Each of us has felt altered by reading. And many reader-response theories - both hermeneutical and phenomenological - have investigated the cognitive content of such altered states. But less explored is the role that preconscious and unconscious physiological processes play in effecting cognitive and affective change. This panel takes a 'body-oriented', 'bottom-up' approach in order to develop a new somatic foundation for reading and interpretation. It focuses less on what happens in the text but on observing and tracking readers' internal bodily sensations, images, feelings and snapshot memories as they emerge in the reading process. By reframing literary reading through the body, it aims to reach a more concrete understanding of how unconscious and somatic processes created by literary texts grounds or undermines our sense of self and identity.