Dissociation is a nature-given emergency survival technique. It is not meant for everyday use but is to be employed in the rare circumstance when to feel pain threatens survival more than not to feel pain. Since tuning out can be perilous even as it protects, only under certain dire conditions will nature allow us to use it as defense. The first condition is severe distress. One does not have to tune out the hurt of a stubbed toe. The second condition is helplessness. If help is available, it is safer to feel the pain and scream for assistance than to tune it out.
