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Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where

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Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories

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Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make

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Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In the last episode, End Game,

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Speaker 1: we followed the bizarre and tragic tale of Cindy James

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Speaker 1: and her six and a half year ordeal at the

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Speaker 1: hands of an apparent stalker. Though Cindy maintained till the

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Speaker 1: end that she was being harassed by a mysterious assailant,

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Speaker 1: many who worked on her various cases were convinced that

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Speaker 1: she had in fact been orchestrating the incidences herself. Psychiatric

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Speaker 1: health professionals who assessed Cindy's mental health were also convinced

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Speaker 1: that she was effectively acting as her own stalker. However,

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Speaker 1: few were able to provide a concrete diagnosis as to

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Speaker 1: why this might be happening. I have to admit I

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Speaker 1: was a little unsure about giving an account of this

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Speaker 1: story due to its complicated ambiguity. On the one hand,

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Speaker 1: it's hard not to see similarities with the many other

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Speaker 1: stories of botched police investigations that were clouded by sexist

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Speaker 1: attitudes or ignorant ideas about the ways in which a

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Speaker 1: victim of crime is supposed to behave. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: if Cindy had in fact orchestrated, if not all the events,

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Speaker 1: then at least the majority of them, including her death,

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Speaker 1: as many came to believe, there is a risk that

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Speaker 1: this story could be used to undermine similar stories in

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Speaker 1: which victims of crime have been let down by poor

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Speaker 1: police practice. With that in mind, I don't want this

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Speaker 1: week's extra to be taken as a reflection of what

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Speaker 1: I believe happened, but rather as simply a closer look

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Speaker 1: at one proposed explanation that I found quite startling, namely

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Speaker 1: the possibility that Cindy had suffered from a form of

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Speaker 1: dissociative identity disorder. The apparent condition, formally known as multiple

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Speaker 1: personality disorder, remains as contentious today as it has ever

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Speaker 1: been since it was first tentatively diagnosed back in the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Though many in the medical profession believe it

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Speaker 1: may affect anywhere from naught point nor one percent to

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Speaker 1: fifteen percent of all people, there are others who don't

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Speaker 1: believe the condition exists at all. Dissociative identity disorder ORDID

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Speaker 1: is defined in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and

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Speaker 1: Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as an identity disruption indicated

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Speaker 1: by the presence of two or more distinct personality states,

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Speaker 1: experienced as possession in some cultures, with discontinuity and sense

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Speaker 1: of self and agency, which is to say, unlike the

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Speaker 1: much looser notion of having multiple personalities, which we all

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Speaker 1: do to a certain extent, whether the person we are

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Speaker 1: to our friends versus who we are to our boss

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Speaker 1: or our families, say, desociative identity disorder specifies a condition

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Speaker 1: whereby an individual's self is fragmented, but with no center

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Speaker 1: of narrative gravity. In this state, some believe it's possible

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Speaker 1: for the split personalities to function on their own without

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Speaker 1: any awareness of each other. It is thought that one

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Speaker 1: of the first clinical diagnoses for the condition was made

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Speaker 1: by doctor Desire Bourneville in the late nineteenth century. Bourneville

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Speaker 1: had been looking into sixteenth century accounts of supposed possession

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Speaker 1: when he came across the extraordinary tale of twenty five

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Speaker 1: year old Dominican nune Chan Fray from fifteen eighty four

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Speaker 1: to fifteen eighty six in Mons, France, Fray was subjected

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Speaker 1: to a series of exorcisms on account of her appearing

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Speaker 1: to be possessed by a host of demons as well

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Speaker 1: as the spirit of Mary Magdalene. Fray's exorcists compiled a

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Speaker 1: report of over a hundred pages detailing her affliction and treatment,

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Speaker 1: which Bourneville went on to publish in eighteen eighty six.

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Speaker 1: In April fifteen eighty four, Frey, who had been blind

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Speaker 1: in her right eye for ten years, was brought to

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Speaker 1: the attention of the local archbishop. The young woman was

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Speaker 1: found to be covered in a series of self inflicted

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Speaker 1: wounds that she had no recollection of doing to herself,

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Speaker 1: leading some to believe that demons had been taking over

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Speaker 1: her mind and using her body against her. In one incident,

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Speaker 1: a version of Fray was reported that appeared to have

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Speaker 1: completely forgotten all the theological knowledge she'd learned as a nun.

