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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Friday, August 2, 2019


Inner Reading Voices (IRVs): Includes voices readers cannot control, which may mean reading process employs alternate personalities

In a recent post, I revisited the issue of writer’s inner voices (which I view as alternate personalities, to the extent that they seem to have minds of their own).

But now I see that there are also studies of inner reading voices (1), by which they apparently mean something more than just subvocalization (2).

Inner reading voices (IRVs) “were reported in participants' own voices, as well as in the voices of other people. Some respondents reported being unable to control any aspect of their IRVs” (1). And to the extent that IRVs have minds of their own, they may be alternate personalities.

I have often wondered why substantial numbers of readers enjoy literature that I find exasperating and even difficult to follow. Is it because their reading process employs alternate personalities?

1. Vilhauer RP. “Characteristics of Inner Reading Voices.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28582587
2. Wikipedia. “Subvocalization." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization
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