The intriguing case of Multiple Personalities

A good intro to Multiple Personalities... from the following site: http://www.spiritlink.com/scrmpd.html

Multiple Personalities: A Multiple Choice Examination by S. M. Berry

You're having a conversation with Mandie, a slender, attractive young woman. It's a casual chat about nothing in particular between friends. You take out a package of cigarettes and immediately sense a change, as if the atoms in the oxygen around you were slowing slightly. Perhaps you hear an electrical snap, the kind of sound you hear when the air is charged with static electricity and you flip on a light switch. Your friend's body twitches slightly and her demeanor changes. Shoulders square, she puts her feet flat on the floor and assumes an instinctively masculine pose. Bracing her hands on her knees, she leans toward you, and says in a voice that has dropped two octaves, "Excuse me, ma'am. I really favor those cigarettes you got there. Mind if I have one? I'd be most beholdin' to you." Mandie is gone. Brent has popped in, literally. Perhaps you and Mandie are walking from your car to the grocery store. As you cross the parking lot her gait abruptly changes. Her steps are smaller, slower, clumsier. She grabs your hand and says, "This is a really big street with cars on it. We got to hold hands and look both ways." Little Emily has bumped Mandie.

Mind bending experiences, unless you live with someone who has multiple personalities, in which case they are everyday occurrences. For half a year I shared my home with Mandie, who in turn shared one body with forty-five "others" that she called the Insiders. Mandie herself was in her late twenties, single, of Amerasian heritage, while the Insiders ran the gamut from a crayon eating six year old girl named Emily to a rugged cowboy, Brent, who strove at all times to be gentlemanly. There was hard drinking Fayette, a true honky tonk woman, and Bull, with big muscles, a small brain and a heart of gold. Vera was a white witch who made "inside magic", a sweet natured woman who was all thumbs when dealing with the material world. Sam began as some type of indeterminate animal, then blossomed into a full human being, naming himself the acronym of my maiden name. Living with them forced me to re-examine my easy acceptance of psychiatric dogma and challenged my concepts about Self and Soul.

Modern psychiatry categorizes multiple personality disorder (MPD) as a "hysterical neurosis". It is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia because auditory hallucinations -- such as hearing voices -- are common to both conditions. One psychiatric authority cites certain types of auditory hallucinations, for example, hearing a running commentary on the patient's actions or of voices talking about the person, which are strongly suggestive of schizophrenia. At the same time, DSM-III-R, the psychiatric trade manual that lists and describes all recognized mental and psychological disorders, says of MPD: "One or more of the personalities may be aware of hearing or having heard the voices of the other personalities." Another symptom common to both is failure to coordinate internal drives. Certainly several personalities in one body disagreeing with one another would appear to be a failure to coordinate internal drives. A key differentiating factor between MPD and schizophrenia, at least in terms of initial diagnosis, is losing time, having no memory of things that occur while an alter personality is in charge of the body. MPD is also associated with severe trauma during childhood, usually sexual and physical abuse; to cope with abuse, the child withdraws and allows another consciousness to absorb the pain. With repeated trauma, the integrated personality becomes splintered and the protective consciousnesses take on lives of their own.

So goes the orthodox theory. The problem is that this answer raises more questions. Why don't all victims of child abuse develop MPD? And how do we explain MPD in people who were not abused or otherwise traumatized as children? Is this truly a mental illness, or is it a condition that is brought to the attention of mental health professionals because one or more of the alter personalities is dysfunctional or psychotic, prompting inappropriate generalizations to be applied to an entire group? I think of this as the Neanderthal error. The first remains of a Neanderthal found by anthropologists were those of a man who had been crippled by arthritis. His hunched back and bent arms and legs were presumed to be the norm for all Neanderthals for many years, a misconception that persists to this day in our images of "cavemen". DSM-III-R notes that, "[r]ecent reports suggest that this disorder is not nearly so rare as it has commonly been thought to be." Could it be that there are actually many people with multiple personalities living productive lives, with no history of abuse and no psychotic alter egos? And if that is the case, how did they get to be the way they are? What is the true nature of Self, and what is its relationship to Soul?

