Are Multiple Personalities real consciousness?

I just saw the movie 'Identity' (you can search for it on google) and I got to thinking, are multiple personalities the result of a fragmented consciousness or are there just multiple consciousnesses in a physical mind. Perhaps, the mind is fractured to allow for the multiple consciousnesses. And when I say consciousness, I mean more than a state of self-awareness, I mean like a soul.

Beyond self awareness there is only one conciousness and it is universal. Universal conciousness exists in tandem with reality. That ain't metaphysics it's quantum physics.

I think it's one consciousness. The personality is splintered because of trauma, stress, abuse or stuff the person does'nt want to remember or wants to block off. I don't think we can have more than one soul.
Some people think some multiple personality disorders could be demon possession.

I have a close family member who suffers from multiple personalities. I think that people only have one state of self awareness. However this state of awareness changes often. Sometimes the person will like a certain TV show and half a day later they suddenly wouldn�t even think about watching the same show they liked 8 hours earlier. The worse thing is that the persons mood can change very quickly they go from being happy to extremely grumpy almost nasty in a heart beat. Posters this is the best way I could describe my reply sorry if it doesn�t make much sense.

My Psych books goes into this little bit. According to it, people have different left and right lobes in the brain, as you know one is associated with emotion, learning other with memories etc.

It says that in some people one lobe takes over the another for some time, during that we do stuff and and after some time the lobe returns back to normal and the brain doesn't have any memory of it, because the lobe that is associated with memory lies dormat during the mulitle personality state.

Therefore we could do things and have no memory of it later.

Not exactly what you call a perfect theory, but better than nothing, especially good in asking the right questions.

As for the question, we can't make a good guess unless we have more info on this.

[edit on 9/10/2004 by surfup]

YEs states of minds change and can change very rapidly.

State of awareness and self awareness can also cahnge rapidly.


For instance, My friend once showed me how he viewed the world. How he actually views the world. Not "i reckon this of the world and this and this and this" . How he would be walking around, interacting with peple, and how his thought processing would be like, what he would take in, what he would see, hear, know, etc.

He showed me how he had been analyzing the world and everuything int he world for 1.5 years.... And damn it was scary. Was cool for about 0.5 of an hour, but after that it was scary. It was like oyu weren't haviong fun anymore, oyu were just analysing everything, picking up everything, sensing everything. But in the end it wasn't in a good way. It was just a form of paranoia.
I was looking through the world through my paranoids friends eyes for about 1 week. I hated it. I finally just got myself to relax, calmthe # down and get out of the way he viewd the world and analyzed the world, back to how i viewed and lived in the world.

But i have to say that that experience, i will never forget. You would see soo many things that people had hidden away.... Opened my mind a heap.

But damn, i still dont want to get into that state of mind again.

Doing a search on DSM IV, look for the list which will gv you definitions
for different disorders.
Hope it helps!

Originally posted by DaRAGE
For instance, My friend once showed me how he viewed the world. How he actually views the world. Not "i reckon this of the world and this and this and this" . How he would be walking around, interacting with peple, and how his thought processing would be like, what he would take in, what he would see, hear, know, etc.

Could you expand more on this? Sounds interesting.

What exactly do you mean? Like being able to talk to yourself and having another voice respond?

Yea, I was talking about people talking to themselves, but being different people and those totally unaware of any seperate entities. But, to redefine my question, are these seperate human essences. Because, when we define what MPD is, we are also defining humanity to an extent.

In response to xpert, I was wondering if you could tell us more, like are there different people you talk to, that proclaim to be different people.

Are there different degrees of MPD?

And, what would it be like if we had multiple, separate states of awareness existing at the same time.

BTW, the movie 'Identity' is awesome, it will totally take you by surprise.

