Discorporation, or You're More Than a Brain in a Jar

05 Oct, 2026

Content Warnings: vomiting, dissociation, covid-19 pandemic, minor body horror, death

A few weeks ago, Joan He, an author I follow and admire, posted a note, anachronism.

The latter half resonated with me, particularly where He questions if she will always be herself even without a face, a voice, a body, etc. That she will still exist in the works that she has made.

He is, of course, talking about the pressures put on authors to also be marketing experts and to place themselves in front of the camera to sell their books. This is not something I am burdened with (thankfully), but it is still exceptionally similar to what I had felt during the pandemic, a feeling I had tucked away into a tiny corner and try not to think about.

During the pandemic, I had been isolating at home for more than a year while completing my undergraduate degree. Students had the option to go back to campus but still attend classes remotely, but my parents and I were cautious¹ and I remained at home.

I still think of that time period as a long blur. I'm really not sure what I did while home². Living with my parents was strenuous enough³, but existing in such acute physical isolation after experiencing the whirlwind of social interactions in my first year of college was startling. I went from managing my own social calendar and staying out till near midnight to making sure I vacuumed on Sunday afternoons.

Like many others, I spent a lot of time on my computer, even if I didn't really talk to anyone. This was around the time when I finally settled into my art style and was posting new illustrations that I was and still am proud of. This high of creation, of finally making something that reflected myself, was tempered by my disconnect to my body.

What good is my body if everything meaningful I do is online?

If my life can be reduced to assignments submitted online and Zoom calls absorbed and art pieces digitally made and posted, why do I even need a body? Why can't I just be a brain in a jar, hooked up to a computer, and live out the rest of my days like that?

This thought haunted me. It nagged at me as I logged on to attend Zoom class every morning, as I reached for my Wacom tablet to draw in Photoshop. I imagined what it would be like, just to be a lump of tissue in an amniotic fluid, continuing on with the same electrical signals as before but directly connected to my world on the computer.

I had sketched out the first page of a comic⁴ about it in 2021, before abandoning the pursuit. It read

SOMETIMES i feel like i could be a brain in a jar from a creepy sci-fi novel.

AND NO ONE WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

HOW COULD THEY?

I don't know why I didn't finish it. That time has been scrubbed from my memory, and it could have been because I didn't want to examine the feeling further or because it was too private of a topic to share while I was still suffering or just because of regular artist's block.

Brain in a jar is not a new concept⁵. The separation of mind and body is not a new concept. From Descartes' dualism to the first instance of 'mind over matter' by Lyell to modern technofascist transhumanism⁶. It's a popular science fiction trope. Just last month I read The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee⁷, which prominently features and contemplates 'jarbrains' who are people whose brains are transplanted into new bodies to extend their lifespan.

I understand that becoming a brain in a jar and maintaining sentience is not possible or practical or scientifically feasible. It's not just impossible, it's also a cruel objectification of my own body. But mental health issues are not logical, and this was my pervasive thought as I dissociated from my own body while in isolation.

In many ways, it's not the brain in a jar specifically that I was fixated on, but the overall concept of only my mind existing. Discorporating. Becoming bodiless.

And it originates from a a question of value. At the time, I perceived all my value lied in what I created. Or rather, I perceived that all the value everyone else obtained from me was in what I created, which was exclusively digital during the pandemic.

I found this excruciating in contrast to, of all things, faceless Internet personalities.

In the height of the pandemic there was Corpse Husband, a Twitch streamer who popularized by playing the mutiplayer social deduction video game Among Us. He never showed his face, only random snippets of a hand or lock of hair or something of the like that would send fans into a frenzy. I was fascinated by fans' fixation on finding out what he looked like. They wanted to know who he was. People tried to stalk or dox him, and there were posts claiming to expose him as someone less conventionally attractive than what his fans perceive.

It struck me, this contrast between my belief that I could be subsumed into a purely digital existence and no one would care; and the world's desire to tear this one man out of his digital existence and into reality.

