Michaux is most interested in normal states of consciousness. Abnormal states of consciousness, whether szchizophrenic [spelling?] or drug-induced, serve to bring the NORMAL mechanisms of thought, of which we have a very incomplete idea, into sharper focus. For Michaud, consciousness cannot be immediately available to itself; it cannot be made an easy and unproblematic object of self-consciousness. ("The stomach cannot digest itself") But coming back from a "trip" allows him to discover what it means to think rationally. A surrealist revision of Descartes and Bergson? His insistence on rationality is very Cartesian. (Les grandes épreuves de l'esprit.)