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Q: Diseases in people with multiple personalities ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   2 Comments )
Subject: Diseases in people with multiple personalities
Category: Health
Asked by: raphael929-ga
List Price: $20.00
Posted: 11 Apr 2005 00:43 PDT
Expires: 11 May 2005 00:43 PDT
Question ID: 507735
I have heard from a number of personal growth and health professionals
the following: It's documented that certain people with multiple
personalities have specific physical diseases and conditions that are
unique to just one of the personalities. For example, one might have a
heart condition or diabetes and test positive for such, while when
inhabiting a different personality that person may have no heart
condition or diabetes and will test negative for both. I'd like to
know whether this is really true, and if so what is the reliable
citation for it.
Subject: Re: Diseases in people with multiple personalities
Answered By: pinkfreud-ga on 11 Apr 2005 11:57 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
Multiple Personality Disorder (also called Dissociative Identity
Disorder) is a hotly-debated and controversial subject in its own
right; there is no unanimity of opinion on whether it truly exists.
Nevertheless, there have been reports indicating that a single
individual may, in different states of consciousness, exhibit varied
clinical symptoms, as if one "personality" has a disease, while the
others do not. I have gathered some information on this phenomenon.
For reasons of copyright, I am posting just brief excerpts here; you
may want to read some of these articles in their entirety. The
articles are fascinating.

"Within a given individual, multiple disease states can exhibit
themselves exclusively of each other, depending on the state of
consciousness ('personality') currently activated in the conscious
mind. Thus, with one personality expressing itself in the conscious
mind/body system, the individual can show all the clinical symptoms of
diabetes, for example, and require insulin -- while a shift into
another personality may result in no presence of any disease state or
perhaps the clinically-confirmed appearance of a cardiovascular
condition requiring entirely another type of medication and treatment.

Thus, clinical measurements show changes not only in immunoreactivity
when the individual switches from one personality to another but in
bodily functions and metabolism as well, as the subject becomes
hypertensive in one personality, diabetic in another, and neither of
these in yet other states of consciousness (Hall, N.R.S. et al., 1994;
Cosh J., 1996; Hirshberg C. & Barasch M., 1995)."


"Research reported over the last decade on some of those suffering
from multiple personality disorder (Hall, 1994; Barasch & Hirshberg,
1995). What the studies report is the bona fide appearance of clinical
symptoms of a particular medical ailment with the manifestation of a
'personality' in consciousness, requiring the specific appropriate
medicines and treatment to sustain function and life. All the while
the association of another state of consciousness in the same
subject's mind creates an entirely different set of clinical symptoms
of pathology to precipitate, and no pathology appearing whatsoever
when a third state of consciousness presents in the conscious mind.
Thus, a diabetic in one 'personality' becomes a cardiac patient in
another state of consciousness and shows no medical pathology at all
when another schizoid fragment of consciousness presents itself
through yet another state of mind. The confirmation of genuine
clinical medical symptoms of disease, concurrent with specific
psychological states of consciousness in the subject, demands an
understanding that supersedes the casual and common misunderstanding
and misuse of the labels 'hypochondria' in medicine and psychiatry,
and further demonstrates the influence of consciousness beyond the
limits of conventional mechanistic mind/body notions of causality and
disease etiology...

Barasch, M. & Hirshberg, C. (1995). Remarkable recovery. London: Headline Books.

Hall, N.R.S. (1994). Advances, 10, 7-15."

SelfQuest: Redefining the Metaphysics of Science

"[Candace Pert, Ph.D]: Emotions are in two realms. They can be in the
physical realm, where we?re talking about molecules whose molecular
weight I can tell you, and whose sequences I can write as formulas.
And there?s another realm that we experience that?s not under the
purview of science. There are aspects of mind that have qualities that
seem to be outside of matter. Let me give you an example. People with
multiple personalities sometimes have extremely clear physical
symptoms that vary with each personality. One personality can be
allergic to cats while another is not. One personality can be diabetic
and another not.

[Bill] Moyers: But the multiple personality exists in the same body.
The physical matter has not changed from personality to personality.

Pert: But it does. You can measure it. You can show that one
personality is making as much insulin as it needs, and the next one,
who shows up half an hour later, can?t make insulin.

Moyers: So in the person with multiple personalities, the brain is
releasing different messengers.

Pert: That?s one possibility. We just haven?t done the research to know that yet."

The Truth Seeker Journal: The Chemical Communicators

"Recent work on multiple personality disorder suggests that a patient
may exhibit a disease (eg diabetes) when in one personality, but not
others. This is is discussed 'The Holographic Universe' by Michael
Talbot. It is possible for some multiple personality subjects to
switch their personalities at will, instantly removing and
re-introducing the symptoms of diseases associated with different

Personal Pages of Tony Copple: Recovering from Disease

"Frequently a medical condition possessed by one personality will
mysteriously vanish when another personality takes over.

Dr. Bennet Braun of the International Society for the Study of
Multiple Personality, in Chicago, has documented a case in which all
of a patient's subpersonalities were allergic to orange juice, except
one.  If the man drank orange juice when one of his allergic
But if he switched to his nonallergic personality, the rash would
instantly start to fade and he could drink orange juice freely.

Allergies are not the only thing multiples can switch on and off.  If
there was any doubt as to the control of the unconscious mind has over
drug effects, it is banished by the pharmacological wizardry of the
multiple.  By changing personalities, a multiple who is drunk can
instantly become sober.  Different personalities also respond
differently to different drugs.

Braun records a case in which 5 milligrams of diazepam, a
tranquilizer, sedated one personality, while 100 milligrams had little
or no effect on another...

