19643

Some of the descriptions about confusion of self contained in your article were very reminiscent of the confusion I often sense in dreams. I even recognize in some dreams the sensation described in the article about various body parts not being part of “me.” I wonder if this aspect of normal (I assume) dreaming has been investigated.

Stanley E. Anderson
Westminster, Calif.

It surprises me that none of the researchers mentioned in your article considered the possibility that the essential sense of self is an extremely primitive aspect of brain function. An animal could not protect itself from predators or physical dangers unless it had a well-developed sense of personal being.

Alex Heydon
Ajax, Ontario

Researcher Todd Feinberg of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York raises the possibility that disordered selves represent a kind of “waking dream” in his book Altered Ego: How the Brain Creates the Self (2001, Oxford Univ. Press, New York). Feinberg argues that a primitive sense of self occurs in many animals .—B. Bower