My first experience with a patient who had been involved in mind control experimentation began when «Gloria» initially called me, looking for a therapist who accepted Medicare insurance. She said she had been sexually abused as a child and had been in therapy periodically for a number of years. I was not a Medicare provider, but agreed to see her temporarily while she looked for someone else. On the day of our first appointment, I walked into the waiting room to greet her and asked for "Gloria."
A woman looked up from a corner, and slowly, shyly, with head lowered and eyes looking up, shuffled toward me. In a child-like voice, she held both of hands together tightly, hunched her shoulders and said, with a sweet smile, "Gloria asked me to come; I'm Sally." She then twirled on her toes and pointed to a plant on the table, saying again in a child-like voice, "That sure is pretty!" Puzzled, I smiled and asked her to follow me to my office. During the course of that one hour, 4 different personalities, with different ages and genders, presented themselves to me. We would be talking about some topic, and suddenly, a switch would occur, and someone else's voice, mannerisms, and way of sitting and speaking would present. It was as though 4 different people were in my room, although all were housed in the same body! Although I had heard of Multiple Personality Disorder, or MPD, before, I had never seen it, and had been told in graduate school that it was very rare. I remember thinking after Gloria left, that if she were faking it (as patients are often accused of doing by clinicians who don't understand) she would have to have the mimicking abilities of a Billy Crystal, and the acting abilities of a Meryl Streep, to consistently stay in character for each of these personalities! For, before we were through, I had met 27 'inside people' (also referred to as alters) within Gloria, and learned about the names and roles of literally hundreds more!
Since that introduction to MPD (now known as DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder), I have worked with dozens of patients with that diagnosis, and have consulted with other clinicians and their patients so often, I have lost count. These patients have taught me so very much about the human mind, and have challenged me to learn about topics I have never thought to explore. In my efforts to convince myself, "surely what these people are saying cannot be true," I have researched and studied both scientific and popular literature in a variety of fields, and have time and again, come to the conclusion that what they are reporting could, indeed, be true. The historical background, technology, methodology, motivation, funding, and opportunity are all in place. My task now is to help others understand and believe.
I'd like to define some terms that you will hear when learning about people with "multiple personalities." Dissociation is a key term that refers to the ability of the mind to "cut off" a part of itself from conscious awareness. An everyday example of this ability, which we all have in varying degrees, is the experience of driving down the freeway and missing the exit you take everyday because you are thinking about something else. You "come to" an exit or two later and realize you have missed your exit, even noticing that you «saw» the exit sign but it didn't «register» within you to take it! Part of your mind was dissociated, or separated from, the real world around you while you focused on internal thoughts. Another example is reading every word on a page in a book, then realizing you had not comprehended a single word, because you were thinking of something else. All of us have had these experiences.
This ability of the mind to detach from itself is a brilliant coping mechanism that the mind uses in situations of extreme threat as a way to protect itself from the full awareness of a traumatic situation. You may recall reading about Vietnam veterans, who had amnesia for their war experiences, but would have difficulty coping with life. They would feel detached or estranged from others; they would have difficulty feeling any kind of feelings, except for outbursts of anger; they would have difficulty concentrating, would feel anxious and on edge without knowing why, and would have an exaggerated startle response (over-responsive to stimuli). These are all characteristics of the diagnosis "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" or PTSD. In addition, these veterans would have sudden memories of the horrors of war. These memories would be «triggered» by something that reminded their unconscious mind of the war experience (for example, the sound of a car backfiring, reminding them of gunfire). In these sudden memories, they felt as if they were actually re-living the experience, smelling, tasting, feeling, hearing and seeing in vivid detail everything they went through during an actual battle. These memories, complete with all the sensory memories, are called flashbacks. During those flashbacks, the veteran would be out of touch with the reality around them; they would no longer know it was 1985 and they were in America; they would think it was 1968, and they were in the jungle, reliving a particular battle. They were totally dissociated from reality, and were reliving a past reality that was now only in their minds. Later, in processing these experiences, the soldiers would report that during the actual battle, they would feel very detached, even numb, from what was happening, even though they may have been wounded themselves. At times, they reported feeling as though they were standing outside of themselves, observing themselves going through the trauma of the battle, but not feeling anything. They were dissociated from their reality. But their brain was recording all of the experience, exactly as it occurred, and those "mind and body" memories were being re-experienced during a flashback.
When someone is exposed to a "psychologically distressing event that is outside the range of usual human experience … is usually experienced with intense fear, terror, and helplessness," (DSM III) then dissociation usually occurs as a way for the mind to process the event without overwhelming the person. Parts of the experience (either knowledge of what happened; the emotional feelings associated with the event; the sensory experiences of the event, or the behaviors expressed during the event) become separated from one's conscious awareness. The more frequent the trauma, the more dissociation occurs. This phenomenon is why children who have been severely sexually abused and tortured, are amnesic for those events. In a landmark university study by Linda Williams hundreds of children brought into a hospital emergency room who received medical confirmation of sexual abuse, were contacted at intervals throughout a 20-year period. Only one-third of these children, when reaching adulthood, retained conscious memories of the sexual abuse — all others had repressed, or dissociated, those awful memories. Such is the power of the mind to block out painful experiences.
During times of torture and extreme physical and emotional pain, the mind is in an altered state, as it dissociates itself from reality. But there are other ways to alter the mindstate, for example, by sensory deprivation, or meditation, whereby one focuses internally, with sensory stimulation from the outside minimized or eliminated. You may recall in the 1980's that "float tanks" were popular. In a float tank you are floating on very heavily salted water; you are enclosed in a totally darkened metal tank, and you float for an hour without any sensory stimulation. Many people felt claustrophobic, and couldn't take it. But if you could stand it, you would eventually report having an euphoric experience. If you had been hooked up to a brain wave machine (EEG), your brain would no longer be producing beta waves (the brain state associated with usual waking activity). Instead you would be in a theta state, the state associated with deep relaxation, as when you are just about ready to fall asleep (the twilight state). In this state, the brain produces lots of endorphins, the body's natural "feel good" chemicals that give you a profound sense of well-being. It is important to note that this twilight state is associated with the ability to rapidly absorb and learn information. Without the «filtering» mechanism of the conscious waking mind, information seen or heard «pours» into the subconscious mind. Biofeedback expert Thomas Budzynski of the University of Colorado Medical Center reports, "We take advantage of the fact that the twilight state, between waking and sleep, has these properties of uncritical acceptance of verbal material, or almost any material it can process; it is in such «altered» states of consciousness that a lot of work gets done very quickly." (For much more information about brain research and technology associated with producing altered states, read the fascinating book Mega Brain, by Michael Hutchison.) Other methods used to alter brainwave states include, but are not limited to, rapidly flashing lights, drugs, phased sound waves, negative ions (electromagnetic energy fields), electroshock, alterations in gravity in the cerebellum (spinning), microwave emitters, and lasers.