# The Body Map Theory –chapter 5 of Mind the Body **Opening (not a real abstract):** Imagine that you have a cross on a map indicating, “You are here”, but the map is blank: there is no reference point and no orientation. The cross is then of little interest. It is only when you put tracing paper with information drawn on it over the blank map that you can know where you are. Likewise, if the only spatial information that one had came from somatosensory signals, then bodily sensations would be experienced as located at isolated body points, as mere “here” or “there”. This is more than what the local sign theory assumes but this is still relatively poor. To achieve a rich spatial content, I will argue that one needs a map of the body that is a representation of the enduring properties of the body, including its configuration and its dimensions. This representation of the body can be decoupled from the biological body leading the subject to **Authors:** [[Frédérique de Vignemont]]