BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

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Saturday, July 12, 2014

Could Novelists Declare That They Have Multiple Personality and Be Believed?

That’s an interesting question, but it assumes that novelists know they have multiple personality, and I’m not sure they do. I have quoted and cited some novelists who would seem to know it, but do they really? Indeed, how could anyone with multiple personality know that they had it?

In multiple personality, some personalities are aware of other personalities and some aren’t. So how could the latter ones know that they had multiple personality? Well, in the case of writers, couldn’t they see that things are written that they didn’t write or originate? The problem is, most personalities pay attention to only their own business, and if they ever tried to think too hard about what other personalities did, it would only precipitate a switch to those other personalities, end the inquiry, and give them a headache.

What about the personalities who are co-conscious with other personalities, and who are aware that they’re not alone? Don’t these personalities know that they have multiple personality? No, not really. Each of these personalities feels like a person in his or her own right. That’s their opinion. Don’t they realize that they all share the same body, and that what happens to one happens to all? Often they don’t.

Well, anyway, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that novelists did realize that they had multiple personality, and decided to tell everyone. Would anyone believe them? I would, but I don’t know anyone else.
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