Between My Body and My "dead Body"

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

This article is based on narrative research that focuses on corporeal experience during coma and during the rehabilitation process. Seventeen participants from different areas of Israel who had been in various kinds of coma states reveal what the corporeal experience of coma is. The participants are divided into three types of narrative protagonists - "dead-alive," "rational," and "emissaries." Each of the participants redefined the boundaries of the body, especially in cases when they spoke of experiences they did not understand as corporeal, for example, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, or experiences of being between the earthly and unearthly. Their struggle to find suitable words to tell their coma stories emphasizes these boundaries between experiencing and telling, which crossed the normative discursive border of the medical establishment and illustrates the ambiguous nature of human existence.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)227-240
Number of pages14
JournalQualitative Health Research
Volume26
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2015.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the Minerva Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the End of Life, Tel Aviv University.

FundersFunder number
Tel Aviv University

    Keywords

    • body
    • coma
    • narrative research
    • near-death experience
    • unconscious

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