Stillness Speaks. But Who is Listening?

I've been reading Eckart Tolle's Stillness Speaks, which is a pithy (paragraphically speaking) collection of distilled nuggets from his earlier work, The Power of Now, and his ongoing seminars.

It's the kind of stuff that will give you a stroke if you think about it too hard. Which might explain my occasional aphasia. I've been going to sleep these last few nights with such embolism inducing thoughts as, "The truth is: you are not somebody who is aware of the tree, the thought, feeling, or experience. You are the awareness or consciousness in and by which those things appear."

And, "'I am bored.' Who knows this? 'I am angry, sad, afraid.' Who knows this? You are the knowing, not the condition that is known."

And my all time favorite vessel popper: "Then accept what is. Yes. Bring acceptance into your nonacceptance. Bring surrender into your nonsurrender. Then see what happens."
See what happens?

What happens is that the whole left side of my body seems to have gone numb and I have a splitting headache out of nowhere. Which got me thinking, if I'm not me, or my thoughts, or even the observed content that appears on my field of consciousness, but I'm the observer--what does it feel like to not exist? I wondered about this as a child, and tried to imagine it. That's where I got a head start on my embolism, I think.

Does it hurt to not exist?
It hurts to exist, certainly, but what is the sensation of not being?
Is it like sleeping, or is it like never sleeping?
Is it a state of constant desire, hunger?
Or is it a massive black hole of apathy?

Ow, my head hurts.

Cindy