The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1893-07-07
DUAL PERSONALITY.
RESIDUAL PHENOMENA OF THE MIND
IN SANE PEOPLE.

Best Seen In the Case of u So Called Alb
sentminded Business neutrality-suspicious.
Of the Sleeping Mind.
Evidence Is not wanting to show that
what we Gull personality is an extremely
complex thing, the SUN of subsidiary per-
sonalities which now shift and change
like the figures in Il Kaleidoscope, and
again becoming sharply defined under
some abnormal condition crystalline into
W or more distinct groups of elements,
which alternately sleep and wake or
even coexist. These complex elements
may be SO unstable, the groups compos-
ing them constantly breaking up and
forming new combinations, that the idea
Of multiple personality does not natural
ly attach itself TO them; it is only when
they become stable, and especially when
each exhibits a well defined conscious
ness that we begin to think of such a
thing But besides the abnormal and
diseased conditions which cause such a
separation or specialization there are
other conditions III which in appears
somewhat less distinctly. To one class
of these | desire to call attention very
briefiy-to that embracing what may DO
called cases Of residual personality.
Residual phenomena of all kinds are
particularly interesting and instructive,
especially those where the few things Ie-
naming in IL group after many have been
removed differ widely in their collective
properties from those that have been
taken away, while these latter are not
in any way distinguislable from those
of the sum Of both before the division.
This is the case often with residual per
sonality. Nothing Is more common than
for a group of elements in what we call
a person to be differentiated III one of
various ways, leaving behind Il residual
group differing altogether in its charac-
teristics, though the differentiated group
represents to US and is considered to
be identical with the original person.
The commonest method of such differ
entiation is sleep The elements of
sleep are. as it were, substracted from
the normal personality, but there is
usually left behind Il very curious some
thing illogical. credulous, fantastic-
whose nightly experiences the whole re-
united person recollects in the morning
as dreams. The next comlnones case Is
that of the disseminated person. The
major part of the person being absorbed
i'll mental processes Of some sort, the re-
sidual person lives its own separate men-
tai life, thinks, feels and wills by itself,
and perhaps carries on a train of proc
esses which is continuous with u preced-
ing train carried on under similar cir.
cumstances the day before.
This residual person may act very
mechanically Tho reunited person may
fail to racollect what its acts or thoughts
were and be surprised to find how it has
been making use of his limbs while he
what he vainly regards as the one I'M
alterable e,go-has been absorbed in
thought. But, on the other hand, it may
be perfectly conscious and may carry
on an entirely different train of thought
of it's own. Almost always, however, it
Is eccentric and Detrays a weakness at
one point or another
For instance, Il suburban resident,
whom we will call A, is accustomed on
landing at the New York side of the
ferry to abandon the mechanical task of
walking to his Office entirely to his resid.
u;0 personality and to give up the major
part of himself to thought. The two per.
sonallties act often with perfect-always
with practical -scparateness, theresidual
person being quite equal to the low task
Of evading vehicles, steering clear of pass
ersby and turning the proper corners.
When tho Office is reached and the two
persons again become one, 1t is often Il
difficult task to remember any circum.
stances of the walk.
On one occasion, however, A left the
Aston library on Lafayette place, as he
supposed, intending to walk down Gin
ton place. To do this he must turn first
to the left, then to the right and then
again to the left. He turned once to the
left. and after some time became dimly
time, and that the place for the second
turn had not been reached.
Coming to himself, he found himself
far down Broadway Tracing back his
course mentally he discovered that he
had been III the Mercantile library in
stead OF the Astor HIS first turn there
fore had taken INN down Br%uuiwuy. and
he of course dld not reach tie place for
the second Mark 10Y the lecUliarities
ot his residual person Il klew Just
where 1t was to turn and in what direc-
ton and had sense enough to be uneasy
when 1t did not come to the proper place
to turn. but it had not intelligence
enough to know that it was on the wrong
street. Its mind was too weak to be
trusted further than it was accustomed
to go, This residual person, in short,
was about OH a par with a harmless idiot.
Again, b, a New Yorker, is walking
along absorbed in a process of thought,
when his residual personality sees his
friend Z approaching, 1t is not aston.
lshed, for he is near Cs lodgings, but as
the person supposed to be G comes near
or, it sees that he only slightly resembles
q. He has on shabby clothes. and his
face is entirely different. The natural
conclusion would be that the person ap-
preaching vas not &. The residual per-
son. however. does not arpue Tins IT