tired and I need to rest? By not satisfying the needs of the body, we provoke the development of diseases.
  5. We miss the onset of the disease. The body signals about the disease with a breakdown, anxiety, bad mood. If you miss them, you will encounter a detailed picture of the disease. It is costly, fraught with complications, and sometimes deadly.
  6. We are not aware of ourselves. The perception of the body is the basis for awareness of one's own "I". A person does not understand who he is, what he is, cannot form a stable self-esteem. In fact, he loses himself.
  7. We don't understand what we want. Not only in simple things, for example, what you want to eat for dinner. But also globally - from life in general. Losing desires, a person loses life guidelines. Drifting with the current like a ghost ship whose crew is long dead...

How to learn to feel your body?

Let's figure out what body sensations you can basically encounter. There are three types of bodily sensitivity:

Superficial sensitivity (exteroception)

Skin sensations: touch, pressure, stretching, heat, cold, pain. Together they provide a full range of tactile sensations.

In yoga, you experience tactile sensations when your body touches the mat, pressure of one part of the body against another, stretching of the skin, warming or cooling. various parts body (hands, feet, face, etc.)

Sensitivity of internal organs (interoception)

These sensations are often not recognized, but are involved in the regulation of life, causing a feeling of hunger, satiety, thirst. Among those that you can feel consciously are sensations breathing, heartbeat, stomach fullness, etc. This type of sensation is closely related to emotions. So, sensations from the heart are associated with feelings of anxiety and fear 2 , from the liver - with the development of hypochondria 3 .

In yoga, we deal with sensations of this kind in breathing practices (and simply when observing the breath), feeling the heartbeat and pulse, practicing bandhas and mudras.

Deep sensation (proprioception)

It is also called "muscle feeling", these are signals from the muscles, tendons, fascia and joints. Proprioception is a sense of the body in a broad sense: the position and movement of the limbs and body, heaviness, balance, muscle tension and relaxation, vibration, as well as general tone: the degree of tension or relaxation, alertness or fatigue.

it ancient view bodily sensitivity. Its signals are poorly differentiated, poorly understood, vague and difficult to describe.

Basal emotions are also merged with deep sensitivity: comfort/discomfort, pleasure/displeasure, aggression, anxiety, interest, disgust. Here, bodily contact is formed between mother and child, laying the foundation for interpersonal communication in general 4 .

Deep sensitivity is the awareness of one's own physicality, it forms body image and is closely related to the holistic perception of one's own "I".

Violation of deep sensitivity forms various dystonias (hyperactivity or lethargy). There are also difficulties in maintaining balance. Moreover, a violation of bodily stability is associated with a violation of emotional stability.

A person weakly differentiates his own emotions, the degree of comfort or discomfort, fatigue. He is prone to mood swings and often cannot cope with his feelings.

There are problems in establishing close relationships and in interacting with society. Instability of self-perception. A person does not understand who he is, what he is, in different situations perceives himself differently.

It is with this kind of sensitivity that hatha yoga primarily deals. You learn to be aware of the position of the body and its parts in space, tense some muscles and relax others, maintain balance, etc., developing deep sensitivity at a basic level.

The next level is awareness of the limits of comfort, degree of fatigue and general tone in yoga practice. At what point does exercise stop being comfortable for you? When do you get tired? How do you feel in general: alert or lethargic, tense or relaxed?

And the final level of this development is the formation of a holistic perception of the body, when in asanas you begin to feel not a separate part, but the whole body at the same time, with all the processes taking place in it.

Thus, the development of deep sensitivity in yoga contributes to the formation of a holistic image of oneself, the improvement of bodily and emotional awareness at the level of comfort/discomfort, pleasure/displeasure, cheerfulness/fatigue, etc.

The main result and indicator of this development is integrity, consistency and stability all processes (bodily and mental).

