[cylon]

Fantastic stuff. Feels good to read.

This might not translate to words, but this is what I've found myself doing:

I'll sit in a chair and hold my arm in front of myself and say "this is my arm", I'll look at my legs and say "those are my legs" so now I'm seeing two "parts" of myself. Then I'll look at my bookshelf and think "that's my bookshelf", like it's a part of my actual body. I do that for every thing I see in the room and pretty soon my "body" is everything I can see.

My arm rests on the table which rests on the floor which rests on the earth which rests on space. Although the physical world is illusory, the more I think this way I start imagining the whole world being my body where everything is literally touching everything else, one big "body".

And of course for that to be true, my body and the rest of the objects in the world are inseparable yet inter-changeable. All are ONE THING. And nothing in this world more, or less, important than anything else--including my physical body and identity.

I also love your analogy of the light in the room. That's exactly what it feels like, when in a good state the sun shines brighter, there is more activity wherever you are, people are more happy and laughing, it's like that dimmer switch on a lamp. Turn the switch down, feel gloomy, the world starts being a gloomy place. Why do you think it's always raining in movies when the couple breaks up or the main character is facing a crisis? It's "just" a movie but the point is that the physical environment changes with the feelings of the character.

And we are just fictional characters in the biggest most lavish movie ever filmed.