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Speaker 1: Another time, when she was given a form that she

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Speaker 1: had to sign, the form went missing. It was said

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Speaker 1: that she'd hidden it while possessed by a demon named Nammon,

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Speaker 1: so when Frey reverted back to her usual self, she

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Speaker 1: had no recollection of where the form had been hidden.

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Speaker 1: After undergoing an exorcism in the summer, Fray continued to

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Speaker 1: self harm and at one point even tried to hang herself,

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Speaker 1: but later had no memory of the events. In November,

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Speaker 1: the nun assumed the character of a four year old

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Speaker 1: child who seemed more or less incapable of verbal communication.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps most incredibly, while existing as the four year old child,

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Speaker 1: the vision was completely restored to Phray's right eye, just

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Speaker 1: as it had been when she really was a four

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Speaker 1: wants you to start living a happier life today. After

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Speaker 1: undergoing further exorcism, Phrase's condition seemed to lessen until finally

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Speaker 1: she was determined to be free of demons and invited

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Speaker 1: to return to her convent. Writing with his nineteenth century perspective,

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Speaker 1: doctor Bourneville diagnosed Phrase's condition as a form of hysterical psychosis,

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Speaker 1: speculating that this had come about due to severe abuse

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Speaker 1: she'd suffered as a child. This had effectively resulted in Fray,

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Speaker 1: adopting two altered states that were in conflict with each other,

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Speaker 1: Mary Magdalene being the good and the demons being evil.

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Speaker 1: According to Hono van der Hart, writing in his paper

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Speaker 1: Shan Fray, a sixteenth century of D, personality of these

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Speaker 1: altars as they are known, had likely been based on

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Speaker 1: the perpetrators of her childhood abuse, and then shaped by

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Speaker 1: phrase understanding of what good and evil was and the

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Speaker 1: religious prism with which she comprehended the world. In seventeen

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Speaker 1: ninety one, German doctor Aberhardt Gamelin wrote an account of

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Speaker 1: a twenty year old woman who was suffering from what

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Speaker 1: he caught exchanged personality. His account is thought to be

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Speaker 1: the first case of DD to be written about in

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Speaker 1: great detail. The woman, who was German and lived in

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Speaker 1: Stuttgart at the time, had adopted the personality of a

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Speaker 1: French aristocrat, with Gummellin suggesting that the recent French Revolution

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Speaker 1: may have been the trigger. Whenever the aristocrat alter emerged,

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Speaker 1: she would speak German but with a French accent. When

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Speaker 1: her usual self returned, she claimed to have no memory

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Speaker 1: of what happened while the aristocrat was present. Remarkably, whenever

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Speaker 1: the aristocrat returned, they had the complete memory of only

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Speaker 1: that specific state. In twenty fifteen, a paper published in

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Speaker 1: psycho Journal discussed the extraordinary case of a patient who

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Speaker 1: was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder who was also completely blind,

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Speaker 1: the result of a severe head injury she'd suffered thirteen

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Speaker 1: years previously. After being assigned a course of psychotherapy with

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Speaker 1: one of the paper's authors, Bruno vold Vogel, the patient

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Speaker 1: who attended the sessions with her guide doc, was soon

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Speaker 1: exhibiting all criteria required by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

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Speaker 1: of Mental Disorders for diagnosing dissociative identity disorder. Over the

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Speaker 1: course of the next few years, the patient would present

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Speaker 1: ten altars in total, ranging in ages, genders, and personality.

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Speaker 1: Often the different altars wouldn't even speak the same language,

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Speaker 1: with some only communicating in German and others in English.

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Speaker 1: And then, after four years of therapy, something extraordinary occurred.

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Speaker 1: It was while her later session was coming to an end,

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Speaker 1: with the patient in their adolescent male identity state, that

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Speaker 1: they were suddenly able to make out the words on

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Speaker 1: the front page of a coffee table magazine. Gradually, after

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Speaker 1: a few more sessions, while her other states remained blind.