One of the greatest sources of spiritual understanding was Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet of Virginia Beach. In his readings Cayce did not directly address the issue of multiple personalities, though he spoke of discarnate entities who can possess the body of a living person, and discussed as well the impact of past lives on the life currently being lived. These encompass the primary spiritual theories regarding MPD. One theory holds that MPD is caused by spirits -- not necessarily benevolent ones at that -- taking over a person's body. (The currently used term for this is spirit attachment.) The Bible recounts several stories of people possessed by demons, and Jesus healed such a man, who when asked his name replied, "My name is Legion, for we are many." The other MPD theory is that past life personalities usually merged within the sum total of who we each are have splintered and re-established themselves as individuals. This theory suggests a physical predisposition as the cause of the splintering; in other words, some people are just born that way.

Of the forty-five Insiders, one stood discordantly apart and made a strong case for spirit attachment. Phantom was the embodiment of rage and self-hate. Mandie, and for that matter any of the Insiders who might be out at the time, could sense his coming the way we can feel a powerful summer storm building on the horizon. They feared Phantom, with good reason, and seemed powerless to stop him. Phantom came at weak moments and launched attacks on the body, muttering that it was "dead meat", burning it with cigarettes or lighters, or hacking at Mandie's wrists with kitchen knives or broken glass. During these attacks he was absolutely focused on harming the body, and although he never attacked anyone else, physically subduing him in these situations was dangerous. Several Insiders tried to set up defenses against Phantom, particularly Brent, Bull and another who called himself Gatekeeper, but they were rarely successful. While those Insiders who discussed the subject had confidence that each of them had a soul, they were equally certain that Phantom did not. (This is a measure of the distance and difference they felt toward Phantom.) They described him as a shadow, a reflection of something substantial that no longer had substance but regained terrible power whenever he overtook the body. Donna was an Insider who embodied all that is maternal and nurturing and who practiced the philosophy that it is better to say nothing than to speak ill of someone else. Even she complained about Phantom, noting that it was bad enough that they all had to share one body and then had to contend with him trying to kill it. To his credit, I suppose, once subdued, Phantom would leave when told to do so. The problem was that he kept coming back. He was an outsider among the Insiders.

-Michel- ... to be continued... [Edite le 28-5-2005 par GODalso]

Another important segment from the same M.P. article Edit

Another interesting segment of the MP story

I can't believe it ! What's really fantastic is that as soon as I think of an unusual subject I want to learn more about, I come across exactly what I was hoping for, or better, on the very first, or at most second, search round on the Internet. That reminds me of the way I was innerly guided to the book on reincarnation in that Paris book store right after E1. I love that feeling!

Now, without further ado, here is the next, better-than-expected, segment of that previous story (note all the ramifications!):

-GODalso-

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(continuation of article at http://www.spiritlink.com/scrmpd.html

S. M. Berry -- "But what of the rest of the Insiders? Were they a cluster of essentially benevolent spirits taking turns possessing Mandie's body or were they more deeply rooted within Mandie? Did they have individual souls, or did they and Mandie share the same Oversoul?

Although many of the Insiders were fragmentary personalities with limited memory and ability to interact with the outside world, some were full, well rounded and yes, well balanced individuals. I found myself relating to them individually, finding a greater sense of familiarity with some than with others, the feeling that I had known certain Insiders before. My own experiences with past life recall served as a frame of reference, even though I did not consciously set out in that direction. The personalities of those I have been are an integral part of who I am now; those whose experiences lie at the heart of lessons I am learning (or re-learning) in this life have been spilling into my consciousness since childhood.

