Dissociation can be understood as an uncoupling of consciousness, analogous to the "dreamy state" described by Hughlings Jackson. Jackson's theories, grounded in an experimental investigation of mind, viewed the self as double and focused on disruptions of the self system. The dreamy state involves a loss of the most recently developed forms of memory and of the stream of consciousness. Jacksonian theory predicts the main features of dissociation: constriction of consciousness, a particular form of amnesia, disaggregation of perceptual phenomena, depersonalization, derealization, and hallucinosis. The author provides a preliminary framework for a systematic and dynamic understanding of dissociation through this lens.
Traumatic memories are qualitatively different from nontraumatic memories because trauma uncouples consciousness, diminishing the subject-object distinction. This leads to a present-focused state, nonepisodic unconscious memory recording, a fused representation of the traumatized-traumatizer dyad as a monad rather than two persons, and unstable sequestration causing rapid reversals in relatedness. The interpretation of the traumatic event's meaning is impaired and determined by affect.