Wakefulness can persist without consciousness, and Beckett’s theater stages precisely this state.

Evidence

Neurological case histories must also borrow much from theater— in particular, from Beckett’s theater, whose form might provide inspiration for the staging of neuropathological “cases.” On many occasions, Damasio compares the disorientation of his patients to that of Winnie from Beckett’s Happy Days, who is the incarnation of wakefulness without consciousness. … Indeed, it is quite possible that consciousness can be absent from the state of wakefulness: “Patients with some neurological conditions … are awake and yet lack what core consciousness would have added to their thought process: images of knowing centered on a self.” — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 1259

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes wakefulness from core consciousness — a neurological meaning the psychoanalytic framework lacks.
• XREF: Beckett as the form for neuropathology connects to Malabou’s broader argument that brain damage escapes the narrative/meaning structure of psychoanalysis; also resonates with the reader’s interest in destructive plasticity.