Sarah comes first to mind because her memories came first to consciousness in this life. She was a slave in antebellum Virginia who escaped to the north via the Underground Railroad, gaining her freedom but at the cost of leaving behind her children. During my earliest years, Sarah would look for them through my eyes, jolting both of us when we would catch a glimpse of the body in the mirror. Expecting black skin, brown eyes, black hair, we saw instead the opposite, fair skin, blue eyes, blond hair. I would stare at the image and repeat my name aloud until I felt that I came back together. Perhaps that sounds strange, but it worked. Gradually Sarah found her own place as a part of me, though one from which I draw in meeting today's challenges.

Gaius is another past life personality within me whom I deeply feel. A lawyer during the demise of the Roman Republic, he saw what was happening and did nothing. Gaius' inaction was rooted in a desire to protect his personal status quo, and by the time Julius Caesar was assassinated it was too little, too late. The sense of sadness that descends over me every March 15 originates in Gaius. It is unlikely that he could have changed the course of history and saved the Roman Republic, but he never even tried, and that is the lesson brought into this life. There are others as well, ranging from resonant tones of remembrance reverberating through the core of being to wispy, fleeting fragments prompted by a breeze, a sunset, a scent that stirs memory.

What sets apart my past life personalities from Mandie's Insiders (with the notable exception of Phantom, of course) is the integration of these former expressions of my soul. I can sense them, draw as needed on what they learned and apply it to situations in the here and now. When the Insiders began to assert themselves, Mandie was pushed aside to what she called "the dark place," a place where there is no light, no sound and no time. That could have happened to me early in childhood when Sarah began to spill into my consciousness and to a degree, take it over. Fortunately it did not happen, though I have no idea why I was able to integrate these alter egos and Mandie was not. There was no trauma in Mandie's childhood to set off such a splintering. She -- and they -- seem simply to have been born that way.

So which answer is correct, which explanation true? Is MPD (a) the result of spirit attachment or (b) the expression of unintegrated past life personalities? I choose (c) all of the above. Moreover, at least in Mandie's case, I think the two are interrelated. The splintering of past life personalities into separate identities created a vulnerability that enables other entities such as Phantom to enter and take over. (...) The full answers to the questions surrounding MPD may not come in this dimension. The best responses to it, however, are found when Science joins with Spirit to meet the needs of the Soul."

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I'll add my own comments to this story later! In the meantime, S.M. Berry's conclusion sounds good to me.

-Michel/GODalso-

Note: there are several more intriguing stories on that same site. Such as:

"Excerpts from The Next Step In Evolution by Vincent Cole

Inspiring with it's unique insight into the origins of mankind as well as a practical guide, "The Next Step in Evolution" guides beginner and dedicated seeker alike upon a challenging journey of self-discovery and transformation." --- "On A Rainswept Road In South Dakota-2003

What can a Savannah-born Anglo-Saxon redhead living and working on the Sicangu Brule Lakota Indian Reservation in South Dakota learn from a 70-something Lakota chief -- besides how to drive a car?" --- "A Sabbath Life by Kathleen Hirsch I began to suspect that achievement could take a form uniquely as a woman . . . and that it might contribute something of singular and irreplaceable value to the culture in which I live.

How can busy women's lives be more spiritually alive and whole? How,in our most productive years, can we reclaim what we sacrificed in the earlier struggle for success? Kathleen Hirsch's search search gradually impels her to seek out a range of remarkable spiritually and socially attuned women who are consciously trying to live more balanced and integrated lives. They lead her to conclusions that will inspire many women who at midlife are seeking a deeper and more abiding wholeness." --- "Boundless Healing Meditation Exercises to Enlighten the Mind and Heal the Body by Tulku Thondup (a Tibetan) Boundless Healing offers: ways to employ the four healing powers: positive images, positive words, positive feelings, and positive belief detailed healing exercises that can be done individually or as part of a twelve-stage program exercises for dispelling anxiety healing prayers for the dying and the deceased, plus advice for helpers and survivors. Click here." --- "After The Darkest Hour How Suffering Begins The Journey To Wisdom By Kathleen A. Brehony, Ph.D. What are the differences between people who become bitter and those who grow stronger through difficult or painful experiences? What can each of us learn that will guide us through our own dark nights of the soul to see the dawn with vision cleared? Kathleen Brehony asks these universal questions and offers answers that fit our lives. " --- "Click HERE for an excerpt from

