All of us do plenty of things throughout the course of our day on automatic — where we just let our hands or whatever body part is involved get on with the job while we think about other things. Usually these are mindless jobs like washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, or anything else we can pretty much do by rote.

I'm sure that most of you are also familiar with the sensation of all of sudden becoming fully aware of what you're doing and how much of a shock that can be. If you're washing the dishes with a good chunk of your brain shut down and all of a sudden your hands slip and the dish you're washing makes a loud noise as it bangs against the side of the sink your reaction is unusually strong considering the circumstances.

Having been in an almost meditative state, the abrupt return to reality is the most likely reason for your shock. The noise was the trigger that caused you to be returned but wasn't necessarily what you reacted to. Suddenly finding yourself standing at the kitchen sink with your arms up to the elbows in soapy water and a sink full of dishes after you had been daydreaming is bound to catch you more then a little off guard.

Now here's something else to try and get your head around, and it's sort of akin to the sensation I was just describing, but a little more extreme. First suppose that your whole life has been similar to the way you feel when washing dishes; that 'here but not here' sensation. But - and this is where it gets tricky - you don't know you're in that state of mind.

Well, it's something like that anyway; you're not in a state of mind where you're blanking things out while doing something mindless, you're blanking things out that you don't even 'know" exist. Of course since you don't know that you're blanking things out, you can't be said to be blanking things out at all – or can you?

Damn, this is harder than I thought it would be; all I've probably done is confuse the crap out of everybody. Maybe I should try a different tack… hmmm, how about this? Have you ever been in a situation where you've wished with all your might that you were somewhere else or that you can't believe what's going on is happening to you? All of a sudden everything begins to feel like it's taking place a long way away and you begin to feel disembodied? It's like your body and you have separated and you're able to watch the proceedings without being involved.