Exercises to improve bodily sensitivity

So, let's move on to the most important. How to develop into bodily sensitivity? Here are some rules:

  1. Direct your attention to the body. Every second of your yoga practice. If you notice that you are carried away by thoughts and forgot about the body, return attention to the body again.
  2. Practice with eyes closed. Vision takes a lot of attention, you will never feel good body with open eyes. If there are difficulties with balance, it is permissible to lean on the wall for the first time.
  3. It is easier to be aware of movement than stillness. Incorporate soft dynamic exercises into your practice. Perform asanas slowly, trying to feel what sensations arise when entering and exiting the asana.
  4. Relaxation is easier to feel after tension. Alternate effort and relaxation, trying to feel the difference between these states.
  5. The easiest way to feel the work of the muscles against the background of general relaxation, so start with elementary exercises lying on your back or stomach.
  6. Do more balance poses especially with closed eyes. They develop bodily sensitivity well and form a body image.

Consider a few exercises aimed at developing bodily sensitivity.

Basic sensitivity development

  1. Lie on your back in shavasana. Close your eyes. Clench your hands into fists, fix for 3-5 seconds, then completely relax and also fix for 3-5 seconds. Repeat this cycle 5-10 times. Focus on the sensations in your palms. What feelings accompany tension, and what - relaxation? What is the difference between these states? Try to catch the smallest nuances of sensations.
  2. Raise right hand from the floor, hold for 3-5 seconds, then lower and completely relax. How does this change the sensations of the body? Where do you feel tension? What is the difference in sensations from a relaxed and tense hand? Are you better able to relax your hand after exertion? Repeat the same with the left arm, right leg, left leg and head. Is there a difference in sensation between the right hand and the left hand, the right hand and the left foot?

Awareness of fatigue and the limits of comfort

  1. You are still lying on your back with your eyes closed. Raise your head slightly off the floor, put your hands under the back of your head, holding your head and relaxing your neck. The face is turned up. Focus on the feeling of tension in the front of your body. Where exactly does it occur? How does it feel? Watch how sensations change over time, fatigue increases. How exactly does fatigue feel? At what point does the posture stop being comfortable, and how exactly do you feel about it? Try to catch the moment of transition from comfort to discomfort. Return to starting position and relax. How exactly do you feel relaxed? Did the sensations from the body change after the exercise? Repeat the exercise 2-3 times.
  2. Roll over onto your stomach. Raise your right leg straight off the floor. Try to keep your shoulders and left leg relaxed. Feel the tension in your right leg and lower back. Watch the sensation grow. At what point does fatigue appear and how does it feel? When does a posture become uncomfortable? Catch the moment of transition from comfort to discomfort, then relax. How does the relaxation of the muscles of the right leg and lower back feel? What is the difference between tension and relaxation? Repeat the exercise with each leg 2-3 times.

Development of a holistic perception of the body

  1. Stand up straight on both feet. Close your eyes. Try to carefully lift one foot off the floor. Can you keep your balance with your eyes closed? Repeat with the other leg.
  2. Return to the starting position. Place one hand on top of your head. Focus on the sensations in the soles of your feet, feel how your feet press on the floor. Now feel the pressure of your hand on the top of your head. Shift your attention from the top of your head to your feet and back until you can feel them all at the same time. Then try to feel the whole body between these extreme points - the feet and the crown. Distribute attention evenly throughout the body.
  3. Continue to keep your attention on the sensation of the body as a whole. Swing several times from socks to heels and back. Feel how sensations change as you deviate from the center, tension builds up. Then swing several times to the right and left, also observing the sensations. Now swing in a circle, observing the changes in sensations. Gradually reduce the range of motion until you return to the center - a point with minimal tension, where the body seems to freeze in weightlessness. Keep your attention on the body.
  4. Keeping your attention on your body with your eyes closed, slowly shift your weight onto your right leg, being careful not to lose the feeling of weightlessness. When you get the balance, slowly lift your left foot off the floor, hovering on your right foot. Be aware of the body. Is it easier to maintain balance than the first time? Maintain the position until you feel tired, then lower your left foot to the floor. Repeat the same on the other leg.

