The woman with 20+ personalities in one body

Bucky

Member
I am not sure if this has been posted before, but this is a stunning case of different "people" sharing the same body. This lady (which one??) shares her body with a host of completely different personalities on a daily basis and has found a way to cope with this unique issue.

No wonder science is baffled by this case (and the many others suffering from this "identity disorder").

Is it really just a "disorder" ... or some kind of glitch in the "matrix"? Showing how consciousness is indeed way bigger and more mysterious than what we portray it to be?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...nalities-body-case-thats-baffled-experts.html

Also see this brief interview:
 
I wonder... were are the memories of all these 20 different personalities and how come they can'be shared between all of them. Is our brain capable of dozens of different personalities with completely different characteristics, narratives, memories and even impressive biological changes?

In "multiple personality disorder" there are well documented cases of allergies switching on and off based on the current personalities, switches in handwriting and handedness, color blindness and even scars appearing and disappearing.

In a recent book, ''The Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder,'' published by the American Psychiatric Press, Dr. Braun describes several instances in which different personalities in the same body responded differently to a given dose of the same medication. A tranquilizer, for instance, made a childish personality of one patient sleepy and relaxed, but gave adult personalities confusion and racing thoughts. An anti-convulsant prescribed for epilepsy that was given another patient had no effect on the personalities except those under the age of 12.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/28/science/probing-the-enigma-of-multiple-personality.html

For more than a century clinicians have occasionally reported isolated cases of dramatic biological changes in people with multiple personalities as they switched from one to another. These include the abrupt appearance and disappearance of rashes, welts, scars and other tissue wounds; switches in handwriting and handedness; epilepsy, allergies and color blindness that strike only when a given personality is in control of the body.
 
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I wonder... were are the memories of all these 20 different personalities and how come they can'be shared between all of them. Is our brain capable of dozens of different personalities with completely different characteristics, narratives, memories and even impressive biological changes?

In "multiple personality disorder" there are well documented cases of allergies switching on and off based on the current personalities, switches in handwriting and handedness, color blindness and even scars appearing and disappearing.

In a recent book, ''The Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder,'' published by the American Psychiatric Press, Dr. Braun describes several instances in which different personalities in the same body responded differently to a given dose of the same medication. A tranquilizer, for instance, made a childish personality of one patient sleepy and relaxed, but gave adult personalities confusion and racing thoughts. An anti-convulsant prescribed for epilepsy that was given another patient had no effect on the personalities except those under the age of 12.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/28/science/probing-the-enigma-of-multiple-personality.html

For more than a century clinicians have occasionally reported isolated cases of dramatic biological changes in people with multiple personalities as they switched from one to another. These include the abrupt appearance and disappearance of rashes, welts, scars and other tissue wounds; switches in handwriting and handedness; epilepsy, allergies and color blindness that strike only when a given personality is in control of the body.

One hardly knows what to make of this, Bucky. The fact that there can be detectable somatic differences between the personalities is strong evidence that mind and body are interlinked in a way that goes way beyond neuroplasticity. It's one thing for personality to change (which can always be challenged as being consciously simulated), quite another for the immune system or visual acuity to change in ways that are measurable through independent observations.

What the heck is personality, and why do most of us seem to have only the one? I suppose we do have different moods in which we can interpret events differently, and we are definitely capable of holding mutually exclusive opinions or at least acting inconsistently in different circumstances. Maybe this, taken to extremes and becoming compartmentalised, becomes DID.

Interestingly, it's been claimed in spiritual traditions that the unitary sense of personality is illusory, at least for ordinary people (as opposed to enlightened ones); we're actually a ragbag of inconsistencies that we think of as a unity, possibly because we have a seemingly continuous memory rather than a compartmentalised one (though I suppose we're all potentially capable in some degree of suppressing memory).

One thinks that whatever at one time thought and acted like a child, or a teenager, or a young adult, has continuity with whatever acts in the way it does now; or even that whatever got up grumpy one morning was the same as what was feeling mellow later that evening, and what today might be feeling altogether something else.

If there's a continuity, in my experience, it would be the thing that can step aside and observe or witness this variable psychodrama without identifying with it: something that can be cultivated through meditative practice, for example. It would be fascinating to know whether someone afflicted with DID had at least one of the personalities that had a spiritual interest and practised meditation, or in any way had developed a witnessing capability. I wouldn't know what to make of it were that ever the case.
 
Is it really just a "disorder" ... or some kind of glitch in the "matrix"? Showing how consciousness is indeed way bigger and more mysterious than what we portray it to be?
It's not a disorder, it's not a "glitch" and it's also not as uncommon as many think. The ones most know about are those who are having trouble dealing with it and consult medical authorities about it.

Everyone has access to multiple personalities. Of course, like most things extended consciousness, most people do not use that access.
 
I am not sure if this has been posted before, but this is a stunning case of different "people" sharing the same body. This lady (which one??) shares her body with a host of completely different personalities on a daily basis and has found a way to cope with this unique issue.

No wonder science is baffled by this case (and the many others suffering from this "identity disorder").

Is it really just a "disorder" ... or some kind of glitch in the "matrix"? Showing how consciousness is indeed way bigger and more mysterious than what we portray it to be?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...nalities-body-case-thats-baffled-experts.html

Also see this brief interview:

It would be interesting to verify if any of the personalities existed at a point in time
 
And they can't fake physiological changes for each personality, such as different allergies, sensitivities to medications, rashes or actual scars...

I couldn't find the reference to this in the article and may have missed it in the video. Where did you see this?
 
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