What is it that makes us human? In the film The Man With Two Brains, brain surgeon Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr (played by Steve Martin) falls in love with a brain in a glass jar. Of course, what he’s actually fallen in love with is the spirit of the person once attached to a body in which that brain was living. Without giving away any spoilers, it’s safe to say the film is a sweet parody reminding us that beauty is on the inside rather than the outside. True love, so the story goes, occurs between unaccountably attracted soulmates not just from the magnetism of physical bodies. It’s about a very human emotional – or even spiritual – connection which our physical bodies do not necessarily have total control over.

Embodying disembodied spirits

Many people think spiritual experiences only exist in relation to having a particular religion or faith. Actually, spirituality is much more broadly defined. It can relate to anything which helps us to see ourselves as part of – and connected to – a much greater whole. This might be in terms of a connection to a divine being as part of religion or faith but can also be a connection to nature, humanity or the universe. So while spiritual experiences can emerge through prayer, they are just as likely to emerge through a walk in the forest or immersion in music, art or poetry.

Often described as ‘transcendental’, such experiences help us to be aware of what lies beyond the physical world we can touch, see, hear, smell and taste. People often describe a sense of being lifted out of their body during such moments and seeing things from a ‘higher’ perspective.

To return to Dr Hfuhruhurr, transcendental spiritual experiences often trigger a very real perception of the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ existing independent of the physical body. Some believe this spirit lives temporarily within the physical body and physical world but has no permanent reliance on either. The spirit, they understand, had a presence before their earthly existence and will go on to live in other forms when the current body can no longer serve it.

Being without ‘being’?

This might sound like it is more in the realms of fantasy than reality to some. However, many people have also reported ‘out-of-body’ experiences following a near-death event. This suggests some sense of consciousness existing independent of the body. To the external observer the physical body has temporarily died, but following recovery the person recalls very clearly the period they had been clinically dead. This often involves accounts of people claiming to have ‘left’ their body and being able to look down on events in real time while they were dead.

Increasingly, scientific observations are also suggesting that consciousness can in fact be disembodied. That consciousness can also exist – at least in part and in some way – outside that body. Just like Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr’s brain in the jar, it seems this collection of cells we know as a human being has an unruly consciousness which sometimes ignores the known physical limits of existence and takes it upon itself to step outside the confines of the body it’s meant to be housed within!

Being human

Whatever our take on the human experience is, we often forget how essential our bodies really are to that experience. Whether we do it as embodied spirits or as a random collection of cells governed partly by something we don’t really understand called consciousness – being human is something which, most of the time, we do from ‘inside’ a body which we are aware of, but not necessarily confined to.

Sometimes we are more acutely aware of that body than others. It may be during periods of physical illness or injury, or when our body’s limitations frustrate us. Or it might be when others judge us for our physical appearance, or by what we do or don’t do with our bodies. At times like that, some people have an overwhelming urge to disown their body or to try and change it. From cosmetic surgery and dieting to self-harm and suicide, us humans have developed a huge range of ways in which to articulate our frustration with our embodied existence. Meanwhile, many others deliberately pursue attempts to escape the body momentarily, through meditation or astral projection.

‘Spirit’ or consciousness might exist independently in other ways we are yet to fully understand, but without the body the human experience is diminished. In The Man With Two Brains, Dr Hfuhruhurr discovers the soul he has fallen in love with inhabits a very different body to the one he envisaged, but true love wins through nonetheless. So, this is a reminder to remember how to be a body and how to live in that body, as fully and completely as you can, despite any apparent limitations. Because it won’t always be at your disposal; regardless of what you believe happens once it has gone.