On Digital Consciousness and Psychic Death

This paper describes states of consciousness in some disturbed or traumatized patients in which time is not experienced as being linked to future or past. The patient's experience in this state is “digital” rather than continuous, making it difficult for him to have an inner sense of continual “aliveness” and to link analytic sessions together. In extreme cases, his world may be experienced as a succession of moments interrupted by little blanks or psychic deaths. The experiential, developmental, and neurobiological aspects of these states are explored with an emphasis on implications for psychoanalytic treatment.