 |
Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 |
|
| 
|
Different personalities: different brainwaves
Psychologists have always wondered how a single brain could harbor several personalities, as is the situation in the so-called MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). Are the different personalities really separate physiologically? Are they faked? Psychological testing of the separate personalities, conducted at different times when each personality was 'in charge,' seemed to indicate discrete personalities, even though one personality might know of the existence of one or more of the others in the same brain. Brain-wave tests were even more conclusive. Each personality had its own distinct set of brain waves in response to identical stimuli. In effect, the brain was operating in a different mode for each personality.
(Anonymous; "Multiple Personality Not All in the Mind," New Scientist, 98:290, 1983.)
Comment. Could the ability of the brain to operate in different modes be turned into an asset rather than an affliction? After all, computers can be made more effective when they execute several programs at once.