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I'm reading Oliver Sacks' Migraine and thought the following passage about consciousness and the connection to self and body might fit into our conversation.  (These paragraphs come at the end of a passage discussing  "scotoma," which literally means darkness or shadow, and which in this context refers to a particularly severe side affect of some migraines that causes the sufferer to believe a part of his or her body no longer exists):  

 [Gerald] Edelman sees consciousness as arising in the first place from a perceptual integration, coupled with the sense of a historical continuity, a continuous relating of past and present.  "Primary" consciousness, as he terms it, is thus constituted by the perception of a coherent body and world, extended in space (as a "personal" space) and in time (as a "personal" time, or history).  In a deep scotoma all three of these disappear: one can no longer claim for oneself (the left half of) one's body or visual world; it disappears, taking its "place" with it, and it disappears taking its past with it.  

Such a scotoma, then, is a scotoma in primary consciousness, as well as in one's body-ego or primary self.  Such a scotoma will indeed fill one with horror, for one's higher consciousness, higher self, can observe what is happening, but is impotent to do anything about it.  Fortunately, such profound alterations of "self" and consciousness only last for a few minutes in migraine.  But in these few minutes one gets an overwhelming impression of the absolute identity of Body and Mind, and the fact that our highest functions--consciousness and self--are not entities, self-sufficient, "above" the body, but neuropsychological constructs--processes--dependent on the continuity of bodily experience and its integration.

I particularly appreciate Sacks' final observation above--that "our highest functions" are not entities of their own--but are absolutely dependent on their connection and "continuity" to the body; his observations seem to fit well with Prof. Grobstein's model of the "i-function" intricately connected to, but not always intricately involved with, the unconscious.  I look forward to discussing more how mental health and mental illness relate to the disconnect or miscommunication between the two parts.