“Crime and Punishment” (Pt 6, Chap 3) by Dostoevsky: Raskolnikov has a memory gap and directed behavior, textbook symptoms of multiple personality

“ ‘I was on my way to your place, I was looking for you [Svidrigailov],’ Raskolnikov began, ‘but why did I suddenly turn down —sky Prospect just now from the Haymarket! I never turn or come this way. I turn right from the Haymarket. And this isn’t the way to your place. I just turned and here you are! It’s strange!’…

‘…let me say [Svidrigialov replied] that you seem to have slept through these past two or three days. I myself suggested this tavern to you, and there was no miracle in your coming straight here; I gave you all the directions myself, described the place where it stands, and told you the hours when I could be found here. Remember?’

‘I forgot,’ Raskolnikov answered in surprise.

‘…I told you twice,' " [Svidrigialov replied] (1, pp. 466-467).

The explanation is that when Svidrigialov had given the directions, he, unknowingly, had been talking to one of Raskolnikov’s alternate personalities. The latter had been out and in control at that time, but answering to Raskolnikov’s regular name (incognito), a typical situation in undiagnosed multiple personality.

Later, that alternate personality, fully conscious and with complete memory of Svidrigialov’s directions—but now behind the scenes and not outwardly in control—pulled Raskolnikov’s regular personality’s strings, directing him to where Svidrigialov said he would be.

Let me emphasize that this particular alternate personality was completely conscious of the thoughts and behavior of the regular personality, but the reverse was not true, so that the regular personality had amnesia for Svidrigialov’s directions and also for the presence and influence of the alternate personality: a typical example of multiple personality’s memory gaps and directed or "made" behaviors.

I don’t know whether Dostoevsky had read about, witnessed, or experienced these things.

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment [1866]. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York, Vintage Classics/Random House, 1993.