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Speaker 1: The adolescent male altar slowly began to see more and more,

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Speaker 1: until finally their sight was completely restored with the help

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Speaker 1: of some hypnotherapeutic techniques. This sudden ability to see or

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Speaker 1: seemingly transferred to a number of the other altar states,

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Speaker 1: to the point where the patient would even drift in

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Speaker 1: and out from states that were completely blind to states

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Speaker 1: that could see, often within the space of seconds. Incredibly,

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Speaker 1: when the patient was given a visual evoked potential test,

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Speaker 1: a test that examines the functionality of the optic nerve,

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Speaker 1: it was found to function only when one of the

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Speaker 1: patients alters that claimed it could see was present. These,

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Speaker 1: of course, are extreme conditions. However, the idea of questioning

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Speaker 1: just how many personalities we might have within us is

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Speaker 1: not unusual. Many people agonize over the notion of just

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Speaker 1: who they really are, or what is their one true self.

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Speaker 1: We talk of being real, or accuse people of being

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Speaker 1: two faced when we don't think they're being true to themselves,

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Speaker 1: or rather true to our idea of who we think

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Speaker 1: they should be. I've always found this a strange and

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Speaker 1: unfair accusation. Might it simply be true that we are

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Speaker 1: many different people. As Gregor Riec wrote on Psychology Today

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Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. Neuropsychologist Antonio Domascio, for example, divides the

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Speaker 1: notion of self into three parts. Firstly, we have the

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Speaker 1: experiential sense of self, that which we feel is unique

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Speaker 1: to us, which boils down essentially to our individual personal

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Speaker 1: memories of the experiences we've had throughout our lives. Then

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Speaker 1: there is the autobiographical self. We might think of this

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Speaker 1: as our inner sense of self, all the beliefs, knowledge,

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Speaker 1: and prejudices we might have that inform the way we

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Speaker 1: interpret the world around us. And finally, there is the

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Speaker 1: public self, the many and varied ways in which we

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Speaker 1: present ourselves to others in the world. As gregon Rite notes,

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Speaker 1: if there is any sense of unity to these varied

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Speaker 1: expressions of self at all, it would most likely be illusory.

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Speaker 1: Rare would be the individual for which these notions of

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Speaker 1: self remained unchanging throughout their lifetime. Our sense of self, therefore,

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Speaker 1: is more likely to be comprised of many different parts,

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Speaker 1: some often even competing with each other, that, when taken together,

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Speaker 1: gives us a vague sense of one singular notion of

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Speaker 1: who we think we are. Philosopher Daniel Dennet describes this

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Speaker 1: notion as the self being akin to a center of

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Speaker 1: narrative gravity as I mentioned earlier, rather than one singularly

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Speaker 1: defined thing, something that can feel cohesive yet has no

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Speaker 1: solid property at all. Perhaps, instead of feeling the need

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Speaker 1: to strive to become one consistent, settled being, we can

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Speaker 1: learn to become comfortable with the fact that instead we

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Speaker 1: are many and our capacity is infinite. Or, as Walt

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Speaker 1: Whitman famously put it, do I contradict myself very well?

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Speaker 1: Then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.

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Speaker 1: I'll leave you with this rather wild I, which was

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Speaker 1: discussed by a group of left field thinkers in a

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Speaker 1: Scientific American blog post back in twenty eighteen. In it,

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Speaker 1: the authors posed an eye catching solution to what many

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Speaker 1: consider the central problem of cosmo psychism, the idea that

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Speaker 1: all consciousness is part of a single universal consciousness. As

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Speaker 1: critics of the idea say, how could we all be

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Speaker 1: part of the same consciousness if we each have such

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Speaker 1: a strong, separate sense of our own individual experience of life.

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Speaker 1: The solution was simple, suggested the authors. If there really

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Speaker 1: was such a thing as a single universal consciousness. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: it too suffers from some kind of dissociative identity disorder,

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Speaker 1: and if so, might it be that we aren't single,

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Speaker 1: separate conscious entities at all, but merely the individually fragmented

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Speaker 1: older states of a universal consciousness. Joy unexplained and would

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Speaker 1: like to help supporters, You can now do so via

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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com forward Slash Support. All donations, no

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Speaker 1: matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained. The

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Speaker 1: book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before

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Speaker 1: been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.

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Speaker 1: You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones,

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Speaker 1: among other bookstores. All elements have Unexplained, including the show's music,

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Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and

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Speaker 1: rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel

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