There are cases of women who have two or three menstrual periods each
month because each of their subpersonalities has its own cycle.

Speech pathologist Christy Ludlow has found that the voice pattern for
each of a multiple's personalities is different, a feat that requires
such a deep physiological change that even the most accomplished actor
cannot alter his voice enough to disguise his voice pattern.

One multiple, admitted to a hospital for diabetes, baffled her doctors
by showing no symptoms when one of her nondiabetic personalities was
in control.

There are accounts of epilepsy coming and going with changes in personality."

(From page 99 of "Holographic Universe," by Michael Talbot)

Amazon: Holographic Universe

It is worth noting that the reference sources cited in the material
posted above, such as the books "Remarkable Recovery" and "Holographic
Universe," are not scientific treatises. They are more closely related
to metaphysics or parapsychology, and rely upon a good deal of
anecdotal data. In several hours of searching, I found very little
hard evidence from scientifically reputable sources. Studies of
differing brain activity and cerebral blood-flow patterns in patients
diagnosed with MPD have been demonstrated to exist, however:

"Having a sense of self is an explicit and high-level functional
specialization of the human brain. The anatomical localization of
self-awareness and the brain mechanisms involved in consciousness were
investigated by functional neuroimaging different emotional mental
states of core consciousness in patients with Multiple Personality
Disorder (i.e., Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)). We demonstrate
specific changes in localized brain activity consistent with their
ability to generate at least two distinct mental states of
self-awareness, each with its own access to autobiographical
trauma-related memory. Our findings reveal the existence of different
regional cerebral blood flow patterns for different senses of self. We
present evidence for the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the
posterior associative cortices to have an integral role in conscious

PubMed: Abstract of "One brain, two selves"

My Google Search Strategy:

Google Web Search: "multiple personality OR personalities" OR mpd OR
"dissociative identity disorder" diabetes OR diabetic

Thanks for an interesting question. I hope the material I've posted is
helpful. If anything is unclear or incomplete, or if a link doesn't
work for you, please request clarification; I'll gladly offer further
assistance before you rate my answer.

Best regards,

Request for Answer Clarification by raphael929-ga on 11 Apr 2005 12:59 PDT
Thanks for your great research. However, it seems like so far we have
citations to Barasch and Hirschberg (sp?) but that book (Remarkable
Recovery) isn't a citation for the actual research. Neither is the
book The Holographic Universe. So I'm wondering if you can find an
abstract or article that covers the actual experiment, so it's not
just hearsay? If it's in those books then I'd have to buy them, but
I'm hoping to avoid that. Candace Pert mentions the phenomena in the
transcript you found from Bill Moyers, and she's very respectable, but
she doesn't cite the study either.

Let me know if you have any luck - thanks again, Raphael

Request for Answer Clarification by raphael929-ga on 11 Apr 2005 13:02 PDT
So sorry - the first page didn't load correctly with your whole
answer. Now I see you have addressed this issue. Thanks. I do wonder,
though, if those two books cited have the research cited in their
appendices, etc.

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 11 Apr 2005 13:16 PDT
I wish it were otherwise, but I have found no citable scientific
studies which provide evidence that physiological conditions such as
diabetes and heart disease exist independently in single
"personalities" of an MPD patient. The absence of such studies on the
Web does not prove that they do not exist, of course.

The text of "Holographic Universe" is searchable on Amazon. I was not
able to find a precise citation, other than the mention of Bennett
Braun, of the International Society for the Study of Multiple

I would love to be proven wrong in this assumption, but I believe it
is likely that anecdotal reports have been passed around so
extensively in certain circles that they may have acquired a veneer of
authenticity which is not verifiable.


Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 11 Apr 2005 13:26 PDT
One thing that makes me skeptical of the cases mentioned in
"Holographic Universe" is the questionable reputation of Dr. Bennett

"A psychiatrist had his license suspended over allegations he used
drugs and hypnosis to convince a patient she killed scores of people
in satanic rituals. Dr. Bennett Braun agreed to the two-year
suspension and five years' probation in a settlement with the Illinois
Department of Professional Regulation, department officials said

The state's case against Braun centered largely on his treatment of
Patty Burgus, a patient he diagnosed as having multiple personality
disorder in the late 1980s. Burgus claimed Braun used drugs and
hypnosis to convince her she possessed 300 personalities, ate meatloaf
made of human flesh and was a high priestess in a satanic cult.

Braun at one point had gained national attention for claiming to have
discovered a trend of 'satanic ritual abuse,' deemed the work of a
clandestine network of devil worshippers who'd been torturing people
for centuries.

In a deposition given for a lawsuit filed by Burgus, Braun admitted he
did not get written informed consent to hypnotize her and did not tell
her about the potential effects of drugs he was giving her. The drugs
included Inderal, a heart medication that can cause severe
hallucinations, and sodium amytal, a potentially lethal drug known
informally as 'truth serum' that some doctors associate with

Braun eventually settled with Burgus and at least one other patient
for millions of dollars. Other cases are pending."
Associated Press: Psychiatrist Has License Suspended
This person did a GREAT JOB for me.

Subject: Re: Diseases in people with multiple personalities
From: probonopublico-ga on 11 Apr 2005 01:27 PDT
Interesting question!

Sorry but I don't know the answer.
Subject: Re: Diseases in people with multiple personalities
From: pinkfreud-ga on 11 Apr 2005 14:02 PDT
Thank you very much for the kind words, the five stars, and the
generous tip! This was one of the most interesting research projects
I've undertaken recently. If I come across any additional info that I
think would interest you, I'll post it here.



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