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My earliest memory is of bending down in a Sunday best coat aged about three and turning over a nasturtium leaf and finding a caterpillar. We all have memories. Have you ever examined that memory closely. If I bring that memory back into my mind, I can see the leaf, the hedge behind it and the path to the front gate. But on examining it more closely I see that in fact my point of view is from outside my body. I see myself doing this act, I don't see it through my eyes I don't fully experience the “seeing” of the event. There are no photographs of this event. I am not remembering a snapshot and confusing it with a real event.

I could go on and list other memories and describe the same experience over and over again. This ranges from memories that are over sixty years old to those of more recent times.

You might want to take some time now to examine your own memories making sure none of them come from a photograph.

If we are seeing ourselves in memory from another point of view what does that say about who we are?

Have you experienced thinking thoughts, mulling something over while another part of you is also examining the thoughts and ideas? Have you ever tried to catch a thought? No, it is not sign of madness it’s the way we work. We can observe our brain at work. But who or what is this thing that observes what we do and think and say?

Which is the real you? If your brain is damaged  by time, accident or illness, this other you for want of a better word will still be there intact and whole.

This is the real you. Isn't it? You recognise that don't you?

Referring back to an earlier example I gave about seeing a statue of Buddha in a window, my memory is clearly a view from behind my body. This is a very clear almost dualistic moment, where my emotional self is thinking about falling down on my knees, while the me, that sees the memory, is disagreeing, and knows this is the wrong reaction, well not so much wrong, as misdirected.

So once again we are looking in our mirror and asking the question who am I?