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Because of this, Nakata no longer feels totally at home in his body. He believes that during this time, his mind left his body to wander another world, and returned as a blank slate. As a child during World War II, Nakata was involved in a freak accident that put him in a coma-like state for several weeks. Nakata experiences a similar disjuncture between mind and body. But he has also learned how to be at peace with his limited body, an outlook he attempts to share with Kafka. In these ways, he describes his body as an imperfect vessel for his heart and mind, which has brought him frustration and made him feel isolated. He also suffers from hemophilia, which means that any accident could be fatal. Oshima is a transgender man who sees his gender identity as disconnected from his body (or his biological sex). As much as he would like to escape from his body and the reminders it carries of his parents, he feels like he is trapped with his past by virtue of being trapped inside his body. However, he also believes that his body itself is tainted and evil because it is the product of his parents, who abandoned him in his childhood.

Working out makes him feel that his mind is at home in his body, even if only temporarily. For example, Kafka is extremely focused on developing his physical strength, practicing a strict workout regimen.

Ultimately, this awareness makes many of them feel as if they are experiencing the world from within uncomfortable containers. Most characters have a strong sense of their own consciousness as something distinct from, yet trapped in, the body.

To varying degrees of literality, characters in Kafka on the Shore experience their bodies as imperfect containers for their minds or selves. Through his writing, Murakami envisions the mind itself as inextricably linked to the body, despite the ways in which the body can feel frustratingly limited or disconnected from the mind. This theme is enhanced by the form of the novel itself, which slips between perspectives and tenses, allowing the reader to inhabit the minds of different characters and experience their inner thoughts and dream sequences as well as reality. It is deeply concerned with the nature of consciousness and the gap between thoughts and actions. Kafka on the Shore is often described as a metaphysical novel.