Martha Stout, "When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday"

Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:  

1. Drawing on the information Stout provides, discuss the relations between the mind-in particular the memory-and the brain. Why are traumatic memories generally inaccessible? When Stout refers to "our divided awareness," what does she mean? Is it possible for awareness to become undivided? If such a state can be achieved at all, can it ever become permanent, or is "dividedness" an inescapable feature of consciousness itself?  

2. Explain the difference between dissociation and ordinary distraction. What is it about Julia's lapses of memory that qualifies them as examples of dissociation? Are there significant differences between Julia's lapses and Seth's? Has Seth devised ways of coping that have proven more successful than Julia's?  

3. In her discussion of Seth, Stout makes a reference to the condition known as shin pan, a term taken from Asian medicine. Does this reference bring something new to our understanding that the term "heartache" does not? Is Stout just showing off her knowledge of Eastern culture, or is she trying to get us to rethink our own attitudes about the importance of emotions?  

Questions for Writing:  

1. The title of Stout's book is The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness. Now that you have read one chapter from her book, why do you think she refers to sanity as a "myth"? What does she mean by "the promise of awareness"? How might "awareness" differ from "sanity"?  

2. Julia and Seth both qualify as extreme cases of dissociation, but their experiences may also shed some light on ordinary consciousness. Taking Stout's essay as your starting point, and drawing also on your own experience, discuss the nature of consciousness. Does the mind operate like a camcorder, or is awareness more complex and less continuous than the images stored in a camcorder's memory?  

3. Can people ever know reality, or are we trapped within our own mental worlds? If memory shapes our perceptions from moment to moment, then would you say that experience can ever teach us anything new? If memory is unreliable, then what are the implications for self-knowledge? Is the ancient adage "Know Thyself" actually an invitation to wishful thinking?

Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:  

1. Could our contemporary relation to the natural world be described as dissociated? Is it possible that an entire society can suffer from dissociation? Has David Abram described a society that is, in Stout's sense of the term, dissociated from sensuous experience? Are the steps Abram prescribes for restoring our connections to the natural environment comparable to the kind of therapeutic program Stout supports for improving the lives of her patients? Can a society become "healthy," or is this a project that only individuals can embark on?  

2. In what ways does Oliver Sacks's discussion in "The Mind's Eye" confirm, complicate, or contradict Stout's claims about trauma and its consequences? Although Sacks is concerned with adaptations to blindness and not emotional trauma, both authors explore the ways the mind compensates for losses and injuries of one kind or another. Are Julia and Seth in some ways comparable to the blind men and women Sacks describes?

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