Here is a history of the disorder by way of the Diagnostic and Statiscal Manual of Mental Disorders. Please note that these definitions come from three succeeding editions of the DSM and that the name of the disorder changes:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) Criteria

DSM-III Criteria for Multiple Personality Disorder: (Ross, 1989)

A. The existence within the individual of two or most distinct personalities, each of which is dominant at a particular time.
B. The personality that is dominant at any particular time determines the individual1s behavior.
C. Each individual personality is complex and integrated with its own unique behavior patterns and social relationships.
D. Two or more alter personalities must exhibit individually distinct and consistent alter personality-specific behavior on at least three occasions.
E. There is evidence of some type of amnesia or combinations of types of amnesia among alter personalities (e.g., one-way amnesia, mutual amnesia, etc.). the amnesia does not have to include all of the alters.

DSM-III-R Criteria for Multiple Personality Disorder: (Ross, 1989)

A. The existence within the person of two or more distinct personalities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self).
B. At least two of these personalities or personality states recurrently take full control of the person1s behavior.

DSM-IV Criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder: (Ross, 1997)

A. The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self).
B. At least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person1s behavior.
C. Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.
D. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic behavior during Alcohol Intoxication) or a general medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures). Note: In children, the symptoms are not attributable to imaginary playmates or other fantasy play. www.2multiples.com...

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as the name implies is a Dissociative Disorder in which the individual dissociates from reality, often because of truama. Here is a discussion of Dissociative Disorders:

www.sidran.org...

Here is an interesting article that I believe has merit:

www.psycom.net...

There is an interesting and balanced account of the controversy surrounding the disorder here:

www.religioustolerance.org...

There are numerous articles about the disorder here:

www.google.com...

And here:

www.google.com...




[edit on 04/9/10 by GradyPhilpott]

[edit on 04/9/10 by GradyPhilpott]

The Minds of Billy Milligan. Sort of related, hehe. It's an amazing book, I reccommend it to anybody reading this post.

Good post, Grady. Interesting links.

It's amazing how easily people are manipulated and influenced. For many folks, reality depends on whether they watch Fox News or CNN or MSNBC. Rocky & Bullwinkle have been an inspiration in my life. Christ, if you could gain control over the mass media, you'd be God.

I didn't know that MPD was physician induced condition, and not a phenomena on it's own. Interesting.

It bugs me when I read about shrinks who exploit the gullibility of their patients and implant false memories. It seemed for awhile to be the fad for many people in therapy (especially celebrities) to suddenly recall, in their adulthood, previously "blocked" memories of childhood sexual abuse and battering by their parents. Of course, not only the patient, but also the accused, lives were totally destroyed, only to find out at some later date, after the damage was done, that it was all just false memories implanted by the therapist.

Getting back to MPD, I know this woman who's bipolar. She has a nice personality, or 2 or 3 ... I always thought she came about it honest, though. I didn't know her shrink was behind it.

What about people like John Wayne Gacy, or the Son of Sam, or Jeffery Dahmer? Didn't they slip in and out of different persona? Or was the serial killer frame of mind a 24/7 thing, including memories of past murders, but they were just able to hide it most of the time?

Hmmm ...

Originally posted by netbound
Getting back to MPD, I know this woman who's bipolar. She has a nice personality, or 2 or 3 ... I always thought she came about it honest, though. I didn't know her shrink was behind it.

Please don't confuse the Bipolar Disorders with the Dissociative Identity Disorders. Bipolar is an affective or mood disorder and DID is a dissociative disorder.

A bipolar person may have what seems like three personalities as they cycle from depression to hypomania to mania and back again.

Here are some links:

bipolar.about.com...

www.mental-health-today.com...

www.psychnet-uk.com...

www.biopsychiatry.com...

bipolar.about.com...

bipolar.about.com...

home.att.net...

www.nimh.nih.gov...

www.google.com...

What sort of things did you learn to see that it seemed people were hiding away? This is fascinating to me. Please tell more!

-P

Originally posted by DaRAGE

But i have to say that that experience, i will never forget. You would see soo many things that people had hidden away.... Opened my mind a heap.

But damn, i still dont want to get into that state of mind again.

[edit on 12-9-2004 by postings]