How to Know God by Deepak Chopra The Soul's Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries" --- "Remote Holographic Psyche Healing... A Great Wave of The Future by Carol Hathor When soul memory is absolved into soul wisdom, a person becomes awesome in their consciousness." --- + "Phases of Life After Death by Irma Slage

The Man from Nowhere by Michael Levy

Begin from Where You Are. You want a richer, more fulfilling life. But where do you start?

"The Message of the Wolves a spiritual story and journey. Learn more about your own spiritual journey with Paschal Baute. Dream wolves lead an abused woman to freedom."

"Spiritual Consciousness An inspiring true story." Spiritual Consciousness By Doug Berry We are spiritual beings (powerful spiritual beings) having a physical experience

My Journey By Paula Farmer A true story of healing the spirit and the body. "

"Head Songs"

(Sheila Martin Berry) It happens to everybody. You're just going about living, minding your own business, when a song starts running through your head. It's so subtle initially that when you become aware of it, you may wonder how long it has been playing there inside your head. You may wonder where it came from, especially if it's a song you haven't heard since you can't remember when, and even more so if it's a tune you don't particularly care for. Could there be something more to these "head songs" -- psychic messages, perhaps?

What's the Big Idea or The Long and Winding Road (Shane Roberts) Seth, who described himself as "an intelligence residing outside time and space," was channeled by Jane Roberts for over twenty-one years. The Seth material joins mysticism and physics and opens the consciousness to both its source and its destination. Shane Roberts follows the ultimate logic of Seth's teachings, that "there are no limits to the self" and "there are no real separations in the self," leading finally to identification with All That Is, to an understanding of Enlightenment and its meaning in individual experience." --- "Discernment: An Initiation (Sheila M. Berry) How thin is the veil between the third dimension of the material world and the fourth dimension of spirits who have passed to the "interbetween?" Vivid dream visitations from departed loved ones, a song with special meaning to the two of you, the scent of flowers and the feeling that he or she is there, with you - are these imagination, wishful thinking, coincidence, or real? How can you tell the difference? And what do you say to a spirit you don't know who asks you to pass along a message for him? Perhaps Sheila Berry's experiences will help you discern the answers." _________________

Multiple personalities - a psychological study Edit

(on page 8 of the WM/Lyricus forum - post by TravelerDiogenes.)

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T.D.- (pp 97-100 of the Holographic Universe) " Another condition that graphically illustrates the mind's power to affect the body is Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). In addition to possessing different brain-wave patterns, the subpersonalities of a multiple have a strong psychological separation from one another. Each has his own name, age, memories, and abilities. Often, each also has his own style of handwriting, announced gender, cultural and racial background, artisitic talents, foreign language fluency, and IQ. Even more noteworthy are the biological changes that take place in a multiple's body when they switch personalities. Frequently a medical condition possessed by one personality will mysteriously vanish when another personality takes over. Dr. Bennet Braun of teh International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality, in Chicago, has documented a case in which all of a patient's subpersonalities were allergic to orange juice, except one. If the man drank orange juice when one of his allergic personalities was in control, he would break out in a terrible rash. But if he switched to his nonallergic personality, the rash would instantly start to fade and he could drink orange juice freely.