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1 Everly J., Rosenfeld R. Stress: nature and treatment.

2 Brautigam V., Christian P., Rad M. Psychosomatic medicine.

3 Chernigovsky V. N. Interoceptors.

4 Arkhipov B.A., Maksimova E.V., Semenova N.E. The level of tonic regulation as the basis for the formation of the child's psyche.

Desomatization, or bodily anesthesia, is manifested by the loss of the ability to recognize the sensations of one's body. Desomatization can be partial, if it concerns some parts of the body, and total. In the latter case, the perception of sensations of the whole body falls out. Often, desomatization is combined with a violation of the perception of sensations about the size, proportions of the body and its parts, with a loss of awareness of other bodily sensations.

Patients report this as follows: “For three months my legs were taken away, for three months I lay. There was no sensation of the legs, I did not feel them, and they did not obey. I didn’t feel pain then, dreams disappeared. Once I woke up and felt my legs, I learned to walk again ... My head is not mine, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel like combing, but I feel itching in my head ... I feel my body badly, I feel my teeth better ... When falling asleep, I feel the lightness of the body, I don’t feel it, I don’t feel myself. It seems that I don’t breathe anymore, the pulse doesn’t beat ... I don’t feel where the center of gravity of the body is. I don’t know how to sit down, stand up - I’m afraid to fall. When my head hurts, I feel the body's center of gravity shift towards the head. At this time, it seems to me that the head is enlarged, and the body becomes like not mine, it seems to melt, dissolve, disappear ... I left my body, and it froze and stopped feeling anything ... I lost my weight, I don’t feel weight, I don’t feel my movements, the body is light, it’s as if it doesn’t exist at all ... It’s as if there is no body at all, only eyes remain ... I wake up with the feeling that there are no hands, I’m looking for them in fear ... After waking up for 10 minutes I don’t feel my hands, it’s like they don’t exist at all ... I don’t have a body, I don’t feel it at all, only my heart is pounding ... I have a feeling of a person who grabbed his severed head and runs down the street ... The head is talking , but there is no body ... It feels like there is only one head, but there is no body at all ... There is no body, only thoughts remain ... The head separated from the body, and she did not feel it ... When falling asleep, there is a feeling that as if I find myself in some kind of abyss, complete emptiness. At the same time, I do not feel myself, I do not feel my body ... I dreamed that I was dying, then I died completely. I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything, I don’t feel the body, and there is no fear. Then I come alive. When I wake up, I can’t understand for a long time what happened to me, it’s interesting to me ... I see spiritual dreams, I don’t have a body in them ... I fly in a dream, like a spirit, without a body ... I dream that I’m going to in some incomprehensible state, like a drunk, I stumble, fall, I feel pain in my knee. And then I die. I see it all from the outside. I see with my consciousness, I don’t feel my body.” Sometimes the perception of inner speech changes: “I perceive my inner speech differently, it has become somehow dark and striped.”

Sometimes the usual feeling of the body is not just lost, it is replaced by another, moreover, very unusual. The body is perceived as "a lump of matter, a clot of energy, a speck, a cloud, a dot, a spiral, a watermark on paper, a line segment, a ball, a letter." One patient described the sensations of his body as follows: “I saw in a dream and felt my body as a yellow ball, a bunch of energy. The balloon then shattered into yellow lines going in different directions. At the same time, I had the feeling of flying, and I was in different places at the same time, where the lines were.

I didn’t feel my body at that time.” The real image of the body, apparently, is replaced by a completely different, some kind of geometric, graphic symbol, sign, abstract representation. Formally, here we can talk about symbolic hallucinations. own body but the essence of the matter seems to lie elsewhere. The mentioned signs and abstract representations in everyday verbal practice are usually used by people to describe external impressions. In patients, as the above illustrations show, these symbols represent some kind of painful bodily images.