What must it be like to be wanted, valued, so physically, so carnally, and by so many people?

It may be a little heady at first, but ultimately it must be a terrifying experience, to have people wishing to expose you without your consent. But as before, mental health issues are not logical. And though I objectively knew that this experience must be scary, I also yearned for how grounding it must be. That people valued the slice of your mind online so much that they burn to know more of you. That they want anything they can get, and that extends into manifesting your physicality.

It reminds me of Cinderella.

To me, the core of the Cinderella story is not rags-to-riches⁸. It is the fantasy that someone can want you so deeply from the briefest exposure that they'll pursue you on the unlikeliest of gambles for a mere chance to see you again.

Cinderella has always been my favorite fairytale in retellings, even knowing all its flaws. Part of that was the yearning of a young girl wanting to escape her parents' strictness, and part of it was this, I think. The yearning to be known, to be wanted.

I am an only child. I remember spending a lot of time entertaining myself, hosting tea parties for my stuffed animals, and begging my parents to play with me. I had gotten used to the isolation of being an only child. It's not so bad when you're surrounded by people, in school and forced to socialize with each other.

But the sudden pandemic and the ensuing isolation obliterated what ground work I laid down to quench this yearning, acutely painful in contrast to the busy rush of college life I had just left behind. For Cinderella, it's a yearning to be known beyond a short masked dance. For me, it is a yearning to be known beyond what I create. With nothing to dull the edge of this feeling, I dissociated from my body, thought I did not need it, that people did not care if I had one.

I thought I could be summed up by my creations.

I was wrong.

Dr. Frankenstein may have his creation wrongly called by his own name, but he is more than his monster and you and I are more than what we create.

When I was on the plane back to college, I vomited during landing.

I had never vomited due to motion sickness before. It was a repulsive experience, masked in my KN95 and breathing in stale air and suddenly so overcome by my awareness of my surroundings, of my own body and its fallibility to the world around it, that something had to be evicted.

It had become foreign to be subject to the needs of my body once more. How, after months of being ghost-like on flat, steady tile, I was suddenly jostled in a shaky tin can gliding through the air. That something was shaking me, "Wake up. WAKE UP."

Suddenly my body had meaning again. Suddenly I needed it -- not only needed it, but needed it to be strong for me.

Emerging from isolation, a bear blinking the sleep of hibernation away, relieved most of the burden of those intrusive, dissociative thoughts once more. It's harder to dissociate when you have something to do and something to look forward to, and as abruptly as my life had paused, it began again.

I am fundamentally changed by my experience during the pandemic. It goes beyond a new penchant for motion sickness and into a timidity and tiredness that I did not have when I was freshly 18. Maybe that's just what comes with aging or from being part of a global traumatic event that many would rather forget.

I take care now to remember that my body is important. I go to work every day in person⁹, running around fixing problems. I go to dance class and feel the strength of my movement. I joined a chorus and hear how my voice adds to many others. Even as I resume creating, largely in the isolation of my own home, I remember.

I am more than just a brain in a jar. I am more than what I make.

But. What I make is also more than me.

At the end of He's note, she writes

won't I still exist

when I no longer am, only the words in my brain

that once, long ago, made it to

keyboard to screen to page

in the book that you open?

And I think both can coexist. You can have value outside of what you create, what you contribute to society.

To say it explicitly: You inherently have value. Even if you never make anything, even if you rot on your couch for eternity, I would still care. About your mind, about your body, not as an object, but as a part of you. I know it can be hard in our world amidst dysmorphia and unrealistic beauty standards and relentless advertising telling you that you are not enough, but you are.

And if you do create, what you create may also live long past you. Someone else might look at it or read it or experience it and think of the person who made it so many years ago.

It's a comfort and an irony to me. To think that what I made at the height of my dissociation could live on when I finally do discorporate. That the arms of death will come for us all, and that we might as well enjoy the pleasures and privileges we get with our physical existence before it embraces us.

You're more than what you make, but what you make is also more than you.

Footnotes

#essay #life