Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In the last episode, End Game,
Speaker 1: we followed the bizarre and tragic tale of Cindy James
Speaker 1: and her six and a half year ordeal at the
Speaker 1: hands of an apparent stalker. Though Cindy maintained till the
Speaker 1: end that she was being harassed by a mysterious assailant,
Speaker 1: many who worked on her various cases were convinced that
Speaker 1: she had in fact been orchestrating the incidences herself. Psychiatric
Speaker 1: health professionals who assessed Cindy's mental health were also convinced
Speaker 1: that she was effectively acting as her own stalker. However,
Speaker 1: few were able to provide a concrete diagnosis as to
Speaker 1: why this might be happening. I have to admit I
Speaker 1: was a little unsure about giving an account of this
Speaker 1: story due to its complicated ambiguity. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: it's hard not to see similarities with the many other
Speaker 1: stories of botched police investigations that were clouded by sexist
Speaker 1: attitudes or ignorant ideas about the ways in which a
Speaker 1: victim of crime is supposed to behave. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: if Cindy had in fact orchestrated, if not all the events,
Speaker 1: then at least the majority of them, including her death,
Speaker 1: as many came to believe, there is a risk that
Speaker 1: this story could be used to undermine similar stories in
Speaker 1: which victims of crime have been let down by poor
Speaker 1: police practice. With that in mind, I don't want this
Speaker 1: week's extra to be taken as a reflection of what
Speaker 1: I believe happened, but rather as simply a closer look
Speaker 1: at one proposed explanation that I found quite startling, namely
Speaker 1: the possibility that Cindy had suffered from a form of
Speaker 1: dissociative identity disorder. The apparent condition, formally known as multiple
Speaker 1: personality disorder, remains as contentious today as it has ever
Speaker 1: been since it was first tentatively diagnosed back in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Though many in the medical profession believe it
Speaker 1: may affect anywhere from naught point nor one percent to
Speaker 1: fifteen percent of all people, there are others who don't
Speaker 1: believe the condition exists at all. Dissociative identity disorder ORDID
Speaker 1: is defined in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and
Speaker 1: Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as an identity disruption indicated
Speaker 1: by the presence of two or more distinct personality states,
Speaker 1: experienced as possession in some cultures, with discontinuity and sense
Speaker 1: of self and agency, which is to say, unlike the
Speaker 1: much looser notion of having multiple personalities, which we all
Speaker 1: do to a certain extent, whether the person we are
Speaker 1: to our friends versus who we are to our boss
Speaker 1: or our families, say, desociative identity disorder specifies a condition
Speaker 1: whereby an individual's self is fragmented, but with no center
Speaker 1: of narrative gravity. In this state, some believe it's possible
Speaker 1: for the split personalities to function on their own without
Speaker 1: any awareness of each other. It is thought that one
Speaker 1: of the first clinical diagnoses for the condition was made
Speaker 1: by doctor Desire Bourneville in the late nineteenth century. Bourneville
Speaker 1: had been looking into sixteenth century accounts of supposed possession
Speaker 1: when he came across the extraordinary tale of twenty five
Speaker 1: year old Dominican nune Chan Fray from fifteen eighty four
Speaker 1: to fifteen eighty six in Mons, France, Fray was subjected
Speaker 1: to a series of exorcisms on account of her appearing
Speaker 1: to be possessed by a host of demons as well
Speaker 1: as the spirit of Mary Magdalene. Fray's exorcists compiled a
Speaker 1: report of over a hundred pages detailing her affliction and treatment,
Speaker 1: which Bourneville went on to publish in eighteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: In April fifteen eighty four, Frey, who had been blind
Speaker 1: in her right eye for ten years, was brought to
Speaker 1: the attention of the local archbishop. The young woman was
Speaker 1: found to be covered in a series of self inflicted
Speaker 1: wounds that she had no recollection of doing to herself,
Speaker 1: leading some to believe that demons had been taking over
Speaker 1: her mind and using her body against her. In one incident,
Speaker 1: a version of Fray was reported that appeared to have
Speaker 1: completely forgotten all the theological knowledge she'd learned as a nun.
