Connaissance par la chute

This paper comes back to Montaigne and Rousseau’ s accounts about two episodes of the loss of consciousness, to take them back to a wider reflection on the awareness in relation to Diderot, Proust, Valéry and Michaux’ thoughts. The identification of an original moment of the self – a sort of anesthetic of the body and an intense sensation of pleasure –, provokes an anxiety mixed with amazement facing the interaction of senses and of the consciousness. In the dramatization of the mental universe, the awakening is the crucial moment recreating the “self” and the world.