Dr. Francine Howland, a Yale psychiatrist who specializes in treating multiples, relates an even more striking incident concerning one mulitpple's reaction to a wasp sting. On the occasion in question, the man showed up for his scheduled appointment with Howland with his eye swollen comletely shut from a wasp sting. Realizing he needed mediacl attention, Howland called an opthalmologist. Unfortunately, the soonest the opthalmologist could see the man was an hour later, and because the man was in severe pain, Howland decided to try something. As it turned out, one of the man's alternatees was an "anasthetic personality" who felt absolutely no pain. Howland had the anasthetic personality take control of the body, and the pain ended. But something else also happened. By the time the man arrived at his appointment with the opthalmologist, the swelling was gone and his eye had returned to normal. Seeing no need to treeat him, the opthalologist sent him home.

After a while, however, the anasthhetic personality relenquished control of the body, and the man's original personality returned, along with all the pain and swelling of the wassp sting. The next day, he went back to the opthalmologist to at last be treated...

Allergies are not the only thing mulitples can switch on and off. If there was any doubt as to the control the unconsious mind has over drug effects, it is banished by the pharmacological wizardry of the multiple. By changing personalities, a multiple who is drunk can becomce instantly sober. Different personalities also respond to different drugs. Braun records one case in which 5 millgrams of diazepam, a tranquilizer, sedated one personality, while 100 millrgams had little or no effect on another. Often one or sveral of a multiple's personalities are children, and if an adult personality is given a drug and then a child's personality takes over, the adult doseage may be too much for the child and result in an overdose. It is also difficult to anesthitize some multipples, and there are accounts of multiples waking up on the operating table after one of the "unanesthetizable" subpersonalities takes over.

Other conditions that can vary from personality to personality include scars, burn marks, cysts, and left- and right-handedness. Visual acuity can differ, and some mulitples have to carry two or three different pairs of eyeglasses to accomodate their alternating personalities. One personality can be color-blind and another not, and even eye color can change[!!!]. There are cases of women who have two or three menstrual periods each month because each of their subpersonalities has its own cycle. Speech pathologist Chritsy Ludlow has found that the voice pattern for each of a multiple's personalities is different, a feat that requires such a deep physiological change that even the most accomplished actor cannot alter his voice enough to disguise his voice pattern. One multiple, admitted to a hospital for diabetes, baffeled her doctors by showing no symptoms wheen one of her nondiabetic personalities was in control. There are even cases of epilepsy coming and going with changes in personality, and psychologist Robert A. Phillips, Jr., reports that even tumors can appear and disappear (although he does not specify what kind of tunors).

Multiples heal faster than normal individuals.... [and] one researcher is convinced that multiples don't age as fast as other people. How could such things be? At a recent symposium on the multiple personality syndrome, a multiple named Cassandra provided a possible answer. Cassandra attributes her own rapid healing ability both to the visualization technique she practices and to something she calls parallel processing. As she explained it, even when her alteernate personalities are not in control of her body,, tehy are still aware. This enables her to "think" on a mulititude of different channels at once, to do things like work on several different term papers simultaneously, and even "sleep" while other personalities prepare her dinner and clean the house...

... We are deeply attached to the inevitability of things. If we have bad vision, we believe ww will have bad vision for life, and if we suffer from diabetes, we do not for a moment think that our condition might vanish with a change in mood or thought. But the phenomenon of mulitple personality disorder challenges tis belief and offers futher evidence of just how much our psychological states can effect the body's biology... it appears that the body... can switch from one biological state to another as rapidly as the fluttering of a deck of cards.

The system of control that must be in place to account for such capacities is mind-boggling and makes our ability to will away a wart look pale. Allergic reaction to a wasp sting is a complex and multi-faceted process and involves the organized activity of antibodies, the production of histamine, the dialtion and rupture of blood vessels, the excess release of immune substances, and so on. What unknown pathways of influence enable the mind of a multiple to freeze all these processes in their tracks? Or what allows them to suspend the affects of alcohol and other drugs in the blood, or turn diabetes on and off? At the moment we don't know and must console ourselves with one simple fact. Once a multiple hs undergone therapy and in some way becomes whole again, he or she can still make these switches at will. This suggests that somewhere in our psyches we all have the ability to control these things."

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