In other words, what normally belongs to the outside world, in pathological conditions is perceived as some kind of internal events. Next, we will try to show that such a substitution of the external for the internal is associated with another form of violation of self-perception, namely with personalization.

Loss of clarity of perception of one's consciousness manifested by a feeling of dullness of one's own consciousness, sometimes one experiences a loss of awareness of one's consciousness. “It is natural for a person, - K. Jaspers points out, to be aware of his consciousness”. Real disorders of consciousness, such as delirium, oneiroid, twilight stupefaction, are usually not reflected in self-perception and are not fixed in memory in such a way that the patient can recognize them when they reappear.

To some extent, only states that precede the extinction of consciousness can be remembered, for example, fainting, falling asleep, stunning during anesthesia, incomplete awakening, loss of consciousness due to traumatic brain injury, intoxication. Many patients have at least one personal experience loss of consciousness, especially often it is fainting, others know about it by hearsay, from what they read, from people they know.

It is with the mentioned states that patients compare the change in acts of self-perception related to the clarity of their consciousness: “It feels like I can’t wake up ... in the shade, I shake, I pinch myself so that it recovers ... I feel somehow deafened, mad, as if nailed, there is fog in my head, it is clogged like cotton wool ... then drowsiness, I feel as if I didn’t fall asleep at all, but I didn’t wake up completely ... It seems that I am about to lose consciousness, just a little more, and it will turn off ... I am constantly in some kind of semi-conscious state ... Sometimes I faint, but at the same time I hear and understand everything ... When falling asleep, it seems to me that I am losing consciousness, fainting. And when I wake up, I can’t understand for a long time where I am ... My consciousness fogs up, it’s as if I’m in the clouds and everything around is somehow different. This happens to me in spring and autumn, and when it passes, I am cheerful and active for 2-3 days.

Loss of awareness of a shared feeling is manifested by the loss of acts of perception of visceral sensations: “There is emptiness inside me, as if I am hollow ... I am like a pipe, there is nothing inside, I don’t feel anything there ... There is nothing in my chest, everything is quiet, frozen ... My head is empty, it like an inflated ball, there is nothing in it, only thoughts ... Only the shell of the body remains, and there is nothing under it ... Inside, like in a refrigerator chamber, only cold and emptiness, and frost on its walls ... Empty in the stomach , there are no organs, food falls right into the pelvis and rots there ... I can’t hear my heart beating.”

The loss of awareness of cognitive activity is expressed by patients' complaints about the loss of the ability to imagine, perceive, think, remember, as well as the loss of the cognitive need: “The past appears to me in a dim form and is remembered as if without images, almost verbally. I remember the film the other day only in general view, visual images I almost don't remember. I’ll look at the magazine, close it and I can’t remember what drawings I just saw in it. I don't remember the music. I perceive everything somehow dimly, indistinctly ... A completely empty head, I just speak without thinking at all. First I will say, and only then it dawns on me what I said ... I'm afraid to say something wrong, it has already happened many times. I hear my words, but there are no such thoughts, I don’t even think about it ... The head is empty, it doesn’t think and it seems to me like a wooden ball with two holes on the sides, bordered by the auricles ... I go to bed, the body falls asleep, but the head doesn’t , she does not sleep, she is completely empty, there are no thoughts, I can’t even concentrate on the thought that I need to sleep ... My thoughts are somehow vague, fuzzy, unformed, it seems to me that I am saying meaningless phrases. .. I have no thoughts, I don’t think at all, I just hear and speak... No memory, I don’t feel how I think, I don’t think anything at all, my head is empty, without thoughts... I speak without thinking, I just move my tongue , the head is not involved in this ... I hear questions, but I do not understand them, I answer them mechanically, without thinking ... There are no thoughts, no memories, no imagination, the head is turned off ... There is no feeling that I am something either I understand or I’m thinking about something, I don’t know in advance what I’ll say ... I’m talking to you now, as if out of habit, automatically, information input it comes out, but the mind is inactive, it’s as if I don’t have it ... I don’t understand how it happens that I’m talking about something, answering something, I’m not in this, I don’t hear his voice ... Sometimes I can say nonsense, it turns out somehow by itself, I don’t even think to say such a thing. Who does not know me, is surprised, asks again, and I have to laugh it off. My daughter tells me that if she didn’t know me, she would take me for a madwoman ... Yesterday there was some kind of confusion, I only saw and heard, but did not understand anything, and there was a fear that I was going crazy ... I do not exist, but I am present in life. It’s as if I have two eyes left, I look, observe and don’t even think about what I see ... I don’t want to read or watch TV, I’ve lost interest in everything ... I couldn’t live without news before, I always wanted to know something that's new. And now the news doesn’t touch me at all, doesn’t excite me, in general I have become somehow indifferent ... I wake up at night, walk around the room, like I’m looking for something. I know everything, but I don’t know what I need, I don’t think about anything at this time.

