Mind Over Third Arms and Brain Testing for Multiple Personalities

It’s been a great day for research, or at least online links to interesting brain stories.

In our first treat for the day, doctors `confirm’ a woman’s third arm after a stroke.  The lady in question is a 64 year old Swiss woman has reported the presence of a pale, milky third arm.

Since we’re all science buffs, I am positive that we need to know the exact medical name for this, so here it is: supernumerary phantom limb (SPL).  Yes, it also stands for sound pressure level but we need to get over these preconceived notions.

This is the first known case of being able to see, feel, and use a limb that doesn’t exist.  The lady in question can actually use the arm to scratch an itch.  Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), doctors were able to `confirm’ the arm this way:

Moving her right arm activated motor cortex and visual processing areas of the left side of the brain.  Thinking about moving her right arm caused the same areas to light but with less intensity.  Thinking about moving her paralyzed left arm caused the same areas to light on the other side.  When asked to move the phantom arm, motor lit up as well as visual, indicating she could see the arm.  When asked to scratch her cheek, feeling lit up.

This is some pretty interesting stuff.

Nobody really understands exactly where this came from but it is thought to be somewhere between phantom limbs and an out of body experience.

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Speaking of out of body experiences, this is actually a fairly common thing in dissociation.  Check out psych tests and you’ll see questions like `do you find yourself looking at things from above’ or `do you ever feel like you are out of your body’.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this part of dissociation is either related to or the same thing as astral projection, or the above-mentioned out of body experiences.  And let’s not forget remote viewing.  This was a technique examined by the army many years ago that involves viewers who sit in a room but acquire target information on a place (or time) elsewhere.  The program officially ran for something like thirty years, so it can be considered to have some merit.  How’s that for tying it all together?

Since I am not that far out on the dissociative scale, have had no out of body experiences, can’t remote view, and only heard about astral projection, I can’t exactly speak from experience.  Maybe one of you nice people can help.

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Our next item is on the dissociative scale, all the way out on the multiple personality end.  This article goes into more of the particulars of electrical activity in the brain and the lead-in to MPD/DID.

Neurobiological studies of DID support the validity of the clinical diagnosis and suggest that one brain can generate two or more distinct states of self-awareness, each with its own unique pattern of seeing, thinking, behaving and remembering. [take that, Doctor Denial!]

A study was done whereby a patient with multiple personalities, one blind, was wired up and tested.  The blind alter’s electrical activity confirmed blindness.  When the patient switched to a sighted alter, the electrical activity indicated sight.  Same eyes, same wiring.

Side Note:  My wife was discussing colored lenses with her optometrist.  The doctor asked why she would want colored lenses because she had observed her eyes changing color eight times since she sat down.

A very interesting read all over.