The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake

by Steven Novella

Your brain also constructs its internal model of your body. You probably take for granted that you are in your body, you own your body, and you can control your body. It might seem like these sensations are inevitable consequences of the obvious fact that you are your body. This isn’t true, however. All of those bodily sensations are active constructions by the brain, requiring specific circuits dedicated to that purpose. First, we feel like we are in our bodies because our brains compare what we see and what we feel. We literally see ourselves in our own body, and we feel the parts of our body, and when those things sync up, our brain constructs the sensation of being in our body.