Probably, peculiar memory lapses are associated with this violation: “Sometimes I don’t remember what I did. I remember, for example, how I go out for a walk. Where I am at this time, what I do, flies out of my head. I only remember walking up to the hostel from a walk. Because of this, I got hit by a car twice. I'm going to think about what I'm thinking, I don't remember. And I do not notice that I am on the carriageway, I go to a red light. Then I go to the toilet and forget why I came. I'll take something I don't need and go back. It was like this: in the morning I leave the hostel for classes at the institute. I don’t remember anything about what happened at the institute.” This violation can, apparently, be manifested by a change in the nature of dreams. At the same time, dream images lose their brightness, clarity, color, become empty, faded, blurry. Similar changes occur with other components of the dream: emotions, body sensations, etc.

Often there are states of thoughtfulness, when the patient fixes his gaze at one point for some time (minutes, tens of minutes) and almost does not pay attention to what is happening around. The observer may decide that he is deep in thought about something. If, however, one speaks to him, the patient immediately returns to reality. It usually turns out that in those moments he did not think about anything at all, but at the same time he was in a clear mind. S.S. Mnukhin (1969) calls such states "ideas". Something similar is described by F.M. Dostoevsky in Smerdyakov, the servant of Karamazov’s father (apparently, his son from a girl who suffered from idiocy): “... he (Smerdyakov) sometimes ... stopped, thought and stood like that for ten even minutes.

A physiognomist, peering at him, would say that there is no thought, no thought, but just some kind of contemplation. The painter Kramskoy has one wonderful painting called “The Contemplator”: a forest is depicted in winter, and in the forest, on the road ... stands alone, in the deepest solitude, a peasant wandered here, stands and seemed to think, but he does not think, but contemplates something. If you pushed him, he would shudder and look at you, as if waking up, but not understanding anything. True, he would wake up now, and if they asked him what he was standing and thinking about, he would probably not remember anything, but on the other hand, he would probably harbor in himself the impression that he was under during his contemplation, suddenly, having accumulated impressions for for many years, he will leave everything and go to Jerusalem, wander, save himself, and maybe he will suddenly burn his native village, or maybe both will happen together.

There are enough contemplatives among the people. These contemplations are clearly not a break in thought, not a sperrung or an absence, and certainly not an episode of a catatonic stupor. It is not entirely clear what is happening here; indeed, this is often found in apparently quite healthy individuals. There is almost no mention of this phenomenon in the specialized literature. Judging by the description of F.M. Dostoevsky, one can, perhaps, assume that we are talking about relatively short episodes of a violation of self-perception in the form of a loss of awareness of one's own cognitive activity.