Speaker 1: Another time, when she was given a form that she
Speaker 1: had to sign, the form went missing. It was said
Speaker 1: that she'd hidden it while possessed by a demon named Nammon,
Speaker 1: so when Frey reverted back to her usual self, she
Speaker 1: had no recollection of where the form had been hidden.
Speaker 1: After undergoing an exorcism in the summer, Fray continued to
Speaker 1: self harm and at one point even tried to hang herself,
Speaker 1: but later had no memory of the events. In November,
Speaker 1: the nun assumed the character of a four year old
Speaker 1: child who seemed more or less incapable of verbal communication.
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Speaker 1: the vision was completely restored to Phray's right eye, just
Speaker 1: as it had been when she really was a four
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Speaker 1: undergoing further exorcism, Phrase's condition seemed to lessen until finally
Speaker 1: she was determined to be free of demons and invited
Speaker 1: to return to her convent. Writing with his nineteenth century perspective,
Speaker 1: doctor Bourneville diagnosed Phrase's condition as a form of hysterical psychosis,
Speaker 1: speculating that this had come about due to severe abuse
Speaker 1: she'd suffered as a child. This had effectively resulted in Fray,
Speaker 1: adopting two altered states that were in conflict with each other,
Speaker 1: Mary Magdalene being the good and the demons being evil.
Speaker 1: According to Hono van der Hart, writing in his paper
Speaker 1: Shan Fray, a sixteenth century of D, personality of these
Speaker 1: altars as they are known, had likely been based on
Speaker 1: the perpetrators of her childhood abuse, and then shaped by
Speaker 1: phrase understanding of what good and evil was and the
Speaker 1: religious prism with which she comprehended the world. In seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety one, German doctor Aberhardt Gamelin wrote an account of
Speaker 1: a twenty year old woman who was suffering from what
Speaker 1: he caught exchanged personality. His account is thought to be
Speaker 1: the first case of DD to be written about in
Speaker 1: great detail. The woman, who was German and lived in
Speaker 1: Stuttgart at the time, had adopted the personality of a
Speaker 1: French aristocrat, with Gummellin suggesting that the recent French Revolution
Speaker 1: may have been the trigger. Whenever the aristocrat alter emerged,
Speaker 1: she would speak German but with a French accent. When
Speaker 1: her usual self returned, she claimed to have no memory
Speaker 1: of what happened while the aristocrat was present. Remarkably, whenever
Speaker 1: the aristocrat returned, they had the complete memory of only
Speaker 1: that specific state. In twenty fifteen, a paper published in
Speaker 1: psycho Journal discussed the extraordinary case of a patient who
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder who was also completely blind,
Speaker 1: the result of a severe head injury she'd suffered thirteen
Speaker 1: years previously. After being assigned a course of psychotherapy with
Speaker 1: one of the paper's authors, Bruno vold Vogel, the patient
Speaker 1: who attended the sessions with her guide doc, was soon
Speaker 1: exhibiting all criteria required by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
Speaker 1: of Mental Disorders for diagnosing dissociative identity disorder. Over the
Speaker 1: course of the next few years, the patient would present
Speaker 1: ten altars in total, ranging in ages, genders, and personality.
Speaker 1: Often the different altars wouldn't even speak the same language,
Speaker 1: with some only communicating in German and others in English.
Speaker 1: And then, after four years of therapy, something extraordinary occurred.
Speaker 1: It was while her later session was coming to an end,
Speaker 1: with the patient in their adolescent male identity state, that
Speaker 1: they were suddenly able to make out the words on
Speaker 1: the front page of a coffee table magazine. Gradually, after
Speaker 1: a few more sessions, while her other states remained blind.
