The Madness of Art (1): Normal Child’s Mind, Normal Novelist’s Mind, and Normal Multiple Personality

To summarize prior posts:

The Child’s Mind (2)

—imaginary companions

—imaginary identities

—paracosm

The Novelist’s Mind

—interaction with autonomous characters

—becoming or impersonating characters

—creation of imaginary worlds

Normal Multiple Personality

—autonomous personalities interact

—switching to another personality

—the complex inner world where personalities live when they are not “out.”

What we accept as normal in a child—because children often don’t hide it—may, superficially, look like madness in an adult.

1. famous phrase of the novelist, Henry James

2. Marjorie Taylor. Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.