Deindividuation, or loss of awareness of individuality, is experienced by patients as a feeling of losing their identity, as an inability to perceive their uniqueness, their differences from other people: “I became faceless, nameless, something like a number on a uniform ... I lost my face, dissolved in the mass, I don’t stand out among people ... I live by habits, reflexes, I have already forgotten how it should be in my opinion ... I have nothing of my own, I am like a copy from something, not the original. It was as if they programmed me, made me the same with everyone ... I turned into some kind of gray, colorless, impersonal creature, everything of mine seemed to have flown from me like foliage from a tree ... I feel like in a crowd when you behave like others, and not at your own discretion ... Nothing became mine, something that others do not have. It seems to me that everything that is in me, I copied, took from others, I myself did not invent or do anything of my own. Sometimes the loss of a sense of originality is combined with another or replaced by another, when the surrounding people seem to be exactly the same, devoid of individuality (“dolls ... nesting dolls ... the same type of papier-mâché products ... copies ... twins ... mechanisms, breathed into life...").

Deindividuation is also experienced in connection with the loss of awareness of the sense of novelty of one's own experiences. At the same time, it seems to patients that their thoughts, feelings, actions remain the same as in the past, there is nothing new, fresh in them, they are only repeated as if by habit or memory. At the same time, the perception of the present and future time is dulled, life seems to be left somewhere behind, prospects are blurred and nothing seems to be waiting ahead of the patients, there is still the same tedious monotony when nothing unexpected, unfamiliar or interesting happens.

Hello .. I really hope for your answer! My name is Karina, I'm 16 years old. (My sister writes from her page what I want to tell you and ask) I'm not in my body .. at first it was some kind of fleeting sensations .. here I am walking down the street .. I feel good ... and then I have a sharp feeling .. as if I'm not in my body .. I seem to feel everything. .. I hear .. but such a feeling of lethargy .. lasted somewhere for several minutes .. and then the normal state returned ..... I complained to my mother and sister ... my parents said that it could be from adolescence .. and my sister she said that at my age she also had such momentary sensations ... but they passed for her .. and for me over time .. these states came .. more and more often ... and two years later ... I am constantly in this state ... now I always have the feeling that I am not in my body ... it makes it very difficult to concentrate .. my memory began to disappear ... it really bothers me to learn I ... I have to go to university next year ... but I can’t study .. I’m very worried about this .. when I read something ... I immediately forget .. what was written in the previous sentence ... numbers, dates, numbers, names ... I don't remember anything ... it began to frighten me ... I don't feel that my life is full ... I'm like in another dimension ... like a good ear. .and vision ..but sounds reach me as if with an echo ..as if there is a black hole in my head ..and everything flies there ..I constantly need to ask again ..what they told me ..several times ... because I can't concentrate...and that's why at school, when they ask me questions..they think that I do it on purpose..because I didn't learn it..and my parents think that I'm pretending...but really..that's it condition ... makes me some kind of down ((((recently I turned my head .. and something crunched in my neck .. I went for several months with a collar .. and now my condition has worsened even more ... my memory has worsened ... and everything else .. very much b lit in the neck area .. and shoots in the head ... the head became heavy .. practically unable to concentrate ... to answer a question or understand the question ... I have to .. think for a long time .. to at least somehow adequately answer ... recent times..if i can't answer..i start to cry because i am not able to say anything.now i am in a state of finding depression...i can't understand what is happening to me..i ask my sister...it doesn't look like I'm going crazy?! everything is out of my hands, I can't control it.. my memory, my feelings.... my head is heavy.. I'm like a walking *inanimate* creature!!!it all started spontaneously around two years ago .. such sensations .. then I began to notice that the conditions become more often SOMETIMES !!! when menstruation is planned or going .. but then and now .. it does not depend on menstruation! this state is permanent .. I have already forgotten how this is when you feel in your body ....... I didn’t smoke, I didn’t use drugs, there were no head injuries, nothing ever hurt (except for the stomach) .... please .. I beg you, tell me what it is maybe .. where to go .. what examinations need to be done?