Speaker 1: The adolescent male altar slowly began to see more and more,
Speaker 1: until finally their sight was completely restored with the help
Speaker 1: of some hypnotherapeutic techniques. This sudden ability to see or
Speaker 1: seemingly transferred to a number of the other altar states,
Speaker 1: to the point where the patient would even drift in
Speaker 1: and out from states that were completely blind to states
Speaker 1: that could see, often within the space of seconds. Incredibly,
Speaker 1: when the patient was given a visual evoked potential test,
Speaker 1: a test that examines the functionality of the optic nerve,
Speaker 1: it was found to function only when one of the
Speaker 1: patients alters that claimed it could see was present. These,
Speaker 1: of course, are extreme conditions. However, the idea of questioning
Speaker 1: just how many personalities we might have within us is
Speaker 1: not unusual. Many people agonize over the notion of just
Speaker 1: who they really are, or what is their one true self.
Speaker 1: We talk of being real, or accuse people of being
Speaker 1: two faced when we don't think they're being true to themselves,
Speaker 1: or rather true to our idea of who we think
Speaker 1: they should be. I've always found this a strange and
Speaker 1: unfair accusation. Might it simply be true that we are
Speaker 1: many different people. As Gregor Riec wrote on Psychology Today
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. Neuropsychologist Antonio Domascio, for example, divides the
Speaker 1: notion of self into three parts. Firstly, we have the
Speaker 1: experiential sense of self, that which we feel is unique
Speaker 1: to us, which boils down essentially to our individual personal
Speaker 1: memories of the experiences we've had throughout our lives. Then
Speaker 1: there is the autobiographical self. We might think of this
Speaker 1: as our inner sense of self, all the beliefs, knowledge,
Speaker 1: and prejudices we might have that inform the way we
Speaker 1: interpret the world around us. And finally, there is the
Speaker 1: public self, the many and varied ways in which we
Speaker 1: present ourselves to others in the world. As gregon Rite notes,
Speaker 1: if there is any sense of unity to these varied
Speaker 1: expressions of self at all, it would most likely be illusory.
Speaker 1: Rare would be the individual for which these notions of
Speaker 1: self remained unchanging throughout their lifetime. Our sense of self, therefore,
Speaker 1: is more likely to be comprised of many different parts,
Speaker 1: some often even competing with each other, that, when taken together,
Speaker 1: gives us a vague sense of one singular notion of
Speaker 1: who we think we are. Philosopher Daniel Dennet describes this
Speaker 1: notion as the self being akin to a center of
Speaker 1: narrative gravity as I mentioned earlier, rather than one singularly
Speaker 1: defined thing, something that can feel cohesive yet has no
Speaker 1: solid property at all. Perhaps, instead of feeling the need
Speaker 1: to strive to become one consistent, settled being, we can
Speaker 1: learn to become comfortable with the fact that instead we
Speaker 1: are many and our capacity is infinite. Or, as Walt
Speaker 1: Whitman famously put it, do I contradict myself very well?
Speaker 1: Then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.
Speaker 1: I'll leave you with this rather wild I, which was
Speaker 1: discussed by a group of left field thinkers in a
Speaker 1: Scientific American blog post back in twenty eighteen. In it,
Speaker 1: the authors posed an eye catching solution to what many
Speaker 1: consider the central problem of cosmo psychism, the idea that
Speaker 1: all consciousness is part of a single universal consciousness. As
Speaker 1: critics of the idea say, how could we all be
Speaker 1: part of the same consciousness if we each have such
Speaker 1: a strong, separate sense of our own individual experience of life.
Speaker 1: The solution was simple, suggested the authors. If there really
Speaker 1: was such a thing as a single universal consciousness. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it too suffers from some kind of dissociative identity disorder,
Speaker 1: and if so, might it be that we aren't single,
Speaker 1: separate conscious entities at all, but merely the individually fragmented
Speaker 1: older states of a universal consciousness. Joy unexplained and would
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Speaker 1: matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained. The
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Speaker 1: been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
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Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
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Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
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