There is a specific quality of experience that almost everyone in the Opathian state recognizes immediately when it is named. You are present in the room. You are engaged in the conversation. You are doing all the correct things that constitute participation in a moment. And somewhere, slightly above or behind or outside of it all, there is a you that is watching the you in the room, and the two of you are not entirely the same person.

The Opathian state develops when a child's nervous system makes a specific calculation: full emotional presence is too dangerous. The environments that produce this calculation are not always dramatic.