Beyond the Mirror: Who Are You, Really?

Inspired by Meditation: Diamond Bridge Connecting Waking, Dreaming, Deep Sleep, and Beyond by David B. Jacobs

We spend most of our lives looking outward.

We take care of the body. We dress it. We judge it. We measure our health, our age, our appearance. If someone asks who we are, we instinctively point to the physical form.

But pause for a moment.

Is that really you?

In Meditation: Diamond Bridge Connecting Waking, Dreaming, Deep Sleep, and Beyond, David B. Jacobs examines this question without drama or exaggeration. He doesn’t argue. He simply lays out facts — scientific and experiential — that make you reconsider what you’ve always assumed.

The Body Is Not a Fixed Thing

Science makes one fact clear: the body is not solid and unchanging.

Cells are replaced. Blood renews. Skin sheds and regenerates. Even bones rebuild themselves over time. The atoms that form your body are ancient — recycled from the earth and stars.

What you call “my body” is a living process.

And yet, through all this turnover, you feel continuous. The five-year-old you and the present you share the same sense of identity.

If the structure keeps changing, what exactly stays constant?

Jacobs doesn’t dismiss biology. He explains the body as an electrical system, a network of energy and cellular intelligence. But instead of reducing us to machinery, he highlights something more unsettling — the physical form is dynamic, not permanent.

So where does the stable sense of self come from?

What Happens When the Body Rests?

Every night offers a clue.

In dreams, the physical body lies motionless. Yet experience continues. You move, speak, react, sometimes even become aware that you’re dreaming.

Then comes deep sleep — no images, no thoughts, no sense of time. And still, you wake and say, “I slept well.”

Who registered that?

Dr. Jacobs refers to the connection between waking, dreaming, and deep sleep as the “Diamond Bridge.” It represents a layer of awareness that remains present through all states.

If consciousness flows through these shifts, it raises an uncomfortable possibility: maybe awareness isn’t confined to flesh.

The Observer You Rarely Notice

There is something else worth noticing.

You can observe your thoughts. You can say, “I am anxious,” or “I am thinking too much.” That means there is something in you watching the thought.

If thoughts change and emotions rise and fall, but something remains steady enough to observe them, which one is really you?

Dr. Jacobs doesn’t present this as a belief system. He presents it as something to test through meditation. Even a few quiet minutes begin separating the noise from the observer.

The effect isn’t dramatic. It’s clarifying.

And clarity changes how you relate to everything — aging, stress, success, failure. If you are not only the changing body, then you are not limited by it either.

A Larger Frame of Identity

This book does not reject the body. It respects it. It examines it carefully. But it refuses to stop there.

Through science, dream analysis, and disciplined meditation, Dr. Jacobs builds a case for a wider understanding of identity — one that extends beyond what the mirror reflects.

If you’ve ever had the sense that you are more than your circumstances, more than your physical description, more than your past — this book doesn’t dismiss that feeling.

It takes it seriously.

And once you begin questioning who is actually behind your thoughts and experiences, you may find yourself wanting to keep following that thread — because the answer isn’t abstract.

It’s personal.