“Losing Time” in Multiple Personality: The connection between Joyce Carol Oates’ The Lost Landscape and Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time

In multiple personality, some personalities are aware of each other, but others are not, and one personality will have a memory gap (amnesia) for the periods of time that the other personality has been out and in control.

Since most persons who have multiple personality do not know it, what do they make of their memory gaps? They often think of it as losing time. Occasionally, they lose time. No big deal.

But since many people with multiple personality do think of their memory gaps as “losing time,” a standard question to screen people for multiple personality is: Do you ever lose time? To persons without multiple personality, the question will seem silly. But persons who do have multiple personality may immediately know what you mean.

Thus, the title of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is a big neon sign announcing that Proust had multiple personality (see past posts).

Does “Lost” in the title of Oates’ memoir The Lost Landscape have the same implication? To find out, see my post on Joyce Carol Oates from earlier this month.