The self split into subject and object can only be dreamed, never lived.

Evidence

In truth, it is not possible to be for self positively Other and grasp oneself as object in the light of consciousness. Doubling is only dreamed. For the child, it is the doll that materializes this dream; she recognizes herself in it more concretely than in her own body because there is separation between the two. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1785

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies why doubling (treating oneself as Other) is structurally impossible — a core existentialist claim about consciousness.
• XREF: connects to: Only the dead remain permanent objects, never revealing themselves as subjects — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 797; Human fulfillment lies in perpetual surpassing, never in attained rest — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 589