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.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

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Monday, June 8, 2015

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: Why Alice’s Changes in Size and Magical Mirror make these Multiple Personality Stories

Having discussed the author’s multiple personality in three posts—back in April of 2014 (search “Lewis Carroll” in this blog)—it’s about time I discussed Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

This post is a quick look at the two tales’ most famous features, Alice’s changes in size and her magical mirror.

Alice Gets Smaller and Bigger

Since multiple personality starts in childhood, most adult multiples have alternate personalities (alters) who range in age from early childhood to the person’s actual age (and sometimes older). For example, a person aged thirty-five might have alters aged 3, 5, 9, 14, 17, 23, 28, and several who are 35.

Each alter has its own self-image consistent with its age. So a three-year-old alter will experience itself as much smaller than a 35-year-old alter. Indeed, one way that you occasionally learn that a person has multiple personality is when they confide an experience that they find very puzzling: “Sometimes I get small.”

Looking-Glass (Mirrors)

Three days ago, in my first post on Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child, and in many previous posts, I have discussed mirrors in multiple personality (search “mirror” and “mirrors” in this blog). Sometimes multiples see their alters when they look in the mirror. Mirrors are a gateway into their world of multiple personality. So whenever a character experiences anything unusual with mirrors, think of multiple personality.
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