disconnect

I've been experiencing an odd disconnect between mind and body lately.

Last night I was laying in bed at 2 am trying to fall asleep (it failed). I could feel that my body was uncomfortable, that I was underneath my comforter, that my hand was by my head and that my hair was tickling my face constantly. But it didn't seem like it was me. My mind didn't really process it all like it belonged to me...bodily sensations were all very vague and far away. What was me was this person trying to sleep; what was not me was this body preventing me from doing so. I couldn't tell if I was alert or not. But I couldn't fall asleep until past 3.

The same thing happened at the gym today. I was stretching on the mats and I could feel my muscles stretching, but they felt very strangely foreign. I always know what it feels like when I stretch, and this didn't feel like I was stretching. The stretching feeling was disconnected, as if I were observing from above.

If I was still in 5th grade, these types of feelings would perhaps suggest that I was an alien or an especially well-designed robot that was starting to wear down. I think at this age, I'm relatively convinced I'm a human. But it still reminds me that I'm just a mass of cells and that perhaps it is my "normal" sense--that my mind and body interact in a way that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts--that's strange.