A more accurate idea of a what a puthujjana (S., prithagjana) is, in one word, is profane. In the religious sense a putthujjana is someone who has not entered the supermundane path—someone who is not a srotâpanna (a current winner).
So hyper-subtle and supermundane (lokuttara) is the Buddha’s path, that few can actually enter it. Neither Buddhist monastics nor Buddhist laypersons are automatically non-puthujjanas. Far from it. Unless they have won the current (srotâpanna) which leads to nirvana, they fall into the category of puthujjana whom the Buddha called outsiders (bahiro).
“In whom, monks, altogether and in every way there are not these five faculties [faith, wisdom, energy, mindfulness concentration which are all supramundane], of him I say 'An outsider (bahiro), one who stands on the commoner's (puthujjana) side’” (S. v. 202).
The puthujjana naturally and unconsciously takes his psychophysical body to be his self, a kind of naive realism you could say. It is the measure of all things for him. The puthujjana also understands his self was born and it will die. For the Buddhist who is not a puthujjana he doesn't see his self as the self which is born and will die. There is a subtle difference between a mundane self and one that is supermundane. This explains why the Buddha rejected the Five Aggregates as being the actual self.
In addition, puthujjanas perceiving their psychophysical body are affected by permanence, pleasure, and a sense of 'self' which the Buddha calls "distortions" (vipallâsa). Because of these distortions beings become established in psychophysical body (pañca-khandha). One can only describe this as getting embodied—certainly not dis-embodied which would fall under nirvana.